Where the Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir

  I’m particularly drawn to film scores composed by Alexandre Desplat and Ennio Morricone, both known for lush orchestrations in the tradition of romanticism. The solos are often poignant and serve as thoughts of an individual character. They do the same for a character I am creating for a novel. While writing The Valley of Amazement, the track “Wong Chia Chi’s Theme,” from Desplat’s score for the film Lust, Caution took me and my narrator seamlessly into the languorous life of a first-class courtesan house. It opens with an ominous tone set by cellos and bass, and then the piano comes in, just the right hand, playing the simple melody. Those are the internal emotions of a woman who is isolated, frightened, and losing resilience. She moves forward into danger, and now two hands play the melody in octaves, recalling a parallel moment from the past. For another scene, I chose the opening theme from Desplat’s score for The Painted Veil to simulate a nervous mood on a long journey to an uncertain future. I listened to “Gabriel’s Oboe” from Morricone’s soundtrack for The Mission as the spiritual complement to exultant relief and joy at the end of the journey. That particular piece was later rerecorded for another album, but instead of the oboe solo, Yo-Yo Ma plays the melody on cello, and his rendition is especially good for expansive emotions related to spiritual revelation, epiphanies, infatuation, and betrayal. A slight change in tempo, key, and bowing technique conveys how falling in love is similar to falling into an abyss.

  I’ve become more discerning about my selections over time. One of my favorite pieces fell out of favor when it was used in the film Master and Commander. The movie was quite affecting, so much so that afterward, whenever I heard Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” I pictured a drowning sailor fruitlessly waving his arms in a stormy sea as a majestic ship sailed away. I cannot write to pop, hip-hop, rap, or rock. They have throbbing beats that do not match contemplative moods. Any song with a singer doesn’t work for me—even if it is the most tragically beautiful of opera arias sung in Italian. I can still see the singer, and he or she does not belong in my story. I would not be able to listen to a gavotte or waltz unless I was writing a scene that includes gavotting or waltzing in a seventeenth-century castle. Although I am a devotee of bebop jazz, I cannot listen to it when I write, not even a piano solo. By its nature, improvisational jazz is unpredictable and wonderfully quirky. I hear its music as a personality with strong opinions. I need to be my own version of quirky when I write. The opinions I hear in my head have to be my own.

  My favorite Rachmaninoff piece is the Concerto No. 3 in D minor, the “Rach 3,” as it is known among my friends who are as rapturous about it as I am. It is in my top five. I read that it was Rachmaninoff’s favorite, too, and for reasons I wish I knew. I believe it was written when he was anguished that he could not return to Russia. But what did he want to return to? That’s what is in the music. Did he feel that it was musically more interesting? The melody seizes me by the third measure and becomes emotional circuitry. There are days when I play the concerto on auto-repeat and listen to it all day, even when I am not writing. I love this music so much I have five recordings, including the scratchy one in which Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff, and at such speed I imagine his fingers whipping up winds that blow the audience’s hair askew. His performance of the first movement takes a little over ten minutes, whereas most pianists cover it in about sixteen or seventeen. Was that the tempo he had intended? I read speculation that Rachmaninoff’s large hands, ones that could span thirteen keys, enabled him to play faster, and thus he did. But what musician, let alone composer, allows hand size to serve as the basis for tempo? Another hypothesis pointed to pure commercialism: a 78 rpm record could accommodate no more than a ten-minute performance. Someone else suggested that Rachmaninoff played faster because the derrieres of most average symphony-goers could not remain seated for a full concert played at normal tempo. I prefer to believe that these are apocryphal tales whose origins lie in gripes and rumors spread by conductors and musicians who could not keep pace. I want to believe that what shapes any composition and its performance is a deeper and intuitive sense of beauty and not the lowest common denominator.

  The recording of the Concerto No. 3 that I love best is by the London Philharmonia, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, with Yefim Bronfman on piano. I have seen Bronfman play live on the symphony stage. I once nearly leaped out of my chair with an odd feeling of fright and ecstasy, as his fingers tread through low bass notes and then crashed against them. He can also play with astonishing delicacy. In one passage of the Concerto No. 3, I always sense a millisecond of held breath between notes that feels like the missed beat that sends a heart into palpitation.

  Yesterday, I listened to the Concerto No. 3 again and took notes by hand on the story I saw. I wanted to understand how my imagination plays freely with music. When the song ended, and I looked at my notes, I saw that the story had many cartoonish and fable-like qualities. But I did not think the character was my familiar. She is unstable, needy, in constant crisis, and exhausting to be around. If my husband has a different opinion, he has yet to tell me. The story bears some similarities to Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary—a female heroine with a fatal flaw when it comes to disregarding everything, including society, for the sake of passion. The character in this story does a lot of internal wailing. I would not want to read that in a novel or hear a real person go on and on like that. But in music, the excess is wonderful. There are sudden gaps in the narrative. The male character is nearly nonexistent. If this were judged by the standards of a novel, it would be viewed as overly dramatic, soppy, and a little too easy in what happens at the close of those victorious chords. As private reverie, I found it emotionally whole, a complete story. It was a crazy wild ride and I could actually see a little bit of my younger self in there.

  So here is how the story played out. I’ve given a name to the character, Anna, although in my imagination she does not need one because I am the first-person narrator. The approximate times are based on Bronfman’s performance. The comments in brackets denote what I think are the origins of the imagery.

  00:00 The orchestra opens with an ominous undercurrent. The piano melody enters soon after, a simple, clean diatonic played in octaves. Anna, a young maiden in a cloak, is alone, trudging up an incline on a countryside road. Today is different, she tells herself. Her life is about to change. She is sure of it. She hopes. She is uncertain. She fears she may be disappointed or rejected. She must resist this nauseating hope. But when she reaches the crest, she sees the town on the other side of an open valley. [In my mind, it looks very much like the Land of Oz on the other side of a vast poppy field.] Her lover is waiting. Anna shrugs off the weight of fear and races forward with such determination she feels as if she is barely touching the road. [I see her walking as Neil Armstrong did on the moon.] She recognizes what has eluded her all her life—the knowledge that there is no greater meaning than to fulfill desire. Buoyed by this realization, her dress fills like a balloon and carries her toward love.

  1:00 As Anna draws closer to the town, dark thoughts arrive and confuse her. She thinks about the wretched dark days when she existed with nothing to desire. She pictures in her mind the lonely life she has in a large lifeless house with white walls and tall ceilings. The rooms are nearly empty. Splayed books in white covers lay scattered on the floor. She had read each halfway through before throwing them down in disappointment. They did not tell her the reason she is alive. She has roamed for years from one room to another, calling to God to tell her why she deserves such loneliness, then cursing because she receives no answer. She has no memories of life with others, not even her parents.

  2:10 As Anna walks toward her lover, she recalls the moment she knew her life would change. Yesterday, her loneliness had become unbearable, and to avoid succumbing to madness, she flung herself out the door and set on the road with only rage as her compass. A dark forest, a black sea—what did it matter? She was trudging along this same road, hurling invectives
to God, when she saw a young man coming from the other direction. They exchanged quick glances, and just as they were about to walk past each other, they both stopped and openly stared at one another. By merely looking into his eyes, she knew what had imprisoned her all these years: she had never known what to desire. She had desired only the absence of loneliness when she should have desired the presence of love. She had desired to escape from madness. She should have desired to find passion. One desire had blocked the other. With that realization, Anna is freed from oppressive loneliness. She can see now that fate brought this young man to her. As she stares, he enters her soul through the portals of her eyes. [This is probably an amalgam of every Prince Charming–type cartoon I’ve ever seen—wordless stares and sighs somehow yield portentous meaning.] She and the young man have perfect understanding—and that is why he does not speak aloud. That is how intimately he knows me, she thinks. He knows I have always loved him, since the birth of eternity. She realizes something even more shocking: he has always loved her. He desires her love now as fiercely as she desires his. Without words, they make a vow: to meet the next day and express their love in all ways possible. And now, today, they will be able to speak to and touch each other for the first time.

  2:50 Anna arrives at the tall gates of the village and finds herself in the town square, where streets radiate out like spokes. She does not know which to take. But before she becomes overly distressed, she discovers that her shoes know where to take her. She swiftly walks down one empty street to another. The houses seem empty and lifeless until curtains twitch, revealing the faces of busybodies. When she rounds one corner, she sees three stern-looking women in white caps and aprons scrubbing clothes. They stop their work and conversation to stare at her with a disapproving scowl. She is sure they know why she has come. She straightens her shoulders and walks erectly, casting off their opinions. She tells herself she won’t allow these loveless women to deter her. They envy me, she says to herself. But now her feet have grown heavy. It’s as if she is pushing through knee-high mud. To force herself to continue, she remembers the near-insanity of loneliness. She cannot go back. By remembering her lover’s face, she will find determination. She summons up the memory of their meeting, of his eyes locking on hers, making her blind to these women’s taunting faces. But now she cannot remember what color his eyes are. Once again, each step forward is weighted with certain disaster. Why can’t she remember his face—the one that freed her cramped heart to grow with desire? It is still growing right here on this street. It has grown into a heart so bloated with desire it might kill her. She can feel it pushing into her throat, choking her. She is about to turn back when she hears her inner voice ask: What use is self-respect if there is nothing else to live for? She had nearly gone mad with pride and propriety. She might have killed herself if it weren’t for his love. She throws off thoughts of scandal and wraps desire around her like a warm protective cloak. Newly found passion guides her once again, and each step grows lighter. Soon she is at her lover’s door. Her life, at last, is about to change. It is the end of loneliness.

  4:05 Anna walks in. The dwelling is humble, the sort of place where a wood carver or young artist might live. She wonders, what does he do? Perhaps he descends from aristocrats who have become impoverished, like her family. [Impoverished daughters of aristocrats are a staple of fairy tales and nineteenth-century novels.] The ceiling is low and the room is small. A table and plank benches are set before a stone fireplace in the middle of the room. At the other end of the room is a narrow cot, where her lover is sleeping, dreaming of his impatience to see her. A square window facing the empty streets throws a slant of light on his face, this handsome youth. His hair is so blond it is nearly white, his face is pale, his eyelids and nostrils are a translucent pink, his nose is long, and his chin is small. It is obvious he is an aristocrat, a Russian princeling, unaccustomed to work, with a mind fit for noble purpose. She is eager to see the color of his eyes again.

  She throws off her cloak and warms herself by the fire. The glow from the hearth makes the entire room rosy. In the past, she never gave a thought to her appearance. But in this soft light, she knows she is radiantly beautiful. She is about to call to him when he awakens and rushes over to embrace her. His possessive gaze and caress remove all doubts that she has made the right decision in following desire. He has healed her, and only then does she realize she has been ill. He has warmed her, and only then does she realize her bones have been cold. She sees in his eyes that she truly is beautiful. She has astonished him. In the flickering light, his eyes appear to be gray, then pale blue, turquoise, ice blue, and silver. He leads her to his bed, a low cot covered with a blanket of rabbit skins. As soon as she lies down, she casts off shyness and her clothes immediately follow. No one has ever touched her skin. His hands know this. They murmur and whisper nonsensical words. She cries, knowing his whispers are about her, that he is telling her about the dimensions of his love. She cannot make out exactly what he is saying and will have to ask him to repeat it later—although perhaps she already knows. After all, their thoughts and feelings are identical. The exquisite sensations of their bodies are identical. She exults aloud: These moments together have already been enough for a lifetime of dreaming.

  As if her thoughts had been an incantation, the spell is broken. Their time together is over. [Shades of Cinderella, the plot driven by a mindless keeper of time.] He looks at her sadly. He seems to be telling her with his eyes. Time still divides us, but now we have eternity. They unwrap arms and legs, and from one body they are again two. She is instantly cold. He bids farewell, and when she steps out, she sees that it is early morning. The night passed as if it had been only a few moments before falling asleep.

  6:17 Anna walks home, light-headed, still caught in the dream. The old ache of loneliness is gone. She can hardly remember how she once felt. She has a destination now, a reason to live. When she reaches home, she sees how dingy the rooms are, how cavernous and yet constricted the place feels with its small chambers and long hallways. How had she been able to bear it for so long? She wants to go to him this instant and tell him what she has suffered and what he has changed. Why did she leave him in the first place? She cannot recall his saying it was time for her to go, not in words. Perhaps he had wanted her to stay and was wounded in thinking she had made the decision to leave him. She should return to him now. But then she remembers his shuddering groan. He believed they should savor desire and not be consumed by it all at once. He is right. She will wait and come to him when he cannot bear to be without her, when he, too, feels life is meaningless without desire. Warmth will always be at the other end of the road and she now knows how to reach it.

  6:55 The simple diatonic melody begins. Anna is once more on her way to her lover. She looks older. It is evident that years have passed. Her step is not quite as lively. The incline feels steeper. This is simply a journey to get to where she needs to be. It starts to rain and the road soon becomes muddy. She slips several times. She considers whether to turn back. She still desires him, but when she returned home yesterday, she wondered why desire was still there when it should have been fulfilled long ago. Her mind holds so many worries it is hard to think clearly about any of them. She does not know his name. He does not know hers. She had reasoned that it did not matter because they knew each other in more important ways. But how? She never asked him. She never asked that of herself. They have spoken only in grunts and gasps, the language of desire.

  A wind comes up and rain beats faster and washes over Anna’s face like a waterfall, making it difficult to see. She is frightened. She cannot go any farther. In the distance she sees a hunched figure coming from the opposite direction. She soon realizes it is an old woman without the cover of a cloak. The woman’s unbound hair streams down her face like long moss. Her once fine dress is soiled, ripped at the armholes. The hem is shredded. She is a wretch of misfortune, Anna thinks, the daughter of a respected family who would now pull up her skirts for
the promise of a penny. The old woman laughs, as if she had heard Anna’s unspoken insult. She shakes her head and throws Anna a pitying look. Anna is furious that this lowly harlot would pity her. A moment later, she is startled to see that the woman, although haggard, is not old at all. She could be her age, and in fact, they look so much alike they could have been twins. They have the same long dark hair, wide-set gray eyes, and a mole on the right cheek. Even the dresses would be identical if the whore’s were not dirty and hers were not clean. When she looks down at her dress, she sees for the first time a black oily spot, then another and another. She instantly feels cold, so brittle with cold her spine might snap. The beggar woman does not exist, she tells herself. It is worse. She is the malevolent twin of her imagination who has been waiting to be recognized. Anna tries to calculate how many years have passed since she began these repetitious journeys to her lover’s bed. How many mornings did she rise and leave the narrow cot with him still dozing? It must be thousands. Her skin must be worn thin from so many rubbings. She is afraid to look. Over the years, she refused to let questions about him into her mind. Yet she still felt tormented by small doubts: that he did not love her as much. Or that he did not even exist. The first time she had that thought, she immediately turned around on the road and rushed back to the village. On her way there, she noticed that the road had grown longer and steeper. When she reached his home, she peered through the window and saw him sleeping as usual. She was tempted to rap the window and see his delight that she had returned so soon. But then, as usual, she thought it was best to not interrupt his dreams of desire for her. She simply returned home.