But this is the point: Why is it that in her relationship with Viviane, which at the beginning was a thousand times freer than any of her previous ones with men, they have ended up not only re-creating roles, but also such conventional ones? Why in the world does one of them have to be more playful and the other more serious, one want to open up and one close down, one need her space and one want control? How is it possible that jealousy and possessiveness have gained a foothold almost like they did with Roberto, and the others before him? Is it her fault, Viviane’s fault, both their faults, is it the need for security that gnaws at every couple? Is a conflict of aspirations and demands inevitable in every relationship, regardless of the sex of the two people?
Milena Migliari walks back up toward the gelateria with her grocery bags, knocks for Guadalupe, goes to put everything on the lab table. Guadalupe helps her take out the chestnuts and walnuts and persimmons and pomegranates: in no time they’re both shelling and cutting and filling the steel basins in the first steps that will lead to some delicious autumn flavors, despite the so-called end of the gelato season.
TEN
WAITING HAS NEVER been one of Nick Cruickshank’s strong suits; in fact, you could safely say that impatience is one of the dominant elements of his character. Not in the sense of an angst to go or do or have; but rather in that of an unwillingness to be at the mercy of schedules, technical procedures, bureaucratic hassles, business decisions, climate changes. Whether it’s getting a car from the mechanic or a passport from the consulate or a guitar from the lutist or a final mix from the sound technician or the release date of a new album from the record label, he can sometimes become aggressive if they try to put him on ice. Naturally, this is when the matter is of some interest to him; things that bore him or cause him mental strain he can put off almost indefinitely, relegating them to the status of an elliptical thought that every so often briefly reappears before disappearing again (and then reappearing, obviously).
Anyway, he’s just finished a five-mile run around the grounds, three-quarters of an hour in the gym, an energizing shower, a rich breakfast consisting of orange juice, oat flakes, bread and cheese, and one of Madame Jeanne’s delicious omelets, neither too dry nor too moist, and it’s still too early to go to the airfield. The only thing he can do is sit around in his studio with the door triple-locked, playing a martellato-style boogie-woogie on the piano, his right foot keeping time, hoping no one comes to bother him or ask for anything.
When he’s had enough of the boogie and his fingertips start to hurt from all the pounding on the keys, he dedicates himself to variations on a theme in E flat that came to him several days ago. It’s a pretty normal succession of chords, without any really mind-blowing harmonic insights, but by now he’s sure there’s a song in there. Tough to explain precisely how he knows; he just does. You might play for weeks (or months) without anything meaningful staying with you, and then at a certain point a sequence presents itself that doesn’t dissolve into nothing, like the others, but returns like an idée fixe, with its atmosphere, its shadows, its echoes. It’s not something you can plan; it simply happens (or doesn’t happen). All you can do is get yourself in sync, be listening for signals, and when they come follow them, like you might follow a trail through the jungle; only this trail is forming as you walk it, step-by-step. There’s no need to consult compasses, study maps, or decide on itineraries; the itinerary is there, beneath your feet.
At least, that’s what happens to him, since he doesn’t know how to read or write music and he’s certainly never studied composition. He doesn’t have the slightest clue how Bach or Mozart or Beethoven composed their stuff; it’s even possible that they saw the paths they wanted to take with perfect panoramic clarity, that they scanned the jungle from a mental airplane. But he’s up to his neck in the jungle, with leaves and branches and trunks and every type of climber all around, stretching far above his head; he can’t make out a trail until the trail opens up before him. The chords appear to him one after the other, then after a while it’s the melody’s turn, and even later come the words, at least the key ones, if not all of them. Only then can he try to eliminate the needless deviations, the pauses and backtracking, but always sticking to the trail that’s manifested itself to him, without trying to make it change direction. It’s a respect far more instinctive than logical and that originates in the awareness that any attempt to alter the route simply wouldn’t work, because at this point the trail is there. Here’s the most difficult part to explain: the fact at first that a song wasn’t there and then it is, as if it always has been, as if it’s written itself. Which certainly doesn’t mean that it hasn’t required effort on his part, because before you can stumble onto a trail, you must first create the jungle; then there’s the infinite care at every step, the painstaking effort to foresee and support, choose the right direction at every crossroads, avoid running into cannibals or stepping in quicksand. This is how it’s always happened for him; as far as he knows, it does for others as well. And it’s true for every song, not just the great ones: there was a time when even the worst of them didn’t exist and then after a certain point it’s like they’ve always been there. Come to think of it, the real problem isn’t explaining how songs come about; the problem is explaining where they come from. He’s long since given up; he doesn’t have the slightest idea where his songs were before he sat down at a piano or picked up a guitar and something surprising began coming out of his fingers.
Another really strange thing is that the beauty of a song can be independent of the intellectual or moral qualities of the person who writes it. He knows at least three or four of his colleagues, emotionally arid, intellectually opaque, and artistically compromised, who’ve happened to write some incredible songs that have touched the hearts and minds of millions of people. It’s as if the songs have come into being despite them, as if they’ve simply passed through them. He likes to think he’s neither arid nor opaque nor compromised, but even he remembers his bewilderment when “Refound” made its appearance as he was strumming his guitar on a desolate day in East Sussex. The sequence of chords and the melody suddenly revealed themselves to him, as if some luminous force of the universe had whispered them into his ears while he was in a state of perfect receptivity, stripped of intentions, unfocused on an objective. Immediately after came the words, miraculously linked to the music, with the same stupefying naturalness. He didn’t have a recorder with him, so he kept playing and singing it for two or three hours straight, to exorcise the fear of it slipping his mind. After that it was like “Refound” had always existed; since forever.
When he played it for the other Bebonkers in the recording studio in London he spied their expressions, expecting to hear them say, “This can’t be yours! You’ve taken it word for word from this or that other one!” But all three of them just stood there staring at him, amazed because it was undeniably a beautiful song, one of those that comes to you once every ten years if you’re good or lucky, sometimes never. But he was still unsure whether it was really his; he had to go ask John Wilcox, the man with the most encyclopedic knowledge of music he knew, someone who can write you a piece for English horn in ten minutes or come up with an entire arrangement for symphonic orchestra in an afternoon. He played the tape for him with the terror of having it turned off after a few notes, hearing that there was a traditional Irish or Scottish or even Neapolitan song with the same exact melody. But John listened through to the end and then shook his head and smiled, with an expression marked by the awareness of what had happened. “It’s yours, Nick.”
Some (few) of his colleagues have been graced by one great song, others (very few) have succeeded in being graced by several, in different periods of their lives, like fishermen who make a great catch while their colleagues sit there over the water with poles in hand, waiting for a miracle that never comes. Method and discipline are essential, but alone they’re not enough. And there’s no amount of theoretical knowledge or studying that’s any g
uarantee; how many great songs have been written by conservatory grads, and how many by people who don’t know how to read or write music, like him? The percentages are incredibly unfavorable to the former, bless their hearts. A beautiful song is a gift, and a person doesn’t take a gift for themselves, it’s given to them. But the point is: Who is it that gives you the gift? And then: How do you manage to hold on to it? Or to get it back, if you’ve lost it? Do you have to rush off in search of a state of deprivation, of unhappiness, of desperation? Because it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt that sad songs are more beautiful than happy ones, and that the few beautiful happy songs are nonetheless tinged by a vein of sadness.
The fact is there’s simply no way to come up with a beautiful song in the way that Aileen produces her creations in Anti-leather, after learning the cutting and sewing techniques and studying the great stylists and analyzing the costs and doing the market research and putting together a skilled and competent team. If you try to come up with a song like that, all you’ll have is a collection of previously heard fragments of sound; radio and the Internet are full of them, and there are people who make a ton of money on them, sure. Yet even the dumbest pop song sung by the most vulgar, exhibitionistic, and ridiculous-heels-wearing ass must contain at least a small part that has appeared instead of being constructed, to touch the chords of millions of people. At least one element of mysterious origin, one brief sequence that isn’t entirely explainable.
Fundamentally it’s the same as falling in love: you can’t decide it rationally, putting together parameters on the basis of which you’ll like someone. It happens, or it doesn’t. When it does, is there any way to make it last? And what do you do when it’s over? Try repeating the same gestures you made when you fell in love the last time? Go back to the same places? Say the same things you said at the beginning? Dress the same way? Hoping that the magic repeats itself? Even if you know full well that it won’t?
Speaking of repetition, has anyone ever studied what goes on in the head of someone who writes a beautiful song and has to continue singing it over and over again for thirty years or more, one concert after another? Trying as well to play it as closely as possible to the way people remember it, since very few of them truly want to hear unrecognizable versions à la Bob Dylan. Not even old Bob’s fans like those, apart from those who see him as the Oracle of Delphi, much less fans of the Bebonkers, with their obsession for the so-called original sound. Whatever that means, seeing as their early sound was infinitely freer and more eclectic than the one they now continue replicating with such dependable precision. “Original” probably means the formula the band stumbled on sometime in the nineties, after a long series of experiments in various directions, and which they’ve since left unaltered. It’s quite likely that even Picasso, after passing through his Blue Period and Rose Period and African one and Analytical Cubism and Synthetic Cubism and finally coming to the style that anyone can quickly recognize today, might have wanted to change yet again. But he knew very well that it wouldn’t have been in his own best interest; and if he didn’t know, then his gallery managers would certainly have explained it to him.
So? Will he be condemned to sing the same songs over and over again forever, trying each time to re-create the spirit with which they came to him the first time? Even if that spirit is long gone? Shouldn’t he try to come up with something that reflects at least a little of what he thinks and feels today? Instead of pretending to be a teenager stuck in time (as his mother accurately predicted)? Does he not feel sad and embarrassed for his colleagues who’ve never stopped playing the part they created for themselves early on, even when it no longer minimally corresponds to their current role in the world? Like Bruce, for example, who keeps on screaming out his animated laments about an outcast alter ego on the run in the New Jersey suburbs, even though people can see him photographed in the tribune of honor at Jumping International in Monte Carlo or the Rolex Grand Prix in Geneva, as he takes in the performance of his twenty-year-old daughter on a horse worth eight million dollars (one of the ten or twelve he possesses)? Or Mick, who at seventy-two prances around the stage gesticulating just as he did when he was twenty-two, hasn’t put on a single solitary pound since the sixties, and still ends every concert with “Satisfaction,” even if it makes him nauseous? On the other hand, what are they supposed to do, spend their days playing golf? Write songs about their perplexity at having kids who are spoiled and arrogant, completely lacking in any aspirations that don’t involve the acquisition of more and more material goods? Have an armchair put onstage and sing sitting down about the annoyance of having their hair dyed every three days, or the difficulty in finding financial consultants who don’t run off to Paraguay with their money?
They’re pointless questions: inspiration either comes or it doesn’t, personal evolution follows paths that are at times unpredictable, and artistic integrity is almost always a pose when it isn’t an alibi for failure. The best you can do is cultivate a craftsman’s ethic, be honest with yourself, and create forms that allow the light to seep in with miraculous infrequency; the alternative is to give it all up, disappear. If you can’t, or don’t want to, at least don’t sit there complaining. Save the whining and self-pity, thank you very much.
Nick Cruickshank passes in front of a sliding door and sees a small caravan of trucks advancing cautiously on the lawn in front of the house, guided by the gestures of Aileen, flanked by Tricia and Maggie and Tom Harlan and his assistant and the Star Life team, while Aldino keeps an eye on them. He only hesitates for a second, then like a thief slips quickly out of the studio and down the hallway and out the back door before anyone can intercept him.
ELEVEN
TO MILENA MIGLIARI persimmons have always seemed like a magical fruit: so intensely orange on the leafless autumn trees, pucker-inducing when they’re picked, achingly sweet when ripe, golden and almost liquid just beneath their sheer skin. Many people don’t like them, maybe for their viscid nature, the way you have to stick your tongue out to eat them, stretching your lips, sucking, wetting your nose, chin, and hands in their sweet slaver. Persimmons are mysterious. And inside the seeds are concealed tiny white pieces of cutlery: really. She found out only a few years ago, thanks to her childhood friend Alessandra, aka Micior; at first she didn’t believe it, not even after Micior emailed her an article with attached photos. She had to see for herself before she was convinced: if you cut the seed horizontally you find a white sprout in the shape of a fork, spoon, or knife, very tiny but precisely shaped. According to certain peasant traditions you can foresee what the winter will be like, based on which miniature piece of silverware you find: a spoon means there will be heaps of snow, a knife that the cold will be piercing, a fork that it won’t be too harsh. Too bad seeded persimmons are becoming increasingly rare; if one day plant selectors manage to make them disappear completely, people will think it was just a legend. As far as gelato is concerned the challenge is to keep the final result from being too sugary despite the fruit’s natural sweetness, and to maintain its flavor, color, and possibly its consistency. Persimmon gelato is undoubtedly one of the least simple flavors to make, so it’s one of the most interesting.
Someone is knocking on the glass door to the shop; the insistent pounding is audible in the lab, over the ugly French pop rock song playing on the radio.
Milena Migliari has no desire to drop everything midbatch; she nods at Guadalupe, who was supposed to pick up a new box of thick Styrofoam containers from Monsieur Deleuze anyway.
Guadalupe goes to see, comes back a few seconds later, in a state of extreme agitation: she’s shaking her hands, struggling to find the words.
“What the heck is it?” Milena Migliari goes instinctively on the defensive.
“It’s Nick, the lead singer of the Bebonkers!” Guadalupe hops up and down, unable to calm herself. “The ones playing Sunday at the airfield! It’s him, I swear!”
“And what does he want?” Milena Migliari is embarrassed at seeing
her assistant so excited by a brush with celebrity, and annoyed at the idea of anyone, famous or not, disturbing them when there’s a sign on the glass door that reads unmistakably Fermé.
“I don’t know! He’s out there! He pointed at me!” Guadalupe is unable to stand still; she wipes her hands on her apron, adjusts her hair covering, takes another peek into the shop.
“Would you calm down, please? Ask him what he wants.” Milena Migliari doesn’t stop working with the serrated-edge little spoon to remove the bitter-tasting white filaments from the persimmon pulp, but she too is getting agitated.
“How am I supposed to ask him what he wants?” Guadalupe looks at her, feverish.
“You ask him! Open the door and ask him what he wants!” Yes, now she is agitated too; and thanks to someone who she didn’t even recognize yesterday when he was standing right in front of her, which is doubly ridiculous. She reaches to turn off the radio, because it’s only adding to the confusion.
Guadalupe takes a deep breath, like she’s preparing for some daunting endeavor; she goes back into the shop. There’s the sound of the key in the lock, a man’s voice with a slightly gravelly English accent. “Bonjour, je suis désolée de vous deranger, mais je voulais . . .”
“Pas du tout! Vous ne nous dérangez pas du tout, Monsieur Nick!” Guadalupe’s voice goes shrill with emotion. “Hey, Milena!”
“I can’t come out there!” Milena Migliari has no desire to get involved; she forces herself to concentrate on the persimmon pulp.
But Nick Cruickshank is already here, standing in the doorway separating the shop from the lab. He smiles at her, like someone who had a rough childhood but is still a bit of a kid, because he can afford to be or because he’s incapable of being otherwise. “Good morning.”
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