Best European Fiction 2013 (14 page)

TOMÁS MAC SÍOMÓIN

Music in the Bone

I dream of myself sitting in that chair. One year ago to the day. In my clinician’s white coat. Switching on the tape recorder beneath my desk. Scribbling notes into a rough jotter while Mrs. X, the woman behind the desk in front of me, talks. Meanwhile, my partner in our psychiatric clinic in the dead centre of this city examines Mr. X. Mrs. X is tall, middle-aged, vaguely good-looking, of medium build. High cheekbones, an almost Slavic face. Carefully thinned eyebrows shaped to give an inadvertently vague look of permanent surprise. Her black dress sets off a white pearl necklace. Where have I seen this lady before. In another life? Is she a ghost ? Nothing ghostly, however, about that inexplicably familiar fragrance wafting into my nostrils.

– And, apart from that small … idiosyncrasy, shall we say, you tell me that your husband is normal, so to speak, in every other respect?

Giving a self-conscious professional’s omniscient inflection to my voice. It seems to me that I have posed a similar question a thousand times, at least. To other women. To other men.

– In every possible way, Doctor, she says. He is really the most normal man you could imagine. In every way. Apart from his passion for music and this “idiosyncrasy,” as you describe the mad behavior he gets up to now and then. The way he rises to his feet when you least expect it and starts to conduct some imaginary orchestra that nobody else hears nor sees. Even in the presence of my friends. I really don’t know what to do about my predicament, Doctor. That man has destroyed my social life.

– … ?, I ask, wordlessly. (The tilt of one eyebrow can suffice to express a question mark.) The lady’s slightly nasal voice drones on as she repeats what she has already told me.

I listen carefully. For the heart of the issue is often revealed in the retelling. And as she rattles on, the unexpectedly familiar whiff of her perfume unsettles me in some inexplicable way. I ask the question of myself yet again: where and when have I smelled that fragrance before?

– It doesn't matter where in the hell we might be, Doctor, (if you’ll excuse my French). In the house, the church, the shops, on the street, on the bus. Or during social visits to the houses of our friends. Even in his office, if what his work associates tell me is true. Nor does he care who might be looking at him or listening to him. When his “idiosyncrasy” expresses itself, other people cease to exist, as far as he is concerned. And it’s as if their opinions, customs, social correctness itself have vanished like a puff of air. His movements and the flailing of his arms giving onlookers to understand that he is conducting some sort of band or orchestra. Just as I’ve been telling you.

– Now let us talk a little about yourself, I hear myself saying. How do you react while this imaginary concert, so to speak, is proceeding under the imaginary baton of your spouse.

– I try to speak to him, to reason with him, Doctor, but he gives me the deaf ear. Just as if he were deep in some sort of hypnotic trance. As if I and the real world cease to exist for him …

– Even if you become angry with him?

– I’ve tried to stop him, of course. Stop making a fool of yourself in public, you idiot, I would say. For all the bloody good that did, Doctor, if you’ll excuse my language. He paid not the slightest heed to what I said. And me simply trying to get him to return to the real world! And he stares at me with unseeing eyes all the while. Or, rather, seeing through me. That was the hardest part to bear, Doctor, his looking through me as if I didn’t exist. And that lost look in his eyes. That is what scared me out of my wits …

– Does he ever become violent when you attempt to interfere with, or stop, his … artistic endeavours, if we can call them that?

– Not up till now, at any rate. In fact when this “music,” as he calls it, stops, he tells me, somewhat sheepishly, that he is totally powerless to resist it. The beauty of it is such that he simply must conduct it, he says. He tells me that he is constantly amazed that neither I nor anybody else can hear his music. It is so loud, he says, that it drowns out every other sound. But I hear absolutely nothing when he gets these mad fits. Nor does anybody else. Not a goddamn note.

– And how are you coping these days?

– I try to make believe that he is not with me, Doctor. Especially when he starts to “conduct” in some public place.

– Can you give me an example? I ask.

– Can I ever! There was that wet Sunday a few months ago— how could I ever forget it—when we were attending midday Mass. The parish priest, Canon Murphy, was preaching from the pulpit overlooking the congregation. Talking about the sacredness of the sacrament of matrimony, I remember that much very well. When suddenly my husband jumps to his feet. Imagine the start that gave me. And then away with him, in full view of the congregation behind us, frenziedly conducting some imaginary choir. The canon stopped preaching and fixed him with a look that should have turned him into stone. I just shrank into myself. Hoping against hope that nobody would think that I was with this madman. I could hear an angry buzz of complaints from the pews behind us. And the puzzled faces of people in the pews in front of us turning around to see what was the matter. I am sure that everybody thought he was mocking Canon Murphy. The ushers dragged him, with difficulty, out of the church, the congregation silently observing the whole sorry spectacle. A burly shaven-headed brute, with a snake tattoo on the back of his neck, tried to attack him outside the church gates after Mass. But for a vigilant Garda on duty there, there is no saying how that story might have ended.

– So it was this incident that impelled you to seek professional help? I ask.

The “orchestral conductor’s” wife blushes, the sudden rush of colour to her cheeks accentuating her early autumnal charm. And as I survey this modest blush, the long elegantly manicured fingers with their rings resting on the table in front of me, that elusive fragrance in the air, I am more certain than ever that I have met this woman somewhere before. Professional discretion prevents me from pursuing this matter further.

– Not really, Doctor, she says, answering my question. But when these “concerts” started to interfere with … well, the most intimate aspects of our life together … I hope you will not want me to supply you with the details! But, as a married man, you will appreciate exactly what I mean, she says, glimpsing at my wedding ring out of the corner of her eye. Suffice it to say that when your husband leaves the warmth of the marriage bed in the dead of night to conduct a phantom orchestra instead of fulfilling his … marital duties, you can see my predicament. Not to mention my frustration. And you can understand that we are talking here about a marriage that could not survive without “professional help,” as you call it. And so both of us have come, as a last resort, to your clinic, Doctor …

– And he came here willingly?

– Dragging his heels, Doctor.

When the consultation ends, I switch off the tape recorder under my desk. Mrs. X leaves the office, her cheeks still glowing, probably from the highly personal nature of her “confession.” No sooner has she left, leaving faint traces of her scent in the air behind her, than Sheila, our chief secretary, enters and leaves a note from my colleague on my desk. I quickly scan it. It informs me that the musically inclined Mr. X has been subject to a full battery of clinical tests. His pulse, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, cholesterol are all indicative of that gentleman’s rude good health.

Therefore I am not surprised as I observe, some ten minutes later, the man who is sitting in the chair vacated by his wife. He is middle-aged, of medium height, balding, and with a slight tendency to heaviness. Rather like myself, in fact. He is clean-shaven, somewhat conservatively dressed in a gray suit, a striped shirt, and a dark club tie. His overall appearance proclaims the essence of bourgeois decency, a clean-cut image of civic virtue that normal citizens strive to attain. A pleasant, slightly conspiratorial smile flits across his face before he opens our conversation:

– Quite frankly, Doctor, I am not quite sure why I’m here, he says. I do not feel that there is anything wrong with me. But in order to satisfy my wife … you know how annoying women can be sometimes …

Without saying anything, I switch on the tape recorder. Having delivered his opening gambit, the conspiratorial smile returns briefly to his face …

I still say nothing. Pretending to scribble a note, I survey my client professionally from the corner of my eye. Not a trace of any abnormality in the tone of his voice, in the confident ease of his delivery. A performance conforming fully to the correctness of his appearance. I cannot imagine such a sober citizen in the guise of a crazed conductor of the nonexistent choir in his local parish church. Could the mysterious Mrs. X be the victim of such a delusional fantasy? I have been long enough in this profession to understand that superficial appearances often belie the real truth of a case. After I note the firm handshake of Mr. Normal, we briefly discuss the impending deluge promised by the weather forecast and how it may cause Sunday’s championship football game to be postponed. Man talk! After this warm up, I place my cards on the table:

– The condition that brings you to this consultancy, I understand from talking to your wife, is that you sometimes imagine you hear a brass band, or an orchestra, playing within yourself. And that nobody but yourself can hear the music they are playing. And then, she told me, you feel some sort of compulsion, as it were, to conduct this imaginary ensemble.

The bland countenance of Mr. X is creased momentarily by a cynical smile.

– She would say that, wouldn’t she! That all I hear is imaginary music, as she tells anybody who bothers to listen to her. But I have told her a thousand times that my music can in no way be explained in such simple terms. For we are talking here about a magnificent orchestra that performs in the deepest depths of my soul …

– Hmmm, very interesting! But, let us get a handle on this, Mr. X, I say. If you imagine that you can hear some sort of music that neither your wife, nor anybody else, can hear—if what she tells me is true—can’t you recognise that there is a problem here we need to address? A not inconsiderable problem, perhaps? That may need professional help. When did you first note this, what you refer to as, music? Perhaps in your early adolescence, with the first stirrings of your sexuality?

– Balderdash, Doctor! It is only a problem insofar as she, and you it seems, construe my music as some sort of undesirable deviation from normality. As a problem to be solved. I, on the other hand, see it as a special grace from the Muse.

– Really! And when was the first time you heard this extraordinary sound?

– It’s just as if it happened yesterday. There I was, embroiled in the preparation of tax returns, when I heard a single note being played on a viola. Or on a violin. Just a single note on some stringed instrument or other being tuned by some unseen presence within the office. I searched high and low to find where this strange note was coming from. The only radio I had in the office was switched off. As I listened to it, the note gained depth and volume. My body seemed to melt and be absorbed into this note. Then, I suddenly realized that the note was coming from within my own flesh and bones, Doctor. As if sounding in some far distant place and, at the same time, in some cavern in the depths of my soul. That note lasted about a half hour according to my office clock. But it seemed to me to be without beginning or end.

– What happened then, after that half hour?

– Not a thing, Doctor. When the note faded away—or when I returned from paradise, to phrase it differently—everything was more or less the same as before I ever heard it. In the beginning, I thought—just as my wife still thinks—that my mind had been subject to some sort of aural illusion. A temporary blip created by a fatigued brain or pressure at work. But, how I longed for the return of that note that I felt would never return …

– Yet, this longing of yours appears to have been satisfied, by all accounts?

– It certainly was, Doctor. One week later, as I was walking to the dart station, that tax-return stress was a thing of the past. Yet, as I walked, I heard my music once again and it sounded even more beautiful than ever. But it was no longer just a single note. It took the form of a simple tune that I had never heard before. A product of the culture of some exotic clime, perhaps, with just a hint of Araby. But, to be honest with you, Doctor, no human culture could generate such beauty.

– Hmmm! And this music seemed to be coming from within yourself, you say? Music from the depths of your own soul, as you might phrase it?

There was hardly any need for me to intervene. For, it is clear from the animated features of Mr. X that he can hardly wait to tell his whole story. To make the full confession that does good to the soul. Like the bearer of some sensational tale who has just found his first sympathetic ear.

– At first, Doctor, I thought the music was coming from my stomach. That something I had eaten had upset my digestion, with this unexpected result. The couscous I had eaten in a Moroccan restaurant the previous day, for example. Although you would hardly expect such fare to generate stomach music. Internal thunder, maybe, but music? A little bit later, the music seemed to have moved to my spine. A little bit later again it seemed to be coming from my heart. Later again, all of my body was, well … a concert platform for this band …

– A band you say?

– A full orchestra, Doctor. I began to hear it more and more frequently. And at each successive performance, still more musical instruments joined in. A weird thought occurred to me, at that time. I told myself that maybe that music was within me since the very day I was born. But that its pure sound was muffled by my own ignorance and life’s discordant symphony. Anyhow, I hear it more and more often these days. And when I least expect it. In the pub, in the office, on the train, at home … And, a strange thing, no matter where this band is playing, only I can hear it, playing there, sounding deep inside me!