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 affecting 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.