He had trouble putting it all in sequence. Every time he tried, the music would run through his head and he would make up a new tune. He wanted to playa few of them, but there was always the chance that the Nazis were on his trail, following the sound of the music in his head.
It was still bothersome to him that they had managed to pull themselves through when Claudeville and Bernot and little Gaston had fallen and died. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. He wanted desperately to play them a going-away song.
He shifted around and unslung the guitar. He laid it on his lap and touched the strings. He wasn’t sure he could even play with two fingers missing, but the healing had somehow been speeded up by the passage through to this place, and he had been thinking for many days about how he could lay his hand on the neck to do what he wanted to do. It would be a different sound, but it might be a fine sound. He wanted to try, and to try this first time as a going-away song for them.
Knowing he was taking a terrible chance, he raised the guitar and fitted himself to it. Then he began to play, very softly. It wasn’t one of the new tunes from his head, it was one little Gaston had enjoyed. “Rosetta.”
It worked. The fingers that were left accommodated themselves and the song jumped up and out.
He sat there on the golden sand, a carpet of black beneath him, without moon, and the bright snowfall of too many stars above, with his back to the dark altar, and he played. And the shapes that had waited in the darkness came to listen.
One was a creature without eyes that sank its filaments into the sand and absorbed the sound by vibration. Another rolled into a ball and pulsed with soft pastel colors through its scales. Another looked like a flower but had feet and pods where hands should have been. There was a tall, thin one that hummed softly; and a snakelike creature with a woman’s face; and a paper-thin flying wing that swooped in to pick up the sound of “Rosetta” and then sailed away into darkness, only to return again and again as though refilling itself.
After a long while, Michel Hervé realized he was not alone. Because his eyes had been closed, and because he had been living with the music, he had been in their company and had not known. He stopped playing.
The flower began to wilt, the ball of pastel scales went gray, the flying wing sailed away and did not return, the creatures grew silent and hummed no more. He understood, and began strumming softly. They perked up. He smiled.
“Do any of you speak?” he asked. There was no answer, but they listened. “We had to climb to escape the Boches,” he said, talking to them, not to himself, and letting the music of one of the new tunes flow along as background. “I’ll have to tell Bernot’s daughter how he died, if I ever get back. I could hear him asking for absolution as he fell. He was much older than Gaston, and I didn’t know him as much, but I think that long after I’ve forgotten certain things about Gaston, I’ll be able to smell Bernot’s pipe tobacco.”
The flying wing sailed back overhead, dipped, caught a downdraft, swooped and filled itself with sound, and rose on its forked tail. It went straight up and was lost among the spilled milk of the stars.
“The rope was frayed. I think it must have rubbed against some rocks. We didn’t see. We could have gotten away, I’m sure of that. Hemp. Perhaps we would have done better had we used hemp instead of manila. Some day they’ll make better ropes.”
A gentle purple light began to seep out of the dark stones of the altar. Michel felt warmth at his back. He looked over his shoulder and the glow was growing, enveloping him. It was like a tepid bath. It cut off the chill of the night, but not the darkness. The darkness remained and the silent creatures remained, but the maquisards were dead and could not return.
“They fell. And I fell with them. But something very peculiar happened. There was a place in the air, and I fell through it, and the others went down, but I didn’t. You may think it odd that I don’t question what happened. My mother was a gypsy. I don’t question such things. Or the music. Magic shouldn’t be questioned. If this is magic. I don’t know. But, listen, all of you, listen for a moment longer, then I’ll play you many songs, “Avalon” and “Nuages” and even a lovely song I know, “Stardust,” that you will enjoy. What I need to know is the way back. I don’t question, you understand, but I want to get back, to tell some people what happened to little Gaston and Claudeville; and I really must tell Bernot’s daughter that he died for her and for France. Can you understand what I’m asking? Do any of you speak?”
But there was only silence.
So he played the songs for them, because they would have spoken if they could. He knew that. And they enjoyed the music. He was a wonderful musician.
And the stürmerkommandos did not come.
The purple glow settled around Michel Hervé and the silent creatures watched him, and suddenly he stopped playing. They watched him for a time, but he did not seem inclined to play more, and they went away silently, one by one.
He dragged the canister wearily. If he had known why he was compelled to burden himself so, it might have been easier. But he had no idea. The canister had been there in the golden sand when he had drifted down through the air from the space where the peculiar passage had occurred. He had understood, without questioning, that this was a thing he had to keep with him. He even knew it was leaking death, but he had attached the rope and had assumed the burden.
And when he came to the second altar, much larger but exactly identical to the tiny one of dark stones where he had rested, he knew he should bury the canister there.
So he did, and he lay down a good distance from the leaking metal container, and he waited for someone to come and tell him what he should do. He perceived that he had no control over what was happening to him, that where he was and what it meant would probably never be revealed to him, but that he must be patient.
All through the night that stretched on without end, he waited; sometimes sleeping, sometimes letting the music have its life. And in the night the dark stones of the great altar let loose the purple glow, and he was bathed in the radiance. When he awoke, there was day all around him, and the purple glow was faintly discernible, but there was still no sun, not of any color.
But Claudeville and Bernot and little Gaston were there. They sat around him, cross-legged on the golden sand, and they waited for him to awaken. For just an instant he was happy to see them, but then he understood that they were dead, and he sat up with pain in his face.
“Now I must make the choice, is that it?” he said.
They watched him. They did not plead nor did they try by their deaths to shame him. They merely sat quietly, as the animals had sat. They presented him with the other side of the question by their presence.
“If the music, then you cannot go home, eh, Gaston, little friend? Claudeville? Bernot, I’ll never smell your pipe tobacco again? Is that it? If I want to make the music?”
The glow from the altar surrounded them, because the time for making the decision was at hand.
“And what of this metal thing with the death in it? Does that come with me and my music, or does it stay here where no one will ever suffer from it?”
Spectacular runs of notes cascaded through his mind.
He began to breathe very heavily. He felt himself about to cry. He didn’t want to cry; he knew what that would make him decide.
“I have no choice,” he said. “It is the music. It was always the music. Forgive me. You understand, perhaps you won’t understand, but you died for something you loved, and I would do the same. But to live for it is even better.”