Her Name Was Lola

60 Well, Really, What?

March 1999. On the second anniversary of the Mai Dun vernal equinox Lola does nothing to mark the day. With Noah on her lap she thinks about what has brought her to this day. She had come to Diamond Heart full of rage. Full of hurt. She had taken up the sarod with the aim of composing a raga that would, if she could call up the demon of Forgetfulness, erase her from Max Lesser’s memory. But the deeper she gets into Indian music the more difficult it is for her to know exactly how she feels. Certainly the self Max had presented to her had been a lie. But how much of a lie? The first time he saw her he said she was his destiny woman. Outrageous. He said it so loudly that everybody in the shop turned to look at him. Lola was embarrassed. But in her heart she’d been hoping for her fate to declare itself in just such a sudden and startling manner. In that moment she felt as if she’d let go of the trapeze of her ordinary life and was flying through the air to Max’s outstretched hands. There was of course a safety net called Basil. But the thrill of letting go and flying like that! What Max had said that day was not a lie, she knew that. And her response was not a lie. Through the air she flew to him, and that was real. That was a true thing.

Where did the lie start? With Lula Mae? Not really. The lie started with Max’s constant craving for a bit of strange while he pretended to be true to her, Lola. Could she have changed him? What if he hadn’t got Lula Mae pregnant? At some point Lola would have told him, ‘It’s either her or me. Choose.’ That day at Mai Dun, did his announcement of Lula Mae’s pregnancy mean that he’d chosen the homecoming queen? She hadn’t given him a chance to say what he intended to do. He’d wanted to talk and she’d crashed the E-type instead of listening.

Lola takes up Polaris and Noah, watching her, goes to his nakkara. Indira has given Lola the written-out music for ‘Smriti’ which is definitely not a piece for beginners. Lola follows the still unfamiliar notation slowly and carefully, but her very hesitancy becomes an embellishment of the shadowy ascents and descents of ‘Memory’. She cannot bring to this music any rage or hurt. She can only be the vessel for what her fingers call up from the sarod. Love remembered. Longing and regret. Noah, listening attentively, draws closer to his mother, his drumbeats helping her to find the music.