Symphonies of the Soul

By Huck Fairman

Set primarily in New York City's Soho neighborhood, the story tells of the work and loves of a number of friends and neighbors. They all must respond to the unexpected death of one of them from a heart attack. Several are musicians, several others are writers, or work pursuing other creative careers. The unexpected loss prompts them to look at their lives, and at life in general, as they share and mourn, and as they remember events in their lives that stirred them deeply. How will they adequately commemorate their friend, and how will they find fulfillment through love and work in their own lives?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664149496

Huck Fairman

ATHENA Parthenos/Promachus, is Huck Fairman’s fourth novel, following HYMN, TALES OF THE CITY, and NOAH’S CHILDREN. When not working on fiction, he has been active in the environmental movement (CITIZENS CLIMATE LOBBY, SIERRA CLUB, 350.org) seeking solutions to global warming and writing a guest column on local and national solutions in a local newspaper.

Book preview

SYMPHONIES OF

THE SOUL

Huck Fairman

Copyright © 2021 by Huck Fairman.

COVER ART by Morris Docktor

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/20/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

824115

CONTENTS

Adagio

January

February

March

April

May

Mid-May

June

Mid-June

Late-June

July

Mid-July

Later in July

last Days of July

August

Auguest Evening

Concert at the End of August

September Summer’s End

Funeral

MY APPRECIATION TO

Janice Gross for her editing help and friendship.

… the symphony of hopeful dreams … set playing in her soul.

MIDDLEMARCH. George Eliot

ADAGIO

A pianist plays a Bach fugue. A cellist joins in, together performing Gounod’s Ave Maria, slow and full of feeling.

Friends and family have gathered in a neighborhood chapel for a funeral, remembering one of them who died unexpectedly, at fifty-five.

The mourners listen silently to the music as they run over memories of their friend and neighbor … and try to imagine the impact on his wife, Cathy, and their two college-age sons, the three sitting together in the front pew, eyes somber, not moving.

Two of the deceased’s fellow musicians, a violinist and a violist, with whom the cellist and he performed as a quartet, hum faintly to the music, distracting themselves from their loss. Others wonder how to explain Jim’s sudden death.

That he had a heart attack shocked them all. He seemed in good shape, was physically active, played piano in their group, ate and drank moderately, had given up the drugs of prior years. Why then? … How to explain? … Was it something his doctor and those around him missed?

At the same time, several of the mourners are stumbling through the heavy remembrance that no matter how we live, the end will come, sooner or later, to us all.

How then to see death? some of the friends hesitantly ask themselves. How to weigh it, how much to let it intrude? Should we simply dismiss it as inevitable, a beastly business, quoting Joyce’s stately, plump Buck Mulligan, distancing it? … Yes, we know everyone comes to an end; our consciousness, communication, and connections all cease. Most recognize that natural phenomena are not forever, not us, not even our Sun … But does this negate all that we do? …

In some, remembrance lives on, for a while. In others it takes the form of deep mourning, which immobilizes them. They experience the loss physically, this love that cannot be replaced. Still others feel the need for some tangible memorial. A few will want to speak up, cry out, or salute in some way, through words or music. They mourn this one who was so close, shared so deeply, was our neighbor, our friend, our other self. More than most, he gave of himself.

A number conclude that there is no really adequate way to express all that they shared … with this one they knew and who knew them and loved them.

Some may wonder, however, who was this other, really? The fortunate among us have family, children, and friends who know us, who in some ways understand or are like us, and thus will remember us and those like Jim … for a time.

Undoubtedly there are others who think it’s better simply not to dwell on death. Better to put it out of mind. Loss, the end, is part of life, for us all.

Still others remind themselves to focus thoughts, indeed lives, on doing and giving all that they can, while they can. They focus on addressing: how should we live? What to make of existence? … What should we be doing?

Some, like Jim, were ever seeking, exploring and expanding. Jim and Cathy seemed to have found a way, to live fully and generously. They were an example for many.

With memories of him come recollections of his many abilities and roles: husband, father, musician, businessman, outdoorsman, social leader, indeed magnet for many. To his fellow musicians, he was their organizer and informally their conductor. And while occasionally he shrugged off additional rehearsing, or spoke of temptations – shortcuts, profits, women – he never acted on them. He followed an admirable path.

Indeed, he seemed a model to many, one in whom estimable qualities came together. Now some of his friends and colleagues realize just how much less their lives will be without him. Some pronounce to themselves that a light has gone out.

Under the weight of these reflections, several mourners’ heads tilt slowly down. How will their lives change? Will they find others who can relate as generously as he did? Will they care for each other as genuinely?

Among their circle of friends, neighbors, and colleagues, a number may take from his life insight and modes of expression. Others may widen or deepen their perspectives, inspired by him … Some may allow that though we are limited beings, we may contribute something of worth, something lasting – for a time.

His two boys, but others as well, are already beneficiaries. The lives he helped enrich and shape will in turn help others, embodying, suggesting ideas and strategies. Perhaps those will be his lasting gift: that he inspired others.

But the thoughts of some in the chapel buckle, trying to imagine how to make sense of his sudden disappearance. Yes, life is a vulnerable, mortal system. It is not easy to explain the many different fates, nor answer why energy does not renew itself, or why life does not go on and on. Some imagine what vast changes may in the future come, just as mankind has seen them in the past, back through the ages.

While a few of the friends continue crawling through these thoughts, others are reminded that most of us have lost those who brought us into being: parents, relatives, friends. How do we withstand these losses? … How is it that we do not wash away in tears? … How do we explain that he, our friend, is no longer here, with us? As he was, just the other day?

Mostly we understand, somewhere in us, that we are creatures of limited time and abilities. As is all life.

And yet we also see that science, psychology, and our individual awareness can reach in deeply, far ahead and far back. There is so much we, as a species, have learned. Should we not be optimistic? If death of others derailed us, some see that we would not have survived and developed as we have. Our ancestors evolved through survival strategies. We mourn … but go on, turning our minds away, soothing our hearts.

Are we, then, essentially egoistic? Of limited concern and caring? How deep are our feelings?

We have others we love and who depend on us. For that reason, survival and perpetuation are primary, insuring support, and continuation, for a while, anyway - so that we will be there for them.

As we have come from others, so we continue to depend on and support others. We are part of networks, flowing streams, bringing together much of what we pass, absorb, or collect. Some of the mourners glance around, at the others, their neighbors, their friends. They recognize instinctively that we are both communal and individual. Communities are essential for who we are, and what we do. As conditions and circumstances shift, or evolve, so do we.

With some, we reach out, connect, help, discuss, accompany, offering what we have. With the increasing numbers in our world, there are now many more minds working to understand and improve.

And yet the question returns: how should we respond to, and absorb death, our own and others’? Maybe the best we can do, as some in the chapel are thinking, is to try to live and love to the fullest; do all we can, for ourselves and others, offering care and assistance as best we can, particularly to children, but really to all.

We may see that our minds and hearts can journey deeply, to distant places, often far from our physical confines, deep into the universe, or into ourselves. The complexities seem to be increasing as knowledge over generations is increasing. We are each, in a sense, expanding galaxies of cells, pathways, thoughts, creations, and memories … receiving and responding to what we encounter and take in.

Some in the chapel, many of whom live in the West Soho neighborhood, now meet the eyes of their fellows. They see that as we spiral through the world, we are each seeking paths alongside others … modes of understanding, caring, and expression. Possibly this neighborhood is unusually harmonious – not perfect, but generously thinking of and responding to others.

And so, as a number of the mourners feel saddened by the searching looks they meet, some blink and soften their eyes. They have come to recognize that they are unusually connected, even as they are unique, fragile beings, randomly come to life …

Indeed, what is being? … A phenomenon both bounded and, to an expanding degree, free. They see that we are ever-pondering and ever-seeking, as we follow and weave paths as best we can. They search others’ eyes for reflections, intimations, or confirmations, of giving and receiving love, while also hoping that their individual symphonies, like his, are worthy and are heard.

JANUARY

Two close friends, nine months before their neighbor’s unexpected death, are sitting in small armchairs next to each other, facing a fireplace on a cold January evening.

Outside, the wind is wailing and blowing snow horizontally in white sheets.

In their west Soho apartment, the second floor of a former townhouse, these friends shiver and pull their chairs closer to the fire snapping at the air.

Music hovers in the background, a Beethoven adagio, which sends their minds gliding into the night sky, carried by the music’s beauty and emotion, rising with the crackling fire. The tones and harmonies pull them into the music’s layers, and into their own, as the fire’s warmth draws them closer.

Ah! breathes Portia, the warmth feels so good. I can relax, feel my body releasing, allowing me to focus on the work I need to do.

Yes, purrs Penny as she bends forward to pick up another small log and carefully lay it on top of its burning brethren.

Thank you, Portia murmurs as she edges closer still to the heat.

Both watch the flames curl around the new log, licking it eagerly, welcoming it with cracks and pops.

The women stare mesmerized by the red and yellow hands and fingers reaching eagerly upward. The fire light flickers off their dark hair. Portia’s head falls faintly to one side, permitting a few strands to slip in front of her eyes. She shakes them back, before asking, Is this piece the …?

Yes, the adagio, from Beethoven’s Ninth, which we saw, Penny reminds her, smiling at the memory and allowing her mind to play along, diving into her own variations … some filled with surprising emotion. She swallows, then laughs. What simple creatures we are … pulled so by these melodies … pleased by a little warmth.

Portia smiles at this and her own pleasure. By the beauty, by the themes, somber then joyful, speaking, evoking feeling in us … As does the enveloping warmth of fire … Simple, yes … but think of all that goes into each, all that is within us, all that is for us to enjoy … the countless fragments, the work of centuries, generations that have brought us here … beyond any simple explanation … The layers of existence … All for us to consider, absorb, and maybe comprehend … What happened to the simple life?

Penny laughs silently, then nods. Did it ever exist? Their eyes meet. Portia murmurs, Not recently. Faintly they shake their heads, in amusement, then dismay. Quietly Penny asks, How did we get here?

But as she anticipates the next movement, The Ode to Joy, her eyes slowly scan her living room and all the things it contains, all the usual things – Toutes les choses, as she likes to sigh. Whereupon she questions herself about what modern life has become. Collections of things? We have so much filling our homes, closets, garages, brains - and days. But do we experience enough deep communication? Do we try to understand who we are, and what we are truly feeling and thinking, what symphonies our brains are composing?

Fortunately, she allows to herself, moments of insight are sometimes possible, with her closest friends, like Portia. But sadly, not with her family … or most other friends. Nor seldom with her ex-husband. Few of them seem to share recognition and acknowledgment of all that is around us, captured so movingly by music … Although now she remembers that her ex did also love music … if different styles.

She gazes around again, at the furniture, television, sound systems, computer and printer, and at all the decorations, ceramics, hanging paintings, and photographs … at the art books and novels … the family pictures … the momentos from travels … and lovers … Yes, she reflects, all this, expressing and enriching ourselves … through experience … Does it help us remember … and integrate into ourselves much of this astonishing phenomena we call life?

To different degrees, in different ways, the two allow these questions to roll and tumble through their minds and hearts, with the music. Motionless, they recall connections, and replay scenes from their lives, and a movie they’d just been out to watch - a story of love … which has called up their own feelings.

How does that story relate to them? Penny is divorced; Portia separated. Love lived in them for a time, then ebbed away.

Lines from an old song come to Penny’s mind, and she softly sings, … we sit stranded here … though we do our best to deny it.

Their eyes meet and smile, sadly.

And yet they would mostly agree that they are fortunate … have many of the essentials … good health, friendships … work, adequate money … unlike a dear friend who has just been diagnosed with cancer. Not without hope, but numbing all the same.

And the movie they saw raised unsettling questions, particularly given their friend’s situation. Among them: are their lives fulfilling? Have they done what they wanted to, hoped to … what they have loved? Have they used their talents, opportunities … education? … Have they contributed? … Will they ever have sex again? Along with the emotions it summons?

In the movie’s story, the central characters, a couple, suddenly, at the last minute, unexpectedly, reconcile … which strained credulity, the two friends felt. Nice, but unlikely.

Summoned by the recognition that she has not reconciled with her husband, although they have each hinted at it, Portia, a teacher of high school English, recalls a poem she long ago stored in her heart, one pondering lost love.

"The truth is, I want to hear again

the sounds of love

before all vanishes in the dark.

Want my own story to return,

even if a fantasy from above,

the possibility of reconnection reappearing

carried by a cooing dove …"

As does the sun from behind a passing cloud, Penny’s smile gradually emerges, eventually shining into Portia’s eyes. Pleased by this reception, Portia also smiles, her happiness rising and brightening as she gazes at her friend. A long-time lover of literature, she has, in her adult life, felt that some writings and poems reach in deeply, expressing what she cannot otherwise articulate.

Penny, a lawyer, also appreciates language, particularly in certain novels and songs, but above all, she loves the music which lifts and carries those lyrics, which are ever singing in her mind. She has long played the piano, and still does. And Portia the violin. Sometimes together, they put aside their concerns and play a few simple pieces, among them Ave Maria by Bach and Gounod. And occasionally, when they are happy with their playing, they find the experience rewarding, in its expressing otherwise buried feelings.

Indeed sometimes Penny wonders if she should have pursued a career in music, although she never felt she had the talent to make it work.

And so, despite their satisfaction tonight, from the movie and sitting together before the fire, they long for the return of love, for finding another.

Not infrequently, over the last several years, they have dubbed themselves, now in their early 30s, the Misses in Misfortune – partly with humor, partly in lament. Their misfortune comes from the fact that neither has lately encountered any promising candidates for love. Not-a-one! Penny has cried, incredulity constricting her voice, before she dismissed her disappointment with a single, sharp laugh.

Portia moans, also partly in humor, You would think that this modern world would have found the means to connect people … In the name of God, she submits with a sarcastic lilt.

Online dating is a bust, an illusion, a sham, from what I hear, groans Penny. It doesn’t bring anyone together, that I’ve ever heard of … Not a one! None … to the nub of things.

Aye, and that’s the rub … the missing nub! sings Portia.

No tickle in the kiss, my love, adds Penny. They look at each other and laugh … once more.

This brings Portia back to reflection upon other current disappointments, one being at her school, where she’s had to lower expectations for her students. While in prior years, several students were good, even driven, writers and readers, now only a few exhibit any hints of joy in doing either.

Why? What is this? Reflective of a dying culture?