The Blind Accordionist by C. D. Rose

Author:C. D. Rose [Rose, C.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

SOSIA AND THE CAPTAIN

“COINCIDENCE IS INDEED a strange thing,” said the lawyer, in the dining room of a hotel in a town that, in all honesty, had seen better days, following up a tale told by someone I’ve now quite forgotten, about another chance encounter or unexpected recognition. “I once heard this story about a young woman, somewhere in France, I believe,” he continued, being a man who liked the sound of his own voice but who was nevertheless interesting, “who’d discovered her husband was having an affair, and decided in her grief and distraction to throw herself off the top of a parapet. She did so, and on landing hit the errant husband on his way back into their house, killing him stone dead. She survived, I believe, though I have no idea what then became of her.”

“A fine tale indeed, but it surely never happened,” replied one of his fellow diners. “Some piece of gossip or tittle-tattle, something fashioned for the mere sake of a barroom anecdote.”

“It surely did, Sir,” replied the lawyer, who was my brother. “I read of it in a newspaper and have kept the illustration.” He had, it is true. He kept a large collection of cuttings of such unlikely tales, and their gruesome illustrations, in several languages.

“An illustration?” retorted the sceptic. “The handiwork of an overheated, underpaid mind, I shouldn’t wonder. Now, if there were a photograph…”

The conversation turned to the various merits of the art of photography (and, indeed, if it were even worthy of being called an “art”) and its pretensions (or otherwise) to truth (and, therefore, beauty) before turning back in on itself (as conversations involving my brother the lawyer were wont to do) to consider the nature of coincidence once again, and its role in photography, photography being the very “coincidence of time, place, and light,” as one gentleman (myself) suggested.

“But this is not a story about coincidence,” interrupted a voice from the back of the room, the voice of someone who, up until now, had been quietly seated alone, taking little apparent notice of us gabbling topers. Though the voice was deep, its lilt suggested something other to us, and as we turned to look, we noted that what we had, from the corner of our eyes, taken to be merely yet another solitary gent was in fact a woman—a rather mannishly dressed one, perhaps, but notably handsome—in her later middle years. “Not coincidence, no, nor irony, nor tragedy. It’s a story about love.”

“Love?” asked the lawyer.

The woman nodded.

“And what form of love would that be?”

“Love takes many forms,” she said, “but there is only one way to speak of it.”

The lady was invited to join us, but declined and continued her speech from where she sat. Despite having remained near invisible for most of the evening, the woman was, it seemed, rather used to being able to command attention when necessary, as we all found ourselves turning toward her as if we were heliotropic plants.

“Your story is

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