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he cracking noise woke her with a jolting start. Straight lines appeared in
the walls and floor of her recently purchased apartment. Segments of reality
and dreams played freeze tag in her mind’s eye. Like some journey in black
and white, positive images of her childhood…..then after a while, she started
to dance like no one stood.
But then came the familiar, always-frightening voice from the next room,
“Marlene, on the wall you’ll find the list of things I need you to pick up at the store after
work.”
With a growl, Marlene came back to reality, reached for her bag and searched for
the bunch of keys with the small blue thing attached to it. She immediately rushed to her
computer looking for the answer in a secret thread of the Undertow as to which was the
right key to which door.
After a couple of minutes the neighborhood girls came into the room, laughing
and shouting, “What are you doing? Let’s go out and sing Chihuahua....”
“Ok but first can you help me with this chess
problem?” She asked them, “If the knight moves to defend
the pawn, wouldn’t the queen be left alone?”
How to make a move, when the chess board looked
like the recurrent thread of her life? How to choose when
she was simultaneously the queen and the soldier?
“I could ask my neighbor, Luka, maybe he is not a
chess-champion but the attempt is worth trying and it could
distract him from his troubles a little,” she told the girls.
But Luka was not in so Marlene decided to abandon
the game of chess, live with the problem, and went out with
the girls, taking with her the list on the wall only to realize
to her surprise that it was written in some kind of coded
language!
While walking on the street, one of the girls told Marlene, “Hey, that guy looks like a gypsy! I’m sure he can
decipher the enigma of the coded language.” Marlene felt that this was a really absurd assumption but they were out
of options.
So the girls and Marlene approached the gypsy and asked him to take a look at the list, to see if he could
make any meaning out of it. The gypsy looked at the writing, and then with a puzzled look he stuttered with excite-
ment, “G…g…girls, this l…l….list is not wh…wh…what you th…th…think it is!” He said
that he could explain things better if they could go somewhere and have a cup of coffee
together.
The first place they saw was Tom’s Diner on the corner
of the street. When they were all sitting inside, the gypsy,
seemingly speaking in tongues, said to everyone’s astonish-
ment, “In the eye of everything is its reverse.” Then, hold-
ing the list in his hands, he turned to Marlene, “This can
either be your cell or your wing, so I have to ask you -- is
solitude standing in as your guest or as your friend?”
Marlene couldn’t utter a word but the Gypsy knew
the answer and he told her, “This list holds the sum of your life, not its whole, just
like when you look at the stars and you can see but parts of the entire night vision.”
Before leaving the diner he finally said, “Be true to your song, let go when you must,
and remember the wonder of the wooden horse,” and Marlene puzzled how he
knew of this special toy from her childhood.
When the gypsy left, Marlene and the girls looked at each other, baffled and
even more curious about the list and they wondered who else could help them crack
the code and interpret it in plain, simple language but they were suddenly hungry
and looked again at the menu which said, “This is no fancy restaurant but we do
serve some pretty fancy poultry dishes - all our chicken brought in daily from the
Ironbound section in Newark.”
After their meal
(which turned out to be
surprisingly good as the
chicken was indeed fresh),
the group left Tom’s Diner
and as they walked along
the streets they saw a
poster of Odysseus and Calypso, advertising an exhibition
on Greek Mythology at the Met.
They decided to go to the exhibition, hoping to find
in the big space of the Met, among the Greek mythology
As they left the club, Frank asked Marlene, “How on earth did you get hold of this paper in the first place?”
“Actually I thought it was a list of things my dad wanted me to get.…” Marlene started but Frank interrupted
her, “And how is that eccentric psychologist inventor father of yours who can never be unbound from his work?”
“He couldn’t be better and in fact he’s just invented a machine that can read and interpret dreams so he’s
analyzing a pornographer’s dream these days and trying to help the guy understand his deeper unconscious long-
ings.”
“Wow! Well Zephyr and I always got along and I’ve always been impressed by
his cool inventions and new theories on psychology.”
As they took a taxi to Ludlow Street, Frank was secretive about the woman
they were meeting, but when she opened the door of her apartment, Marlene watched
him greet an eccentric-dressing, middle-aged lady with enthusiasm, which obviously
meant that Frank and Ava knew each other well.
Frank introduced Marlene to Ava who turned out to be his great aunt and then
to Marlene’s surprise, he took a small bundle from his trench coat pocket, gave it to
Ava and said, “Knowing you are such an avid fan of Edith Wharton, I got these rare
Edith Wharton’s figurines at an antique dealer for you.”
Aunt Ava (or The Silver Lady as Frank fondly called her) seemed speechless
with joy, then with an effort, she said gratefully to Frank, “I’m really bound to you.”
She brought Frank and Marlene into her living room and as they sat, Frank showed
her Marlene’s mysterious paper at which she exclaimed, “Why, this is in Sanskrit! It’s a
poem called Anniversary – and what a beautiful poignant poem it is!”
The hours flew as they dwelt on the haunting poem (and Marlene vaguely
recalled an Indian guru visiting her father last month which explained the likely mix up with his shopping list – duh!)
and soon it was time to say goodbye. “Remember me,” said Ava and as they left her house, they felt as if they had
passed an angel’s doorway.
For some moments they stood under a street lamp, with the glowing stars and crescent moon above them
as if the heavens were beaming with them then Frank took Marlene gently into his arms and asked her the obvious
question.
This quilted narrative is dedicated to Suzanne Vega on the occasion of her 49th birthday (July 11, 2008).
It is based on the song titles from her solo albums and is written by members of the Undertow, her community of fans from around
the world who communicate on her official website www.suzannevega.com
Contributors (by usernames): anku, aryamps, bobking, bodhibird, chris, fátima, gianni, jose-carlos, miki, miloluvr, moni, paulo, ra,
son-of-albert, troubadesse, wendy-o, zeynep, zzzoltan.