Jack Forge

Parashu Pradhan

Jack Forge

Woodwind

When old Martin Ledge played the flute, even wild animals paused to listen. His music filled the little alpine town of Cottonwood like soft, invisible arms that embraced every living thing. At times it sounded the way snowmelt tumbled in the creek running through town. Other times the song of birds. Most often the way wind caressed the old growth conifers that dressed the surrounding mountains.

Folks in Cottonwood called him Artiste, because he used to paint houses for a living and specialty was painting the homes and shops where families lived and worked. Did so for nearly fifty years--till his wife died. Then he stopped painting and disappeared for more than a month. everyone thought he had left town--may be to die. But before long he reappeared. Carrying the flute.

No one guessed old Martin was musical till one day he walked into Cottonwood Park with a battered leather case, sat on a weatherworn bench beneath a grand cottonwood tree, joined the tarnished tubes, and played some of the sweetest strains anyone had ever heard. People passing by slowed down to listen. Even adolescents in their fast cars.  The saddest individual fleeing some treacherous fangs in life found reason to dally on the edge of the park when he heard Martin’s music.  But people dared not say anything to him, fearing the fellow had gently lost his mind from grief.

The mayor was the first to share words with Martin Ledge.  “Hey, Artiste,” he called to the my house could use a new coat of that pearly white paint of yours.  If you aren’t busy.”

Martin smiled and kept playing to a tender coda before speaking.  “Naw--I’m retired from paintin’, Mister Mayor.  Thought to make myself another career since Jenny died.”

The mayor uttered his disappointment into inaudible grumbling but quickly regained his cultivated charm.  “Mighty nice music your playin’ there, Martin.  Didn’t know you were an artiste with that too.”  Martin nodded and put his mouth to the flute as if to kiss it.  Momentarily a bright air unraveled from the pipe to challenge the sunlight beaming through the heartshaped leaves.  That was the beginning of the old man’s new life.

Martin played his flute every day in that park for several years, and quickly became a living monument that no statue or shrine could replace.  People came there as they always had to relax in the quiet shade of the whispering trees and to picnic with their friends and families but mostly they came to bask in the beautiful melodies that flowed like birdsong from Martin Ledge’s flute.  Even children, when walking home from school, found their slow dawdling way past the park to hear a few notes from the old man.  “Play that funny one, Artiste,” they would say.  Or, “Do you know this one--” and they would hum a few measures of some popular tune.  Martin would quickly catch on and send them home whistling.

As the old man’s music wended into the minds of the townsfolk it worked wonders on their attitudes.  A sonorous balm to the emotional strain of daily living, it calmed their nerves, damped the fire in their hearts, and blessed them with the belief that life could be good.  And the sweet softness of their smiles was signature to the faith.

About that time people in town were excited about a prospective windfall.  Sackes Lumber Company had appraised the virgin forest around Cottonwood and offered them a lot of money for the timber.  The townspeople had long made a modest living from visitors who came to the mountain village for the fishing, the snow, and the picturesque alpine vistas.  Few of the residents were affluent but comfortable and content with their livelihoods.  Now some of them, those who owned large parcels of the forest, stood to make fortunes.  And the rest of the people in and around town expected the wealth to trickle down to them, to enrich their own lives.

As the people of Cottonwood were celebrating the advent of their good fortune, they attended less and less to Martin Ledge’s music.  Took it for granted.  He had been such a pleasing fixture in the park for so long they assumed he would go on playing his beautiful music for them forever.  So used to hearing the fine balanced measures of his work they did not notice his absence.  Guessing he might have been under the weather or taking a deserved day off they also did not notice him heading into the forest with his flute case in hand.

Tom Jenkins, the grocer, in the store across from the park was the first one to speak of it.  “Haven’t seen old Martin for a few days,” he said to Mrs. Guzman, one of his regular customers, buying a few pounds of potatoes.  “Hope he isn’t sick.”

“Probably just takin’ a breather,” she said, paying for her groceries.  “Sure deserves one.  Never seen a man work as hard at one thing or another as that old fella.”

That triggered the watch.  Everyday people deliberately passed the park to see if Martin Ledge was there again.  But day after day they failed to see him.  The sheriff even stopped at the old man’s little house on the edge of the forest to find out if he was well but found nothing but a tidy lodging full of the long lives of Martin and Jenny Ledge.

When a serious concern began to burgeon among the people that maybe something very sad had befallen the old man, a curious thing happened.  Little Billy Barrett picked it up initially while playing with his friends in the forest.  When he got home he said to his mother, “I think old Martin Ledge is playin’ his flute in the woods.”

Of course Billy’s mother considered his remark simply childish imagination.  But when the rumor wove through town like one of Martin’s melodies, people began to pay attention.  Evenings after work many of them would stand still in their yards, face the forest, and listen.

“Sure does sound like old Martin’s music, doesn’t it?” the mayor said to his wife while they were sitting on their front porch, sipping wine, and watching the sun disintegrate behind the great conifers that lined the mountain ridges.

Day after day the people of Cottonwood heard the music in the trees.  The simple alpine concert gently roused them mornings, pleasantly distracted them from their daily toil, and lulled them to sleep nights.  Soon everyone in town was awakening each day to listen for the music that drifted out of the forest on the aromatic scent of Douglas fir and yew.  By popular urging, the sheriff led several searches into the woods to find old Martin.  They found the constant echo of his handiwork.  But not the man.

For months people talked with wonder about the disappearance of Martin Ledge and how the beautiful music he had played on his flute had been captured by the wind in the evergreens around Cottonwood.  Although not given to superstition beyond traditional religious observations, the people believed something extraordinary had happened in their small part of the world.  Something that to this day the folks in that village cherish as much a part of their history as the founding of the settlement, the raising of their families, and the beauty of the landscape around their homes.

A month later, when the Sackes Lumber Company trucks growled into town to devour the surrounding trees, they confronted a blockade on Main Street.  Hundreds of people were thronging the only way through town to the forested hills.  The drivers blasted their horns, but the townspeople stood their ground in front of the diesel behemoths.  The leader of the crew shouted through a bull horn for the crowd to disperse, to let the men do their job.  But the people did not move.  The mayor climbed onto the hood of the lead truck and said, “Friends, neighbors--let these people pass.  They have work to do--from which we can all profit.”

To the mayor’s disappointment, the people were adamant.  Billy Barrett’s mother stepped forward and shouted above the diesel engines, “We’ve changed our minds, mayor.  We don’t want to lose our trees.”  The crowd around her cheered.

“Please be reasonable, Mis’ess Barrett.  Why, only last week you and the other folks were counting the money we would make from this venture.”

“No amount of money in the world is worth more than the sight and sound of those beautiful creatures,” she said.  They been here since before the first settler in this town--and we want them to be here long after we’re gone.”  Another cheer in chorus to her words.

“Now don’t make me call the sheriff and have you people forcibly removed--” the mayor hollered, his face flushed.  But when he saw Glenda Barrett lie down in the street in front of the trucks and the others cover the pavement for a block with their bodies, he was clever enough to know the will of his constituency.  With a quiet word to the crew leader the mayor jumped off the truck and waved them out of town.

Old Martin Ledge never came back out of the forest, never returned to the park to play his flute.  Yet the people of Cottonwood swear they hear his music in the great groves that sweep up the mountainsides around the village.  And when anyone visits the little alpine town any time of the year they too can hear marvelous melodies in the forest, melodies that calm their nerves, dampen the fire in their hearts, and bless them with the belief that life can be good.

Parashu Pradhan                                                                                top

THE TELEGRAM ON THE TABLE

 Once more he read the telegram that lay on the table. Or rather, his eyes went along its lines once again. He suddenly felt happy, although he knew that he was very tired. All day he had been out relating the entire history of the country to tourists and answering their multicolored questions. Now it seemed that some life had returned to his flagging ambitions. He smiled. A tragedy like this should have made him weep. But none of it touched him at all. It felt as ordinary as his everyday life: getting up at dawn, hurriedly rinsing out his mouth, pulling on jacket and trousers, tying a knot in his tie, then smiling at strange faces as if he knew them well.

 A few days before he had met a friend, one of his best friends from his village, who had also come to the city and become trapped in some menial job. This friend knew about his tragic event and had uttered words of sympathy: ‘I am very sorry, Krishna. You have my heartfelt sympathy.’

 But this sympathy had not touched him at all. It had seemed meant for someone else. To observe convention, he had smiled nonetheless and simply said, ‘Thank you.’

 That telegram had been lying there for weeks. He always came home from the hotel in the middle of the night, and he was always tired like this. He would have been caught by a pair of blue eyes or immersed in western music. His eyes always shone when he looked at the telegram. Perhaps he had needed to receive it before he could really achieve what he aimed for. Now that he had received it, perhaps he was happy. Very, very happy indeed.

 He had always tried to speak English since he was a child. He had dreamed in English and considered English his all. It had brought him a new wave of happiness. Now he explained the culture and customs in his own way: how the kumari was chosen, how the kumari was worshipped, what the horse festival was like¹. He thought of the foreigners staring straight at him and of Judiths and Jennies amazed by his words. His life was most enjoyable. Often he dreamed of New York skyscrapers and awoke from his dreams amazed by the Goddess of Liberty there. Or else he would imagine lying beside the ocean, playing a tape of Nepali folk songs. Sometimes he dreamed sentimentally; then he became practical again. For it was quite certain that one day Krishna would follow a tourist girl far across the skies. Unfamiliar voices were calling him from distant lands. ‘Come to us just once.’ They seemed to be saying,‘We will be your guides. We will welcome you. We love you.’

But then there was that telegram, which he would rather not have received. It took him back to earliest times and forced him to think about things he would prefer not to consider. The person it concerned had never meant much to him. He had never felt the need to pay much attention to her. He still lived in the city, just as he had ten years before, trying to make his seedling dreams grow. The telegram should have made him weep, but it didn’t. He should have felt regret, but he didn’t. He should have fasted for a while, but he didn’t. That telegram should have affected him; it should have elicited some response. But the wires inside Krishna were strange. No current ran along them. Nothing ever touched him. No grief could shake his heart.

 He put it out of his mind and tried to sleep. He turned the radio on low and switched off the light, but sleep would not come. All that afternoon’s tourists came before him, asking,’ How old is this piece of art?’ ‘What’s the importance of this?’ ‘Is woodcarving a new tradition?’ And so on and so on. He forgot them and thought about his lodgings. He paid a high rent, but there were few amenities. If he got up too late, there was no water. If he kept his light on for too long, everyone complained. All sorts of houses had been built on the empty fields in front. The open sky was a long way off. He thought he would like to move somewhere else. Then he could invite that Miss Pande from the travel service home for dinner. But the room he rented was bad, and soon even that mundane wish dwindled away.

 Then he thought of the distant hill of his home. He had not visited for many years. It would be good to go home every Dasain, he thought, to join in the dancing and dispel the emptiness of the city. He would gladly swap places with someone there, even if it were only for a few days. Or he could brag to the idle young folk. ‘If you’ve no work, come with me,’ he could say. ‘I’ll fix you up with a job.’ But as he thought of the hill country, that woman came into his mind again-the woman he did not want to define. He did not want to accept her or identify her. But a telegram had come, and there it was written,’ Your wife died yesterday.’ There could be no doubt about what it told him. Your wife died yesterday, it said; your wife died yesterday.

 It would not allow him to sleep. He pressed a switch, and the room lit up. He went to the table and read it again, forcing himself to concentrate. Your wife died yesterday, it said. Your wife died; your wife died…For weeks he had slept there within sight of that message, but tonight for some reason his mind was filled with desired and unwanted connections, thoughts of the present and the past, all of them in discord. Why couldn’t he sleep tonight? Why couldn’t he make sense of it and weep? Having lived alone for so long in the city, had he become like a stone? Was he incapable of thought? Suddenly angry with himself, he tore it to shreds and burst into tears. He cried and cried, he knew not how long.

  Translated from Nepali by Michael James Hutt

1. kumari - the kumari is the so-called living goddess of Kathmandu. The horse festival (ghode-jatra) is celebrated on the Tudikhel each year and involves horse races and other equestrian events.

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