A/N: I've included Ada's voice over in the epilogue (along with other bits of memorable script) - I think it's a lovely piece of work and I didn't want to change anything about the ending.
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A P P A S S I O N A T A
( for love starts where the soul begins )
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I am unnatural about nature. The sounds of the womb, the embryonic sac that begins as my daughter and forms into the young child I see before me. The sound of my voice that comes through her.
We do not speak in speech or in dialogue. We communicate in sound. The loud clack of her rolling shoes as she knocks on the walls of our lost Scottish home, the chatter of discontented nursemaids as they have to say goodbye to their charge for the very last time. The muffled, mouse-like sounds of my breath as I snip the shoe laces from Flora's feet as she dozes on her bed.
Words confine me, they do not express the range of voices nor the distinct colourations, intonations, found in every syllable. Metronome. Like the days I have grown into. The bird's cage that hangs about my waist, covering my white ankles with heavy fabrics of black and blue, the braided coils around my widow's peak to show respect and propriety.
I am everything a mute should be.
Look at my hands, I laugh at them. They are not young, but long and spindly and perfect for a pianist that is me. I blend into the piano wonderfully, the transparent skin with an undercurrent of delicate blue veins, the staunchness of my face, the plainness and painless way I sit at my instrument and just play.
Have you ever played a piano with your eyes closed? Memorized the sheets of music inside the cluttered rooms of your moving mind and permit the muscles to relax the soul only for you? Liberation, that's what it is. Salvation. The space between wooden floorboards that gather dust and memories, like the peeling wallpaper in the kitchen, like the forgotten spinning toy found underneath the large grandfather chair in the parlour.
I open my eyes and I see colour. My daughter sees colour. The sea has nothing of it.
And New Zealand is my home now, a small island at the edge of the earth.
.
.
Some part of me expects the day to rush past my covered ears like the way the explorer women in the books I read – do. They arrive in some foreign, exotic place not unlike this beach rowdy and lonely of civilized women, and mourn for home. The men my future and present husband hires are too rowdy for my approval.
Sailor, Do not mistake the deaf for the mute.
My husband's name is Alistair. My name is Ada, and this is my daughter, Flora.
My father marries me to a man I do not know. He says it will be good, a scenery of change, but he does not care to follow us into the lower hemisphere of the world. I choose my daughter's name for the hope it springs in my bosom, but not quite in honour of her father.
Women in my situation are raised to believe everything is as fragile as the lace we make. Most people forget to see the hands behind them.
Sometimes, I think I am too wild to be tamed. Maybe that is why I cannot speak. Do people tire of me, is that why they send me away? Too many people talk these days, and not enough listen. They chat and chat and chat, and nothing sensible ever comes from their lips. I am glad I do not join them. I thank God for that.
.
.
The sailors all leave and my faceless husband is not here to greet me. Either we are too early, or he is late. I worry.
I play. Pull the wooden board that boxes my piano and in the darkness of the package, with one hand holding an unsteady umbrella over my sleeping Flora, I sing.
The water rushes in and the high tide is coming. Flora screams awake.
I must look clumsy holding an umbrella and tracking all our belongings down that beach. New Zealand. Such a lonely, desolate place for such promising a name.
Aside from my beloved piano, Flora is one of my life's simple joys. She speaks where words do not come out, and she laughs with the ways I permit her freedom. She is, after all, a child. A very special girl.
Mum, have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?
I tell her I do not.
For when you tell me that story, your hands look as if they were the beating wings of a sparrow.
Or maybe the fluttering heart of a past lover.
She speaks to me in the identical fashion I speak to her. Beautiful, the way her round fingers and wrists move. Opinionated and stubborn-headed. Her eyes are dark pools, and I know she inherits them from me. Oh, Flora. The dear, sweet child of my womb.
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They are called the Maori, the aboriginals of this place. Through the dark green forests, I see that New Zealand is quite unlike my motherland. We are in the place of our new father. There, that man must be Alistair. The calling of the birds, their echoing cries over the waves of the receding tide as the Maori push and pull our property out of the once-submerged, tanned sand.
I believe I can learn to love it.
But he shouts as if I cannot hear. Surrounded by curious, friendly people, he is more nervous of me than I am of him. This is the start of a very difficult relationship. His consultant is right about me, I am tired.
Alistair takes every back to the house. Everything but my piano. The Maori are a laughing sort of people, they make fun of my husband when he is not looking, which is direct behind his back, when they are standing less than a foot from his top hat. The women with their tattooed faces draw my scarf around my neck and try it on their own shoulders with a smile on their face.
I must leave my piano. It sits there on the beach, without me. Something tugs at my heart, and a part of me separates and goes back for it.
The new house is foreign but cheerful with giggling, laughing women who run around the kitchen as one dons my wedding dress in playfulness. I look on.
Oh, Flora! Your mother was an opera singer? Your father was a famous German composer? My eyes bug out in disbelief with this fantastic tale, but truly my insides are breaking with mirth. You are truly the child of my heart. The shoot for my faux wedding photo is a tsunami disaster. Marriage is a convenience for all – although I wear a band on my finger and my name is on one half of the certificate, there is not much else to bind me to Alistair. Not Stewart. McGrath is my last name. Born and forever remain. Already he sets a distance between us because of my instrument, my sound box.
If God loves dumb creatures, then I am crying so hard even the skies down here weep in my stead.
.
.
The man I have come to see is illiterate yet he is able to read me. I am overwhelmed with joy at the sight of my piano, the ability to speak again, and I do not mind Baines accompanies us today. We are the ones who asked him. I smile and laugh high-spirited Flora touches the blade of my shoulder and spins around on the beach. Today is the first beautiful day I see since we arrived in New Zealand. My little ballet dancer with her hands full of seaweed as she tumbles and makes cartwheels at the fringe of the giggling salt water.
And the two of us play the piano together. We make a giant seahorse on the sand with the shells my little dancing light found on her journeys up and down this beach. She draws the shape of the creature while I provide the inspiration. Baines observes, but does not intrude. He knows within this polished wood frame is where my soul and all its passion resides.
Later I learn his name is George Baines. The music-lover. In the future I will chuckle with this revelation considering how apt a title it is, but I am getting ahead of myself, and there is still many more bars to tell.
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Alistair trades my piano to Baines for some property. To hell with him! To hell with sacrifices, you won't listen!
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But – but my piano is in tune. I stare up at Baines with his Maori-tattooed nose and that smug smile on his face, and from that moment he tells me he just wants to hear me play. Sitting down on the bench in defiance, my sharp, small eyes flick upwards often to challenge his dare, this ignorant man praises the simplest of scales with a breeze of my hand.
.
I have told you the story of your father many, many times.
(Oh, tell me again! Was he a teacher?)
Yes.
(How did you speak to him?)
I didn't need to speak. I could lay thoughts out in his mind like they were a sheet.
(What happened? Why didn't you get married?)
He became frightened and stopped listening.
.
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I do not like this. Baines's proposal to earn my piano back. When my voice is at stake, the odds are the consequences will always hurt me and pass over everybody else. One visit for every white key. My hard-working living heart is beating frantically and I still feel the surprise of his mouth over my neck. Unsuspecting me, no one should hold possession over another's treasures. No one.
So my smallish, oval face sets into a hardened expression of contemplation – and I accept. Only, white is now black. The change is not accidental.
When I play, when I sit down to release the fantastic songs swirling around in my head I am taken to a place where the Earth is lighter than before. Darker than before. The piano is a mirror for my world and there is no miscommunication. When there is music I believe I can see the beginning of the chaos which gave birth to Flora and many years before that. I stand inside myself, beside myself, even outside myself. All my senses are heightened, and I am at peace.
But now the path is diverting and I am starting to see which road I must sacrifice to own my voice once more. Rolling my eyes, Alistair's business partner requests me to lift my skirt higher and higher, all the while interrupting my music into choppy bursts of energy much like the way my non-understanding husband thinks piano lessons and chopping firewood will make me more affectionate towards him. Life has no time signature, and we make do with what we receive.
I take off my outer clothes leaving the corset and the white undergarment to be seen. With one hand, the sole person that encapsulates my entire audience slips a hand through his buttons and does the same. We face off, square each other with darkened eyes, and my stomach feels unusual, almost apprehensive with the mimicry of my gestures.
Outside, I am softening and the paleness of my cheeks, drained of colour, gives a little betrayal when Baines comes up behind me and caresses the underside of my right hand. My brows knit ever so slightly in worry, in consideration, as fingers move up the skin of my arm and brush the raised hair on the back of my neck. My prejudice is ebbing and there is the vision of a distant fork in the road.
I have not come to a decision yet, but today's lesson is a measure of what might become.
You touch clothing like I touch my piano. Perhaps you are not so illiterate after all; for day after day, whenever my daughter and I appear, you listen to me talk unconditionally.
And you kiss me on the bare shoulder.
And you kiss me on my dress.
You kiss me on my turned neck.
And my heart is playing so fast.
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F# (F Sharp). Our arrangement is halfway complete as of this moment. You are unhappy, so please listen to me. If the piano is my voice, then the boldness of the sound and the range of my stretched fingers will pronounce to you things my daughter cannot discern. Look, I shall stop my music to wonder where you have gone.
Oh! Um, lie down without clothes on? The price is ten keys. (If you keep surprising me with such acts I am convinced I will regress into a nail biter!)
Oh dear. Oh no.
.
And I think,
I am
Falling in love.
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Love reshapes his face into a figure I wish to know. Once the piano is back in my care the ghosts of words whispered into my ear settles into my braided hair and follow me back to Alistair's home. The environmental difference between my husband and my lover parallels their ideology and their land. Land is a possession to my husband, and to be free in the eyes of the other.
What do I want? What do I want? I stand on the outskirts of this small town, gazing outside looking into the natural beauty of the forests where the Maori live. A vastness grows in my bones and I ask Flora to practice in my stead. Ferns bend in the breeze, and I almost miss the pitiless harshness of the wind down by the shores of New Zealand. This country tempers me like a blacksmith, and I have yet to discern what kind of wife I will become.
So I run the back of my right hand against the keyboard, back and forth, and miss your presence; part my lips more when I sit down to speak for my speech is dry and salty. The music is changing.
And you tell me in spoken words how my heart is bleeding.
Oh, my love.
Thank you, thank you.
Yes, I will come back tomorrow.
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Wait, I can't. Alistair boards up the house with us inside so I can't go. And I try to be the submissive, household helper he wants Ada to be, but my nature denies his luxury. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I'm afraid I'm paid my share for this one. Attempts to become more affectionate towards my legal husband swivels around on its heels and frustrates him further – he cannot touch me.
I dream of you. Play the piano in my sleep. Gossip informs me you have become more Maori than gentleman, that you have forsaken the imperialism of the civilized world.
Alistair comprehends the basic idea of me now – my voice is the piano and the piano is my voice. But it is too late, always too late, and the speaker cannot win me over for anything. For that, Alistair Stewart, I am sorry. There is no happy matrimony, just despair.
The letter A. The start of me and you, and the end of my daughter Flora. Here I am, not knowing where you are, holding a small metal rod against the flame and inscribing a love letter to be sent to you. Because this key is part of the piano, which is part of myself - which in turn, desperately needs you.
But my child is not listening to me. Oh Flora, don't be jealous. This is something your mother cannot live without. Come here, my angel-winged one, and let me take you to the beach where you can look over the rolling fog and dream of our old home. Tell me what you wish, and I will listen. But please, don't stop listening to me. The fork in the road, she takes the other path and my hope is swallowed by the mud.
And Alistair! Angry with an axe in his hands! He is killing my hands, he is killing my piano!
My finger is dead.
Gone. Like the piano on the second day at the beach. Struck dumb like the lightening bolt that took Flora's father. Like the silence in my chest as I carve the familiar keys underneath the lace on the kitchen table. All the music inside me spoils, and
.
s i l e n c e
.
little moments
m-o-m-e-n-t-s
of pain and nothing but s-o-r-r-o-w
in the memory
o-f
a
l-i-t
( little )
- f i n g e r
My, little finger
.
ten little fingers standing in a row
you clipped
my wing
thinking that i
could no longer fly
i smell you, love. if i can't
see you, or
touch you,
or
hear you
there is this.
I am afraid of my will.
of what it might do
it is so strange and so strong
I have to go, let me go
Let Baines take me away
Let him try and save me.
.
I do not speak anymore
nor do I do my hair
the sheets of my life are
in a dreamlike state.
Flora returns to me
and we are leaving with you
speak not of what sorrow
there is between us
as we go back to shore.
.
.
The Maori help us, and I sit quietly watching them work.
You identify with them, just like I identify with you.
Feet press into the smooth sand where the seahorse once stood.
Accompanied by the singing woman whose tongue I do not know.
Flora, my dear daughter, do you remember our journey to New Zealand? The unusual smell of the ocean, the brashness of the waves? The voyage of the lost down into the belly of the natural world – that is the deathbed of my piano.
No more severed keys for closed hearts.
The ocean is beautiful, this underwater refuge for dreamers who are really outcasts in disguise. I sink down into the depths, miniature pearls of bubbles spot my milky flesh in disarray in my own method of tattooing.
My will has chosen life.
(EPILOGUE: Ada's Voice Over)
"I teach piano now in Nelson. George has fashioned me a metal fingertip, I am quite the town freak which satisfies! I am learning to speak. My sound is still so bad I am ashamed. I practice only when I am alone and it is dark.
At night! I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating above it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is; it is mine."
There is a silence where hath been no sound
There is a silence where no sound may be
In the cold grave, under the deep deep sea.
(Thomas Hood)