Polyphony

September 26th

There is an unexpected Spanish assistant at the lycée called Rafaël, who wasn’t on any of the contact lists we were sent before arriving. We went off to the sailing club where I signed up, and learned that the previous assistant went out with the instructor there. I feel slightly as if I am reliving the book Rebecca here, without the rhododendrons. The children call me Virginia, which was the previous assistant’s name, and I can’t see myself ever becoming adept enough at French café banter to find a huge crowd of friends like she and the other assistant apparently did, let alone a boyfriend, assuming I were looking for one.

That evening we decided to squeeze the last drops out of Ile Rousse’s cultural teat before it shrivels up for winter, and went to a polyphonic Corsican choir concert. Rafaël was completely shocked by the idea of a concert in a church, which apparently doesn’t happen in Spain. It was atmospheric – the altar statue of the crowned Virgin in a glass box was lit up in white, and the four singers lit in red from below, like Heaven and Hell. It wasn’t particularly traditional, and I wasn’t too keen on the electric guitar with echo effect, although the Corsican wild boar version of ‘the lion sleeps tonight’ was quite funny, but some of the more traditional songs were incredible. The singers gather into a clump with their arms around one another, holding their ears like anxious babies. There was one main singer, who will start out alone like a muezzin, and then the others add in strange harmonies, too close to pick apart.