Aleksander Kostyunin
Waltz with aguitar.
Story.
…In essence, any human
soul is unsteady light, that
wander to the unknown
divine bode, that it
anticipates, seeks and
doesn’t see.
Andre Maurois
We were two on the open bus stop.
Cold light of a street lamp interrupted infrequent April’s twilight. It snatched baggy out a fourteen-year old boy in a black slightly jacket for grown and a wool knitted cap close to eyes. He had a guitar in his hand.
A shuttle bus drove to a stop. The boy bought the chicket, shoved it into the side pocket hegligently and went to the saloon. I followed. There were many free places, but I sat close to the guy.
-Why have you got a guitar without strings? - I couldn’t resist.
He didn’t answer immediately. At first he laid his hushed “musical tool” on his knees, pulled the cap down from his head, freed untidy blond curls, and then told in detail:
-Has gone to town, thinking it could be fixed. This year I have been finishing a musical school of class by accordion, but I also want to barn to play the guitar. It is my father’s guitar. He had died when I was till quite small. Mother doesn’t give money to the new one. She grumbles: “Grow up and car yourself. I haven’t time for a whole.”
He passed hi fingers on the fingerboard yhoughtfully, it was devided on frets by the hut. He turned his head toward a misted window.
-So, are you a real musician, just you have ended a special school?
-A real or fake, but I take part in concerts.
-When there is a talent – Divya! I feel at all, you have.
Praise didn’t seem to mock him. He thawed visibly. Smiled sad and grateful. He sat in a half-turn to me. Leis eyes were kind.
-And my musical once I almost thrown…
-Why?
-I think we all have black stripes. Then at the end of school, it wasn’t too well. It was going to have turned out a lot of bad marks for a quarter. I was bad studied very bad. I didn’t understand. Assumed to cram. I wasn’t began stuck. Same goes for accordion: the teacher yells at me – and all… At home my mother comes screams to the cry – and for bad marks and for the accordion. I didn’t want to live. I even took a knife, put a hand, but then I thought…
One day I got up early. The first lesson was Russian. I didn’t do work. “Two” exits me. Again, all rest swears for me. Oh… So on the other subjects were. Well, a “good” maybe in drawing, I guess. Even I must go on the accordion classes. God! I’ll be tired – lessons will do. When will this day end? But it hasn’t yet started…
I am sitting naked in the darkness, the bed is expanded, bed is warm. I touch the wooden headboard now, the paint on plywood, this native wooden spot. And the hateful day will be gone, I touch again. A desized night will be ahead.
Let the day flies between our touching.
Not to see something
Not to hear someone.
To dream quickly enveloped – it is my paradise.
As I am free.
Darkness was over a touch… All right. This is as a reward. But the day does not allow to reach out, separates the beginning of the end. Why is the gap between them?
What is a “light” – it is always better “darkness”/
Every my morning started the same way…
In musical school I have been studying for three years. Elena Stepanovna, a teacher of accordion, was finding fault constantly, as I came. I thought that she screamed and clings just to me.
Her wooden table was full of something rattles hakes. When I am playing, she is tapping knocks the table with the correct rhythm, but she hits on it with anger so, that all rambles in the table. I play with a different pace, she knocks hard suggests seemingly, wants to help, but I’m still down.
Every time I trudge at home with tears. Come. Nobody was at home. Mother is still at work. I sit alone in the darkness and cry.
Once I came thus way from school…We were just practing a new musical work. I couldn’t get success. I came and roared. I couldn’t calm down. I thought: “And why are all this necessary? These “ear-training”, “gamma”, “intervals”, “majors”, “minors” – all this. What for? I still have been studying for two years and she will yell for me two years.
I have torn out a blank sheet of paper from a notebook in algebra and began to write, I haven’t been taught, began to write, I want to leave and asked to delete me from the third-class of music school. It was neither from mother, nor from someone else, it was from myself. I pointed the month, day, year and sighed. And as soon as the decision was ready, I calmed down. I thought: « well I this all! »
I decided not to give it yet. I will go once again the accordion lessons and as soon as she would roar at me, I would get the paper.
The letter will be like a master key from her.
I will be free. I will be able to walk down the street myself like everyone. Guys are laughing: “What do you want this accordion? Such a heavy thing to carry. Play on it? Let’s play cards.” For them an accordion like garmoshka on which only the old grandfathers were playing before the war.
I have the lesson next day. There is a lot of snow at the street. Some melted. I walked along the path in the evening. Birches and poplars were drawing up along the sides. I have never before counted them. There weren’t time. I was always trembling before music lesson. And then I made a wish: now raise my head, how birches I will see in front of me, such a mark I’ll get at a lesson.
I raised my head and I was struck the eyes by not one, not two, but four birches. “Yeah, well” – I thought. I wasn’t sure in that mark, I just was keen on it.
I go to class. Hello. I pick up an instrument. Pushed a chair with leg. I sat down. She isn’t screaming yet… Take out the music book. I open the page. Untitled Sketch. Alone continuous sixteenth notes were.
I tried to execute. Didn’t tremble. Quietly pressed on the button. I was stretching fur smoothly without jerks. And the music flowed very different. At first I simply warmed up, tested. Go. Then, without stopping I eyelid from the beginning to the end.
I imagined an ant run: “Ty-dy-dy-dy-dy! Ty-dy-dy-dy-dy! Ty-dyd-tyn-ty!” He run here: “Ty-dydy-n! Tyrylim-tym-tym!” Again was running, running, running. He took a straw, and turned back to the anthill. My fingers were like his feet. They run the same speed as him. If he run faster, and you would quickly go through fingers: “Ty-dy-dy-dy-dy”. This weren’t a tarantula, which is barely crawling: “Tuuu-tuuu”.
Elena Stepanovna looked at me in silence and only nodded her head approvingly. Just kind of magic was…
-Good, - she praised.
She delivered a beautiful “four” in the diary and in the musical journal! We saw the teacher very nice…
I went out of the club. I couldn’t believe it. I was standing on the porch. It breathed easy. I looked around zonked. I thought if I saw more than four and three birches. Would have “three” again?
All is well with the accordion now. I want to learn to play the guitar like my father. Mom fell in love him for the guitar. He was the best player in the village. He was the soul of the company.
Sometimes I think: “What a fool I was if this piece of paper handed over then”. Birches had helped me. I already kissed in mind its.
I want to choose the music to continue through life.
For example, how someone will come to learn from an agronomist, an engineer or the military. Who needs them? But the music is everywhere. The machine hums, it is music. We are talking, it is music. He stamped his foot twice mischievously, and it’s music.
-Oh, is it music?
-Yes, it is music.
Before my first concert performance Elena Stepanovna told me: “Someone of the family? Mother or someone else will be in the hall, you won’t look at them, won’t smile. Otherwise you can make a mistake. You look over at one point, play for this point. Say: “Point, look I’m playing”. Speak to it. Even if it will shine flash light into the eyes, bullet to you. If you make a mistake still come to play”.
It was the first time when I went out to perform. I was afraid. Sat down on a chair and began to play immediately. Knees were trembling… I compressed them tightly as much as I could, they were still trembling. I click on the buttons and heard: “Di-dy-dy”. Every one heard. Music is trembling. The eyes run around the audience. But a lot of people… Our boys were. They can laughed at me. I am alone and little. I am playing and playing. Op! Had a mistake. I want to cry and run away from the scene.
And then I remembered the teacher’s words, raised my head and looked over everybody. But I didn’t stare to the point. I suddenly saw my father. He looked at me. I began to play for him… All people’s faces have become blurred, elusive. And everything disappeared. Just I and he were.
I feel, I have stopped to tremble. I really play. I don’t mind lessly click on the buttons and pull the fur. I already think how my fingers are located. I play louder, quieter. I watch when the forte when the piano is.
I played the waltz “On the Hills of Manchuria”. Have you heard it?
-A good waltz.
-At first the quite music is coming. I play for my dad, and imagine: he isn’t the senior sergeant like at the photo album in the Army. He is the General. Gray-haired. He sits and hears that I started to play. Music has gone. I play it quite, because he is in the main part of music. Stands, looks for a mate. Here he was found: he chooses my mom. So, in this place I need to play louder. It’s like the his joy. One part is: “Tyn-tyn-tyn. Tuu-tyd-tudu-tum-tadam!” They dance smile. Music is louder: “Tu-tudu! Tudu-tyt-tududu!” so they looked at each other’s eyes, it is a pause. Everything stopped in this moment. Then they start to spin again and you begin to play with the strengthening of the sound.
I have rehearsed the play for six months and now all on which I worked contracted to two-minute appearance. Not everybody can do that. And I have learned.
I think my father liked it.
It’s nice and little exciting.
I finished, dropped head and wept with happiness. I fled from the scene. I couldn’t see everyone at this moment. The audience has been clapping for a long time after it. Then they said that it was great.
Once I took the guitar from a friend. Mother glanced, I picked up the chords. She said: “Something familiar. Like father was playing.”
She went away. I put off another’s guitar and took the father’s one. I stroked it touched. Like this before it was touched by my dad. And even I thought: when he didn’t shave, hair grew, and he rubbed on my cheek; cheek become red. I was fun and pleasant, happy even. That I remember. And now I touch the guitar, which remembers his touch. And I so wanted to perform the waltz “On the Hills of Manchuria” for the dad, but with the guitar. Then he would rejoice for me and for my mother. If he was with us, he would have played for my mother.
In the town I asked to repair it, they didn’t take. “No, - replied – It’s too old. Fingerboard cracked, so those new strings won’t help. Miracles don’t happen”.
The boy paused, and I keep silent. Till the bus stop.
All the most important things were said.
Before he went out, he shook my hand as fast like a man, and said goodbye:
-Tomorrow we will have a concert in the club. I also will perform. Come.
The boy went out into the icy side of the road and pressed a treasured guitar, walked into the darkness. Even I didn’t know his name.
The bus moved on.
***
The concert ended in the club. Everybody noted performance by the accordion. He played especially good today. Viewers quietly diverged and only the music still was floating unseenwaves on the free room.
He went to dress. Then the watchman, an old familiar woman, took out new acoustic guitar packed in polythene from a side little room:
-It is requested to convey to you. I don’t know who.
Masters were wrong. Miracles happen!
The day of Bright Resurrection of Christ was.
April 8, 2007
Petrozavodsk