[Eleanor]: 668.Amelia.Chapter II

II.

On Amelia’s 11th birthday, Nana presented her with her very own harp. It was a beautiful instrument; a design of stems and leaves in pale maple was inlaid in the dark mahogany column so that ivy appeared to twine up its graceful curve to the scroll. The soundboard was a fine-grained white spruce set into a cherry soundbox, and two full octaves of gut strings were stretched from the foot to the peg box. Nana took a length of yellow silk and sewed a bag for it, lined it with thick, soft cotton and embroidered flowers and Amelia’s own name on the outside.  

The girl was delighted. She threw herself into her musical studies with an intensity that bordered on obsession. Her parents were somewhat concerned, but her grandmother made sure Amelia did not shirk her schoolwork or her other chores. The only aspect of her granddaughter’s single-mindedness that concerned her was that she never played with her friends, staying in her room and practising for hours. Should her friends come to ask Amelia to join them, she was always busy. 

One day Nana confronted the girl and asked her why she was closeting herself in her room with her harp instead of going out and having fun with the other girls. Amelia would not meet her grandmother’s steady gaze, but looked at her hands where she became very interested in the condition of her nails.

“Amelia,” chided Nana. “Your parents are worried about you and, quite frankly, so am I. It’s fine that you want to practise your harp, but not to the exclusion of all else. You’re young, you need to be with other young people.”

Amelia looked up, her face distorted in a painful expression. “Oh, Nana,” she said, “they don’t understand.”

“What do you mean, my love?” asked her grandmother.

“The other girls, all they talk about is boys and dresses and babies, and I have no interest in those things. I try to tell them about music, and they just talk over me, as though what I have to say isn’t important or interesting.” She looked down at her fingers again, and then back up at her grandmother. “I’m not interested in boys or dresses. I never want to have babies. I just want to be a musician. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”

Nana held Amelia close and felt the girl’s shoulders shudder as she sobbed quietly onto the old woman’s neck. “There, there,” she crooned, and stroked her silky hair. “Things will get better as you get older, and as they get older, too. Just wait. I promise.”

After their talk, Amelia tried to be more sociable, but found it hard. Every moment she spent in the company of her silly friends, she wished she were plucking her harp’s gut strings, coaxing melodies and chords from them, feeling the vibrations of the soundbox against her chest as she cradled it against her. The music called to her, and even amid the chatter of girlish voices or the crowds of the market square, she could hear it: a siren song playing for her ears alone.

Surrounded by the throng of shoppers and sellers of wares, Amelia did hear real music one day as she carried groceries for her mother. She hurried ahead until she came to the town cenotaph where a group of musicians had set up their instruments and were playing with the open cases facing out, a few coins scattered in their velvet linings. The young girl was entranced. Her mother caught up with her and said, “Amelia, let’s go. Nana is waiting.” The girl did not move.

“Look, Mama, there’s a man playing a harp, just like me, and another with a flute, just like you!” she pointed excitedly. “That’s what I want to do when I grow up.”

“What do you want to do when you grow up, young lady?” asked her mother, frustrated in her desire to get back home.

“I want to play in a troupe!” exclaimed Amelia. “Didn’t you used to do that once? ”

“Yes, I did,” said her mother, “and it’s no life for a young lady with better prospects.”

“Mama,” cried the girl, “how can you say that! You were making music all the time. What could be better than that?”

Mama grabbed Amelia’s shoulder and turned her around so she could look her in the eye. “You are not going to live the life of a traveling musician, Amelia. You have the talent and the looks to get yourself a good husband and provider, and you will make me a proud grandmother. We will hear no more of this foolishness.” With that she turned around and walked briskly away, her daughter forced to run to keep up, weighed down by her parcels.

That night, as Nana was tucking her granddaughter in bed, Amelia asked, “Why doesn’t Mama want me to be a traveling musician, Nana? She got so mad when I said I wanted to be one.”

Nana sat down on the edge of Amelia’s bed and caressed the girl’s smooth cheek. “It’s not an easy life,” she answered with a sigh, “and your mother had had enough of it. She prefers staying in one place to spending every night under a different roof, and she likes eating regularly, which she didn’t always do when she was playing in the troupe. But mostly, while she has always loved music, she loves your father and you more.” Amelia was still unconvinced. How could anyone love anything more than music?

One by one, Amelia’s friends became women. They began sewing for their hope chests, and their inane chatter about boys became speculations about prospective husbands. Amelia felt acutely separate from them as she continued a girl, watching her friends develop breasts and hearing them talk about their monthly bleeding. She was now even more an outsider, for her body refused to change as theirs did. Soon she was alone in her room again, playing her harp and singing her songs. 

Just before Amelia’s 15th birthday, her grandmother’s weak heart took a turn for the worse. She lay in bed, unable to rise without becoming exhausted. Amelia tended her, grinding up her food so it didn’t need chewing. All through the late summer and fall she sat by the old woman, sometimes playing and singing when Nana requested it, but mainly quietly mending socks or reading, for most sounds irritated her grandmother in her weakened state. At times Nana would try to speak, for she felt she needed to pass on her wisdom to her granddaughter. But she could not get out more than a few words at a time, and Amelia hushed her and held her hand while tears ran down her cheeks.

One cold October morning Nana could no longer struggle for breath, and stopped trying. Amelia was devastated. The one person she had loved more than any other was gone. At the funeral, Amelia played and sang a lament that sent shivers down the spines of the congregation. She did not want to watch as they lowered the coffin into the frosty ground, but her mother insisted she be present. The strong thread that had held the family together was dissolving, and Amelia’s mother feared that without Nana, they would unravel like stitches dropped from a needle.

After the funeral, Amelia retreated into her room with her harp, shutting her door against the outside world. Her mother withdrew into the shell of her own grief, and her father attempted unsuccessfully to comfort them while coaxing them to take nourishment. They lived in their house like unwound strings on a guitar, jangling discordantly until another hand tuned them. But alas, the one presence in their lives which could have brought harmony was lost forever. Slowly, after months of mourning, Amelia’s mother returned to giving flute lessons, her father stopped using his grocery as an excuse to stay away from home, and Amelia came out of her room to pick up the pieces of her interrupted life. Even death cannot stop the living if they have the will to carry on.