He approached the closed kiosk, read the handwritten sign in its window.
Pending delivery. Back after restocking.
“Restocking again, huh?” he said, breathing harshly. “In no rush, are they?”
The short, fierce-looking bearded man at the head of the line remained impassive.
“Are you on the list?” he asked, thrusting a sheet of paper at Sergei.
Sergei glared into the man’s face, noting the stray black hairs curling in the generous nostrils, the mole on the right cheek, the commanding intensity of the pinprick eyes. Oh, I can see right through you, he thought with something quickly approaching hatred, you self-appointed Saint Peter brandishing a list instead of a key, deciding whom to admit into paradise and whom to turn away, while these—these sheep—all meekly serve their time in purgatories of their own devising; yet when they are at last allowed through the heavenly gates, admission stubs in their sweaty hands, not one of them, no, not one among these bored housewives and batty old women, will understand a single note—not one of them will even hear the music—while I, I who have waited for Selinsky all my life, I who belong here by right, I must be excluded, kept away, thwarted by a conspiracy of faceless embassy spies and obese men and boys eager to carry their tubas in future parades, and oh-so-dutiful daughters—
“It will likely be today or tomorrow,” Saint Peter informed him matter-of-factly, holding out his pen. “Thursday at the latest. Possibly late in the evening, so be prepared to stay awhile this week, till ten maybe. The tickets will go fast once they’ve come in.”
Sergei’s hand froze in the mechanical act of accepting the pen.
“The tickets,” he said. “Today or tomorrow. The actual tickets.”
The man’s beard bristled with impatience.
“You’re here for Igor Selinsky, yes? Because if you want the Northern Nightingales, they were relocated to another kiosk two weeks ago. Do you have your number on you?”
“My… Yes, of course.” Sergei ravaged his pockets. His mouth had gone dry and porous, and as he peeled his lips open, he could hear a small, crackling pat of a noise. “Number one thirty-eight, got it… Or no, sorry, one thirty-seven, under ‘Anna,’ see here, that’s my wife.”
He hastened down the line in a heated, incredulous haze. Near the kiosk, a vaguely familiar old man was drawing on a cigarette, his eyes filling with distance; a few steps away, a student in a group of other students had just finished telling a joke and collapsed laughing amidst the applause. On the corner, a man of thirty-some years, with a long, agile, tanned face, was talking to a woman behind him, pressing a bag into her hands, exclaiming, “But you never know, you might, you might someday—”
“I believe this is my place,” Sergei mumbled, inserting himself between them.
He was panting as though he had just run an obstacle course; his blood throbbed in his ears. Today or tomorrow, today or tomorrow, today or tomorrow… The immensity of the chance that had been offered him so generously, so unexpectedly, seemingly by divine intercession, made some dark, still, deep place inside him well up with a trembling, long-suppressed, fluid feeling—
“Any use for them, then?”
“What?”
The tanned man had turned to face him.
“Any use for the dates?” the man repeated.
Sergei blinked, brushed at his eyes, forced himself to attend to the minute workings of the world around him. There would be time, he knew, there would be so much time later—the monotonous days in the burial pit of his orchestra, the sleepless nights next to his wife—oh yes, time enough for the joy, for the guilt, for the anticipation—
“Dates? What dates?”
“One can make a delightful tart with them, or so I hear. I’ve already offered them to Sofia Mikhailovna here, but she claims she doesn’t cook.”
Sergei glanced at the woman behind him—she was not old, no more than thirty—then turned back to the man. “This kind of thing should not be tolerated,” he said. “If you want to fleece someone, there are designated places for that, go to the—”
The man’s teeth split his face open. “I’m not selling anything,” he said. “I just have a bag full of dates I don’t need. Any cooks in your house?”
He cast another glance at the young woman. The streetlamp had just come on, with a long electric sigh, and in its tremulous, uneven light her skin appeared pale as the rice paper that had been used for printing books in the first years after the Change, and her eyelids so delicate, almost transparent, that he thought he could discern an intricate etching of tiny blue veins on their surface. She met his eyes with a quiet, reproachful gaze that reminded him of a medieval painting he had once seen in some folio of art reproductions—a tranquil green garden in cool, luminous colors, a floating petaledged cloud, an orchestra of rainbow-winged angels with sharp, childlike faces and great, transparent insect eyes, fondling shiny musical instruments with their impossibly tiny hands…
Afraid to be caught staring, he looked away, started to decline the offer of the dates, then changed his mind mid-word, muttered awkwardly, “All right, then, I’ll take them”—and, flustered, nearly made a little joke about his wife’s arson attempts in the kitchen, but at the last minute did not, saying instead as he accepted the sticky load, “So, then, are you a musician?”
“Me? No, no,” said the tanned man, and laughed again. “I sing a bit, though. Used to sing in a choir when I was young.”
The young woman behind Sergei leaned forward. “Oh, Pavel, did you really? What kind of choir?”
“Folk songs mainly, nothing too terribly—”
“But I think folk songs can be lovely. Not the ones they usually—I mean—” She pressed her lips together, fell silent.
“Selinsky has some very original interpretations of northern folk songs in his early music,” Sergei interjected quickly. “I’m a musician, myself. I played a few of his pieces before he—when I was a child.”
“Did you really? I’ve never heard anything by him. They say he’s amazing. I wonder what he’ll be performing here.”
“If I may be so bold as to intrude, I’m told it will be his latest symphony. His ninth. A kind of overview of civilization, from wild dances around a totem pole to the present day, told in an utterly groundbreaking musical language. Indeed, most of his instruments will have been designed specially for him, I hear.”
“How interesting, where did you hear that? I’ve actually heard it will be a kind of tribute to the traditional musical modes, a celebration of the past. I work at the Museum of Musical History, Instruments Division, and there has been this rumor that Selinsky’s orchestra will be borrowing some of our oldest pieces.”
“No, no, it’s a choral composition, they tell me. They’ll be doing most of it a cappella, and the costumes will be quite elaborate. Blue and silver silk. And their voices are heavenly.”
“Oh, I’d love to hear it.”
“Well, you’ll get your chance soon.”
“Do you think they’ll really have the tickets today? It’s growing dark already.”
“Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, I’ll be here.”
“Yes, me too… And by the way, thanks for the dates, most kind of you.”
“Don’t mention it, I hate dates myself, they get wedged in your teeth, my sister pressed these on me… Hey, since we’re stuck here anyway, want to hear me sing?”
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