Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje [24]
She came into the open field, where there was a woman, and also a man, sitting in a straight-backed chair, accompanying her on what looked to be a guitar. They didn’t see her at first, but they must have sensed something—a sudden quietness in the trees above her, perhaps—for the woman turned and, when she saw Anna, stopped singing and strode away, leaving the man alone in the open field.
France had meant a quiet and anonymous time for Anna. Apart from the visits of Monsieur and Madame Q, she saw no one. And there was nothing in the house of the writer to remind her of North America. She was escaping the various aspects of her professional life—acquaintances, deadlines, requests for prefaces—all of which, if she were in her real world, would be essential duties. The only thing that had truly jostled her in the time she had spent so far in the Gers region of France was the group of men at the crossroads with their dogs, the men’s tongues lolling in parody and their fists twisting in the air as she walked away. She felt at ease in the modest house, her curiosity almost aimless, as if she were beginning a new life. She was enjoying the process of filling a notebook with fragments and even drawings, something quite apart from her research. If there was the sound of a bird through the open door by her table she would try to articulate it phonetically on the page. She did this whenever she heard one clearly enough. And when she leafed through her obsessive notes, Anna would find a series of chords of birdsong, or her drawing of a thistle, or of the Qs’ Renault.
The man with the guitar had turned his head to look at her. Feeling she needed to make a gesture to avoid being rude, Anna moved forward to say something, and he watched the uneven grass she crossed as she approached him.
Hello. I’m sorry.
As if she had come here and interrupted him to tell him she was sorry!
One thing, she felt completely safe. It was not the obvious fact that he was holding a guitar and not a weapon, it was his look, as though he had been just taken from refuge, and she was now insisting him back to earth. While she walked those last few yards towards him, she realized she must have also heard his playing when she entered the clearing, a subliminal hum and strum, a rhythm and a melody—which was why the woman had needed none in her song. The woman was accompanying him. So now it was as if everything she had heard was being replayed in her memory, recalled differently. He had been the one drawing her into the clearing.
It was a tattered guitar. When she got close she could see his hands had been bitten by insects, were scarred. His clothes, which had looked formal from a distance, were unironed, muddy at the cuffs; the waistcoat had lost buttons. But it was the hands that were too lived in, overused.
She looked in the direction the woman had gone, and saw a caravan in the shadows, within the trees.
This was the same clearing where Anna and her friend Branka had stood the second night after her arrival at Dému, more than a week before. The grass had felt like a flat receptacle then, a moon pasture. She was wearing a sleeveless dress, had just done a cartwheel and scooped up some golden broom, which had been colourless in that light. She’d had no awareness then that there was a caravan or any inhabitant in the vicinity, save for herself and Branka, who had driven her down from Paris. Branka, an architect, was staying for only a day. It was she who had helped Anna arrange the rental of the writer’s house, through a contact in her firm. They had walked back to the manoir, clambering over the low brush, finding gaps in the hedges that were clear in the moonlight.
If Anna came any closer to the man with the guitar, she would be encroaching on his territory. If she remained more than four paces away, it would signal a fear, though there was none. He seemed a contained man, and he had one arm over his guitar as if it were a favourite hound.
I interrupted you, I’m sorry. But it was beautiful.
To be truthful, she hadn’t really felt that. It had been