we have very
good seats up front off to the side
in the high-ceilinged hall on an april afternoon a sunday
and i am suddenly obsessed with the shoes of the young woman
violinist
the violinist from riga latvia
who began playing violin at age five
and relocated at age twenty-one
to dallas texas
and is now in boston massachusetts
playing afternoon mozart
inside a contemporary chapel
where the names of the donors are etched on little bronze strips
set discreetly into concrete-stippled walls
i am
obsessed with her nice black shoes
because although they are similar i am convinced they are not a pair
and she must have gotten up in a hurry from a very deep nap
and slipped her feet hurriedly into her shoes
perhaps in a murky walk-in latvian-texan closet
not realizing she was wearing two different black pumps
similar but from different pairs
her
biography (on pink photocopy paper) informs us
she has played with both itzhak perlman
and linda ronstadt
i find this fascinating
i imagine her extraordinary classical violin life
full of fragrant bouquets and many black outfits
that fit her classical form almost right
and which she throws around carelessly until there are piles of
black clothes everywhere
then off she dashes to the cleaners
depositing a rose-sacheted pile on the counter
and receiving a smile from one of her many fans
she has
good legs and favors high-heeled shoes
stylish but not trendy
more classical than contemporary you might say
and yet she has trouble finding just the right fit
and therefore has quite a few pairs
it's especially difficult to find the right height of heel
because sitting down playing the violin she moves her legs around a
lot
sometimes resting one toe on the edge of the music stand
sometimes not
today she
has made a little error
which i am pleased to discover
i feel intimately related to her in some way as if we are
girlfriends
and over the phone she might say to me "you know
it was so terribly embarrassing
today at the concert i wore two different shoes
i wonder if anyone noticed"
i am not
just the girlfriend but the person who noticed
i slip a pen out of my purse
and write on the edge of the program "woman—
different shoes?"
and nudge my husband
he looks at
the paper
he looks at the shoes
he looks at
me and shakes his head
no
and makes little motions with his hands
signifying the shoes are at different angles
in his opinion
i am experiencing an optical illusion
in his opinion
something tells me i already knew this before i asked
i look
again at the shoes
the two different shoes
i blink my eyes
hoping my vision will clear
i decide to wait
for the woman to change the position of her feet
then she does and
the shoes
are obviously different
one is a
suave sort of shoe
very streamlined and thin
one is more clunky
less revealing
but probably more comfortable
this sturdy shoe is on her left foot
the one she most often
props against the music stand
things begin to make more sense
i nudge my
husband
whisper illegally during the solo
"the shoes" i whisper
"the shoes" i mouth silently
so he looks again
intently
shakes his head
no
and goes back to the music
but i
cannot go back
for a long time
finally i force myself
back into the allegretto
complicated as it is
it comforts me in this world
where shoes play perplexing games with me
but
eventually i look at her feet again
expecting the shoes to have come to their senses
and match each other
but alas
they do not
and the
concert ends
to rousing applause
and the woman violinist leaves her seat
and stands with her three colleagues
to receive our acclaim
there she
stands in front of us
in plain plain sight
her
shoes are the same
identical
exactly alike
twins each to the other
different only in left and right
my husband
says
"the angle"
and continues his applauding
he is not in the least concerned
with the depth of my confusion
i say "i
see that now"
and am astonished
i say "i
see that now"
and gaze down at my feet
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