All The Chords In A Man

Shulhun

Do Re Mi already sounds like proper music, he thought, plain and simple, without an inkling for his yesterday, with the traffic on Victoria Island and his wife calling fervently to ask when he was going to be back home, without his harrowing thought of what would happen if he returned with empty pockets, if a single sale was not made. The consequence would be silent, and quiet, and maybe comforting, as Mide was a lovely woman who endlessly assured him he would make it in the paper business. She never grumbled or threw a tantrum, on days now too many, when he pulled into the driveway and spent several minutes in his car, relieving the just-concluded day.

Should I have asked him to take fewer pieces for a higher discount?

Was I very pushy about my firm being able to do just better than everyone else?

Maybe I could have worn the blue tie with the black striped shirt, for an extra air of confidence.

All these thoughts rummaged his mind relentlessly, as he wondered where he was getting it wrong, and pondering on what the solution could be. Isn't this the fervent conflict with failure, he thought, the assumption that a different route, or a separate approach, would make enormous differences, and that you just are not doing certain things properly. After all, with success, a few simple words instantly sound wise and effective, because you reflect the ideas made, you are a walking proof that miracles and progress truly exist, and it becomes obvious that you practice what you preach and are very good at it.

Now, the implication would be his dialogue with the soup bowl Mide serves him when he manages to make it to the table. The soup would spin and twirl, and be unsteady; it would clash to the edges of his bowl in all of the places chunks of meat should be. It would remind him of work, as he would see the inscription “Made in China” at the bottom of the bowl, made clear in all the spaces vegetables and an assortment of nta nta, a variety of ingredients should be, and would cover up, if they had enough money.

Made in China was a phrase that now offered him fear and hope; every bundle of paper he had to sell was neatly stamped with this inscription, and if it was a great day of work, he would smile if it ever came to his mind, and even wish to visit China someday in the future.

The most hurtful episodes were days when Mide would give him the best of what she had prepared, eating very little herself, with this genuine but mindlessly wrecking act of kindness sending belts of pain to his stomach.

When they met at the University of Sunderland twelve years ago, he was majestic, with a scholarship and so much promise, and she had loved him just as he was. But as everyone knows, or should—is love not a mixture of pleasure and promise, of prospects and possibilities, of magic and satisfaction?

Now, with everything gently being rubbed away and sized down, up to this apartment that did not fail to remind him he was miles away from the young man that she had fallen in love with, he quietly wondered if she would make the same decisions, if she would turn her back on her family and jump on the airplane with him, all the way back to Nigeria. He never said these thoughts out loud, but they pressed on him like stamp posts to a mail, and it was his intention to say them loudly someday, at the opposite edge of his current reality.

He imagined it as something like this:

“You know, I wondered if I still made you happy, and if you ever wished you could turn back the hands of time.”

And she would laugh, in the way only she knew how to, ever so light and soothing. Many times, he had joked that if she were ever a shrink, all she would need to do to cure the worst of illnesses would be to laugh and laugh until her patients suddenly shared in the euphoria, suddenly shared in the peace and healing, she so often could bring.

He imagined that she would laugh and reassure him of her commitment to this union and relationship, and he would thank her for believing in him.

But he had to arrive first, at the opposite end, wherever it was.

****

They say God gives gifts like fruits, and if you are lucky enough to have yours become well sought after, circumstances can take a different turn.

He knew the piano from when he was a little boy, with every chord, every note, like drops of water on his searching soul. His friends had always called him an artist, a title he had been reluctant to accept. After all, what really makes the artist? The constructs and strings wrung together in the deepest of pain and misery, the sounds formed amidst tear drops so that the artist is able to exhale and survive, are still seen as incomplete without the confirmation of an audience. To simply create and reserve does not strip the art from its essence, but the soul of whatever you have just made very often seeks to heal the hearts of others and not just yours, and there can be a serious beckoning to allow this sound, painting, or poetry find all of its meaning. And this conundrum was the reason why he wrestled with the word “artist.”

This was something he had never really done. His friends knew he could make music. Mide was his huge fan; on several evenings she would lay on the couch and have him render a piece. The aftermath would be her applauding, or silent sobbing, but he played the same sounds over and over again, so that he was quite surprised that he was able to pull these emotions from her even after all the years. He knew he should stretch himself further, beyond the Moonlight Sonata or Rondo Alla Turca of Mozart; he should lay new walls that would extend further than Clair de Lune and lay rocks harder than Billy Joel’s Piano Man. He should make his own music. He could move towards his Fa So, which is when the music awakens the deep ends of a man, and speaks with the toughness of a father, the faithfulness of a mother; when it relives buried pains and desires, and makes a cocktail of the past, present, and future, which he had been scared to embrace through the years. He was aware that if an artist is willing to see the light and dark, very often good music can be formed within the confluence of both.

But most importantly, it was dawning on him that it was music over paper sales.

So, he had signed up to the Music Gala in Ikotun, with trembling hands and with this reconciliation that he would finally allow the music lead him down cobblestones and billboards, past the energetic boys hawking items by the roadside, and across the mainland bridge. Mide was beside him on the drive to the venue, in her velvet skirt and flowery white blouse. She had her hair rolled backwards so that her high bone and dimples became evident as she talked. This reminder of how beautiful she was served for extra conviction, and wasn’t she his best music yet, he thought.

After all, what really makes the artist? The constructs and strings wrung together in the deepest of pain and misery, the sounds formed amidst tear drops so that the artist is able to exhale and survive, are still seen as incomplete without the confirmation of an audience. To simply create and reserve does not strip the art from its essence, but the soul of whatever you have just made very often seeks to heal the hearts of others and not just yours, and there can be a serious beckoning to allow this sound, painting, or poetry find all of its meaning. And this conundrum was the reason why he wrestled with the word “artist.”

They arrived to a serious crowd of people, littered everywhere, and were quickly approached by a bulky boy with a cigarette in his mouth, not puffing on it, so that he had one eye closed and the other reddened by the smoke fumes going in. He seemed in a hurry.

“Are you Emeka?” he asked.

Once he confirmed he was indeed Emeka, he was led into an extremely large hall, with seats laid out in a high rise so it seemed like a stadium of some sorts. Just then, the announcement was made through the public address system that the event was about to begin. They were ushered backstage and informed that since it was his first time out, he was expected to open up the show and would be going first.

The crowd started to crawl into the hall and slowly fill up the seats, so that within minutes he could see they were in their thousands, from the left rows to the right, and the middle section, all the seats were being occupied.

He could hear his breathing, with Mide’s hands pressed into his. He was an artist in this moment, about to take his piece of work, moulded and carved from all of the conflicts of his life; about to breathe on his white papers and dreams, and to let his fears and hopes pour out from within, as art has always been able to do.

Professor Muller came to his mind, his arts teacher from his elective course.

Muller was one of those lecturers that would walk into class with a green apple and begin a conversation about why a performance piece must sound like biting into an apple; and although you eat from the outside, the very sweetness that hides within its soft inside is what fills up your mouth. The crunch could be, for instance, the percussion beat that walks you into the heart of the sound, but all of the outsides really do not matter if you do not eventually arrive at its core. Your audience deserves this arrival, your equal vulnerability with the music you present, so that it resonates and remains, with the unison from the violin, cello, harp, and then the piano.

He wondered why he was thinking of Professor Muller—there were no drums here or harps, and certainly no green apples.

Professor Muller came to his mind, his arts teacher from his elective course. Muller was one of those lecturers that would walk into class with a green apple and begin a conversation about why a piano piece must sound like biting into an apple; and although you eat from the outside, the very sweetness that hides within its soft inside is what fills up your mouth. The crunch could be, for instance, the percussion beat that walks you into the heart of the sound, but all of the outsides really do not matter if you do not eventually arrive at its core. Your audience deserves this arrival, your equal vulnerability with the music you present, so that it resonates and remains, with the unison from the violin, cello, harp, and then the piano.

az

Just then the lights were turned off so that only the beam light on the stage remained. The same boy who had received them earlier, climbed onto the stage, and after a brief introduction, he heard his name being called out. He slowly walked into the light, with the crowd receiving him with their utmost silence.

He sat on the seat in front of the brown piano, and was not surprised to see his famous three-letter word on the piano: Made in China.

He embraced the silence, and his hands followed. They pressed into the white and black of the piano, fast, fast, slow, slow, slow, fast. He danced from the stool, although sitting in one position, but certainly in a way he had always known how to, with his fingers. He felt a tear drop to the piano, and then another. The piano was beside him and everywhere, it was in his fearful childhood and dreamy youth, it was in his ramshackle office in Ebeda, it was with Mide, it was in his paper packs; the piano was in his hopes, it was with him.

It pierced through his heart. His hands and fingers moved very quickly now, and because of all the light on him, the audience had become a sea of darkness. It felt like he was all alone in this place. He played into days as a child, when he was scared of this very same darkness, but without the lights on him. He pressed on both ends of the piano, as if trying to distil the dark, while the sounds poured out, and then it was over.

What followed was a brief moment of silence. And then a thundering applause like he had never heard before. People in their thousands clapping so hard and endlessly. Even the bulky young boy was grinning from ear to ear at the edge of the stage.

Mide rushed towards him in an embrace.

The clapping refused to stop.

He was sobbing heavily now, and barely managed to take a bow. The sounds all around him were rather new. This was a different kind of ending, the slow fade of appreciation that stays within you, lighting candles and scents in your heart and walking you down corridors and paths where you are bound to encounter new starts, and finishes. Each leaving the artist with a freshness and desire to keep creating, and pouring out, after all, it is never about a cup staying full, but the satisfaction in where it has poured into, and how it chooses to tilt itself over, if it smears its rim, or is laid so neatly, if it pours out until it runs over table tops, or maybe, just serves in sips and gulps. In every way possible, there can be beauty made through art. This was his La Ti Do, the assurance that there has been an arrival, and there will be another beginning even when the performance ends.

Copyright

All content on this blog belongs to me, with express credit given in situations where pictures are outsourced. Content should not be reprinted or republished without my consent. Please email for approval. I am open to my content being shared elsewhere as long as my consent is given first.

dumebiphil@gmail.com