'Deaf orchestras play in silence'
by Helen O' Shea The last notes hung in the air and died
softly. Then more than a thousand people were on their feet,
clapping and cheering.
On stage, the musicians smiled. They
could see the applause on the face of every member of the
audience. Not one of them could hear it, or the calls of "More!" and
"Encore!" Except for the conductor, all the members of the
orchestra were completely deaf.
Mark saw Laura glance from the stage in
his direction. She smiled at him, but there was a question in the
smile. It was the one question he had not dared to ask her when
she had told him the incredible news about the orchestra for
deaf people: "Does this mean you and I can play together
again?"
Looking at Laura, elegant in her long
black skirt, silver earrings swinging as she moved from centre
stage back to her place for the encore, Mark remembered
his first impression of her, nearly two years
before.
"Difficult." Laura's reputation had gone
before her, but Mark had found it hard to reconcile the
fragile, beautiful face framed by chestnut hair, with the
demon he had been expecting. He had thought of the way
people had tried to categorise him at the start of his own
career. Uncompromising!" That had been a favourite criticism,
which had become, with fame, a compliment.
Although Mark had arrived early for the
rehearsal, Laura and the cellist, a small man in his fifties,
had already been practising together. He had watched Laura,
lost in the music and totally unaware of his gaze, and had known his
life was about to change.
Later, when the trio stopped for a break,
the cellist produced an electronic tuning device and began
laboriously to check his strings. Mark saw Laura's mouth
twitch. She turned away, pretending to cough, but not
before she had caught his eye. He had to turn away too,
because he was smiling, seeing the machine through her
eyes.
"What sort of musician doesn't trust their own
ears?" she asked him later. Over the next few months, it became a
joke they shared, as their lives became intertwined, first
professionally, then personally.
"Don't ever ask me to marry you," Laura said,
suddenly, one night. They were in bed, having moved seamlessly from
playing music to making love. Mark could feel her still rapid
heartbeat against the hand resting lightly on her
breast.
"Don't imagine I ever would." They both
laughed, but a dull pain started in his chest. "Why
not?"
She sighed. "My mother phoned today. Same old
thing. Hooked a famous, successful, rich pianist. Make sure he
doesn't get away!"
Mark kissed her on the lips. "He's not going
anywhere. Unless you go too." But the pain in his chest did not
quite disappear. "Didn't you point out to your mother that you're
going to be a famous, successful and rich violinist in your own
right?"
"Oh, yes." Laura was silent briefly. "Somehow
she doesn't see it as quite as good, Mark."
He woke abruptly at one o'clock in the morning.
Laura was not beside him. She had mentioned that her earache had
come back; perhaps she had gone to get an aspirin.
He checked the bathroom: not there. She wasn't
in the kitchen either. "Laura?" His voice echoed slightly in the
empty room. Puzzled, Mark headed back towards the stairs. As he went
to pass the open door of the music room he knew, although the light
wasn't on, that she was in there. In the light from the hall he
could see Laura's white, tearstained face bent over her open violin
case.
"I can't hear anything," she told him
abruptly.
In the casualty department of the hospital he
explained to the nurse that Laura had been diagnosed with an ear
infection, but that it appeared to have been cleared up by
antibiotics.
The nurse asked them to wait. "How much
longer?" Mark fumed. Beside him, Laura sat with her hands in her
lap, gazing into space. "Shall I get us some coffee?" he offered.
"Laura?" His chest began to ache. She could not hear
him.
In the following weeks Laura went to see three
different hearing specialists. All were mystified by her sudden
deafness.
"A mystery virus..." they all murmured. "Not
one that tests will show up."
Mark banged his fist on the oak desk. It was
the third specialist. "We'll try someone else," he told Laura,
turning his head so she could read his lips.
She was looking at the little man on the other
side of the desk, self important in his dark grey suit and red bow
tie. "Will I ever get my hearing back?" Despite being unable to
hear, her voice still sounded to Mark like a gently flowing
stream.
The specialist hesitated, as the other two had.
"Possibly. But probably not."
A few weeks later Laura was working in an
office, earning a fraction of her former salary as a second
violinist.
Mark sat at the piano, looking at Laura's
violin case propped against the wall. Next to it, her music stand
still held the sheet music from their last duet. His hands rested on
the keys as he sat in silence, listening to Laura laughing on the
other side of the wall.
"Stay here with us," she had said as he got up
to leave the living room. But he had shaken his head and left her
alone with the handsome young man who moved restlessly around the
room, talking in sign language.
She
had asked Mark to go with her to the signing classes. "But your lip
reading's so good," he had replied. "Why do you need to learn sign
language?"
After
that neither of them had mentioned the classes.
Mark
began to play softly. There was a dull ache in his chest. He still
expected to see Laura glide into the room and announce, with mock
imperiousness, which piece she wanted to play with him.
"Paul used to play the trumpet in a jazz band."
The pain in his chest intensified as he remembered Laura saying
those words, so casually, almost throwing them away as she left the
signing class.
"So the two of you have a lot in common." His
own words had sounded almost as casual.
The music helped even as it hurt. Mark was
astonished to see tears land on the piano keys. He went on playing,
occasionally wiping his eyes, and when he stopped his chest was no
longer hurting.
The door opened softly and Laura came in.
"Mark?" Behind her Paul hovered in the hallway. "Paul and I have
something to tell you."
Gently, Mark closed the lid of the piano. He
followed them back into the living room, and took the seat Laura
indicated, opposite her.
She could barely keep the excitement out of her
voice. "You'll never guess what I'm going to say."
"No." He hid his trembling hands behind
his back.
Her words made no sense to him. "What did you
say?" he asked. Paul grinned idiotically. He said something to them
both in sign language that Mark could not understand.
"Paul told me you'd never believe me," Laura
said. "We're both going to play in an orchestra. An orchestra of
deaf musicians!"
Later, Mark escaped to the kitchen to get the
bottle of champagne some friends had given him and Laura for
Christmas. Smiling foolishly, he held the cold bottle against his
face before returning to them.
"It's to do with visible energy fields," Laura
was pacing around the room, her face glowing. "Or something!" She
laughed. "I don't care! It just means I can play the violin
again!"
The next few months had been a frenzy of
rehearsals. As Mark had sat at the first one among the friends and
families of the orchestra members, he had been oblivious to the
gusts of damp wind blowing in through the windows of the village
hall. He had been aware only that the orchestra playing so
beautifully on the stage before him could have been any orchestra in
the world.
"You're quite sure you're not all miming to a
recording?" he had joked to Laura afterwards. "Nobody's going to
believe you can't hear."
But the familiar pain in his chest had been
there as he had watched Laura's face on stage, seen the familiar
look in her eyes that told him she was lost to everything but the
music. He had hated to admit it even to himself, but he was jealous.
Laura was sharing something with other people that once she had
shared with him.
At home, Mark and Laura had talked about the
orchestra, about the first concert that was drawing ever closer,
about the planned national tour. But neither had suggested they try
to play a duet together.
At last the night of the debut concert had
arrived. Afterwards, as he drove them home Mark felt he was being
buffeted by the sheer energy that radiated from Laura, sitting
silently beside him.
At home, she said one word only:
"Yes?"
Without waiting for his answer, she went
ahead into the music room. He followed. "Damn thing," she said,
looking at the electronic tuning device she was holding,
trying to smile as she used it to check her violin was still in
tune.
Mark sat down at the piano. "Going to
have a quick practise on your own before I join in?"
"No," Laura said. She stood in her old
place, sideways on to him, a couple of feet from the piano.
"I'11 come in after a couple of bars,
then."
O. K."
Laura began. They had not had to discuss
which piece; the music was still on her stand from their last duet.
She sounded fine, and from her expression Mark could tell she knew
it. Nobody would ever have guessed she could not hear a note she
played.
He wanted to just sit and listen to her. But he
took up his part, with reluctance, after four bars. He was aware he
was listening for both of them, and fought it. They sounded all
right together. Not wonderful, but when they had not played together
for so long, not at all bad. A few more bars, though, and Laura
began to look hesitant. She frowned, the bow wobbling around on the
strings. She stopped, looking at Mark, biting her lip.
Mark stopped and waited for her to begin
playing again, then joined in.
A few more bars, and Laura once more frowned
and faltered. Mark stopped and waited for her to continue before he
began to play.
Again she stumbled. Her rhythm was no longer
perfect; she played a note very sharp, winced, and stopped
altogether, letting the bow dangle by her side.
"I knew it wouldn't work." There were tears in
her eyes.
"Of course it will," Mark said. "Give it
time."
"No. However it works, it's only with musicians
who can't hear. Tonight, at the concert, I know I didn't make any
mistakes." Laura put the violin carefully into its case, her hand
stroking the wood lightly before she closed and fastened the lid.
"But just now... with you..."
She paused and her eyes filled with tears. "...nothing. I
couldn't hear myself."
"We must be able to play together again," Mark
insisted. "There must be a way."
She smiled sadly. "Oh, there's a
way."
" Then . . . "
Laura came towards him. She had taken off her
shoes and he could hear her skirt gliding across the
carpet.
She faced him and placed her hands over his
ears.
"If you could choose," she said, forming each
word carefully so he could read her lips, "to lose your sense of
hearing, now, without any pain..."
Laura took her hands away from his ears, "What
would you decide to do?" Her words sounded unnaturally
loud.
She left the room. Mark remained seated on the
piano stool, his own hands over his ears, listening to the
silence.
The End
Copyright Helen O'Shea 1999 - 2000
all rights reserved.Visit Helen's great new web site to enjoy more of her stories and contact Helen
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