XXVI

P

haedra sang sad love songs for us and I was unmoved. Some aspect of Lieder keeps me at arms length. The music of the Far East is similarly distanced from me. I see the craft and I am, I believe, fully appreciative of the involved artistry but I cannot enjoy it as I ought.

I do enjoy Do Wop music of the 50s and all manner of bubblegum pop that likewise arose from my childhood. I would not concede it much artistic merit but I like it. This pleasure is without guilt or guile.

The pillar whereon Phaedra is perched is not very high at all. For me she is entirely mortal and only raised up to the celestial sphere by the effortless hand of her sister. I like Phaedra. I expect that I could happily spend a day in her company. It would be as pleasant an afternoon as I could imagine, were I to imagine it. She is sweet and funny. She has also, in my sight, been quite happily quite silly. I like Phaedra more than Beatrice but if they each called to me from opposite storm tossed shores I would mightily swim, without hesitation, for that bank wherefrom Beatrice beckons.

Beatrice is an idée fixe, my Polar Star. My course is set and wherever my prow is piloted, it goes in points off of that star. However the constellations contrive to glide across the cosmos, however this planet spins and turns, I will know my position by her place in the permanence.

At that performance, as the Soprano issued splendid lyric music, I could only think of Art and Beatrice and Art and Beauty. I was a spectator though.

Detached.

As the sweet songs rose and fell to me sense, as Phaedra smiled and popped her eyes wide for emphasis, as the bench seat nudged against my tail, I sat staring away to the Northern Star but I navigated no course for my vessel. I could do no more than unroll weathered maps of fantastical lands unexplored or charts drawn by my own hand from previous perilous adventures. I could do no more than dream and recall.

Here there be Beauty.

Sharp shoals imperilled such a journey. Cross winds of confidence and cowardice would be notoriously unreliable. Strong ships, having famously picked their way through rocks of despair, had afterward floundered and been lost in great gales of Hubris. Empty vessels, their Captains mad, have drifted through the doldrums unto death. There are exotic spice ports in those lands where false Pilots have abandoned their craft after selling the crew to slavers. Some sailors have returned with wild tales of having found the fabled isles and many others laugh it off as but a myth spread by seamen too long drunk on salted seas.

Beauty, it is said, was once a great city of lead and brass that a traveller could reach after rigorous travails. The simple people of those olden times spoke of its marvels because they knew no better. Following a Great War, that ancient island crumbled to sink beneath the ocean surface and then, in a fiery explosion of colour and formlessness, was swallowed beneath the seabed.

It is a fool that quests now to that submerged ruin of yesteryear. Some things lost are best left so.

The prize, my Mu, lay to the north. This much I knew.

I would find beauty. I would show them all. They had laughed at my vision. Oh, how they had laughed but I will have my day.

If I did not nail a coin to the masthead, it was only because I sailed alone.

My craft remains tied to the dock. She is a fine ship that has, over several years, been fully refitted and repaired. In her last grand journey, her back was nearly broken but she held and now she is rebuilt stronger. She should be seaworthy. Provision aplenty have been taken aboard. Everything necessary for a fresh adventure has been stuffed into her modest hold.

The old crew remains loyal. Leonardo is my learned, studious helmsman. There is no finer topsman than the divine Raphael Sanzio. Giotto and Masaccio have always served me well as carpenters. In truth, though the latter claims to have reached that elusive shore, I doubt him. These long salted seadogs have life in them yet, I am certain. Their loyalty and devotion to the mission is without question. They know that it is obtainable. They know that is a worthy destination.

For my navigator I have chosen the blind Michelangelo Buonarotti. He and I have poured over the extensive notes of both Vasari and Dante. Together we see clues to our course in the words of these men, the poet especially. We three are in accord as to the hazards that must be avoided and the means to do so. They will both encourage me to stay close to the Holy Sea but I argue to try the Heathen shore. It may prove a tragic failing.

No insurer can be found to underwrite this expedition. The investors on the side of the quay shake their heads.

So she remains secured there, bound to the land. Every dawn the crew assemble outside my cabin door and, with but a quiet rapping, disturb me to ask, "Do we sail today?" and every dawn I reply, "The tide is not yet high."

And the soprano moon shines on the darkly lit stage, telling us all of loves lost tomorrows that hold hope out in small, cupped hands. Is this moon near enough, large enough to give us the currents that my boat waits for?

When Phaedra, pursuing Phaeton, leaves the stage, a part of me is pulled after her. It is no fraction of my soul that I could identify or long yearn after, but I took note of the small emptiness. The finite floating ghost that had followed Phaedra from the stage had been guilt. In the immediate moments after the music, my soul was freed from the haunting of my past sins toward her sister. I felt no shame for being there, applauding with the appreciative audience, and I was happy for her. I was glad for the performance she had given. I was downright joyous.

In the bright glow of her original smile, she ceased to be the sister of Beatrice. I ceased to be any sort of stalker and was submerged into the aisles of clap-happy faceless faces. In the victory of her moment, Phaedra ceased to be entirely defined by me.

By dawn, that part of my heart had returned with the tide. By dawn, I once again knew that I must yet abide.

Yet.

There would come a time. At my most anchored moments, I knew that there would come again a day when, without fanfare or promise, we would slip and sail away for the Beautiful Sea.

Hail, Perfection! Is that you I see
At the end of the Endless Sea?
Hopes and dreams fill my sail
As I approach to gaily hail
And find you still avoiding me.

I returned to work the next day unchanged but for a memory of change.

XXVII