Curtains

Curtains were dancing with the breeze, puddles outside were glimmering in the afternoon sun. It was naptime and after lunch. I was sprawled on our wooden floor surrounded with white sheets and stuffed animals. Whirring can be heard from the medium-speed fan on the table top across me, accompanied with the rich melodious tinge of a harmonica. I stared at the ceiling enjoying every note from my brother who was preoccupied with the small metallic box he touched upon his lips. This would go on for hours on end that I’d eventually fall back to sleep thanks to the accidental lullaby. This was 10 years ago, and I was only six. Shades of parakeet, chartreuse, and shamrock were swaying outside the door. My brother on the stairs of our open room leading directly to the garden. But nothing beats the jade green color of his eyes from which his name was taken from.

Jady, my eldest sibling, was a chef. Not of dishes cooked over the fire, but delicacies and éclairs of symphony and rhyme. The flute was his first endeavour into music, only later to have met the harmonica which he claimed to be his first true and only love- of course, aside from me, our sister, and parents. Piano, violin, and clarinet. He composed purely original solo pieces and duets for these instruments, gaining acclaim in the world of music and earning himself the title, “Maître Cuisinier de Musique”. My brother at home was as gentle and sweet like the music he makes, a strong dependable figure with a soft and loving personality. When we used to play house as siblings, Jady would always be my white knight as my sister played the dragon that she is.

Long dresses, crystal containers, silver pins, and glittering brooches. Ember was one for glamour and grandiose spotlights, of high society and bubbling champagnes. She, like her name, was a fire on-stage with her violin and erratic attitude. I love it when she combs my hair, with careful meticulousness for every strand. She treated her violin likewise, with cautious accuracy and precision for every string and every stream of notes. Her hugs were soft but with strength, and I can never dare forget our memories as charming and adorable little angels under the sun. Quite a childhood we both had, jam-packed with tickles, giggles, and a whole dose of family wholesomeness sprinkled with melodious harmony.

In the kitchen by the foyer, there was a big round disk playing in the phonograph. A vinyl recording of romantic molasses, flowing in a dreamy intimate wave across the chamber. This was our mother’s first favourite tune, grandfather playing his serenade on the guitar. “Grandma was always smiling ear to ear, especially when Grandpa was”, whispers Ember upon my ear when we tip-toed and sneaked on our parents together as they prepare dinner. Peeking from the curtains by the wall, I like to imagine how my grandparents used to dance together in the living room, secretly sweeping through the corridors lost in their magical trance. How much they loved making their music, and how much they loved being in one another’s arms as they dance to it.

This I reminisced as I sat in the air-conditioned theatre awaiting the brewing show.

Museums, walls dotted with frames of photographs and beautiful paintings, buildings of great stature, of sculpted columns and wooden corridors. Streets brimming with history, of classic tales and even untold adventures. Our mother grew up in a cultural city and was naturally exposed to music and the arts, even before she was born. Guitar strumming and finger plucking was a staple in the household along with Grandma’s singing and scribbling down poetry. One can assume their favourite kind of date was picnic while composing under a tree or a seaside scene somewhere. “Music is food you create, of the rhythm, and of the symphonies you weave with your fingers, of the bits of soul you pour into everything you do and love”, she used to say to brother and is no surprise he turned out to be the chef he was. Grandma and Jady got along well especially during their favourite bonding time- cooking contests in the kitchen. Ember on the other hand, was always Grandfather’s little buddy. “Let it flow to you, my darling. Music is meant to be savoured slowly… like Grandma’s warm soup.” Fierce and bold, my sister stood up to her name of an undying fire, yet her music flowed like a serene and tranquil river to the expectant ears of her ardent listeners. I never met my grandparents, but they became part of my living and breathing days just as much as the rest of my family did. I was introduced to them through music and day by day feels like they’re always with me as I take my baby-steps and gallops in life.

Calm nights, whispered dreams, and hushed giggles- the curtains that evening let in the cool breeze and the muted lights of the cityscape. Mother, according to her and the many picture frames atop the cabinet in the hallway, debuted as a pianist before she was even a teenager. “There was always that big enormous thing in our drawing room before, right by the terrace overlooking the garden” starts Mother as she and Dad tucked me and my siblings in bed. She apparently was feeling a little nostalgic that day, plus, Dad was always on about inviting over our cousins and friends for some fun-time in the music room to “introduce” them and other kids to the craft in a casual yet engaging way. “One time I decided to tinker and figure it out, after how many countless afternoons I merely used it as my blanket fort. Then I saw what I used to call ‘white teeth’ and ‘cavities’ and well, you can guess where I went from there”, she says as she kissed my forehead. This was 12 years ago, so I was four. Mother’s piano playing is a celestial performance every time, and the magazine review called it, according to the critiques, “simply divine”. Every month in my yester years, we siblings had a private dental check-up with Mom where she investigates our pearly whites for cavities and such deformities. She’d tap them softly, tap our cheeks, tap the tip of our noses, and gave us an endearing cutesy tap on the forehead, telling us to smile like the little darlings that we are because “your laughter is the best melody I can ever tap” she tells us.

Sheets, musical scores, the G-clef, the lines on the paper, and notes flying around all over the place. Dad has always been a Professor of Music, first and foremost to us before the rest of his students. He taught my brother how to put to paper the tunes he played in his harmonica, and all the humming me and sister do when we were together… be it in the kitchen washing dishes, us doing laundry and hanging them out in the garden, all the humming we ever do during playtime in our bedroom, and all the humming we echo in the shower as we scrubbed each other’s back. Daddy is and always will be our best friend and forever mentor, in life and the craft we all plunged into. He knew how to play the trombone and casually, the trumpet. He was a jazzy man, but he won mother’s heart with his sassy playing and tender heart – which we are all very proud and happy about. “Children, your mother is merely my mistress. My woman lies exploited by mankind, for her touch is angelic and addictive. Her tongue of luscious scrumptious honey and her body, of pure ambrosia. A driving force of emotion, which I call ‘manically divine’.” He would tease mother like this, which always ends up in a pillow and tickle fight between us five, finished by a long tight hug as the curtain call. This was years ago, and we were but little seedlings in this musical garden our family together built and nurtured.

Now to satiate all curiosity, I among my clan broke off to contemporary music. I was just as inclined to the classical genre, but the dream to produce music looked a little different to me than it did to my siblings. A recording company was all about making albums and labels, of recording and selling music in digital format, including but not limited to replicating and enhancing the output. Music, these masterpieces, breakthroughs in artful discovery created by mankind to be spread over the world and throughout humanity. Scouting talents was one thing, being in the studio was another. Big machines, glass windows, schedules, meet-ups with managers, plenty of socializing, and headphones. Daily life in a music studio looks like this, but the most fulfilling treat of all is the constant exposure to music, in every nook of the whole building, in every corner of the room and watching concerts, theatres, ballets, and recitals are a normal spice to my months. This is what I’ve been working towards my whole life, what I aspired to be, what I dreamed to achieve.

The curtains parted to the sides, the orchestra is seen on-stage in their glamorous gowns and expensive suits, instruments ready to be blown on, plucked, and bowed. There among them under the bright light was a single entity in well-ironed clothes, sleeves neatly hugging his wrists. Upon raising one arm, the audience hushed into a silent space. A soft anticipation hung in the atmosphere of the theatre as the first note played, followed by the next, and the next, and the next. I was in the middle of the sea of audiences, that part of the venue where music is said to be enjoyed most. Beside me, someone who sneaked from the V.I.P seats, my brother, the composer of 5 of the pieces played, and one of the most distinguished personalities. Seated behind us were filled with 3 rows of teenagers and children alike. Herding these young ecstatic lambs was the same shepherd who looked over the growth of his own darling prodigies from womb to present, Dad.

Aside from me, the ladies of the family were on-stage. I was mere spectator today, though I can’t deny how many seats I declined for today’s special occasion. “Business prospects the lot of ‘em,” I said to myself, “but I wouldn’t miss this for the world”. It was a concert, and I was among those who chose the pieces to be performed. My beautiful mother on the grand piano, elegant in her green emerald dress amidst the sea of andalusite, fire agate, and chocolate opal. She has always been a woman of the ensemble, sitting graciously hovering her hands above the keys. Now the lights turned off, solely illuminating the sea of performers. Applause erupts and then dies in the air. In the middle was a lady in blue, a sapphire shade. A shade too blue to be frozen, like the resilient blue of a burning flame. Sister dearest opens the show as one of the lead violinists.

The performance was spectacular, but nothing beats the duet that followed after. Ember did a piece, accompanied by my mother. A duet, written by my brother and a piece I’ve heard over and over in our household reverberating in our walls and through the halls. Now this brought me back to my juvenile years, back when pastime meant a mini concert in the living room. The night continued on and the curtains fell as show came at an end, falling over the stage and over my flashbacks of the past. What a lovely round-trip that was. In the midst of my twenties, but I still feel like a little girl when I’m with my happy bunch. The wind blew softly through our skirts, like the mild gust of breath my brother and father pour into their instruments. What a night.