The Cello

I want to tell you about the dream I had last night. I’ll warn you now that it was a sad dream, and many of the details were lost in that cruel fog that comes in the morning, destroying memories of those sleepy stories we all imagine at night. I want to tell you about this dream, because it was full of music. I’ve never dreamed with music before. There was a cello playing softly, somewhere I could not see, and it played a slow and mournful tune. Though the characters often spoke, they had no voices that I could hear. Somehow, I knew what they were saying, although they spoke without sound as if it were a silent film, for which I already knew the script. I’ve never dreamed with music before, and that tune, that sad cello, that is something that I will never forget.
There was a child. She was the daughter of wealthy parents, and her illness became a source of sadness for all the people. It was a great tragedy, they would all tell one another, and when the child’s father came out of the house, to tell the people of this or that turn in the child’s condition, there would always be a somber crowd gathered to listen respectfully. Gathered to hold in breath while he spoke. Gathered to cheer when the news was good. Gathered to bow and sadly shake their heads when the news was bad. The cello never changed its tune with the moods of the crowd, and it moved onward in its melancholy largo. It was the tone. It was the quiet theme, constantly reminding me that this was a sad dream, offering no solace or consolation.
What the child’s illness was, exactly, was a mystery. I knew that she was sick from the beginning, but when I first saw the child, the sad cello weighed far heavier on my soul. The music didn’t change, but the scene I witnessed through my closed eyes changed everything. The room was dimly lit, with dark wooden walls that one imagines when told of old wealth. The child was in a large bed, and being so tiny and scared and pale, made me feel as though the child was some how drowning under the dark sheets. Her head rested on the pillow, and when no one sat by the bedside, her pencil-thin and chalk-white arms were crossed over her eyes. Only when she slept, and her eyes closed, did she lose the worried look of fear that so characterized her tiny porcelain face.
Across the room her father sat in front of a black machine, which he used to talk to people around the world who might be able to save his child. The mother wore a plain but elegant skirt, and sat languidly on a sofa against a third wall, drinking from a wine glass while the nurse sat with her child. The child’s younger sister played by herself, wishing for some attention of her own.
Then I saw a different room, in which the child’s sister played with her cousins, while the child’s mother sat across from her own sister. Each had glass of wine, the mother’s red, the sister’s white. The music was louder now, not as much in the background but just loud enough to draw attention to itself. It was becoming a part of the story. This house was smaller, with light blue walls and sofas of the palest white. The sisters spoke without meaning and the children played without laughing.
The mother rose from her seat, walking toward the kitchen with her empty glass. The sister said she wanted no more, and her gaze followed her sister, and as her the mother moved, her sister’s glare filled with contempt. The mother said from the kitchen that their family was leaving, moving to a quiet place outside of town. The sister asked her icily if the reason was that she couldn’t deal with people knowing that her life wasn’t perfect. The mother looked startled, and the children looked up, and the music grew louder.
Next I saw the father, talking excitedly to a small group of people, telling them that he found someone who knew what the disease was that so plagued his beloved daughter. He held a paper in his hand, a message to be sent to the man who held this priceless diagnosis. The group was by the side of the small cottage, and as the father spoke excitedly, the child’s mother and sister walked up to the house. As the mother pulled out the key and unlocked the door, the crowd turned and looked, and the little girl felt their gaze. It was a gaze she had been given since she knew, a mix of pity, for she might be next to fall ill, and contempt, for being the healthy sister of the beloved tragedy. She turned away, and looked down in shame, and the scene changed for the last time.
I was now a part of the story. I was standing outside the little cottage. It was winter now, and I was standing by the frost-edged window, watching the little girl. Her father was at his machine, and her mother on the sofa, drinking wine, and her sister playing silently alone, and she lying there, drowning in the sea of blankets, covering her eyes with her tiny arm. The music was so loud now that there was no other sound, no other feeling than the desolation of that roaring cello. In my hand was a letter, the response to the father’s message, and written on the paper was a message that the child would surely die, and I could do nothing but stand, feet stuck to the ground, while I watched through the frost as the child lay dying, carrying her death sentence, while the cello’s sad song rang like thunder in my soul.
I opened my eyes to find myself in my own bed, alone under the blanket. I pushed myself up and found the wet spots where the tears fell on my pillow. I stared at the wall for a moment, and got out of bed. I put on my robe and stepped out to the patio, and lit a cigarette. The cello’s song still played in my head, and I knew that I would never forget that song.

The End