Words Without Music: A Memoir (55 page)

The only way to do that, I eventually learned, was that, instead of trying to do it from the outside, I would have to work from the inside. I would have to hear the music
in
the place. In other words, when I’m looking for what that music would be, I find the music by looking at the subject itself.

When someone says “How do you write music for a film?” I say to them very truthfully, “I look at the film and I write down the music.” I don’t make music to go with the film, I write the music that
is
the film.

As for the pieces I’m composing now, I wouldn’t have been able to write them ten years ago. Not that I didn’t have the musical means—I didn’t have the ability to
hear
music in that way.

In an opera I recently composed based on Franz Kafka’s
The Trial
, the main character, Joseph K. is in the office of his lawyer. He is waiting to meet the lawyer, and also in the office is a man named Block, another client.

K. says to Block, “What’s your name?”

“Block, I’m a businessman,” the man replies.

“Is that your real name?” K. asks.

“Yes, why wouldn’t it be?” Block answers.

That’s a wonderful response: “Why wouldn’t it be?”

In the same way, now when I’m writing music for a theater scene, film, or dance event, I can truly say “Why wouldn’t it be this?” One can only say that from a place of understanding or even of knowledge about one’s relation to that particular theater scene, film, or dance event. This alignment is made through a conscious, nonverbal, contemplative activity. Once the alignment between oneself and the dramatic material is established, a link is made on a deep, nonconceptual level between the material and one’s inner musical voice. That link is the key, and when it is achieved, it is no longer necessary to make the music fit the scene, because the scene will fit the music automatically. In other words, the specifics of the scene will naturally accommodate themselves to the music because the music is already there.

From this point of view, the brain is the prism through which the music appears. When I say “I’m not thinking
about
music, I’m
thinking music
,” the music
is
the thought. The modality in which the brain is operating
is
music.

Tomo Geshe Rimpoche told me once that there is not just one universe, there are three thousand universes.

Right away I asked him, “Is one of them music?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Could I go there someday?”

“Hopefully,” he replied.

When he told me that, fifteen years ago, I thought that he meant “in some future reincarnation.” But perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he was thinking that in this very life I would be in that world. And now I’m thinking that
is
what he thought, and I feel that I’m closer to the realization of that than I’ve ever been before.

OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS, BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS.
Everything in between passes as quickly as the blink of an eye. An eternity precedes the opening and another, if not the same, follows the closing. Somehow everything that lies in between seems for a moment more vivid. What is real to us becomes forgotten, and what we don’t understand will be forgotten, too.

It is 1943 in Baltimore, a summer Saturday afternoon. My sister, Sheppie, is eight years old, and I am six. We’ve left our house on Brookfield Avenue and we walk down the sidewalk to North Avenue with my mother, Ida, and my big brother, Marty. We cross North Avenue and take a right toward Linden Boulevard. The #22 streetcar stops there, heading downtown on its iron rails. I will come to know it better because it is the same #22 that will take me to Mount Vernon Place and the Peabody Conservatory, where I will take my music lessons. But that is two years away and still unimaginable.

Halfway up the block we come to the barbershop. It’s like all the barbershops in every town in America, with the red, white, and blue striped pole spiraling downward. Inside we take our seats. The barber, a little fellow with a thin mustache, grins at us. This will be his show, he seems to say. And we know it, too. Sheppie takes her seat in the barber’s chair. There’s a little seat for her that fits into the big seat. Otherwise the barber wouldn’t be able to reach down to cut her hair. Marty and I watch intently. The barber dips his comb in a bowl of water and begins to comb her hair straight down. And slowly, slowly, her hair gets shorter. We know it’s a trick. He must be cutting her hair at the same time with the scissors in his other hand. But, try as we might, we can’t catch him doing it. So the haircut becomes an act of magic. He pretends the watery comb is shrinking her hair. It’s marvelous and we love it but, at the same time, we want to catch him tricking us.

Now, another Saturday six years later, Marty and I are downtown working in Ben’s record store. I’m twelve and he’s thirteen. Because it’s Saturday, the bank is closed. That means the money collected from radio repairs and records from the end of the week can’t be deposited that day. There is, though, a night deposit box, and if you have a business on Howard Street or Lexington Avenue, you may not want to leave cash in your store over the weekend. Really only Sunday, but still. . . . So what you have to do is make out a deposit slip and put it in an envelope with the cash and slip it down the opening of the night deposit box. Ben will get it all ready. He does that part in the back of the shop where John, the radio repairman, is fixing radios. Ben can fix radios, too, and he will start to teach Marty and me how to do it later when we’re a little older.

Now he does an absolutely astonishing thing. He fills out the deposit slip, stuffs it into the envelope with the cash (all bills), puts it in a brown paper bag, and hands it to Marty and tells us to take it to the bank. I ask Marty, but in a whisper, how much money is there. I’m sure he doesn’t know but he pretends to.

“Two hundred and seventy-five,” he says.

I’m terrified. But Marty has it all figured out.

We’re outside the store now. Marty gives me the paper bag (so nobody can see the official bank envelope and know we have cash). I walk ahead of him maybe three or four feet. My job is to not look nervous and just walk straight to the bank. This is the plan, this is how we always do it. He tells me not to worry, he will be watching me and will make sure nobody tries to rob me. I walk west on Lexington Avenue. Marty is right behind me. At Eutaw I take a right, and cross the street. The bank is now only half a block away. When we get there, Marty takes the bag from me and puts the bank envelope through the slot.

We breathe easy again. We both feel great and hurry back to the store. A little later Ben will take us to the deli near the corner of South Howard and Lexington for corned beef sandwiches and a root beer. He drinks seltzer.

Now it’s winter and Sheppie, Marty, and I are downstairs in the basement at Brookfield Avenue. We, all three, are standing in two concrete tubs. Usually this is where our clothes are washed. But it’s also where we get our baths. Maud is there, taking care of us. She helps Mom while Ben is away, serving as a private in the Marine Corps. It’s the war years and I must be five, Marty six, and Sheppie seven. Mom is upstairs making oatmeal for breakfast. The water in the tub is a little cold but it feels good.

And then, I’m sitting with Mom at my grandparents’ house. It’s only a few doors away from our house at 2020 Brookfield Avenue. We sit at a big table in the dining room. The house seems dark to me and, like my grandparents, very old. They are talking together, but not in English. Later I learn that it is Yiddish. If I pay attention I can easily understand them. But it’s just talk about work and relatives and a little about the war. That’s when they stop talking for a few minutes, just looking down at the table.

One weekend Ben is home from the Marine Corps. He doesn’t like to wear his uniform on leave and is wearing his regular clothes and no coat, just a jacket. We’re walking up to Druid Hill Park. It’s not too far from our house. Marty and Sheppie are back with Mom at home. Ben and I walk on up to the reservoir. There is a cinder-stone track all around it, and kids and parents go there to ride their bikes. I see some families nearby trying to get a kite in the air. Ben rents a kid’s bike for me. It doesn’t have training wheels, so he has to push it to get it going, and then, for a few seconds, it feels like I’m really riding it all by myself. He runs after me and we do it again, him pushing and running, me with my feet looking for the ground, and sometimes touching the pedals.

ILLUSTRATIONS