Nocturne Confusion

Chopin’s Nocturne #2 in E flat played clumsily from the apartment across the hall. Every afternoon at around two, her young neighbor practiced whatever piece had been assigned to her that week. She usually tried to avoid being home during these practice sessions, but with her recent layoff from work, this had become increasingly more difficult. 

On some level, Aurelie welcomed this need to find a new direction for her life. Too long had she been going through the paces of her nine to five office job, following the guidelines set down by her younger boss and enduring the flirtatious behavior of her co-workers. 

Setting down the fresh bread from her local boulangerie, Aurelie shooed away the hungry cat from under her feet. Dejected, the scrawny creature slunk back to her window seat, curling up on the back of the faded arm chair all the while staring down her owner. With her boyfriend back in Spain for Christmas, the cat was her only companion. They were not at the point in their relationship when he would invite her to meet his family, and besides, she wasn’t sure that she were up for such an awkward and stress inducing activity. She had no intent to marry him, and she had resolved to never meet the families of her flings. That would be showing attachment, something that Aurelie refused to do.  

He had suggested that she should go visit her mother in America. It had been over twelve years since she had seen her, and occasionally she felt a nagging guilty feeling lingering over her head that she knew had to do with neglecting to make the trip. Aurelie had grown up in Boston until she was ten. After her parents divorced, she had moved with her father to his native France. It wasn’t what the family counselors had suggested, but her father’s temper scared her mother into abiding by whatever rule or regulation he set down. So with her stuffed suitcases packed away in the trunk of the taxi, Aurelie said goodbye to her mother and the life she had known. Tears mixed with the misty humid rain, restricting her vision to the point where everything blurred together. The entire ride to Logan airport was spent hugging herself in the corner of the cab, keeping an ample distance between herself and her dad. She would have preferred to stay with her mother in Boston, but she too feared his occasional outbursts. 

For the first few years, she would go back and forth to the States for vacations. However, she soon became attached to her friends in Antony and the number of visits dwindled down to zero by the time she was seventeen. Phone calls were more frequent, once a month at the least, twice a week at the most. As her mother aged and her health deteriorated, the calls became more serious, focusing almost entirely on subjects that Aurelie detested. Her most recent conversation had been about nursing homes. Years of an abusive marriage had taught her to be subservient, so when her doctors told her it was time to move into an assisted living community, she was more than willing to comply. At the end of the last call, her mother’s voice saddened and Aurelie felt that her time to see her was waning. 

Maybe she should go see her, she thought. Her cat purred as if in agreement. She had no responsibilities to uphold here and her job search had been futile. Only one company had replied to her resume and even they seemed less than enthusiastic about having her as an employee.  Sighing, Aurelie logged onto her computer and booked an one way ticket for the following week. 

Touching down in Logan had brought on more emotions than Aurelie had expected. She knew that returning to her home would make her sentimental, yet she had not anticipated the force of the feelings that swept over her. Nothing looked the same and the foreignness of the supposedly familiar place made her feel like a stranger. Consulting a map of the terminal brought her to tears. This wasn’t the homecoming she had imagined. Aurelie wanted to flee back to France and forget this misstep; she should never have come. 

Her mother was supposed to be waiting for her at the gate and Aurelie realized with a jolt that she wasn’t sure that she would be able to recognize her. Feeling dizzy with exhaustion and nerves, she made her way to the waiting area, unable to focus her eyes long enough on each person to scout out her mother. Her surroundings began to spin and Aurelie frantically grappled for something to hold onto. Everything she reached out for disappeared before she could steady herself and the result led her farther into a sense of panic. She realized that the trip that was supposed to make her whole again had broken her down; she was alone in a strange new place.

Aurelie fell to the ground. The last thing she saw before blacking out was a white haired woman smiling down at her. 

Nothing was the same. 

Her eyes opened to see a nurse standing over her. Unaware of her awakening, the nurse continued monitoring Aurelie’s vitals on the beeping machines by her bedside. Aurelie slowly began to process her surroundings. The white walls, the pastel colored hospital gown, the sterile looking appliances and the face of the nurse gave her no clue as to what country she was in. She could have been anywhere, and she found herself not caring. Aurelie felt a liquid trickle down her forehead and reached her hand up to wipe whatever it was away. Bringing her hand back down, she was startled to see that it was blood. Still, she was not bothered, and once again, closed her eyes.

The door opened and Aurelie raised her eyelids just long enough to see her boyfriend walk through the door. 

She pretended to go back to sleep. 

Q+A with the author:

What was the main message of this story?

In all the stories we read in class, the characters always traveled to a new place. They never revisited an old place with a new pair of eyes. The idea that returning to a changed place and confronting the change intrigued me. How would someone react when realizing that she did not recognize a place and people that once meant so much to her? Would she feel that she had lost a fundamental aspect of who she was or would she be able to accept that this was natural? 

What are the allusions to Sputnik Sweeheart, and why did you allude to the novel? 

Besides the woman with white hair that Aurelie sees at the airport, the reference to classical piano is mirrored in the description of Sumire and Miu’s first conversation and the instruments used in the recording of the song after which Sumire was named. The aspect of trauma is also featured heavily in the novel. Sputnik Sweetheart delves into the metaphysical more than any of the other novels. My story is primarily about how being unable to recognize one’s home can dramatically impact an individual’s sense of self and make them feel emotionally as well as physically lost. Sputnik Sweetheart focuses on how an individual can feel broken apart and Aurelie’s feeling of being a stranger in a place that should be familiar leads her to a loss of identity. 

This is a personal piece (as in it follows intimately one character). Why is it not in first person? 

I felt that third person could capture the lost identity better than first person. If she were still telling her story, she would obviously still have to be aware of everything about her. Third person lets her have some gaps. 

What prompted you to provide so much detail on Aurelie’s childhood. Why did you include the aspects of trauma?

This was also an allusion to Sputnik Sweetheart. When people go through extreme trauma like abuse, they occasionally dissociate and revisit the trauma in their heads. When this happens, they lose touch with the current world and focus only on the past (like Miu’s experience on the ferris wheel.) With a history of trauma, Aurelie’s reaction to coming home is more understandable.  She is overwhelmed by the unfamiliar and is also coming back  to the place where she originally left her mother and started her life with just her father.  The taxi ride on the way to Logan when leaving Boston was an extremely emotional time for her, so coming back to Logan later would probably bring on similar feelings. Her desire to not feel attached to her boyfriend can also be attributed to her feelings towards men that stemmed from her father’s treatment of her. And because she tries to feel disconnected, her desire to ignore him while in the hospital makes more sense. 

How is this travel fiction?

This is travel fiction in the sense that in the act of going somewhere, the main character comes to a conclusion about herself that could only have been brought on by an experience like this. It is the act of coming home that forces Aurelie to confront how the distance she has maintained for so long from her origins has affected her and how even though she identifies Boston as her home, it has become a foreign place over time. She still feels like a stranger and goes through the same stress that comes from being a lost traveler.