Cousteau's Cousin

Cousteau’s Cousin

       By Uglas Yemer

              a most private place

Carmana, Donita Carmana, after whom the opera was written, was Jacques Cousteau’s second cousin. His mother was a Ferrari, and her mother a Salvatore. Dona Salvatore’s daughter, a Frederico, gave birth to the eventual Dona Reclusiva, and this woman produced Cousteau’s cousin. All this happened in the little village of Sole Musica in the furthest northern undulation of the Alsatian Alps.

Carmana was all ears. For music. She would even listen quietly, raptly, through her Uncle Renaldi’s uninspired performance of Brahm’s tedious “Bull Run Revels.” She would have attended with the same sincerity if he had played it through again. She was, in May of 1964, seventeen, five feet five inches in stocking feet, of slight weight, with hair as much the hue of night as has ever been since God created Eve, and a figure as light and lithesome as Juliet’s herself when the Franciscan murmurs about her gossamer footfall on the everlasting flint. And she was on the verge, this mundane Brahms morning, of meeting her creator. Or, rather, the creator of a composition that would suddenly bring her to Cousteau’s attention and eventuate in that conjugal union, the offspring of which now is being sought so assiduously, as you may have noticed in the papers, on a worldwide warrant by the FBI for his role, unexplained to the public as yet, in the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma city.

Bizarre, that union of black mane and purest white skin that poets have ever had the urge to adore. I have many times myself noticed it and marked it as miraculous, but my interests lie elsewhere. And she is my second cousin, too, on Cousteau’s side. Be that as it may, she sat there, pitch and chalk together, rapt in Brahms. Newspapers proclaimed death everywhere and she was oblivious. She cared not a whit. And if all the world had been collapsing, its great towers sagging under the weight of sudden colossal tremors, its bell towers pealing accidental warning, the very raindrops descending in tiny shrieks of sorrow and inquietude, she would have leaned there, white cheek on her white hand, black hair about her shoulders, attending to what makes this life a thing of worth. On this May day, then, joyful, not knowing her own feelings, not accustomed to seconding “joy” or “sorrow” or "disgruntled” or "dismayed” or “happy" or “unconcerned” to name herself, she was just Carmana, unnamable, the most beautiful and serene femaleness on the land on that day in that hour that nature had ever labored to bring about. And here came Mozart to tea with her uncle.

       Mozart had never before visited the estate on which Carmana spent her first sixteen years, growing up as if outside of door and book. Her uncle knew the composer from various pursuits they held in common, practiced usually during evening hours and then inevitably under the enchantment of brandy and wine. This day, however, both men had uncharacteristically agreed to meet at Uncle Delacroix Renaldi’s home instead, each suffering from the the most unforgiving of hangovers. The previous evening they had renounced liquor of all kinds and agreed from that day forward to drink only tea and coffee, besides water and fruit juices. Mozart knocked, entered, gave up his gloves, hat and coat, looked over at the divan on which Donita Carmana sate, and motioned alertly to Uncle Renaldi not to stop but to continue rhapsodizing. Carmana sat as oblivious to the presence of an observor as she was to, we know, death being  dealt in the world at large. She listened, all ears, without opening her eyes.

       Entranced, Mozart, too, attended to Renaldi’s numbers with greater intention than he had ever before bothered. When Uncle came to the place in the epithalamium where the crescendo and the dolce forme announce the closure of the breamage for the bride, Mozart motioned for please one more repetition, and Uncle complied. For another two hours he gazed on Cousteau’s cousin and felt himself expanding outward till his very being touched hers. The great composer came to know in that short time that without her always in his presence life would be a mistake.

       When he finished Carman, on which he sweated ceaselessly for the next eight months, Mozart invited Carmana to a private performance of its most elegant movements. She came. She listened, sitting absolutely still so in upshot he could not guess her mood. Eventually, he decided, his heart beating with hope for her approbation, that she leaned in favor of this music. She stood, when he was done, bowed to him, still silently, still without lifting her head, still without him having once seen her face, and then raised her eyes to his. He saw there what he needed. Tears. Two drops of water in them. She studied him for some minutes, and then inquired if this music had a name.

       “Carman,” he said. She smiled, and with a little bow, left. And that was the last time Mozart ever saw this astonishing woman.

       She and I have crossed paths many times since. We scuba-dive together. In fact, we studied that art on the island of Calmotroy off the Guatemalan coast last June. She dives well. She likes to sing under water with the bubbles foaming up around her face and hair. She smiles then the most rapturous smile. And, though I cannot hear her words, I know that she is setting a tea the fishes will never forget.