Rhapsody

by Gould, Judith

  Thousands, she thought. Just in this one place. Millions all over the country. And nobody cared. She wanted to change that. She'd been talking to survivors, with the help of a translator, and photographing them. There was so much to do, so much to learn, so much more to see and document.

  She flung her long raven hair out of her eyes. How could I have become so distracted by Misha? she wondered. Or any other man, for that matter. I should have been here weeks or even months ago, working on this project It's like I've finally found something that really means something to me.

  Despite the creepiness of the place, the sense of horror that lingered in the air like a miasma, she felt extraordinarily happy. She was in her element, shooting pictures.

  Now, she and Jason were calling it a day and going back to the fleabag that called itself a hotel. Their guide, who demanded more money at every bend in the road, had wandered off to sleep while they worked. Well, she thought, getting back to the hotel is easy. A long bicycle ride but easy to find.

  She started out ahead of Jason, both of them loaded down with equipment in backpacks, peddling through the brush, taking a shortcut bade to the main road. Her eyes scanned the treetops and bits of sky above her. It was a clear day, beautiful really, as dusk fast approached. She turned her head, looking back at Jason. "I'll beat you back to the hotel," she cried, a huge smile on her face, at once beguiling and joyful.

  Suddenly there was an explosion.

  Jason, bringing up the rear, was thrown off his bicycle. When he finally scrabbled to his feet, he looked up ahead, reorienting himself, then threw his hands over his face for a moment. When he removed them, he began to scream. And scream.

  Misha opened the door and stood back in surprise. "I thought you two were going shopping," he said.

  "We did," the young man said. "But I'm finished and just thought if you had a few minutes we could have a drink and talk over a few things."

  Misha didn't hide his irritation, but he opened the door wide. "Come on in," he said.

  "I know this isn't good timing," the young man said, "but I really need to talk to you."

  "Sure, sure," Misha said, walking back out to the garden patio. "It's not a problem as long as I can take my nap."

  His nap! the young man thought. The world could come crumbling down around him, and all he'd think about would be his nap! Or his rehearsal! Or his cock!

  "I won't be long, Misha," the young man said. "I promise."

  "Want a drink?" Misha asked.

  "I'll make it," the young man said, seeing the bottle of scotch on a table in the sitting room. "Want yours freshened up?"

  "Why not?" Misha said, sitting back down in the comfortable chair he'd just left. "But only a splash of scotch. I've got to be in top form tonight."

  "Goes without saying," the young man said. He went into the conservatory and picked up Misha's drink, then walked back to the table in the sitting room. He turned his back to Misha and mixed himself a scotch and water, humming tunelessly all the while. That done, he took the capsule of Ketamine from his overcoat pocket, opened it, and poured the powder into Misha's nearly empty glass. He then splashed some scotch in the glass, filled it with water and ice, and stirred it vigorously, making certain the powder was completely dissolved.

  When he finished, he turned to Misha, who sat waiting patiently for him in the conservatory. "Voila," he said, walking back to Misha with the appropriate drink extended in one hand. "You'll have a very nice nap now."

  Misha smiled. "Thanks," he said, taking the proffered drink. He held it in his hand, swirling the ice around, then took a large swallow. The sooner I finish this, the sooner he'll feel compelled to leave, he thought. "What's on your mind?" he asked.

  The young man stood sipping his drink, looking out at the Tokyo skyline. "This is some view," he said. "These Conservatory Suites are fantastic."

  "They are, aren't they," Misha said, looking at the young man. "Why don't you take off your coat and sit down?" he asked. Damn, just get on with it, he thought. I'm tired and need my rest.

  "I'm fine," the young man said, looking at Misha. "Here's to tonight's performance, by the way," he said, lifting his glass ceremoniously, then taking a sip.

  "Tonight," Misha said, politely lifting his glass and taking another large swallow.

  The young man walked toward the end of the conservatory and stood looking out again. "The reason I came by," he said, his back turned to Misha, "is that I wanted to let you know what's happened with this Russian thing. The tour."

  "I don't really care what's happened," Misha said, scowling. Suddenly he felt a little woozy. I'm more tired than I realized, he thought.

  "Well, you'd better start caring," the young man said, his back still turned. "Because these people are very upset with you. They don't like taking no for an answer."

  There was an unusually aggressive tone in his voice, and Misha laughed, despite being annoyed. "I don't think I have anything to be afraid of," he said. He took another swallow of his drink. Almost gone, he thought. Then politeness will force him to leave when I refuse another.

  "I wouldn't be so sure," the young man said. "These are dangerous people." He turned to face Misha. "They're capable of hurting you. Or Vera. Or Nicky." He paused dramatically for effect. "Even Serena," he added.

  Misha started to rise to his feet in outrage. I will not listen to any more of this kind of talk, he thought. He shifted his weight to his feet to get up, but it was as if his body wasn't quite getting the message from his brain. The effort was suddenly too much.

  What the hell? he wondered, puzzled by his sluggish reactions. He set his drink down on the table next to him, almost spilling it as he did so. What the hell? Then it dawned on him.

  The son of a bitch has drugged me! he thought.

  "You ...you've ...drugged me," he said, staring quizzically at the young man.

  "Yes, Misha," the young man said, walking toward him. "I have indeed." Then, with lightning speed he withdrew the handcuffs from his overcoat pocket and slammed them around Misha's wrists, snapping them closed with a loud metallic clank!

  Misha didn't comprehend what had transpired, the movement had been so swift, and when he finally did, he coughed a short laugh. "Ri-dic-u-lous," he slurred.

  When the young man continued to stand and stare at him, smugly smiling, Misha began to think that perhaps this wasn't a joke after all. "What the hell—" he began, panic slowly beginning to seize him. My hands! he thought. My hands! I need my hands!

  The young man had taken the small roll of duct tape out of his pocket, and now peeled off a length and slapped it unceremoniously across Misha's mouth, pushing it hard against his lips with both hands.

  Misha's hands moved up toward his mouth but dropped down again, as if the effort was too much. He eyes, however, were wide with rising terror.

  The roll of tape dangled at the end of the strip across his mouth until the young man roughly ripped it off. Then he calmly peeled off another length, this one much longer, and wrapped it once around Misha's head, placing a second layer of tape across his mouth. Finally, taking the roll, he got down on his knees and wrapped the tape around Misha's legs, pinning them to the chair legs.

  He stood back up, finished, admiring his handiwork. "You never looked better, Misha," he said sarcastically, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. His breathing came in labored gasps from his exertions. "Never."

  He shook his head from side to side and wiped his brow again. "Now you're going to listen to me, aren't you?" He barked a laugh and walked back into the sitting room, where he poured himself another scotch and water. Then he returned to the conservatory and stood in front of Misha, sipping the drink.

  "How does it feel to be on the bottom?" he asked in a malicious tone of voice. "Well, for once in your life, you can't answer, can you? You have to listen to me. I'm the boss. Now you know how I've felt all these years, having to do whatever you told me to do, having to be at your beck and call. Having to ride on your coattails becau
se I wasn't good enough to make it on my own."

  He paused and took another sip of his drink, still staring at Misha. "I didn't have the talent or the looks— and that's part of your success, you know, your pretty face—so I had to kowtow to you, taking a tiny percentage of your huge income. Now comes along a chance for me to make a big wad of cash—this Russian deal— and you? You just won't do it, will you? Because of your fucking principles."

  He took the small sledgehammer from the pocket of his overcoat and began to swing it loosely in his hand, getting used to its heft, strutting back and forth in front of Misha.

  Misha's eyes followed the sledgehammer, his panic beginning to reach a crescendo. He knew what the sledgehammer was for. Sweat began to roll down his face, getting into his eyes, burning them and blurring his vision. He desperately wanted to wipe it away. He tried to scream, again and again, but all he could hear were muffled grunts. He tried to kick, but his legs were immobilized.

  What am I going to do? he wondered in horror. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, despite the drug, and at the same time thought that he might close his eyes and pass out at any minute, succumbing to the drug's soporific effects. I've got to stay awake, he told himself. Got to stay awake!

  "Now, because of you, I'm not going to be getting that nice tax-free wad of cash," the young man continued. "Now, because of you, they may go after your wife or your kid or your whore. But you know what? I don't care. I don't care what they want anymore."

  "I"—he paused and thumped a hand against his chest—"want you." He pointed an accusatory finger at Misha, glaring, then straightened up and smiled at him crazily. He suddenly turned and grabbed one of the heavy patio tables and scraped it across the floor. Just the thing, he thought. Jerking Misha's hands by the handcuffs, he slammed them down on the tabletop, holding them there with his free hand. The other held the sledgehammer.

  Misha's chest and face felt as if they would explode from the effort to scream, and salty tears began to roll down his cheeks. He was helpless to defend himself, and he knew it.

  God help me, he prayed. God, please help me.

  The young man began swinging the sledgehammer again, rhythmically, back and forth, back and forth, in higher and higher arcs, watching Misha's eyes, enjoying the terror he saw there. Finally, he swung it up to his shoulder, got a good grip, and started to bring it down with all his might.

  For a fleeting second Misha imagined he had seen a ghost. I'm dead, he thought in a daze. He's killed me, and I'm already dead. For nothing else could explain what he fancied he had seen.

  Then he felt an explosion of pain, an excruciating white-hot pain such as he had never known could exist. It seemed to blast his hand to smithereens, then consumed his entire being. His head jerked back, and in the instant before he blacked out, Ins imagination—mercifully, he thought—took over. For he glimpsed Vera, Nicky's Samurai sword in hand, standing over Manny's body, blood everywhere.

  Epilogue

  As Vera watched from behind him, Misha gently touched his trembling fingertips to the mezuzah on the door frame. He then leaned over and touched his lips to it reverently. Tears, unbidden, came into her delft blue eyes. She had never seen him do this before, and had always thought it curious that he'd insisted on the cheap mezuzah remaining where he'd put it the day they'd moved into the apartment.

  He turned to her. There were tears in his eyes as well, she noticed, but he was smiling, even if ruefully.

  Vera reached up and tenderly stroked his tears away and kissed his cheek. She smiled and then turned and unlocked the door. They entered the apartment together, an arm of Misha's slung across her shoulders. In the entrance foyer he abruptly stopped in his tracks and stood still, an alert expression on his face.

  "What is it?" Vera asked, looking at him quizzically.

  "Where's Nicky?" he replied. "There's no 'Daddy, Mommy. Daddy, Mommy.' " He looked at her, and they both laughed.

  "He's over at Sonia and Dmitri's," Vera said. "I thought I told you. He's going to spend the night with them."

  "You probably did," Misha said, taking his overcoat off. "And I forgot."

  "That's understandable under the circumstances," Vera said, taking his coat, and shrugging out of her own. She hung them in the hall closet, then tinned back to Misha. "How about a drink?" she said. "Maybe a brandy? There's a very fancy bottle of something in the kitchen that your new manager sent over. It's supposed to be really special."

  "That'd be great," Misha said. "I'll get them."

  "No, no," Vera said. "Go sit down. You've exerted yourself enough today." She was already on her way to the kitchen. "I'll get them."

  "Okay," Misha said. He walked into the vast double- height living room. A fire flickered in the grate, its flames glinting off the treasures they'd both collected over the years, giving the room a warm, cozy, and homey glow, despite its grand proportions and furnishings.

  Misha put another log in the fireplace, then kicked off his shoes and spread out on the sofa in front of the fire. He stared into its dancing flames, pondering the day's events. How strange it's all been, he thought. Yet how wondrous.

  Coral Randolph had invited friends of Serena's to her magnificently elegant apartment on the Upper East Side, where she gave a combination memorial service-cocktail party in Serena's memory. When the engraved invitation had come in the mail, Misha had thought that Vera would ignore it or summarily throw it in the garbage.

  Well, he mused, I should have known my wife better than that. She'd surprised him for the thousandth time.

  "We must go," she'd said. "Both of us."

  "But, Vera," he'd replied, "don't you think—"

  "Misha," Vera had interjected, "it's the least we can do. The two of you had a kind of love for each other after all. And I love you. We owe it to her memory, Misha. We must go. I insist." While Vera didn't relish the idea, she thought it was important that Misha go, with her there to be supportive. He needed to grieve Serena's death properly to help him overcome her tragic loss.

  He had acquiesced and was glad now that he had done so. The steely Coral Randolph had been very gracious, warm even, and had wept openly during the short service in her living room. She's actually human, Misha thought, and she really loved Serena.

  Only Jason had spoken, his nicks and scrapes not quite healed, and his brief tribute to his mentor was movingly and lovingly delivered. The service had given Misha at least some sense of closure. The horrors of the days after Manny's attack had only been compounded by Serena's terrible death.

  All that beauty! he thought. All that talent! And the youthful enthusiasm and creative force at work in her. Only to be destroyed by a land mine left over from a war long over.

  He heaved a sigh. Life's not fair, he thought. It's not a fair world. But as Vera had reminded him, we must try to live as fairly as possible even so, and to remember to be grateful, no matter the circumstances, for the mystery and gift that is life itself.

  He smiled to himself. Her advice sounded so much like old Arkady, his long-dead friend in Moscow. It was almost as if Arkady were speaking through Vera, watching over Misha from somewhere beyond the grave.

  Thank you, old friend, Misha whispered, his eyes closed prayerfully. Thank you. For without you, the memory of you and your love, I might have lost everything.

  Misha opened his eyes and looked into the fire again. I've been so fortunate, he thought. To have a companion who loves me so unquestionably, so unconditionally.

  An involuntary shiver ran through him as he remembered that afternoon in Tokyo. Coolly elegant Vera had struck Manny a potentially lethal blow with the sword, although she'd deliberately slammed it down onto his head with the flat side, so as to injure, not kill.

  Misha hugged himself, remembering that horrible day. He hadn't known Vera had flown in, that she'd been in his hotel suite sleeping that afternoon. She'd come to save their marriage, she'd told Misha, to fight Serena for him if necessary. She hadn't known, of course, that he'd ended h
is affair with Serena.

  His thoughts turned to Manny. Poor Manny. He would never have dreamed that his friend could be so insanely jealous, that he would become unhinged and finally go over the edge. He'll spend years behind bars, he thought. Either in a prison or mental hospital. Who knows?

  With Vera's help, he'd already hired new representation and was negotiating a new recording contract. Under the circumstances, extricating himself from Brighton Beach Records certainly wasn't a problem. He supposed he'd heard the last of them. Sasha had left, simply saying that he and his new girlfriend were going to leave town in search of new adventures. This came as a surprise since Misha, like everyone else, had assumed that Sasha and Manny had been lovers. Well, it doesn't matter, does it? he thought. Misha had wished him luck.

  Vera quietly came into the living room, carrying two brandy snifters. He looked over at her. Vera, my avenging angel, he thought.

  She set the crystal snifters down on the coffee table, then eased down onto the couch next to Misha's prone body. "What're you thinking about?" she asked.

  "Nothing," Misha said. Then after a moment, he said: "And everything."

  Vera tenderly stroked his raven hair, then leaned over and brushed his lips with hers. She sat back up and reached over for their drinks. "It's been quite a day," she said. She handed Misha his drink, and they both sipped quietly.

  "It's a shame you couldn't play for the memorial service," Vera said. "It was a wonderful occasion, but your playing would have made it so complete, so perfect, somehow."

  Misha looked thoughtful for a moment, staring down at his hand. While the injury had not caused any permanent damage, he'd had two broken bones and considerable tissue damage. It would be weeks before it returned to normal.

  He looked up at Vera. "I just don't want to play in front of anybody yet," he said. "I'm just not ready. Can you understand that?"

  Vera nodded. "Yes," she said, "but it would've been nice." She looked at him. "Don't you think it's time you started trying to play, Misha?"