DANYLO WAS PACING with agitation by the time Kat and Genya came home from the hospital. "How is Ian?" he asked urgently as soon as Kat stepped through the door.
"Fine," replied Kat. "No broken bones, just stitches and bruises."
Danylo sighed with relief. "It is too bad about his concert, though," said Danylo. "Has he cancelled?"
"Believe it or not, he said he was still going to play tonight."
A smile of admiration formed on Danylo's lips. "Then we'll have to hurry up and have supper so we can get over to the school," he said.
Orysia and Danylo both decided to go to the concert with Kat. Genya, as usual, went over to a friend's house. When they got to Cawthra, it was still early so there were only a few cars in the parking lot. Kat recognized Ian's father's Mercedes and sighed with relief. She was afraid that he might have changed his mind and not come. She also saw Lisa getting out of her parents' SUV. Lisa was dressed in her usual black, but instead of a short leather skirt and ripped stockings, she was wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket. She wore a silver spiked leather dog collar around her neck and her nails were painted black. Surprisingly, she wasn't wearing her usual ghastly makeup. Kat figured it was a concession to her parents being with her. Kat called out to Lisa to get her attention, and Lisa and her parents walked over to the Baliuk car.
Lisa's father reached out his hand and clasped Danylo's firmly. "How was the testimony today?" he asked.
"Good," replied Danylo.
"It was better than that," said Orysia. "Mr. Vincent has presented my father's case very thoroughly."
"I am glad to her it," said Dr. Nguyen, then he turned to Danylo. "Lisa tells me that you will be on the witness stand tomorrow."
"Yes," replied Danylo.
"I shall do my best to attend," said Dr. Nguyen. "Every bit of moral support helps."
Danylo bowed his head in gratitude. "Thank you," he said.
And then he and the Nguyens and Orysia ambled towards the school together, leaving Kat and Lisa by the car.
"Did you remember Ian's knapsack?" asked Lisa.
"I did," said Kat. Then she opened the trunk of the car and grabbed out the knapsack containing the mutilated parachute. "I don't think he'll want it now, though." Not that she wanted it in the car. It gave her the creeps.
"I've got an idea," said Lisa. "Bring it with you."
When they got into the auditorium, Lisa made a beeline over to the principal. Kat stood within hearing range, but kept her distance so as not to look like she was butting in.
"... and if he goes on first, he can get home and rest," Lisa was explaining.
Dr. Bradley nodded in sympathy. "Yes," she said. "It will be a bit disruptive for the others involved, but this is an unusual circumstance. I'm sure no one will complain about these last minute changes."
Lisa smiled grimly, then thanked Dr. Bradley, who quickly walked off, no doubt to inform the other students. "Come on," she said to Kat, motioning for her to follow.
Kat looked over her shoulder and noticed that the families were sitting together: Danylo, Orysia, Lisa's parents and Ian's parents. Kat almost laughed out loud. What an unlikely group. What would they ever talk about?
She followed Lisa onto the stage and then watched as Lisa unzipped the knapsack and unfurled the ripped parachute. "Here, take the end," Lisa directed.
Kat took the one end, and just as they had practised many times, she draped it across the curtains and fastened it. Once it was hung, they both stepped back. It looked terrible. Ribbons of hacked khaki coloured material dangled limply from the deep crimson backdrop. It was worse than no set at all. Kat walked back to pull down her end, but Lisa held her arm. "Just a minute," she said. "Let me think."
Kat shrugged her shoulders. She was too emotionally drained to think anything more about it, but if Lisa had a better idea, that was fine by her.
"Let's turn it upside down," said Lisa.
Kat was about to disagree, but then she understood what Lisa was doing. The parachute had been cut in strips, and by hanging how it was now with the narrow end at the top, it looked forlorn and straggled. Lisa pulled a ladder to one end of the stage and Kat dragged one over to the other end. They each held a bottom corner up high to see what would happen. Instantly, instead of looking forlorn and bedraggled, the strips looked intentional. The backdrop was suddenly transformed with fluttering jagged stripes. The hacked khaki strips of parachute stood out brave and proud.
Kat grinned at Lisa from her perch on the ladder and gave her the thumbs up sign.
There were seats in the orchestra pit for both Kat and Lisa to sit in while Ian played the piano. From that vantage point,
they had a skewed, though close view of the stage. When the lights darkened after his piece, it would take moments for them to jump up and pull down the parachute.
Kat watched as parents and students streamed into the auditorium and found places to sit. She noticed Michael and his family come in, so she waved frantically to get his attention. Before sitting down in his own seat, he walked down the aisle and kneeled down in front of the pit.
"I'm coming to the hearing tomorrow," he said. "Dad agreed to let me miss school."
Kat was touched. "Thank you," she said. "I know my grandfather will appreciate it.
"Talk to you later," said Michael, scampering to his seat before the lights dimmed.
As she watched Michael walk back to his own seat, Kat noticed three familiar burly figures slouch in and sit in the back row. Kat nudged Lisa. "I noticed," said Lisa. It was the three jocks who had beaten Ian.
"I wonder what they're doing here?" whispered Kat.
"Getting a little culture, I guess," replied Lisa with sarcasm.
Beth and Callie also came in together, sitting in front of the three burly teens. Kat noticed that they turned and giggled flirtatiously. It seemed ages ago that these two had been friends of hers. Kat hadn't realized until this moment how distant she felt towards them.
The lights dimmed. Dr. Bradley stepped up onto the stage and announced the changes in the program.
Lisa switched on the spotlights she had arranged for Ian's entrance. The whole stage was plunged into darkness except for the piano in the pit. The ribbons of torn parachute cast an eerie shadow behind the pit and did seem fitting. The auditorium was silent with expectation. Suddenly, a figure burst through the curtains. A collective gasp rose throughout the auditorium. Ian had completely shaven his head, and the black stitches looked like a slash across his scalp. Instead of wearing the long black coat as he had planned, Ian had on his torn and bloodstained shirt and pants from the beating. The most astonishing thing about Ian's appearance was his expression. Ian was the gentlest person Kat knew, but right now his face flashed an angry scowl that was frightening in its intensity. Ian surveyed the audience and his eyes seemed to lock on the three sitting in the back row. Kat followed his gaze and noted with satisfaction that they seemed to squirm.
Ian strode over to the piano and sat down on the bench. As his fingers made contact with the ivory keys, all the anger drained out of his face and was replaced with a look of total concentration.
As the familiar ballade began to unfold, Kat tried to fill her mind with nothing but the music. She searched the faces in the audience and found her grandfather. As the music began, she saw her grandfather's eyes meet her own, and then he looked above her, to Ian. Perhaps he could lose himself in the music and forget about his burden just for a moment?
Danylo looked down at Kataryna's friend on the stage and sighed deeply as he felt the music wash over him. How was it that such beautiful music could come from such an unlikely source? When Kat had phoned Danylo to tell him of Ian's accident, he was horrified, but not really surprised. People tended to hate what they didn't understand. What did surprise him was the strength of this thin pale boy. Not only in the fact that he was able to come out in public like this after such a brutal beating, but that he had the strength and the gift to produce this intricate music.
The ballade began with a pounding intensity that brought to Danylo's mind a vision of violence. He wondered if it had the same effect on Ian? Was he beating the piano just as he had been beaten by those boys? The experience was so sharp that Danylo found himself gripping onto the armrests of his seat. A sob caught in Danylo's throat as he noticed a slight reflection of wetness on Ian's cheek. The boy was weeping.
It brought back the memory of that other pale thin boy, decades earlier. Seeing him again in the courtroom made it seem as if it were just yesterday.
The Nazis had built a huge barbed wire enclosure at the outskirts of Orelets. As Red Army soldiers were captured or surrendered, they were thrown into the open air prison to die of exposure, starvation or thirst. Villagers were tormented by the sight of so many starving prisoners of war — some of whom were neighbours or relatives. One boy could have been no more than 14. His pale thin face showed the first wisps of a beard and his eyes were often filled with tears. It cut Danylo to the core to see this young boy and the others waiting to die.
The Nazi guards had a game. They would pretend not to see when a village woman tossed food over the barbed wire, but then as the starving POWs fought each other for a morsel, the soldiers would shoot into the huddled mass of humanity, killing whomever succeeded in getting a bite. And because the POWs were considered not quite human by their Aryan taskmasters, this activity was considered no more immoral than shooting fish in a barrel. It was unbearable for Danylo to watch this happen without being able to do anything about it. He sent word to his sister in the forest, and they devised a plan.
The next time the guards checked the enclosure for corpses and only one man guarded the open gate, Kataryna made her appearance. Dressed in an open-necked blouse and a tightly cinched skirt, she walked past the entrance, carrying a basket of eggs. Just as the lone guard at the entrance noticed her pass, she caught his eye and smiled. But then her foot caught on a loose stone and she stumbled, eggs scattering around her. As the guard ran to help her back to her feet, some of the POWs were able to escape.
Once they had passed the gate and were heading towards the woods, Danylo walked over to his sister and grasped her elbow. They walked away together as the guard went back to the gate and locked it, never realizing what had just happened.
When they got back to their own cottage, Danylo almost vomited with relief. Had they been caught, both he and Kataryna would have been executed, but that's not what had worried him. It was the "collective responsibility" that was most on his mind. They rounded up villagers for each instance of defiance. He remembered the first time, when a Nazi officer had been killed. That resulted in one dozen villagers being chosen at random, marched into the centre of town, and executed in full view of their neighbours. The bodies were left swinging from ropes in the village square until they rotted and fell down.
How would the Nazis retaliate if they discovered POWs had been set free? But if he and Kataryna hadn't taken the risk, that 14-year-old's eyes would have haunted him forever.
Danylo was brought out of his memory when the music changed. It mellowed and became quiet, almost gentle. Danylo's knuckles relaxed and he was lulled momentarily into thinking the music would be simply pleasurable from now on. It almost sounded like a traditional ballad for a minute or so.
Then it built again. Danylo watched Ian's face and noticed that the boy was no longer weeping. There was a distanced coldness to the face. The hands moved across the keyboard more slowly now, and Danylo waited for the ballade to end. Unexpectedly, the momentum changed. Instead of winding down, it began to build back up with a slow but increasing fierceness. Tears sprung to Danylo's eyes as he remembered what happened just weeks after the POW camps had been established — black uniformed SS swooping down into their village.
Their first target was the Jews, but they came so swiftly that the villagers didn't grasp what was happening. A notice had been put up, requesting that the Jews pack one piece of luggage each and dress in their travel clothing. They were to congregate in the village square at 9 am sharp. The notice stated that they were to be evacuated beyond the war zone for their safety. Some of the Jews were fearful. Rumours of mass killings had drifted into even this remote village, but they were discounted. Germans were civilized, after all. Most packed their bags and congregated as they had been requested to do.
But hours after the boxcars of Jews had left, a strange rumbling could be heard in the distance. It wasn't thunder. Days later, there were fearful whisperings throughout the village. The Jews had been taken only miles away and forced to dig their own graves. And then they were shot.
The terror didn't stop there. Many Jews were found hidden with the other villagers. For each Jew found, a Ukrainian family was shot.
Then the Nazis began the Oblava— rounding up Ukrainian young people from schools, churches, the streets, and loading them into cattle cars for slave labour in Nazi Germany.
Sometimes the auxiliary police would get advance warning of these raids, and when that happened, Danylo could sometimes warn his neighbours to hide their young. But more often than not, the raids were a complete surprise.
Danylo got angrier and angrier as his memories flooded in. The music fit his mood perfectly.
The distanced coldness on Ian's face was replaced by a look of raw anger. He pounded the keys like a punch to the face. Danylo gripped the armrests again, holding on for dear life. Suddenly, the music changed again. The anger diminished and the complexity increased. Ian's shoulders relaxed and he leaned back a bit from the keyboard, playing the notes with a sheer cold showiness. Danylo noticed that the anger was gone from Ian's face. In fact, all emotion was gone.
The music built up again with the same power and intensity, and then, suddenly, it segued into utter abject sorrow. Ian's mask of indifference melted in an instant and was replaced with a look of despair. Watching him, Danylo was also filled with despair.
Danylo gripped the two rings that hung from chain around his neck and remembered when he first began to wear them.
The Nazis continued with the hated policy of communal farming that had been initiated by the Soviets. And as the months passed, their food requisitions became ever more impossible to meet. The resistance fighters who were hiding in the forest depended on the villagers to hide food for them. They also depended on them to steal medical supplies and weapons. Very young girls and old women were the best couriers. They could hide a pistol in the fold of a skirt, or vial of morphine in their head scarf, and the Nazis, who were disdainful of Slavs, took a long time to catch on to what they were up to.
Danylo had managed to steal three pistols from the police station and he had hidden them under the manure pile. His mother was an expert courier, but she was caught on her way to the forest with the third pistol hidden at the bottom of a basket. For her transgression, the Nazis not only sentenced her to death, but they made her choose six other village women to join her. If she didn't choose, she knew that the Nazis would, so with a shaking hand, she pointed out the six eldest women in the village. After they were shot, Danylo was ordered to dig the grave. Before he buried his own mother, he gently tugged her wedding ring past her knuckle, and then he removed his father's ring from a strap around his mother's neck.
So much grief. Too much for one soul to bear.
Then the ballade ended.
Ian sat with his head down, his hands stretched over the keyboard as if he were calming it, comforting it.
The audience sat in stunned silence. Danylo sat in his chair feeling limp. How could mere music have such a powerful effect?
The auditorium was so still that it could have been empty.
Danylo pushed himself up to a standing position and with slow determination, began to clap his hands. For moments on end, the only sound in the whole room was of Danylo's two hands slapping together. Then another pair joined in. And another. Danylo noticed through the corner of his eye that Lisa's parents had stood up beside him. He turned to face Mrs. Nguyen and he nodded in acknowledgement. Danylo looked down and saw that Ian's mother's face was wet with tears, but she was grinning. She stood up, and so did Mr. Smith. And they continued clapping. Pockets of people throughout the audience stood too. By this time, the clapping had changed from a small peppering to a rhythmic intensity. Almost a chant. Within moments, the whole audience was on its feet, clapping and chanting, "More! More! More!"
Danylo looked up to Ian on the stage. The boy was standing in stunned silence beside his piano. It was as if he were trying to figure out what all of this clapping was for. Ian had been so wrapped up in the music that he had forgotten about the audience. He was just now coming back to earth and it dawned on him that these people were clapping for him. That they actually approved of him. What a strange world it was.
Ian bowed to the audience in thanks, and then held up one hand, asking for silence. "Thank you," he said. He walked towards the piano bench, and the people in the audience began to sink back into their seats, expecting him to play an encore. He hesitated for a moment in front of the bench, then shook his head slightly. He looked back up at the audience and said in a loud clear voice, "Thank you. Please enjoy the rest of the concert."
Then he turned and disappeared behind the curtains.
Lisa turned off the spotlight and the stage was plunged into darkness. The audience was murmuring their surprise and they were totally unaware of Lisa and Kat who had scrambled onto the stage to pull down the ribbons of cloth. In a flash it was down, and the two girls darted through the curtains close on the heels of Ian.
Kat could see the light go back on the other side of the curtain, and Dr. Bradley was back on the stage introducing the next performance. She quickly followed Lisa and Ian as they walked away from the back of the stage and out a door that led to a school corridor.
"That was fantastic," said Lisa.
Ian looked at her with an expression of incomprehension. Kat understood. When she was in the midst of sculpting, she was totally in another world. The school could burn down and she wouldn't know it. He looked utterly exhausted. The best thing for him would be to get home and go to bed, but his parents were still in the auditorium.
The three friends walked down the corridor that lead to the front of the school and they stepped outside into the winter air. The cold seemed to revive Ian somewhat. He breathed in, and then stretched out his arms as if to embrace the world.
"It feels so good to get that over with," he said. "I had no idea whether I would be able to go through with it or not."
"I'm amazed that you did," said Lisa. "You must be tired."
"And sore," said Kat.
"I am," said Ian. "And I couldn't have done it without your help." With that, he gave both girls a bear hug.
Just then, the front door of the school opened and Dylan and his friends walked out.
"That was quite the performance," said Dylan with a smirk. "Didn't think you'd be up to it."
"Why don't you just get out of here?" said Kat angrily. "Don't you think you've done enough damage?" Kat had trouble reconciling this new Dylan with the one she used to know. What was his problem, anyway?
Dylan regarded Kat with an offended look on his face and addressed Ian, "I see you've got your bodyguards with you."
At that, Dylan's friends chuckled. "Two girls and a fag. I'm scared," Dylan said in a taunting voice.
Ian stepped away from Kat and Lisa, then walked over to where Dylan stood. "You wouldn't be so brave without your own body guards," he said, pointing at Dylan's husky friends.
"I'll fight you anytime, anywhere. Just name the place," said Dylan, anger flashing in his eyes. His fist was midway in the air when the door of the school opened again.
Dr. Bradley stepped out of the front doors of the school. She was accompanied by an artsy-looking man wearing a camel hair sports jacket over a T-shirt and jeans. She looked from Ian to Dylan and surmised what was going on. "I take it you three are leaving the concert?" she said to Dylan and his friends. "Students from other schools are not allowed to loiter at Cawthra. If you're not off school property in one minute, I'll call the police."
"Come on guys, this place is boring," said Dylan. The three slouched away into the night.
"Were those the boys who beat you up today, Ian?" asked Dr. Bradley.
"I didn't get a good look at them," said Ian evasively. Kat and Lisa remained silent.
During this exchange, the man quietly waited a few steps behind Dr. Bradley. When it was clear that nothing more was to be said on the subject, he stepped forward and reached out his hand to Ian.
"My name is Hal Stevens," he said. "I would like you to give me a call."
Ian looked at the card. It said, "talent agent". He frowned in confusion and stuffed it in his back pocket.