Synaesthesia by Elizabeth Perry

There was a gentle ache in my chest as she trilled on a high F, sending showers of golden sparks out into the audience. They hung in the air for a few moments before fading into dull gray, but she would not allow the emptiness to last and spurned on into a series of scales, urging the instrument to sing, bathing the stage in the most beautiful array of colors that I’d been exposed to in a long time. The breath caught in my throat. I felt as if I were the one playing, and not she. My fingers twitched eagerly in my lap, playing a violin that no one could see. It was the beginnings of a duet.

Behind her, the orchestra swelled back into full sound; strings, woodwinds, brass, all supporting her sound and embracing her notes so deeply in their own that each shade almost seemed tangible; I could reach out and hold the navy stars, caress the wispy stalks of emerald and topaz, taste the salmon pink as puffs of it sprung up before me. At that moment, I could see nothing but the colors, their vividness so great that the girl on stage—her graceful fingers were like lightning, striking over and over again to open and close holes—seemed to be wearing each tint as if it had always been a part of her.

A crescendo brightened the sound further, and it was as if I were seeing daylight for the first time in months. My feet felt as if I could float, as if I had just exited the auditorium and opened my eyes to the wide, wide world. I could see in color. And just as beautifully as it had started, the piece came to an end. The song stopped, a grand pause, and then, through the white that had begun to replace the colors, the flutist played a final few phrases in the key of F, sprinkling the golden remnants of the piece at her feet before dying out and letting darkness settle on the stage.

I was on my feet immediately, not even at the point of applause yet, merely in awe. The power of her music, the draw of it still hung there, even through the colors had gone. I was still enchanted. Behind me, someone began to clap, joined at once by hundreds of others. The sound of their hands hitting together, all at such random times, in synch but never quite in synch...it reminded me of a drum-roll, but there was no reddish haze spread over the auditorium. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, but then I woke from my daze and joined the chorus, delighting in being part of the rhythmically-challenged crowd. As people slowly gathered their coats, preparing to leave, I waited patiently, not satisfied enough to go quite yet.

For me, it had always been this way. The colors of music were so much a part of my life that I doubted I could live without it. Music was my gateway into a world beyond my black and white—beyond my shades of gray. It opened doors that I’d been told would always remain closed. As a child, I had been diagnosed with true colorblindness, unable to see anything but black, white and their strange blend.

We’d lived in the country then, my mother and I and my siblings, Martin and Aria, and my grandmother. We had lived out ‘in the middle of nowhere’, as people would put it here in the city. My mother drove into town to work in the evenings and my brother and sister took care of grandmother. We were all homeschooled. I don’t remember it very well, but I know that there was no music. We didn’t attend church, and generally lead very sheltered lives. Mother wanted to keep us safe from the world—or maybe she just didn’t want to give us the option of leaving her. Not that any of us would have. We loved our mother. She took care of us until it was physically impossible for her to do so.

They found the cancer when I was six. Acute Leukemia. The hospital bills were astronomical and, since mother could no longer work to support us all, we were left with few options. Martin eventually dropped out of high school, which he had started attending when mother allowed him some freedom, and took over mother’s job. He got a second job, as well, but it wasn’t enough. Every day she seemed sicker, as if the life was slowly draining out of her, and we couldn’t afford to alleviate her pain. Grandmother was paying the hospital bills with her life savings. Aria took over the job of teacher, helping me to learn as best she could, taking care of grandmother at the same time. It’s possible that, had she not been teaching me, I would never have realized the existence of color.

I still remember that day, as if it had happened mere hours ago—the house was quiet, empty. Mother was in the hospital, Martin at work, grandmother resting; Aria couldn’t find the next level of the lesson books, and I had finished my work in the old one. She was rushed off to wait on grandmother and hastily told me to look up in the attic for it. I was eight, at the time. The attic seemed like a frightening place to me, but I was also very obedient, and not doing what I had been asked would only cause more stress for my sister. I retrieved a stool from the kitchen, used it to reach the cord for the attic stairs and, when they descended, I climbed them one at a time.

The dust was so thick that I could barely breathe, and it was difficult to see anything amidst the blackness when all I could see to begin with were black and white. The white from the kitchen still shone behind me, though, and I moved myself forwards, looking for the box where mother kept her books. Thinking on it now, there would have been no reason for the book to be up there—the dust being what it was, it was clear that no one had been up in a long time.

My foot hit into something and I fell, crying out, rolling around in the dark and wrestling with the thing that had my toes. All the jumping and flailing of my arms wrapped one up in a cord hanging from the ceiling and, as I was beginning to fall again, I pulled the cord with me and the lights came on. Sprawled on the floor, something hard jabbing me in the ribs, I rolled over and turned to look at the object which had caused me so much trouble, unimpressed with the results. It was a rectangular case, nothing more.

Curious though, now that I noticed the latches holding it shut, I got hesitantly to my knees and pulled the case up right in front of me. The contents couldn’t be too large, as it was roughly the length of my arm. I slowly unlatched it and, when there was nothing left to hold it shut, I lifted the top up with careful precision.

Sitting there, cushioned by a soft, pleasing fabric, was something made of wood, and metal, and strings. Beside it, in the case, lay a long strip of wood strung with something that felt coarse. I stared at the thing as if bewitched and reached my hand out to touch one of the four strings running down the length of it, letting my fingers rest against its smoothness. Some curiosity stirred again, and I pulled at it once, letting the string go, plucking it. A flash of something came into my field of vision, unlike anything I had ever seen. I knew it was green, somehow—it smelled of freshly cut grass to me, and mother always had told me that grass was green. It also smelled like something else. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I plucked it again, and the color spiked across my vision...

The auditorium was empty, when I opened my eyes. The stage was empty, as well. Perhaps I had lingered longer than I’d meant to. 

“We can probably go now,” someone beside me said, startling me.

My eyes finally tore from the stage and came to rest on Traci, her eyes narrowed and a sort of unpleasant pucker to her lips. She had been so silent I had nearly forgotten she was there—I had forgotten she was there. I shrugged and got to my feet, attempting to gather my cloak and missing the plush fabric a few times before my fingers finally caught to it. Why on Earth did they have to blend into one another? I should have gotten the coat that looked white, so that I would at least be able to find it without too much hassle.

“Did you enjoy the concert?” Traci asked conversationally, looping her arm with my and beginning to lead me out.

“Is that a serious question?” I frowned, watching my shoes scuff against the velvety-looking carpet that paved the way to the exit. I had once attempted to explain to her that certain scales were different colors to me, and I knew what base colors they were by their smell and aura. I couldn’t remember if I had ever even finished that explanation, possibly getting lost in playing, but she had shown no signs of comprehension, regardless. She couldn’t have understood me, or my love of music, if she’d tried.

“Nevermind,” she said after what was, to her, a brief moment of silence. Her grip on my arm loosened as we walked through the automatic doors—rather unusual for a concert hall, I thought—and out into a light snow.

The wind was something beautiful, blowing its mournful notes into the hearts of those sensitive to the winter; it was cruel, as well, refusing to touch gingerly, burning the skin with its icy lips. Its howl was a low woodwind. It was part of a symphony most could not recognize; especially not surrounded by the masses that enveloped the streets, suffocating them. People were like a plague, the way they stomped around, nosy, callous.

“Car!”

I came to an abrupt halt, about a foot into the street. Something whizzed by me without hesitation—true to the warning, it was a car. It rushed the breeze to a harsh crescendo before fading it out to almost nothing, a low whistle lost in a sea of people. Slightly behind me, Traci was there, one hand digging its fingernails into my wrist, the other covering her mouth.

“God, Rae, pay attention,” she whispered. I could only tell what she had said by the movement of her lips. There was too much commotion—to many people living their hustle-bustle lives. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.”

She returned to my side, nails still pushing painfully against my wrist, though not as desperately as before, and we proceeded to cross the street. Her eyes darted back and forth almost comically, as if she expected something to attack us. We reached the curb safely and I managed to wriggle myself free, walking side-by-side, not touching. Her gaze was low, watching the sidewalk, which had been dusted by a thin sheet of snow earlier in the day. 

  It had been snowing then, too—the day of mother’s funeral. Very few were in attendance; my grandmother, a few cousins, my uncle, two or three women who had been mother’s friends, my siblings, and I. 

The minister spoke about mother, and how she had been a devout woman who cared deeply for her husband and children. He was a liar. He didn’t even know her. She had never been religious, and she couldn’t have possibly loved my father. Her face had contorted so frightfully when she saw the violin case, the home of the instrument that I later learned had once been his. I remember nurses holding her down after she overturned her bedside table and attempted to get up.

“Don’t you ever bring that thing in here again!” A shriek that didn’t even sound human; an emotion so powerful that I had been afraid to visit her for almost a week; a response that was burned into my memory, that continued to haunt my thoughts for years, whenever I picked up a bow.

Holding the heavy bow above the strings, feeling the soft cloth and the hardness of the chinrest beneath my chin, naked before the small group of people that I could no longer see against the brightness of the funeral home’s lights—it felt cruel to play ‘that thing’ for her, when she could not protest. Every movement of the bow across the neck felt like a betrayal. Every note felt like an insult to her memory...and, as it went on, I began to like it. Music, something she had kept from me, was finally in my own hands, and she would never utter a word against me.

She would never utter a word of praise, either...

There were three other vehicles in the driveway when we arrived at the house: Aria’s van, Grandmother’s truck, and Uncle Grady’s convertible. The windows were strung with lights, and a sizeable Christmas tree, also glimmering with holiday spirit, was visible through the front window. Traci was rummaging around in her purse, probably trying to find her powder or something. It was ridiculous, really, as she had never needed makeup, but seemed to have some kind of unreasonable obsession with caking it on. I got out of the car, steeling myself against the sudden gust of wind, and went around to open her door, since she didn’t seem likely to do it herself.

“You look fine,” I told her, leaning against the top of the car. “You know how Aria is. We should get inside so she can fuss over us.”

She finished with the eye makeup, which was what she had been fishing for amidst all the junk she carried, and used the steering wheel to steady herself as she stood up. The driveway was a sheet of ice. I probably should have said something but, being that she had driven up onto it, I figured she had already known.

“Is the blush okay?”

I rolled my eyes and started for the side door, hearing her shuffle through the snow behind me. Questions like that were useless. Her face had no color for me, anyways, so all she could expect was what she wanted to hear—an objective “why, yes, your cheeks look lovely.” I refused to give her that. It was an obvious lie, and it couldn’t possibly flatter her.

The side door was open, but I knocked out of habit, the wood cold against my knuckles. I could picture the percussive sounds on a staff, each rap a black note, each pause a rest.

“You can stop knocking, Rae.”

My fist stopped mid-knock and I crossed my arms, glancing over at Traci impatiently. She was smiling; the comment had been made in jest. I raised the corners of my mouth in response, a flustered expression. I didn’t smile easily, and I most certainly didn’t smile well.

“You didn’t have to bring that thing,” she nodded her head at the violin case dangling from my fingertips.

My pathetic smile faded, “You know Grandmother. She’ll ask for a song after dinner. It would break her heart if I didn’t.”

“One song will turn into ten, Rae,” Traci said, giving a light, humorless laugh.

The door opened and two little heads popped out; masses of dark hair tied up into extravagant ribbons, and two pairs of wide, inquisitive eyes. The twins had grown since I’d last seen them; that was certain. The figures hidden round the corner were half a foot taller than before, coming up to about my chest.

“Uncle Raven!” They chorused, practically jumping on me after waiting for me to remove my shoes and coat.

“Hey, girls,” A gentle arm around each of them ended my in the living room, being group-hugged by my grandmother, nieces and sister. Completely unnecessary, but I wasn’t going to complain. The holidays were one of the few times I came home. The fact that Uncle Grady wasn’t there meant that he had gone out with some of his friends—probably to the casino. He had a passion for that place.

Aria shuffled across the smooth floor and back into the kitchen, after making sure that everyone had a seat, returning moments later with a tray of cookies. She set it carefully on the glass coffee table, which was placed conveniently in front of the sofa, where Traci and I had been herded. The reception of Traci had been the same as usual, also; hugs, high-pitched, girly giggles, and other such things. She and Aria got on well. I think the most of it was that Traci reminded her of mother.

“Dinner will be ready in about a half-hour,” Aria told us all kindly, wiping her hands on her apron as she retreated to the kitchen.

“Have you been eating enough?” Grandmother made it a point to ask this immediately, squinting her gray eyes at me suspiciously. “Because you never ate enough as a child. You would always push food around to try and trick me. You better be eating well.” She gave one of those grunt-coughs, signature move of the elderly, and turned her steely gaze on Traci, “you cook meals? Nutritional meals?”

“Oh, yes, we eat very well, thank you, Nana,” Traci said a bit loudly. Grandmother was sort of hard of hearing, anyways. 

I raised an eyebrow. We did eat well, that much was true, but it wasn’t Traci that did the cooking. Here, even as I sat before her, grown, she still treated me like a child. It was clear she had no problem embarrassing me in front of Traci.

“You been eating enough?” the crotchety old woman asked again, her fiery eyes boring into me.

“Yeah,” I responded absently. The television, which I hadn’t noticed was on until then, was emitting a light Christmas tune, something that powdered color into the space before the screen and speakers.

“What you been eating? Raven?” She pushed. “Boy, would you listen to me when I’m talking to you?” I strived to hear exactly what was playing. It was in G, I was sure. “Raven Gavin!”

Traci’s sniggering was what finally broke my concentration, bringing me back into the environment which I had been trying to escape since the age of twelve—Aria’s excitement and excessive care, and Grandmother’s constant complaining and pressing. 

“Your middle name is Gavin?” she whispered. Her thin hand was on my thigh.

“Not funny,” I responded at a pianissimo, shifting a bit under her touch. The hand removed itself immediately. I could breathe again.

She and Grandmother talked for a while, I suppose—probably more Traci talked and Grandmother badgered her for answers to personal questions. I was only listening to the faint buzz of music seeping through the television’s speakers, though, so their conversation ceased to matter. A faint green cloud, mingled with drops of crimson and orange; this was what Christmas should look like. A friendly pounding on the door told me that my brother had arrived.

Squeals of “Martin!” only confirmed this, as Grandmother and the girls hurried into the Kitchen to greet him, leaving Traci and I on the sofa.

The violin case sat at my feet. My fingers itched to open its lid and retrieve the delicate instrument held within its padded depths; if not to play it, merely to cradle contentedly, imagining the way it sang when the bow moved across it. I closed my eyes for a moment. My fingers moved slightly, as they had in the concert hall, and I could almost hear the sound of the violin. It quickly disappeared, though, and I attributed it to the wind.

“Thanks for inviting me again, this year,” Traci said quietly. “I know you don’t like your family’s gatherings, but they’re much better than mine. Your sister is a great cook, and your grandmother is so nice...”

I shook my head, “They’re overbearing. I would rather be at the apartment.” She fell silent. The only sounds that could be heard were those coming from the kitchen. Perhaps I had been too blunt. In an attempt at retribution, I went on, “I guess they could be worse. They don’t incessantly interfere in our lives other than during the holidays.”

Clearly, this was not what she had wanted to hear. Traci got up and went into the kitchen, presumably to greet my brother, as well. All I could do was follow.

“Oy, little brother!” Martin called, bear-hugging me as if it had been ten years since I had last seen him, rather than the meager six months or so.

“Glad you’re well,” I told him with as much excitement as I could muster, trying to hug him back but only succeeding in sort of patting his back. He didn’t appear to mind, so I said nothing about the ‘not as happy as I was expecting’ face he had on.

“And little brother’s cute girlfriend,” Martin grinned, hugging Traci also, though much less viciously than what he’d done to me. “You doing alright, then? Still putting up with him?”

I glared at Martin’s back as Traci responded that she was indeed still ‘putting up’ with me. It hadn’t been necessary for him to say it like that, but Martin just functioned that way—I had grown used to his unique sense of humor, by now. Well, it wasn’t entirely that it was unique, just that I had a particularly bad sense of humor compared to him, so everything about it seemed unusual to me.

“Raven,” Grandmother grumbled, hobbling over to me, “I need to talk with you quick. Told you that over the phone the other day.”

“You told Traci then, Grandmother. I don’t use the phone.”

She looked confused for a moment before admitting that I was probably right. “You work that job with the students, still, then; the violin lessons. They send you those fancy e-mails when they want to hire you.” She opened the door to Aria’s guest bedroom.

“Yes.”

Closing the door behind me, she then sat herself on the bed. When it became clear that I was going to stand, she spoke in a calm voice I couldn’t remember hearing since childhood. “I’ve watched you for a long time. You’re just like your father.”

I froze. She never spoke of my father. She never spoke of my grandfather. The only time I asked about them as a child, she had slapped my face and told me it was unlucky to speak of the dead. Now, here she was, telling me I was just like father.

“He was in love with music.”

That explained mother’s hate for the violin. He had been more in love with music than he was in love with her. I hadn’t known anything, really, but I pieced together a fair chunk of what Grandmother and mother had never been willing to tell me.

“Your mother...she loved music, too.” Grandmother’s eyes were wet. I blinked. What was she going on about? My mother had hated music. We never had any until I found the violin and, even then, it was all sneaking around and listening where I couldn’t be found.

I leaned back against the wall, “Mother hated music. She refused to listen to it. She hated that violin more than anything.”

Grandmother shook her head, “That was after he left her.” I caught myself before I could let out any noise of surprise and interrupt her. “There was no other woman. There wasn’t a mistress or a new job or any of that stuff...he was addicted to music. It was what made her fall in love with him. She could listen to him play for hours.”

“But, what—”

“I see him in you, the way you look at that case. The way you hold that bow and that violin,” Grandmother said delicately. “Your grandfather’s father made that violin. It was passed down to him and then to your father. It has close ties to family and it has a history of tearing families apart.”

“You sound like a bad soap opera, Grandma.”

She frowned at me, the wrinkles between her eyes multiplying, “You have the same look as he did. He lost everything. I don’t want you to end up like him. Maybe you should get a job like Martin’s.”

So it had become this—a be-more-like-Martin talk. I was used to these, at least. They had only been happening since I could walk. Martin was good at everything. Possibly the one thing he couldn’t do was play the violin. And Grandmother wanted me to give that up because I ‘loved it too much’? I turned the door handle and took a step out into the brighter hallway.

“You treat instruments like people...what about real people?” she asked from within the room.

I ignored her. This was starting off as the worst holiday visit of my life. My return to the kitchen did not improve it. Dinner was ready and I was forced to sit through an hour and a half of the twins pulling one another’s hair, Grandmother pestering Martin, and Aria and Traci gossiping. My answers to questions were monosyllabic and monotone. From experience, I had learned that those were the best answers, because people felt unfulfilled and were less likely to disturb your meal in the future. The television was still on in the living room, to top it all off, and the faint wisps of crimson were barely visible from my seat, only serving to tease me. 

When the seemingly endless dinner had finally finished up, predictably, my Grandmother turned to me and asked if I would play a piece on the violin.

Hypocrite, I thought bitterly, kneeling before my case and already feeling my anger at her quell. Nothing relaxed me like playing. Except...

Traci sat on the sofa before me, her short hair enveloping her face. Ari and the twins were positioned around her and Grandmother and Martin were in the rocking chairs to their side. Traci nodded encouragingly, mouthing “Go on” to me, along with the names of a few pieces that would be appropriate.

The bow was in a readied position in my hand, and the chin rest was already in place. I tested out a few notes; scales, mostly. They rang out perfectly within the small room, blending together to form patterns. They were beautiful, but they seemed empty. Something caught in my throat—words. I watched Traci for a moment, ceasing to play, and then stepped a bit closer to my audience. I removed the bow from the strings, pointed it down. I held the violin more limply than before, with less fervor. It was strange, as if walking away from someone I'd spent my whole life beside, treating them like they meant nothing to me. My grip on the neck tightened again, reassuring me, comforting the violin, as it did not mean ‘nothing’ to me. Still, I closed my eyes, trying to imagine the colors. I could not and, instead, would only see her short hair; her kind smile; her wide, wide eyes...

“Traci...what color are your eyes?” I felt my mouth form the words, which weighed heavily on my tongue, escaping, though I had never meant to say them aloud.

It was a stupid question, too. Even if she told me, I would not fully be able to understand a word like ‘hazel’ or ‘cerulean’. My colors could not be the same as hers. The room was silent; nobody moving, nobody speaking. Just as I was tightening my fingers on the bow to play once again, uncomfortable with the lack of sound, she spoke.

“They’re A-flat.”