The Concert Ticket

^{PART SEVEN} NEW YEAR

“WELL, AND THERE YOU HAVE IT: a year wasted. Might as well not have lived through it at all. By the way, did you hear why he isn’t coming?”

“Afraid of being arrested, someone told me. Word is he was—come closer, come closer—he was at the head of a plot to overthrow the government. Funded by the West, you understand. But the authorities got wind of it, and canceled the concert.”

“Nonsense, I heard he caught a cold on the border. The cold became pneumonia, so he had to go back. They say he took one breath of his native air and cried like a child.”

“Of course he cried, ours is a mystical land, one feels a special, soulful purity here—no other place like it, saints still walk among us… He probably kissed the ground, too—”

“Oh, stop with that sentimental tripe already! The truth is, our Ministry of Culture didn’t offer him enough money. Couldn’t match his fees, you know, so he weaseled out of it at the last minute. I hear his new lady friend is quite young.”

“He doesn’t have a lady friend. I have a friend who has it from a reliable source that he has given up music entirely and is busy writing his memoirs now.”

“None of that is true. There was never going to be any concert. The authorities just used the line to weed out the undesirable elements. A friend of mine has a sister who read in a foreign book that seven or eight years ago Selinsky—”

“Wait a moment, wait a moment, I don’t understand… If all of you are so sure there won’t be a concert, what are you still doing here, waiting in this line? What’s this line for?”

“Oh, there’s a rumor going around about a retrospective of Filatov’s paintings, strictly ticketed access, so I thought, Might as well wait a bit, see what happens, maybe they’ll sell the tickets here.”

“Filatov, Filatov—yes, I remember, aren’t his works banned?”

“Sure they are. Times are changing, though.”

“Who told you about him?”

“That woman over there, see?”

“And who told her?”

“Some bearded old fellow in a funny coat. She said he seemed to know what he was talking about.”

“But what does Nadezhda Alekseyevna say?”

“Oh, she’s no use, you know how she is, she says the same thing no matter what you ask her: ‘Will arrive soon, delivery pending, check back tomorrow.’ Like a parrot.”

“Now, don’t be unfair, she’s had a hard life, our Nadenka, four children to take care of, and no husband, and running a kiosk is not easy… Well, I suppose I could spare a bit of time. Who’s last in line?”

They were quiet after that; it was too cold to talk. Many left. At midnight, the fifteen or twenty people who remained waiting before the kiosk, just in case, were surprised to hear a ringing of bells in the abandoned church at the other end of the street, the rising sound playing up and down the transparent silver keyboards of the sonorous skies. When the bells fell silent, the remaining men and women checked their watches, turned down the flaps of their hats, turned up their collars, and went off their separate ways, along darkened alleys, across snow-covered courtyards, calling out to one another: “Happy New Year!” and “See you tomorrow!”