Day 111... Jaques Brel

Introduction

What you are about to read began with the sudden and traumatic death of my dearest friend and artistic collaborator, whom I here call “Apollo,” eleven years ago, days before the production began on our first West End musical. At the time, I was devastated by grief, crippled by survivor’s guilt, homebound by agoraphobia, insomnia and serious PTSD. I was tortured by night terrors; so I would draw a portrait of a great artist every night to keep me occupied, and the next day I would “spend the day with” that artist, immersed in their work and in intimate “dialogue” with them.

I continued this process, surviving day after day, for a year and a day, 366 portraits in all.

Drawing Strength: An Artist’s Guide to Recovery revisits my diaries from that first year of loss and transforms them into reimagined surrealist miniatures that delve deep into my transformative experience, mad helpful delusions, and reveal the insights and strengths each artist gifted me.

What follows is day 111... my day with the Belgian Singer/Songwriter Jacques Brel, 1929-1978. Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer, songwriter, and actor renowned for intensely emotional performances and poetic lyrics. Born in Brussels in 1929, he achieved fame in France with songs including “Ne me quitte pas,” “Amsterdam,” and “La Valse à mille temps.” His work explored love, death, friendship, and despair. Brel retired from performing in 1967 and died in 1978.

What follows is day 111... my day with the Belgian Singer/Songwriter Jacques Brel, 1929-1978. Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer, songwriter, and actor renowned for intensely emotional performances and poetic lyrics. Born in Brussels in 1929, he achieved fame in France with songs including “Ne me quitte pas,” “Amsterdam,” and “La Valse à mille temps.” His work explored love, death, friendship, and despair. Brel retired from performing in 1967 and died in 1978.

Day 111... Jacques Brel

Jacques sits beside me in a shroud of cigarette smoke, nicotine-stained, sweating, staring straight ahead with his searing dark eyes. I can hear a carousel of thoughts turning in his head; neither of us speaks. We are staring at the piano, as if we could stare into the piano. And the piano is staring at us.

“For days now she has been in bad temper; I am not allowed to approach. If I try to even dust the keys, she flinches.” I take a drag off his cigarette. “If anyone threatens to play her, she snaps her lid at their fingers.”

The piano is furious. She cannot and will not accept that Apollo, her amour, will never explore her heights and depths again. She refuses to believe that his feet will no longer wear away the brass from her pedals, that his long fingers will no longer warm her ivory. Spoiled for any hands but his, she sulks in the corner, his wooden widow weeping. Although she lives in my home, she will always be his; it’s his weight she is waiting for, his long legs she longs to feel on her bench. “I cannot give her the touch she is craving,” I sag, defeated, “Her loyalties have gone to him. She will never accept my clumsy hands again.”

Jacques can see the lamenting instrument holding onto the melodies he poured into her heart… Ne me quitte pas…the resonance of the music that flowed through her... Ne me quitte pas…     He sees the footprints worn into the carpet beneath the pedals, Ne me quitte pas…the brass worn away at the tips. Ne me quitte pas…He smokes another cigarette. We’ve called the piano tuner.

He arrives, a soft-eyed quiet soul; he seems to me a compassionate man, the kind of person who couldn’t bear to see a piano in pain. I wonder if she will let him near her, or if he’ll see what I see, the angel of death sitting at the bench and closing the score. I take down the cloths and flowers that adorned her lid and put Apollo’s portrait away. I give the tuner sweet tea made of lavender and roses, and strong black for Jacques and me.

We were all so relieved the tuner had come. Jacques walks out onto the balcony to wave his fists at the rain. With imperfect pitch, I attempt conversation with the attractive tuner, flirting timidly. Jacques applauds my heart’s attempt to mend itself and willingness to go back into battle, even while broken and bleeding… “En Suivant!” He mutters as he walks in and throws his arm around my shoulder. We hold our breath. The tuner puts his hands on the keys; we lean in. He plays a scale; we shudder. There’s no sparkle left in her sound; her warmth has given way to weariness. The keyboard has dropped almost a whole tone flat.

“Your piano is depressed.”

He is not sure she is worth saving; he looks at us like a vet over an old dog in the street.

“I’ll do my best.”

“We won’t give up on her. Defying death is a part of life.”

Jacques whispers through gritted teeth. The tuner takes out his screwdrivers and tuning forks. I wince as the first screw is twisted. He slowly undoes the front panel to get to her inner workings.

“Fear must be respected; to be afraid is to be alive.”

Jacques crushes my hand in his. In my nightmares I see her guts exposed, a bloody, pulpy mess of meat underneath the mahogany or worse, Apollo inside, his corpse trapped in the strings and bruised by the hammers. I am shaking as if I were about to see the face of death staring out at me. Jacques lifts his jacket and waves his ass, laughing, jeering and calling death out.

And what we saw? Steel strings and felt hammers, mere mechanics of a dusty old machine. My nightmares dissolved, like the wreath of smoke Jacques wore. We sat and listened as each key was brought back to life, wishing the tuner could stay forever.