Chapter Four

Chapter Four

"Illusions die gradually–even when it seems that it happened suddenly, instantaneously, that you wake up one fine day and have no more illusions. It isn't like that at all. The withering away of illusions is a long and dreary process, like a toothache. But you can pull out a tooth. Illusions, dead, continue to rot within us. And stink. And you can't escape them. I carry all of mine around with me."

–DSCH

I've already made clear my opinion of oppressed servitude, my utter revulsion at the mere mention of it. I've already gone on for possibly longer on my initial pleasure at my forced position. I can assume that any reader would cease bothering with this chronicle if I were to elaborate further on either of those. I do not, therefore, need to explain much when I say that, before much longer, my opinion of being Zlaya's Court Composer began to drift rather dramatically and swiftly toward my opinion of a servant's life. My title was a mask over true meaning, the real situation. Evil dictators will pull stunts like that on an innocent beast like I was.

Perhaps I should make an attempt to describe the monotony, in an effort to transfer a bit of the feeling. Not to harm anyone, though. Rather, to clarify. To experience is to learn best. Just to say I was bored, I think, would do nothing. My typical day consisted mostly of empty time. Though not empty time in which I could do anything worthwhile. I was to always be ready, should Zlaya's whim fall upon the concept of a little music. And then I'd play for her, as long as I didn't hear the word "stop." Generally, that was a decent length of time, or rather indecent in the circumstances. Earlier in my time, I would spend most of those sessions improvising; whenever my melody became a bit too arhythmic or inharmonic–off the beaten musical standard–Zlaya would be right behind me with her untrained, uncreative criticism. Later on, I played more of what I'd already written to Zlaya's specification.

I wrote down my melodies for my own sake more than that of others that early in my stay at Mtsensk. Indeed, there was no comprehension of written music from Zlaya or Raikh–the only two I'd really had spoken contact with–or from any passers down the hall. They saw funny black dots on lined paper. But as I also said before, I remember only what I want to among things so numerous as musical ideas, and anything I developed for Zlaya's benefit was not among that group of works. So it was written down. My taste differed much from the Dictator's–those irregular tonalities she'd rush so to "correct" were more to my fancy than the straight and strict melodic genre. I have nothing against such pieces, don't get me wrong, but they're not my distinctive style. I feel no need after the fact of my contact with Zlaya to contribute any more to that set, the set Zlaya held the illusion for as the only real music. So I wrote down the ideas that were a venture, so to speak. Also for my benefit, initially mine alone.

After the day's monitored musical monotony, I would retire to the little room Raikh had showed me in order to do my real work. I became used to the dim disorder of the place rather quickly, even taking a few minutes on occasion to straighten a few things on the desk I'd appropriated. It was indeed a very quiet place to work. I find I don't necessarily need quiet to produce a piece, but it is a welcome thing whenever possible. So welcome that I quickly became disconcerned by how forgotten the room was. The almost eerie neglectedness gave way to a feeling of intense security, a sense much stronger than I had in my own assigned quarters. My quarters did not have lock and key.

Security is another one of those funny things that seems to come and go. Initially, I would bring all my work back to my quarters, under the impression they were the safest place around. I'd hide my manuscripts, seemingly ashamed of my own creativity. A perfectly pathetic image of a scrawny little fox with tousled fur and crooked spectacles trying in vain to hide something. Well, not really in vain, but images can carry themselves away. Upon a few weeks, my image of the old music room clarified; I started leaving unfinished sketches and scores in there and, not as a surprise, finding them just as they'd been left the night before. Security. Which eventually lulled me into an impression of even greater safety. One night, I was so bold as to go about my personal composition with the door about halfway open, light from the still-dim hallway managing to provide greater illumination after all.

At this turning point, pardon my miscellany, I feel a need to bring up Murfree the hedgehog, whose life was plagued by every possible absurd misfortune. What can go wrong will go wrong, he stated. Wise creature, I wrote a song about him...But anyway, what came to pass that particular evening wasn't particularly something gone wrong. The immense shadow first present in the added light from the hall, however, was alarming enough to make me immediately think the worst.

I said nothing, sat rustling my papers with one paw and adjusting my spectacles with the other as the shadow was followed by the bulky muzzle and shaggy head of a large grey wolf. He wasn't in the uniform of a Mtsensk soldier; his expression was clearly not one of ferocity but of surprise. Surely not as surprised as I was. "Hallo?" he called in a deep, warm voice.

I stared at him, continuing to fidget as I squeaked out what I'd been told to say: "I have Marshal Raikh's express permission to be here, you know. Express permission."

Drawing a lantern up to his eye level as he further advanced into the room, the wolf's raised eyebrows became apparent. "Raikh?" His tone was almost amused now."That's interesting." He was clearly outgoing and friendly, but I knew nothing of his alignment at the time, and so I still trembled. He advanced further, holding the lantern over my desk. "How'd you manage to get that from her?"

It was an innocent question, as I found out, but he could have very well been working for Zlaya. In which case, if I made a story up, I'd just get in trouble. If the wolf was truly a friend, I would get sympathy. "She showed me here, you know. Showed me. I asked for a place to work, and she showed me. Just a place to work, not special, is it? Not special..."

As I stuttered, the wolf had picked up and was examining one of my compositions, one of the ones Zlaya would surely have nothing to do with. "You'd be surprised...I see the affair's been hidden well," he said, glancing upwards. "Though from what I'd gather this'll sound like," he indicated my manuscript, "I have to be surprised again."

So the wolf knew Zlaya's taste in tones. "That's not going to be performed, you know. Not at all," I explained. "That's my free time, the other stuff's different, so to speak. Different. You've probably heard it around, probably. Heard me play, probably. I'm Zlaya's new musician, you know. Still new, very new..."

I said quite a bit, though still softly with little confidence. Somehow, the wolf seemed thrilled anyway. Setting down the paper, he seized my paw enthusiastically, unintentionally sending my spectacles flying across the desk as he shook it. "Wonderful, then! That is wonderful! And they call you?"

Squinting madly, I felt around the desk, recovering and replacing the spectacles on my face before answering bewilderedly, though no longer in terror. "I'm Mitya, you know. Mitya Shostak."

"Wonderful! Well met, Mitya! I'm Volklov Varzar, not as infamous as before..."

I was was a bit confused at his self-given proclamation of infamy; I was going to ask him what he meant if he hadn't suddenly released his grip on my paw, falling significantly more serious as he remarked, "If you're new, that's why you don't know."

"Don't know?" That was my question instead.

Volklov nodded. "This room actually is, as you put it, special. It is the music study, or it was until Zlaya came down with Classic Dictatorial Paranoia. You know her tastes, don't you? Of course you do. Music more like what you have, more creative and variable stuff used to be played. Until she got the impression the music was mocking her. Of course it wasn't, but Zlaya Trudnaya's word goes. The other stuff was banned, she'd hear only marches and praise. Violators, well, got punishments unworthy of an art form. But I won't go into that. Anyway, this room was also the archive. If you look around, I think you'll still find some parts in here. Supposedly locked away. Though with your key..."

Volklov's voice trailed off almost absently on his last string of thought as I continued to stare, still fidgeting and horrified. "How did you hear of this, then? How?" I had to wonder, if the issue had supposedly been concealed from common knowledge.

Regarding me again, Volklov's amber eyes softened further, as did his voice. "I held a variant on your place. I led her band, until almost our entire repertoire was banned." He gave a short heavy chuckle at the homonym.

"I'm sorry. Very sorry." My condolences for the apparently long dead.

"No, don't apologize," Volklov retorted, brightening again suddenly. "You've made it better. You have a key to this room, and I'll bet that with it, I can bring the old pieces back somewhere. Your new ones, too!"

With that offer from a new, immediate, extremely outgoing friend, my true fortunes that doubled as more sincere troubles found their beginnings.