Cruda Amarilli
Cruel Amaryllis, who even with the 'bitterness'
Of your name, alas, bitterly teach;
Amaryllis, purer and more beautiful
Than the white privet,
But deafer, fiercer and more fugacious
Than the deaf asp;
Since by speaking I offend you,
I shall die in silence.
*********************
"Fuck...me...dead, so you're saying- VICEGRIPS!" Reinette prods him in the thigh with her foot. Her sole is hardened from the summer, and above a network of straps, restraints, are tanned along her foot, along her calves to the inside of her thigh. Beyond her thigh is concealed, certainly not by her skirt, but the body of the baseless harp lying, padded and propped up against the wall. "Earth to Sean, vicegrips! You want me to lose a fucking finger?"
He obliges, passing the pliers, "Sorry. Jesus."
She wrestles with the pedal rods. He grimaces, eyes averted from the harp in pieces, the ornately carved, gilded wood dismantled to its greased steel core. She swears. To her it was always a machine of war. A click. A grunt. She is pleased. "So what you're saying is we'll have more basses than either fiddles, or the cello and violas combined? Fucking ace. The five of them used to give me the deep slit-tickle from across the orchestra. Twenty? The patrons will be coming all over the upper tier seats, we'll have to put towels down in the boxes." She wipes some grease off her hand, admiring her handiwork, addressing the pedals, "Try and stick now, bitches."
"Touch wood." He says hastily.
"Wouldn't want to grease up your pretty new jeans," she grins, "God I love it when you boys come back from break, when your Mums have burnt your uni rags, and tried to instill a comprehension of personal grooming into you. The lambs of the left handed shearer, all trying to hide behind the same tree so the other sheep don't mock you."
Reinette is what she is for a reason. Five hundred years ago, there was a great composer named Claudio Monteverdi. Renaissance music...it is hard to put. It didn't have any corners it just flowed on until it stopped. They didn't want anything jarring, you followed the laws of what notes go where because to defy the rule of harmony was to defy the rule of God.
But Monteverdi dreamt of the fierceness of women. He dreamt of them glittering, cold, with unseen and unfathomable intellect, untouchable. Cruel Amaryllis. He used a devil's chord to describe her, her cruelty: an unprepared dominant seven. He was reprimanded by the church, of course, but it was too late. Musicians understood that chord, that fierce, exquisite longing, that pulls you closer than any well mannered logical affection. Baroque music was born.
The first orchestra to include a harp was Claudio Monteverdi's. It was an orchestra of men but for one: the harpist, Claudia Monteverdi, Claudio's wife. Since then the instrument has been the stronghold of women in the musical profession.
"So it's just the two of us." Reinette interjected.
Sean jumped, "What?"
"Harpists. Me and this Lottë chick the Director mail-ordered from the Ilyich Harp Colony."
"You have a colony now? Like, for lepers?"
"Quite a few, actually. Ilyich is the original schmick though. Start indoctrinating you in the womb, teach you manners and grace, change your name, your handwriting, how you sit, what you eat, make you wear see-through white dresses."
He laughs, "Manners and grace, huh? Should send you there."
"Oh I wish. The bitch probably has technique like a fucking sorcerer, like telekinesis; she thinks about the string and the harmonic just happens."
Sean clips and unclips his flute case, "It sounds like a cult."
"So?" She taps his calf with her open palm, standing up. They erect the concert harp between them. Reinette, though diminutive, is the more formidable force, using the familiar balance points and increased mobility of her stature. "God knows I'd sacrifice a few virgins for better facility, wouldn't you?"
