Shostakovich: String Quartet No.3 in F Op.73 [summer 1946]

THE LIGHTS ARE AT THEIR BRIGHTEST SO FAR, WITH YELLOW & AMBER TONES

The composer has removed a stack of folders from the drawer of his desk.

We used to drink tea and talk about the future, remember?

Joscha and Nadzia would laugh and say so much without using words.

Just their eyes, remember?

He lifts his face as if scanning the sky through the ceiling.

I thought I heard thunder.

Remember how the chickens hated thunder, as much as we hated artillery?

Taps the folders with an unlit cigarette.

This is chambered music.

Each score is placed in a drawer upon completion.

I won't even bother trying to have this stuff performed—or published.

Not now.

Drops the folders on the desk with a thump.

What a peculiar position to be in.

Everything we create is subject to official interpretation.

And I'd rather have no interpretation at all.

He puts them swiftly away.

Into the drawer with it!

A long silence as he crosses to the table sits down and runs his hands through his hair, scratching behind the ears. Tension builds.

What?

Haven’t I been a good boy?

They have no idea.

He rubs his head with both hands, mussing his hair.

I’ll make my fiddles to mince around tip-toe.

As if not to cause a ruckus.

Pause

I just want to be left alone.

I haven’t done anything wrong.

He stares with incredulity.

I can see them all commence to dance.

When the directors say so.

Can’t you?

Every so often.

The current gets switched on.

And they all commence to dancing.

On their knees.

Or even in their graves.

At least a game on the field is honest:

One kicks the ball either

This way or that

And if we disagree with the way it’s called

We can holler together in protest

He sighs.

But the rest of life seems to be so much more irrational.

I’ve begun to sign my name to the most ridiculous statements.

Simply to get them to let me be.

There comes a point at which

The natural response consists

Of resignation,

To all appearances.

He stands.

You know the saying:

Give ‘em the finger

But with your hand

Deep down in

Your pants pocket.

He demonstrates by doing so.

THERE IS A CHANGE IN LIGHTING

He pours half a glass of vodka.

Raising the glass he toasts the audience:

To moderation.

Everything in moderation.

Especially moderation itself.

He tosses down the liquor and grimaces slightly.

THE LIGHTS ARE DIMMING YET EVERYTHING IS BECOMING MORE DISTINCT

I had a bit too much to drink.

I walked through the square to the park.

It was very dark.

The moon had waned to nearly nothing up there.

Comrade Stalin

Has measured everything out

Including insomnia

I have my share

Once in the night shadows of the trees

I began to relax and breathe deeply.

The vodka was still in my bones.

But I felt better able to handle myself.

I heard an owl.

An owl is heard.

Lit a cigarette.

Sat down and rubbed my eyes.

He lights a cigarette, sits down, removes his spectacles and rubs his eyes.

Slowly the dance returned in my head.

I found myself smiling.

Later under the streetlight when I saw myself reflected in the window of a shop.

I could see what is happening to my face.

I’m looking progressively older and puffier.

The queerest thing about the face I saw in the glass.

Was the way its mouth behaved when it smiled:

One corner up, one down.

LIGHTS INTENSIFY TO MAXIMUM BRIGHTNESS, THEN BLACKOUT

© arwulf arwulf 2015