What is inner music?
Aha!
Funny you should ask, because I’ve just developed an interesting theory (when you don’t talk all day, you have a lot of time to develop theories).
This is how it goes: everyone has his own basic internal music that’s always playing inside his body, with the volume turned down, and that music is what determines the pace at which he thinks, loves, writes and gets enthusiastic (I just added the enthusiastic thing because of my inner music). If you stop reading and close your eyes for a minute, you can hear your own inner music (or the upstairs neighbour yelling at her kids). Anyway, that inner music affects the kind of external music we like. Usually, people look for external music that goes well with their inner music. For example, someone who’s full of wild music will buy CDs that fit that wildness, that give it the appropriate background, that balance it without being too different from it. Someone whose inner music is full of hidden tension will seek external music that’ll dissolve the tension. The same thing is true of people. If you think people choose their mates because of the way they look or how much money they have or how clever they are, you’re wrong big time. A first date is actually a concert. People eat, drink, recite their CVs to each other, but the whole time, they’re really only listening to the inner music of the person sitting across from them. They see whether they can play their music together, hit the right chords, and only then do their hearts decide. Later too, couples don’t stay together because they have interesting conversations or because she’s different enough from his mother or he’s similar enough to her father, but because their inner music fits together over time, and if it doesn’t, if it’s too similar or too different or too noisy, the courts won’t help. And relationship counselling won’t help. At some point, it’ll be grating, either to him or to her.
Or not. All theories flounder when it comes to love. Like, you write to me that instead of bringing you closer, the apartment in the Castel only pushes you and Noa farther apart. Does that make sense? OK, she’s blocked on her final project and you’re upset about the club, but you still go to sleep together and eat spaghetti with student-style sauce and scream ‘Nirvana Unplugged’ together (I got it here from some American, truly a fantastic CD). Don’t you?
I hope it works out for you. Don’t throw it all away and stop playing music together. After all, like you wrote, Noa gets into your soul the way no other girl ever did before. And she’s wild about you. I saw the way she looks at you when you talk. And I saw the way you look at her when she dances. Ah! That’s the problem with these letters. The crazy delay. I’m writing these things about Noa, and who knows what might have happened by the time you get it. And with me too. I’m writing to you about Nina, and by the time you get this letter, she might be back in the Czech Republic.
Meanwhile, thank God, she’s sleeping in my bed. The blanket’s trapped between her legs and she’s hugging the pillow. Her inner music — slightly indistinct, slightly drifting — keeps playing even in her dreams (what is she dreaming about?).
I’m sitting on the table and carving on it so that later I’ll have proof this week really happened. (I hear you saying, so you actually do need words. There’s something to that.) Through the window, I can hear an occasional rumble from the direction of the volcano. The last time it erupted was two years ago. The city was covered in ash and people breathed through surgical masks. Ever since, there’s a disaster-on-the-way feeling in the streets, and every time the volcano gives a little cough, people stop and cross themselves (they believe that the volcano is a god, the god of fire, and that the Christian cross works with him too. It’s amazing how everything’s all mixed together here.).
Anyway, tomorrow morning we’re leaving for Lake Atitlan, so I hope the volcano won’t erupt tonight, our last night here.
I hope I didn’t dump too much stuff on you (I just had to speak Hebrew with someone).
(And I’m sorry about all the parentheses in this letter. I just reread it and got scared.)
Love,
Modi
P.S. (I remembered something important.) What’s happening with Hapoel? The last time you filled me in, we were in fifth place. How far down have we gone since then?
*
I have an exam, Amir said. But you promised, I reminded him in my most poor-me voice. Besides, this is the last time Hapoel is playing at Teddy this year! No it isn’t, he said, trying to argue with me, there’s still the state cup games. You’re wrong, I insisted, even if both teams get to the semi-finals, the game’ll be in Ramat Gan, not Jerusalem. You know what, he said, you’re right, but I still didn’t think he was convinced, so I thought the word ‘yes’ really hard like I used to do when I wanted Gidi to take me to a game. I’d repeat the word ‘yes’ in my mind four straight times. And Amir really did smile and say OK, but on one condition, and I thought he was going to say that I had to behave better in school because it was hard enough for my mother and father as it was. But instead, all he said was, I want you to swear that you won’t tell anyone in the stands that I’m a Hapoel fan, or else I’m a goner. I laughed, put my hand on my shirt pocket and said OK, I swear. On Saturday, wearing my black trousers and yellow shirt and the scarf he bought me, I knocked on the door and Noa opened it and said, we’ve been waiting for you, and asked me to come in. Today’s the big day, isn’t it, she said. Amir suddenly popped out from behind her and said, yes, today’s the big day for Shalom Tikvah, three-nil for Hapoel thirty minutes into the game. You wish, I said, three-nil for Beitar, three goals for Ohana. Noa said, you’re both losers, and Amir started jumping and singing, ‘He’s a loser, he’s a loser, he’s a loser’. I sang along with him, waving my scarf around my head like a cowboy, and Noa said, I have to get this on film. I thought that was a cool idea, and I started posing for the camera, holding my scarf stretched out between my hands like on TV, but Amir suddenly stopped jumping and said in a not very nice tone, you don’t have to photograph everything, you can just remember. Noa got insulted and said, OK, I won’t bother you, and went into the kitchen. All of a sudden, I remembered the note she wrote to him about how, lately, their words get tangled up, and I wanted to make peace between them. Right then and there, I wanted to make them link their fingers and make up, but I thought that if I couldn’t do it with my parents, why should I be able to do it with them. So I decided to forget the idea and said to Amir, are we going? Come on, he said, and opened the door. He didn’t say goodbye to Noa, so I said it for him, bye, and Noa yelled from the kitchen, have a good time! Then he said thanks, but a weak, fake kind of thanks, and hurried me out the door, saying so what are you waiting for? I was already thinking, is this how he’s going to act all day? What a downer. But the minute we got into the car, he went right back to being nice. He turned on the radio and said, I’m really in the mood for football now. You scored on this one, Yotam, it’s a great idea. You know the last time I went to a game? Five years ago, the derby between Hapoel and Maccabee. We lost four-nil. And I said, Beitar won in the last game I saw. They beat Maccabee Haifa two-nil. And Gidi was still alive then, I thought, I still had a brother then. As if he was reading my mind, Amir asked, who’d you go with, Gidi? I said yes and remembered how Gidi would always ignore me on the way to the game because he didn’t want his friends to think he was a nerd. But the minute we walked into the stadium, he’d forget that and say, listen up, Yoti, from now on, you don’t leave my side, and he’d give me his hand and make a path for me through the crowd and make sure I had a place to sit and no one pushed me. Once, when some tough guy stepped on me by accident, he grabbed him by the collar and said, hey moron, watch where you’re going. The tough guy poked him and they started shoving each other. Everyone in the stands stood up to see. But right then, Harazi scored a goal for Beitar and everyone was so happy that they jumped up and hugged each other, even Gidi and the tough guy, and Gidi said to him, the main thing is that we win the championship. And the tough guy said, and the state cup too.