An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

She moved down two octaves and struck a chord.

"Can you play something that says happiness?"

She struck another chord, and another, and to Sumner she had hit the epitome of happiness.

"Now, sadness..."

More chords...and she had found pure melancholy.

"Anger, Deborah. Show me anger..."

Pounding, furious anger...

"Now, Deborah, play what you feel inside -- just now..."

What emerged was a distillation of longing and utter despair, linked expressions of a walk by the sea in moonlight, with perhaps a storm passing along the far horizons of her mind. She played for several minutes -- then grew still, the memory of her music lingering in the air like the most subtle scents of spring.

When Collins looked at Mann he was wiping tears from his eyes, while Phoebe seemed to be adrift on a sunless sea, suddenly bereft of knowledge as she tried to understand what had just happened.

Deborah's features seemed to change in the aftermath, but to Collins it seemed as though she had discovered something new and vital, a new way to talk to the world, perhaps, and another way to see into her passing inner landscapes. He went to her and hugged her, and she looked up at him, a muted kind of half smile on her face.

"What is it?" she said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

"I feel very tired. Could I go back to bed now?"

The old physician came to her and helped her stand. "I've forgotten," he said. "Could you tell me your name, please?"

Deborah looked at him, confused. "Do I know you?"

"We met earlier. My name is Henrí. And yours?"

"Marian. Marian Orgeron."

"Nice to meet you, Marian. Let me help you to bed now."

"Alright."

Mann led her aft and shut the door, leaving Collins and his sister to follow the crumbs to some sort of meaningful answer to the questions flooding their minds.

"Orgeron...Orgeron...why does that name sound so familiar..." Phoebe said. She pulled up her phone and Googled the name, but nothing popped up and she shook her head. She opened up her email and searched contacts, then emailed a professor at Princeton. A few minutes later her inbox chirped and she opened the file, then stood and looked aft. "Of course, the bi-tonal chords. Well, I'll be damned...I should have known."

"What?"

"Orgeron was one of Claude Debussy's teachers, a friend of Wagner's and a great influence on both their later music. She was truly gifted, a woman ahead of her time. She passed in obscurity. What Deborah just played...well, my guess is the piece is at least a hundred years old. There were no recordings of it ever made, and the only sheet music that exists is in the rare music collection, in the private collections library at Princeton. A serious music historian, perhaps a doctoral student of the French Impressionists and Symbolists...they might, just might have heard this piece before, but they would have studied at Princeton. No where else. Van Cliburn was rumored to have played it once, but that would be the only public performance of it, ever."

"So, it's impossible she would have heard it before?"

"Well, not impossible, but I would say highly unlikely. Assuming Cliburn played the piece -- and she was present, not to mention she was capable enough to memorize the piece..."

"But you know of the music? How?"

"My husband, Tom, was such a student. He photocopied it for his research, I played it several times while he was writing."

"Did you play any of it today, when you were teaching Deborah?"

"No...the Clair de Lune fragments were the closest we came to those structures, but Sumner, her fingering was perfect. The first time through. That's just not possible, and for someone who's never played before? Totally impossible."

"No, it's not," Mann said as he came back into the main cabin. "Pardon me, but I overheard some of what you said, and I am now a little nervous."

"You're nervous?"

"Oui. If what you are saying is true, Miss Hill may no longer being experiencing displacements in Time within her dreams alone. She may be manifesting personalities from these visits, here in the present."

"What are you talking about?" Phoebe asked. "What could you possibly..."

"In her dreams recently," Mann said, "she has been recounting visits to other places in distant time. The phenomenon is rare, but not without precedent in people with advanced brain lesions, or tumors. We have been documenting her explorations, if that is indeed what we have been witnessing, for weeks."

"You mean...?"

"In her dreams, she is moving through time."

"Fuck."

"Yes, just so. Well put."

"So today, she was conscious, awake, but she not only played a piece of music that has been played -- maybe -- just once in the past one hundred years, she seems to think she is the composer, someone who passed away ninety years ago."

"That seems to be the case."

Phoebe sat down, took a deep breath, shook her head violently. "No way," she said. "Sorry, but there's just no way this can be happening."

"Too true," Mann said. "So, we must look for an explanation. Find out what you can about this Orgeron, and then we will ask Miss Hill."

"No... You know what? I left Chicago last night, this morning...sometime...and I thought I was in Paris...but you know what? I've entered some weird-ass parallel universe where nothing makes sense anymore...and my brother is the keeper of this lunatic asylum..."

Mann laughed. "Again. Well put. Sumner? Is the nurse not here yet?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

The old man smacked his lips and pulled out his phone, just as they heard a forlorn "Hall-o" coming from the quay.

"Well, speak of the devil," Mann said as he walked up to the cockpit.

"I'd better go help..."

Sumner led a twenty-something nurse by the hand down the companionway steps, and even Phoebe took in a sharp breath when she saw the girl. Tall, willowy tall with pure white skin and deep red lips, waist-length brunette hair parted in the middle, deep brown eyes, sharp, inquisitive eyes. Sumner was beside himself, she saw, tongue-tied and speechless.

"This is my sister, Phoebe. She'll be staying up front, so let me show you to your room."

Phoebe stood. "And what is your name?" she said, holding out her hand.

"Sophie. Sophie Orgeron," the nurse said as she held out her own.

Phoebe looked gut-punched as she fell back into her seat, and Sumner felt light-headed again. Only Dr Mann seemed relatively unaffected by this latest coincidence, and he stepped down into the cabin and looked at the young woman anew.

"Perhaps related to the composer Marian Orgeron?"

"Oui, yes, she was my great-grandmother...but, why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing...nothing at all," Mann said, rolling his eyes. "Sumner? Show her to the room, please, then she should meet Miss Hill..."

"Of course," he said. "Follow me."

The desk in his office was now a bed, and Charley's nest was now in the knee-space. He picked her up and held her... "This is Charley. You two will be sharing the room from time to time."

Sophie looked at Charley. "May I?" she said, holding out her hands. He held her out and Charley almost leapt into the girl's arms -- and went about licking her face until she was giggling uncontrollably. "Mon dieu...she is so affectionate!"

"We run a happy ship here, M'am. Here, I'll take her. You'd better go wash up."

"Oui, yes, please." He led her to the head and gave her a quick lesson on procedures for flushing and showering, then left her and closed the door.

When she emerged Mann led her aft, but Collins walked up into the cockpit, and Phoebe followed. "You know, ever since Charley passed, things have been getting stranger and stranger. Did I tell you about the dolphin?"

"No?"

"John Lennon?"

"What? No. Sumner, really? What's going on? This is getting looney?"

"You're telling me..."

Mann came up into the cockpit... "I want to take you both to dinner, and Sophie will stay with Deborah now. Let's go, please." He walked past them and off the stern, then stood waiting for them.

Collins shook his head. "I'll go get our coats," he said. "Something's getting lost in the translation..."

They -- walked -- over to the Isle St Louis and to a unmarked cellar door -- and then down a flight of stairs into another world. There were a handful of tables, a jazz quartet in a dimly lit corner, and Mann was greeted by the owner and half the people down there like he was some sort of demigod. Menus appeared, a bottle of wine too -- Mann's favorite, or so he told them. Collins studied the menu, but nothing was familiar.

"Sorry," the old man smacked, "this is a vegan restaurant. If I can help you make a choice," he said, looking at Phoebe, "please let me know"

"Well, this is greek to me," Sumner said. "I'll let you order for me."

"Do you like mushrooms?" Mann asked.

"As long as I don't take a trip, sure."

"Ah, yes. Don Juan, Castañeda. Those kinds of mushrooms. No, I cannot offer you those tonight, but my favorite dish here is loaded with mushrooms."

"Sounds good to me," Phoebe said.

"Excellent!" He called a favorite waitress over and ordered, just as a plate of vegetable fritters arrived. "Help yourself," he smacked, "and bon appetite!"

"Very good," Phoebe said after taking a bite.

"You know of course that with Miss Hill we are moving rapidly into the realm of the unknown," Mann said. "I would say yet that I do not understand the focus of all these manifestations."

"What do you mean?" Collins said.

"I would have said that Miss Hill is the locus of these things, but then I remember the story of your dog and that dolphin. These features developed as a result of your wife?"

"I would say so."

"Dolphin?" Phoebe added. "What dolphin?"

"In a minute," Collins said. "Doctor, what's my wife got to do with this?"

The old man smacked and shrugged, looked up at the ceiling. "So, what do we know? Your wife gets ill, she and your dog have an encounter with this dolphin. Your wife passes away and you flee. You run into this same animal in the Caribbean, then again in the middle of the Atlantic, right after the dog passes away. Then you meet Miss Hill, in Brighton. What happened there? She was suicidal when you met; this I understand. But what else happened?"

"John Lennon."

"Pardon?"

"John Lennon happened."

"Sumner?" Phoebe said, now sounding violated. "Don't."

He looked at her. "I'm sorry, Phoebes. He's become a part of this story, too."

She shook her head. "Please?"

"Now is the time to talk about these things," Mann said, "when we may be able to make sense of their meaning."

She shrugged, seemed to acquiesce to the moment.

"When I saw Miss Hill, Deborah, the first time up on the bluff, she was getting ready to jump..."

Phoebe brought her hands to her face, and he heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Lennon was there," Collins said. "He's visited several times since."

Phoebe was shaking her head, crying now. "No, no, no..." she whispered.

"Why is this a cause for such pain, Phoebe?" Mann asked, concerned.

"Because we were with him when he died," she said.

Mann looked from Phoebe to Sumner, then back again. "How is this so?"

Sumner spoke now: "We grew up in The Dakota, my mother was a musician and she knew Lennon. We were coming home when it happened, we saw him and he reached out to us as he passed."

"Excuse me," Mann said. "Did either of you touch him?"

"I did," Sumner said.

"I did too. And he coughed on me," Phoebe whispered. "His blood went in my mouth, and my eyes."

"Has he appeared to you before, Phoebe?" Mann asked.

She looked down, then gently nodded her head. "Yes," she whispered.

Sumner sat back and closed his burning eyes. "This is too much," he sighed.

"I told you I think this is crazy."

"So, before I say anymore, when this nurse, Sophie? When we go back to see Miss Hill just now, we hear music. It sounds real...live, I think, is the word. We go in and the music is gone, but the air smells like patchouli, but I see there is no incense burning. This, I think, is significant at the time, but it makes no sense. Until now."

"The song?" Collins asked. "What was he playing?"

"Yesterday," the old man said.

Phoebe buried her face in her hands. "No-no-no-no-no-no-this-isn't-happening...can't be, not again..."

Collins stood and left the table, went up the stairs and out into the night air. He walked down to a circular row of benches outside the chapels of Notre Dame and sat, looked out on the Seine as it flowed ceaselessly to the sea. It was cold now, and a damp mist hung over the city, amber streetlights lining the river receded in clinging fog.

And he felt him there beside the benches.

"I'm sorry your life is so painful now," Lennon said, "but it won't always be this way."

"What about you, John? How is it for you now?"

"I wish there was some way I could describe what this is like. I don't have the words, ya know?"

Collins nodded. "Yeah, I think I do."

"I could see the love in your eyes," Lennon said.

"You looked so afraid, and I felt so helpless..."

"Like you do now."

"Like I do, yes, now. I don't know what else I can do for her."

"You've already done it, you know. Don't worry now. Just accept what comes."

"I'll try."

"I won't see you for a while. A lot you won't understand is going to happen, and all we knew is at an end now. But I'll see you on the other side."

"Okay, my friend..."

He turned to look at him, but...he was gone.

"Just accept what comes," he repeated, then he closed his eyes, thought of all he'd seen and done the past few months, Deb and Liz and Rod and Paul. Charley, always Charley, her deep brown eyes the only constant in his life but for...

"What a roller coaster ride this has been..."

He stood and walked back to the cellar; dinner was already on the table and he sat, looked at Phoebe, then at Mann. "Sorry. The air was getting a little close, if you know what I mean."

"I smell patchouli," Mann said, "again."

"Yeah. I know."

"Was he...?" Phoebe tried asking, but her voice cracked, and she stopped when she saw his face.

"So, how're the mushrooms?"

"Really good," she said. "Very...I don't know. Depth, I think, is the word I'm searching for."

"Depth. Yes," Mann said, "that's it, precisely. You know, Sumner, your sister is very wise."

"Oh, you have no idea, Henrí, but maybe -- in time -- you will."

She looked away again, her future shrouded by their past. She picked at her dinner after that, though Sumner managed to finish, and they walked back to Gemini as deeper shrouds of fog fell over the city. Gemini's hull and deck were slippery now, coated with rivulets of beading water, and Sumner hopped across first, almost slipping and falling, then Phoebe made her usual light-footed hop and scampered up into the cockpit.

Mann looked at the slippery hull and hesitated. "You know, I think I will go home now."

"Ah, well then, thanks for dinner. What an interesting place."

Mann smiled. "Once you give up eating animals, well, you know, the choice narrows."

"In this city, I can't imagine the frustration."

"And you? You seem to have such an affinity for animals. Curious dichotomy, don't you think?"

"Probably because I don't think about it, I guess?"

"Perhaps, but we're all so conflicted these days, between the desires imposed on us by our past, and the needs of a very uncertain future. With so much tension in the air, I'm afraid we must all risk being more tolerant of each others gentle eccentricities. If we fail to act so, I fear we will find the future less hospitable than might agree with us."

"Change is inevitable," Collins sighed.

"Yes, but even so, change must be managed with intelligence, or chaos becomes the winner. And who knows, perhaps, civilization falls. Well, good night. I will check in with you tomorrow."

"Good night, doctor." He went below and found Sophie talking with Phoebe, and when he looked at the girl he found himself wishing he was thirty years old again. 'My goodness, but she's so lovely...' he said to himself as he went aft to check on Deb. She was asleep, laboring under the weighty spell of fleet footed dreams...so he closed the door and went out to talk with Phoebe. And Sophie.

He stretched out on one of the settees and closed his eyes.

"Are you tired, little brother?"

"Exhausted, but more emotionally than physically."

"I had no idea I was walking into such an interesting...set of circumstances."

"Oh? Well, perhaps I was afraid you'd change your mind and not come."

"Not likely. I'm now homeless again, and not quite dead broke, but getting there."

Sophie laughed at that. "With your talent? Surely not."

"Talent?" Phoebe mused. "What talent?"

"Miss Hill tells me you are a wonderful pianist. You could earn a good living here as a teacher."

"Not at home, not anymore. You know, there was a golden age of the piano in America, back in the 50s and 60s. Those were my mother's years, I suppose, but that's gone now. I think it has succumbed to our era of instant gratification, leaving poor little wretches like me to drift away on the forgotten currents of a dying age."

"Then you should move here. Things are not so commercialized yet."

"Yes. I saw how civilized Paris has become last month," Phoebe said.

"That's not fair," Sumner said.

"Maybe not fair, but I would assume true, nevertheless."

His phone chirped, and he fished it out of his coat pocket. "Yello."

"Sumner?"

"Yup. Liz?"

"I'll be at DeGaulle in an hour."

"EasyJet?"

"Yes, see you curbside?"

"Okay."

She broke the connection. Well, we're about to get crowded here."

"Tracy?" Liz asked.

"No, my other friend. Liz."

"Really? Where will she sleep?"

He smiled. "I guess up forward, with you."

"I guess, for tonight, why don't I go find a hotel room or something?"

"Because. Besides, I'm not sure how long she'll be here. She could be gone by morning. Anyway, I've got to go now."

"That's my brother...up in the air, Junior Birdman."

"You want to come with me?"

"No, my eyeballs are burning and I passed 'Jetlag' two exits ago. Time for me to hit the percales, little brother. Bon voyage and all that. Ask your friend not to wake me when she gets here."

Sophie shrugged. "You have many difficulties, do you not?"

"C'est la vie."

"Perhaps, but you seem very tired too. When do you rest?"

He shrugged. "I'll sleep when I die."

"Oui, and that may come sooner than you'd care to know."

"Thanks. Well, I'm off -- like a herd of turtles."

She smiled at that, then returned to her notebook, filling out forms as he left, as confused as she had ever been in her life.

He found his way to the car and slipped through the city easily now; between the fog and the late hour there was almost no traffic at all, and he made it out to the airport in record time. He'd been sitting there perhaps five minutes when she came out, a huge suitcase rolling along behind her.

He got out and she ran into his arms, crying uncontrollably as she wrapped her arms around him.

He cupped his hands around her face, let her go 'til she was spent.

"I suppose you'll tell me someday what this was all about?"

"Guilt, insecurity, sheer stupidity."

"Ah, the usual suspects."

She laughed. "Not for me. Just hold me, will you?"

"I think I'm about to get a parking ticket..." he said, pointing at a police car pulling up behind his rental. He waved at the gendarme and picked up her suitcase -- which had an 'OVERWEIGHT' sticker affixed to the grip -- and he gasped as he manhandled the thing to the rear of the car. "My god...what's in here? An artillery brigade?"