kagablog

As the road unwound through the night, I found my mind returning to Soledad and the unusual circumstances of our first meeting. I had been performing a Sunday recital in the white pavilions along the Corniche. In fact, the pavilion in which I had been scheduled to play was a the end of the boardwalk and flanked by small seaside rides and amusement park sideshows. I was due to perform a recital of several sixteenth century madrigals, following a string quartet of dubious reputation. In fact, the string quartet carried with them a reputation of wild onstage antics and sometimes their recitals were often known to end in sheer chaos, with people stripping and leaping about whilst chairs were thrown through windows into the street. It was difficult to understand the effect they seemed to have on audiences, particularly since their entire repertoire consisted of Schubert. Nevertheless, the quartet seemed primed to throw the entire boardwalk into disarray with their latest interpretation of ‘Death and the Maiden’. I was therefore understandably surprised when they elected to play a piece from Tchaikofsky’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’, a piece which had been originally written for an orchestra no less. They seemed to have gone to great pains to adapt the score to sit comfortably with their four instruments. Nevertheless, it was as if some element of previous vitality had become lost in the translation, and their performance emerged muddled and jarring. Perhaps it was their need to be experimental that led them to obsess over the technicalities of the piece. That overwhelming need to shrug off and rise above the typecasting that inevitably comes with any form of success. Whatever the urge was, it had evidently led them further and further away from the kernel of intensity that was firing their music from the very beginning. Perhaps they would have naturally weaned themselves off Schubert, eventually, with time and grace, but now it was apparent that a winning formula had been irreparably tampered with. The eager crowds of young street punks sat waiting for the music that had inspired them so, but it never came. The cellist gesticulated just as wildly before with his glittery pink instrument, but no amount of hip gyration and glitter could save them from the slow spiral down into mediocrity. The spiky pink and black haired audience of young, wild teens began to almost visibly deflate, like a helium balloon after a few days in captivity. What was once bright, vivid and colourful was now flaccid and boring. The young punks drifted off into the seaside rides in dribs and drabs, kicking popcorn at the occasional seagull. Very soon the audience consisted of only three old ladies, a dwarf from one of the sideshow tents, evidently on a smoke break, and a young girl in the back row. She sat slightly stooped and wore chunky black sunglasses behind a long fall of straight, nut coloured hair. Something in her manner suggested a young fawn among trees, inquisitive and alert, able to dash away at the slightest disturbance. She sat with her coffee coloured legs crossed, an air of distraction about her, staring out to sea as her hair gusted uncontrollably in the breezes. It was a marvellous day as I recall. Bright bottle-green surf broke against the pier in fresh flashes of spray while speckled dolphins sported amongst the breakers. The sunlight was dappling in vivid patterns through the funfair rides and along the striped awnings of ice-cream vendors while gulls ducked and wheeled, squabbling over fishermen’s scraps. Behind the audience, passers-by shot at rows of motorised ducks and threw coconuts at tin bulls-eyes. The quartet finished up with a half-hearted flourish, gazing dismally out at the empty seats. One of the old women began to clap in a lacklustre fashion. But the sound was barely audible above the cries of the gulls and the general hubbub. I felt a stab of sympathy for the viola player as he furiously wiped the dramatic white and black stage paint from his weeping face. Within minutes they had vacated the stage and a bald man in a white suit had stepped up to the lectern to announce me. I noticed the girl snap to attention as my name was spoken over the loudspeaker and realised with a start that she had come to see me perform. I was surprised that anyone had even been aware of my performance, as my name was not even on the bill. I had, in fact, only taken the gig in order to be photographed on the Corniche by the well known photographer, Ishioko Onda. Genevieve had dealt with the booking arrangements and had suppressed the fact that I was playing in accordance to the photographer’s wish to have the audience minimal and accidental. My following was quite strong in the city and Ishioko wanted to present an unusual perspective on my usual performance style. Perhaps this was the reason why she had instructed me to wear a polar bear suit. I had resisted at first, but Genevieve plied me with numerous magazine articles citing Ishioko’s world renown genius until I finally relented. The fact that none of my regular audience would see me in the ridiculous get-up had finally helped me to make my decision. Now, as I watched the girl settle into her seat in preparation for my performance, I began to feel self conscious and slightly uncomfortable in the soft, white fur. I looked up to see Ishioko waving maniacally from the top of the Ferris Wheel. She had set up her equipment in one of the flowerbud shaped capsules and bribed the operator to keep her at the top of the Wheel until I was well into my piece. I began to regret the whole venture, but decided to simply forge ahead since it was too late to alter the events as they stood. I shrugged off Hans, who clambered into my velvet lined guitar case to wait for me. I shot him a painful look as I checked the tuning on my instrument. He merely chewed languidly on a banana, looking back at me as if to say; ‘Just what is the sound of one hand clapping?’ I gathered up my fortitude and took to the stage. I heard muted applause and looked up to see the girl clapping softly. One or two if the duck shooters had also recognized me and were also smiling and pointing. I soberly took my seat and breathed in deeply, allowing my training to wash over me. I remembered the words of my teacher, the great Don Mox Riviera; ‘Become your audience, and then become the stage, let their passions shape your own until the entire theatre is of one single, unified passion.’ I let my mind flow out into the sea and the carnival rides and began to realise in fact, how appropriate my polar bear apparel was. I closed my eyes, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze and let my consciousness flow outwards into the eternal. Then I began to play. The intricate, flowering arabesques of music coiled upward from the strings, rising into the microphone like some delicate fragrance, to be magnified luminescently into the air via the enormous public address system. I felt myself relaxing into the dense, stately atmospheres of the first piece, my fingers exploring the outer reaches of vast celestial emotions, tantalizingly glimpsed through the lacy veil of graceful and repetitive time signatures. I was well into the second stanza when the coconut struck my head. I was so shocked by the blow that I rose, dropping my instrument and clawing at the white furry ears of my mask. I staggered backward into the stage cloth in agony as a whine of feedback erupted through the speaker systems. Unfortunately the drapery at the back of the stage was merely there in order to block off the sea view. And as the stage was raised, there was nothing whatsoever to prevent me from toppling off the end of the pier and into the ocean. I felt a brief moment of vertigo before plunging into the icy emerald surge. I opened my eyes to a salty blur as noise dubbed out into a muted crashing. The sound briefly re-instated itself as my head was tossed above the chop of the waterline. I glimpsed the flurry of many faces along the promenade, bending over the rails to witness my plight. The sun hazed white and I caught a flash of a figure leaping gracefully into the swell. Then I was plunged underwater again. The coconut had dazed me sufficiently so that I was unable to function properly, my arms flapping white, blurry fur as I struggled against the riptide. As I sank, I felt a slender arm wrap around my shoulders and my face was wreathed in a silky blossom of brown hair. The hair lulled me into momentary blindness and I felt a powerful kick toward the glittering membrane of light which marbled down from above. We rose quickly, emerging on the back of a long green curve. The arm relaxed somewhat and I felt a leg curl quickly around my waist. An enthusiastic cheer had gone up somewhere in the world above and my shaking vision crashed around the edge of the pier. People blurred in and out of focus. I even glimpsed the tiny figure of Ishioko Onda, standing at the pinnacle of the Ferris Wheel’s arch, snapping away frantically. The curve of water began to flex like a bicep, trawling us heavily upward. I craned myself around to look upon the face of my rescuer and found my nose snubbing against the girl’s. Her nut coloured hair was plastered back to reveal eyes the exact same hue and intensity of the water. She was laughing against the bright cadence of refracted light, the sun dancing in flecks along her small teeth. A vague smattering of pale freckles, made visible only by our close proximity danced along the bridge of her nose. Her body was pliant in my arms, and it moved comfortably with the water, eel-like in its supple muscularity.

“How destiny moves us all in it’s great game of chess!” she exclaimed happily.

“Yes,” I coughed through a mouthful of brine. “But who is destiny playing chess against?”

We abruptly reached the crest of the wave and I became aware of the fact that we were towering precariously over a churning trough. I felt the girl’s arms and legs tighten around me and prepared to hold my breath against the forthcoming plunge. Just then a dolphin’s tail flicked out of the spume and knocked me unconscious.

I awoke muzzilly in the back of a speeding van. I was lying on a stretcher and a bald woman in a white nurse’s uniform was taking a blood sample from my arm while the van jumped and rattled. There was something strange, even untoward about the nurse’s uniform and I tried to put my finger on what it was. I soon realised that the uniform was plastic, a cheap costume from some disreputable shop. I tried to sit up but then realised that I was being held down by an enormous tattooed man in a black poloneck and mirrored sunglasses. I was about to panic when I glimpsed the girl who had rescued me, sitting against the side of the van, wrapped in a towel. She saw that I was awake and came up to me with a warm smile.

“How are you feeling?” she asked softly, taking my hand.

“I’m…I’m feeling…I’m…fine,” I replied woozily. “What’s going on?”

“We were lucky that this ambulance was loitering near the pier,” the girl said. “They are checking you for shock and cranial damage.”

I noticed that the ‘nurse’ was massaging my kidneys with a look of spidery intensity. I looked up at the enormous tattooed man and then turned to the girl.

“This doesn’t look like an ambulance?” I whispered to her.

“Oh don’t worry,” the girl reassured me. “This is the private ambulance of a reclusive millionaire who happened to be on the esplanade when you fell. He recognised you when we were washed up on the beach and graciously ordered his staff to transport you to the clinic.”

“Ah, I see,” I said.

The girl squeezed my fingers and smiled sweetly down on me. I stared up into her sparkling green eyes and suddenly felt a familiar and horrifying paralysis beginning to settle down on me.

‘Oh God no!’ I thought to myself desperately. ‘Please God not now! Not like this!’

But it was too late, I could feel the terrible smile fixing across my face as the girl frowned at me in bewildered concern. I could feel my back and legs stiffening like an ironing board, my eyes flicking from side to side.

“He’s going into shock!” the nurse cried in a strange accent.

I suddenly felt the enormous man’s hands release me and tear open my polar bear suit as the nurse placed two cold, jelly covered metal instruments over my clenched chest. Within moments I was being electrocuted savagely. My debilitation must have received some inordinate shock, because when the current left my body, I could feel the muscles along my entire length beginning to miraculously relax. There was a brief moment when I felt control returning to me, then the girl once again took my hand and I looked up into her eyes and felt the affliction returning with a vengeance. The nurse suddenly came into view, waving large syringe filled with blue liquid.

‘Muscle relaxant!’ she yelled in her curiously baritone voice, plunging the needle deep into my thigh. Once again, I felt my infernal condition reel under this medical onslaught. But the smile, that horrible lingering rictus, still remained, attatched to my face like a parasite. Once again, I felt all hands leave me and the cold steel press to my chest. The current passed through me in violent networks, scouring the last vestiges of neurological trauma from me in a blaze of fiery glory. I stuttered my eyes open in amazement and the horrific smile melted from my face like candy beneath a blowtorch. The deluge passed and I was blinking up into the girl’s eyes in glorious freedom.

“I’m cured..” I rasped to her.

She began to smile as my recovery became obvious. The woman in the nurse uniform gave me a small plastic cup of water and I sucked it down. As soon as I was done, the enormous man once again restrained me. I turned my head to face him.

“I’m fine now thank you,” I said into his mirrored sunglasses.

Curiously, he looked to the girl as though she were in command of this entire situation. I saw her nod affirmatively to him in response to his questioning look. The man released me as the bald woman passed a huge beeping instrument over my face and chest, scanning for something.

“I’m really allright now,” I said to her as she moved the blinking instrument back and forth over my prostrate form. “Could you take us back to the Corniche please?”

She also looked up at the girl for confirmation of my request. The girl brushed wet locks of hair from her face and replied to the nurse in some foreign language.

“Are you diabetic?” the nurse asked me suddenly.

“No, but I’m really worried about my iguana…Could we..”

“Do you smoke?”

“No, I don’t smoke..”

“Suffer from high cholesterol? Neurological dysfunctions? Candida? Haemophilia? Porphyries?”

“No! No, nothing. I’m quite healthy.”

She nodded, transcribing everything onto tiny computer which hummed beneath the stretcher. I sat up shakily and saw that the floor of the van was covered, ankle deep, in plastic lobsters. The van was slowing now and very soon, we had come to a complete standstill. The huge man moved to the back of the van and threw open the doors. Sunlight gushed in, and I was suddenly aware of how dark it had been in the back. The girl walked into the bright glare, pulling me by the hand. I followed, stumbling slightly in my sodden polar bear costume. We emerged into a dingy alleyway, crowded with garbage dumpsters and similar detritus. I looked at the girl whose hand I held, and for a moment couldn’t believe what was happening. It was as if the poles had miraculously swapped. I was cured of my paralysing affliction! In her long, white toga-like towel, the girl had the appearance of some flighty goddess from mythology. I even saw that she wore long, strappy Grecian sandals which effectively completed this image. I was about to ask her name when the black van screeched off down the alley, spilling plastic lobsters in every direction.

“My name is Soledad Evora,” she said with a smile.

“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance,” I replied. “I’m…”

“Oh, I know who you are,” she beamed, leading me out of the alleyway and into the sunshine. We emerged onto a crowded thoroughfare and were suddenly were engulfed by pedestrians, pushing and shoving in every possible direction. I looked up and saw that we were merely a stone’s throw away from the Corniche. Soledad pulled me off the curb and we hurriedly crossed a busy tramline as cars whizzed noisily past us. People were staring at my wet polar outfit in outrage.

“Ignore them!” Soledad called over her shoulder. “Fashion is the front-line of tyranny.”

I stumbled in her wake as she pulled me down a flight of stairs. Within moments I found myself comfortably installed in a small seaside cafe while Soledad ordered two espressos. When the portly waiter had left, she leaned back in her cane chair and observed me, her head framed against the backdrop of the sunny waves.

“I never realised that dolphins could be so clumsy,” she chuckled.

“People often stereotype dolphins as these man-loving cartoon creatures,” I nodded. “When really they are savage creatures who have been known to attack sharks.”

“A friend of mine had once swum too far out to sea,” she mused, gazing introspectively out at the horizon. “A current had pulled her uncontrollably out, until the land was not visible to her anymore. She was understandably panicked and began screaming and crying out there in the blue. A pack of dolphins came, encircled her protectively and then guided her gently back to shore. These are not the actions of insensitive creatures.”

“Don’t armed guards escort you off private property at gunpoint?”

She laughed outrageously and two steaming espresso’s materialized, almost by magic.

“This cynicism does not fit the luminous melodies you so pour casually out of your instrument,” she smiled slyly.

“The cynicism will fade with the bruise.”

I suddenly noticed the delicious aroma of the coffee and lifted the small white china cup

between thumb and forefinger. I savoured the sharp shafts of scalding steam and allowed myself a tiny sip. Satisfaction blossomed immediately against the sodden pain.

“Tell me Miss Evora,” I began.

“I pulled you out of the sea,” She reminded me graciously. “The least you can do is call me Soledad,”

She wasn’t aware of it, but she had pulled me out of far more than that. I struggled not to show my buoyant sense of jubilation at the death of my affliction, fearful that my disproportionate exuberance might seem strange and inexplicable to her.

“Thank you Soledad,” I said most sincerely, then paused, returning to my original tack.

“Did you perhaps happen to notice who threw that coconut?”

“Actually, no,” she frowned. “It simply seemed to sail out of the funfair rides.”

“I see,” I murmured, taking another draught of the revitalizing espresso.

“But why bother with such unfortunate details,” she said, lifting her small white cup to her lips. “The culprit was probably some inebriated oaf, best to forget about the whole thing.”

“You’re probably right,” I concurred. “Still, it is somewhat of a mystery.”

“Mystery is our only defence against mediocrity,” she said keenly.

I raised an eyebrow, struck by the thought processes which would lead to such a remark.

“You seem to be very sure of your ground,” I said. “Are you perhaps studying Philosophy under the legendary Professor Mongholla?”

“No, I’m a waitress at the Heartstring Noodle Bar,”

I must have looked perplexed, for she continued in earnest.

“You see, I view most institutes of higher learning as rather intricate and expensive slaughterhouses.”

“Slaughterhouses!” I replied, befuddled. “Why, what is it that is being slaughtered?”

“One’s soul of course,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“One’s mind is curtailed and slowly, within set parameters, manufactured into a cog,” she explained patiently. “A cog made to standards, built to fit the machinations of what people call society.”

“What about the one’s who refuse to be shaped, the one’s who rebel?” I asked, thinking of Federico.

“They are simply cogs of a different sort,” she answered. “You will find that society is often defined most clearly by those who seek to uproot it.”

“…Anti-cogs?”

“Exactly.”

“Yes, but our society, for example, is in such turmoil following the recent coup, surely all the qualities learned in such institutions will come to the fore in reshaping our conditions after the storm has passed?”

“Yes, they will re-shape it,” she answered matter-of-factly. “They will re-shape it into an upgraded version of what came before, because that corrupted model of existence is all they ever dared to know. And it will lead to all too familiar dysfunctions. Voids will occur in the fabric of society, voids which will be filled by the same old problems, leading to the same old coup de tat’s.”

“So you are a revolutionary!”

“Revolution indicates a full circle,” she smiled behind her cup. “And what use is a serpent which eats its own tail?”

“You astonish me Soledad,” I stated rather blatantly.

She leaned back, holding her cup with all her fingers, as though cradling an egg.

“That is a good start.” she replied seriously.

I watched as she drained her espresso in one swift gulp, and suddenly remembered that I ought to be returning to the pier sometime soon. Ishioko would no doubt be arguing with fairground officials and telephoning Genevieve with all sorts of garbled stories. The event organisers would be informing the coastguard. All manner of strange hell might have already broken loose. And what of poor Hans? I looked up, reluctant to part with Soledad but mindful of my responsibilities. I was about to say something when Soledad spoke.

“I really would like to stay longer, even stroll back to the pavilion with you,” she said. “But I’m afraid, I really must be getting back to my work now.”

“Not at all,” I said. “Is it close by? Would you be requiring a cab?”

She glanced up at me at these questions, a strange and unfathomable look surfacing in her eyes. Then her cheerful demeanour reasserted itself, erasing all traces of the former distance.

“No, that’s allright,” she smiled.

A quizzical frown suddenly struck her face as she quested in the depths of her towel.

“Oh dear,” she murmured. “I seem to have lost my purse in the ocean.”

“Don’t worry,” I said pleasantly, happy to be able to do something for her. “It will be my pleasure.”

But when I withdrew my dripping wallet, I found that all my money had transformed into a briny, slushy paste.

“Oh dear,” I echoed.

I signalled the waiter over and was about to explain our situation when the maitre de, a short, red faced man, scuttled over to our table. He brushed the waiter aside as if he were a spot of lint, and smiled sickeningly down at us.

“Monsieur /////,” he oozed. “On behalf, of the establishment, we would like to welcome you. I can assure you that we are all avid admirers of the flamenco tradition and see you as a notable addition to such a distinguished legacy of music.”

I bowed my head graciously to the red jowled gentleman, attempting to appear as formal as one could in a wet polar bear suit. I could see the waiters all smiling and whispering amongst themselves in the background.

“Thank you,” I said solemnly. “Though unfortunately I must bring to your attention the fact that…”

“Pardon me for interrupting Monsieur////,” the maitre de cut in nervously. “But before you go on, might I add that I have come here with a request from all the staff.”

I paused, slightly annoyed for having been interrupted during such an embarrassing admittal.

“And what might that be? ” I asked.

“Well, we were wondering if you might not consider taking the stage and performing a short rendition of Carulli’s Overture?” he paused and cleared his throat. “We would of course be willing to waive your bill.”

I looked at Soledad, who raised her eyebrows.

“I would like to oblige you, ” I replied in earnest. “But am I to take it that you would like me to perform what is essentially a complete sonata movement, without having practiced it for several months and without my instrument?”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” he grinned bashfully, indicating a weatherbeaten stage in the darkest corner of the cafe.

“But I cannot possibly perform without an instrument,” I protested.

I observed as one of the waiters produced a lime green ukulele and waved it encouragingly in my direction.

“You see sir,” the maitre de flourished. “We have thought of everything.”

I rose unsteadily and accepted the proffered instrument to a small flurry of applause.

“Could I interest you instead in a short study by Carcassi?” I ventured helplessly.