Niall Williams - As It Is in Heaven

The disc was turned off, and while Stephen held the baby and the crowd hushed, Gabriella Castoldi played Fibich's aching “Poeme.” She played with slow and sweet melancholy, and stopped the hearts of those who heard her, so that their mouths opened and their spirits flowed out into that hallway to meet the soul of the woman with the violin. It was nothing less than that. For even from the first notes it was apparent to everyone that this was a woman communicating something rare and tender and profound, that the action of her bow on the strings was not simply the mechanics of music, but that between the instrument and her there was no distinction, and that the infinitesimal beauty of the high notes came like some ambrosial breath from within her. When Gabriella finished there was not a sound. There was only the astonished faces of those who had had no idea they could be so moved by such music.Casanova Cussen raised his big hands and crashed the air, but before the ovation could reach fullness Gabriella was playing again. “Party pieces,” she said, and swept into Kreisler and then Dvo ák. She played as if she were dancing. She played out of relief and gratitude, out of an understanding that she was not alone and that in the rain of west Clare that day in October, with Stephen Griffin holding their child, was as much happiness as she dared accept from the world. She played Brahms's “Hungarian Dance” and Dvo ák's “Humoresque,” and was pausing between pieces when she saw the tear-wet face of the woman who was Eileen Waters talking to Stephen and then taking his offered hand and slowly shaking it.

What happened after that occurred in the vague uncertain way that time has decided traditional seisiúns should begin; whether Francie Golden spoke first, told anyone, or simply carried his fiddle everywhere, whether there was an imperceptible signal, a nod or wink, or whether it was the moment the warming of the French wine in his blood reached the point of inspiring action, there was an instant when the crowd were clapping for Gabriella, and then it was Francie Golden who was playing “Upstairs in a Tent” and grinning sideways in the terrible pleasure of his own devilment. Like Gabriella he flowed one tune into the next, and for the first time in that building made the air dance to a jig. There was clapping along and toe-tapping and little waves of quick encouragements: “Good man, Francie,” “That's it, boy,” “Now ye're playin,” and a few plain whoops of wordless gaiety.

The moment Francie finished, faces turned to Gabriella, as if she might disapprove of that simple old jaunty music that was theirs. But at once she caught the violin under her chin and said, “Like this?” and played the same tune back to Francie Golden, who laughed and joined her, and led her on another tune in which she followed him and then another. Then Gabriella played Schubert, and Francie was urged to try his fist at it, and did; and the twin O'Gormans, who had been there and gone home for their instruments, arrived back and joined in on two flutes. And Moira Fitzgibbon called Frawley's from the car phone of the councillor and ordered all the hot food they had to be brought up to the school in Dempsey's van, and the four Keoghs went for stout and came back with it with Micky Killeen, the box player, and Johnsie Kelly, the pipe-playing tiler from Kilmurry. And though the rain beat on outside and the car park puddled deeply beneath the bruised sky, none in Miltown Malbay that day gave it a care, for the music was like a long and intricate spell, and transformed grief and worry to laughter and delight in the very same way it had done for centuries. The walls rang with it. Men took off their jackets and danced the Clare set with their wives. They battered with toes and heels on the carpeted floor, as if it were flagstone, and spun in giddying quick circles that returned them to the moments of their childhoods, when the magic of dancing first saw them leap and spin on kitchen floors. They danced and the music played on. More people arrived, and soon the crush of the crowd made some spin off down the corridors and dance in each of the rooms of that pentagonal building, dancing even beyond the hearing of the music, and making steps and keeping time to the music that was already inside them. Gabriella put down her violin and danced with Stephen and Alannah in a bumping, uneven jigtime. Stephen danced like a man who had been given wooden legs. They flew out in sharp angles and measured space like a pair of pincers. He kept his head bolt upright, where it perched above Gabriella's and caught the swirling perfume of lilies as it rose off her hair. He felt the smallness of her back beneath his hand and pressed there to draw her to him, so that she might feel his happiness and love and never leave that moment. And she was laughing while she danced. And while they flew through the other couples (passing the thrown-back head of Eileen Waters where she abandoned herself to the rhythm coming through the wine and danced Eamon with a particular and memorable vivacity), cars started to arrive from Mullagh and Quilty and Cree and Doonbeg, and the space inside those walls had to expand and defy laws of science to accommodate all the ghosts and musicians and dancers of those and other parishes, and that, although they did not know it, the music they were playing was already transforming, and becoming ever so slightly something new, something which absorbed, which was both of that place and others, and allowed the classical to speak to it and would become in time the music of the new millennium. It did not matter. They played and danced on and were like a sea, changing moods like tides, now bright and quick, now slow with airs of sorrow. And while the moon was lost beneath the coverings of thick cloud and the stars were put out in the western sky, the party continued. It continued all that starless, moonless night, while the rain fell and the wind blew and none cared, for it was as if in those moments of music and dance each man and woman was seized with the knowledge of the boundless hardship and injustice of life and knew that this night in the pentagonal building of the music school in Moses Mooney's field was one they would look back on from the edge of life and realize that yes, there they had come as close as they ever had to true happiness.

By All Souls' Day the school had thirty-five pupils. Gertie Morrisey taught piano, Martin Hosey the silver flute, and Seamus Cooney the traditional timber flute, while Gabriella and Sonny Mungovan divided the violin and fiddle. It was a school that broke all rules of musical education, that defied the strict classification of training practices and existed instead in a free-flowing river of styles and traditions, with the only aim being to foster the pleasure of playing. From the beginning Gabriella had decided that the school would enter no pupils for examinations, that those who wished could do so, but that no time or effort would be given towards the preparation of children to play for the judgement of others. In this Stephen was in complete accord and marvelled at how the very students who had trudged to school now came to the glass building with the enlivened air of children arriving at a swimming pool. His own function in the school was not clearly defined. Moira was its manager and showed a surprising capability for keeping timetables, organizing classes, and advertising. While Gabriella took classes in the five hours that followed schooltime, Stephen played with his daughter. He carried and wheeled her along the corridor that ran all the way around the pentagon, listening to the different musics escaping each room, telling Alannah what they were and watching how already she knew which playing was her mothers.