Degrees of recall

In 1779, Mozart traveled, as a young 20-something, with to Rome. During Holy Week, his father Leopold took him to the Sistine Chapel, to hear Gregorio Allegri's well-known Miserere. A relatively complex choral work for nine voices, the Miserere was considered to be the sacred property of the Vatican, and copying it was strictly forbidden; conventional transcriptions were supposedly punishable with excommunication.

Mozart heard it performed once, and then returned to his room, where he wrote down, from memory, the entire piece.

Instead of provoking the fury of the Church, though, Mozart's feat fanned broad interest in his abilities. In fact, he was allowed to return to the Chapel several days later; after this visit, he corrected a few minor mistakes in his original transcription, and the score of the Miserere was a secret no longer.

We don't spend much time - in fact, I can't remember spending any time - wondering if Cleo is a little Mozart. It seems pretty clear, though, that recalling, in the sense of retelling, any rather complicated event still lies beyond her powers. Often, when I pick her up from nursery school, I ask her what the day had brought. Generally, there's a brief report on any scrapes she may have accrued in the playground - "I got an ow-ee on my knee" - and sometimes there are big, broad summaries: "I played." And yet, when we talk to the teachers, or receive the week-end e-mails from the school, it's clear that she and the other kids are leading relatively rich and varied lives during the day. Just two days ago, in fact, there was apparently a rather emotional farewell to Yertle the Turtle, who had lived in an aquarium in the Bluebirds' room for months, before giving up the ghost over the weekend.

But if Cleo is unable to tell us about such episodes, I'm not convinced that she doesn't - and that all of the kids in her room - don't, in fact, remember them. The memory of a toddler is clearly dynamic, and weirdly selective. But it's clearly potent, as well: a fact that's made clear as she and I move through Baltimore on a daily basis. Yesterday, she pointed to the apartment in which her friend Quentin used to live - until June, when he moved to Texas - and announced that it was his. And as we waited for L., on the steps of her building, Cleo suggested that we play a game that we'd last tried, on the same steps, a few weeks ago.

So: so far, no transcribed Miserere. But, still: signs that the past is always with us, in forms that are almost as beautiful as divine music.