Melody
I remember that he never spoke with words. Only music. It was clearer than any language could convey. It was raw. It was sensuous. It was painful and soft. It was embarrassing. It was wrenching. It was flawed. It was.
I remember that last time he spoke was on the gondola in Italy—Venice, to be exact—and it was enshrouded in mist. It was just the two of us and I remember being doubtful about why he brought me along. I didn’t have my instrument, but he always kept his with him. It didn’t matter what it was; he could play anything. Absolutely anything.
The boat was gently navigating the buildings and besides the fog, the night was clear. The stars looked as crisp as cinnamon in an apple pie or white flecks of paint as they peel off to fall far below into dark water. He was sitting in his royal best, having been employed by the king and owning only the best silk. I was not so lucky and worked for my coin at various pubs and auditoriums. I had my best dress on, though. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was willing for anything and far into the evening nothing happened. He sat on the gondola with a small flute, playing an ode to the night.
I mentioned he spoke with music, but he wasn’t speaking to me. It was more of a soliloquy and I thought I shouldn’t be listening. But it was hard not to listen, just as it is hard not to eavesdrop to someone who thinks they are alone. One wants to know what he or she is saying and I wanted to know what he had called me to listen to. Part of me suspected he wanted me to eavesdrop, even though his tone was more to anyone listening rather than to a specific person. He had definitely asked me there for a reason.
At first it was small talk; little ditties of melodies I had heard him play so often. Then it was more of a painful thing. There was something bothering him. I got the feeling he was doing something that he had always wanted to do. He was exactly where he wanted to be in the same circumstances. But we both knew it wasn’t going to last the night. He was being honestly raw about his feelings and he blushed as he spoke, or played. Then, he lost something. He was sad and his melody lost the usual edge that he spoke with. His notes were slurring together and I realized he was crying. I reached out a hand to touch him and tell him it was all right when the melody stopped with a shrill whistle and he dropped the flute. I reached to pick it up, watching him sob, his shoulder like a buoy marking the edge of the ocean.
I didn’t know what to say and I tried to comfort him gently easing the notes out of the flute as best I could. But the flute was not my language and it was hard for me to speak with it. I was a string player, but I had to do the best with what I had. The gondola pulled up outside the opera where we had gotten on. He leaned forward and gave me a stiff hug before helping himself out of the boat. The boatman helped me onto the shore, but by then he was long gone.
The newspapers said he had just disappeared and then reported later—much later—that he was living in the countryside of France. I had returned to England long ago with his flute, which is now sitting in a golden box under my bed. I can’t look at it without a flood of memories but at the same time I can’t just let it be. Every year, on the anniversary of his last day, I’ll pull it out and let it glint in the moonlight. For some reason, that day is always a full moon. I try and put to words what he was trying to say, to formulate an answer, I suppose, but I can’t think of anything strong enough. I wish I had answered him the way he had wanted me to: just three simple words. But it took me a long time to figure that out. He wasn’t serenading me and it wasn’t flirtatious, so it took me many years of studying other people to know what he was trying to say. I’ve tried to write him, but I think that moment is lost with the night. I just wish I could hear him speak one more time.
