Read Online My Tango With Barbara Strozzi by Russell Hoban - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Russell Hoban
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complaint is, ‘When I have a blank sheet of paper in front of me I feel lost.’ For this I have committed to memory lines by Ryusui:
Mayoigo no
naku naku tsukamu
hotaru kana
The lost child,
crying, crying, but still
catching the fireflies.
A blank sheet of paper is a very dark night in which we lost children can’t help crying, I tell them. The thing is to keep catching fireflies. I constantly remind myself of that but this seems not to be a firefly season.
I listened to the first track of the
Enigma Variations;
the theme came out of a distant silence, veiled and mysterious, then it grew and unfolded, always in the light and shadow of the larger unplayed theme. OK, I have no right to expect anything but the unfolding. Maybe there’s nothing in it for me. That’s life, yes?
I cursed myself for being so dependent on Barbara. Lots of men get through life without a woman; why couldn’t I? Also, this might not be a permanent condition – she might be back. But I didn’t like being kept dangling like this. It was cold, it was grey, it was raining. Good. I went to the National Gallery. I stood on the porch for a few minutes looking down on Trafalgar Square. Spray from the fountains drifting in the rain. Red sightseeing buses. Nelson on his column, secure in his place above it all. That’s the way to do it, I thought, and went inside.
I’m a heavy user of the National Gallery. Depending on what condition my condition is in I usually know what I need for my fix. Sometimes it’s Claude, other times de Hooch or maybe van Hoogstraten’s peepshow or the van de Veldes marine paintings. But today I didn’t know what would do it for me.
I was drifting from one room to another when I paused in Room 41 at the Daumier that shows Don Quixote on Rosinante charging a flock of sheep while Sancho on Dapple quenches his thirst from a gourd. Daumier didn’t do any large paintings – they’re all medium-sized to small. This one was 40 x 64 centimetres and it was a sketch, not a finished picture. But the thing about Daumier is that all of his pictures, regardless of size, are
big
. And his sketches are usually the biggest of all because they’re the freeest and the quickly done chiaroscuro is nothing short of metaphysical.
I was thinking about Don Quixote and Sancho when a tall young woman took up a position a foot or two away. Her close attention to the Daumier already marked her as someone to be reckoned with and her looks did nothing to dispel that impression. She stood there shaking her head a little and moving her lips, then she took a pad of music paper from her rucksack, sat down on the floor, and began to fill the staves with notes and words.
‘Does this happen often with you?’ I said.
She held up a finger to pause me while she finished a bar. ‘All the time,’ she said.
‘Not only with Don Quixote or Daumier, then?’
‘I like Cervantes and Daumier both – this painting is what got me going just now but it’s not specifically a Don Quixote song.’ A slight South African accent.
‘Can you say what it’s about?’
‘Yes, it’s about being true to your craziness.’
‘Will you have a coffee with me when you’re ready to stand up?’
She got up from her cross-legged position without using her hands. ‘I’m ready now, but it’ll have to be a fast coffee because I’m due in Soho in three quarters of an hour.’
‘The cafeteria won’t be crowded now, so we can get one there quickly. Are you here for a visit?’ I said as we walked towards the Sainsbury Wing.
‘Three weeks,’ she said, ‘mostly talking to record company execs. Then I go back to Cape Town.’
‘Have you got a contract?’
‘My agent’s working on it. Are you American?’
‘Yes, but I’ve been living here for the last twelve years.’ By this time we were sitting at a table having our coffee and I was able to study her closely. Brown hair which she wore long and straight; blue eyes; large nose; wide mouth; high forehead.
Mayoigo no
naku naku tsukamu
hotaru kana
The lost child,
crying, crying, but still
catching the fireflies.
A blank sheet of paper is a very dark night in which we lost children can’t help crying, I tell them. The thing is to keep catching fireflies. I constantly remind myself of that but this seems not to be a firefly season.
I listened to the first track of the
Enigma Variations;
the theme came out of a distant silence, veiled and mysterious, then it grew and unfolded, always in the light and shadow of the larger unplayed theme. OK, I have no right to expect anything but the unfolding. Maybe there’s nothing in it for me. That’s life, yes?
I cursed myself for being so dependent on Barbara. Lots of men get through life without a woman; why couldn’t I? Also, this might not be a permanent condition – she might be back. But I didn’t like being kept dangling like this. It was cold, it was grey, it was raining. Good. I went to the National Gallery. I stood on the porch for a few minutes looking down on Trafalgar Square. Spray from the fountains drifting in the rain. Red sightseeing buses. Nelson on his column, secure in his place above it all. That’s the way to do it, I thought, and went inside.
I’m a heavy user of the National Gallery. Depending on what condition my condition is in I usually know what I need for my fix. Sometimes it’s Claude, other times de Hooch or maybe van Hoogstraten’s peepshow or the van de Veldes marine paintings. But today I didn’t know what would do it for me.
I was drifting from one room to another when I paused in Room 41 at the Daumier that shows Don Quixote on Rosinante charging a flock of sheep while Sancho on Dapple quenches his thirst from a gourd. Daumier didn’t do any large paintings – they’re all medium-sized to small. This one was 40 x 64 centimetres and it was a sketch, not a finished picture. But the thing about Daumier is that all of his pictures, regardless of size, are
big
. And his sketches are usually the biggest of all because they’re the freeest and the quickly done chiaroscuro is nothing short of metaphysical.
I was thinking about Don Quixote and Sancho when a tall young woman took up a position a foot or two away. Her close attention to the Daumier already marked her as someone to be reckoned with and her looks did nothing to dispel that impression. She stood there shaking her head a little and moving her lips, then she took a pad of music paper from her rucksack, sat down on the floor, and began to fill the staves with notes and words.
‘Does this happen often with you?’ I said.
She held up a finger to pause me while she finished a bar. ‘All the time,’ she said.
‘Not only with Don Quixote or Daumier, then?’
‘I like Cervantes and Daumier both – this painting is what got me going just now but it’s not specifically a Don Quixote song.’ A slight South African accent.
‘Can you say what it’s about?’
‘Yes, it’s about being true to your craziness.’
‘Will you have a coffee with me when you’re ready to stand up?’
She got up from her cross-legged position without using her hands. ‘I’m ready now, but it’ll have to be a fast coffee because I’m due in Soho in three quarters of an hour.’
‘The cafeteria won’t be crowded now, so we can get one there quickly. Are you here for a visit?’ I said as we walked towards the Sainsbury Wing.
‘Three weeks,’ she said, ‘mostly talking to record company execs. Then I go back to Cape Town.’
‘Have you got a contract?’
‘My agent’s working on it. Are you American?’
‘Yes, but I’ve been living here for the last twelve years.’ By this time we were sitting at a table having our coffee and I was able to study her closely. Brown hair which she wore long and straight; blue eyes; large nose; wide mouth; high forehead.
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