Every Single Minute

He must kill the love within himself, she says. The King has to kill the love inside in order to kill his own son.

The opera keeps reminding her of her own family, that’s why she’s so keen on seeing it again. It’s the story of every family, she tells me. That’s why Don Carlo has remained so popular over the years, because we can all read our own lives into the story, it’s universal. Every time she goes to see it she cannot help thinking of her own father and what happened to her brother, her little brother. It’s the power of the drama that makes you think it’s your own story which is being portrayed on stage, she says, you become part of what’s happening right in front of your eyes. She says her imagination is too big. She’s like a girl again, watching the story of her family unfolding around her. She’s so taken by the opera each time that she can see her brother coming back to life on stage. Her father killing the love inside himself. Her brother being taken away in the end. And she’s completely helpless, trapped in her seat, listening to the music. There’s nothing she can do to intervene.

We used to go to the theatre together, the odd time in Dublin. She would be given complimentary tickets and ask me to go with her, as a companion. We would have an early meal somewhere and get to the theatre with time to spare so she could meet people. You could see them nudging each other, the lips moving. She would disappear into the crowd, pulled along by one handshake after another, passed on from one group to the next, until she needed to escape. Just when they were beginning to tell her something about herself that she already knew, she would point to me standing at the bar and tell them that she had somebody waiting for her. All these theatregoers she knew, I wouldn’t have a clue who they were, other writers, journalists, TV personalities, faces that everybody knows. What I remember most is people coming up to her at the interval saying they had read her book. And she would hunch up with all that praise, like a light was hurting her eyes. A woman once turned around and stood right up in her seat and reached back across two rows to shake her hand and say thank you. That’s all the woman said to her, thanks, for being so honest, for being herself, for writing the story of her life and her family without hiding anything.

It was mostly families we talked about in Berlin. We talked about Don Carlo and fathers and mothers and brothers. We talked about men and women and aunts and uncles and children and Jesuits and love and weddings and life and friends and lovers, the whole lot, I suppose. The things that happen in families. Which includes almost everything, doesn’t it? We were going around the city looking at the sights and telling each other these stories. Family stories and love stories come right and wrong, she said.

Is love still a good word for love, she asked me at one point. I mean, how can you answer that? Of course it’s still a good word. It’s the best word there is for love. What other word is there that would work any better? Chemistry? She said they were always making young words out of the old words, changing the meaning so you don’t recognize them any more. And love is one of those words like home and hope and passion, all those words that people never put back in the right place, she said.

I think being away in Berlin allowed us both to be quite open with each other. It helped us to forget what was happening to her, it was all on hold. There was a comfort in not having to think about what was imminent, I suppose. As long as we kept moving and telling each other stories, as long as the streets were going by and we had all these family things to talk about. I think it was not having to explain anything that made it easier to explain everything, if you get me.

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