The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map by Donna Carrick Read Free Book Online

Fa-ling pressed the cold water bottle against her left forearm before opening it, allowing it to chill away her discomfort.
    She then poured half the bottle of water down her throat and used a tissue to wipe the perspiration from her face. As she reached for her clarinet, a sound from the next room caught her ear. It seemed strangely foreign to her, until the five-note range told her it was a Chinese melody being played ever so softly, and that she, in fact, was now the foreigner. She put her ear nearer to the wall, trying to distinguish between the strings and the xylophone, the combination creating a falsely happy sound that was more profoundly sorrowful than a wail.
    The effect reminded her of her clarinet. On those occasions when her instrument sang in the key of her own dark memories, she was able to wring from it similar mournful sounds.
    In Fa-ling’s opinion, the cheerful dance of a Chinese melody within its restrictive scale made it by far the saddest music in the world. It suggested a mime with an exaggerated smile painted on his face, grinning maniacally as he struggled to break free of an invisible brick wall. Like the mime, the melody feigned happiness, but it fell short of communicating ‘joy’ each time it failed to climb over its five-note constraints and to reach for the elusive ‘sixth note’ that might lead it to the boundless octave which gave Western music its exuberance. In contrast, the repressive five-note scale of Chinese music was so filled with longing it could only be the tumescent result of three thousand years of wars, floods, pestilence and death.
    What, though, was the third instrument Fa-ling heard coming through the wall? She finally made it out. It was a male voice chanting softly in time to the music, repeating words she could not understand.
    Not wanting to disturb her neighbour, she considered putting away her instrument, but wasn’t yet satisfied with her practice session. She resumed, choosing only gentle melodies and controlling the volume of her clarinet at just above a musical whisper. She could no longer hear the music from next door, and she did not think her neighbour could hear her.
    When Fa-líng was a child caught in the first throes of learning to play the clarinet, the music had been with her always, its rhythm and flying melodies occupying her mind without invitation. Back then she had not been able to control it. It was like another of her languages, cutting neuro-pathways into her brain. It was a compulsion she could neither summon nor deny. Every image, every thought and idea that entered her young mind was subject to the unrelenting ‘one-two-three-four’, the rise and fall of infinite sound.
    Now, though, she could turn the internal music on and off with the ease of a master. The steady count, the climb and the descent no longer dominated her thoughts as they once had. She was able to set them aside, indulge in normal pastimes, and pick them up again whenever she was alone.
    How could she explain this love of music and languages, this desire for a most intimate expression — she who kept so much to herself? The truth was she seldom shared it with the world. Daphne would sing and play her piano in front of anyone, revelling in her ability to entertain. Fa-ling, though, could only rarely be enticed to play her clarinet in public. The thing she loved most about her instrument, and the reason she had chosen it over the piano, was the fact that it was portable. This meant she could carry it away to her room, there to indulge in its beauty without the judgement of others.
    Such was her approach to many things. She loved to learn, but had little patience for being taught. She preferred to mull a subject over in her mind, turn it around and study it from every angle, until she ‘got’ the method and owned the solution.
    Finally the humid air in the hotel room began to cool, touching her skin. She laid the sheet music on the table and studied her reflection in the