Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly

by John Franklin Bardin

  Her hand fell heavily on the manual, and the other followed mechanically. Her eyes settled upon the maze of black-and-white strips, stared fixedly at the two lean, naked rats that scampered back and forth in it in a blind endeavour to run out. She heard laughter, after a few minutes, and excited talk – but she could not take her eyes off the rats and their intricate game in the black-and-white maze. There was a sound, too, a sound of a glass falling, of brittle blood flowing, tinkling, of a thousand glasses breaking, a million drops of blood tinkling. But this sound mingled with the other sound, the laughter and the whispering; it had nothing to do with the poor naked rats and their frightening maze…

  Then, for no reason at all, the rats stopped running, the maze reassembled itself before her eyes. Someone, somewhere, was clapping, a lonely sound. She looked down at her lap, and saw that the rats had nestled there, had fallen asleep like children after a hard run. The tinkling sound, the noise of a glass breaking, of blood flowing, persisted in her head, but now she recognized it as a melody, a very familiar tune that she had hoped never to hear again, a folk-song that she had just played:

  Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care!

  My massa’s gone away…

  6

  ‘Jimmy crack corn! Jimmy crack corn!’ The words stole into her consciousness, were placed there as a placard is placed in a shop window, obtruded from her sleep like a finger of guilt pointing out her sin – lingered for a long moment, echoing as the scream she had heard in her dream still echoed, then lapsed into silence like a stone dropped into a pool. She lay on the bed, very still, hushed and quiet, tense. If only she did not remember! – if only, this one night, she would not have to experience it all again! By an effort of will she opened her eyes, let her consciousness advance into the shadow world of her room, strove to see forms instead of the swirling darkness that held her prisoner on every side. That darkness, that fearsome blackness, was, she knew, a part of her dream; the darkness of the room was different, as she would see if she could but keep her eyes open long enough to accustom them to the small amount of checkered light that filtered through the window. That darkness belonged to a night long ago, and to another night even before that – she only dreamed it now. Say it! Say it aloud! If you can hear yourself speak it, you will know it is true and you will not have to live through that night, those nights, again. Speak it! Say those words! Louder! Louder! ‘I am not afraid of the dark. I only dream the dark. It is not here now, it is only there then, when 1 dream. I am not afraid of the dark!’

  Her voice sounded naked, alone and mad. It was not her voice, but a child’s voice, shrill and whining. And she was afraid, terribly afraid, of the dark. It was here now, just as it had been there then in her dream. The dark surrounded her, a great, noisome, evil cloak that smothered her. There was no light anywhere, no alleviation, only shadow devoured by shadow, umbra and penumbra. Worse than that, there was distance and time, a great pit into which she must fall, on whose edge she trembled at this instant. Many times had she fallen into it, many times had she taken that awful plunge, that dizzying descent that was one prolonged, headlong flight down to the depths of the past, to another place, another era. And it had always begun like this, with that sudden wakefulness, those words in her ears, that echo of a scream. Then, gently, the edge of the pit began to crumble. She found herself scrabbling desperately for a handhold in the drifting, shifting, rapidly disintegrating earth. The scream that had been silenced so long was heard again, now a mere thread of sound – it existed in the pit and she was slipping towards it. She fought bravely, trying to crawl back, struggling like a dog in quicksand against the insubstantial ground, the encompassing shadows, the ruthless attraction of the abyss…

  It was over this time as suddenly, as amazingly as it had been each time before. There was a flash, an explosion – if one could call it either of those things – of absolute dark, a sudden violence of black that was the null itself. In this she ceased to exist, lost all sense of self, of being, of knowing, merged inextricably with this mirror of nothingness … Yet this, too, passed, and she sensed again, saw light again, was seated in the park with the sun on her back, with green, green grass and blue, blue sky, and children.

  She was sitting on the bench watching a squirrel eat the nut she had just given him. He was a clever fellow: he held the bulky nut firmly between his claws and nibbled at it industriously with his sharp, rodent teeth; but all the time that he seemed preoccupied with his task, his beady eyes, glittering targets of sight, were upon her, calculating, determining whether to run and hide the nut or to eat it here, whether there would be more to come or if this were all. The sight of him reassured her – he was alive, intelligent, amoral, her kin. This squirrel had his nut, and she had her life, or this present moment of it, at least. They both clung to it, ravened at it, and kept a keen lookout for transforming possibilities into realities. She laughed and the squirrel took alarm, popping his nut into his cheek and running to the nearest tree and up its trunk a foot or more, then freezing on the bark, blending with it, his head cocked, his eyes gleaming, still watching her. She laughed again, experimentally, but this time he did not move. She was quiet, and, after a few minutes of caution, he returned, slowly and circuitously, sat up and looked at her, demanding a relative’s due: another nut.

  It was the last in her bag, but she gave it to him, crumpling the bag up afterwards and letting it drop at her feet, where the wind caught it and carried it erratically down the slope, then dropped it, let it lie, like a drunken cat playing with a lame mouse. The squirrel eyed the crumpled ball of paper contemptuously, but made no movement in its direction. He knows that there are no nuts in it, she had thought, that if there had been I would not have thrown it away. And he will leave me soon to search for other sources of nuts, other people with other bags. But what about me? Where shall I go now? What shall I do?

  She had stood up and began to walk down the path towards the zoo. It was silly to compare herself with a squirrel, silly and melodramatic. She patted the folded newspaper she carried under her arm. She was a person of note, a musician who had given a successful concert only last night. The proof of it was here – she patted the newspaper again – in the words of Jeffry’s review, ‘… a genuine experience … she reveals a bright, shining world of pristine sound.’ The image of old Jeffry came into her mind, flickered before her eyes, obscuring momentarily the sunshine, the trees and the children. She saw the old man as she had seen him the previous night, sitting precariously on the gilt chair, tapping nervously with his umbrella at the polished floor. She heard him squeak, ‘Splendid! Splendid!’ But anger overcame her, she blinked her eyes and destroyed her sight of the old critic and, to make the destruction complete, she tore the newspaper out from under her arm and threw it in front of her on the path, taking pleasure in walking on it, trampling on it, rejecting Jeffry’s lies. For what Jeffry had said, all his blessed euphemisms, his rhetoric and his allusions, had no relation to the truth. She knew what the truth about last night was: she had given a mediocre performance, she had not played as she had wanted to play, as she had been able to play in the past. She was no longer an artist.

  Madame Tedescu had told her this frankly, although she had waited for her to ask. She had gone to her studio that morning as she had promised – she had left it only an hour ago. The doorbell of Madame’s great, rambling flat near the Hudson River had tinkled enthusiastically when she had pressed it, and before she could press it again and hear once more its tiny clamour, Madame had opened the door itself. The old woman had seemed smaller in her cavernous studio, more like a fragile marionette than a real person. She was dwarfed by her paintings – a huge Léger, a long, narrow Dufy, a massive Rouault – and even by her instruments: the two concert grands, the clavichord, the virginal and the rare harpsichord of intricately carved ebony that was supposed to have been Mozart’s. They had sat upon an Empire divan in the farthest room, a high-ceilinged, cathedral-like studio whose many-paned w
indows overlooked the wharves where liners docked and the travellers sailed for the ports of the world.

  At first Madame had asked her the usual questions about her health. They had talked about mutual friends and experiences and had gossiped about the musical world of New York and the Continent, about the strange tricks war had played with the lives of peaceful musicians, the political ones and the victims, the current successes and those to whom music was art, was life itself, whom the larger public habitually ignored. But after a time a natural pause grew into a lengthy silence.

  Madame had regarded her, looked at her as she had when she had been her pupil. Her calm, grey eyes had been quietly speculative, her face composed and kind but intent upon its purpose. ‘Now tell me about yourself, Ellen,’ she had said.

  She had looked away at the window, had gazed at the splattered, reflected light of waves until it dazzled her eyes, and when she looked back again at her old friend she saw a blurred face, an indistinct smile. ‘I have been working steadily,’ she said, and looked down at her fretting hands. ‘My technique is sound. My fingers go where I want them to go. When I look at a score, I hear it the way it should sound – as I have always heard it. I am all right.’

  Madame nodded her head, but her eyes remained steadfast and did not seem to share in the gesture of agreement. ‘I heard you last night. I know you have regained your technique. But that is not what I wanted to know.’ She hesitated and seemed to think about what she was going to say next. Then she wet her lips and began again. ‘Ellen, there is more to your life than music. There is Basil. There are the other things you do. Tell me about them.’

  ‘Basil is very well. His new concert series is doing nicely. I’m sure you read the notices in the newspapers. Basil’s career is assured.’

  This time the old woman shook her head briefly, but vigorously. ‘I am not asking about Basil’s career or yours. I know all I need to know about both of your careers. I want to know about you – about you and Basil.’

  How could she tell her what she did not know herself? She could say that as a husband Basil was kind, considerate, attentive, occasionally distracted and not as concerned with her interests as his own. The letter in the console table, the powder spilled in the drawer, her glimpse of a girl leaving their house burnished by the setting sun – she could mention these facts, too. But what were they? – only impressions, unconfirmed suspicions. She could tell her about their summer in the Catskills, the slow, peaceful days and the long, ecstatic nights. And she could also tell her about the two times during the summer when Basil had been away, the time he was called to the city on business and had been discomfited when she had asked if she might go with him – she had not insisted and he had gone alone, had stayed away several nights – and the two weeks of concert engagements. What about last night? Should she tell Madame the real reason why she had forgotten herself and had played a popular folksong instead of the Bach aria at the reception? What would Madame say if she described to her the beauty of the girl with the auburn hair and told her that she had seen Basil with her, kissing her? But it was nonsensical to think of it – she could not tell her any of these things. Instead, she said deliberately, a little too emphatically, ‘Basil has been very kind.’

  Madame again shook her head. ‘Husbands can be kind, Ellen – and they can be unkind. I do not think it matters. What matters is whether he makes you happy. That is what I want to know.’

  At last she could speak, say words that held meaning. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I am not happy with him.’

  ‘What is wrong?’ Madame was inexorable. She sat with her hands clasped, her smile patient and just and firm.

  ‘He has not been the same since – since I returned. Oh, he does everything he should. And he worries about me. For a while, last summer, we were happy. We were a part of each other and it was good. But then something happened.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it?’

  She shook her head. ‘There is nothing I can tell you. Basil seems to withdraw, to be apart from me.

  It’s as if he tolerates me, and does not want me to come near.’

  ‘Have you ever spoken to him about this?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I know that it may be that I imagine it. I imagine too many things, you know. In the past, I have often thought that people were doing things to me when they were not. I have learned not to talk about my fears, to keep them to myself.’

  Madame moved to her side and took her hand, pressed it between her own. ‘You must talk to him about it, Ellen. I am sure you must. If you don’t it will grow in your mind, this fear – it will destroy your life together. If there is something wrong, it will do no harm – it can only do good – to speak openly about it, to discuss it with each other. And if there is nothing wrong, if you are only imagining that he does not love you, you will learn that you are wrong. He will know about your fears and help you to face them. But, if he doesn’t know…?’

  Madame stood up and walked to the ebony harpsichord. She opened the seat and removed a volume of Bach, opened it to the first page of the score and spread it upon the rack. Her hand brushed against the ebony, rested on it lightly, then fingered the catch to open the cover and reveal the two serried rows of manuals. ‘I remember that you were always fond of this aria, Ellen,’ she said. She sighed gently. ‘That Bach loved it, too, is evident in every one of his variations on it. And a famous king had his court musician play it every night to put him to sleep!’ She paused, smiling, to consider the ways of kings. Then she asked, hesitantly, ‘Will you play it for me, Ellen?’

  If she could ever play it right, she could now. And it seemed certain to her that she would as she sat before the ancient instrument, in the famous old room that she had played in so many times before at so many stages of her life. At this moment there was no compulsion; she felt relaxed, settled and sure, at peace. There was no need to look at the score – she knew each note. She did not have to wait for the audience to quiet, nor did she have to make her stage presence known, to put on the mask of her public self. If she wished, she could sit here forever; it was her place and her time. And, as she realized that this was true, Anna Magdalena’s aria began to form in her head. The crystalline notes were all there, the space around them existed as it should, the trills were clean and as neat as a frill of lace, a furbelow, the rhythm was vigorous, the cadences precise. She unclasped her hands, edged forward. Her fingers arched, leant to the attack – the keys moved supple beneath her fingers. She had begun, and it was good.

  The movement of the sound, the pace and flow of it, mingled with the movements of her hands, the rise and fall of the melody was the rise and fall of her breathing, the music was alive in her, she lived the song. Her being was as firmly rooted in the chords she played, the counter melody in the bass, as her foot on the pedal. There was no division, no disunity; this world she made herself could not be split up into parts: it was one, mighty whole. She was the essence of time itself, she was the motion that carried the stream of tone along; she found herself at the centre of the hard, exact core of each note and on the soft, reverberant edges as well, where sound married sound and new harmony was born.

  The past ended before this began and the future did not commence until this was past. This was now, here and undeniable, an eternal instant. Irrevocable, irrefutable, it had a strength and a reality that defied oblivion. With it she was unique, just as it was unique; without it she ceased to exist, just as it was nothing. This power to evoke music depended upon her reading of black marks on a ruled page, upon the dexterity of her fingers and her body’s sense of rhythm, upon her knowledge of the way it was, the quality of its sound. But she depended upon it, too, for without it she did not know herself. Outside its orbit she was a bundle of sensations, a walking fear, an appetite, a lawless creature. But when this sound existed, she understood, her life had meaning, order, morality. This was her end, she was its means.

  She played the final cadence reluctantly, lifting her hands of
f the manuals, releasing the mechanism, but holding them barely above it, allowing them to hover, to reconsider, to continue if they wanted. She could go on to the first variation, and the second, and the third – play on until she had gone through all thirty-two of them, and then she could begin again – if she wished. But she did not wish. Her hands fell into her lap and she looked down at them, smiling at her fears of the night past, confident of herself once more. She would not have turned about and looked at Madame Tedescu and asked, ‘Did I play well?’ – if she had not felt that she must to be polite.

  Madame’s face was impassive. She seemed not to want to speak. But she did speak, and she spoke quickly, as a doctor gives orders during a critical point in an operation, briskly, with authority. ‘You played competently, Ellen. As you say, you have full command of your technique. Your fingers obey your wishes. And as I listened I sensed that you comprehended the music, as a critic comprehends a painting. But a critic cannot paint, a critic is not a musician. What you played was not Bach, Ellen…’ She stopped. But her glance went on. Her eyes said, You and I know it was once.