Pravda Page 9

  Unless—Henry's mind began to move forward again—the wider family might be persuaded to help. (How many more people was Sergei going to cram in here?) Henry cursed himself. He couldn't remember what anyone in Maria Glover's family was called. Idiotic of him. He should have developed the acquaintance. She had seemed open enough—willing. But—damn, damn, damn—he could not now be sure if she had mentioned a single person by name, let alone where they lived or what they did. Where were her "new" children? Was her husband dead? She had never said one way or the other. Would any of them know anything at all about Arkady? He very much doubted it. God, he had been a fool; but then, you don't expect people to die—no matter how often it happens, you just don't expect it.

  Sitting there at his tiny table (label now shredded, cheap glue sticky on his fingers), Henry could think of only one thing to try: call Zoya as soon as possible, during the intermission. Make inquiries. Discover what she knew. A shameful thought slipped nimbly through the door after the others: that Arkady might never get out of the flat after all. Henry cringed involuntarily, glanced around, almost as if to see whether his mind might have been somehow overheard, and then began to survey the room more thoroughly to distract himself.

  Over by the entrance, a clutter of students were having their hands stamped with the indecipherable fluorescent insignia of the club. Sergei himself—a startlingly faithful doppelgänger of Mussolini if ever there was one—came bustling through the door again and started remonstrating with them (all jowls and chops and slather) to move farther inside, though clearly there was nowhere farther inside for them to move to, since along both brick walls, all the way back to the buried bar, people were standing three deep. It was now quarter past ten and Fish was as full as he had ever seen it. Fifteen minutes to go. Clearly the word was abroad: people were not here to see the support acts.

  The lugubrious hum and chunter of a hundred Russian conversations reverberated off the curve of the shallow-arched ceiling, making individual exchanges impossible to catch or follow. Henry saw that additional chairs were being sneaked between the tables, blocking the way, so that latecomers could cram in with their friends. He assessed the crowd. Most were younger—the students and those whose dress indicated that they would be going on afterward to other clubs. But by no means all. Fish could seldom have had such a mixed clientele. The real surprise was the number of older people. A group of weathered old-timers sat immediately to his left—aficionados, judging by their modest glasses of beer and heavy brown suit jackets worn over sweaters despite the heat, men who must have tiptoed through the dark decades listening to their heroes with the volume down. Even more unusually, right at the front there was a table drinking champagne—unheard of in Fish—the women with their dedicated approximations of the latest Hollywood hair, bedizened in designer jeans and jewelry, and the forty- or fifty-year-old men in Armani or Gucci; either business or the government, Henry thought. Institutional mafia. His mouth felt dry. He took the last gulp of water. The students were laying down newspaper: they had decided simply to sit on the floor right in front of the stage; he watched as one filled his glass covertly from a flask while another, a young woman, demonstrated with her arms what she obviously felt was the ostentatious posture adopted by some pianist or other—music students, then, from the conservatory.

  Aside from the erroneous plural of "mongoose" (which he would have taken a teacher's pleasure in correcting), the irony of the entire concert, Henry realized, was that Arkady himself was the only person uneasy about the numbers: one of the Russian's few articulated fears—and the reason he had disbanded Magizdat—was that he might become well known for jazz before he had finished his course and had the chance to establish himself as a concert pianist. And Henry could now see that Arkady was right: this was the Chernobyl Mongeese's first night in nearly a year, and already he was in danger of gathering a following again—locally, at least—for his hobby rather than his true work. The Petersburg Times was almost certainly here. Arkady used a stage name, but there would be a picture, unless he had somehow arranged for that to be prevented. (The stage dimmed and Henry felt a tangible charge of anticipation enter the room, seeming to draw energy to itself.) And yet if everything were about to collapse again, would Arkady continue to cling to his ambition? Would he stick to his self-imposed rule—that the Mongeese would live for three nights and three nights only? Or, if the money stopped, would Arkady's desire finally give out as well?

  The house lights went all the way down. The room shrank. And suddenly, waiting in the dark with three hundred other eager bodies, Henry felt the piercing needle of his conscience followed by the all-consuming flood of his duty. Obsessed compulsion or sober free will, he did not care; this was what he must do. Keep trying. Find a way. Don't give up. Not yet. Make Arkady finish the fucking course. At least ask the family first. And he, Henry Wheyland, would be the man to tell his friend of his mother's death—right after the concert.

  There was an agonized whine. Then an amplified voice asking for quiet sounded from the stage. Sergei stood at the principal microphone, his pate glistening beneath the spot and his tormented T-shirt straining against his bulbous stomach as he spoke. He completed his introduction by naming each member of the band in turn, then raised his arms and began clapping above his head. The charge leaped the gap, the fuel was ignited, and the answering applause ricocheted off the brick. Someone with spiky hair came out from the back of the stage, hand up against the glare of the spot, crazed shadow on the black wall behind. He was followed by another, taller figure. The other stage lights went up. The clapping was redoubled. Sergei jumped heavily down. And one by one, the Chernobyl Mongeese came forward, looking less like musicians than men accustomed to breaking rocks on some forgotten desert chain gang, long days of thirst and shuffling—unkempt, ruefully aware of the intimacy of their work, determined to look anywhere but at the audience.

  Despite their individual talents, Henry could tell they were conscious of the fragility of their impromptu ensemble. Since last year's series—also for three nights only—he knew well that they had rehearsed only twice all together. They took up their various positions: Yevgeny (the drummer, and the only other from Magizdat) dragged his snare closer; the double bass player settled, then resettled his spike; trumpet player and saxophonist, instruments lowered, fingers already flexing over valves, looked away from the audience, inward, at Yevgeny, as though aware that his patient placings and careful rearrangings—stool a little to the left, cymbal a fraction to the right—were the necessary rites by which their observances must begin. Arkady, meanwhile, unable to adjust his seat up or down, simply sat there, waiting, staring blankly at his hands.

  There was a moment of pure silence.

  Then, suddenly, there it was, manifest among them: the age-old miracle of music. Where before there had been people-din, chair-scrape, glass-chink, fractured, fractious, fragmentary sound, now there was only the startling beauty of harmony and rhythm and order, of tone and skill, the compelling narrative of human talent expressing itself.

  They began by playing something that Henry did not quite recognize, something with a walking bass line that beckoned insolently to the putative soloists on either side of the beat, daring them to cut loose. From the second row, his gaze could settle anonymously on his friend; but for the moment he shut his eyes and channeled his entirety into listening, seeking to recalibrate his classical English ear, to appreciate the slip and the shuffle, the skid, the slide, seeking to understand better what this free form of music meant to Arkady, for whom all kinds of playing were part of an endless continuum. He was reminded now that he had first fallen in love with his friend's gift when he had heard Arkady performing jazz, not practicing sonatas or concerti. There was the extraordinary clarity of his articulation and his breathtaking improvisational skill, but neither of these qualities had appealed to Henry the most; rather, it was Arkady's generosity. Then (as now—for here came the piano, dancing to the fore again), there was something deeply affectin
g about listening to a man with such an evident gift play so selflessly with and for (and even through) musicians who had a fraction of his ability. More than that: over time, Henry had realized that when Arkady was performing in an improvisational environment, he seemed somehow to participate in his fellows' struggles—to savor their triumphs, suffer their mistakes—as if all of this were part of the wider effort of musicians the world over to help one another understand the mysterious syntax of their language.

  In no other part of his life did Arkady exhibit even so much as a warm mood. Yet Henry could hear him now as they entered the second number—something careful and more intricate, with less swagger and more intimacy—could hear him taking care not to impede the others, nudging along with the bass (elbow to elbow at the back of the class), joking with the trumpet (after you; no, after you), playful rival to the saxophonist (beat that, pal), but never intrusive. He was everywhere and nowhere; he was forward, he was back; he was side to side; all the while conducting an urgent but underlying conversation with the others that somehow mattered absolutely but never distracted from the main oration.

  Henry opened his eyes. He recognized this second tune. Something he knew in another context—something he had heard Billie Holiday sing, perhaps? A version of "Loveless Love"? Maybe. Arkady was in his usual loosened-up posture now, leaning back, sitting deep in the music, playing easy progressions, letting the saxophonist lead. But it was a deceptive relaxation, for in reality, Henry knew, his friend was using the easy wandering of the song to acquaint himself with the various deficiencies of the strange keyboard, quickly adjusting the weight of each finger to compensate for the odd ash-burned felt or random vodka-soaked damper, all in preparation for the time when he would break loose and make the instrument sing on its own. Almost as much as the music itself, Henry liked the intimacy of this knowledge, observing something he alone could see. Sometimes Arkady appeared to coax the keys with the flat-fingered elegance of Horowitz; sometimes he came at them with the near-vertical attack of Thelonious Monk. By the end of the song, though, Henry could tell that the Russian had learned the entire keyboard; notwithstanding their variously tendered sick notes and excuses (as the band swung straight into the third number), Arkady Alexandrovitch now had the notes running up and down in perfectly produced lines, as though they were the very specimens of good health and endeavor.

  Henry disliked intermissions—the whole of his life was an intermission. He didn't drink, and there was no chance of gaining the bar in any case. But he was glad of the air.

  Outside, Moskovsky station was more than usually heavy with police; something was happening, or somebody suspected that something was about to happen. The open wound of the terror-torn south, blood seeping up the railway lines, dripping into the cities one bead at a time, and the same solution here as everywhere else in the world: tighten the tourniquet. With one finger in his ear against the remorselessly careering traffic, Henry could not raise Zoya in person. Her number was ringing, which was something, but either she was asleep or she wasn't answering. It was getting late, but still ... you would hope that of all people, private detectives would pick up after-hours calls.

  He drew a lungful of the damp air; tonight it felt as if the sky itself were weighed down by something vast and alien above. There would be a proper thunderstorm soon. The weather made him nervous. The police made him nervous. The cars swinging madly around the war monument made him nervous. Maria Glover's death made him nervous. Everything made him nervous. Everything—except his fix, his boy. He tried again and this time left a message. This is Henry Wheyland. I met you last year regarding Arkady Alexandrovitch. I understand that Maria Glover has passed away, and we wondered if you could...

  To the people hurrying by, he looked more like the glimpse of some Grimm-conceived scarecrow than a human being, standing there in the half-light of a cigarette shop, the letters of the station illuminated behind him—MOSKOVSKY VOKZAL, his jacket hanging slack on his frame as he murmured things into an ancient cell phone in a slightly academic Russian, for whom?

  From the moment the Mongeese came back on, Henry could see that Arkady knew his mother was dead. Something in his manner told. Told that everything in his world had been detonated again. Told that here was a man changed—changing—even as he took his seat. Though they could not know the reason, the whole room seemed to feel the change too, seemed to be craning forward collectively, as if the rumor had gone around that they were about to witness some pivotal moment of nature.

  The band played ensemble for a few bars. The saxophone took a short solo over the chord sequence. The trumpet followed. And then, almost hurriedly, they were back together. This was a song not so much fast as urgent, a song of avowal in an importuning six/eight.

  One by one, the other musicians began to withdraw from the tune, like a ballet chorus inching toward the wings in anticipation of the grand jeté of the principal male. The horn players stepped back from their microphones, a quickened fade; then, stealthily, the bass player likewise dropped away, leaving just Arkady and Yevgeny. Old friends, these two, and Henry found himself leaning toward their play along with everyone else. Arkady began to let his fingers work a little faster, running mini-scales around and around and up and down, loosening the knots of time, until the beat itself began to crumble away and Yevgeny likewise disappeared into silence.

  And suddenly the piano was alone.

  There was something tight in the lines of Arkady's brow that Henry had not seen before. Something strange was happening to Arkady's relationship to the piano too. It was as if he had begun to live—breathe, talk, move—only through the keyboard. As if the instrument were becoming part of him, the keys no more than an extension of his arms and his arms merely a lateral articulation of the keys, the dampers, the singing wires themselves. To eye now, as well as to ear, pianist and piano were one and the same. As a man might inhabit his own body, so Arkady appeared to inhabit the mass or density of his instrument, as if he had assumed command not only of sound but also of the space and time that the piano occupied—could ever occupy—as if every capability of the instrument was known and understood and all alike were his to deploy or withhold on the instant. As if the quick of his will was alive in the grain of the soundboard.

  At first he stayed with what was familiar—clearly recognizable variations on the tune, each bowing decorously and paying due respect to its progenitor; but bar by bar he began to stretch convention, risking more, straying further. The room's breath was stilled and the tune was unrecognizably transformed, and the notes were shimmering and shimmying, pouring and pouring, cascading out of the piano in great glittering waterfalls of sound, dazzling, dancing, and yet each individual purposely lit in its own special livery of color and tone. He was playing as Henry had never heard him play: back and forth across rhythm and time signatures, the first beat of the bar long ago discarded (though hiding somewhere, Henry could sense, in between notes). And yet the Russian seemed determined that no single person be left behind on his journey, so he kept doubling back to the almost-forgotten tune, sounding echoes in adjacent registers, raising finger posts, urging the whole club along with him, stragglers too, all bound, faster and faster, for some new upland of music that he wanted to show them ... And now, just as they were all arriving on the very summit, just as people were raising their hands to clap, as if by magic, he was gone. Vanished through some secret trapdoor, only to reappear somewhere far below them all ... And where did all this sudden sadness come from? Or was this the tune again? Not quite. Not quite. Something else, something heartbreaking, something profound, something solemn ... And then, just as Arkady seemed lost for good, here he came once more, racing back with his left hand to greet the momentarily beleaguered audience, a wide grimace spreading across his face that became now almost a grin, and in three quick figures he had brought the whole swirling madness under control, and—astonishingly, astoundingly—there was that old beat again, that importuning six/eight, and one by one the other musicians p
icked up their instruments and stepped forward and Arkady was back in the original key and his arms were open wide in warm-hearted musical invitation, and in they all came in perfect formation, because yes, there it was again—beat number one, and only in that moment of resolution, somehow, did the entire solo make sense, and the old men in their Soviet jackets were clapping and even the endless self-appraisal of the Gucci couples was finally vanquished, and on the Mongeese went, all together, Arkady looking around, catching the eyes of the others, finger briefly raised to poke them up a semitone from F to F sharp, the nightmare key, but no matter or fear, for all five of them were playing as if there were nothing else in the world to say or do but sound these very notes this night in this very order, and neither Henry nor anybody else in the club ever saw or heard anything like it ever again, because on learning that his fragile world might be about to collapse back into the misfortune and misery from which it had so briefly risen, Arkady Alexandrovich had taken a private vow: to free himself from the endless agony of these contingent circumstances, to never again sit down to play another piano until he knew for certain that he could play forever or not at all and be damned.

  THE LONG DAY'S GHOST

  11 The Narrow Angle of Dead Ahead

  At noon the following day, Wednesday, Gabriel walked due west along Nevsky, passing among the crowds clustering at the metro station, looking neither right nor left but waiting self-possessed in their midst to cross at the lights, then on again, stepping up the high curb and so to the Kazansky Bridge—cries in coarse Russian from below, the canal-tour boats, a tout shouting in English, the muddy water silent. Glancing neither down nor across the dusty road at the great curved colonnades of Kazan Cathedral, he went on, the narrow angle of dead ahead all that he permitted himself.