P.R. Seitz Bookseller: Stories

Deaf Orchestra

As Astrid strolled into the common kitchen of International House, she smelled the aromas of onions and peppers sautéing in the iron casserole. When she caught sight of the illicit wine bottles lined up along the stove, she smiled. Diego had somehow managed to smuggle them past the keen eyes of the resident assistants. Actually, this wasn't so hard, since the RA's were guilty of pilfering a glass or two on Friday nights.

On Fridays, the Supper Club gathered for its weekly Saternalian rites. Astrid took a mental picture of the room, noting the balloons that filled the ceiling and the hallways leading down to the basement. As if Diego had just nudged her in the ribs and winked, she understood the language of the balloons. Diego had filled the halls of house with them from the high Moorish ceiling of the living room all the way down to the cellar where they would descend after supper for dancing and intimate conversations.

Astrid took off her shoes and placed her hands on the wall. As she suspected, there was music in the background; someone had put on a CD. The cooks were already dancing to the lounge/dub beats of a Lebanese band. From the resonating walls and floor, Astrid felt the rhythms of the drum through the soles of her feet and palms. As the vibrations flooded up through the floor, penetrating her body, she swayed to the syncopated beats. Slowly, at first, she began to move to the sensual rhythms of the dumbek, rocking in time to vibes she heard only in her head. Watching her, Diego jumped up, grasped a balloon off the ceiling, and bounced it towards Astrid, who caught it in mid-flight. Feeling the flesh of the balloon between her fingers, she sensed the high and low tones of the oud and dumbek, playing counterpoint to each other.

As the music eased into a slow, sinuous taxim, she suddenly remembered her first date with Diego. Of all things, he had taken her to a concert. His strange obsession with music didn't phase her much; she'd had a lifetime of feeling her way into sound. But this was her first concert, and she had no idea what to expect. Diego refused to tell her where they were going or who the headliner was, but he promised her that this concert would be special. Not wanting to reveal the surprise too soon, he led her in blindfolded. When he finally removed the ribbon of cloth from her eyes, she looked around excited and expectant.

The first thing she noticed was the coterie of deaf kids lining the stage. She was stunned at first. The deaf community was so small that she immediately recognized several kids. The odd thing was that they were all carrying balloons -- giant balloons that bobbed above their heads in a fantastic array of whimsical color. She signed excitedly to the kids she knew, "Hey, what's with the balloons?" But no one answered, as the lights grew dim and the band began to saunter on stage. The last person to enter the scene was a tall, red-haired sorceress, cradling a pair of percussion sticks between the fingers of one hand. Barefoot and poised, Evelyn Glennie crossed the stage, stopping before a massive drum.

Fascinated, Astrid drew in her breath as the percussion sticks rained down on the drumhead. She heard the conversation between drummer and drum as it electrified every pore of her body with sound. She watched the skin of the drum pulse like a giant lung…felt the air thicken with the rhythms of her own beating heart. Then, as if she had bitten the proverbial Madeleine, memories flooded up with the call-and-response as the other musicians joined in. Like all teenagers, she had spent hours in her room dancing to VERY LOUD music, driving her hearing parents insane. She could almost heard their desperate shouts: "TURN THAT DOWN!" She felt the vibrations in ordinary objects all around her, as a passing car whizzed through the wine glass in her hand. On rainy nights, the hollow wooden door frame was an Andean rain stick, her father's guitar a Peruvian drum. From a young age, she realized that all objects breathed; she felt their unique rhythms deep in her core.

As the band heated up, Diego pulled a shriveled, red balloon from his pants pocket and began to blow it up. When it had fully expanded, he held it out to Astrid like some strange, enticing flower. As he tied the knot, she took it between her fingers, and all at once, she felt it: a sudden, visceral connection with the music that was unlike anything she had experienced before. The balloon vibrated like a giant lung that concentrated all the sounds in the stadium, allowing her to sense individual tones and confluences of sound all at once. Through the balloon, Astrid heard the sounds of an entire orchestra in her head.

That night, they pulled down every balloon they could find from the I-House rafters, and filled Diego's bed with them. Diego put on his favorite jazz album: Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds. As they lay there, blind and naked in the dark, they felt their way to each other through a sea of balloons. Giddy with excitement, they felt the pulse of an entire universe thrum through the lungs of the balloons that filled their bed.

© 2007 Lisa Pelletier

Lisa Pelletier

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