My Tango With Barbara Strozzi (8 page)

‘What are you?’ she said. ‘A hypnotist?’

‘Please forgive my staring. I’m a writer. What’s your name?’

‘Constanze Webber. What’s yours?’

‘Phil Ockerman. I doubt that you’ve heard of me.’

‘Oh, but I have. I was watching
The Culture Show
the other night and Germaine Greer said that
Hope of a Tree
was a shallow male fantasy that didn’t add up to a novel.’

‘An opinion shared by one or two others,’ I said.

‘Still, the title from Job intrigued me. Does your man feel like a tree that’s been cut down?’

‘Are you an Old Testament user?’

‘Now and then. Job is one of my favourite books. He bears his afflictions with style.
Does
your man feel like a tree that’s been cut down?’

‘Yes, he does.’

‘There’s a copy of
Hope of a Tree
at the house where I’m staying. I’ll read it and I’ll probably like it.’

‘And you so young and apparently unafflicted. How old are you – twenty-four, twenty-five?’

‘Twenty-five. There are all kinds of afflictions, Phil. They don’t always show. How old are you?’

‘I’m forty.’

‘Forty seems very far away from where I am now. I can’t imagine where I’ll be at that age.’

‘The years have a way of sneaking up on you,’ She looked at her watch. ‘I must go.’

‘Can I see you again?’ I said.

‘All right – I’ll be with friends in Wimbledon for the rest of this week; you can phone me there.’ She wrote the number on a napkin. ‘Then I’m going back to Cape Town for a couple of weeks. Don’t get up, stay and finish your coffee. See you.’ And off she went. I’d have liked to walk her to Soho, all five foot ten of her, but she’d clearly told me not to so I finished my coffee and had another, this time with a cheese Danish.

When I got home there was a card saying that Royal Mail had tried to deliver a parcel. I went round to the sorting office to pick it up: a bat-shaped box from Louisville, Kentucky. I carried it back to the house as if it were a loaded gun. I took it out of the box and there it was, my GENUINE
Barbara Strozzi
LOUISVILLE SLUGGER. Blonde wood. Ash? Thirty-four inches long. I weighed it on the kitchen scale: one kilo. Long, heavy, dangerous. I got a good grip on it, took up my stance, looked towards the mound, knocked the dirt off my spikes. Pitcher looks in for the sign, nods, goes into
his windup, and here comes Troy Wallis, right over the plate. No, no – only kidding. I leaned the Louisville Slugger in a corner and sat down at the word machine and thought about Job for a while, how one day Satan showed up with the sons of God and when the Lord asked him where he was coming from he said, ‘From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.’ That’s the heart of the matter right there – he’s always around ready to lead the unwary into mischief with the first available Constanze or whatever else offers. And of course idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, everybody knows that. ‘So let’s get cracking, Phil,’ I said. ‘OK,’ I answered, ‘just warming up in the bullpen.’ I put the
Enigma Variations
in the player, picked up the phone, ordered a pizza from Domino’s, opened a bottle of The Wine Society’s French Full Red and poured myself a glass. Put
The Rainmaker
in the video, and when the pizza arrived I ate it, drank about two thirds of the red, fell asleep in my chair halfway through the film, and dreamed that Constanze Webber was walking far ahead of me through a dim and narrow space. ‘Wait!’ I shouted, ‘I can explain!’ She looked back once, then turned and walked on. I woke up and dialled Barbara’s number. ‘Barbara?’ I said when the phone was picked up at the other end.

‘You have a wrong number,’ said a tight voice.

‘I meant to say Bertha,’ I said. ‘You must be Hilary.’

‘And who are you?’

‘Phil Ockerman, I’m a friend of Bertha’s.’

‘Odd that you couldn’t remember her name.’

‘Anyhow, is she available?’

‘No, she isn’t. Goodbye.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I said to the silence.

I was sitting in my TV chair then with my hand on the round part at the end of the bat handle. I moved the handle around as if it were the control stick of an aeroplane. Then I wrote down the telephone number of Jimmy Maloney’s, put on a jacket and went out to the Fulham Road.

I stationed myself near the bus stop diagonally opposite the club and looked at the big man standing in the doorway. Dark suit, dark polo neck. Did he have a plaster on his head? Couldn’t see one. Took my mobile out of my pocket and dialled the number. ‘Jimmy Maloney’s,’ said a growly voice over a lot of background noise.

‘Is Troy Wallis on the door tonight?’ I said.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Nobody he knows. Somebody gave me a message to give him. Is he there?’

The bartender or whoever it was hung up. I kept my eyes on the door and saw a man who looked like a bartender come to where the bouncer was and talk briefly with him. So that was Troy Wallis. About six four, fourteen or fifteen stone. Right, thanks very much.

I’d read in the paper that Mercury would be low in the west and Venus out of sight. Not too comfortable
with that. The moon was in its first quarter, the vernal equinox only three days away. I looked up at the sky and made out Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Polaris, Cassiopeia, and Draco. Draco looked aggressive. I was too ignorant to identify the other constellations. I felt uneasy with the forces affecting me and longed for some guidance from Catriona.

I thought of the Louisville Slugger leaning in its corner, saw the name
Barbara Strozzi
engraved on it. I hadn’t listened to her music for what seemed a long time and now I hungered for it. I walked home through the Friday-night noise in the Fulham Road, then through the quiet of the path between the common and the District Line. An Upminster train rumbled and clattered past, people printed on the windows as on a tin toy. Crowded but lonely, that train. Maybe all the passengers were headed for a pleasant evening or even a good time; but the train was a lonely tin toy.

At home I put on the
Arie, Cantate & Lamenti
disc. The voice of Mona Spagele came out of the silence with ‘L’Eraclito Amoroso’. Up and up it circled, obedient to Venus and the moon, to the planetary spring tides and neap tides of love and the death of love. The song was a lament but the beauty of it was Strozzi’s thank-offering for being alive. One doesn’t beg for constant guidance, I thought; one gives oneself and takes what comes.

Well, yes. That had a good sound to it but what did it mean exactly? Getting up from my chair to pour myself
a drink I knocked the top book off the nearest stack:
Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems
. As it hit the floor it fell open to pages 462 and 463. I picked it up and read:

A Noiseless, Patient Spider

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my soul where you stand,

In measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you need will be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my Soul.

‘You’re the man, Walt,’ I said, and as a change from Glenfiddich pour’d myself a large Laphroaig. While getting myself around the smoky peat-bog flavour I considered where next to fling my gossamer. Constanze had written a song about being true to your craziness. OK, I thought, and rang the Wimbledon number. A young South African male answered.

‘Hello,’ I said, ‘this is Phil Ockerman. Is Constanze available?’

‘Hang on,’ he said, and put the phone down to shout, ‘ ’Stanze! It’s for you.’

Constanze appeared presently. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Phil Ockerman.’

‘Oh,
Hope of a Tree
.’

‘Actually, it’s hope of seeing you before you leave for Cape Town. Is that possible?’

‘I’m kind of pressed for time. What did you want to see me about?’

‘I wanted to hear more about your music.’

‘Oh. What for?’

‘I’m a writer – I get interested in all kinds of things.’

‘Ah, professional interest.’

‘That, but mainly I just want to see more of you – I’m being true to my craziness.’

‘That’s all very well, Phil, but it takes two to tango.’

‘It also takes two to have a conversation and a coffee but never mind. I’ll see you around. Or not.’ I rang off.

‘I’m embarrassed for you,’ I said to myself.

‘Twenty-five-year olds!’ I replied. ‘What do you expect?’

The phone rang. ‘Hello,’ I said.

‘It’s me, Constanze. I don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow until late afternoon. Can you meet me at Putney Bridge tube station at eleven?’

‘OK.’

‘See you then.’

I listened to Barbara Strozzi for a while before going to sleep and dreaming of a foreign city with very wide streets and cold northern sunlight.

The next morning was sunny and mild. Constanze was right on time. ‘I’ve brought some music with me,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit by the river while you listen.’ We went into Bishop’s Park, and from a bench near the bridge watched an eight stroking past towards Barnes, bright droplets falling from the oars on each return and the coxswain’s voice coming to us small and urgent over the water.

Constanze handed me her little CD player and headphones. ‘Here’s a working recording of one of my songs called “Blue Mountains”.’

I started the disc. Over the sound of instruments tuning up Constanze’s voice said, ‘“Used-To-Be” take three.’ After a short silence there was the wavering melody of a flute, then a violin and a cello came in over a quietly pulsing drumbeat. I imagined a distant escarpment under a wide sky. The flute faded out and the strings and drums continued under a woman’s voice speaking low and breathily, as in the intimacy of the small hours. A naked voice making itself heard in the darkness. At first I thought it was a black woman, then I recognised the voice as Constanze’s:

Kopelo, kopelo e e iketlileng mo tsebeng ya moja
Ee, kopelo ee ritibetseng e le runi
Jaaka phala ya selemo se se fetileny mo tsebeng yame
Sona Sepoko, ke go raa ke go raa
Ke tlaabo ke aka go rileng?
Sone Sepoko sa maloba-le-maabane Aiyeeah!

Understanding not a word, I was filled with a great sadness. ‘What language is that?’ I asked.

‘Setswana,’ she said. Her voice on the disc paused. The music came up and she sang with it wordlessly and very low. Then she continued speaking:

Aiyeeah! Kutlobotlhoko ya sona ta se opela
Sona Sepoko sa maloba-le-maabane!
Se a opela, Se a opela sona sa fa loapi le ne le tlhapile,
dithaba di boitshega letsatsi ke bosigo jwa lona
di ya lolololo dinoka di elela!

The music changed, the drums became more urgent. Constanze’s voice went higher and the words came more quickly:

Utlwa fa ke go rao Nao, O itse tsa moloba-le-maabane
Kwa re tswang gona mmogo, fa lorato le ne re aparetse
le tletse mo pelong tsa rona, aiyeeah!
Le kae jaanong, le sietse kae?
Gore loapi le be le thibile jaona, dithaba di sa
ntsikinye, dinoka di kgadile jaana! Aiyeeah ka
iketlo mo tsebeng ya moja kopelo ya sepoko sa
moloba-le-maabane. Mo tsebeng ya molema go utlwala
fela kgakalo ya dikgang tsa sesheng, pherethlano
mo mebileng le modumo wa tse di fetileng
.

Always the sadness came to me in those words I couldn’t understand. The vowels and the consonants had a life of their own that seemed also to be my life. I remembered how it was when Mimi and I were first in love, the newness of the world. And I remembered the sadness when love had gone and we stood in a dry riverbed. The flute was alone again and I could see for miles. High overhead a hawk circled, sharp against the blue. The violin and cello and drums came in and over them Constanze singing in English:

Singing, singing tiny in my right ear,
in my right ear only, yes! Singing tiny
like the summer’s last cicada in my ear,
a ghost! That’s what I’m telling you –
why should I lie? The ghost of used-to-be!
Aiyeeah!

Her voice was thrilling, with a wildness under the words that sometimes almost whispered, sometimes soared. The sound of the instruments and her voice together seemed layered with before and after:

The sadness of it singing there, that
ghost of used-to-be! It sings, it sings of
when the sky was very wide, the mountains
were magic, a day and a night were for ever
and the rivers never dried up.

Hearing the English now with the Setswana behind it I smelled the sun-warm grass, tasted used-to-be on my tongue.

Now Constanze’s was more urgent as the words came faster:

Hear what I’m saying! You know that used-to-be,
you know we lived there, you and I, when love
was with us, when love was in our hearts, aiyeeah!

Where is it now, where has it gone, that the sky
has become little, the mountains nothing special,
the rivers all dry? Aiyeeah!

Tiny in my right ear sings that ghost of
used-to-be. Loud in my left ear is the news on the
hour, the traffic in the streets, the roar of
all-gone.

Silence and the sound of traffic on Putney Bridge. I opened my eyes. There was the river and I was in London again. ‘You look sad,’ said Constanze.

‘“Used-To-Be” is a sad song,’ I said.

‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘That was meant to be “Blue Mountains” in the player. I didn’t mean for you to hear “Used-To-Be.”’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m still working on it.’

‘Is there a ghost in your ear, Constanze?’

‘Always. Africa is full of ghosts.’

‘So is every place. I was wondering if the song is about a particular used-to-be in your life.’

‘Can we talk about something else?’

‘Sorry for the intrusion. It’s a beautiful song and a terrific performance. Is anyone else doing anything like this?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘How did you become so fluent in Setswana?’