The Fallen

23

Driving home from the Cabrillo Bridge I decided to attend the San Diego Synesthesia Society meeting later that night. The decision came to me with instant clarity.

I reasoned that if my condition was part of the reason Gina had gone, other synesthetes might tell me how to minimize or disguise its negative effects. Using these techniques, maybe I could bring Gina back to me. I also wanted to know if my synesthesia would change over time, and if so, what I could expect. And I was just plain ready to talk to people who wouldn’t think I was addled when I told them I could see their words.

I’d always worried that word might get back to the department if I attended a meeting, and people might assume that my brain wasn’t working properly. But now, driving toward Normal Heights, I didn’t care what people like Chet Fellowes or Roger Sutherland or Bryan Bogle thought of my brain. I was tiring of the bullshit — mine and everyone else’s.

So I drove home with the same kind of eagerness I used to have, anticipating Gina. But as soon as I walked in, the new smallness of the house hit me again. No messages. Not even a hello from Vince and Dawn, or more pity from Rachel. Just as Uncle Jerry had experienced after the death of Aunt Melissa, the temperature of the house was much warmer than it should have been in March. I opened all the windows and checked the temperature on the thermostat — eighty.

I got the Synesthesia Society meeting information off the Web, then washed my face in the bathroom sink, put on a clean shirt, and headed right back out.

I’d read that synesthetes consider their condition a gift and that high numbers of artists, performers, and writers are synesthetic. The great painter David Hockney is said to hear colors as music. It is also said that Balzac wanted very badly to be synesthetic but was not. Although I’m not an artist, I do know that I’m a better detective now than before my fall, because I can see very clearly when someone, such as Carrie Martier or Abel Sarvonola, is lying.

I’ve also read that there is no such thing as synesthesia. Some researchers have claimed that synesthetes are simply victims of their own “overactive imaginations” or are perhaps suffering from the abuse of hallucinogenic drugs. This uninformed view has fallen out of favor. There is an entire department at the University of California, San Diego, dedicated to the study of this phenomenon, which leads me to believe that what I have is “real.” There is an American Synesthesia Association, a UK Synesthesia Association, as well as an International Synesthesia Association. There are tests to see if you really have it. Several good books and many abstracts have been published on the subject, and many lectures have been given. I know for a fact that synesthetes don’t invent what they see and taste and hear. We’re not delusional. It’s not that we see UFOs or Sasquatch or spirits of some kind.

The meeting was held at the community center in Hillcrest. The chapter president was Moira Handler, a hefty, fiftyish woman with short blond hair and sober gray eyes. There were twenty-three people there, ranging in age from around twelve to maybe seventy. Eighteen of them were women and fifteen of the women were left-handed. Snacks and drinks were arranged on a pair of long tables set up in the back of the room. Most were homemade. After some social chatter, the doors were closed, the synesthetes took their seats, and Moira went to the podium.

She welcomed the members and introduced the first visitor, Lillian, a young woman from north San Diego County. Lillian had found out about the group online but was not sure if she was genuinely synesthetic or not. She was unsteady and fawnlike in her blue jeans and a long, worn, burgundy-colored velvet coat. As she talked, I suddenly regretted being here and mentally concocted a story about coming to the meeting because my wife was pretty sure she was having synesthetic experiences but was too shy and uncertain to come here on her own. But I can’t lie any better than I can cuss, so when it was my turn I stood and introduced myself and said that I’d come tonight because I’d begun experiencing synesthetic symptoms after an accidental fall. My voice wavered slightly and I wondered if anyone noticed. I focused my attention on Lillian, and tried to pretend that we were the only two people in the room.

Moira said she’d seen my fall too many times on television and was very happy that I had not only survived but was now “gifted.” She said I was living proof of either “miracles or majestic good luck.” A hearty round of applause followed. By the time the applause ended and I sat back down I felt okay again. I’d never been ashamed of who I was, and these people weren’t ashamed of who they were, so what was the problem? I thought about people like Chet Fellowes and Roger Sutherland and Abel Sarvonola and realized that they were enemies whether I had synesthesia or not, and that if news of my attendance here tonight got back to them I was really no worse off. I was beginning to feel the same way about them that I’d felt about the muscular husband trying to rip me off for Gina’s Hikari Cosmos styling scissors — mad and more than a little willing to do something about it.

Moira read the minutes from the last meeting and reported that the SDSS had $289 in the general fund. They had run up $26 in paper and postage for the March newsletter. Many members were behind on their annual dues, which were supposed to be paid by March 1. She glanced at me and said that yearly dues were $50, which included a Summer Solstice Party in the Bongo Room of the Outrigger Motel and discounts at Indy Tire & Wheel, courtesy of member Kris Shuttler’s husband.

The evening’s speaker was Darlene Sable, author of Red Sax and Lemon Cymbals. She described the book as a “straightforward telling” of her growing up synesthetic in San Francisco, California. Her mother was a piano instructor and her father a commercial pilot. From early childhood she remembered seeing music — certain colors would sweep through her vision when certain musical sounds were playing. Later she understood that specific musical instruments caused her to see specific colors: The saxophone was of course red and cymbals lemon yellow; violins were lime green, guitars magenta, and so on. Because of this she craved going to concerts, which her mother was happy to indulge.

By the time Darlene was five she knew that not everyone saw music like she did. She talked about this with her mother a few times but not with anyone else. Her mother said it was probably just a childhood thing that would go away. Darlene grew to be ashamed of it and desperately wanted to be normal, though it never interfered with her life in any way. To Darlene, live musical concerts were jubilant synesthetic extravaganzas almost beyond description — waves of colors and swells of sound rushing all around her, sweeping past her skin. She would leave the concert hall exhausted and elated.

At age eight Darlene began pretending that she no longer saw music. She developed terrible migraine headaches and ulcers. After two years of doctors and medications, she finally confessed to her mother that she was seeing music more vividly than ever. She began visiting a psychiatrist, and the headaches and ulcers gradually subsided. The psychiatrist was the first person to use the word “synesthesia” to describe her “talent” and encouraged her to develop and enjoy it. She had written the book to help others with synesthesia recognize their gifts and be proud. As an adult she had become a piano instructor like her mother and few things pleased her as much as sitting next to a young student and seeing the swells of crimson music flowing out of the instrument.

After the meeting Lillian and I were invited to join six of the members for coffee at the café next door. The inside tables were full so we sat outside in the brisk March night with our coats buttoned up and the steam rising from our cups. Most of the members described their various gifts for Lillian and me. One experienced just the opposite of Darlene Sable — she heard colors as music. Another experienced powerful tastes from certain spoken words. Most were pleasant and unexpected tastes, such as strawberries from the word “loyalty” and cumin from the word “archdiocese.” But a few tastes were bad. The word “scrumptious” tasted faintly of a rotting tooth, while “chockablock” made her taste sulfur. Another saw the printed black letters in books or newspapers in varying vivid colors. A, for instance, was always yellow. D was always light green.

“Describe your gift,” said Bart. He was a heavy, bearded man who had shaken my hand with exaggerated firmness when we were introduced.

All of the others went quiet. I told him about colored shapes being prompted by spoken words. By the emotions behind the spoken words, to be more exact.

“Example,” he said.

“I see blue triangles from a happy speaker. Red squares come from liars. Envy comes out in green trapezoids, so ‘green with envy’ is literally true for me. Aggression shows up as small black ovals.”

“That’s not synesthesia,” said Bart. “I’ve read every word ever written about the subject, and no one has ever established that a speaker’s emotions can be visualized.”

“They can,” I said. “That’s what happens.”

“Maybe you should write an article, Mr. Brownlaw,” said Moira. “The ASA would consider a piece, I’m sure.”

Bart raised his eyebrows and sipped his coffee drink. Whipped cream came off on his mustache. He dabbed the bristles with a paper napkin.

“Have you taken the Reynolds?” he asked me.

“Reynolds?”

“Test. The Reynolds Test of Synesthesia. Obviously you haven’t. It’s in three parts: a basic questionnaire, Geography Test Eighteen — which of course has little to do with conventional geography — and the triad-solution section, which is just basically Form 1 RAT derivations by Mednick and Mednick. Ring a bell?”

I said no.

“I didn’t think it would,” said Bart. “Maybe you should find that test and take it, if you really want to make claims. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about synesthesia. And a lot of bullshit.”

“God, Bart,” said Moira.

“What do you see coming from my mouth right now?” he asked me.

“Little black ovals. Quite a few of them.”

“Aggression. Right, uh-huh. But what if I was really asking you these questions with a sense of humor in my mind?”

“Then I’d see orange boxes. You can’t fake what I see. That’s the synesthesia.”

“That’s parapsychology and crap,” said Bart. “What did you really come here for, to find a date?”

I told him I was happily married.

“Hey, whatever,” said Bart.

“Bart, come on,” said Moira.

I watched the little black ovals pour from his mouth like some kind of plague. My heart was beating fast and I could feel the comforting flow of adrenaline in my blood. When I get angry, I see particularly well and my body feels light and quick.

“Thanks for not saying any more about my wife,” I said.

Bart sipped his coffee and shook his head. “And what about you, shy Lillian, what kind of extraordinary talent do you claim to possess?”

She looked at him.

“None at all, you stupid prick,” she said quietly. Then she stood. “Nice to meet the rest of you.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I said.

“It’s not necessary.”

I walked her to her car. She said she couldn’t believe that Bart would be “such a great big dork to complete strangers.” She said she had worked with a guy like that once, a guy who wanted to expose everything she did as false.

We walked to the covered parking and she unlocked an old brown Toyota. She turned and leaned against the door. Lillian was slender and long-legged, with wavy black hair, freckles, and nice blue eyes. Her wine-colored velvet coat looked two hundred years old.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Did that take a lot of self-control? I know who you are and what you do for a living. You could have hurt that guy, couldn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but that wouldn’t have accomplished much.”

She nodded and looked me in the eyes. She was a notch younger than me, mid-twenties maybe.

“So anyway,” I said, “what kind of synesthesia do you have?”

“Oh, I’m still not sure.” She bit her bottom lip with noticeable anxiety. “It’s... well, it sounds weird, but what happens with me is faces make music.”

“Oh, that’s a good one.”

She eyed me levelly. “It’s only some faces. Not every face makes me hear music. But if they do, they make their own unique melody — every time. It’s consistent.”

“Are you a musician?”

She nodded and laughed quietly. “Yes. I can’t wait to read Darlene Sable’s book. It really sounded good, and she loves music as much as I do.”

“Can you remember the melodies?”

“Oh, sure. I write them all out. Some I just hum into a recorder and transcribe them later because I have so many.”

“You can hear a melody and write it as music?”

“Well, sure, Robbie, just about every musician can do that. I mean, it’s how we read and write.”

I thought about that. “That seems synesthetic to me. But I’ve never heard anybody say that writing music is synesthetic.”

“Nope, me neither.”

Lillian looked back toward the café. The group had dwindled to just three. Bart spread his arms and held forth. Lillian shook her head and looked at me.

“Well,” I said. “That was nice until the end.”

“Yeah,” said Lillian.

“I like what you said to Bart. It was true and funny.”

She shook her head. “Anyway. Well...”

“Have a nice night,” I said. I wasn’t in a hurry to end our conversation but I couldn’t think of anything directly relevant to say.

“You, too,” said Lillian.

“Really nice to... Have you always heard music with certain faces?” I asked. I knew I was just prolonging the good-bye, and she looked at me like she knew it, too. I felt a tug of betrayal of Gina but the words came out anyway. “Or is it new?”

She shook her head. “Yeah, it’s a new thing. All new, all new. I was normal and then my brother was... It’s a long story. Well, I guess I really should go.”

“Drive safely.”

“This thing only goes fifty.”

“Buckle up anyway,” I said. “Had the brakes checked lately?”

“Sure, yes.”

“They’re important.”

“I mean, actually, I was normal until last year when my, well... when my brother, Rich, he was in Saudi with Global Thermal, and they, uh... well, he was one of those guys who— They beheaded him. And when I saw the picture there were these three men in masks and I got this really awful loud ringing in my ears and I kept seeing those three men in the masks over and over in my mind and I couldn’t get them out no matter what I did, awake or sleeping, it was always those three men in the masks with this banner behind them with squiggly writing on it like snakes and this terrible sound of shearing metal and wind and it was so horrible I didn’t sleep for two weeks and ever since then faces give me sounds and music and sometimes the music is really scary and fuck, I’m so sorry I brought this up.”

She swung open the creaky door, slumped into the front seat, swept the elegant old coat onto her lap, then slammed the door shut and stared straight ahead. Six inches of red velvet remained outside the door.

I motioned for her to put the window down but she threw open the creaky door.

“Window’s broke,” she said.

“You can heal up,” I said. I knelt and lifted the creased coattail back inside the doorjamb, then stood. “There’s people you can talk to and things you can do and some prescription drugs that can help. You can’t hold it all in. You could—”

“I’ve done all that.” Lillian stood up and locked her wet blue eyes onto mine. “Look, I’m good now. I’m good. It just catches up with me sometimes. They took Richard, but Richard gave me music. They took Richard, but Richard gave me music. There. See? I know it’s true. I can breathe deeply and control my own emotions. I am in control. In, out. There. Lillian controls Lillian. Masked terrorists do not control her. They bombed the bastards to smithereens a day later so what am I so upset about?”

She stared at me and breathed deeply, in and out, in and out. “I’m good. See?”

“Well, yeah, you’re doing good now, Lillian.”

“I’m a real pro.”

“That’s a wonderful gift your brother gave you.”

“I don’t want the gift,” she said. “I want my brother.”

“I understand.”

“You got a wonderful gift when you hit that awning.”

“I don’t want the gift either,” I said.

“I understand. Bring your wife to the Belly Up in Solana Beach and hear me sing some Sunday. I play evenings from six to seven to warm up the crowd for the stars. Call ahead to make sure I’m on. Sometimes I can’t face a crowd.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thanks for walking me out.”

I drove down my street just after ten and saw an unusual coupe parked across from my home. I was pretty sure it didn’t belong to anyone in the neighborhood. I recognized it as a 1985 Thunderbird because my mother had driven one back in the early nineties.

I pressed the automatic garage-door opener and watched in my rearview as a woman got out of the T-Bird. She stood, looked around nervously, then started across the street toward me. Her sweater flapped in the glow of the streetlamps. She had something clutched to her chest.

Instead of pulling into my garage, I killed the engine and stepped out.

“Hello, Ms. Buntz,” I said.

“Invite me inside,” she said. She continued past me into the garage.

“Would you like to come in?”

I unlocked the door to the house, flipped on a light, and held the door open for Arliss Buntz. She was carrying a pale yellow tape player that looked old. When she walked past me, she smelled like lilac.

I stepped in behind her. A breeze had come up from the east and the house had cooled down nicely with the windows left open. I glanced at the answering machine but there were no messages. I motioned to the breakfast table and Arliss set her old tape player on it, but she didn’t sit.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“Ethics Authority phone calls are randomly monitored and recorded,” said Arliss Buntz. “This is done in accordance with our charter from the city. Director Kaven compiles, duplicates, and distributes the recordings on Fridays so that the chief of police, the mayor, the City Council, and other approved individuals can listen to them. As the head of Enforcement, John Van Flyke receives a copy every Wednesday. I catalog and store them. During a slow period this afternoon I listened to last week’s tape and I ran across this conversation. You should hear it.”

The player was old and faded, with oversize controls for the elderly and the function of each button written on it in Braille. She pushed the green “play” button.

I heard this conversation:

There was a loud click, followed by silence. The recording was weak and had some static, but clear enough to hear. Because of the interrupted greeting at the beginning and the abrupt click at the end, I figured that Arliss had made it herself on the crude old machine, from the copy passed down by Kaven to Van Flyke.

“Play it again,” I said.

Arliss rewound the tape and played it again.

“The time and date of each conversation is written down on a log that comes with the tapes,” said Arliss. “At first this conversation caught my ear because it was Mr. Asplundh. Then I saw that it was recorded just hours before he was murdered.”

I looked at her. She was lifting her chin in defiance but I could see the doubt in her old gray eyes.

“Nobody at Ethics knows you taped this for me?” I asked.

“I would be fired immediately.”

I nodded. “But you trusted me.”

“I trusted Mr. Asplundh because of his morals. I trust you because I have no choice. Someone heard this conversation. Someone knew that Mr. Asplundh would be at the bridge. Did you catch that? ‘I’m going to the bridge before, just to say a prayer.’ He went there and was killed.”

“Maybe he was followed there,” I said.

Arliss Buntz hit the “eject” button, and the cassette tape clattered out of the player and onto my table.

“Garrett Asplundh?” she asked. “You have no idea how keen his senses were. He was not followed. He was betrayed. By someone who heard that conversation. Someone who knew which bridge he was talking about.”

“Who is authorized to monitor Ethics Enforcement calls?”

“Kaven, the chief of police, the mayor, and each of the city councilpersons,” said Arliss. “But don’t forget the unauthorized ears that are always close by — there are all the office staff and aides to the councilmen, there are all the assistants and underlings to the chief, and the mayor’s staff. There are secretaries and office managers and even janitors. There are scores of people with ears, Detective Brownlaw. And after Director Kaven collects and organizes the tapes, they are sent back down the chain of command to Van Flyke, the city attorney, and certain police department captains.”

“Fellowes?” I asked.

“Yes, and Villas and Sutherland.”

“What about Sarvonola?” I asked.

“Unauthorized,” said Arliss. “And untrustworthy.”

She lifted the tape recorder and held it against her chest. “I never thought that Mr. Asplundh should have been reconciling with his wife,” said Arliss. “She brought out his weakness rather than his strength. With her he lost his reason and his sharpness. His heart went soft. I saw them together. I heard them talk. I know.”

“Thank you.”

“If I’m fired for this, I’ll know who betrayed me.”

“I won’t betray you.”

“It’s out of my hands now.”

I held open the back door for her. She marched through my garage toward the street, tape player held tight.

I watched her drive away and wondered at her courage and at her unusual devotion to Garrett Asplundh.

I called Stella, got a busy signal, and tried again a few minutes later. I apologized for calling on the day her husband was buried, especially so late, but told her I had an important question or two for her.

“Ask them,” she said.

“It has to be face-to-face, Mrs. Asplundh. I’ll explain it then.”

“Make it Stella,” she said. “Meet me at Higher Grounds. People keep calling. I’d love to get out of this apartment for just a few minutes.”

I made a copy of the tape, then opened the floor safe and stashed the original. At first the old familiar disbelief swept over me when I saw again that all of Gina’s jewelry was gone. Then came the familiar spike of anger, followed by the idea that I could bargain her back to me if I could only figure out what to offer her.

But by the time the safe lid clanked shut I realized I would never get her back. The idea came with sudden, awful finality. I hadn’t felt helpless since my fall, but a terrible helplessness swept over me again. I felt as if I had been shrunk down and locked in the safe, where I could do nothing but wait.