A Traitor to Memory

She had cut into her chicken again and she had lifted a forkful of meat to her mouth. But she hadn't taken it. Instead, she held the fork suspended while I spoke, and when I had finished, she laid the fork back onto her plate and stared at me for a good fifteen seconds before saying anything. And then what she said made no sense at all. “Tap dancing,” were her words.

I said, “What?”





“Tap dancing, Gideon. That's where I went when I left here. That's what I do. I tap dance. I'm not very good, but it doesn't matter, because I don't, like, do it to be good. I do it because I get hot and sweaty and I have fun and I like the way it makes me feel when I'm done.”





I said, “Yes. I see,” although I didn't, actually. We were talking about her marriage, we were talking about her status in the UK, we were talking about our own difficulties—at least we were trying to—and what tap dancing had to do with all this was unclear to me.

“There's this very nice chick at my tap-dancing class, an Indian girl who's taking the class on the sly. She invited me home to meet her family. And that's where I've been. With her. With them. I wasn't with Rock. Didn't even think of going to Rock. What I thought was what would be best for me. And that's what I did, Gid. Just like that.”





“Yes. Well. I see.” I was a broken record. I could sense her anger, but I didn't know what to do with it.

“No. You don't see. Everyone in your itty-bitty world lives and dies and breathes for you, and that's the way it's always been. So you figure that what's going on with me is the exact same deal. You can't get it up when we're together and I'm just so totally bummed about it that I rush off to the biggest dickhead in London and do the nasty with him because of you. You think I'm saying, Gid doesn't want me but good old Rock does, and if some total asshole wants me that makes me okay, that makes me real, that makes me really exist.”





“Libby, I'm not saying any of that.”





“You don't have to. It's the way you live, so it's the way you think everyone else lives, too. Only in your world, you live for that stupid violin instead of for another person, and if the violin rejects you or something, you don't know who you are any more. And that's what's going on, Gideon. But my life is, like, totally not about you. And yours isn't about your violin.”





I stood there wondering how we'd reached this point. I couldn't think of a clear response. And in my head all I could hear was Dad saying, This is what comes of knowing Americans, and of all Americans, the worst are Californians. They don't converse. They psychologise.

I said, “I'm a musician, Libby.”





“No. You're a person. Like I'm a person.”





“People don't exist outside what they do.”





“'Course they do. Most people exist just fine. It's only people who don't have any real insides—people who've never taken the time to find out who they really are—that fall to pieces when stuff doesn't turn out the way they want it to.”





“You can't know how this … this situation … between us is going to turn out. I've said that I'm in the middle of a bad patch, but I'm coming through it. I'm working at coming through it every day.”





“You are so not listening to me.” She threw down her fork. She'd not eaten half of her meal, but she carried her plate over to the kitchen, dumped the chicken and broccoli into a plastic bag, and flung that bag into the fridge. “You don't have anything to turn to if your music goes bad. And you think I don't have anything to turn to if you and me or Rock and me or me and anything goes bad either. But I'm not you. I have a life. You're the person who doesn't.”





“Which is why I'm trying to get my life back. Because until I do, I won't be good for myself or for anyone.”





“Wrong. No. You never had a life. All you had was the violin. Playing the violin wasn't ever who you are. But you made it who you are and that's why you're nothing right now.”





Gibberish, I could hear Dad scoffing. Another month in this creature's company and what's left of your mind will turn to porridge. This is what comes of a steady diet of McDonald's, television chat shows, and self-help books.

With Dad in my head and Libby in front of me, I didn't stand a chance. The only course that seemed open to me was a dignified exit, which I attempted to make, saying, “I think we've said all we need to on the subject. It's safe to say that this is just going to be an area in which we disagree.”





“Well, let's make sure we only say what's safe,” was Libby's retort. “'Cause if things get, like, too scary for us, we might actually be able to change.”