Mortal Instruments

Illustration by Dell Harris

Tadeusz Nikisch watched through the front window as his last pupil got into the car with her mother. “I said I would call you if my schedule opened,” he remonstrated.

John Button jerked himself to his feet, nearly bumping his bow case off the coffee table. “I didn’t have any more time. My audition with the New York Philharmonic’s tomorrow afternoon. If I waited for you—”

“John, please. An hour or two more will make little difference.” Tadeusz kept calm with his natural ease. John Button wasn’t half his age, but already his forehead was as lined as his own. “You know the advice I’ve given you, and I accept that you haven’t taken it.”

“Why should I? You tell me to live with my limitations. Translated, that means give up.”

Live within, Tadeusz recalled saying, but he left it. “It means nothing like that. Please, John, sit.”

John resisted scornfully, only for a moment. Tadeusz sat by him, taking a second to nudge the cases away from the table edge.

“I’ve told you my evaluation before. You have a love of music, and there is no greater gift in the world. Your gift for playing is not as great. The violin is so dependent on a good ear for precise playing. Technical mastery can take you far, but only so far. With other instruments, it matters much less. I wish you would take up piano, as I have suggested.”

“I don’t want to play piano.”

Plain and unassailable, as always.

“And so, I suggest taking smaller steps. The state orchestra is within your reach.” John winced.

“This upsets you?”

“ ‘Our state orchestra,’ ” John recited, “ ‘is a natural repository for the broad ranks of mediocrity in today’s string players.’ ”

Tadeusz couldn’t deny his words: John probably had that magazine article framed somewhere. “Mediocrity is relative,” he maintained. “A mediocre… er… Yankees player still has greater talent than most. Is it shameful to be among the lesser of the best?”

“Doctor Nikisch, please.” John kept his eyes averted for a long moment. “I came for your help,” he said softly. “I wanted one last edge, one refinement or insight that might make the difference tomorrow.”

“One day out of a dozen years will mean this much?”

“Maybe. Would I have come this far without all that work? Can I expect to get any farther without more?”

Tadeusz looked aside. Music didn’t exist to “get far,” but perhaps his was a minority opinion. “I can’t give you instruction tonight.” He turned his eyes back, sharp and firm, before John could protest. “If you insist on a practice session, come early tomorrow, say six-thirty. I can give you two hours before my Saturday pupils.”

John smiled, but the tension stayed. “Thank you. You know how much this means to me.” He reached for his cases. “I need to brush up my vibrato. I can’t play an auditorium any other way.” The sad gaze struck him, and he held his violin protectively close. “Let’s not argue that again. It’s standard technique.”

“Yes. So it is.” Large, modern audiences demanded the fullest projection from the players, whatever the cost to the subtleties of the music. “Some people insist that birds fly on steel-feathered wings.”

John absorbed this without a flinch. “Thank you, Doctor Nikisch,” he said at the door. “I wouldn’t be where I am without you. I’ll try not to let you down,” he said in parting, oblivious to the irony.

The practice hall was thick with people and tune-up sounds when John arrived. He squeezed himself to his chair without a word, sat down, and took out his violin. He muttered “Sorry” as he jogged someone while opening his bow case.

“I said, how did your audition go?”

“Oh, Sara. Fine, it was fine,” he said, even as his stomach began twisting anew. “How are you?”

“All right.” Sara Weber leaned in closer. “Are you?”

“I said I was fine.” He flushed. “Sorry, jitters. I’ll be hearing if they’ll call me back soon.”

“Well, good luck.” John’s mouth twisted: too late. “I know how important this is to you.”

The arrival of their conductor saved him from another hasty reply. The Caledon Symphony Orchestra began its summer concert season in a month, and rehearsals were up to thrice a week. He led them straight into the first suite of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet.

The knots inside John pulled tighter from the first note. The CSO was a stepping-stone, the “to present” line on his resume. He shared concertmaster status with Sara, something he couldn’t resent personally the way he might professionally. His advances left him the conviction that he could go farther. Yet he hadn’t.

His thoughts started to fade beneath the second language he was playing. The turmoil briefly colored, then submerged beneath, the music. Prokofiev now outvoiced Button, even as Button gave him that voice. It was the great consummation, the two artists silent without each other, together made briefly immortal.

The conductor stopped the music to instruct the basses, and the slender bond snapped. John was alone again with his thoughts, and when the music began anew, he could not slip away from them. The bliss was so rare, and always so transient when he found it, while others grasped the gift effortlessly.

John’s ear for pitch was average, meaning poor for a violinist. The correct intonation natural to some was a struggle for him. That fault was the drag on his ambitions—and the shut door between him and the rapture he could but touch.

To know every note, recognize it for itself, not as a string or a key… and then have their structure and harmony course over you, an open book, a secret joyously given… the daydreams John had of such a passionate rapport thrilled him, crushed him. If he could work a little harder, rise a little higher, play with those who understood…

The unbreakable cycle thwarted him. Professional success and the true knowledge of music: each needed the other, the way Prokofiev needed Button… or any other musician.

John worked the rest of the rehearsal with a hard-set frown, which most took for a sign of his dedication. It remained as he put away his violin and bow, only wavering when he saw Sara regarding it with something like condolence. He wiped it away, much too late.

“It wasn’t good,” she said, not even making it a question. “I’m sorry.”

John squirmed, started to turn, but couldn’t make himself leave. “My fault,” he muttered. “Berg’s Violin Concerto isn’t my best piece.”

Berg’s requiem was a serial composition, without specific key. He chose it in a moment of cowardice, playing away from his weaknesses, but finding no strengths in the notoriously difficult cadenza he performed. The music didn’t reach him in even the limited way that traditional pieces did… and it showed.

Sara walked past him, bringing him along with a touch on the shoulder. “I guess you keep practicing. Nothing comes easily in this work.” His shoulder dropped away from her hand. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no.”

Sara broke away momentarily to intercept the conductor, saying something about the next rehearsal and no guarantees. “What was that about?” he asked when she returned.

“I’m going to Philadelphia, for my sister. I told you this, didn’t I?”

“I don’t… wait. Is this an operation?”

“Yes, it’s the operation. She’s getting the implants tomorrow. I’ll be there Wednesday morning, and cross your fingers, she’ll finally get to hear me say ‘hello.’ ”

“Really?” John knew Sara’s sister was deaf, but she definitely had not told him of this operation. They were “friends,” and maybe she assumed she’d tell a friend. “Uh, listen, I’m very sorry if I didn’t remember your saying all this. Can I make it up to you, by driving you to Philly and back?”

“Don’t you have work, John?”

“Nothing I can’t reschedule.” The few students he took were young, and would likely be glad to miss a session. “Please. I haven’t even met your sister, and what better time?”

They stepped outside, into a cool night breeze. “Sure, it’d be fine if you came.” She sounded less than gleeful. “I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea, John.”

“I’m not, Sara. Promise.” He got a time for them to leave, and then they split. John sat for a long time behind the wheel of his car, asking himself what idea he did have.

The doctors kept them waiting long enough to finish a test series, then made a dramatic presentation of Sara’s entrance. John watched from the door as Sara and Mara embraced. Mara’s hug was slightly impeded by wires running from behind her ears to a softball-sized box strapped between her shoulders. Sara began speaking sign language, but Mara stopped her with a touch to the lips. She devoured Sara’s spoken words with the unique enthusiasm attendant to a joy lost and regained.

Mara pointed his way and Sara waved him over. “Pleased to finally meet you,” he said after Sara introduced him, and he offered his hand.

Her attention was momentarily disconcerting, eyes focusing on his lips. Mara still had to read his words to understand them, but she was already connecting them to the sounds, reteaching herself this language lost since early childhood. Sara signed something to her sister, something she didn’t want John intercepting.

“Good to meet you, too.” Mara grimaced with frustration, hearing her own blurry words beside their clear speech. “Sara’s told me a lot about you.”

“Oh, I’m sure she has.”

One of the doctors began giving Sara a progress report. Mara was testing superbly, outscoring most unimpaired people on sensitivity and range. He began outlining the workings of the system, but Sara said she had heard it all before.

“Actually, this is pretty new to me.”

The doctor gladly began explaining it on John’s behalf. The box on Mara’s back received the sounds, transmitting them to chip clusters implanted within each ear. Microcircuits measured intensity and pitch, passing the data to a stimulator that converted the signals to electrical impulses. The impulses went to an electrode array in her auditory cortex, bypassing the auditory nerves atrophied by long inactivity—and Mara heard.

John remained on the fringe of the sisters’ happy moment until the doctor stepped outside. Telling Sara he was going to find a bathroom, he followed seconds later.

“Doctor… Hippert.” John spied the name tag as the doctor turned. “Don’t mean to bother you. I was wondering… you said the implants measure the pitches of sounds. That’s pretty advanced.”

“True. If we’d had the implant technology five years earlier, our first experimental patients would have been tone-deaf.”

“So she has perfect pitch. Not all normal—er, reg—not everybody has that.”

“No, I understand it’s somewhat uncommon.” Hippert shifted his feet. “Take a deep breath, and come to your point.”

John wasn’t sure what his point was, until he heard himself blurt it out. “Could you do that with normal-hearing people, who just don’t have full pitch awareness?”

Hippert let his face go blank, then waved John into a side room. “If you’re talking about a voluntary procedure, remember that this operation is still classified experimental.”

“For how long?”

He let the question pass. “There’s no reason for such a procedure, no everyday benefit that outweighs the cost or the risks.”

“I’m not an everyday person,” John declared. “I’m a musician. A violinist. Doesn’t that suggest some benefits?”

Hippert’s snap answer died unspoken. He pulled over a chair, and sat to think. John watched his face, and thought he saw the moment when it shifted from hazard to opportunity. “It isn’t how the procedure was conceived.”

“But it’s possible. If it weren’t, you would have said already.”

Hippert smiled quietly. “It should be easier than full restoration. The circuits only have to measure pitch; the electrodes can hook into healthy ganglia. You wouldn’t need the external equipment. The worst problem would be synching the artificial input to what you get naturally.”

“Sounds like a worthy challenge.”

The smile hardened. “First, Mister Button, this procedure may not be approved beyond experimental applications. Second, insurance companies may have to cover experimental surgery, and correction of profound impairments. They won’t fund voluntary surgery, and you won’t get anyone to think that average hearing is impaired.”

“The money doesn’t matter. I have it.” His parents had provided well for him, or he could never have pursued the violin so fastidiously.

“You really do?” Hippert named a sum. Blood started pounding in John’s ears, but he nodded. “You really should think this over carefully, but if you do, and you’re still interested, I’ll handle it.”

He rose, but paused at the threshold. “You are right. It would be a challenge. Now, maybe you should get back to your friend.”

John stood there a second before reacting, and then almost passed Mara’s room before remembering why he was walking that way.

“Broad approval is coming, no more than two weeks from now.” Hippert’s call came a week later, just as John had begun dismissing the episode as a deluded fancy. “I need to conduct some scans and tests first. You can come in now if you like, so we can start immediately once they grant formal approval. I don’t know whether you’ve thought it over…”

“More than you know, Doctor.” With the moment upon him, he still wasn’t certain what he was about to say. “Friday morning’s the best time for me.”

“Fine. How about I expect you at nine? See you then.”

John hung up, and began staring blankly around his living room. That lurking notion, that one brief moment of courage… curiosity?… the momentum had carried him to this bizarre pass. He wondered at his presumption, wondered what could have compelled him.

Then he remembered, and felt his heart find its rhythm again.

He went to pick up the violin, restart his practice. He almost put his instrument back down. Should he make himself listen to a shadow of the music, when the full form of it was so near at hand? Would it someday soon seem a pitiful use of his time, to clutch at this shadow?

The bow lowered to the strings without his will, ending his equivocation. Such a beautiful shadow. How much more rapturous the full body would be.

John made it back to Caledon with time to spare for his afternoon pupils. He took dinner alone as usual, spent a while honing his vibrato, then drove to the practice hall. He casually greeted the tympanist on the way in, and didn’t notice the look.

The room sounded odd before John even entered, filled more with hushed voices than tuning instruments. Passing the threshold seemed to turn a switch, quieting the talk nearly to nothing. John intuitively kept his eyes low, but still the stares crowded in.

Once in his chair, John cleared his head. His anticipation was making him imagine things. Sure enough, the players were tuning up. He took a long breath, and started adjusting his own violin.

Sara arrived with a rustle. He turned to smile at her, but she was looking the other way. Before he could ask how her sister was faring, the conductor called for their attention, and they went straight into “The Montagues and Capulets.”

The evening went swiftly, despite the occasional look John worked not to misinterpret again. The orchestra finally had a handle on Prokofiev’s opus, and the next three weeks would smooth their rough edges. When the composer called it a night, John was still ready to play for hours.

He closed up his cases, and started after Sara. “Great night’s work, I think.”

Sara’s head twitched but didn’t turn. “Could you walk me to my car, John?”

John followed obediently, not comprehending her queer mood. Halfway across the parking lot, an unhappy idea presented itself. “Has something gone wrong with Mara? Is she all right?”

Sara wheeled. “You mean is the implant all right, don’t you?”

“Wh—well, yes, of course.”

Her hand snapped back a few inches. If she hadn’t been carrying her bow case in it, John was certain she would have slapped him. “You couldn’t care less about my sister, only the hardware in her skull! You fooled me pretty well, but it’s the last time.”

She stomped away, but John wasn’t too dazed to pursue. “What are you saying? What gave you that idea?”

“Doctor Hippert, on the evening news. Didn’t you see?” She set her cases on the car roof, and rummaged for keys. “No matter. You can catch it at eleven.”

“I never gave him—” His indignation swerved back to the primary problem. “Sara, I didn’t know what the operation could do until I spoke to Hippert. I wasn’t—Sara, please—”

She responded to the touch on her shoulder with a wheeling swing. John fell hard to the asphalt, a red handprint already burning on his cheek. He stayed down until her car was out of the lot. He opened his cases, and sighed. He’d protected them satisfactorily, at the cost of a nasty sting in the small of his back.

He spent his drive home searching for some way he could have said something to make her understand. The idea hadn’t blossomed in his head until Hippert’s impromptu lecture on the technology. Until then, he had only suspected, hoped… and probably used Sara to explore that hope.

Great. He was a jerk, a jerk who could now forget kindling anything with Sara Weber. No, she was a musician, too. She could understand. She would, when he got the chance.

Probably.

He didn’t recognize the car parked in front of his house, but the man standing by the door was unmistakable. What, had he heard too? He left his auto parked outside the garage. “What can I do for you, Doctor Nikisch?”

“Let me in, I suppose. Oh, I sent away some journalist who was skulking about. Did she find you at rehearsal? No? You don’t seem disappointed.”

“I’m not.” John lit up the living room, unsuccessfully offered Tadeusz a drink, and sat heavily on the sofa, violin and bow in his lap. “I know what you’re going to talk about, so go ahead. Apparently I’m the only person who didn’t watch the news tonight.”

“Fine. I will go ahead and apologize, for wounding your feelings so badly two weekends ago. I belittled your frustration, and impelled you on a desperate path which I hope you will now let me lead you off.”

John held still and quiet for a long time. “I believe I’m honored, Doctor Nikisch, but… can you help these?” Shaking hands bracketed his ears. “Your conclusion hasn’t changed, and shouldn’t. I don’t have the ear for violin, but maybe I will soon. If you do understand my frustration, you know how much this would mean.”

“John, John, to run such a risk with your body, for so modest a gain, is not right.”

“Would you say that if you had the flat ear? If you didn’t have the natural aptitude to match your dedication and love? You’re so accustomed to your gift, you don’t see the chasm it opens between us.”

“But I do, John. I have for a long time.” Tadeusz clasped his hands. “Tell me, particularly, what this operation will give you.”

“Simple. Better hearing. Perfect pitch, keener volume discernment, every improvement technology can provide.”

“Ah. An artificial approach to a natural phenomenon. It misses the point.”

“No it doesn’t. There’s no barrier between the two. We stretch gut and nylon strings over an open wooden box, but somehow that’s natural while silicon circuits aren’t.”

Tadeusz let out a short breath. “I should know by now how firmly you make up your mind.” He stood and walked slowly toward the door. “I just think you should ask yourself what you may lose from this, against what you might gain. Consider whether you should hold onto the gifts you have, rather than grasping at ‘might-be’ and ‘want-to-be.’ ”

“Doctor…” John followed, never closer than two paces. “I’m sorry that we always have to disagree. I admire you, and respect your advice… but I cannot take it.”

“Not even to reflect? Then I would also be sorry.” Tadeusz left, walking into the night.

John watched him until his car disappeared around the corner. He walked without caring where his feet carried him, but they knew to bring him to his study. He dedicated this room to music, both for application and contemplation. He picked a Beethoven CD off a shelf, programmed the stereo to play the “Pathetique,” and dropped into the soft chair.

Music itself was artificial, he thought, in any form beyond the banging of rocks and sticks, or the blowing through hollow reeds. It was the rising sophistication of artificiality that gave music its growing richness. Without it, what would there be worth hearing, by anybody’s ears?

That premise granted, artificial hearing was the next reasonable step. Who would begrudge a music lover a hearing aid, after all? Without a discerning ear, no music could work its magical effect, just as notes on a page said nothing without an instrument to voice them. Composition and performer.

With him, the chips would become both. They would perform for him, making the music new as the first day on Earth. He would pour the insights that flowed thence into his performances, his proficiency redoubled, reborn. He would play as the instrument of his brilliant new perceptions.

He dimly perceived the music entering its second section through a bone-deep chill. Was that Tadeusz’s dread? Might the implants hold him in thrall, enslaved to his new senses, his individuality drowned in technical perfection? He shuddered to imagine a machine guiding his fingers… guiding a piece of his soul.

John willed the fears away, rebuking his own egotism. If he began producing great music, wouldn’t that addition to the world’s joy be enough itself? He couldn’t claim exclusive credit for what he played now. Not with a Lupot violin and a Tourte bow, instruments that won their own justified praise, independent of any musician.

Could he be content as an instrument? No, he wouldn’t need to. Concert violinists were more than ears: they were repositories of practice and study, knowledge and love. No implant could make a musician, any more than the fretsaw made the violin. The will and the skill would remain his own. He needn’t fear that.

Still, he feared. His brain laid open, fragile nerves prodded, mutilated, destroyed. Or if Hippert didn’t err… what if the gain weren’t all he hoped? He was staking the bulk of his worldly goods on the wish that music could lift him beyond worldly concerns.

The known and the unknown. Conventional man that he was, Doctor Nikisch held to the known. It was their musical common ground, the old esteemed above the modern, Bach over Bartok, Schubert over Stravinsky. John was the more adventurous of the two… but would he be if he could never go back to the “Pathetique” after hearing “The Rite of Spring”?

The last low chords of Beethoven reverberated, and faded. John sat in silence, as the stereo shut itself off. He longed for bed, for sleep swept clean of the tumult of a decision yet unmade. It would haunt him for years if he said “no,” tempt him in his darkest moments. Too great a decision, for anyone.

John remembered his violin and bow, still on the living room sofa. He trudged downstairs for them, but a small red blink turned his eye. Had he missed the message on his machine earlier, or had Beethoven and his own turmoil blanked out the phone? Thinking of Sara, he lunged for the “play” button.

The voice that replied was professional and measured, and so polite. It sounded almost sorry that they didn’t require a second audition from him, almost sincere in its good wishes for his future career. It hung up, and the following silence was that much more articulate.

John swallowed hard against the clog in his throat. He’d imagined the wound healed before they opened it. He stood motionless, quietly bleeding pride until the pain broke through. When that paroxysm passed, something new remained in its place. With a slow calm covering all else, he retrieved his possessions and walked upstairs. He could sleep now, having chosen which phantasms would bedevil him in the night.

“Do you hear me, Mister Button?”

John wanted only to sleep more, sleep eternally, but the urge ebbed along with the anesthetic. He turned his head, discovering an ache beneath that ear. Turning the other way brought a twin throb, so he gathered all his strength and sat up.

“Easy.” Doctor Hippert slipped a hand behind John’s back. “Are you all right?” After waiting an uneasy second, he snapped his fingers, turning John’s head. “You gave me a scare.”

“Sorry.” John strained. “I hear you… normally.” There was some elusive difference. Was it the fog still rolling through his head?

“Do you feel up to some tests?”

John didn’t, but he took the request as an order. He placed the bulky headphones over his ears, surprised at the feel. He’d forgotten they had shaved there; hopefully there wasn’t a mirror in the room. He plodded through the tests, nodding, raising left and right hands, identifying tones as higher or lower. He performed with half-conscious confidence, still not awake enough to be anxious.

Hippert lifted the headphones away, smiling. John didn’t return the smile. “It’s a success, John, all around.”

“Really?” He still felt no different, except for the haze slowly parting.

“Really. Your intensity discernment has improved twelve decibels. I could go into the corner and whisper, and you’d still hear me. Your range is about half an octave broader on either side. As for pitch discernment, you tested perfect.”

“I did? I did.” The corners of his mouth curled. “What was that tone, the first?”

“The control? Middle C.”

John looked to the ceiling, concentrating, and reproduced the note. He sung, hummed, whistled. Hippert put one headphone on his ear, pressed a button on the console, and nodded, but John saw none of this. He was climbing up the diatonic scale, committing each note to memory.

“Where’s my violin? No! My CD player.”

Hippert changed course, and got John his portable machine. He had a disc already inside, a selection made for the drama he anticipated this moment would hold. He went under the headphones, started the player, and began softly humming four notes over the first few seconds of faint static. Three G’s and an E flat. Dah dah dah duuuuum…

He galvanized with the violin crash, unwittingly shouting. His smile radiated joy, but slowly began to change. Bit by bit, his mouth fell open, nearly as wide as his eyes. “Oh my…”

Few things enchanted like a waltz. That hadn’t changed in ten years, since his first operation. His bow skipped across the strings, while his mind soared, twining in and out of the melody. He could sometimes forget the concert hall, the other musicians… but never for long.

The conductor of the state orchestra was finally content with their tempo, and called it a night. John scrunched in his seat to let the lead violinist past before heading for the exit himself. He found his car, next to the sign proclaiming the upcoming “Mostly Mozart” night, and started home.

The drive to his apartment was a long one, full of time for somber ruminations. His career stood at its natural plateau, to rise no farther. Old hopes were a quiet torment, now and again rising to become waking nightmares. He felt it coming again tonight, felt powerless to halt the cataract of pain.

The worst of it was, Doctor Nikisch had been wrong. The implants had worked; not as he had expected, not better or worse, just different. New doors of perception swung open, and through them he had blazed into the top stratum of his art. Tadeusz had lived long enough to see the glorious rise… and the fall.

Not a fall so much as too feeble an ascent. Musicians thronged to Doctor Hippert’s operating room, and those of other doctors who accepted the overflow. Traditionalists like Nikisch either changed their attitudes or fell into mediocrity, grumbling about the unhappy state of modern performance.

Had John been alone, he would have been the virtuoso of his age. He was instead the first, and those who followed gained the benefit of their doctors’ experience. John, his resources never wholly replenished by his brief supremacy, found an upgrade slightly beyond his means, then somewhat more so, then more so. By the time he considered selling his Lupot to raise money, it was no longer enough. By the time he nerved himself to sell the house, all it did was halt the slide.

He didn’t bother imagining that another operation could rescue him. He’d learned his lesson; each day he spent around ambitious young violinists, all straining to move up a chair, reinforced it. He feared the next surge, the tide that would wash away his ability to earn a living playing his music.

He longed for home, where he might spend the hour or two before bed listening to something. He despised the earphones, but his neighbors had no patience for his hobby. If only they understood; if only it could reach them as it did him…

…Occasionally, whenever the evanescent gift of rapture surmounted recollection of the price.