Ciji Ware (53 page)

“What a wonderful retreat,” Daphne exclaimed, sinking gratefully onto a pile of plush pillows. “This place definitely exudes a ‘Peel Me a Grape’ ambiance.”

Amadora tilted back her dark head and laughed appreciatively. “It’s certainly different for Natchez, wouldn’t you say?” She handed Daphne a glass of the white wine her guest had brought. “No hors d’oeuvres,” she announced. “I don’t want a thing to distract us from this curry I’ve slaved over.”

Amadora laid out the meal on a sideboard, buffet style. Beside the main dish was a large bowl of rice. Several smaller bowls were filled with condiments, including sliced bananas, pine nuts, minced scallions, chopped peanuts, currants, and a pungent mango chutney.

“I’ve mixed elements of Indian, Indonesian, and Thai cuisines,” she explained.

“Kind of a Far Eastern gumbo,” Daphne teased. “Mmmmm
…
it looks fabulous!”

An hour of dining and drinking later, Daphne felt relaxed enough to ask casually, “Amadora
…
tell me more about those theories you mentioned the other day. You said that there was actually some science behind the notion that music might be able to whisk you back to the land of golden goddesses?” She nodded toward the gilded statue nearby.

“She’s Thai, by the way,” Amadora commented. “Are you talking about my statement that the sound of the sitar has the ability to transport me—mentally—back to my father’s homeland?”

Daphne nodded again.

“Why do you ask?” Amadora inquired, gazing at her guest intently. Though her dark, expressive eyes invited confidence, Daphne hesitated.

“When I play the harp,” she replied finally with an affected shrug, stalling for time, “sometimes the sound of the vibrating strings has
…
well, you know
…
created another world for me, too.”

“For the listener, as well as the musician,” Amadora agreed.

“And sometimes, when I’m singing and playing, it’s almost as if my body is also an instrument—kind of a vibrating tuning fork—and I’m feeling
my
reactions to the music as well as something of what the audience must be experiencing hearing the same notes. It’s as if we’re all
connected
through hearing the same sounds.”

“There are those in Eastern cultures who take this sense of connectedness one step beyond,” Amadora said slowly. “They believe the vibrations produced in one era—through music, speaking, crying, screaming, laughing, and so forth, don’t ever end, but continue to vibrate forever, connecting people throughout time. After all, the human body is ninety percent water, and water is one of the best conductors of sound.”

“And everybody knows that music, especially, evokes nostalgia,” Daphne added, thinking of the moment when the strains of “Frère Jacques” had sent her thoughts careening back to her childhood when Cousin Maddy sang to her and played the harp.

“One theory is that sound is a kind of audio album of our shared human experience,” Amadora proposed, “a species of memory that’s beyond the merely rational.”

A
species
of
memory?
Daphne was suddenly dumbstruck by the notion that musical phrases might encode a record of past events. An audio album, indeed.

Amadora stood and scanned the bookshelf behind them. Selecting a volume, she resumed her seat on a crimson pillow and asked, “Have you ever read
Molecules
of
Emotion
by Doctor Candace Pert?”

Daphne glanced at a cover that looked rather like a medical school text. “No,” she replied.

“Well, for me, Pert’s research is the underpinning for a theory to explain the phenomenon of the sitar creating in my mind a sense of the sights and sounds of India when I play. You’d have to read it yourself to learn about neuropeptides—in other words, chemicals produced in the body—and the way they attach themselves to cells in the cerebrum and our other organs,” she advised, pointing a vermilion fingernail to her skull. “Scientists now understand that memories can remain
lodged
in the nervous system inside the cells’ ‘receptors.’”

“Sort of like in a cellular filing cabinet?”

“More like sticky cellular lily pads,” Amadora replied, laughing. “In brain studies, Pert also found that strong emotions—along with reaction to trauma—can activate a particular circuit in the brain’s cortex that retrieves a certain kind of memory.”

“You mean like those post-traumatic stress reactions experienced by Iraq and Afghanistan vets, even after they left the war zone?”

“Right,” Amadora said approvingly. “What if those kinds of traumas and strong feelings and memories were not only stored in the brain, but encoded in
cells
—and thereby inherited by the next generation in their DNA?”

“Wow
…
What a concept. Your grandmother is rescued from a fire and you are born with a deathly fear of bonfires?”

“Something like that,” Amadora replied, smiling. “And since the flute, the drum, and the harp are the oldest instruments known to humankind, the memory of
their
sounds may actually be indelibly imprinted in almost everyone’s deep memory.”

“Oh, my God,” Daphne murmured.

“And perhaps,” Amadora continued, her own excitement evident, “these sounds—or the
memory
of these sounds, encoded in the cell receptors of early humans—have been handed down over the ages, along with physical traits like blue eyes or big feet.”

“I’ve wondered about that, too. So when a harp vibrates—what?” she queried, her confusion returning.

“Perhaps those vibrations tap into memories not only that have accumulated over your lifetime, but also the memories of those who went before you.”

“Unbelievable! But you’re the first person I ever heard describe an experience at all similar to
…
to mine. Why doesn’t everybody experience this?” Daphne asked, suddenly dubious.

“Perhaps non-musicians and non-music lovers don’t have the same opportunities to encounter this phenomenon of being ‘transported,’ so to speak, as do people like you and me who are in the music world,” Amadora suggested, refilling Daphne’s wineglass. “We’re exposed to music every day. Our flesh and bones—being the excellent conductors of sound that they are—may allow us to pick up on the ‘vibes,’ as it were, and thereby access sights and sounds and emotions, stored on a cellular level, that are similar to what our ancestors experienced.”

“This is all so
…
amazing,” Daphne said quietly. “The chemistry of memory
…
” Slowly, shyly, she began to relate the unworldly events that had happened to Sim Hopkins and her, and spoke, too, of their burgeoning relationship.

“So, are you saying,” Amadora asked somberly, “that the first time you heard that harp playing by itself, your friend Sim did too
…
and at the same hour of the night?”

“It was a different harp in a different parlor across town from Bluff House
…
at Monmouth Plantation
…
and both of us heard it after midnight some time, but yes, we
both
heard ‘Frère Jacques’ being played on the same night by a harpist who wasn’t there. And besides the same family names popping up, there are some other bizarre parallels.” She then gave Amadora a brief recitation of the mother-daughter conflicts that existed between Antoinette and her today, and Daphne Whitaker and her mother, Susannah, generations before.

“As for Daphne, the harp-playing ghost,” she said grimly, “from what I’ve seen so far, this lady’s life was pure hell.”

“It sounds as if the woman you were named after used music as an escape.”

“Exactly. And from that first night when I believe I heard her playing, onward, various sounds—music, birdsong, clattering dishes, sounds in
my
world that also existed in my ancestors’ day—seem to act like some magic carpet sweeping me back in time. It’s as if I’m viewing a video of the
other
Daphne’s life, recorded in sound and picture nearly two hundred years ago.”

“And has Simon Hopkins continued to experience this as well?” Amadora asked.

“I don’t know,” Daphne said slowly. “He hasn’t said he’s heard anything after that first night. And anyway, he’s from an old-line family in San Francisco. So as far as I know, none of these folks I’ve encountered are relatives of his, even though there was a family named Hopkins around here way back when.”

“You two are lovers and you haven’t discussed these encounters?” Amadora asked, incredulous.

“Not since we first met.” Daphne blushed.

“Well,
I
suggest you do.”

Daphne shook her head. “He’ll think I’m loonier than he probably already does.”

“Not if he’s experienced it too,” Amadora insisted. “Was he forthcoming about the experience at Monmouth?”

“Yes,” Daphne admitted thoughtfully. “He raised the issue before I did.”

Amadora gave a satisfied smile. “I like the sound of this man.”

Daphne lowered her eyes and stared at her wineglass. Suddenly, the strangest thought entered her head.

I
don’t like getting left!

She thought about her last, uncomfortable conversation with Sim. On some deep level, she’d felt that he’d left and wasn’t coming back. That was her problem in a nutshell, and always had been, she thought with a growing sense of wonder. The other Daphne “got left” in the most traumatic way possible: her father committed suicide and her mother suffered depression from all those pregnancies spaced too close together and the trauma of her other children dying in infancy.

For reasons Daphne understood much more clearly now, her own mother and father had also “left” her in a sense. Daphne and her namesake might as well have grown up as orphans for all the parental nurturing they received as children.

“What a legacy,” Daphne murmured. “Generation after generation of Whitakers, Claytons, and Duvallons abandoning their nearest and dearest either physically or emotionally.”

“Ah
…
but that’s just it, don’t you see? By this strange gift of yours, perhaps you will learn that there are other choices we humans can make as we go along in life. We need not be condemned to cause or endure the same pain.”

Daphne sat quietly for a long moment, her eyes slowly filling with tears.

“What is it, Daphne?” Amadora reached out and touched her arm.

Briefly, the younger woman sketched for Amadora the sorry tale of her relationships with Rafe Oberlin and Jack Ebert.

“Well, it certainly sounds as if you’ve chosen more wisely this time with your Mr. Hopkins,” Amadora said kindly, handing Daphne a tissue.

“I wonder,” she said with a sigh, thinking of Francesca’s acid comments and Sim’s on-the-road lifestyle. Daphne took a sip from her wineglass. “I can’t believe we’ve just met and we’re just sitting here like normal people calmly discussing this crazy stuff.”

“It’s not crazy,” Amadora said sharply. “Use what you’ve learned here, tonight, and be grateful for it. It’s happening to you for a reason.” She gathered several books into a stack and handed them to her visitor.

“Is that what Eastern religions believe?” Daphne asked, pointing to the golden statue. “The ‘there are no accidents’ philosophy?”

Amadora smiled indulgently. “Yes
…
that’s part of it. But the psychologist Carl Jung also wrote on similar themes. I urge you to make his work your next reading assignment after you finish these books,” she said, laughing at the stack Daphne held in her arms. She patted the younger woman’s shoulder. “Many of us with this special awareness are on parallel but distinct paths. Yours is just more interesting than most.”

“Hmmm
…
” Daphne replied noncommittally.

“And also,” Amadora encouraged, “you could do some checking of your own with local historical records to see if any of the details of your experiences can be verified.”

“And if they can be? That might scare me even more!”

“My guess is that, once you satisfy yourself that these people actually lived and had lives similar to those you’ve viewed through this amazing lens of yours, you won’t call these experiences ‘crazy’ anymore, and your anxiety will subside. Like many seers of other dimensions,” she said with a mischievous smile, “you’ll merely come to accept this gift and eventually to be thankful for it.”

“Maybe
…
”

Amadora clapped her hands briskly, as if she were asking for the attention of a roomful of musicians.

“Let us now have some
chai
and discuss the order of music to be played ‘For the Birds.’”