“I should imagine.” He glared at her. “Now sit down and be quiet. I have something to say to your sister.”
“If you’re planning to scold her, don’t bother. She’s about to faint—”
“I am not,” Arla said. She had gone from pale to a dull red that clashed with her purple tunic.
“You have no rights here,” said the conductor to Ereza. “You’re just upsetting her—and I’ll have to see her later. But for now—” He made a movement with his hands, tossing her the problem, and walked offstage. From that distance, he got the last word in. “Miss Fennaris—the cellist Miss Fennaris—see me in my office this afternoon at fourteen-twenty.”
“You want lights?” asked a distant voice from somewhere overhead.
“No,” said Arla, still not looking at Ereza. “Cut ’em.” The brilliant stage lighting disappeared; Arla’s dark clothes melted into the gloom onstage, leaving her face—older, sadder—to float above it. “Damn you, Ereza—why did you have to come now?”
Ereza couldn’t think of anything to say. That was not what she’d imagined Arla saying. Anger and disappointment struggled; what finally came out was, “Why didn’t you come to see me? I kept expecting you…. Was it just this concert?” She could—almost—understand that preparing for a major appearance might keep her too busy to visit the hospital.
“No. Not… exactly.” Arla looked past her. “It was—I couldn’t practice without thinking about it. Your hand. My hand. If I’d seen you, I couldn’t have gone on making music. I should have—after I beat you at Flight-test I should have enlisted. If I’d been there—”
“You’d have been asleep, like the rest of us. It wasn’t slow reflexes that did it, Arlashi, it was a bomb. While we slept. Surely they told you that.” But Arla’s face had that stubborn expression again. Ereza tried again. “Look—what you’re feeling—I do understand that. When I woke up and found Reia’d been killed, and Aristide, I hated myself for living. You wish I hadn’t been hurt, and because you’re not a soldier—”
“Don’t start that!” Arla shifted, and a music stand went over with a clatter. “Dammit!” She crouched and gathered the music in shaking hands, then stabbed the stand upright. “If I get this out of order, Kiel will—”
Ereza felt a trickle of anger. “It’s only sheets of paper—surely this Kiel can put it back in order. It’s not like… what do you mean ‘Don’t start that’?”
“That you’re not a soldier rigmarole. I know perfectly well I’m not, and you are. Everyone in the family is, except me, and I know how you all feel about it.”
“Nonsense.” They had had this out before; Ereza thought she’d finally got through, but apparently Arla still worried. Typical of the civilian mind, she thought, to fret about what couldn’t be helped. “No one blames you; we’re proud of you. Do you think we need another soldier? We’ve told you—”
“Yes. You’ve told me.” Ereza waited, but Arla said nothing more, just stood there, staring at the lighter gloom over the midhall, where the skylight was.
“Well, then. You don’t want to be a soldier; you never did. And no need, with a talent like yours. It’s what we fight for, anyway—”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why not? It’s true. Gods be praised, Arlashi, we’re not like the Metiz, quarrelling for the pure fun of it, happy to dwell in a wasteland if only it’s a battlefield. Or the Gennar Republic, which cares only for profit. Our people have always valued culture: music, art, literature. It’s to make a society in which culture can flourish—where people like you can flourish—that we go to war at all.”
“So it’s my fault.” That in a quiet voice. “You would lay the blame for this war—for that bomb—on me?”
“Of course not, ninny! How could it be your fault, when a Gavalan terrorist planted that bomb?” Musicians, Ereza thought, were incapable of understanding issues. If poor Arla had thought the bombing was her fault, no wonder she came apart—and how useless someone so fragile would be in combat, for all her hand-eye coordination and dexterity. “You aren’t to blame for the misbegotten fool who did it, or the pigheaded political leadership that sent him.”
“But you said—”
“Arlashi, listen. Your new cello—you know where the wood came from?”
“Yes.” That sounded sullen, even angry. “Reparations from Scavel; the Military Court granted the Music Council first choice for instruments.”
“That’s what I mean. We go to war to protect our people—physical and economic protection. Do you think a poor, helpless society could afford wood for instruments? A concert hall to play in? The stability in which the arts flourish?” Arla stirred, but Ereza went on quickly before she could interrupt. “I didn’t intend to lose a hand—no one does—but I would have done it gladly to give you your music—”
“I didn’t ask you for that! You didn’t have to lose anything to give me music. I could give myself music!”
“Not that cello,” Ereza said, fighting to keep a reasonable tone. She could just imagine Arla out in the stony waste, trying to string dry grass across twigs and make music. Surely even musicians realized how much they needed the whole social structure, which depended on the military’s capacity to protect both the physical planet and its trade networks. “Besides—war has to be something more than killing, more than death against death. We aren’t barbarians. It has to be for something.”
“It doesn’t have to be for me.”
“Yes, you. I can’t do it. You could fight—” She didn’t believe that, but saying it might get Arla’s full attention. “Anyone can fight, who has courage, and you have that. But I can’t make music. If I had spent the hours at practice you have, I still couldn’t make your music. If I die, there are others as skilled as I am who could fight our wars. But if you die, there will be no music. In all the generations since Landing, our family has given one soldier after another. You—you’re something different—”
“But I didn’t ask for it.”
Ereza shrugged, annoyed. “No one asks for their talent, or lack of it.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Arla struggled visibly, then shrugged. “Look—we can’t talk here; it’s like acting, being on this stage. Come to my rehearsal room.”
“Now? But I thought we’d go somewhere for lunch. I have to leave soon.”
“Now. I have to put my precious war-won wood cello away.” Arla led the way to her instrument, then offstage and down a white-painted corridor. Ereza ignored the sarcastic tone of that remark and followed her. Doors opened on either side; from behind some of them music leaked out, frail ghosts of melody.
Arla’s room had two chairs, a desk-mounted computer, and a digital music stand. Arla waved her to one of the chairs; Ereza sat down and looked over at the music stand’s display.
“Why don’t you have this kind onstage? Why that paper you spilled?”
Her attempt to divert Arla’s attention won a wry grin. “Maestro Bogdan won’t allow it. Because the tempo control’s usually operated by foot, he’s convinced the whole orchestra would be tapping its toes. Even if we were, it’d be less intrusive than reaching out and turning pages, but he doesn’t see it that way. Traditionally, even good musicians turn pages, but only bad musicians tap their feet. And we live for tradition—like my cello.” Arla had opened the case again, and then she tapped her cello with one finger. It made a soft tock that sounded almost alive. With a faint sigh she turned away and touched her computer. The music stand display came up, with a line of music and the measure numbers above it. She turned it to give Ereza a better view.