Chapter 14

~Erik~

By early afternoon I had succumbed to a state of vague indifference. With my cloak hanging haphazardly from my shoulder, I shuffled out onto the street with my violin clutched in my hands. The fact that I was even capable of holding myself vertical was a minor miracle. I had to play. The opium hadn't banished the nightmares … she had to raise her voice with the other violin. She needed to sing and to do that she needed my fingers. In the distance I heard the lonely siren call. Blanjini's violin lured me. Even before I reached his side my bow was already in motion, vibrating the strings of my Stradivarius.

Shambling up beside him I said nothing, letting my violin join his in the airy little tune he'd been playing. The swirling musical currents eddied as I lay back, letting the pillar take all my weight. He repeated the tune an untold number of times with subtle variations. My bow followed suit, lazily drifting in the chords.

Lapsing into silence, he paused for several minutes before speaking. "Nightingale, I was worried that you did not come earlier. Now that I hear you … I wonder if you are here at all."

My eyes took forever to blink as his words penetrated the fog. Leaning against the iron my head was bowed, resting on my violin. Slowly I inhaled and exhaled, still drifting in the music we had been playing.

His hand reached out finding my crooked knee. "Something is bothering you for you never sit until after we have played. It is always when we first speak of literature." In the span of a few breaths, his blind eyes seemed to search me. "It makes me wonder, all this time … what are you seeking to escape from in those words we exchange?"

Running a hand through my hair I heaved a long sigh. "Play something, anything. I do not care the origin of the piece. Just do not ask me what is on my mind."

The hand remained. "What is that I hear in your voice? Tell me what would shame the bold nightingale."

Painstakingly I reached down and unwrapped the fingers of his hand, placing it back on his lap firmly. "You would not understand and I am hardly wishing to speak of it. Just play something."

Silence. Like a statue he remained waiting, only the rise and fall of his chest revealing that he was flesh and blood.

Twisting towards him I begged, "Please, just trust me! I need to escape in the music!"

He shook his head. "No. There is more in your voice than just a possession that music can exorcise. Never have I heard a voice so labored. I will not play until you explain why you came so late and so heavily drowning in your sorrow." With that he set his violin across his lap, folding his hands on the strings.

My hands tightened on the neck of my own violin as he denied me the escape I knew I needed. Not a word was spoken. Not a note was played as we sat side by side.

"In case you are wondering," he broke the silence, "I am willing to wait all day."

Cursing aloud, I laid my head back against the rusted iron. "Fine! You want to know you nosy old blind man! Fine! I was out here earlier waiting for you at dawn when a rather insolent man came up and offered me a job."

"Oh?" He turned his head slightly towards me. "That doesn't sound like anything too upsetting."

I snuffed out a breath, fighting to release my fingers from the death grip on my violin. "It was one of those charlatans who run the museums of oddities. Always happens. Why do they look, why do they stare? Is not the music enough?"

Sagely he nodded, the milky orbs drifting about, groping in his darkened view of the world. "I see. Then it is true what I have heard."

He knew? How did he know? I reached up a hand brushing against my mask. To my astonishment he reached and pulled my hand away settling it firmly upon my knee.

"They speak when we play, but quiet whispers in the crowd." He shrugged. "I had heard it mentioned more than once that you wore something peculiar."

"You did not wonder … wonder why?"

"To a blind man what would it matter?" Rubbing his hands together he closed his eyes and let his soft voice carry beneath the bustling crowd. "In truth, Nightingale, it should not matter to anyone. Least of all, you. The music, her voice, that is what you want them to hear. That is why your music rings with such sorrow. Your heart is too heavy to remember how to fly. Someone has crippled your wings a great many years ago and you believed you would be bound to this earth forevermore. It is unfortunate that you have allowed that idea to hold power over you." A single finger flicked to the Stradivarius. "You are one of the most extraordinary musicians I have met in my life. Music is an auditory gift, not a visual one." Nodding his head he spoke an old Yiddish proverb. "A sach mentshen zehen, nor vainik fun zai farshtai'en."

I could tell my mind was still crippled by the fog, the rapid switch of dialects took a considerable amount of thought before I could translate it: Many people see things, but few understand them.

Lifting a shoulder, he let it fall without pause. "What does it matter?"

All I could do was mull over his words before I made a tentative reply. "It matters because … there is no beauty beneath."

The light stab of his bow to the center of my chest snapped me to attention. "That is the biggest lie I have heard in all my long years upon this earth!" Once more he slid into Yiddish, "An einredenish iz erger vi a krenk." It took my fogged brain a moment to find the wisdom in those ancient words: An imaginary illness is worse than a real one. "How heartsick you are to retch up such drivel! Anyone who says that and means it has no real grasp of what true beauty embodies. I have heard your beauty and it shines with greater perfection than any painter's masterpiece. There is a reason that you hold a Stradivarius in your hands. There is a reason she begs for your music to pour through her. Nightingale, you are right, you do need to escape in your music … but in doing so you bring others with you." A wistful smile grew on his face. "Tell me, what does she wish to sing … let us find the avenue of escape together."

Wordlessly I let the bow draw the notes out. Closing my eyes I drifted into the music with Blanjini's violin underscoring the movements. In my fogged thoughts, I could not recall what the name of the piece was or even the composer. It did not matter … I let the notes fly softly at first, gradually embracing the blissful strain. Somehow I rose to my feet, swaying into the music, desiring for that piece to banish from within the dreadful darkness that threatened me so. I wanted to linger here forever. To never return to earth from this melodic high. Yet, I knew it could not last.

Lowering my violin, I opened my eyes to see a very familiar face staring in agog fascination. Nadir was just off to my right in the midst of the applauding crowd. Visibly he was struggling with what he saw. It was no more than a flick of my eyes and I saw him lower his gaze in compliance. With relief I offered a tense bow. Good, he would not make a scene for me here. Here we did not know one another. Later I knew he would require an explanation.

The explanation was demanded the moment I shut the door to the apartment hours later, dropping the small leather bag of coins on the table without ceremony. I stripped the cloak from my shoulders and hung it sheepishly on the hook even as Nadir rambled on phrases I could have predicted nearly word for word.

"All this time you have been doing this? Dear Allah! Erik, I thought you told me you abhorred the very idea of exhibitioning yourself again. You lead me to believe you were stealing and instead you were playing your violin? This? This is where the coins were coming from?" He inhaled deeply for the next portion of his lecture which caused him to turn his head curiously. Crossing to the bedroom, he pushed open the door before reeling backward. "Gah! It reeks of opium in there! How are you still standing?"

Settling myself in the window, I gazed idly down at the Bowery. I replied in a voice hardly above a whisper. "Does it matter? Somehow I am … and even that knowledge is beyond me. The coins … the coins fell into my hands and I saw a way. That was all that mattered. A way to live for now. A sacrifice, yes. But she wants to sing, she was tired of being alone. She wanted to sing and I have to let her. I have to let her sing."

His hand came to rest on my shoulder, the edge banished from his voice. "Erik, you aren't making sense. She who? Surely you don't mean Christine."

Somberly I shook my head, the numbness from the opium still pervading enough to steel me against the pain of her name. In answer to his question my eyes drifted to the Stradivarius. Well over a minute ticked by before I drew in a deep breath. "You are afraid I will fall again. I can tell you fear that this will only end in disaster … I am not convinced that is so. It pains me to say it but, maybe I was wrong."

His hand jerked up from my shoulder as he took a step backwards, studying me in abject shock. "Excuse me … did I hear you say … "

I glanced up, swallowing sheepishly. "That I admitted I may have been wrong? Yes. You did."

"About what?" He took a cautious step in my direction.

The sun was beginning to set behind our building. The Bowery cast in the shadows was coming alive as I studied the figures below. Tomorrow was Saturday. Every week I had avoided the bustling commotion, the music and general gaiety that pervaded the street until well into the early morning hours. I had found it to be an absolute disturbance. Gazing at my violin nestled in her case, I knew now that my perspective from up here had denied me an experience. Tomorrow evening … when the sun began to set, I would answer Blanjini's siren call.