Read Online Above The Thunder by Renee Manfredi - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Renee Manfredi
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Also, for those in the Beethoven sequence, don’t forget to tease out the gray wigs. Think big. Think bird’s nest. Think half-crazy genius.” Greta held up a picture of Beethoven, his hair going every which way. “This is the look we want.” Greta turned back to the children who were filing in. The older ones were in costumes of giant foam-rubber ears, their faces painted black and surrounded by Spanish moss to represent the opening of the auditory canal and the cilia within. The little kids were dressed as ears of corn.
The music was in a 2/2 time signature and turned up so loud Anna’s eardrums ached.
The ears of corn swayed in a line at the front like a field with wind rippling through it, albeit a kind of rap wind, Anna thought. The children in front sang loud, with a pitch that Greta taught them to feel first in their diaphragms before sending the vibrations up to recreate the sounds in their throats. Anna was amazed. The harmonics were remarkable given no child had any idea what the next child was singing.
The kids in front sang: “We are corn. We can hear. We listen to the kernels around our ears.”
The older kids, the human ears, stood behind the ears of corn and sang in counterpoint to the child in front. This was the part that was especially difficult, Greta had told Anna. The human ear singers couldn’t lip-read to determine where, lyrically, the ears of corn were. The vibrations the human ears felt had to be mostly ignored, since they indicated the main melody line, not the harmony they were singing. But Greta had, miraculously, managed to pull it off. The whole production, Anna understood, was about faith, each child believing the vibratory sounds he made would harmonize with the whole.
A girl representing the wind—long diaphanous streamers tied to a gauzy gown—scampered around the stage and pretended to whisper to the ears of corn. The human ears bent toward the vegetable ones then began to dance and sing, this time without music. The story line here was something about how silence was the way of animals and plants, and the manner by which wisdom was channeled from heaven to earth. The creatures who used language heard only dumb mumbling.
The finale showcased three Beethovens who entered from stage left,one with a viola and two with violins. The trio played the first movement of Beethoven’s fifth. Eyes straight ahead, without sheet music, and without any mistakes that Anna could hear. The performance ended with the wind coming back and announcing: “Magic is the child of Faith.”
“Okay,” Greta said, and signed, clapping along the whole row of children to show her appreciation. “Very, very good. Beethovens, perfect. Let’s do it one more time through.”
Anna caught Greta as she was rewinding the cassette tape. “I’ll be back to pick you up before five.”
Greta nodded. “Nifty, huh?” she cocked her head toward the children and grinned.
“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is.”
Anna still had over two hours before her meeting at the hospital. Insomnia always accelerated her pace; she moved faster through the world, did things in less time than when she was fully rested. She drank a cup of coffee, then went into an enormous bookstore and wandered aimlessly through the aisles for an hour before landing in Travel/Adventure. A book of essays written by women who hunted big game caught her eye. The cover depicted a middle-aged woman beside a dead bison, holding up the animal’s head as though she expected it to smile. Anna skimmed through it, put it back, then picked it up again and tucked the book under her arm. There was another about a woman who had hunted antelope in Africa. She would buy this one, too. She had never in her life been interested in hunting, very rarely even ate meat, so why she was buying these two books—three, now, as she spotted an autobiography of a woman deer hunter—or why she was picking up a flyer attached to a shelf about a women’s hunting
The music was in a 2/2 time signature and turned up so loud Anna’s eardrums ached.
The ears of corn swayed in a line at the front like a field with wind rippling through it, albeit a kind of rap wind, Anna thought. The children in front sang loud, with a pitch that Greta taught them to feel first in their diaphragms before sending the vibrations up to recreate the sounds in their throats. Anna was amazed. The harmonics were remarkable given no child had any idea what the next child was singing.
The kids in front sang: “We are corn. We can hear. We listen to the kernels around our ears.”
The older kids, the human ears, stood behind the ears of corn and sang in counterpoint to the child in front. This was the part that was especially difficult, Greta had told Anna. The human ear singers couldn’t lip-read to determine where, lyrically, the ears of corn were. The vibrations the human ears felt had to be mostly ignored, since they indicated the main melody line, not the harmony they were singing. But Greta had, miraculously, managed to pull it off. The whole production, Anna understood, was about faith, each child believing the vibratory sounds he made would harmonize with the whole.
A girl representing the wind—long diaphanous streamers tied to a gauzy gown—scampered around the stage and pretended to whisper to the ears of corn. The human ears bent toward the vegetable ones then began to dance and sing, this time without music. The story line here was something about how silence was the way of animals and plants, and the manner by which wisdom was channeled from heaven to earth. The creatures who used language heard only dumb mumbling.
The finale showcased three Beethovens who entered from stage left,one with a viola and two with violins. The trio played the first movement of Beethoven’s fifth. Eyes straight ahead, without sheet music, and without any mistakes that Anna could hear. The performance ended with the wind coming back and announcing: “Magic is the child of Faith.”
“Okay,” Greta said, and signed, clapping along the whole row of children to show her appreciation. “Very, very good. Beethovens, perfect. Let’s do it one more time through.”
Anna caught Greta as she was rewinding the cassette tape. “I’ll be back to pick you up before five.”
Greta nodded. “Nifty, huh?” she cocked her head toward the children and grinned.
“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is.”
Anna still had over two hours before her meeting at the hospital. Insomnia always accelerated her pace; she moved faster through the world, did things in less time than when she was fully rested. She drank a cup of coffee, then went into an enormous bookstore and wandered aimlessly through the aisles for an hour before landing in Travel/Adventure. A book of essays written by women who hunted big game caught her eye. The cover depicted a middle-aged woman beside a dead bison, holding up the animal’s head as though she expected it to smile. Anna skimmed through it, put it back, then picked it up again and tucked the book under her arm. There was another about a woman who had hunted antelope in Africa. She would buy this one, too. She had never in her life been interested in hunting, very rarely even ate meat, so why she was buying these two books—three, now, as she spotted an autobiography of a woman deer hunter—or why she was picking up a flyer attached to a shelf about a women’s hunting
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