The Carpet Makers (16 page)

Then he hurried immediately down to the cellar to check on Piwano.

The boy sat with his back against the wall and was hungrily devouring everything edible he had found in his hiding place. It seemed that he had not been awake for long, but he looked much better than he had early this morning. When Opur opened the secret door, he smiled happily.

“Tell me everything,” the old man suggested. “Start from the beginning.”

Piwano put down his bread and told him. About the harsh training he had to endure; about the rough, boorish environment in which he had to live on board the Imperial spaceships. About inhospitable, foreign worlds, about bone-numbing work, about illnesses, and about hateful attacks by the other shipsmen.

“They chased me away when I played, so I hid in the engine rooms just to play,” he recounted with a quivering voice. “Then they smashed my flute, and when I tried to make another one, they smashed it, too.”

A band of steel seemed to draw around Opur’s chest as he listened to the boy’s story.

“You’ve put yourself in great danger, Piwano,” he said earnestly. “You’ve run away from the Emperor’s service. That carries a death penalty.”

“Master, I can’t be a shipsman!” Piwano shouted. “I can’t live that way. If that’s the only way I can live, I would rather die. It’s not because I don’t want to serve the Emperor; of course, I love the Emperor, but…” He paused.

“But you love the flute even more, don’t you?”

Piwano nodded. “Yes.”

Opur sat in silent thought. He wasn’t sure what he should do. He was old; he wasn’t afraid for himself, no matter what happened. He was only afraid for the boy.

Desertion was a serious matter: that much he knew about the laws of the Imperial Shipsmen. Even if Piwano turned himself in voluntarily, he would have to expect serious punishment, probably a long sentence at hard labor on an undeveloped planet. And for a fragile, sensitive boy like Piwano, that would be the same as a death sentence.

“Master, may I have a flute again?” Piwano asked.

Opur looked at him. That glow of absolute, unmitigated devotion to something bigger than himself still shimmered in the boy’s eyes—that glow the old flutemaster had discovered in the eyes of an eight-year-old.

“Come,” he said.

They went upstairs to the lesson room. Piwano looked around, eyes sparkling at finding himself again in the room where he had spent so many years of his childhood; it seemed that an invisible force was filling him with new life.

Opur went to the windows that opened onto the street to be certain that no guild soldiers were in sight. Then he motioned the boy over to him.

“Piwano, I am willing to hide you, even for years, if necessary,” he declared earnestly. “But you must never leave the house, even if nothing outside seems suspicious—never. The Guild has disguised spies, and you never can tell who is in their pay. And as much as possible, you should stay away from the windows. You can play the flute in your hideaway, at least during the day when it can’t be heard on the street. Agreed?”

Piwano nodded.

“But in case you should ever need to get away, I’ll tell you about an escape route known only to a few.” Opur pointed to a building diagonally across from the flutemaster’s house; it was set somewhat back from the street and wedged between the displays of a basketmaker and the bar of a dark, greasy soup-kitchen. “That’s a laundry. That’s where you run in. From the front, it’s obvious that there’s a large drying yard behind the building where linens are nearly always hanging out to dry. You can’t be seen between the sheets. A pursuer will immediately think of the numerous exits from the drying yard that lead to other alleys. But you must turn immediately left and you’ll come into the soup-kitchen from the rear. A trapdoor in the floor leads to the cellar, and down there is a set of shelves—similar to the one here—that you can swing aside. Behind it, a hallway runs for a long distance and finally opens into the underground water system of the Upper Town. So, even if they discovered your entry point, there are literally thousands of possible exits for you.”

Piwano nodded again. Opur had seen the boy memorize whole pieces of music with just one look; so he felt sure that he had understood everything and would never forget it.

He walked over to the cabinet where he kept his written music, books, and instruments. After brief consideration, he removed a small case, opened it, and took out a triflute, which he presented to Piwano.

“This is a very, very old flute, which I have saved for a long time … for a special moment,” he explained. “And I think this is that moment.”

Piwano held it reverently in his hands, turned it over, and looked at it carefully. “There’s something different about it,” he said.

“Instead of the flute of bone, it has one of glass.” Opur closed the empty case and put it aside. “The glass has become milky with age. You will have to get used to it a bit, because a glass flute has a sharper tone than a bone flute.”

Carefully, Piwano raised the triflute to his lips and wrapped his fingers around the three interwoven flutes. He played a few chords. They sounded harsh and dissonant. The old man smiled.

“You’ll master it.”

*   *   *

Ten days later the Imperial spaceship took off. The whole time, the silver colossus had been visible in the distance on the shabby, old spaceport grounds. But this morning, the air over the city vibrated with the whine of the rocket engines. Opur and Piwano watched together from the window, as the spacecraft’s shiny metal hull rose above the houses, awkwardly at first, then climbing—faster and faster, higher and higher—until it had shrunk to a tiny point that disappeared far above them in the sky. The silence that then descended was like a feeling of salvation.

“You must not become careless now, Piwano,” the old man warned. “They have flown off and won’t be back for two years. But the Guild is still looking for you.”

Months passed. Piwano soon rediscovered his old virtuosity. He sat for hours in his hideaway and played the classical pieces, honed his technique, and attempted variations; he was tireless and eager. Opur sometimes sat with him and just listened; sometimes they played together. Besides, there was hardly anything more he could teach him.

Piwano beamed with excitement. Soon he was ready to try the most difficult pieces—pieces that had always been problematic even for Opur. And to the utter amazement of the old flutemaster, the boy even succeeded in mastering the
Ha-Kao-Ta,
one of the classical pieces generally regarded as unplayable.

“What are those words below the notes?” Piwano asked when Opur placed an old manuscript in front of him.

“Transcriptions of a lost language,” the master said. “The classical triflute pieces are all very old, some of them hundreds of thousands of years and more. Some flutemasters say that the triflute is older than the stars and that the world was created out of its music. But, of course, that’s nonsense.”

“Does anyone know what the words mean?”

Opur nodded. “Come with me.”

They climbed up from the cellar to the lesson room. Opur went to a small table beneath the street-side window and, from the top of it, he picked up a case decorated with worn wood carvings.

“The old flute pieces are actually stories, written in an ancient, forgotten language. The words of that language are not words like the ones we speak, but rather motifs of notes on the triflute. In this chest, I have the key to this language in safekeeping. It is the secret of the flutemasters.”

He opened the lid of the case. His own flute lay inside, along with a stack of old papers, note transcriptions, and handwritten notations … some of them yellowed and brittle.

Piwano took the manuscripts Opur handed to him and examined them. He nodded slightly when he had understood the principle: the length of the notes, the rhythm and the accent were determined by the requirements of the music, but the sequences of note motifs and chord rows represented words and concepts.

“I have deciphered some of the stories. The oldest of the classical pieces are about a lost Golden Age of wealth and happiness in which wise, generous kings ruled. Other pieces tell of a terrible war, which ushered in the dark epoch, and they tell of the last king, who lives imprisoned in his palace for a thousand years, doing nothing but shedding tears for his people.”

He replaced the papers and closed the lid again.

“Before my death, I will pass this chest along to you, because you will be my heir,” he declared.

*   *   *

The end of the year arrived, bringing with it the preparations for the annual student concert. Opur wondered if the circle of triflute players and the handful of listeners—most of them relatives or friends—would ever be large enough that he’d lack for space to accommodate them in his lesson room. In recent years, this performance had seemed to attract a smaller and smaller audience. But the concert was important, because it gave his students a goal, and the competition with others provided them with perspective.

Shortly before the concert, Piwano confessed his desire to perform, as well.

“No,” said Opur firmly. “It’s much too risky.”

“Why?” Piwano persisted stubbornly. “Do you think the Guild will plant a spy in the audience? You have known all the people who will be here for years.”

“Don’t you realize how quickly the word will get around that someone can play the
Ha-Kao-Ta?
Don’t be foolhardy, Piwano.”

Piwano clenched his fists. “Master, I
must
play. I can’t sit in the cellar forever and make music for myself. It’s not … not
complete.
Do you understand? It only becomes art if it touches other people. If I play with nobody listening, then it makes no difference whether I play at all.”

The flutemaster felt irritation rising inside him, and also fear for the boy. But he knew him well enough to realize that Piwano would always do in the end what he believed was right, even if it might cost him his life.

“Okay, I’ll allow it,” he relented. “But only on one condition: You won’t play any difficult pieces, nothing that might draw attention. You will play easy polyphonic pieces that others have mastered, as well. Nothing above the level of the
Shen-Ta-No.
” He was absolutely serious. He was prepared to threaten Piwano with being thrown out on the street if he didn’t agree.

But Piwano nodded thankfully. “Agreed, Master.”

In spite of that, Opur had an uneasy feeling as the concert approached. His anxiety spread to his other students and made them nervous. Never before had he found the necessary preparations so difficult. He rearranged the performance order endlessly and, just as often, the seating. He became dissatisfied with the pillow covers and almost got into an argument with the cook from the soup-kitchen, who was supposed to provide the refreshments.

Then the evening of the concert arrived. Opur greeted all the visitors personally at the door; upstairs one of the students showed them to their seats. All of them arrived in their best clothes, which, of course, didn’t mean much for people living in this part of town. As a small boy, Opur had once experienced a concert his own master had given in the Upper Town: sometimes he suspected that he was always trying to copy the wasteful splendor of that day with the concerts he presented—but without ever managing more than a parody of a great festival.

As was customary, the flutemaster said a few words at the beginning. He reviewed the past year and commented on a few of the pieces on the program. Then the youngest beginners started first—a practice that had proved practical since they suffered the most from stage fright, and he didn’t want to make them wait too long.

The beginning was tough. The first student forgot a repetition and got off beat when he realized it. Then he played faster and faster in an attempt to get it over with more quickly. There were some indulgent smiles and he still got applause when he bowed his scarlet face. The second student, an older woman, surprised even Opur with the unusual fluency of her playing; it seemed that this time she really had practiced. Gradually, the concert smoothed out, even became quite good, and Opur felt the worry that had gripped him in recent days slowly subside.

Then Piwano began to play.

As soon as he put the triflute to his lips and blew the first note, a jolt passed through the audience. Suddenly, there was electricity in the room. Heads raised and backs straightened, as though pulled up by invisible cords. The instant the first note rang out from the flute, it was clear that a star was rising. Everything else was in shades of gray; here was color. Everything else was successful effort; here was effortless perfection. It was as though the cloud cover had suddenly opened to allow a ray of pure light to break through.

Piwano played the
Pau-No-Kao,
an easy polyphonic piece that one of the other students had already played. He played nothing but what those before him had played—but the way he played it!

Even Opur, who had heard him play immeasurably more difficult things and had the highest possible regard for his talent, was awestruck. It was a revelation. With this simple piece, the willowy blond boy had completely outdone himself; he had attained a new level of triflute virtuosity as though in a quantum leap. With this simple piece, he outclassed everyone around him, showed them their place, and made it clear once and for all who in this room was a beginner and who was a master. No one would later remember any of the other pieces, and everyone would remember this one.

His fingers danced over the flutes as lightly and with as little effort as others need to breathe or speak, to laugh or love. Simply playing the polyphony of the piece was not enough for him. He exploited the fact that precisely the same note on the metal flute had a different timbre when played on the wooden flute, and he interchanged notes between the flutes to create contraposed, subliminal movement in the music. He used the glass flute’s tendency to slip into a sharp treble when blown too hard in order to imbue some passages with a sense of drama that no one had ever made audible in that way before.