Author's Note:
I was helped in writing this today by the Met Opera's live radio broadcast of Tosca. Thanks to songstersmiscellany for her help with fleshing out the operatic conversation. I am a string player, not a vocalist, so any inconsistencies in my descriptions of opera are all my own.
"Neuropathy" is a neurological symptom that can occur from too much drug use (either prescribed or illicit), and it is characterized by numbness and tingling in different parts of the body, especially the fingers and toes. Prolonged cocaine use can lead to neuropathy, which would be especially undesirable for anyone who needs to use their fine motor skills often, like a violinist or other musician.
"Proprioception" is the sense that one has of one's body parts in relation to one another.
Syncsister: I am so enjoying your comments and wish that I could respond to them. Please feel free to send me an email at emmadelosnardos at gmail dot com so that I can respond more in depth. Ditto for anyone else who is anonymous; I'd love to hear from you and to be able to reply.
December 30th
"How do you feel about opera?" Sherlock asked, over a late lunch at a ramen shop near the Museum of Modern Art. They had both been bored by the exhibit of Diego Rivera's workingman murals, and John hadn't been impressed by the de Kooning retrospective, either, though Sherlock had wanted to see it for a second time. They had retreated from Rivera's trite images of Mexican peasants and Detroit steel workers to grab a quick lunch before spending another afternoon at the U.N., tying up loose ends.
John pointed to the long string of noodles hanging out of his mouth, indicating that he couldn't answer.
"In general?" John responded at last.
"Yes."
"Can't say that I've had much experience with opera, apart from the occasional program that Harry dragged me to from time to time, the last time we were both living in London before I was deployed."
"Your sister likes opera?" Sherlock wrinkled his nose.
"Yes. She thought it made her look cultured if she attended once and a while. And as long as she wasn't dating anyone else, I, unfortunately, was her opera companion."
"Unfortunate because of her, or unfortunate because of the opera?"
John looked up from his soup. "Unfortunate because of her, Sherlock. Champagne during intermission, that kind of thing."
"She got drunk at the opera?" Sherlock asked, shocked.
"Not drunk, exactly…just a bit too ebullient. And then once the alcohol wore off a bit, she tended to fall asleep on my shoulder during the last act."
"How classy," Sherlock observed.
"Quite. So forgive me if I don't have the best impression of opera."
Sherlock leaned back in his chair, interlacing his hands behind his head as he looked upon John with affection.
"Then I am the lucky one who gets to introduce you to the genre," Sherlock said. "That it, to opera the way it should be. As a spectacle. For the audience, that is. Not a spectacle in the audience." He cleared his throat and moved his forearms to rest on the table. "I think you'll like Baroque opera."
"I'm sure I will," John said, a bit dubiously. "But first: what do you like about it, Sherlock?"
"Besides the cross-dressing and the bel canto arias – you'll never hear richer voices – and the impossibly bifurcated plots, and the dramatic contrasts in the dynamics, and the—"
"OK, I get it, I get it."
"No, you don't," Sherlock contradicted. "I haven't even begun to explain. Opera, especially Baroque opera, is all about fantasy and performance and impossibilities. It's a way for us to inhabit, even if just temporarily, another world. To see the great human emotions – love, hate, jealousy, fear – depicted by larger-than-life characters. It's humanity at the extreme. Not unlike murder, if you look at it a certain way."
John almost dropped his chopsticks. "Opera is like murder?"
"There certainly are enough deaths in opera. The lovers' deaths of Aida and Radames; Mimi's death from consumption in La bohème; Tosca's famous fall to her death…"
"None of those are murders, Sherlock."
"Perhaps not, but that's not the point, John. If you want operatic murders, we could start with Ulisse killing Penelope's suitors, or Tosca killing Scarpia, and don't forget about Siegfried in the Ring Cycle; he was quite murderous, that one. The point is that opera, like murder, is driven by the extremes of human emotion. And if you think that humans don't kill each other for love anymore, if you think that such hyperbolic behaviours went the way of damsels in distress, then a basic study in forensics will prove you wrong."
"I see. So, opera and murder. Bedfellows of sort. Lovely, Sherlock. But don't forget, you are talking to an ex-soldier here," John reminded him. "I'm quite familiar with the extremes of human emotion."
"So you should love opera, John. It's perfect for people like us."
"Like us?"
"You know, the under-stimulated, counter-phobic, thrill-chasing sorts of people. Doctors and soldiers and detectives and sociopaths and—"
"You are not a sociopath, Sherlock." Sherlock laughed loudly.
"No, I'm not. But I might have been, if I hadn't had music." John tilted his head to look at him curiously.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Music stopped me from completely hating humankind." In a low voice, almost so low that John could not hear him, he continued. "And it stopped me from hating myself."
"Is that so?" John spoke softly, as if reluctant to interrupt Sherlock's train of thought.
"Yes. There was a time—"
Sherlock looked at John, holding the other man's gaze.
"You probably thought that I stopped using drugs because of the Work."
"Yes," John admitted. "You always implied as much."
"That wasn't why," Sherlock said. "Or rather, that wasn't the whole of it." He held his left arm out, unbuttoning his shirt at the wrist so that he could pull his sleeve up and reveal the scarred crook in his elbow to John.
"I know, Sherlock," John said. "Despite what you think, I'm not completely blind."
"You've never commented on them."
"I was raised to think that it's rude to comment on another's appearance. Especially if that appearance includes scars from injection drug use."
"I wouldn't have minded if you had asked," Sherlock said, almost with a pout.
"So I should have asked, then?"
"You might have," the detective said softly. Yes, you should have asked me. You should have asked me about something this important, because I know that this isn't the kind of thing that you could ever deduce about me, John Watson. Your powers of observation don't go that far, but like you have so often said to me, I don't want you to just deduce me, either. I don't want you to think, 'Sherlock, ex-junkie,' and then move on. I want you to ask me what went wrong, and what I did to make it right. I want—
"Tell me now, Sherlock. What made you stop using?"
Sherlock blinked. "Odd," he said slowly. "That's not what people usually ask."
"What do they usually ask?"
"Why I started using."
"That's the same story for everyone. Or nearly everyone. Some loss, some unsatisfied longing in your life, messed up neurotransmitters. Yes, I need to know about that, too, about why you started. But I find it more interesting to know what changed you. What made you stop using. Because that's what makes you unique, you know. That's what -"
"It was the music," Sherlock interrupted. He grew quiet.
"The music?"
"Yes, the music, John. What don't you understand about that?"
"No need to snap at me."
"Sorry." Sherlock sighed. "It's hard to explain."
"Try me. The music—are you saying that you stopped using because of music?"
"Yes."
"I don't understand. You have to give me a little more, Sherlock."
"I stopped using because of the music. For physiological and psychological reasons."
John raised an eyebrow. "Physiological?"
"I developed peripheral neuropathy."
John let out a whistle. "In the fingers, I'm assuming."
"Yes."
"And so—so you couldn't play?"
"I had no control over my left hand. My vibrato sounded like a whining nanny goat." John laughed. "And I couldn't feel where my fingers were in relation to one another."
"Your proprioception was also affected," John noted.
"Exactly."
"So this meant that you were still playing violin throughout your addiction?"
"I don't know what idea you have of an addict, Doctor Watson, but I can assure you that I wasn't your typical one. I was working on Sibelius's violin concerto—"
"There's no typical addict. Just tell me about yourself. From what Mycroft and Lestrade have told me, I just thought-"
"Thought that I was really poorly off? Thought that I was wasting away in a hovel somewhere? Unconscious and lost to the world?" Sherlock frowned.
"Something like that, yes," admitted John.
"It wasn't like that, John, and before you can think that I'm 'in denial' about it all, let me explain."
"Go right ahead." John said, spreading a hand out in front of him as if urging Sherlock to continue.
"I was working on Sibelius's violin concerto. I was scheduled as the soloist for a Cambridge-based orchestra; quite a good group, I'll have you know, no ordinary student ensemble. I was several years out of Uni and had made a bit of a reputation for myself as a violinist. Gigs here and there, at Cambridge and in London, Edinburgh, the like. Mycroft and Mummy thought I'd pursue it further. And the coke helped, at first. Improved my concentration. Helped me stay alert for late-night rehearsals. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary there."
"Right."
"Right. It was winter, a morning rehearsal, when I began to notice the tingling in my fingers. I had taken an early train up to Cambridge, hadn't slept a wink all night. High as a kite. I arrived a few minutes before the concert mistress started to tune the orchestra. Oboist played her long A, and I went to tune my strings, just as usual. Noticed that my fingers were trembling. Fingertips were cold, etc. Typical symptoms of neuropathy, if I had known what to look for at the time. In any case, couldn't get a grip on the fine-tuners on the higher strings. Kept slipping and going flat. Passed my instrument to the concert mistress, told her my fingers were cold. She tuned my violin for me, as if I were a child again. Ridiculous. The rest of the rehearsal was a disaster."
"Were you able to play?"
"Yes and no. I feigned illness and left."
"Sounds embarrassing."
"To say the least."
"And then?"
"I thought the tingling would go away as soon as the drug was out of my system. And you know that it didn't of course."
"Neuropathy's not short-term, as side effects go."
"Right. Extrapyramidal dysfunction—no easy fix. Central nervous systems requires time to re-establish homeostasis. But I didn't know what was happening." He paused. "Before you look at me like that, John, consider: I was an addict. I didn't want to know what was happening. I didn't do my research. Thought it would be fine once I came down from the high. And it very much was not fine." Sherlock paused. "I couldn't play for a year," he said, almost as an afterthought.
"A year?" John asked, a bit shocked.
"Yes, a year. There went the Sibelius, there went the music. For one long, silent, lonely year. The year that I got clean."
"So you got clean because you wanted to be able to play again?"
"I got clean because I needed to play again. I couldn't live without the music. Everything became very clear to me, that afternoon when I was riding the train back to London, my violin tucked away under my seat where no one could see it and comment on how lovely it was that I played. I knew then that I had to choose. I could live without the drugs; I had done it before. But I could not live without the music."
"Whew, Sherlock," John said. "That's intense." Sherlock shrugged.
"Not really. Not more so than anyone else's story of overcoming addiction."
"Yours is definitely more dramatic than most. Not everyone stops using because of art."
"It's more common than you think, John. The connection between art and intoxicants is long-established. Baudelaire, de Quincey, Wordsworth. Take your pick."
"You're talking about artists who start using, Sherlock, not about those who stop. How many have driven themselves to suicide? Probably more than those who choose the art over the drug."
"You make me sound like some noble figure. The exception to the suicidal poet."
John reached out and took his hand. "You are noble, Sherlock. And exceptional. Brave. Talented. You are an incredible person and it does not surprise me in the least that you would stop using because of your art."
"Even if it's what started me using in the first place?"
"Even so." John sighed. "God, Sherlock, you have no idea how amazing you are, do you? I mean, you know that you're a genius when it comes to solving crimes. We all know that. But can you really tell me that you had no idea how unusual it is to choose art and life over an addiction? That that was the reason you stopped using? How extraordinary that makes you, that you were able to do that?"
"I am fortunate," Sherlock said carefully. "I had something that was worth living for. Or, something that I thought was worth living for, at the time."
"What do you mean?"
"I've never been able to play the same way again. The neuropathy is gone, but I don't have the same skill that I once had. And when I realized that I might never get it back, I was fortunate because that was around the time that I started to assist Lestrade. There were other things to keep me occupied, then. The Work, I mean."
A thought occurred to John, a hypothesis that he wanted to try out.
"Sherlock, is that why—is that why I never really heard you play until we'd been living together for a year? Is that why I only ever heard you sawing away at the violin at Mycroft? Because you couldn't play?"
Sherlock gave a little shake of the head. "What? That? No, no, John, no that. I just wanted to annoy my brother."
"Was that really it?" John's voice was tender and hesitant.
"No, John, you're right. That wasn't it." Sherlock looked away from him, spinning a chopstick between his fingers with amazing dexterity.
"If you can do that to a chopstick now," John said, pointing, "I can't imagine what you were like before the cocaine."
"Some people compared me to Paganini," Sherlock said.
"Not a bit humble, are you?" John asked.
"Why should I be?"
"Humility is becoming, you know."
"I do recognize my own limits, John. I said that people compared me to Paganini. Compared: past tense. They wouldn't be able to say the same, now."
"But I have heard you play those Bach concertos, or whatever they were."
"The Sonatas and Partitas. The violin concertos are something else altogether, much lighter and more flippant. But you heard me playing the Sonatas and Partitas. Bach's solemn music. Music of loss. That's what I play now. Music of loss." Sherlock laughed bitterly.
"Music of loss?"
"Bach wrote those pieces after the death of his wife. At least, that's what some musicologists with an overactive imagination have said. But there's no denying that the Chaconne is one of the most melancholy pieces that was ever written for any instrument. And what is melancholy if it is not mourning for a lost object? That's what Freud would say."
"Forget what Freud would have to say on the subject. You lost something, Sherlock, with the drugs. I had no idea you were so talented. And though I'm not a musician – my clarinet playing never amounted to much – I think I do have some idea of what it's like to lose a skill that you have, a skill that you've worked years to acquire."
Of course you know, Sherlock thought to himself. Of course you know what it's like to lose your abilities at something. Your shoulder, the injury, your tremor. You know John, and I continually forget that about you. You have seen and lived through so much, and anything that I have lost or anything that I have ever wanted, you have probably lost something similar, or wanted something similar, and that is why we are so right for each other. Because the missing pieces in our hearts correspond.
To John, Sherlock said, "I know you know what it's like, John. You lost so much when you were invalided."
John looked up at Sherlock, his eyes wide and blue and honest.
"Yes. I lost so much, Sherlock, and I was so alone. And then I met you. And the rest, as they say—"
"No trite words, John. I know the rest." Sherlock took John's other hand, so that their fingers were now intertwined.
Sherlock grinned at him. John looked at his watch. "Speaking of loss, I think it's time that we headed up to the medical school before we lose any more time."
"The dead aren't in any hurry, Sherlock," John joked. "But you're right, my friend probably wouldn't appreciate us turning up too late. The last thing I want to do is keep him there all night with us and a hundred dead bodies."
"Exactly." Sherlock stood to leave, releasing John's hands as he did so. "The dead can wait, but the living cannot." Sherlock paid at the register, then turned to wink at John. "Are you coming?"