No World Concerto

by A. G. Porta

  The girl won’t be coming tonight, and as on previous nights, the screenwriter won’t be able to tolerate the loneliness of another evening spent anxiously watching his neighbor’s window in the building across the street. Her light’s on, but she refuses to be seen, or so it seems, and he’s seriously planning to go knocking on her door. I’m a great admirer of your beauty, he imagines confessing to her. And since the day I first beheld you from afar, I’ve been bewitched by you, could barely forsake my window lest I be deprived of another glimpse of you, or even the chance to espy your silhouette. Pray, would you consider being the heroine of my movie, or even deign to be cast in a supporting role; or if not you, peradventure, consider lending me your silhouette, which is the shadow of perfection? Then he comes back to reality. He can’t bear it anymore, the loneliness. It’s like a weight bearing down on his chest. He needs to go outside to get some air, to find someone, anyone. The prostitute. Assuming he finds her. Hope against hope. He’s been writing nonstop anyway and needs a break. There are a lot of people on the street where he usually sees her; prostitutes and guys like him approaching them for private discussions about asking price and terms and conditions. He remembers it’s Saturday. He probably should’ve waited until tomorrow or Monday — days when there’s less work, when she could dedicate more time to him. He searches first around the sex shop then walks a couple of blocks, but he doesn’t see her. He thinks about paying one of the other hookers he sees walking up and down the sidewalk. If he meets the black prostitute again, he’ll ask for her phone number. He goes into the club. He didn’t call the producer today. It would’ve been impossible to reach him on a Saturday. He’ll try calling again tomorrow. Either way, sooner or later, he’ll have to answer the phone. The screenwriter takes a cigarette from the packet as she approaches him from behind. You were looking for me? He turns and is greeted by a familiar smile. One of her friends told her he was around. A messenger of the gods, he thinks while lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag, feeling as if a weight’s been lifted from his chest.

  Sundays are horrible, thinks the girl, who seems to have contracted this distaste from the screenwriter. Her father got back late, stumbled to his bed, and fell asleep. The smell of cigarettes and alcohol, his only companion, made its presence known in every room. She gets dressed in the darkness and picks up the gun she found in the compartment of his laptop case. She waits until she’s locked herself in the bathroom to take it out of its holster. She sees it’s quite small, could easily be concealed on her person. She puts the holster to one side and tries to hide the pistol between her jeans and the small of her back. It’s not very comfortable, and she’d have to wear a jacket to fully conceal it. But this doesn’t matter right now. She removes it from her pants and examines it again, gently caresses it, running her fingers along its grooves and edges and handle too. It’s not very heavy. She holds it with both hands, aims it high and low, lining up her sight with one eye closed, and then pretends to draw it from the holster like a cowboy. She needs practice. In front of the bathroom mirror, she imitates the classic stance of a policeman aiming at a bad guy: squat, with legs apart, aiming with both hands. It’s reminiscent of a scene in a very famous movie, but the screenwriter wants to use it anyway, as an homage. He knows he’s not writing a cinematic masterpiece, but he does wonder whether such scenes lack authenticity, whether the actor in this scene, for example, will be imitating a police officer or the actor in the famous movie who’s imitating a police officer. The girl finally manages to conceal the gun properly behind her back. She looks at herself in the mirror, first from the front, then the side. Nothing to betray that she’s armed. She dons a headscarf and a pair of dark sunglasses and checks there’s nothing else about her that could give her away. No one would know it’s me, she thinks. She feels the bulge of the gun and notes its weight. While on her way to one of the bars on the dock, she questions whether she’s really carrying it for her own protection — in case she meets her stalker in the shadows, say. It’s one of those somber days when darkling clouds cover every patch of sky, and the sun only rises with reluctance. She takes a seat in a corner from where she can monitor most of the vicinity, principally the entrance. She feels like an actress, or as if she’s in the middle of a game, and that she could write a work of fiction about herself, an autobiographical novel. She orders a light breakfast and takes a newspaper from one of the tables. She searches through the classified ads to check if she’s received a reply. But then she thinks it’s still way too early for that. She reads through the headlines, occasionally glances at the traffic on the bridge over a river she can’t see or hear, but which she’s sure must still be there, giving the bridge a purpose. She sees the buildings on the opposite bank, notes the sky in the backdrop, the same miserable sky that’s lowering this side of the river. Her phone rings. The brilliant composer reminds her that tonight will be her last opportunity to see them in the church. Last night went extremely well: they didn’t miss her at all. The latest conquest was magnificent, and her other replacement, on the piano, could very well surpass her in the near future. It seems he never really liked the way the girl played. They’ll always be grateful, he says, that she played a part in making the Little Sinfonietta famous. She laughs and hangs up. She doesn’t want to give him the pleasure of knowing she’s offended. Maybe she’ll pay them a visit after all, she says, adjusting the weapon in the small of her back. She decides to go back to the hotel, but takes some precautions — is suspicious of the people behind her, on both sides of the street, and those who cross her path, in case one of them is following her, while also being vigilant in case her pursuer should suddenly come out from around a corner and ambush her. But the reality of the streets is very different. They are almost deserted, and all the stores are closed. Sundays are horrible, she thinks as she adjusts the weapon in the small of her back. Yes, one of these days, she thinks again, being reminded of her so-called friends, she’ll pay them a visit. A gun denotes action, but the screenwriter wants to be sure it’s used to greatest effect. If there’s a gun, he thinks, sooner or later, there’ll be a dead body.

  Alone in the room, the girl is writing in her notebook, doing some literary exercises in observation — writing a series of short, descriptive vignettes — as she resolved to do whenever she wasn’t making any progress with her novel, as a form of self-resuscitation. She describes the old hotel room she’s staying in: how the balcony looks, shrouded by timeworn curtains, barely translucent with all the stains; the high, flaking ceilings raining plaster on the carpet; the walls, the wallpaper, once kitsch, now obscenely discolored; and finally, of course, the room’s furnishings. She describes what she sees because she believes the exercises will hone her skills as a writer, and whenever she gets writer’s block, she exercises. More of a writer every day, she thinks. On her father’s nightstand are some jazz CDs, some magazines and newspapers, which partially cover the monumental tome of his favorite author — a man obsessed with jealousy, solitude, and the passage of time — and a paper on the social responsibilities of the scientist, as well as another about the search for life beyond our solar system. The latter outlines methods to search for life at every stage of evolution, from primitive to intelligent. The girl lies down on the bed in order to compare all these coincidences that seem to be mounting, to see if there’s any relationship between them: the voices that pronounce her name with a “ka,” the extraterrestrials both inside and outside her novel, the documentation her father keeps, the domes of countless cathedrals and churches that act as transmitter-receiver stations, the astrophysicist. . she lies back on the bed with her arms crossed, her eyes screwed to the ceiling. Is there life out there? she asks. She knows there are dots to connect, but she can’t seem to focus at the moment. She thinks about the gravely ill scientist again, who’s not only a friend of her father’s but seems to have been acquainted with her mother in her youth. What’s her mother up to right now? she wonders. After some deliberation, she calls her. It doesn’t take lo
ng before they’re arguing over why she was axed by the Little Sinfonietta. Her mother repeats the same warning as the day before. Is it so hard for you to understand why it happened? she asks, you’re too distracted, you’ve lost your focus. Then she asks if the girl’s with her father. He’s just gone out, she responds. What are you up to, then? her mother asks. I’m writing, she says. It’s a piece of dialogue between two people who are struggling to keep a conversation going, and which ultimately ends in silence. Her mother gets the message and the phone call ends. The girl’s annoyed whenever anything reminds her of the young conductor and brilliant composer. But then she thinks she should have the courage to leave. Leave who, what? Everything, she says in haste, as if the answer had erupted from the very depths of her. But it’s no use. Running away from everything is like running away from nothing; and besides, she doesn’t exactly know why it is she wants to run away at all. She can’t imagine herself packing her bags then hailing a taxi to the airport. Before she even thinks about going anywhere, she must wait for a reply to her ad. It will surely come any day now. There are too many coincidences telling her that contact is imminent. She returns to her position on the bed, lying back with her arms crossed, her eyes screwed to the ceiling.

  She’s not getting into any taxi. She’s not running away from any world. The young conductor pops into her head. If she did run away, at least she’d never have to see him again. She’ll never have to think about him either. She then immediately contradicts herself by imagining a hypothetical dialogue between them. They’re talking about her novel. How do they know they’re aliens? he asks. She says they don’t know. The question you should be asking is: How don’t I know they’re aliens? The young conductor says this is like asking how do we know what we see is real — that we’re not just the product of inconceivably sophisticated software, or the creation of an over-arching consciousness, a part of a game created by that consciousness for its own amusement; a consciousness that some have called God? The girl closes her eyes. Once again, someone’s trying to steal her thoughts. I’m sorry, she says, but I think you’re just regurgitating something I’ve already said. The words have hardly left her mouth when, deep within, the girl hears the sound of a thousand voices speaking in unison, growing louder and louder, saying every idea in the world has been thought of, that there’s nothing she’ll ever conceive or imagine that hasn’t been spoken of or written about before. Then the voices fall silent, and the conversation with the young conductor of the orchestra comes to an end. She won’t be having these kinds of discussions again, she thinks. They’re finished for good. An inner voice reminds her, “The clown, in an ecstasy, drinks deeply from the holy chalice, to heaven lifts up his entranced head. .” Yes, they’re finished for good, as is her friendship with the young conductor. They didn’t miss her at all, said the brilliant composer. The statement could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. For a nobody, he certainly has a good way of gauging the situation. They didn’t need her, she repeats. Perhaps she should pay them a visit. The girl dismisses the thought and concentrates on a single point on the ceiling. She doesn’t want her imagination to wander. “3.11 The method of projection is to think of the sense of the No World.” She writes about the old professor, says he only acquires full significance when he’s thought of as part of a much bigger picture, as in that terrible image of him staring out through the windows of a control room at the vast emptiness of space. When her father gets back, tired after a long vigil in the station, they converse on a number of trivial topics, after which he asks her how the writing’s going. It would be better to ask if she knew the beginnings of certain novels. But that would be expecting too much of him. She’s content to just record them in her notebook. “One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware. .” “Stately. .” The girl decides to leave the room and go for something to eat — not knowing exactly where to go, or perhaps, unconsciously, she does know, but it won’t occur to her until she reaches the lobby, when it will suddenly dawn on her, as if by chance, as if spontaneously — except it won’t be by chance, for the knowledge has always been there in her unconscious, and it only needed the right moment, the right suggestion, to bubble up into her conscious mind, and perhaps entering the lobby was all the suggestion it needed. It’s not the first time the thought occurred to her, she just hasn’t dared follow through on it. She knows it’s one of those things her father forbids her to do, although he doesn’t say it directly, because he doesn’t have to, and she doesn’t ask, because she knows better, because his answer’s implicit. The Grand Central Station looms imposingly before the girl, with its vaulted glass ceiling, its huge displays announcing the arrival and departure of trains, whether they’ll be on schedule or delayed. It reminds the girl of an airport, although a gray, old, and filthy one. The place is crowded, and the girl suspects that all these people are getting back after a short weekend away somewhere. Even a train station knows Sundays are horrible, she thinks. She passes a kiosk on her way to a café in which, seated at the back, watching her as she enters, is the elusive cousin Dedalus. The girl can’t help suspecting that Cousin Dedalus and McGregor are in fact the same person. That would explain why McGregor seems to want to avoid crossing paths with her, and why her father was so surprised when she told him she met Cousin Dedalus. She walks right past him, close enough to say hello, to sit down and interrogate him about the churches and cathedrals, those transmitters and receivers of intergalactic messages, but he turns his face as she passes, as if to avoid being seen by her, and she ends up sitting far away from him. The girl takes notes in her notebook. She wants to describe the behavior of someone who has nothing else to do with his time but wait. Wait for what? she wonders, still convinced the answer will mark a turning point — although she knows simply asking herself the question won’t yield an answer. She finishes her meal without having thought of a single particular quality to distinguish Cousin Dedalus from McGregor. So what will she call him from now on, this Dedalus/McGregor? She looks around the station. She can’t think of anything that makes him stand out from the crowd, and no one around her in the station is acting strangely — acting like someone who has nothing to do but wait — although she knows every single one of them has something about them that they don’t want the rest of the world knowing. The girl thinks she’ll never again be able to enter a train station without thinking about her father and his associate, the man she’s now convinced is Cousin Dedalus. Perhaps she’ll never be able to enter a train station again without thinking the way they do about the commuters — that some of them aren’t really commuters at all.