Timothy Zahn - For Love of Amanda

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2024-11-23 0 0 106.05KB 14 页 5.9玖币

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*For Love of Amanda* by Timothy Zahn

"Music hath charms..." and, like any powerful tool, it must be

handled with care.

--------

The bar was a small local job, a bit shabby but clean enough,

tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner of an equally worn working-

class neighborhood.

I looked around as I sipped the beer I'd ordered. The clientele

was pretty much the same mix I'd seen here every other evening for the

past week: burly working-class men from the steel mills gathering for a

little hearty Saturday-night conversation, a few lower-level

professionals and their wives or girlfriends, plus a scattering of

hopeful or hopeless singles, most of them looking a little on the

burned-out side. There was also a sprinkling of travelers from the

small and undistinguished hotels around the corner on the highway, most

of them probably salesmen who spent far too much of their time in

places like this.

But then, so had I, at least lately. And I was hardly in the

sales business.

I took another sip, wincing at the taste. The place smelled

heavily of this particularly bad brand of beer, heavily overlaid with

the scent of the harder drinks being downed by those who hadn't come

here to socialize. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, the clink of

glasses, and a general conversational buzz punctuated at irregular

intervals by a call for service or a bark of laughter.

It was just so typically mid-twentieth-century-America that

sometimes I felt I had to be on a vid set; that at some unexpected

moment a Mohawk-haired director would step into view from among the

potted ferns lining the wall by the door and yell, "Cut."

But that wasn't going to happen. This was the real 1953, and the

real Pittsburgh. And I was really here.

I sipped my beer again and glanced at the clock above the bar.

One minute till nine. The piano across from the far end of the bar was

still unoccupied; but if there was one thing I'd learned in the past

six weeks, it was that the pianist was one of those time-obsessive

people you could set your watch by. I took another sip --

And there he was, stepping out of the door behind the bar and

making his unobtrusive way through the tables toward the piano. He was

thin to the point of scrawniness, twenty-three years old though he

looked younger, with the vacant-edged expression of a man who's

collected enough kicks to the head that he's basically given up on

life.

The great jazz pianist Weldon Sommers. Or rather, the soon-to-

be-great jazz pianist Weldon Sommers.

He sat down at the piano, and for a moment his fingers caressed

the keys in silence as if he was waiting for the muse to join him on

the bench. Then, very softly, he began to play.

It was nothing special at first, just the typical background

filler that a thousand other third-rate barroom pianists were pounding

out this evening all across the United States. His eyes lifted from the

keys as he gradually brought up the volume on the half-melodies and

began looking around the room. Here and there his gaze paused

momentarily on this table or that, as if sifting through the essence of

the person or persons seated there, before moving on.

And then, after a few false starts, I saw his eyes come to rest

on a hard-faced brunette seated alone at the bar, her lacquered nails

rubbing with silent hopelessness at the smooth curve of her glass. As

Weldon stared at her, I heard the meaningless filler he was playing

start to change as the tone began to mirror the mix of emotions in her

face. The melodies became longer and more elaborate, the harmonies

sweeping the minor end of the musical spectrum. It was as if he was

capturing the essence of the woman in his music, creating her pain and

despair and feeding it back again to her.

And the change wasn't only in the music. As I watched Weldon, I

could see a hint of shared pain and pity in his face as he created the

music of her soul.

I looked back at the woman. She was responding to the music,

slumping ever farther onto her bar stool, staring into her drink as if

wishing it was a deep pool she could throw herself into. Her fingers

dabbed at her eyes, her back twitching with silent sobs. She had

connected with the music; and as the music had darkened and deepened,

the hopelessness she'd brought in with her had turned to black thoughts

of death.

And then, with a subtlety that I doubted a single person in the

bar even noticed, the music again began to change.

It began with whispers of hope, bits of brighter melodies

unexpectedly appearing among the minor keys like small patches of blue

sky peeking out between storm clouds. Slowly, the cheerful melodies

began to grow in length and complexity and energy, the blue sky

steadily pushing back the clouds.

And again, the brunette was responding. The thoughts of death on

her face began to soften, the hopelessly tight grip on her glass began

to loosen, and her slumped posture began to straighten. When the music

had mirrored her mood she had connected with it, grabbing on like a

fish with a piece of bait. And now, with her psyche firmly hooked,

Weldon and his music were pulling her upwards toward the light.

The blue sky dominated the music now, the darkness shrinking

into mere echoes of distant pain and sorrow. The brunette was looking

around the room, actually focusing some attention on the rest of

humanity instead of solely on herself. There was no real animation in

her face yet, but her eyes seemed brighter and more cheerful. Though

maybe that was just the aftereffect of the tears in her eyes.

And then, with a suddenness that caught me by surprise even

though I'd been expecting it, from out of the mix of clouds and blue

sky came a blaze of musical sunlight.

The effect was striking. The brunette straightened up, her chin

lifting as she took a deep breath. This time as she looked around the

room, her face was relaxed and at peace, a small smile playing around

the corners of her lips. The music came to a crescendo, then faded away

into a quiet calmness. The woman took another deep breath, then picked

up her drink as if to down the remains in a single, radiantly defiant

swallow.

She paused, looked into the glass, and set it down untouched.

Pulling a couple of well-worn bills out of her purse, she laid them on

the counter beside the glass. Then, with her head held high, she walked

straight across the room to the door.

And as she lifted her hand to open it, I saw for the first time

the glint of the wedding ring on her left hand.

I looked over at Weldon. His eyes were still on the door through

which she had disappeared, and as I peered through the smoke it seemed

to me that his face was more alive than it had been when he'd first

entered the room.

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