In Memory
Nina Simone
1933 - 2003
I Think It’s Going to Rain Today
by Marguerite Colson
I sit at the piano I've owned since my parents forced me to take lessons at
eight years of age, and I'm desperately trying to play Nina Simone. Earlier
in the evening we'd finished a bottle of chardonnay while the nightclub
singer belted out passable renditions of the blues greats. Her repertoire
consisted of the usual Billie Holiday/Etta James/Bessie Smith standards. In
New York or New Orleans the songs would have echoed a certain truth. Here on
a balmy Brisbane night, however, the white girl with the booming voice and
silver dress provided more window dressing than serious entertainment. The
crowd chattered, oblivious to her presence.
During her last set, without ceremony, this nondescript singer with the
dazzling attire launched into "Everyone's Gone To The Moon." It was as
soulful a version as I have ever heard. She closed her eyes and swayed.
There was a hush. And my blind date, the beautiful, quiet stranger who had
listened intently to me all evening, asked me to dance. He danced as though
I were part of him, pulling me into his lean curves until my heart pumped blood against his. His warm breath flickered down my neck as he crooned the words into my ear. "Sun disappears in the middle of June. Everyone's gone to the moon." My whole being was taut with the presence of him, the resonance of the song, the universality of Nina.
I grew up with Nina Simone. I grew up with her words, her pain, her
struggles. While my friends listened to Sting and U2, I was caught in a
sixties time warp with my parents. Nina's adult trials became my teenage
angst. Her triumphs became my cue to try harder. My parents never quite
recovered from the fact that I was only ever a mediocre piano player.
I sit here at the piano now, and I so want to impress this man whose passion for
Nina equals mine. I am playing "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and in my mind, I
can hear every chord, every silence, every nuance that I wish to create. I
curse the fact that I did not practise more in my youth. My fingers tumble
senselessly over the keys, partly from being rusty, partly from nervousness.
I close my eyes momentarily and try to feel my way into the melody. "To get
a brown eyed handsome man, her destination was a brown eyed handsome man." I open my eyes, try to focus on the sheet music and the secrets behind each note.
I sense him standing close behind me. Listening. Watching. I breathe deeply,
focus on the timing of the music. His hands come to rest on my shoulders,
his thumbs softly circling the curve of my neck. An involuntary gasp emerges
from my throat, but I continue to play. Calloused fingers pull the spaghetti
straps from my shoulders so they are laid bare. Those same, rough fingers
explore across my shoulders, the front of my neck, my decolletage. I give a
goosebump shudder as my own fingers wobble painfully on the keys. He
massages in time with my movements, following the lilt of my shoulders as I
lift my hands to play the notes. My body tenses at his touch, yet strangely,
my hands begin to relax and the music soars in perfect cadence.
My own brown-eyed handsome man unzips my dress at the back, slowly, teasing my skin as each inch of flesh is exposed till I am naked from the waist
upwards.
"Keep playing."
His voice is husky in my ear as I come to the end of the song. I reach to
the top of the piano and search frantically for another sheet of music.
I find "Everyone's Gone To The Moon," and begin to interpret its soulful
splendour, remembering the unity of our heartbeats at the nightclub. His hands touch me everywhere, my body arches, and I lean forward on the piano stool as though to escape his exquisite torture. My fingers hit the keys like magic, adagio . . . adagio . . . espressivo . . . forte. I instinctively follow the music and
its moods. My tiny apartment reverberates with sound. I instinctively lean
into his hands.
"Keep playing," he instructs again.
My brown eyed handsome man pulls up the hem of my dress and I oscillate
between concentrating on the music and the unsteady crescendo being plucked
from my body. Adagio . . . adagio . . . espressivo . . . forte. He strums one finger down my body, forcing me to lift slightly from the stool. I fight to keep
playing the notes correctly. I hear breathing. Deep. Distinct. Desperate. I do not know if it is his or mine.
I am merely pounding at random notes now, the beauty and tempo of the song
usurped by the throbbing within. I press myself into his touch, moan for release.
"Keep playing. Keep playing Nina."
"Fuck Nina!" I shout, and I stand with such force that the piano stool tips
over. I swing to face him and my dress falls to the floor.
He grabs me in his arms and seats me roughly on top of the piano
keys. A jarring sound emerges, worse than anything I produced even when I
first started learning to play.
I sit on the piano I've owned since my parents forced me to take lessons at
eight years of age, and I desperately try not to move. It is futile. He edges
towards me and I squirm on the keys, coveting his touch. The cacophony of sound is frightening: the atonal crashing of chords, my high pitched pleas, his primal grunts.
At length, he finishes, and a continuous long, low moan emerges from the piano as I move helplessly. I notice that I am partially sitting on "Everyone's Gone To The Moon."
In the morning we awake to the gentle sounds of my radio. Billy Joel. Cliff
Richard. It's easy to lie there and avoid the inevitable morning-after
awkwardness. No conversation required. My back aches -- I consider the possibility of aspirin, but my brown-eyed handsome man would follow me. That would mean breakfast. Toast. Coffee. Interaction. I decide to remain in bed.
Seven o'clock news. Politicians and war. War and politicians. Disease and
cover-ups. Then: Nina Simone is dead.
We sit up simultaneously and listen to the tribute in silence.
"I killed Nina," I say when the segment finishes. "I said, 'Fuck Nina' last night, and now she’s dead."
My brown-eyed handsome man nods solemnly.
He rises from the bed and disappears into my living area. When he returns,
the strains of "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" emerge from my CD player.
He climbs back into bed. I crawl on top of him. I place my heart over his, try to capture the synchronicity from the previous night. Perhaps I am sad. Perhaps we both are. I cannot feel his heartbeat.
I try to make love to him. He is a perfect accompaniment to Nina's deep,
throaty voice. I play her song on his body, sliding up and down in harmony
with the words. Then he forms his own song in his head, and I can no longer contain his frenzy. It is as though we both feel that this frantic discharge of passion will dull the sorrow. He has placed the CD player on repeat. Nina begins her mournful song again.
Then it is over. I smile. He smiles, and sings along with the chorus. "Human kindness is overflowing. And I think it's going to rain today."
Last night, he could have been Mr. Right. But we both think now it might not be so -- the burden of “killing” Nina could be too much for any relationship. I
desperately want it to rain, but the gap in my curtains reveals the
cloudless, blue sky of a perfect Brisbane day.
Read an obituary for Nina Simone
Visit a Nina Simone Web site
