Tales of Monsters and Angels

6. The Nightingale

It is May; the month of flowers, warm sunlight and bottles of wine shared during long walks by the Siene. Or so my memories tell me. I have none of that now. Somehow it no longer interests me.

Work on the new opera, the Nightingale, consumes my daytime hours. I am either in the music pit well below the ground or practicing my violin in my tiny apartment with its single window. So much for sunlight. I hardly miss it, though.

By May my world is one thing only. A mistress like no other, not that I'd known too many mistresses. My nights were all that mattered and I spent them as often as I could afford at a different sort of pit far underground. The opium den was a few cobblestone streets away from the opera house. A world that is all that exists for me in May.

And no matter where I set out for in the evenings, I am drawn inexorably to its doors.

***

The opium pipe calls to me, beckoning with wanton fingers. It needs me as much as I need it. Scents intoxicate me, a mixture of sweat, Oriental spices, and tobacco.

Clouds of smoke hover overhead. I watch in mild interest as some ghost-like creature nestles up close and whispers a thousand little lies.

Tendrils waft away, creating a stairway to the sky. Yet who are those worthy enough to make that trip?

We are certainly going the other way.

The girl curling up at my side reaches for the pipe. She wraps her lips around the end and brings the glow to life with a soft inhale.

The pipe needs us for its own life. It cannot live if we do not breathe for it.

She speaks to me again, smokes pouring dragonlike from her mouth.

"Tu es beau," she whispers.

One of the sweeter lies she tells me. I have seen her before, but never so close. There are several girls who wander through the crowds of reclining opium smokers, bending over them to light the pipes or refill them, or to help bring the dreams that steal into their minds.

How long she stays with me as we exchange the pipe, I cannot say.

The girl, or is she a woman, such a tiny frail thing, and white as the powder the dancers rum on their pointes leans into me.

A candle glows nearby and by its light I see the woman is from as far away as the opium. She has traveled far to be by my side. She smiles, but does not show her teeth. All she reveals is a tear rolling from her tell-tale Asian eye. Eyes as black as the hole I've crawled into.

The rest of her is white – a strange, unnatural white. I rub a few loose strands of her hair and find powder on my fingers. I rub her cheek and neck expecting to find powder on her skin, so shocking is her pallor.

But pale as snow is her natural color.

Black eyes, white skin and ruby, blood red lips painted to be as glistening as dew on the rose.

She gives life to the pipe and begs me to play my violin. The violin needs me as I need it. For life.

"One song? I ache to hear you play," she lies softly. "S'il te plaît."

I cannot resist. After the pipe, my music is my strength and love.

It is May and we are rehearsing for the opening of The Nightingale. An unusual music that is becoming the score to my soul. Bitter sweet dissonances, the elusive promise of happiness that flutters always just out of reach. A spectacle of actors on a stage while the true performers – the truth itself – hide in a pit and out of sight. Here I am in hell, playing for the angels as my dreams slip through my fingers.