Structure and stricture – William’s story
I had chosen the hotel we were to spend the last three nights of our stay in Jerusalem on booking.com. My criteria were simple, and when I saw the photograph of the ancient black grand piano in the lobby, I booked a room at the King Solomon Hotel. Beth and I arrived on the Thursday afternoon, having said farewells to members of the group with whom we had traveled during an intense week in Jordan and Palestine. I had played the piano in the lobby of the immense Dan Jerusalem Hotel during the closure that morning. Now, checking in at the King Solomon Hotel, I could feel the approach of another type of experience, without the group ‘field’ around me.
The group experience had been powerful; many persons processing deep and painful memories from past lives when they had walked these lands. Many of us have. I sensed my own Essene experience as I walked in the heat of Qumram gazing across the rocky chasm, which dropped away sharply from under me and up at the facing caves, where the Dead Sea scrolls had been found relatively recently. I felt a remembering as I stood amidst the ruins of the site with its network of narrow footpaths, access ways, and steps leading down to a plethora of mikvas [1] of various sizes. The intricate stonework from several thousands of years ago, suggesting vaulted spaces and revealing sophisticated and precise drainage layouts of cisterns and channels. A couple of days earlier I had walked this hilltop plateau alone in intense and quivering heat, reflecting on this inner knowing of place, this deja vu that we sometimes have when coming into the energy of a particular place.
Now I looked around the large double volume of this strange King Solomon Hotel, without any sense at all of deja vu. The seating arrangements consisted of several large old creased and cracked leather couches, each with two armchairs and a low table, placed in clusters at considerable distances from each other. There were at least five of these clusters. There was a free-standing wooden counter bar behind the main seating area. The old black piano, which had attracted me to this hotel was there too, near the entrance. A couple of metres away from the piano, two bulky, black, new, shiny leather massage chairs were incongruously placed. Side by side, brazenly exposing their coin slots with the promise of vibration, the grabbing of calf muscles and pummeling of oversized buttocks. The piano itself, its black varnish also cracked and veined on closer inspection, was locked. I wondered whether I would actually get a chance to hear it or play it, after all.
We went out to an early dinner at a trendy restaurant within walking distance and returned around eight thirty or so. A completely different scene greeted us on our return. It appeared choreographed. At each seating cluster, a couple seemed to have been placed; the young man in the armchair and the girl seated at the closest couch end. I looked around; the same arrangement in each case and the exact distance between them. And in the middle of these arrangements was the control area where a group of middle-aged well-dressed, matrons with their coiffured black sheitels[2] sat chatting, surveying the scene and the probable futures being planned and playing out under their scrutiny. This was a marriage market, and the match-makers had brought potential marriage partners together for their first or follow-up meetings. I was informed of these details later when I spoke to the pianist seated at his old piano, now open.
He had glanced at us as we walked in; obviously strangers and out of place in our attire and mannerisms. I smiled and nodded a greeting. There were two unoccupied seats near the piano facing the massage chairs and we sat down, stepping over a long black metal bar sticking out at an angle from the side of the piano and resting on the floor. Like a thick javelin defining a boundary. The elderly pianist was playing something unrecognisable to me. He was in ‘automatic pilot’ mode, every so often turning to look at some written notes. He had sheafs of music spread out across the piano lid, which was not open.
I intuited we had breached his ‘space’ as he looked at us quite sternly when we sat down, as if he preferred his audience at a distance, so I smiled again and nodded indicating appreciation for his music. The piano was very old, but thankfully not out of tune. And he selected and played several more pieces, more attentively, aware that we were actually listening. I examined this grey man at the piano; his profile and his unusual facial movements. His face from the cheekbones down was constantly moving, grimacing, unsettled, almost as if he had no control over his facial muscles. It was not a smile. His jaw would suddenly be thrust out with the lower lip curling up over the top lip, and he would struggle then to bring the whole contorted face back into line. Quite disconcerting. But I understood why the metal bar was placed as it was, keeping listeners at a safe distance.
I sensed his discomfort. When he stopped playing for a moment we applauded gently, and he looked my way. I interpreted his expression as a smile and, feeling encouraged, asked if I could approach him at the piano. And so I did, and he seemed ok with some gentle questions about the piano and his music. He spoke English, his name was William, and he looked as though no one had acknowledged his presence in the life of this King Solomon Hotel for years. He was witness to this ritual act of match-making, playing the background music to future fantasies every Thursday. Of course no one was interested in him. But I was. And probed a bit more, discovering that he was actually Christian. He then surprised me by playing a version of ‘Ave Maria’, almost disguised as it rang out in that place.
William then bravely shared a manuscript drawn from a battered music case. It was a handwritten composition; corrections and notes clearly visible on the worn and thumbed pages of which there were possibly ten or twelve. Despite my limited theoretical musical knowledge, I could easily see it was written in four-part harmony. He looked up at me with brimming eyes, searching for some kind of recognition in mine.
‘Its a mass’, he confided.
‘I composed it years ago. It has never been seen or heard by anyone.’
We waited.
And then he scooped the pages back together and stuffed them back in the case.
This moment was powerfully charged. I wondered where we could go from here. William was not in a state to play anything yet; he had showed his treasured secret to a stranger. A very sympathetic stranger but still a stranger. And I wasn’t able to ask him any real questions about his composition. I felt a sense of inadequacy, wishing I could engage him on another level which would validate his creation. But I was simply at a loss, so I asked him if I could play his piano.
The piano stool was double length, suitable for a duet, and he shifted to one end allowing me to perch on the other. I looked at the yellowed ivory keys, chipped and irregular. This piano dated from 1885, he had told me earlier – only sixteen years older than my grandmother’s Bechstein piano of 1901, but in no way in a comparable condition. This felt like an abused piano. A wave, a feeling like disappointment and holding unfulfilled dreams, flowed out to me from its interior. I allowed my fingers to rest somewhere on the keys, breathed slowly and felt the first notes sounding.
The music started. Flowing, weaving and circling out into the volume of the King Solomon Hotel, taking its space, finding its own rhythm, harmonies, melodies. All seemed to be going fine, when suddenly I sensed agitation on my right side. William had become very nervous, fidgeting, and was clearly uncomfortable. He was breathing rather quickly.
‘What are you playing? What is this piece?’
He was scanning his memory bank, not able to locate this.
It seemed to make him feel insecure.
Then, almost desperately, he demanded
‘Where is the structure?’ Accusingly: ‘This music has no structure!’
He was glancing around nervously at the patrons and staff, almost in a panic.
Not at all comfortable. Something had shaken him. I was feeling guilty.
I had obviously breached another of William’s lines of defense.
I intuited that my piano session was over, more abruptly than I’d intended or hoped. I withdrew to the armchair and watched as William struggled with his jaw and tried to get all his muscles back onto the same page. When we took our leave sometime later, he nodded curtly and played even more loudly.
The next day was Shabbat, and I did not expect to see much activity in the King Solomon Hotel. I did go up to the piano again, however, and was shocked to find the great metal bar clamped firmly and lying heavily across the entire width of its cover. It was padlocked, with a huge lock, like a chastity belt. The piano had settled back into its earlier depression. It had the air of an old caged lion, which had briefly tasted freedom and then had again been placed back into captivity.
I had a strong sense then that, by the time next Thursday came around, all the structures in the King Solomon Hotel would again be back in place.
And the strictures, both real and imagined, might keep William’s creation of his ‘Mass’ firmly, and forever, in the brown leather music case.
***
[1] ritual baths
[2] wigs