The Intermission

By Durga Chew-Bose

The intermission bell was accompanied by flickering l lights, signaling to them it was time to return to their seats. The string quartet would resume with Puccini’s “Crisantemi,” a single movement musical elegy that no one — not even those in the audience familiar with the composition — was prepared for. Because, as it sometimes happens with a piece of music, there would be life before “Cristantemi,” and life after. For now, they were living in the before, just moments away from encountering the haunting, life-altering performance. It’s funny isn’t it, how unprepared we are for feelings — the deepest kind — brought on by strings…climaxing? It’s funny how exposed we suddenly are to a memory, long forgotten or buried deep, which now — again, because of strings — spreads and unfurls. Collides. The smell of flowers has the same effect. So does a face from the past. So does rippling Murano glass and a perfume with bergamot or bourbon, vanilla and vetiver. Fragrances inspired by Venice, by seawater, and bewitching evening musk. Scents, that much like the symphony, build and move through you.

We count on these kinds of chasms to veer us off course; to suggest that it’s okay to feel a great deal. To cry in a crowd. Sometimes, all it takes is an evening at the symphony, surrounded by extraordinary elegance, the substantial kind we attribute to chandeliers and marble and wearing yellow gold, and women in low heels climbing carpeted stairs, and rooms designed to absorb sound and vibrate our insides, and quick glances to see who else might be here, and a feeling of escape that ends with something far more profound — ambushing feelings brought on because a piece by Puccini, more than a hundred years old has suddenly had its way with us. But before all of that, everyone is so innocent. The intermission bell rings once more. The fluttering sounds of the crowd fill the room. The lights dim. A quiet settles. We begin. There is no turning back.