Fragments of music. Real Tripsinging, as pure as air. Lim’s improvisations. The Enigma score. Celcy’s voice.
‘… Tasmin will be so proud! Everyone will know who we are, won’t they? You, and Tasmin, and even me.’
Then back to the recording session, Lim’s voice again. ‘You’d think after all this time they could say something meaningful … that was petulant of you … pisses me off when they don’t know who I am …’
And finally great swaths of music, a full concert of it, uninterrupted hours of Lim’s music, indomitable and triumphant.
When it was over, Tasmin sat in the silence of the house for most of the night, staring at nothing.
‘It wasn’t you, Tassy. It wasn’t your fault.’ Tasmin’s mother wept, agonized by his guilt.
‘In a way it was. If the Enigma score hadn’t been at the house, she couldn’t have given it to him. If he hadn’t had it, he couldn’t have gone there.’ He reached for her hand, taking it in his, wishing she could see him.
‘Tassy, it was he who asked for it, and she who gave it. All you did was …’ His mother stared in his direction, intimidated by his silence.
‘All I did was break a rule. Me. The one who was always telling her how important the oaths were. The one who always talked about honor.’
‘What you did was make a mistake. Not a dishonorable one. You only wanted the score to study. It was just a mistake, not a matter of honor….’
‘Mother, it feels like a matter of honor to me. I can’t explain it. I know I’m not guilty of having any evil intent. I know I’m not guilty of anything perverse or dreadful, but I can’t just let it rest. If I’d obeyed the rules, there wouldn’t have been a mistake. Celcy would be alive. And Lim.’
‘All right,’ she spat at him, her decade’s old resignation giving way at last to something alive and angry. ‘So you did something wrong. God forbid you should ever do anything wrong. Everyone else, but not you. You’re so much above mistakes. So damn good. And now you’re going to punish me because you made a mistake.’ She began to weep, tears running down her face in runnels from those wide, blind eyes. ‘You’re all I have left!’
The money I got for the house will take care of you,’ he said at last, unable to meet her pain with anything but this chilly comfort. ‘I bought a BDL annuity, and I’ve written to Betuny in Harmony. She sent word by the last caravan through. She’s coming from Harmony. One of the laymen from the Citadel will look after you until she gets here.’
‘We never really got along.’
‘You will now. She’s your sister, and she’s very grateful to have a place since her husband died.’
‘She thinks I’m crazy.’ It was half a laugh.
‘Let her think what she likes. And I won’t be gone forever.’
‘I wish I understood why you have to go at all.’
He wanted to tell her, but it would only have confused her as much as it confused him, so he said none of the things he had been thinking for days. Instead he murmured, ‘I have to know why, Mother. I can’t go back to my own life until I know why. Right now all I can think of is questions with no answers. Please – if you won’t give me your blessing, at least tell me it’s all right.’ He did not want to weep. He had already wept enough.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, drying her eyes on her sleeve. ‘It’s all right, Tasmin. If you feel you have to, I guess you have to. I just wish you’d forgive yourself and let it go. We can all blame ourselves because people die. I blamed myself over your father. And over Lim.’
‘I know you did. This is just something I have to do.’
‘All right.’ She twisted the handkerchief in her hands, wringing it, reaching up to run it under her eyes. ‘Just be sure you take warm clothes with you. And plenty of food…. ‘ She laughed at herself. ‘I sounded so … motherlike. We never outgrow it. We just go on fretting.’
‘I will, Mother. I’ll take everything I need.’
He went out to the quiet-car and sat in it, too weary to move for the moment, thinking aloud all the things he had wanted to say but had not.
‘I’ve always been your good boy, Mother. Yours and Dad’s. I never asked questions. I always did what I was told. If I broke any rules, they were always little rules, for what I thought were good reasons. I loved someone, even though I knew she loved me in a different way. I wanted a child, and she wanted to be my child. Still, I really loved her, and sometimes – oh, sometimes all that love came back to me a hundredfold. And I thought if I went on being good, life would be like that always. Something bright and singing, something terrible and wonderful would come to me. Like my viggy Dad gave me when I was seven. Like the medal I won. Like Celcy the way she was sometimes. Something joyful.
‘And instead there’s this thing caught in my throat that won’t go down. Two people dead, and I don’t know why. One I loved, one I hated, or maybe loved, I don’t know which. Maybe the other way around. All the things I thought I wanted … I don’t know about them anymore…. I thought Celcy was everything to me, and yet I didn’t ever take
