By Alexander Kostunin

By Alexander Kostunin

WALTZ TO THE GUITAR

…To tell the truth, any person’s soul

presents a special unsteady fire light

moving to a mysterious divine home,

which it has a presentiment of, searches it,

but doesn’t see it.

André Maurois

We were alone on a bus stop.

April’s rare twilight was disappearing in cold light of a street lamp. It was drawing a boy in grey darkness. The boy was about fourteen years old and wore a black, a little baggy and big down-padded coat and a woolen bound cap, which he pulled over his eyes. In hands he held a guitar.

A public bus came to the bus stop. The boy bought a ticket, put it in his side pocket carelessly and entered inside of the bus. I followed him. There are many free places, but I chosen the one, which was closer to him.

- Why is the guitar without strings? – I asked impatiently.

He didn’t answer at once. At first he put his quite musical instrument on his knees, put off his cap setting free his blonde disordered hair, and only after that he told in detail:

- I have gone to the city, having thought it can be repaired. In this year I shall complete a musical school, a course of button accordion, but I want also to learn playing the guitar. I took somebody else’s one for a week, I think it succeed. This is father’s guitar. He was killed, when I was quite a baby. My mother doesn’t give money for a new one. She grumbles: “Grow and earn by yourself. I can’t do all alone.”

Thoughtfully he passed fingers over afingerboard, dividing by thresholds into frets, and turned the head to misted window.

- So, you are a real musician, if you end the special school, aren’t you?

- Maybe, but I take part in concerts.

- Having talent is a miracle! You have, I see that you have.

He understood the praises were not affected. He melted. Sadly and at the same time thankfully he smiled. He turned to me. His look was shining with kindness.

- Once I was going to leave the music school…

- Why?

- I suppose, everybody has unlucky streaks. I had at that time, in the end of study year everything was bad. There were bad marks for the term. I studied badly… very badly. I didn’t understand. I tried to learn by rote. But I couldn’t. I had the same with the button accordion, the teacher always cried on me... At home the mother made scandals because of the bad marks and because of the button accordion.

I even took a knife, wanted to put the end, but then I thought…

Once I got up early. The first lesson was Russian. The homework wasn’t ready. Damn! The bad mark would be got again. Everybody would shout at me again. Ouch… On other subjects I had the same. Well, maybe the painting was good. And I also had to go to the course of button accordion. Oh my God! Being tired I returned to home and I had to do homework. When would that day be over? But it hadn’t started yet…

Naked I sat in the darkness, the bed was ready and warm, I touched the wooden back of the bed, the varnish of that veneer, that native nick. And when the hated day would end, I would touch it again. After I would have only desired night. (He said it forgetting about me. I repeat his words mentally.)

May day pass quickly between the touches.

To see nothing.

To hear nothing.

To be fallen asleep – this is my paradise.

To be free.

Behind this touch there is darkness… Good. This is a real award. But day disturbs to reach that, separates the beginning and the end. Why is there space between them?

Why this light, it’s better to be always in darkness.

Every my mornings started familiarly…

I have never told about it anyone. Don’t know why I talk it to you.

At that time in musical school I studied for the third year. Elena Stepanovna, the teacher of the button accordion lessons, always found fault with me. I believed that she cried and nagged at me only.

Her table was wooden and full of something loud. When I was playing, she was making knocks for right rhythm, while of it becoming angry she started banged her fist on the table so that everything inside of it started jump and rumble. I played in one temp, she hit with all her power, wanted to help, but it was all the same, I got out of time.

Crying I returned to home every time. Came in. there was nobody at home. Mother was still at work. I sat in darkness and wept.

Once I went to home… We were learning a new composition. I was failed. I came and cried. I couldn’t stop. I thought: “Why do I need it? This “solfeggio”, “intervals”, “scales”, “major keys”, “minor keys” – all. For what? I have to study else two years and during these two years she will shut at me”

I pulled out a clean sheet of paper from exercise book of algebra and I started to write by myself, nobody had taught me. I wrote that I wanted to leave the school and asked to strike me of the list of the third grade of the musical school. I wrote not from my mother’s or anybody else’s face, I wrote from myself. Put the month, day, year, signed. I felt calmer when I took the decision. I thought: “Well, that’s all!”

I had decided that I wouldn’t give the application. I would visit the lesson of the button accordion one else time and if she shut at me again then I would show this paper.

This sheet was like a shield from her.

I would be free, would walk along the streets calmly as all usual boys. Guys laughed at me: “Why do you need this button accordion? Carry so enormous thing! Play it! Let’s better go to play cards.” For them the button accordion, it was an accordion, which our grandfathers played before the war.

The lesson was the next day. The streets were snowy, there were big snowdrifts. It wasn’t melting. I went on path in the evening. There were birches and poplars on the sides of the path. I had never noticed them before, I had been too busy, had been frighten and looked only under the feet. But now I wished: how many birches I would see then that mark I would get.

I raised my head and my eyes couch for birches at once. I thought: “Wow, that’s good!” I wouldn’t like to say that I believed in it, but from that moment I felt that I desired that mark.

I came in the class, greeted, took the instrument and settled on the chair.

She didn’t shut at me.

I took my musical book, found the needed page; there was an etude without name. There were only sixteen notes in it.

I tried to play, didn’t worry. I touched the keys calmly, stretched out the bellows tenderly. The music sounded by other, new way. I had just taken for taste. But it was going on. Then I continued playing without stopping to the end.

I imagined the run of an ant: “Ty-dy-dy-dy-dy! Ty-dy-dy-dy-dy. Ty-dyd-tyn-ty”. It run there: “Ty-dydy-dyn! Tyrylim-tym-tym!” It run, run, run again and again. it took a straw and turned back to home. My fingers were like its legs. They run with the same speed as his ones. If the ant run quickly, then my fingers moved quickly: “Ty-dy-dy-dy-dy”. It was not a tarantula, which were creeping slowly: “Tuuu-tuuuu”.

Keeping silence Elena Stepanovna looked at me, she only shook her head, showing her satisfaction. It was a magic! “Well-done!” – she praised me.

She had put a beautiful good mark in my record book and in the musical class register! I thought she was not a bad person…

Coming out of the club, I couldn’t believe. I stood at the porch, breathing perfectly, looking at the sides. I was so shocked. I thought that if I had seen two birches, would I get bad mark or not? Would she put the bad mark again?

Now it’s all right with my lessons of the button accordion. I’m going to learn playing the guitar as my father did. My mother was fall in love with him because of his playing. He played the guitar better than anyone else. He was a good social mixer.

Sometimes I consider that what a fool I will be if I give that sheet of paper. The birches helped me. I thank them so many times.

I want to continue learning music further.

Well, for example, someone is going to be an agronomist, an engineer or a military man. Who needs them? But music, it’s everywhere. A drone of the engine is music. We are talking, it’s music. Taping with heels is music too.

- Is it real music?!

- Yes, it’s music.

Before my first performance on the concert Elena Stepanovna advised: “If there are relatives, mother or friends in the hall, don’t look at them, don’t wave them, and don’t smile to them. You will lose rhythm. You should look at a point, play for this point. Tell: “Look, the point, how I can play”. Talk with it. Even if there are bright lights, throw at you. If you make mistake, keep your playing.”

I appeared on the stage. I was afraid. I sat on the chair and started to play at once. My knees were shaken… I tried to calm them, but it was in vain. I touched the keys and heard: “Dy-dy-dy”. Everybody heard. My quiver was in the music. My look was running around the hall. There were so much people… there were our guys too. They would laugh at me. But I was alone and so small. I was playing, playing… ouch! I had made a mistake. I was ready to weep and leave the stage.

But at that moment I had remembered the teacher’s words, raised my head and looked over people. But I didn’t look at the point. Suddenly I saw my father. He looked right at me. I started playing only for him… People’s faces became fuzzy and imperceptible. All around me disappeared. There was only me and he.

My fever stopped. I played harmonically. I thought and felt what key I touched, in what position my fingers. I started to play louder, play lower. I understood when it needed forte or piano.

I played waltz “Na Sopkah Manchdzurii”. Have you heard it?

- Yes, it’s a good waltz.

- it starts with quite melody. I played for my father and imagined as he was not a lieutenant at serious document photos. He was a grey-haired general. He sat and heard that I start playing. Music was going. I was playing lower because in the main role of that music was he. He stood up and searched a woman for a dance. He had found! He chose my mother. It meant the music had to be louder here. It was a military happiness. One part: “Tyn-tyn-tyn. Tuu-tud-tudu-tadatatatam-tada”. Being glad and smiling they were dancing. The melody became louder: “Tuu-tut-tudu!”. They looked at each other, here it was a pause. Everything was stopped for a second. Then it restarted and I played crescendo, made the sound louder.

I had been learning that piece for half a year. Now it was pressed for two minutes of the performance. Not every person could do so. But I did it.

I think my father was satisfied with that.

It was pleasant and a little thrilling.

I finished, hanged my head and cried with joy. I left the stage. I could see nobody at that moment. The audience was clapping for a long time. They said it was wonderful.

Once I asked a guitar from a friend of mine. Mother peeped in my room, looked how I was selecting chords. And she said: “it’s something familiar, maybe your father played”.

She went the roomout.I put somebody else’s guitar away and took the father’s one. I petted, touched it. There were days, when my father took it. And at the same moment there was other idea: when he didn’t shave, his bristle appeared, and he was rubbing against my cheek, it became red. I felt funny, pleasant, and even glad. I remember it. Now I hold the guitar, which remembers my father’s touches. At that time I so desired to play the waltz “Na Sopkah Manchdzurii” for my dad, but using the guitar. I wanted to make him happy for me and my mother. If he were with us, he would do that for my mammy by himself.

I asked to repair the guitar in the town, but they didn’t take it. “No, - they answered, - the guitar is too old. Fingerboard is broken, and then new strings won’t help. There is no miracle!”

The boy stopped talking, and I kept silence. We didn’t say a word until a bus stop.

The most important thing was said.

Before he left, he shook my hand hard as a real man and said:

- Tomorrow in my club we will have holiday concert. I shall perform too. You may visit our event.

The guy stepped on an ice curb. Pressing to his bottom the cherished guitar, he went to the darkness. I had not even asked his name.

The door was closed. The bus moved farther ahead.

***

The concert finished. Everybody was pleased with performance of button accordion. He played especially well. The audience was breaking up slowly, and only music filled the atmosphere with wonderful and magic notes.

The boy went to a cloakroom. A porter, an elderly familiar woman, carrieda new acoustical guitar packed into polyethyleneout from a little side room:

- They said to hand it to you. I don’t know who.

The masters were mistaken. Miracles are happen!

It was Easter.