The Tombouctou Waltz: A Life Story..

By Ed Salama

A mid-life crisis?

You either had one,

Are living one or will have one soon!

A talented conductor follows his heart to a short vacation but he ends up having the journey of a lifetime

Ed knows the Sahara; its ruthless extremes, its inhabitants, tastes, colors and shades, its secrets and the subtle but deep changes a Westerner can go through when faced with all of this. The story is true to life, contemporary and rich in details.

A testimonial to our fast-paced modern way of life showing two opposing sides of the global village, really close but very different.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595865048

Ed Salama

Ed is a screenplay writer. He writes mainly about ordinary persons facing extra ordinary situations. His books are based on real characters he did actually meet or know of. If you are interested in film or TV production, please contact the author at [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2007 by Ed Salama

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-42164-0 (pbk)

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-86504-8 (ebk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-42164-4 (pbk)

ISBN-10: 0-595-86504-6 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

For all my fellow travelers in africa …

The ones who loved it and the others who did not,

The ones who survived and those who did not,

The ones who could find more about themselves trying to explore an unknown place, as well as those who could not.

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 1

Nora Morris Hoffman didn’t feel like changing her name since her husband had suddenly left her for a younger woman because she saw no need for such a change. Her life had continued all the same, including working on weekends, so when she opened her eyes one Sunday, it was already mid morning and she had to drive fast to the office. Once there, she looked through the window wondering if any thing the weatherman said could offer any solace or make any sense. Her own word for the weather was very simple; ‘rotten’, a word she had used extensively in talking about the weather because she had never really liked it neither in Central nor Northern Europe in her two professional engagements since leaving Southern California five years ago.

She stood looking at one of those powerful thunderstorms that had brought heavy rains for several hours over the hills before the wind shifted direction to throw thick, furious sheets of water against the windows. All of last week, the rain didn’t seem to be willing to stop and had drenched the city to saturation. The sky was menacingly dark and the days had shyly parted from the nights to slip unremarkably into the evening. Even after hearing the forecast, she was not sure if the weather would be different any day than the day before or how it would be like for the weekend, but she didn’t care because she had kept two raincoats, a large umbrella and several hats hanging in the far corner of the office, which was the only space that didn’t have book shelves extending wall to wall.

Her rain-gear was squeezed next to the large bronze bust of Socrates that she had bought in on of those antiquarians’ going-out-of-business sales. Socrates, decidedly a very wise man, was just like her, impermeable to any weather changes. His robust head had ancient, enigmatic and sorrowful face sitting flat in front of her sporting two round large and empty eyes staring straight at the closed office door. She had always kept the door closed to filter out all sounds, including the buzz of little brown birds making home in the large oak trees across the street from her office building, so she can be totally alone in her own world which may help move her a bit forward and beyond Chapter Five.

One cursory look at the calendar made her sigh. Between three unfinished magazine articles, each just about one half written, one encyclopedia update for a new on-line project, a restless and repetitive review of the first chapters of her new book and a heap of mid-term test papers to go through, professor Hoffmann had little time left for the shallow, daily world around her. Her own different world had existed separately. It belonged to ancient Greece where she lived, breathed and dreamt. All too often she had felt that she had been there in a previous life for she had been working inside that different life form that was a few thousand years away from any European city, like her city, living in the last decade of the twentieth century. Being aware of that, she took it for granted that she was an exception because Greek studies identified who she was professionally and personally long before she had started working on her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of a very kind professor who was approaching seventy seven and never wanted to retire. ‘The older I get, the more original I become’ he once told her on a serious note which made her think that the older he gets, the more historical value he can claim.

Gazing at the wet glass windows, she thought she should stay late in the office in order to avoid the maddening rush hour traffic before going home to continue working on what had been bugging her, making her unable to move one page forward in her writing. But that Friday was different. She had made up her mind and accepted an invitation to go to a concert followed by dinner to meet a young, gifted pianist who was to play Rachmaninoff s concerto number Two in C minor, one of her favorites. Looking at the calendar, it was easy to recall that the last time she had felt like doing something similar to this was at the first week of the year. She sighed again and listened to the rain knocking simultaneously at each of the three office windows as her eyes moved away from the computer screen to Socrates, then back to the beginning of Chapter Five. The words were written a long time ago and every time she had finished a variation of the sentence, she felt that Odysseus was looking at her with a smirk.

"Odysseus was not the only one who never saw the day of return from Troy. Many other good fellows were lost too,"

She read the two lines loud and slow, articulating every word. The lines looked ancient to her eyes.

She dwelled on the cold words for a long time before her mind started wandering in every wayward direction, as usual.

Only when she heard the phone ringing, arching high over her feeble voice, she started hearing the familiar words realizing that she was talking out loud. She blushed and looked hastily at the closed door, making sure it was really closed. No one should hear her talking out loud like this, even if she is totally alone. But the persistent inquiry was still burning inside her all day long. Did Odysseus, really, make it back home after Ten years?

She was still asking herself the same old question when her nervous hand reached for the phone. It was Peter, an heir to one of the largest construction consortiums who never showed any interest in his family’s business. In a matter of a few years after finishing his music studies, the passionate, long-haired conductor was on his way to become a household name wherever classical music was appreciated. She had met him at a failed-fund raising event that was arranged within her college before Christmas.

Peter was what his admirers called an up-and-coming conductor, a fresh new talent, overflowing with energy. In their eyes, he was an iconoclastic symbol of that difficult to define the new generation. His detractors however had several monikers for him with ‘The Cognac Maestro’ being the most durable. In fact, he drank more than he ate and he drank through all possible hours of day and night but no one had ever seen him drunk.

He had called her only once since they had met the first time. When they met again incidentally at a book-signing event in which, sadly enough for him, no alcohol was served which made him wring his fingers in despair since he had walked in until the minute she had arrived. He moved toward her with eyes glowing with a light mix of recognition and Cognac deprivation then asked her if she keeps up with the orchestra and its new elaborate program. She was honest in saying that her work had left her no free time at all and that she was missing a lot of things she used to enjoy.

We all are overworked and underpaid! he quipped before asking her to come meet some of my friends for dinner with a real piano prodigy. She had accepted even before checking her schedule considering that to be a better practice from a social point of view, for she can always call back the following day with an excuse. This time she didn’t call to cancel and he was somewhere waiting in a big black car that was made invisible by the heavy rain.

Late afternoon, he called to say that he was in the area so he thought to offer her a ride. She knew that she had decided on the right dress before leaving home so she accepted the offer at once. She looked hastily at the big, open eyes of silent Socrates as if in search of a meaning or a sign of approval before tightening the long coat over her slim body and picking up the extra large hat to stuff her head into.

Peter had been already in front of the main entrance waiting in his car. He was on the phone when he saw her so he pushed the car door open for her while still talking. Unaccustomed to small talk, she had greeted him absent-mindedly saying that it was really nice of him to have called. He replied automatically that it was his real pleasure, but immediately plunged into the heavy rain, watching how the car’s wipers were racing at maximum speed trying to offer him an interrupting view of the evening traffic. Seated next to him, she became silent and was slightly distracted. The persistent rain had made her rethink the Odysseus statement as the opening lines for Chapter Five. As if the simple words were going to change anything, she kept searching for a new mix of words before settling on a different version;

"He was not the only one who did not return home to Ithaca,"

She had the sentence reworded in her head and took a mental note of it. It was imperative to decide if Odysseus did or did not return home because of the academic consequences involved. Her old professor was the one who got her totally befuddled with his serious doubts about the numerous accounts on Odysseus. Some accounts had him appear in Ithaca after ten years of wandering and adventures, but it is about time to settle any historical disputes, she thought. So, was he a brave hero or was he a cunning rascal? And which version should one stick to, that of Homer or that of Virgil? Was he the son or Laertes, king of Ithaca or the son of Sysyphus, king of Corinth? Was he feigning madness to avoid the war against Troy or he was already mad before the war that had turned him into hero?

Then, there is the question of Calypso. Did he love her, even a little? Did he love her at all? After seven years of living with a woman, actually a Goddess, on an isolated island, can a man change so as to love her??

She gazed at the water again. It was running allover the car, the street, the city and the whole world around her. In her haunted mind, the black car was turned into a Greek ship tossed mercilessly into the Mediterranean.

I like your perfume, he said. The sudden remark interrupted her thoughts causing her to look around and to come from the top of Mount Olympus down to the mundane issues of traffic, the rain and the concert she didn’t plan to attend until he had called.

Oh, thanks, she said politely still looking around her to see nothing but bumper to bumper traffic.

Some traffic! he spoke again in whisper, wanting to go back to her perfume. Her silence made him focus on the road momentarily. It was full of twinkling, red and white little tail lights outlining hundreds of cars competing to go home. We will make it, he came back to the professor seated to his right. We still have close to twenty minutes, he said cheerfully looking at her in the mirror. She had a faint smile when their eyes met briefly in the car’s mirror, a smile meant to hide the uneasiness with which she was trying to extricate her self mentally from a profound preoccupation with Odysseus and company.

It is never easy to communicate with men, she thought while the rain was drumming over their heads before splashing into the wet streets. Each raindrop had left its own sound once it landed over the car’s roof. To the right, where the water was running ferociously to the gutters, reflections were jumping everywhere she looked and that made her imagine tiny ships loaded with miniature brave Greek sailors with frowning faces on top of their shiny battle dress. The silence that had continued was surreal. He was focusing on the traffic. Her focus was drifting again to the Mediterranean.

It is a Guerlain! she said suddenly. l’Heure Bleue She surprised him and herself when she spoke.

I couldn’t tell, he said then took a minute trying to link what she had said to his earlier comment about her perfume. "Perfumes are not among my forte," he added.

I wouldn’t think so. she said, still thinking of Greek sailors in battle dress, But Russian music, of course, is,

I love it, he said eagerly. This season as you will see, we have a powerful series. You have to take time off to come often to our concerts. Got the brochure? It is on my desk, she waved her hand thinking of a small hill of unopened mail both at home and at the office.

We will make you one of the regulars, he laughed. She laughed when he did. She thought that he is just another young conductor and took a deep breath that was helpful in getting her to relax in the fact that her perfume was at least noticed. He kept talking with his trademark enthusiasm about the new series built around young talents and the need for more fundraising efforts. It was a long monologue in which he condemned the media, the administrative institutions, local, regional and Europeans, for their stingy budgets, warped vision as far as artistic and cultural needs of the society are concerned and on top of it all, he said, they had an abysmal failure in showing leadership in art and cultural education.

Sometimes, I really think that it is hopeless, he concluded, getting ready to state at least ten reasons why it was hopeless, but before he started with the first reason, which he named ‘community outreach’, it became clear that they had arrived to the main entry of the New Theater.

Her hand reached for the security belt to release herself from the seat as well as her previous judgment. She needed to correct herself; he was not just another young conductor. She remembered that he is the only conductor, young or old, she had known, assuming in theory that she does know this one conductor which, it became suddenly apparent, was a very wrong assumption. In her mind, it was crystal clear that they were two perfect strangers. I’ll drop you here then go to the parking. Your ticket is at the second window, under my name. A good seat, he spoke fast pointing to the large building to his right.

She thought that it was her first time to have a ticket waiting for her at the window, courtesy of a conductor and in his personal name. The thought sent a smile to her face and it was a beautiful smile that he had missed because he wanted to make sure the car door was perfectly locked before removing his foot off the brakes.

The maestro drove around the building, parked the car in his assigned space then took the elevator down to the second floor, where one small room had his name written on a tiny plate in simple black letters.

As soon as he walked in, he took off his shoes. Instinctively, he reached for the Courvoisier bottle then stretched on the old, black leather sofa to start humming the first piano bars. His right hand moved in rhythm as his eyes scanned the roof of the austere room. He was calculating that he still had enough time for another drink before changing into the black dress and tie waiting in front of him on a wire hanger. His established routine was to get ready to go down and be there amid the still grouping orchestra, the dearest thing to his heart and the object of some of his big expectations. He had already forgotten that she was there. Seated alone for most of the time and even before the second movement had started, she was totally absorbed in the spirit of the moment; that peculiar feeling of being a little part of a large crowd inside a packed concert hall. Her eyes were on the same spot like almost every one else, on the orchestra and on the amazingly young and gifted pianist. The music had managed to remove her momentarily away from the lost grandeur of ancient Greece. She was capable of contemplating the other, live greatness in front of her own eyes; a young pianist who had his head tilted backward in ecstatic abandon, having no need to read the written notes in front of him, weaving an intricate, mysterious magic with his other partners for the evening, the orchestra and the conductor. That was something ancient Greece would have never had. Look at him, she studied the scene again, as beautiful as a youthful Greek god in his own right, and I am not even factoring in his mental gifts, just the sheer beauty of it all. Imagine him and all the other musicians dressed in large, white robes, with blue or golden ornamental belts around the waist playing for the glory of Zeus inside an Ionic temple with a huge dome. Of course there would be a problem of acoustics, she reasoned, they wouldn’t have any Steinways, or any pianos for that matter. So, realistically speaking, those who made all this possible deserve some credit as well. Before she recovered from her stray thoughts regarding how much credit was due for the brilliant performance, the maestro was bowing in recognition of a stand up ovation that shook the walls. He was inviting the visibly stiff pianist to come forward. The orchestra was all standing, bowing and applauding. It was a moment of sheer delight to her as well as to every one in the hall. In ancient Greece, home of the classics, they had no classic music like what I have just heard, all things considered.

She thought for a brief moment before applauding. While he was bowing and smiling to the crowd, the conductor looked to the energetic audience. When he looked in her direction, she thought that their eyes had met and that was such a wonderful feeling totally unknown to her that had lasted through the rest of the evening and before and after dinner.

The Vesuvio was a popular restaurant among the city’s musicians. No one could trace any specific date as to when this phenomenon had started, but the proximity to the theater and the music hall was a clear factor. Almost all the waiters were music students. Several of the pizza makers were singers who belted out well-known arias while flipping the dough. The background music was Bel Canto all the time. Dozens of ads for those selling musical instruments and those willing to buy an instrument were covering the walls around the passageways. The end-result was a feeling that one was inside another annex to a music hall, albeit noisy and soaked in garlic sauce. Upon arrival, the patrons were always hungry and it showed in their anxious eyes giving the hot plates a very warm reception. Peter was the usual source of a very animated discussion for the dinner table. His party for the evening included one journalist and a music broadcaster, in addition to Nora, the professor. But the pianist was noticeably reticent, exhausted and distant. His polite aloofness had been clear from the very beginning and his part of the dinner talk was mainly answering questions by a yes or no. Halfway in his plate, he surprised them by asking to be allowed to call a taxi and to leave to his hotel, forcing the rest of them to claim that they had to leave too. The following morning, she was in the middle of writing a ‘Thank You’ note when the phone rang. It was Peter trying to offer apology and explanation. Since that day, she had attended all the concerts and had seen him more often. But, strangely, their relations had stayed at just that, seeing him in public events. And as it turned out, he was right in what he had told her the first time they went out; she had become one of the regulars. He had introduced her to several of his friends and colleagues, all active musicians, music critics or writers. His world was overly simple, an ethereal and abstract world of sounds, rhythm and tunes, she noted, before going back to Odysseus and his larger-than-life men. I am sure that these were the real men, incomparable to any men who had ever lived. She could see them in intricate details on the pages of any blank notebook or an empty screen on the monitor of her computer. They are as muscular as any group of body builders you see on the glossy cover of men’s magazines. They are brave, willing to face the anger of gods and men alike and they are smart as well because they had the cunning mind of the inventor of the Trojan horse among them. Seeing these exceptional men proved to be very different than writing about them, because the latter was not as easy as she had anticipated. She wrote, rewrote then wrote again. On reading what she had written, she didn’t feel that it was something worthy of her name followed by a Ph.D.

She became so irritated at the second then third reading that she ended up condemning the fruit of so many tense hours and the long pages faced a swift execution by a simple touch on the delete button of the keyboard. Then she started thinking of them again until she became tired, yawned and realized that she had to start up early the following morning. It had been like this for over two months, with no progress since the end of chapter four. She had switched to other duties, less creative and more mechanical, like reviewing term papers with an eye on the calendar. Every night, she went back to the beginning of chapter four with inquiring eyes trying to see what was there that stopped her thoughts exactly at the point. All that she could do was to keep on reading until that dreadful point. She would come back, again and again to the beginning of chapter five, write the words then start gazing at them for long hours without going anywhere. As if the words had a spell on them that caused her professional mind to brake and her unwanted personal memories to start a renewed ruthless invasion carrying with it the pungent taste of pain and loss. And that was the basic reason she had welcomed the spirited enthusiasm he had brought around her. The endless fits of anger, temperamental eruptions and sudden mood swings that had characterized him were an interesting change in a sea of melancholic monotony that had surrounded her personal and professional life. Greek studies were the escape route she sought, away from her recent past. Music had become an easy way out from the seemingly mental dead-end in her writing about odysseus. She hoped that, sooner rather than later, it would be the catalyst that breaks her frozen self to make her move beyond chapter four, to five then six then all the way to the end. The end! The end must be a happy one, when all the haggard, worn-out, homesick sailors would find a way of going back to ithaca.

CHAPTER 2

The storm that had covered most of Europe resulting in numerous floods came in the aftermath of record low temperatures that had left dozens of dead in many countries. It had disappeared as suddenly as it had started, so in late spring the hills surrounding the city were basking in the soft colors produced by a weak sun revealing the lush green and clean-washed forests. The pent-up demand