The Señora has left my father’s possessions, which she promised me, on the kitchen table in my apartment. After making a cup of instant coffee, I sit down in the early morning and sort through them. I find they are comprised of a few photographs of him hiking through the jungle, a handwritten letter of sale for a group of huts there, and a collection of clothing and other miscellaneous items, all from the vacant apartment next to Karen’s upstairs. There is also a letter from Yelena here, and I sit down at the table and tear the envelope apart, reading through parts of it quickly.
Even though I don’t know why you’ve left—other than you need no one but yourself, and maybe you’re out to prove it—here’s something to keep you company. I’ve been doing a story for the library newsletter about Malcolm Forsyth. He won Canadian Composer of the year back in ’89. He is from South Africa and brings diversity to Canada. I listened to an interview with him on the radio. He is the embodiment of what makes Canada so rich. Everyone brings a piece of their past with them, a part of their culture, and of course their own reminiscences. This is what you brought with you when you went away to Ecuador. You’ll never lose your memory or your experience. No matter how much you try to forget, or to run, you can never be far enough away to escape your own mind.…
A while later I settle back into bed, my body still exhausted from the evening before but my mind alert from the effects of the coffee, and I eventually fall asleep after reading the letter over and over again. I fall into dreams of singing and dancing Zulus, half naked with dark skin, their arms immobile at their sides as they dance, shields in their hands shaped to appear as if they are the overgrown leaves of the giant baobab trees, and covered with decorative fur and leopard skin. Their staves and torches and heads are held high in the air in front of fires and beehive huts, these men somehow becoming ingrained into the pages of orchestral compositions—D-flat major for trumpets and horns, and E major for violas and basses. They sit on the pages like dormant spirits waiting to be played into life.
Theirs is a smooth transition from the pages, once they’re brought forth, through the conduit of the overture and my father’s bagpipes, into the ears of the listeners—shifting melodies of Canadian, Scottish and African harmonization.…