The Music

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  While this was going on Feodor found himself considering national anthems in general. Most were remarkably bad. The new words just chosen were merely another instance of the time-honoured trope of setting the country’s physical limits by reference to mountain ranges and rivers. He did some research in the library. Brazilians had their Ypiranga River in the first line; the Germans the Maas, the Memel, the Etsch and the Belt in their opening verse. Practically all without exception contained references to freedom, victorious armies, shining purpose and so forth, like the closing scene at the end of a Hollywood movie. That was what they mostly had in common, Feodor decided. They were expressions of happy endings. The country was like a rock; its leaders were unshakable; its people contented. A glorious future of something-or-other could henceforth eternally unfurl beneath the banners of whatever-it-was. No mention was anywhere made of rotten monarchs, low-life dictators, vile presidents, abject poverty, lost wars, one-sided trade pacts, border disputes or murderous ethnic divisions. Meanwhile, what of the music? ‘All national anthems are still diatonic’, he read in Grove’s Dictionary. Was that right? he wondered. He looked at the front of the volume: 1954. Probably that had been correct then, but now? What did we know of the North Korean national anthem? Or that of Laos? If the Afghani national anthem (say) was diatonic would it be in response to some unwritten international pressure to conform to Western standards of singability? Did the conventions of Olympic Games demand that winning teams be heralded with recognisable tunes? Was this another triumph for cultural imperialism or was the Academy right after all, and people didn’t intentionally whistle atonally while they worked?

  One morning he found a large envelope on his desk. It contained a sheet of music MS and a note from the President of the National Anthem Co-ordinating Committee saying that this had been unanimously judged the winning entry, but before the composer’s name could be revealed the tune should – according to law – first be submitted to Comrade Sarin’s expert scrutiny since any afterthought would be more than embarrassing. Feodor took this to mean that a mistake on his part could well prove fatal. The intensification of ‘state discipline’ had, of all new measures, been the most enthusiastically pursued. With this in mind he cleared his desk, unhooked his telephone, locked the door and got down to work, prepared to sniff out the least hint of a musical quotation from the old Emperor’s Hymn.

  He soon saw it was quite a good tune. It was rousing, but saved from the banality of its kind by a certain acidity in the Prokofiev manner. Being scored in simple four-part harmony it covered half a side of paper. At first he detected nothing amiss; then on staring out of the window and replaying one of the phrases in his head he ran it backwards. Still nothing; yet … Like Bach himself, or any of the great contrapuntists, he was incapable of hearing a simple phrase without simultaneously being aware of its possibilities in different topological guises: cancrizans, inversion, diminution and augmentation, major and minor … At last he found it, the evidence of treason. It wasn’t even very well concealed. Not that anyone else could have spotted it, of course. Feodor sat back so relieved and pleased with himself that he was inclined to be over-generous to the poor fool who’d hoped to get away with it. The give-away had been the recurrence of a five-note phrase. It appeared in the tenor part at the end of the halfway cadence and re-appeared in the alto part (with very slight modification) at the end of the entire tune. Since hymn cadences very often do repeat themselves it was unobtrusive, but to the truly expert ear and eye there could be no question as to the composer’s intentions. A straightforward algorithm underlay the letter-for-note substitution. Decoded, the message halfway was ‘Hi Mom!’ and at the end ‘Hi Pop!’

  Feodor smiled as he vigorously polished his glasses. This was better than tracking down popular chansons embedded backwards in fifteenth-century masses. Surely saving the Republic from international ribaldry and humiliation at least deserved a rise in salary? He ringed the offending phrases in red, wrote a covering note explaining the trick and the preciseness of its solution, and sent it all back to the National Anthem Co-ordinating Committee feeling that at last he’d done something to justify a seemingly useless talent. The next thing he knew was that he was summoned by the President of the Academy to receive a commendation and a personal handshake. On the way out he was also given a stern warning by an aide that this whole affair was never to be spoken of again. If it ever leaked out, this man hinted, it would be understood to have come from only one source. Suitably cowed, Feodor said his lips were sealed for ever. That was a good thing, the aide told him, because the composer of this piece of heinous subversion was known to have been a friend of his and no-one wanted to have to make accusations of conspiracy, not unless they had to.

  ‘But I’ve no idea who the composer is!’ Feodor protested in alarm. ‘The manuscript was pseudonymous.’

  ‘We know that. But we also have the key to all the entrants. He’s your old friend Nicolai Ghiaurov.’

  ‘Nicolai!’

  It spoke well of Feodor and of his genuine love that he was far more grief stricken at having unwittingly exposed his friend’s prank than he was scared of being compromised by association. Only later, in the self-inquisitorial small hours, did the terrible likelihood strike him. There was no treason. There was only his own misplaced zeal, his resourceful genius for manipulating the innocent until it yielded the furtive. Now all he could think was how he could get in touch with poor Nicolai and apologise. How could he explain that he’d truly had no idea who’d written the tune? And so began his long anguish, that worst of all injustices when dear friends are separately led to believe that one has betrayed the other and neither is allowed redress: no explanation, no excuse, no contact. For the first time he learned the huge weight of cruelty at the disposal of those who cared for nothing. Feodor knew without asking that any attempt to trace his friend would lead not to Nicolai but to his own arrest. He thought of the balsamic scent of freshly whittled cedar which flooded out of his friend’s pencil case when it was uncapped. He saw Nicolai standing in a patch of sunlight with his books under one arm drawing a dotted crotchet in the gravel with the toe of one shoe to illustrate a point and heard again the sound of summer, a chord of D flat as though the Azovskiy Express were passing somewhere in the distance beyond immeasurable wheatfields. He wept, knowing he would never see Nicolai again. He was wrong.

  A month or two went by and one day it was announced that there was to be a People’s Disgrace on Saturday morning at nine. This was a form of punishment recently introduced for those guilty of the very worst crimes such as treason. It was one thing to have show trials but another to hold show punishments. They were very effective provided they were not so frequent as to inspire indifference. The new revolutionary authorities had to take into account several such considerations. If the direst punishments became mere commonplace spectacles they would not only lose their force but might even have the reverse effect of inspiring sympathy for the victims, on the grounds that they couldn’t all be guilty of heinous crimes. And if they were all guilty, that would suggest widespread opposition to the government. There again, constant exposure to casual barbarity had inured most people to the threat of exemplary torture. Indeed, centuries of cruelty had staled them to everything but cynical humour. In a moment of inspiration someone had hit on the idea of combining execution with ridicule: the awe-inspiring People’s Disgrace. This took place in public in the capital – specifically on the Promena, a leafy boulevard overlooking a bend in the River Bob. There, against a patriotic backdrop of the domes, towers and minarets of the eastern city on the distant bank, the people would visit terminal disgrace upon a national enemy.

  To his horror Feodor found he was obliged to attend. All government departments had to be represented. The salutary effects of a People’s Disgrace would be severely limited if the only witnesses were the masses. Not until he tremblingly took his seat on the hastily erected stand facing the river did he and his colleagues learn the victim’s name and cri
me. In huge red letters on a white banner the message wavered in the early breeze. NICOLAI GHIAUROV: NATIONAL SABOTEUR. At once Feodor wanted to die. He wondered how he could make himself just die, efficiently and unobtrusively, so that nobody in the already packed stands – their attention fixed in anticipation on the dais by the river railings – would notice the crumpling of an insignificant man in spectacles. He was still wondering when a van drew up and a handcuffed figure was let out of the back. The crowd set up a great cheer which turned to laughter as people took in the victim’s bizarre appearance. The small figure was dressed in a clown costume. The pantaloons came only to mid-calf, exposing pale and defenceless shins to the morning sun. The carnival atmosphere (for despite the early hour ice-cream, hot dog and helium balloon vendors were doing excellent business) was further complemented by the oversized pair of coloured spectacles perched on the clown’s red rubber nose. The plastic lenses were opaque with psychedelic spirals, a bloodshot eyeball painted in the centre of each. On his head was what any reader of Mad magazine in the Fifties could have identified as a propeller beanie.

  In this awful figure Feodor had at once discerned his college friend. Until the van drew up it might all have been a joke or else the victim would turn out to be someone of the same name. But there was no mistaking the way Nicolai held himself, even in handcuffs with his eyes invisible behind the grotesque lenses and facing a hooting mob. This was recognisably the dandyish, even mocking, stance of the same beautiful young man who had once called him ‘little Einstein of the tundra’ with more affection than condescension. Failing the release of instant death Feodor now willed himself to faint. Whatever had to happen, he couldn’t bear to watch. But his body willed otherwise and his eyes – which seemed quite impervious to whatever hideous image they might have to take in – followed Nicolai as he was led up on to the dais. For the first time Feodor allowed himself to see the thick iron bollard which jutted up behind. It was, in fact, merely one of hundreds of Napoleonic cannon which had been embedded vertically in the embankment and painted an ornamental green. To this the clown was strapped, facing the crowd. His escorts retreated. Now a squad of six militiamen with rifles filed smartly up in front and was halted by an officer.

  At least, thought Feodor numbly, this ghastly charade would soon be over. Evidently the crowd thought so too and subsided with groans of disappointment. Hush fell. The sun was spanking quick gold tatters off the river surface. The distant roofs shone. The propeller on the clown’s skullcap twirled in the breeze. Somewhere a dog barked. The officer held a sword aloft in his white-gloved hand and after a prodigious pause the blade fell. Six shots as one, six puffs of drifting smoke. The prisoner staggered but was supported by his straps. An incredulous laugh rang out, followed by others, until the whole crowd was roaring and pointing. Feodor’s faithless eyes followed their fingers and saw long tongues of fine steel sticking out of five rifle muzzles. Swaying on the end of each was a flag reading ‘Bang!’

  Oh, this was popular stuff. On the clown’s upper arm was a spreading crimson stain. The officer marched forward and inspected the victim before shaking his head in mock astonishment. The man who had fired the live round pretended shame at his poor marksmanship. The officer re-formed his firing squad, had them shoulder arms and marched them off with the flags nodding Bang! Bang! above their heads. Next, a van drove up with a red cross painted on its side and two nurses hopped out. They approached the wounded clown holding between them a huge piece of sticking plaster which they wrapped entirely around his upper body. More laughter. They and the ambulance retired, being replaced almost at once by a jeep from which equipment was unloaded. A man carried a metal box with a plunger which he set down in front of the crowd. He attached wires to two terminals and retreated to the dais, unspooling cable as he went. He fiddled with the wires behind the clown’s back, presumably securing them to the cannon. Meanwhile, others were placing heavy screens around the dais. These had sinister mesh grilles in their upper halves so the victim’s head was still visible to the crowd. The jeep backed off. The man walked to the black box and knelt before it, his back to the people. Suddenly his shoulders tensed, his hands drove the plunger home. The clown’s head disappeared in a ball of smoke. ‘Oh Nicky, oh thank God,’ Feodor heard himself think exactly as three dyed pigeons burst upwards out of the smoke and circled the scene. One was blue, one was brown and the third was green. They were the colours of the national flag and represented the country’s famous lakes, fertile soil and boundless forests. The crowd, scenting fresh trickery and postponement, were delighted. The clearing smoke soon revealed Nicolai’s head, bowed but still intact, behind the grilles. Death by indignity? But what had been designed to prove fatal? The suspense was delicious.

  A heavy, yellow-painted vehicle arrived, less a truck than a mobile base for some sort of maintenance platform on a telescopic pole. A soldier was already on the platform, which was simply a box enclosed by safety rails. It swung towards the dais. The clown was unshackled from the cannon and re-handcuffed. His face was black with explosive and a seepage of red had soaked through the moronic bandage. A noose was placed around his neck and spare coils of the rope heaped on to the platform while the free end was tied to the safety rails. Then he was helped into the cage with the soldier. Feodor thought there was also blood on the clown’s earlobes; the explosion had probably ruptured the musician’s eardrums. The truck’s engine roared and the platform soared hydraulically into the sky on the end of its tapering pole of glistening steel. At maximum extension it stopped, swaying slightly against the blue sky in which the dyed pigeons still flew their brainless circles. The soldier could be seen urging the clown to climb out and then giving him an abrupt shove. Nicolai fell, trailing a black snake of rope. The propeller beanie came off and tumbled away on a pathetic trajectory of its own. But what was this? The rope was still lengthening even as the victim’s plunge visibly slowed, hesitated, reversed itself. Upward sped the clown, newly fouled pantaloons fluttering with the rush of air, the bungee rope around his neck shrinking until his head almost struck the base of the platform from which he had just been pushed.

  *

  Later, Feodor learned that his friend had survived the mock hanging with a torn throat and neck injuries but that he’d still managed to keep on his feet to face two further attempts on his life. Feodor’s own body had at last yielded to his mind and he had dropped unconscious in the stand.

  ‘The heat. The crowd. The excitement. Don’t worry, Dr Sarin. People were fainting everywhere. The authorities were overwhelmed by the popularity of the People’s Disgrace, that’s all. Next time they’ll build bigger stands to accommodate more people in greater comfort. All the same, it’s really a shame you missed the end.’

  Feodor had tried hard not to learn the bestial means by which his friend had finally been despatched. Words such as ‘sizzle’ which slipped through his defences were at once thrown into a deep oubliette in his mind from which no images returned and in which no information was put together. The propeller beanie and clown’s garb belonged to a nightmare pageant he’d heard about. Sweet Nicolai himself went on being his college friend, intact, laughing and drawing music in the gravel. Only when he thought of him at night Feodor heard a pure, far chord of D flat, the aching sound of limitless distances and separation.

  But the search for the new National Anthem was still unfinished. The Academicians were not sold on any of the other tunes which had been entered and at last, despairing of finding one which combined musical catchiness and ideological purity, they hit on an interesting idea. Perhaps they had read a true account somewhere – or was it apocryphal, a pastiche Borges parable? – of how a harassed newspaper editor in some Latin or Central American country, despairing of trying to publish a daily news-sheet with the military junta’s censors sitting in the office, did the logical thing, sent all his staff home and told the censors to write the paper themselves from headline to crossword. And now the Academicians did much the same. Feodor was summoned and
told to write the tune himself. Quick as you can, they urged. No more messing about. It’s got to be ready for the Martyrs’ Day parades.

  Who guards the guards? as the Roman sagely asked, and the National Anthem Co-ordinating Committee might have wondered the same thing had they had their wits about them. Even so, it was doubtful if anyone could have broken the exquisite cipher which Feodor now embedded, with infinite artistry, in his tune. Oh, it was adroitly done. One of the simplest tricks for deceiving the ear – if not also the eye – is to play a familiar tune with the correct notes but at the wrong octave. A smooth line becomes transformed into a jagged, aleatory-sounding jumble. Feodor now used just such a device, combining it with refined trickery besides distributing his passage between the voices so that it vanished. For all that he was no composer, he came up with a tune practically as good as poor Nicolai’s. More stately, perhaps, but more easily learned by massed choirs. He set it in the unusual key of D flat but it was nearly always played in the brighter D.

  Feodor received a medal for his tune, which proved hugely popular and soon came to stand for the nation at ceremonies the world over. The years went by until he realised at last that he was in the clear. Nobody now would dare examine his tune for political incorrectness. Even if some other bespectacled train-spotter with a strange mathematical bent for ciphers uncovered a suspicious sequence of notes and broke the code he would keep it to himself in the knowledge that if he didn’t, a mere firing squad was too much to hope for. This mythical schoolboy would have discovered that the number 75009981 could be made to generate a substitution series, letters for notes, using the keywords ‘Azovskiy Express’. After that it would only be a matter of time before he found, in the closing and triumphant phrase of the National Anthem, the equally mettlesome subtext ‘People’s Disgrace’.