Excerpt

Suddenly Leslies voice seems to have registered. He looks up, startled. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Tour videos. Everybody change rooms.

The final part of the evening. They have had audiences in the tens of thousands, but they wont go home until one more person sits rapt. Deesh reminds silently herself to be rapt. Gard still looks tired.

They adjourn to the library.

Sort of like football film after the game, huh? Shiv inquires of Vlad.

No, Vlad replies, and walks away without further explanation.

**

Now I see why you insisted on this vulgarity, Deesh says from the doorway. Gard is pushing buttons by the fireplace.

I knew you wouldnt want to miss a single screw-up, he answers.

Shiv looks confused.

Its a joke, Kas says to him.

It is?

Trust me.

Shiv appears relieved.

Anything usable for a video? Deesh says.

Maybe, Gard says in an odd tone of voice. Find a good seat and cast your vote.

Something, she thinks, must be up.

A screen of mammoth dimensions descends. She assumes an air of disgust.

Shiv looks confused again. Kas heads him off. Gard put the screen in himself. She says its his and she hates it, but shes never made him take it out. Dont ask any questions.

But the bookcases that opened up. I thought they were real.

They are.

Books, too?

Yewit, Kas loses patience. Try and remember where you are.

We sit, says Vlad sternly. Everyone sits. The library lamps click off.

The screen darkens, lightens, and she watches. Anyones guess what country they are in now.

Gard on a stage, slumped on a stool, band silent in the blackened background. He plucks a few notes.

This is so cool. Acoustic, you know.

She knows whose voice has volunteered, and declines to speak the truth that she does not need the term acoustic or its value explained to her.

She sits upright, alone in a straight-backed chair, off to the side of the others plopped like throw pillows on sofas and settees. The room is dark, but from the screen comes what seems a protective light slanting directly on her chair.

This is what she hears Gard sing:

Longing unto the unbearable.

Clawing hopelessness.

Grief unto death.

Pain.

A nameless woman is gone from him. Which to choose, then? To live? Longing, hopelessness, grief, pain?

Death.

A man so much in love with a woman for so long, he would choose damnation rather than be without her.

The words are simple, the melody a raft in a hurricane. His voice is controlled, his eyes on his Gibson. His head drops lower; he does not meet the eyes of his audience. There is no rock and roll here. There is only sorrow so great, confusion so irreversible that when he is done, the unseen audience makes no sound. Then, a catapultive, screaming, whistling wind sweeps over the stage. The ovation is still going on when he sets his guitar aside and walks, unacknowledging of the uproar, off stage.

There is silence, too, in the library, as if a collective group of breaths is being held.

Lights, someone finally says.

Lamps go on.

She turns in her chair, stares at Cleve with something unreadable in her eyes.

How,she asks him, did you do that?

Without inflection Cleve answers: I didnt.

She stares. Cleveland.

I didnt write it. Lyric or tune.

Dont be stupid, Cleve. Her voice is sharp.

Really, I swear. I didnt write it. He looks around as if for corroboration.

Who, then? And how did you get it? Who gave it to you?

Uh. Cleve hesitates as if hes not sure its not a treasonable action to tell her. The room waits. Uh. Gard.

Gard has not written a song since high school.

She loses enough composure to allow an expression of shock to pass over her face. No one moves to a different seat. No one says a thing until Kaseem. So? How was it?

Not bad, she says, barely moving her lips.

That all?

She nods. She looks at Gard. You wrote that? You did? She pauses, passing her hand through her hair. I doubt it will sell more than twenty or thirty million copies.

There is a noise of relief. It sounds like applauding, of hooting, of cab whistles.

You know more about poetry than I thought, she says to Gard, sitting and sheepish across the room. He shrugs.

Its not that much.

Possibly not. I doubt Cleve need give over his day job to you. Still, its . . . its, I dont know. Ive never heard anything like it. It is, she pauses, blinking, extraordinary. Her voice trails away, and once again, there are only two of them in this fully peopled room.



* * * * *



So whats it called, Gard? You never told us. Leslies voice rose over the general conversation, which Leslies voice would do.

Silence waiting.

Yeah, what? said Shiv. Leslie elbowed his ribs without subtlety.

Its called, Gard said.

Deesh leaned back against her chair, watching with the rest. She couldnt detect if he was hedging from shyness, or melodrama. She turned around, her yes, lets get on with it expression aimed at Leslie. Leslie shrugged her shoulders, indicating You know how he is. Cant change him now.

Shiv pretended he could decode the signals. Deesh turned back around in her chair, drew her knees up to her chin. If there were a beast of divine inspiration, she thought, it must have hit Gard long and violently. She looked as if she still didnt believe that Cleve hadnt written it.

Come on, Gard. Whats it called, Love Song to Make a Million Dollars With? There was only a shred of jealousy in Cleves voice.

Its called, Gard hesitated a moment, Eurydice.

Whats that? asked Shiv, catching neither significance of the title.

She dropped her feet to the floor. Allowed her shoulders to fold. Dropped her head to protect her face. Gard got out of his chair. She put her hands up, looking down into them as if she could right there and then disappear into their midst.

This was, he thought, not the way it was supposed to turn out. Her disappointment had shaken him. He sat down at her feet and waited until enough was enough.

Come on, Deesh. I can change the name if you hate it that much.

Her shoulders had begun, a little, to shake.

So she was going to laugh at him to hide her worry that he had taken very public liberties with the most private word in her existence. She even published as simply E. Calder. An odd sound issued from her throat. She was trying to do the right thing and keep her hilarity at just the right temperature for the occasion.

He gently pulled her hands from her face. She was not laughing.

Deesh?

No answer.

Is it so bad? I can call it Homers Classic Comics Illustrated for all I care. He waited for her to remind him that Homer had not composed the particular tale to which his song alluded.

She wouldnt look at him.