of this concert? I could just not show up. But Oskar would certainly discover this – if he wasn’t offended by the no-show, he really should be, it was an act of calculated rudeness. No, I would have to take my punishment like a man. Besides, there was an entire day to waste before then.
The shower blasted most of my hangover away, but did not wipe it entirely. A sticky residue seemed to have formed on the inside of my skull, around the bottom of the back of the brain, and subversive elements were still abroad in my elbows, knees and gut. The day itself was tacky to the touch, with the humidity rising. As the afternoon wore on, I became aware that the quality of the light had changed, as if the real thing had been replaced with a synthetic ‘economy’ brand in the hope that daylight savings could be made without anyone noticing. But I noticed, and I looked up from what I had been doing – stroking the fur of a snoozing cat on the sofa – to see that the buildings on the opposite side of the street looked peculiarly bright, as if their stone or stucco was suddenly luminescent under its layer of filth, a lightbox piercing an X-ray smoked with tumours. Indeed, they were bouncing back the now-slanting rays of the descending sun, but thepeculiarity of their illumination was a matter of contrast owing to the abrupt, unheralded darkness of the sky behind them, which had turned an intense slate grey, pregnant with blue and purple tones; an embolism of a sky, a dam behind which unimaginable pressure had built. But still the sun shone on the buildings across the street, transforming their façades into shining lies, Potemkin structures keeping up a pretence of fair weather when the storm was coming, without doubt, with no compromise in its inevitability.
And the storm came, with thunder like a starting gun, triggering marathon rain. I had to run to the bedroom, certain that the French windows there were open (they were not), such was the pervasive noise, the crazed applause of a million falling raindrops. Lightning on the white cotton duvet lit up the bed like a giant UV bug killer blazing with the death of a small creature, and in the study (where the windows were also closed), the water running down the panes appeared, by reflection, to be cascading down the open, obsidian lid of the piano.
It was exhilarating, this sudden burst of rain, it was action after stasis, a motive kick to an inert body. To my inert body: my heart was beating faster after the dash from room to room, and the activity had infused me with a sudden elation. To my surprise, I found that I was actually looking forward to going out, in the storm, to hear the concert, that I felt energised about it, that the
sturm und drang
pounding at the windows made me feel positively Wagnerian.
Götterdämmerung
! ‘Death and the Maiden’, it sounded good, bombastic, stormy...‘The Trout’, of course,did not. It was not even a very dynamic fish, not predatory like a shark or a pike, but then what did I know about fish or, for that matter, classical music? For all I knew, the trout might be one of nature’s trick questions and, like the whale, not a fish at all but a kind of rat or swan or something.
The cat I had been stroking on the sofa had been stirred up as well, possibly by the downpour, more probably by me jumping out of my seat to check the windows. It was now standing, turning a slow, tired circle on the black leather, white-tipped tail periscoping left and right. Our eyes locked, feline on the Swiss sofa, me by the study door, and I had a sense that something passed between us, some iota of information or moment of understanding. In this premonitory nanosecond I knew that the cat was about to do something.
With provocative, lingering lack of haste, the cat arched up its hindquarters, stretched out its front legs, and exposed its claws, which it then raked back across the leather with a terrible ripping, popping noise.
I think I made some wordless sound
The shower blasted most of my hangover away, but did not wipe it entirely. A sticky residue seemed to have formed on the inside of my skull, around the bottom of the back of the brain, and subversive elements were still abroad in my elbows, knees and gut. The day itself was tacky to the touch, with the humidity rising. As the afternoon wore on, I became aware that the quality of the light had changed, as if the real thing had been replaced with a synthetic ‘economy’ brand in the hope that daylight savings could be made without anyone noticing. But I noticed, and I looked up from what I had been doing – stroking the fur of a snoozing cat on the sofa – to see that the buildings on the opposite side of the street looked peculiarly bright, as if their stone or stucco was suddenly luminescent under its layer of filth, a lightbox piercing an X-ray smoked with tumours. Indeed, they were bouncing back the now-slanting rays of the descending sun, but thepeculiarity of their illumination was a matter of contrast owing to the abrupt, unheralded darkness of the sky behind them, which had turned an intense slate grey, pregnant with blue and purple tones; an embolism of a sky, a dam behind which unimaginable pressure had built. But still the sun shone on the buildings across the street, transforming their façades into shining lies, Potemkin structures keeping up a pretence of fair weather when the storm was coming, without doubt, with no compromise in its inevitability.
And the storm came, with thunder like a starting gun, triggering marathon rain. I had to run to the bedroom, certain that the French windows there were open (they were not), such was the pervasive noise, the crazed applause of a million falling raindrops. Lightning on the white cotton duvet lit up the bed like a giant UV bug killer blazing with the death of a small creature, and in the study (where the windows were also closed), the water running down the panes appeared, by reflection, to be cascading down the open, obsidian lid of the piano.
It was exhilarating, this sudden burst of rain, it was action after stasis, a motive kick to an inert body. To my inert body: my heart was beating faster after the dash from room to room, and the activity had infused me with a sudden elation. To my surprise, I found that I was actually looking forward to going out, in the storm, to hear the concert, that I felt energised about it, that the
sturm und drang
pounding at the windows made me feel positively Wagnerian.
Götterdämmerung
! ‘Death and the Maiden’, it sounded good, bombastic, stormy...‘The Trout’, of course,did not. It was not even a very dynamic fish, not predatory like a shark or a pike, but then what did I know about fish or, for that matter, classical music? For all I knew, the trout might be one of nature’s trick questions and, like the whale, not a fish at all but a kind of rat or swan or something.
The cat I had been stroking on the sofa had been stirred up as well, possibly by the downpour, more probably by me jumping out of my seat to check the windows. It was now standing, turning a slow, tired circle on the black leather, white-tipped tail periscoping left and right. Our eyes locked, feline on the Swiss sofa, me by the study door, and I had a sense that something passed between us, some iota of information or moment of understanding. In this premonitory nanosecond I knew that the cat was about to do something.
With provocative, lingering lack of haste, the cat arched up its hindquarters, stretched out its front legs, and exposed its claws, which it then raked back across the leather with a terrible ripping, popping noise.
I think I made some wordless sound
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