quits.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I admit that I felt uneasy with her unburdening of personal details. It's not that I'm unused to such displays. This tendency to confession and contrition seems peculiar to all the Americans I've ever known, as if they've somehow become acculturated to disbosoming themselves along with learning to salute their flag. But being used to something isn't exactly akin to welcoming it into your life. What, after all, is one to do with someone else's personal data?
She gave me more of it. She wanted a divorce; he did not. They continued to live together because she could not come up with the cash to break away from him. Whenever she came close to the amount she needed, he simply withheld her wages until she'd spent whatever nest egg she'd managed to accumulate. “And why he even wants me there is, like, the major mystery of my life, you know? I mean the man is totally governed by the herd instinct, so what's the point?”
He was, she explained, a womaniser without peer, an adherent to the philosophy that groups of females—“the herd, get it?”—should be dominated and serviced by a single male. “But the problem is that the entire female sex is the herd in Rock's mind. And he's got to hump them all just to keep them happy.” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and said, “Oops. Sorry.” And then she grinned. And then she said, “Anyway. Gosh. Look at me. I'm, like, totally running off at the mouth. Got those papers signed?”
Which I hadn't. Who'd had an opportunity to read them? I said I'd sign them if she wouldn't mind waiting. She took herself to a corner and sat.
I read. I made one phone call to clarify a clause. I signed the contracts and returned them to her. She shoved them into her pouch, said thanks, and then cocked her head at me and asked, “Favour?”
“What?”
She shifted her weight and looked embarrassed. But she plunged ahead and I admired her for it. She said, “Would you … I mean, it's like, I've never actually heard a violin in person before. Would you please play a song?”
A song. She was indeed a philistine. But even a philistine is educable, and she'd asked politely. What would it hurt? I'd been practising anyway, working on Bartók's solo sonata, so I gave her part of the Melodia , playing it as I always play: putting the music before myself, before her, before everything. By the time I'd reached the end of the movement, I'd forgotten she was there. So I went on to the Presto , hearing as usual Raphael's injunction: “Make it an invitation to dance , Gideon. Feel its quickness. Make it flash, like light.”
And when I was finished, I was brought back to an abrupt awareness of her presence. She said, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow . I mean, you are so totally excellent, aren't you?”
I looked her way to see that sometime during the playing she'd begun to cry, because her cheeks were wet and she was digging round in her leathers, looking—I presume—for something on which to wipe her dribbling nose. I was pleased to have touched her with the Bartók, and even more pleased to see that my assessment of her educability had been on target. And I suppose it was because of that assessment that I asked her to join me in my regular cup of midmorning coffee. The day was fine, so we took it in the garden, where, under the arbour, I'd been creating one of my kites on the previous afternoon.
I haven't mentioned my kites before this, have I, Dr. Rose? Well, there's nothing to them, actually. They're just something I do when I feel the need to take a break from the music. I fly them from Primrose Hill.
Ah yes. I can see that you're searching for meaning there, aren't you? What does creating and flying kites symbolise in the patient's history and in his present life? The unconscious mind speaks in all our actions. The conscious mind merely has to grasp the meaning behind those actions and wrestle it into comprehensible form.
Kites. Air. Freedom. But freedom from what? What need do
“Oh. Sorry.” I admit that I felt uneasy with her unburdening of personal details. It's not that I'm unused to such displays. This tendency to confession and contrition seems peculiar to all the Americans I've ever known, as if they've somehow become acculturated to disbosoming themselves along with learning to salute their flag. But being used to something isn't exactly akin to welcoming it into your life. What, after all, is one to do with someone else's personal data?
She gave me more of it. She wanted a divorce; he did not. They continued to live together because she could not come up with the cash to break away from him. Whenever she came close to the amount she needed, he simply withheld her wages until she'd spent whatever nest egg she'd managed to accumulate. “And why he even wants me there is, like, the major mystery of my life, you know? I mean the man is totally governed by the herd instinct, so what's the point?”
He was, she explained, a womaniser without peer, an adherent to the philosophy that groups of females—“the herd, get it?”—should be dominated and serviced by a single male. “But the problem is that the entire female sex is the herd in Rock's mind. And he's got to hump them all just to keep them happy.” Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and said, “Oops. Sorry.” And then she grinned. And then she said, “Anyway. Gosh. Look at me. I'm, like, totally running off at the mouth. Got those papers signed?”
Which I hadn't. Who'd had an opportunity to read them? I said I'd sign them if she wouldn't mind waiting. She took herself to a corner and sat.
I read. I made one phone call to clarify a clause. I signed the contracts and returned them to her. She shoved them into her pouch, said thanks, and then cocked her head at me and asked, “Favour?”
“What?”
She shifted her weight and looked embarrassed. But she plunged ahead and I admired her for it. She said, “Would you … I mean, it's like, I've never actually heard a violin in person before. Would you please play a song?”
A song. She was indeed a philistine. But even a philistine is educable, and she'd asked politely. What would it hurt? I'd been practising anyway, working on Bartók's solo sonata, so I gave her part of the Melodia , playing it as I always play: putting the music before myself, before her, before everything. By the time I'd reached the end of the movement, I'd forgotten she was there. So I went on to the Presto , hearing as usual Raphael's injunction: “Make it an invitation to dance , Gideon. Feel its quickness. Make it flash, like light.”
And when I was finished, I was brought back to an abrupt awareness of her presence. She said, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow . I mean, you are so totally excellent, aren't you?”
I looked her way to see that sometime during the playing she'd begun to cry, because her cheeks were wet and she was digging round in her leathers, looking—I presume—for something on which to wipe her dribbling nose. I was pleased to have touched her with the Bartók, and even more pleased to see that my assessment of her educability had been on target. And I suppose it was because of that assessment that I asked her to join me in my regular cup of midmorning coffee. The day was fine, so we took it in the garden, where, under the arbour, I'd been creating one of my kites on the previous afternoon.
I haven't mentioned my kites before this, have I, Dr. Rose? Well, there's nothing to them, actually. They're just something I do when I feel the need to take a break from the music. I fly them from Primrose Hill.
Ah yes. I can see that you're searching for meaning there, aren't you? What does creating and flying kites symbolise in the patient's history and in his present life? The unconscious mind speaks in all our actions. The conscious mind merely has to grasp the meaning behind those actions and wrestle it into comprehensible form.
Kites. Air. Freedom. But freedom from what? What need do
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