Halloween and Other Seasons

II

Later, Bates descends the curving staircase to my room and wakes me. He helps me remove the electrodes and pads. He helps me to my feet and says he must take me for a drink. I nod weakly and follow.

It is night, and a low-lying, yellow mist has descended. This world is perpetually covered with thin shifting clouds and sickly fog. As we step into the dark street I turn to look at our working place, a two-room two-floor silo capped with a black dome. The part above the fog resembles an ugly, rimless derby. Other derbys rest on the fog on this street and the streets adjacent—this is the area where most artists live. Bates motions impatiently and we move along.

It is dark and smoky in the drinking place. Bates orders two drinks—tall, slender goblets filled with roiling liquid as yellow as the fog outside—and steers me away from the somber bar to the back room. We find a booth and sit down facing one another.

Bates looks at me queerly across the table. “You’ve never done what you did today before,” he says. “I didn’t know you could.” His eyes are two white questioning orbs in the darkness.

“I was tired,” I respond quietly; “I thought you could finish the work faster if you increased the setting. But you set it too high.”

“But do you know what you did?” he says, raising his voice. “Do you know what I composed?” He pulls a recording chip from his pocket and pushes it across the table at me. “Listen.”

“No,” I say tiredly, pushing it back at him, but he says again, “Listen.”

I bring the chip up to my ear and it activates. It is set near the end of the composition. At first there are only the standard, bland sounds that characterize most of Bates’s work. Then suddenly I detect a change, and the music becomes more stately. A theme, low, insistent, tragic, begins to weave itself around and through the blandness, enfolding it and gradually overcoming it. Now the theme begins to fold around itself, the high notes beginning to fight the basses head-on, building in intensity, crashing against itself and climbing—

I pull the chip from my ear and place it before Bates. My stomach has tightened itself into a small knot. “I won’t do that again.”

He gives me a measuring look. “I…don’t know,” he says. “You’ve been contracted to me for three months now, and I never realized you could do this sort of thing. I’m going to have to think about this.”

“Let me remind you,” I say firmly, “that the contract you have with me states that you will compose only popular forms of music. There’s no provision in it for other forms of work.”

He looks hard into my eyes. “I’m aware of that,” he says, “but don’t forget that it was you who deviated from the contract today. I didn’t expect to have the end of that piece turned into…well, serious music. There was something there that I may want to explore. If you read the contract carefully, there isn’t really any provision restricting me on what type of music I can compose. There’s no clear restriction on what I can do.”

I look at him coldly. “I wouldn’t tamper with the contract. And besides, you know that money lies in what you’re doing now.”

“I know that,” he says, “but there are a few people willing to pay for this sort of thing. There might be money in it. I couldn’t afford to abandon the other composing, but it just might be worth my while to make use of your other talents.” He smiles across the table; it is an empty smile. “And remember,” he says, “I still control the cables and you’re still my Muse.” His smile widens into a sharp, white grin. “For ten years.”

We finish our liquor and leave the drinking place in silence.