Читать книгу Searching For Sophia - Andrew Saw - Страница 16

11

It was a fascinating meal because of what wasn’t said at our trattoria table on the Opera House walk. There was much discussed, but it was obvious to me that Sophia and Joe were also deep in a silent parallel conversation. How often, I thought, does it happen like this when two people are falling in love? The world around them barely notices their unspoken exchange and yet it’s louder than words. Thanks to the effort of swallowing considerable joy, Joe just pushed his penne arrabiata around his plate in circles. Jarrah was barely distracted by a bowl of minestrone.

Not so Sophia and me. We were famished. We worked our way through mounds of the simplest dishes available, me spaghetti aglio e oglio, and Sophia rigatoni alla carbonara. While we hammered the pasta, the talk was mostly about Italy, with Sophia funny and charming, telling tales of playing concerts in Venice and Rome. She was like an extra light on the Opera House walk, bathing us all in a special luminescence.

When she was close to the end of her meal she focused her fabulous gaze on Jarrah. “Joe says you’re a psychiatrist,” she said, wiping a crust of bread in carbonara sauce and slipping it into her mouth.

Interesting, I thought, when did he have time to say that?

Jarrah looked up with a faintly mischievous smile. “Did he now?”

“Do you like this work?”

“Very much.”

“It’s important.”

“I think so,” Jarrah agreed.

“Is it difficult?”

“Sometimes, but also very rewarding, the human psyche is a fragile domain, but amazingly resilient as well.”

“So you guide lost souls.”

Jarrah laughed, a little nervously. “I don’t think I’d put it in those terms. Psychiatry is not a religion and we don’t really believe in the supernatural.”

“You think there is no soul?” Sophia asked, surprised.

“To be honest, Sophia, I’m not sure what ‘soul’ really means.”

There was a pause with Sophia strangely immobile, her smile fixed on her face like it was carved in alabaster. I wondered if we were about to witness the return of the permafrost queen. Joe looked on with his mouth slightly open, in the manner of a man intensely concentrating when stuck without warning on a tightrope.

“If there is no soul, then what makes us spiritual?” Sophia finally asked.

“An awful lot really, but the human psyche is just too complex to describe in those terms.”

“So you have never seen it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have never seen a person with a lost soul?”

“I doubt it, Sophia, but I don’t think it’s something anyone can know, at least not in my profession.”

Another pause from Sophia, who was definitely etched in ice. Whatever sunshine had emerged after Scheherazade was fast disappearing. “If a psychiatrist cannot know a soul when it is lost, then who can?”

It didn’t take extra-sensory perception to realise that Sophia’s questions were coming from somewhere personal.

“I think the soul is real,” said Joe suddenly. “There are physicists who think it exists at the quantum level, as crystals in tubular cell structures within the brain.”

Jarrah and Sophia both looked at him almost as if they resented the technical interruption, but he ploughed on. “It’s possible for the crystals to malfunction. When that happens, it’s called orchestrated objective reduction. The same process happens when we die.”

“But that still doesn’t define what a soul might be,” said Jarrah with a patronising smile.

“Sure, but you don’t have to define nature at the quantum level to make it real.”

Sophia gave him a grateful glance, the light back in her sea-green eyes. “I think it’s like the spirit in music,” she said turning back to Jarrah. “It’s on paper in a score, it’s in every instrument, but music only is real to a human soul.”

Jarrah smiled. “I’m sure you’re right, Sophia – reality does leave a lot to the imagination.”

There was an awkward silence, with the energy between Sophia and Joe doing most of the talking. It was a simple metaphysical discussion, something you’d hear among thoughtful teenagers, but somehow Sophia invested the short exchange with a weight that made it significant. I wasn’t sure if it was her Eastern European culture or her pendulum-like personality, or even the afterglow of Scheherazade, but somehow she made it seem like we were debating what it means to be human. That’s when I knew for certain why Joe was so taken with her. For him there are layers of causation and meaning that are profoundly important but rarely understood, and listening to Sophia I could see that she would have agreed.

“Well,” said Sophia with no warning, “now I must go.”

It was so sudden I’m sure we must have all looked shocked. Even though I hadn’t said a word, I felt guilty, as if I’d contributed to some offence, but Sophia was too busy to notice, fumbling in her bag for money.

“No, no,” said Joe. “This is on me, and I’ll give you a lift.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“It’s very necessary.”

“I’ll get it, Joe,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

Sophia was on her feet, shaking Jarrah’s hand. “I am very pleased that you like our orchestra,” she said.

“You were brilliant, Sophia.”

“It’s not me, it was the soul in the music.”

Then she turned to me. “Was it good for you?”

“Yes it was, Sophia, quite amazing.”

“It was the first time you’ve heard this symphony, yes?”

“Pretty much.”

“I could feel it. Goodnight.”

Her handshake was firm and cool and strangely reassuring, as if I was being congratulated on passing an audition. Then they were walking away. My last sight of them was the back of Sophia’s head above the crowd, with Joe at her right shoulder. Even though he was much shorter, he seemed more substantial, while Sophia’s body language was hesitant and vulnerable, as if the human mass might swallow her whole.

“Wow,” said Jarrah. “Talk about the speed of light.”

“Do you think we upset her?”

“How would I know, I don’t know who she is.”

“So what did you think?”

“Is she always like that?”

“I’ve only met her a few times, and she’s certainly emphatic.”

“And abrupt.”

“So?”

“You want a professional analysis?” Jarrah asked.

“No, of course not, I’m just curious.”

“Well, she seems to be hanging on very tight.”

“Meaning?”

“She doesn’t seem all that stable.”

“As in slightly crazy?”

“No, not necessarily. Some people when you meet them are open, some are closed. The ones who are shut usually fear some sort of threat.”

“I wouldn’t describe her as threatened,” I said.

“But what do you know about her? As far as I can tell, you know that she babysits a couple of schnauzers and plays in an orchestra. Has she ever told you anything else?”

“Not really, but why should she?”

“No reason at all, but do you remember when you met me and the rest of the family?”

“Vividly.”

“So do I. We downloaded practically everything about ourselves and we haven’t stopped downloading since. There’s nothing shut about the Frankensteins; but with this woman you barely see a chink of light.”

“That’s not what Joe says.”

“I’m sure. But, like I said, Joe leaves a lot of reality to his imagination.”

“Are you worried about him?”

“Worried? No I’m not worried.”

“But you think it might end badly?”

“God, Tim, as far as I can tell it hasn’t even started.”

At the time I didn’t want to argue, not with Joe’s twin sister the psychiatrist, but she was wrong.