I am having troubles in finding a good reading time, and whenever I am able to grab it, I just can’t stop. As much as I would like to continue reading, I have to discipline myself regarding my sleeping habits. Anyway, the opening chapters of the second part of this novel explored music, death, and families, which are all either the means to deal with loneliness or the cause of it.
Mick Kelly could not get music out of her head. Everyday, music was all that she could think about. Her head would always be up in the clouds summoning an event with a musical score floating in the background. She still took care of her little brothers during the day, but when the day was over, the night was all hers. She would be found sneaking in the yards of people who were listening to the radio, especially if they were tuned in to a beautiful music program. One night though, her dad called. She was in a real hurry to catch a radio program from someone else’s radio, but she could not run away from her dad. He immediately noticed this and decided to let her daughter go, but Mick saw that his father was lonely. Deep down, he always felt useless since the time he broke his hip and resorted to fixing watches for a living. She just let her father talk, with beer in hand, about his loneliness, and for a long time, Mick discovered that it was the first time that she really got to know his dad.
At the time, Mick was attending vocational school. Like most adolescents her age, she longed to belong to a particular group, but it turned out that she didn’t. To approach her problem, she decided to throw a party. She invited boys and girls that she thought would be interesting, and good enough, the party pushed through. During the party, everyone was stiff, trying to act like a grown-up. However, some gatecrashers caused a commotion which led everyone, including Mick, to act like the kid that she was.
When talking about friendships, does one need pretense to secure some sort of a belonging? Wouldn’t it be better off to be alone than to come up with such a facade all the time? When Mick came to her senses, she declared that the party was over, walked aimlessly, and found herself on the house where she always sneaked into in order to listen to her music. She crept in and heard Beethoven’s Third Symphony. She was so absorbed in listening that she was confused on whether to capture fragments of the music and repeat them on her head, or to listen to the whole of it without having to think of anything else. Afterward, she felt more alone. The music that she listened to only hurt her more. She wanted to hear more to soothe the pain, but the show was over. She kept hurting herself until she fell asleep, and in the middle of the night, she woke up and ran as fast as she could to go back home.
Meanwhile, Biff was going through tough times since he was dealing with the death of his wife Alice. His sister-in-law Lucile advised him not to think backward for him to get away from pain. As for her, she had her share of tribulations by raising a daughter singlehandedly and enduring two divorces from the same man. In short, Lucile chose to live blindly to save her from loneliness. Personally, I do not know if I should pat Lucile on the shoulders for deciding to do so, but there is a truth in her words. If you come to think of it, the shallow are somehow blessed for they will never find the depths of life, and it is in these depths where one can really drown himself in dread and misery.
After the funeral, Biff looked at his collection of newspapers, all stacked in a room that his wife asked him to convert into a ladies’ toilet. He did not grant this wish, and as far as he could remember, it was the only wish of Alice that he did not approve of. And while at the restaurant, he was observing his regular customer Singer, who seemed to attract a lot of people. Biff was wondering what quality did the mute have that made certain people seek for his company. Even in his sleep, it bothered him a lot, which led him to believe that there was something wrong.
Doctor Copeland continued to visit Singer. He even took the mute with him during his rounds. The doctor was indeed so busy fulfilling his purpose. He started to believe so hard in this right after he finished his education while working hard for it and being a slave before it. He knew deep down that he had a truth to share with his people, but his body was whittling him down. He was suffering from tuberculosis and he needed to rest badly, but he just wouldn’t. To aggravate matters, her daughter Portia informed him that one of his sons, Willie, was put into jail for assault that was caused by an ugly woman in a bar. He was sentenced to serve no more than a year in jail for that.
After a few weeks, the paternal grandfather of Doctor Copeland’s children went to town, along with the other two sons of Doctor Copeland. He had not talked to these two sons of his after he was separated from his wife and kids due to a heated argument that became physical. Portia, the only child that was constantly communicating with his father, urged him to go for the sake of seeing his sons after a long time.
The doctor attended the reunion. He saw his wife’s father and his two sons. The former made an effort to talk to him about medicine since it greatly interested him, but the latter two felt really awkward. No words were exchanged. The reunion had a little talk about spirituality, about God, about angels, and about miracles. All the people in the reunion fervently believed in such, especially about miracles, except for Doctor Copeland, who was a man of reason. However hard he tried to open his mouth, no words came out. Because of that, he started seething with anger. The talk went on and on, and he left without saying a word.
Somehow, I feel for Doctor Copeland. You try to hold on to your ideals and impart them to the people who mean a lot to you, but you end up misunderstood and worse, ridiculed. Doctor Copeland chose to live out his purpose, and he ended up with a life in loneliness and obscurity.
Life is indeed an intricate puzzle. Life is mysterious, but death is plain simple.
While writing this piece, I am currently listening to one of the Cello Suites of Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s Suite No. 4 in E-Flat Major. You might think that this has nothing to do with the last post regarding Death at Intervals, but trust me. After reading this wonderful novel, the first thing that you would do is to browse the web for Suite No. 6. I did that last night, and thanks to Wikipedia and YouTube, I was able to rediscover the beauty of the cello and relive my cellist dreams.







