Windmill - December 2016

autograph the page that contained his favorite leitmotif (a melodic germ that recurs throughout the opera), but James would not allow T. to sign on the actual manuscript. Instead, he guided him to one of the sparse title pages where T. wrote in elaborate hand: “Zwei herzen, die von Liebe brennen, kann menschen ohnmacht niemals trennen.”

The quote is from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, the composer’s homage to freemasonry, which extols the virtues of male camaraderie. Loosely translated it means, “when two hearts come together with a common love, no man can tear them apart.” When I pulled down the score from its storage place recently to unearth this quote, a shudder of recognition ran through me as I remembered Schickaneder’s poetry; the sentiment was clearly not intended for a collegial friendship.

The night after the drunken double date, T. and M. insisted that I go to the opera with them while James worked. They assured me that I would love their friends whose daughter was singing the title role in Turandot. Short of faking food poisoning, there was no delicate way to sidestep their entreaties, so I headed off to a pre-theatre dinner with them. I sat beside T. at the supper club. As the bread basket was passed, he ignored its offerings, and he made a show of picking at his salad. As the waiter took our plates, T. looked at me with a downcast expression.

“The treatments completely ruin my appetite. Do I look thinner to you? I feel like I must be so pale and disgusting.”

“I don’t think you look any different than when I met you.”

He was surprised by my matter-of-fact response, but it was the truth. He looked identical to the man I had met six weeks earlier. There was no evidence in his appearance that he had been undergoing intensive medical treatment, and he didn’t exactly elicit sympathy as he sucked down his second martini of the night. Some people who are dying may want to throw caution to the wind, but most undergoing palliative care don’t feel up to six ounces of gin (and then some) with their evening meal.

The next morning, while James made my cappuccino, we traded stories.

I told him about the dinner table scene. He laughed and told me that the two of them had taken a walk around the neighborhood the day before, because T. wanted to have a talk with him. I pictured them walking the icy, empty sidewalks of Cleveland Heights, T. in his camel cashmere coat and silk paisley scarf, and James in a North Face parka. T. decided he needed to share his wisdom as a more experienced man. He felt that James and I had been dating for so many years that it was time for a marriage proposal. Marriage, he stressed, was not something a man does for himself, but a gesture of commitment for the woman in his life so that she may feel secure. T. assumed that our finances were in the way of James making this life decision, so he reached into his pocket and produced a diamond ring.

“You can have this ring. You need to do this,” he said.

130 Lee Taylor