Chopin Dreaming
Ever since abandoning Enesa and fleeing the desecration of her and Nazer’s world, I was troubled by phantoms. Flies were my particular tormentors—metallic green blow flies. I felt them settle on me as I tried to sleep; I sensed their movement on the periphery of my vision. Flying, buzzing. Making sure I remained aware how reliably animal and human casualties attracted them. They weren’t about to let me forget. When Enesa’s Uncle Dekek brought out a bottle of plum brandy to offer his hospitality, a dead one floated round and round on the surface of the pale ginger-colored liquid, an abandoned wing plastered to the side of the decanter. No one else seemed to notice. I said nothing as the living drank their toast to the dead.
After the hubris and the fiascos and Louis’ sacrifice, after the the death of Tulipan Sava and the dark boxcar journey from the outskirts of Novi Sad to Kiskunhalas, after the resettling of the Lipizzaners and the subdued farewell reunion of our little group in Zagreb, Richard and I visited Dekek Marić’s home in Tuzla as we made our way out of the Balkans for good. We stopped to pay our respects, not the safest move, but I think the family appreciated it. Tuzla had not suffered as much chaos early on as other areas in Bosnia, so it was still possible at this time to slip in and slip out. It was the slightest gesture we could make—the smallest, just a speck. Dekek Marić loved his brother, adored his niece, and could tell us nothing of Nazer. At one point during our conversation, he buried his head in his hands and wept. I turned my head and looked out the window, pulling aimlessly on the brace that still enveloped my right forearm; initially, I was afraid I would lose my arm below the elbow, but now more than four months had passed, and healing had taken hold. The first vestiges of spring were pushing upward, life coming back—no matter the judgments passed on the human race. I was suffused with an unspecified guilt and did not have it in me to comfort the man.
The sun was setting, and we were prevailed upon to stay for dinner and spend the night; it was too dangerous to move around after dark, and several dishes had been cooked in anticipation of our visit. As a widower, Dekek Marić was well acquainted with loneliness; company was always held at full value and would not be released too quickly.
Later, after dinner, in the overheated living room, Uncle Dekek insisted on playing the piano for us; he wanted us to hear his brother and Enesa’s favorite pieces. He wanted to give us something of them. The roaring fire, unnecessary in this mild weather, the aftereffects of the imaginarily flyblown rakija, combined with the torturing of Chopin, produced at one and the same time a lethargy of body and a nervousness of mind—the black fly notes on the sheet music jiggering and nattering, my anxiety escalating with each pump of the piano pedal, until I thought I would succumb to the panic and run out of the room screaming. Finally, we were released from his tribute and allowed to retire, Richard to one end of the upstairs hallway, me to a room on the other. This was the furthest we would be apart in some time.
I couldn’t remember putting my head down on the pillow, but woke up in the middle of the night to drifts of Chopin ebbing in and out of my consciousness. I sat up, and with difficulty pulled the heavy quilt off me. I felt around with my left hand and picked up my watch off the nightstand, holding it face up in the moonlight slanting into the room. Three o’clock in the morning and the man was still at it? How could such a thing be possible? I got out of bed and opened the door to investigate. I found myself not in the hallway I had stumbled through on my way to bed a few hours ago, but in the smoky, rubbled passageway outside Enesa’s old bedroom, that same golden light streaming through her open door, but with the strains of nocturnes ruffling the air. I stood there as I had done what seemed a thousand years ago. Moving forward, I grasped her bedroom door jamb, closed my eyes, breathed in, then opened them and looked in.
There was Uncle Dekek, playing the piano in the corner, but playing not as before, playing beautifully, his back to me, face to the wall, a dark-suited crow-like figure hunched over the keys. Enesa still at her desk. Her dirt farmer stood next to her slumped body. He lifted her out of her chair and took her in his arms. She was roused by his touch and he placed her lightly on her feet; she walked around behind him, running her hand over his shoulders. She turned to face him and touched her hand to his cheek. They held each other, swaying back and forth, Enesa never breaking her gaze into her lover’s eyes, her arms round his sunburned neck. Dream dancing, unconstrained, sweet and free.
She left his embrace and glided out to the hallway and turned round to face me. I reached out my hand for her, but she shook her head and smiled at me, turned back and ran off into the darkness. The dead are never truly gone until they return, one last time, to tell us that it is all right, to force acceptance. I looked back into the room again—it was empty now, the setting sun glaring through the window brighter and brighter and brighter, as it did the day of her death, until I opened my eyes, the brightness giving way to the whiteness of the ceiling above my head. All was silent except for the singing of birds in the early morning distance. Birdsong before gunshot. A tear left the corner of my eye and ran down my cheek to fall into my ear, tickling it. I turned my head to blot my face on the lace of the pillow, lifting my eyes toward my bedroom door. Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, then there was a knocking on the door. Time to get up. Time to go . . . somehow. To Budapest. Then home.
Image: The strains of nocturnes ruffling the air. Source: Wikipedia, public domain
Play Chopin Nocturne Op. 72, No. 1 in E minor on YouTube