Embers

Chapter 6

And yet Konrad had a refuge which was closed to his friend: music. It was like a secret hideout, where the world could not reach him. Henrik was not musical, and was content with Gypsy tunes and Viennese waltzes.

Music was not a topic in the academy, it was something regarded by both instructors and cadets as a kind of youthful sin to be tolerated and forgiven. Each man has his weaknesses: one breeds dogs, no matter what the cost, another is obsessed with riding. Better than taking up cards, was the general opinion. And less dangerous than women.

But slowly the suspicion took hold of Henrik that music was not such a harmless pleasure after all. Naturally the academy did not tolerate real music, with its power to arouse and erupt into naked emotion. The curriculum certainly included musical instruction, but only in its most basic aspects.

The boys did learn that music required brass, and a drum major to march in front and throw his silver staff periodically into the air, and a pony to carry the kettle-drum behind the band. That was proper music-loud, regular music that set the pace for the troops, brought the civilians out into the streets, and was the unalterable ornament of every parade. Men stepped out more smartly to music, and that was that.

Sometimes it was high-spirited, sometimes pompous or solemn. Beyond that, nobody paid any attention.

But when Konrad heard music, he turned pale. Every kind of music, even the simplest, struck him like a physical blow. The color left his face, and his lips trembled. Music communicated something to him that the others could never achieve. It seemed that the melodies did not speak to the rational portion of his mind. The discipline he demanded of himself, which he accepted as both punishment and penance, and by means of which he had achieved a certain status in the world, relaxed at such moments, as if his body too were releasing itself from its rigid posture. It was like the moment on parade when “stand to attention” finally gave way to “at ease.” His lips moved, as if he wanted to say something. At such times he forgot where he was, his eyes sparkled, he stared into the distance, oblivious of his surroundings, his superiors, his companions, the beautiful ladies, the rest of the audience in the theater. When he listened to music, he listened with his whole body, as longingly as a condemned man in his cell aches for the sound of distant feet perhaps bringing news of his release. When spoken to, he didn’t hear. Music dissolved the world around him just as it dissolved the laws of artistic unity, and at such moments Konrad ceased to be a soldier.

One evening in summer, he was playing a four-handed piece with Henrik’s mother, when something happened. It was before dinner, they were in the main reception room, the Officer of the Guards and his son were sitting in a corner listening politely, the way patient and well-intentioned people do, with an attitude of “Life is made up of duties. Music is one of them. Ladies’ wishes are to be obeyed.” They were performing Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie and Henrik’s mother was playing with such passion that the whole room seemed to shimmer and vibrate. As they waited patiently and politely in their corner for the piece finally to end, both father and son had the sensation that some metamorphosis was taking place in Henrik’s mother and in Konrad. It was as if the music were levitating the furniture, as if some mighty force were blowing against the heavy silk curtains, as if every ossified, decayed particle buried deep in the human heart were quickening into life, as if in everyone on earth a fatal rhythm lay dormant, waiting for the predestined moment to begin its fateful beat. The courteous listeners realized that music is dangerous. But the duo at the piano had lost all thought of danger. The Polonaise-Fantaisie was no more than a pretext to loose upon the world those forces that shake and explode the structures of order which man has devised to conceal what lies beneath. They sat straight-backed at the piano, leaning away from the keys a little and yet bound to them, as if music itself were driving an invisible team of fiery mythical horses riding the storm that circled the world, and they were bracing their bodies to maintain a firm grip on the reins in this explosive headlong gallop of unshackled energies. And then, with a single chord, they ended. The evening sun was slanting through the large windows, and motes of gold were spinning in its rays, as if the unearthly racing chariot had stirred up a whirlwind of dust on its way to ruin and the void.

“Chopin,” said the French wife and mother, breathing heavily. “His father was French.” “And his mother Polish,” said Konrad, turning his head sideways and looking out of the windows. “He was a relative of my mother’s,” he added parenthetically, as if ashamed of this connection.

They all paid attention to his words, because there was a great sadness in his voice; he sounded like an exile speaking of home and the longing to return. The Officer of the Guards bent forward as he stared at his son’s friend; he seemed to be seeing him for the first time. That evening, when he and his son were alone in the smoking room, he said, “Konrad will never make a true soldier.” “Why?” asked his son, shocked.

But he knew that his father was right.

The Officer of the Guards shrugged his shoulders, lit a cigar, stretched his legs toward the fireplace, and watched the curl of smoke. And then calmly, with the assurance of an expert, he said, “Because he is a different kind of man.”

His father was long dead and many years had passed before the General understood what he had meant.