356
PARTISAN REVIEW
he were making certain that all his chickens were in the coop, and
then he-jumped and struck the fiddle. And there they were.
All I know about music is that not many people ever really
hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens
within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corrobor–
ated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who
creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar
rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is
evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it
has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his
triumph, when he triumphs, is ours. I just watched Sonny's face.
His face was troubled, he was working hard, but he wasn't with it.
And I had the feeling that, in a way, everyone on the bandstand was
waiting for him, both waiting for him and pushing him along. But as
I began to watch Creole, I realized that it was Creole who held
them ail back. He had them on a short rein. Up there, keeping the
beat with his whole body, wailing on the fiddle, with his eyes half
closed, he was listening to everything, but he was listening to Sonny.
He was having a dialogue with Sonny. He wanted Sonny to leave the
shore line and strike out for the deep water. He was Sonny's witness
that deep water and drowning were not the same thing-he had been
there, and he knew. And he wanted Sonny to know. He was waiting
for Sonny to do the things on the keys which would let Creole know
that Sonny was in the water.
And, while Creole listened, Sonny moved, deep within, exactly
like someone in torment. I had never before thought of how awful
the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument.
He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own.
He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just
a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers
and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with
it, the only way to find this out is to try to try and make it do every–
thing.
And Sonny hadn't been near a piano for over a year. And he
wasn't on much better terms with his life, not the life that stretched
before him now. He and the piano stammered, started one way, got
scared, stopped; started another way, panicked, marked time, started
again; then seemed to have found a direction, panicked again, got
