I hear the sound come in. It is one I have heard before. I had danced several times to its many renditions. They hadn’t been mine. They were those of my friends and recently, the very last of my sisters.
It reminded me of all those days, when we were little. It was like the rain dropping. I have always been fascinated by that too—tap, tap, tap. It is a sound that has kept me company many times.
Music now has come to be like that for me. Music playing, twisting through and through, they define it all: the sol-fa notes on and on punctuating heartbeats through pulsating notes of varying tempos. I am a music connoisseur and I can tell all the sounds individually. I can tell even where voices become mechanised or harmonised with some instrument or machine.
I am that good.
Music has come to define every life experience for me. It is and was always one song or the other—mostly beautiful tunes, especially those from the other sides, the other rooms. They were the blistering songs of the dance rooms where recklessness hit the floor as couples danced at first meets, the ease of casual relationships energising their bones in abandon.
The dances were often but many times, devoted. There grew the different types of music, mainly that of the ballroom, many times of two hearts flowing step by step in many styles—tangos and simple waltz, they were always perfect when it stayed two. Sometimes, it moved differently and seized with the intrusion of one more. Yes, I knew all the songs and I knew the dances. I have been there. I had been there.
You made most of it. I remember your genesis. Of course, I can tell the future from sound. But let us not lose rhythm. You. Yes, you. Your voice was surely the last thing to hold me or anyone. Your behaviour was something out from some savage place.
You were in every sense of the word, unbred—and I didn’t think it would be through to all the meanings of the word. I had placed you in the composition where you belonged—a tuneless song. You were rough and all but it didn’t mean you didn’t have brains. You were one of those silently brilliant ones.
We had come to be acquaintances and I took it you weren’t too bad a person. Rough and gruff but okay. I noticed the moves and started to think of a concert—that of a duo. It was the 12th of February, two days to the toast of Siamese heartbeats.
The lonely winds were all that were going to play for me that time. I steeled myself to watch on as others waltzed their evenings away. Many friends had come to tell me about who their partner would be. I sighed. The classics came to my aid drifting me away. It took me by surprise then when you said those words, out of nowhere:
“What will you say if I asked you out?”
There was noise everywhere but I answered immediately without thinking it over: “Yes. Okay.” In that second, I thought of how to change your chords and make you fall into tune. I looked at you in that second and discovered it would take so much work but I would try. In that very second, I thought all these and a new song started to play. It was one I had heard in the lives of many. It was finally going to be mine. Then, you blurted as immediate as my answer:
“I was joking.”
The song went flat—cut. Reflex? I simply changed the song back to the one playing before. Silence screamed as everyone turned to look at us. A few turned away after a while embarrassed on my behalf, perhaps. I ignored these people who heard you shatter the melody that had started building for me.
Those who would see me in a whole new light of wrong. You couldn’t have known at that time but I had built a concert in that second for you, the concert had started from the time we became acquaintances.
It really was reflex, as you pointed out later but you don’t just cancel a concert in session, or one about to be started, one newly created—ahh! Whatever. You don’t just do that and expect to have everything come back together in one breath! No.
Later, much later, you made more moves, becoming a far better musician than I ever thought. I smiled at the efforts but never let it get to me till the big bangs of graduation came our way. You had taught me in your earlier instant action that one had to be patient to let the other know the right sets of notes to make it work.
In love, there was no one hit wonder. You had to take time. All the way up to the wider world, you never stopped. You kept practicing and it seemed the tunes kept getting better. The thrill finally hit the spot and I knew I could say ‘No’ no more. You had learnt through the plays, teases and all. Even in my refusals, you had located the strings to my heart and now knew the exact chords – the way to play the tunes that were truly mine…
Yet…
I hear the sound now. I close my eyes and let my cardiac drums play the beats to my heart. I hear the music from the other room—I have heard it several times. This time, it plays in this room. I open my eyes and you are standing there, standing here, staring at me, hands proffered up, knees to the ground…
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Su’eddie Vershima Agema blogs at http://sueddie.wordpress.com and can be reached at [email protected], @sueddieagema on Twitter. The author of the short story collection, Bottom of Another Tale, Su’eddie was Joint Winner, Association of Nigerian Authors [National] Poetry Prize 2014.
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