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What brings you pleasure?

 

 

I made my way to our College Bar, drunk, and spotted the sil- houette of new friend Eve, seated, with a bunch of women. All the women who studied French and Italian (I say ‘all’ – there were four women spread across all four years) were sitting in the little cave-like corner of the bar, drinking. The bar had only one light, right in the centre, leaving the corner buried in darkness. Eve was leaning against a wall, thick black hair pressed up against it.

 

Walls in our College Bar were rough on the eyes but smooth to the touch, years of history hidden by new coats of paint. Eve smiled when she saw me – carefully painted red lips framing perfect orthodontic white teeth – and gestured that I should join her. Alcohol has robbed me of much of the conversations and introductions that followed. But, of course, I remember meeting Alex. I was struck by her voice, so rich, even velvety, like Baileys or Merlot. There was some- thing so mesmeric about the way she spoke. I was drawn to her subtle Australian cadence, her delicate, almost musical consonants.

 

There in our College Bar, I drunkenly studied her. Barely- there eyebrows. Dark hair in a constant state of flux as she absentmindedly put it up and took it down during conversa- tion. Three perfect freckles in a line along her arm. Eyes the colour the sky should be – the Australian sky I knew, not this foreign English white. I acknowledged and dismissed that this was an odd thought to have about a stranger or a new friend. Eve and I stumbled back to our adjacent rooms arm in arm,new allies. In the dark hallway: 

 

Eve: I’m not a sentimental person

Me: Okay

 

I paused.

 

Me: I think I am

 

She nodded. I wondered whether this was a bad thing in Eve’s books.

 

Eve: Yes, I think you are

Me: Why did you bring up sentimentality?

Eve: As a disclaimer

 

I waited.

 

Eve: I’m really glad we’re neighbours

 

She pulled me  into  a  hug,  squeezed,  then  let  herself into her room. I drunkenly fumbled  with  my  key  as  I did the same.

—

I must have been charming, despite my inebriated state, because the next day I received a friend request on Facebook:

 

Alex:

Hey,

It was lovely to meet a fellow Aussie last night.

It would be really nice if you and Eve came over for dinner one night next week? What do you think?

Alex x

 

What did I think?

 

Amalia:

Hey,

Lovely to meet you too!

I’m at a concert in chapel until 8pm on Tuesday (music student duties!) – would after that be too late?

Amalia x

 

Alex:

After that would be perfect! I’ll message Eve.

X

Eve and I never really discussed the dinner. Tuesday arrived and I attended the concert I’d told my Renaissance Music tutor I’d attend. The chapel was magnificent – gothic and resonant – and the music hit me behind the knees. I was glad to be sitting because music that hits you behind the knees can leave you unbalanced. Five singers stood in a row. The tallest, a man with a boy’s face, sang the solos in a set of Renaissance music and, though his voice was soft and gentle and sweet, the chapel acoustics rubbed his sound warm, inflating it until it filled the ancient space. During a particular Gesualdo madrigal, a balloon of sound lodged itself inside me. I’d never heard music like it before. An ignorant First Year, I’d assumed Renaissance music was too rule-abiding in its harmonies to achieve this intense emo- tional expression. How could they express such anguish in such simplicity?

 

‘Io pur respiro’ (‘I still breathe’) – Carlo Gesualdo, 1611

 

The ethereal introduction morphed into something breath- less. Wildly chromatic. Everything began to hasten. Voices overlapping. Faster. The balloon of sound burst. Shivers overwhelmed me then left me raw.

About halfway through the concert, I felt her sit beside me. It was the second time we’d met in all of time and I was struck by how close she was sitting. Very close. The music faded from foreground to background. It was like a concerto where she was the soloist – the scraping of her chair, the shuffling of her feet, the rhythm of her breathing. She whispered to me, accompanied by the music, ‘I smell of herbs and spices. I’m sorry.’ I laughed because she was funny and she did smell 

strongly of coriander. I love coriander. We watched the rest of the concert together in silence.

I say watched, but suddenly everyone was clapping so I clapped, too, because that’s how clapping works. She was whispering to me again, ‘Oh, but I thought you would be singing.’ I contemplated making a joke, but couldn’t follow through because she really did look disappointed. She smiled when I said, ‘Alex, I can’t think of anything worse than some- one seeing me perform before they get to know me.’

—

Alex’s books were stacked in a neat pile beside her desk, which overlooked the college deer park. Alex, Eve, and I sat around a circular table in this, her study. The door to her bedroom was closed. The air was flavoured with chicken and coriander and all the right spices. This was before we both became vegetarian. In the centre of the table was a colourful salad. It struck me that

the food wasn’t typically English – starchy or heavy. It was something I would have at home in Sydney.

Alex made me nervous. Not in an uncomfortable way, but I felt I wanted to impress her. University stretched our two-year age difference, so she seemed older, wiser, almost glamorous. I was grateful for Eve’s relaxing company. I found her very straightforward, non-judgemental. She was the first in her family to go to university, but she never made a big deal about it. I wondered how many students found a best friend in their first-year college neighbour.

 

Alex told us both about her American boyfriend, Oscar, who was studying for a Master’s in law. I had a vague memory of meeting an American who fit his physical descrip- tion at some international students mingle evening early on. I remember thinking that he laughed a little like Professor Umbridge: closed mouth, high-pitched. But I decided it couldn’t have been Alex’s Oscar because the man I met was too arrogant, too opinionated. It didn’t make sense to me. Anyway, I’m digressing. The three of us sat on the floor to eat. Within an hour, Eve was lying on her back. She looked in pain, but said nothing. Migraine. She’d warned me about these. I didn’t know how to behave, how to be, which I’ll admit felt unusual for me. This was before I’d read and reread Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?, an Alex recommenda- tion. Though I’m not sure that would have helped me here. 

 

Me: This chicken is really good, much nicer than eating in hall–

 

Fumbling, awkward words. Childish. Mundane.

 

Eve: I’m sure that’s meant as a compliment . . .

Her: Is food something that brings you pleasure then?

 

For me, the short answer to this question was no. Almost an aggressive NO. Food actually brought me a lot of pain growing up because eating disorders are rife in my family and I’d only just dropped out of the Who Can Eat The Fewest Calories At Dinner competition we all secretly played. I never won.

 

Eve: I like food, but I’m not sure I’d say it brings me pleasure. What do you mean by pleasure?

 

I breathed out.

 

Her: Have you read that pleasure–joy article?

 

I would come to learn that, among circles of friends, it was kind of a given that everybody had read the same articles and books. They became the common language at most social gatherings. I would also learn that Alex and Eve weren’t really friends. In fact, after that night, Eve, Alex, and I never had dinner again just the three of us. So it was a strange combination of guests at this First Dinner. I’ll let you decide why Alex organised it in the first place.

 

Eve: No?

Me: What?

Her: Zadie Smith, who I love, wrote this interesting article, which distinguishes between joy and pleasure. For her, pleasures are, like, simple things that could happen every day. I think she uses the example of eating an icy pole–

Eve: A what?

Me and her: Ice lolly

 

Eve laughed through her nose – I’d never heard her laugh like this and it tickled me – and I think she muttered something like ‘Australians ’

 

Her: Anyway, joy is something much rarer and more, um, intense? Kind of ecstatic actually. Zadie talks about taking drugs with a stranger and giving birth. Big moments of Joy, with a capital J

 

In the years to come, I would read almost everything Zadie Smith ever published. I would also know Joy by Zadie’s defi- nition: ‘that strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight’.

 

Me: So what brings you pleasure?

Her: Definitely not icy poles in this weather

Eve: It’s such a funny image – licking an ‘icy’ ‘pole’. Like, I get it! I can picture it!

 

Still lying on the floor, she made quotations with her fingers when she said ‘icy’ and ‘pole’. It never fails to amuse me how baffled English people are by the slightest idiosyncrasies in Aussie vocabulary.

 

Her: I think finishing a good book is up there for me

Eve: I really like running – it makes me happy and I do it often, so I guess that counts?

Her: That definitely counts

Eve: That said, I guess I also use running to combat stress, so it’s not entirely a pleasurable thing

Her: But you use it because it brings you pleasure, right?

I still think it counts

 

I didn’t know what I was going to say before I said it. 

 

Me: I think it would probably be wanting really badly to listen to a piece of music and then listening to that piece of music. Yeah, I guess that’d be mine

Her: So you like when desire is satiated?

 

She said the word ‘desire’ like it felt good in her mouth. Desire.

I didn’t blush.

 

Eve: I’m actually in quite a bit of pain. Fucking migraines Her: Ah, I don’t even have any painkillers to offer you Eve: No, that’s okay. Thank you for a wonderful dinner. I

think I’m going to go

 

Eve has a funny way of behaving. Once she has made up her mind about something, she will just block everything out and do it, kind of forgetting where she is and everything else. It’s difficult to describe, so I’ll use this dinner as an example. After saying she was going to go, Eve stood, hugged Alex, hugged me, and left.

 

Me: Maybe I should get going, too

Her: Please don’t feel obliged. I have no other plans this evening apart from getting to know you

Me: And you plan to do that all in an evening?

Her: I plan to start this evening. Yes

 

The wine had oiled my initial fumbling and I could feel my charisma swell as I surfed the alcoholic wave. I let it swell. I leaned in. 

 

Me: And how do you usually get to know people?

Her: I don’t usually want to get to know people the way I want to get to know you

 

I didn’t blush.

 

Her: Besides, I only get to hear you sing once I know you properly, right?

Me: Right. But what if I’m a terrible singer?

Her: You’re not a terrible singer

Me: I could be terrible. Can you imagine? Would you tell me? How embarrassing–

Her: I’ve heard a recording, you’re great!

Me: What recording? How did you–

Her: Not that I know much about opera, but–

Me: Did you look me up?

Her: Sure! You weren’t difficult to find. Don’t you google people?

Me: I do google people

Her: Exactly! I watched a clip of you singing something from Carmen and it was extraordinary

Me: That’s not fair! What’s your secret talent then? Her: Your opera-singing talent isn’t exactly a secret Me: Alright, detective

 

Was I teasing or flirting? What’s the difference?

I paused.

 

Me: I want to get to know you, too

I stayed for seven more hours. Alex told me that she saw her- self as more of a dancer than a linguist, which she found odd given she’d never wanted to dance professionally. She’d spent the time in between school and university teaching herself to code, though she didn’t seriously believe she’d ever need the skill. At 2 a.m., we made peppermint tea in a kettle so small we had to boil it twice to fill two cups. We sat on her sofa and discussed the following:

 

1. James Blake’s music – how it sounds both so angsty and so sexy and how often those two particular adjectives are used together
2. My father’s work in artificial intelligence
3. The diagnostic manual for mental health – why was the threshold for diagnosable anxiety lowered in the latest version of the manual? More stressful world? More forthcoming people?
4. Moral bucket lists – the experiences one should have in order to live a Good Life. I suggested trying again at a task you’ve failed. She countered this with being able to let go of something that isn’t working. Me – actually putting someone before yourself. Her – actually keeping a secret you said you’d keep
5. Our greatest fears. Her – losing her mind and memory. Me – losing loved ones. She asked me what it was like to fear something that was likely, if not inevitable. I told her I tried not to think about it
6. Why we both left Australia. Neither of us could really answer this question. Me – it just felt right to 

   leave Sydney. Her – she’d always known she would leave Melbourne

7. Friendship deal-breakers. Hers – liars, but only if the lying is malicious. Mine – people who hate people
8. The sound of brass instruments in jazz. She thought they sounded tinny and alarming. I disagreed, feigning horror
9. Personality tests. She quoted an article she’d read: ‘People can be separated into two categories. Those who believe people can be separated into two categories and those who don’t.’ I chuckled. I’d never taken a personality test. She asked me a question from a test she’d taken: ‘When reading for pleasure, do you prefer unusual/original ways of saying things or when authors say exactly what they mean?’ I refused to answer because I didn’t see how the two were mutually exclusive. She seemed pleased with my response. 

And lots of other things.

 

We forgot about the tea and we didn’t boil the tiny kettle again. At 3 a.m., she brought up a psychological study about a list of 28 questions that, when answered in full, are meant to make strangers fall in love. We didn’t answer all of the questions together, so we didn’t fall in love, but we did look through them on her laptop and answer a few. Some were

more intense than others. 

 

 

• Is fashion a statement? What does yours say?
• Is there a person who has changed your life the most?
• When did you stop being a child?
• How would you describe your relationship with your parents?

 

Me: Ooh, this is a good one! How do you feel about politically incorrect jokes?

Her: Oh, that’s easy. I don’t like them. And I don’t really care about being called an oversensitive snowflake. Like, if what you’re going to say is going to make someone feel small, just don’t say it? And it’s always the minorities that are made to feel small, right? The trans community or people of colour or Jewish people–

 

I flinched.

 

Her: –and, if people think offence is at the heart of good comedy, I feel sorry for their senses of humour. Okay, sorry. Rant over

Me: Fair enough

Her: Another good question: if you could learn something about the future, what would you want to know?

Me: Oh, I want to say nothing, but maybe that’s not true...... I think I’d like to know when my parents are

going to die. Is that awful? I’d probably move back to Sydney if I knew it was any time soon, which does make me question why I’m not in Sydney now

Her: Because you can’t live life like that, surely? 

 

Me: Maybe not. What about you?

Her: I don’t really know how to answer this. Isn’t it a bit Macbeth-y? Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that? My initial thought was that I’d like to know whether I’ll succeed in whatever career I choose – but, if the answer was yes, would I become arrogant and slack? If the answer was no, would I give up? That kind of knowledge could be dangerous!

Me: Oh, now I feel like I answered too simply

Her: No, not at all! You didn’t ask about yourself, you asked about other people. I think your answer was very clever and very telling

 

She looked at me very intently.

Her: You’re a very compassionate person, Amalia

 

This time, I blushed.

 

Her: Okay, what about this one: would you like to be famous? My answer is absolutely not

Me: This is going to sound arrogant, but, yes, I would

Her: Go on

Me: Well, I want to be an opera singer and success in that career comes with fame. So, in order to be successful, I need to be famous. If that makes sense . . . ?

Her, calling my bluff: Okay, but, if you could be a successful opera singer and not be famous, would you prefer that?

Me, laughing: Fine, fine, you got me, I also like the idea of being famous

 

Then she asked me to tell her more about my singing, ‘what it means’ to me. I paused. I tried to explain that, just as music communicates without words, how I feel about music is somehow tied up in that ineffability.

So she asked me to choose a piece of music that sum- marised how I felt about music. I paused, taken aback by her perceptiveness. I wondered whether this was a gift of hers, the ability to communicate effortlessly with people in their own language, or whether we shared a special type of communication.

We opened Spotify on her laptop. I mulled. I told her about this scene from Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. The opera itself is very hectic, full of antics and plots. The Count tries to cheat on his wife, the Countess. Musically, the opera revels in its chaos for three hours until this glorious moment of silence – and then ‘Contessa, perdono’ (‘Countess, forgive me’). It is the most simple and beautiful melody and, in the midst of all this farcical turmoil, you do forgive him. Music has this unique ability to humanise this man beyond words, beyond actions. Then, after another stretched moment, the Countess sings that, like you, she forgives the Count. And the chorus sneaks into this intimate musical texture and you weep because Mozart’s melodies awaken within you something that is Real in a way that the real world and real people are not.

Silence. Did I go too far?

Her: Wow

 

She thought for a moment.

 

Her: And singing, specifically?

Me, earnestly: You know when you’ve got the flu and you lose your voice? When that happens to me, I feel like I’ve lost my entire identity and sense of self

 

She cocked her head. At first, she looked at me curiously; then she looked at me like she loved me. I don’t know how else to describe it. Her face softened. Her mouth opened, just a little. Her eyes grew warm, then misty. We said goodnight soon after and I walked back to my room, dizzy with conversation. I had music in my head. It was dance-like, seductive.

Wanting. I wrote it down.

 

 

 

Then I googled her back. She played the saxophone in high school and scored extremely highly – unsurprising, who here didn’t? She danced salsa, tango, the Viennese waltz. I found these videos of her dancing on YouTube. I watched them over and over because I was interested in the dancing. And the music was beautiful. Well, okay, I knew the music already because the music was Beyoncé – ‘Sweet Dreams’. That’s important. Remember Beyoncé’s ‘Sweet Dreams’. But this whole focused investigation was completely platonic because 

I was completely straight. Oh, I haven’t mentioned yet: I was completely straight. Sorry, ‘completely’ ‘straight’.

As a teenager, I used to invent thought experiments at the beach – maybe it was something to do with the faraway hori- zon or the comfortable silence. I remember once imagining a world in which being gay was the norm. I asked myself: would I ‘come out’ as straight? Simple question: was my attraction to men so innate that I would defy expectation and face social marginalisation and declare my deeply rooted, irrepressible heterosexuality? Simple answer: probably not. But I figured that being straight was simpler and I did like men, so that was that. I mean, no, it obviously wasn’t.