My Tango With Barbara Strozzi by Russell Hoban

remembered how it was when Mimi and I were first in love, the newness of the world. And I remembered the sadness when love had gone and we stood in a dry riverbed. The flute was alone again and I could see for miles. High overhead a hawk circled, sharp against the blue. The violin and cello and drums came in and over them Constanze singing in English:
    Singing, singing tiny in my right ear,
in my right ear only, yes! Singing tiny
like the summer’s last cicada in my ear,
a ghost! That’s what I’m telling you –
why should I lie? The ghost of used-to-be!
Aiyeeah!
    Her voice was thrilling, with a wildness under the words that sometimes almost whispered, sometimes soared. The sound of the instruments and her voice together seemed layered with before and after:
    The sadness of it singing there, that
ghost of used-to-be! It sings, it sings of
when the sky was very wide, the mountains
were magic, a day and a night were for ever
and the rivers never dried up.
    Hearing the English now with the Setswana behind it I smelled the sun-warm grass, tasted used-to-be on my tongue.
    Now Constanze’s was more urgent as the words came faster:
    Hear what I’m saying! You know that used-to-be,
you know we lived there, you and I, when love
was with us, when love was in our hearts, aiyeeah!
    Where is it now, where has it gone, that the sky
has become little, the mountains nothing special,
the rivers all dry? Aiyeeah!
    Tiny in my right ear sings that ghost of
used-to-be. Loud in my left ear is the news on the
hour, the traffic in the streets, the roar of
all-gone.
    Silence and the sound of traffic on Putney Bridge. I opened my eyes. There was the river and I was in London again. ‘You look sad,’ said Constanze.
    ‘“Used-To-Be” is a sad song,’ I said.
    ‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘That was meant to be “Blue Mountains” in the player. I didn’t mean for you to hear “Used-To-Be.”’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I’m still working on it.’
    ‘Is there a ghost in your ear, Constanze?’
    ‘Always. Africa is full of ghosts.’
    ‘So is every place. I was wondering if the song is about a particular used-to-be in your life.’
    ‘Can we talk about something else?’
    ‘Sorry for the intrusion. It’s a beautiful song and a terrific performance. Is anyone else doing anything like this?’
    ‘Not that I know of.’
    ‘How did you become so fluent in Setswana?’
    ‘I learned it from my nanny. She was from Bophutatswana and her name was Omphile which means God’s gift. When I was a baby she carried me around on her back in a towel while she did the household chores. She had a baby of her own who was living with Omphile’s mother in the homeland – that’s what Bophutatswana was during apartheid.’
    ‘So Omphile raised you while the grandmother raised her child.’ I had to shake my head at that.
    ‘That’s how it was,’ said Constanze. ‘Nannies usually had to speak Afrikaans or English in the houses where they worked but my parents thought it was good for me to learn Omphile’s language.’
    ‘Why did you speak the song in Setswana?’
    ‘I wrote it in that language and then translated it into English. I think my songs in Setswana, that’s how they come to me. Setswana has Omphile in it and her people and where they came from. I like to keep this inside me, so let’s not talk about it any more. I read
Hope of a Tree
last night.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I like the way you write and I liked the ideas in the book but I didn’t think it was a very good novel.’
    ‘Can you say why?’
    Constanze thought about it for a while. Her face was one that changed from moment to moment; now, when she was mentally rehearsing what she would say, she looked about eighteen. ‘There wasn’t really any hope in it,’ she said. ‘It just runs downhill in a straight line. It starts with Cynthia standing on Clifton Bridge looking down at the Avon Gorge. Is she going to jump? Sam thinks so. He says, “It’s a long way down.” She says,