Anne Rice - Violin

There came a subtle threatening change into the Father's face. It seemed there were steps nearby. But neither figure acknowledged any but each other.

"Don't lose your temper, my son." The Father rose to his feet, the bear rug falling to the carpeted floor. He was regal in his satin robe, with furs beneath it, his fingers covered with brilliant jewels.

He was as tall as Stefan, no peasant blood here it seemed, only the Nordic mixed with the Slav to make giants of the ilk of Peter the Great perhaps, who knows, but these were true princes.

His father came close to him, then turned to survey the bright, lacquered instruments that rested all along the sideboards with their rampant painted Rococo gardens on every cabinet door. Silk paneling in the walls, the long streaks of painted gold rising tc the muraled cove above.

It was a string orchestra. It made me shiver just to look at it. I didn't know this violin from any other there.

The Father sighed. The son waited, schooled obviously not to weep as he might have done with me, as he did now with me in this invisibility from which we watched. I heard him sigh, but then the vision overwhelmed again and held firm.

"You can't go, my son," the Father said, "to chase around the world with this vulgar man. You cannot. And you cannot take your violin. It breaks my heart to tell you. But you dream, and a year from now you will come to beg forgiveness."

Stefan could scarcely control his voice, looking at this heritage.

"Father, even if we dispute, the instrument is mine, I took it out of the burning room, I...

"Son, the instrument is sold, as are all the Stradivari instruments, and the pianofortes and the harpsichord on which Mozart played, sold, all, I assure you.

Stefan's face wore the shock I felt as I looked on. The ghost in the featureless dark beside me was too sad himself to mock, but only closed tighter to me, trembling as if all this were too much for him, this boiling cloud, and he couldn't clamp it back down into his magic cauldron.

"No . . . No, not sold, not the violins, not the . . . not the violin I-" He blanched and twisted his mouth, and the straight dark eye brows came together in a challenge of a frown. "No, I don't believe you, why, why do you lie to me!"

"Curb your tongue, my favorite son," said the tall gray-haired man, keeping one hand on the chair. "I sold what I had to sell to get the hell out of here and into our home in St. Petersburg. Your sister's jewels, your mother's jewels, paintings, God knows what, so as to salvage what I could for all of you, of what we had and must retain. To the merchant, Schlesinger, I sold the violins four days ago. He'll take them when we leave.

He was kind enough to-"

"No!" Stefan cried out. His hands went up to the sides of his head. "No!" he roared. "Not my violin. No, you cannot sell my violin, you cannot sell the long Strad!"

He turned, eyes frantic, searching the tops of the long, painted credenzas where instruments lay carefully on silken pillows, cellos propped against chairs, paintings set as if to be moved.

"I tell you it's done!" the Father cried out. Turning right to left, he found his silver cane and lifted it in his right hand, first by the knob and then the middle.

Stefan had found the violin with his eye. He rushed towards it. I saw it.

With all my heart, I thought, yes, get it, take it, save it from this awful injustice, this stupid turn of fate, it's yours, yours . . . Stefan, take it!

And you take it from me now. In the fathomless dark he kissed my cheek, but he was too heartbroken to oppose me. Watch what happens.

"Don't touch it, don't pick it up," the Father said, advancing on the son. "I warn you!" He swnng the cane around so that its ornamented knob was poised like a club.

"You don't dare smash it, not the Strad!" said Stefan.

A fury broke in the Father. It broke at these words, it broke as if over the stupidity of the assumption, the depth of mi sunderstanding.

"You, my pride," he said, lowering his head as he took one firm step after another.

"Your Mother's favorite and Beethoven's cherub, you, you think I'll smash that instrument with this! Touch it, and you'll see what I do!"

Stefan reached for the violin, but the cane came down on his shoulders. He staggered under the blow, bent nearly double, backing up. Again the silver cane struck him, this time on the left side of his head and the blood gushed from his ear.

"Father," he cried.

I was wild in our invisible refuge, wild to hurt the Father, to make him stop, damn him, don't you hit Stefan again, you will not, you will not.

"It is not ours, I told you this," the Father cried. "But you are mine, my son, Stefan!"

Stefan threw up his hand, and the cane whipped through the air.

I must have screamed, but this was far beyond any intervention. The cane so bashed Stefan's left hand that Stefan gasped and whipped the hand to his chest with his eyes closed.

He didn't see the blow descending on his right hand that came to cover the wounded one. The cane struck his fingers.

"No, no, not my hands, my hands, Father!" he screamed.

Rushing feet in the house. Shouts. A young woman's voice, "Stefan!"

"You defy me," said the old man. "You dare." With his left hand he grabbed the lapel of his son's coat, the son so shocked with pain he grimaced, unable to defend himself, and thrusting his son forward so that his hands fell on the credenza, he brought down the cane again on Stefan's fingers.

I shut my eyes. Open them, look what he does. There are instruments made of wood, and those that are made of flesh and blood and see what he does to me.

"Father, stop it!" cried the woman. I saw her from behind, slender, tentative creature, with a swan neck and naked arms in her Empire gown of gold silk.

Stefan stood back. He broke the dazzle and the agony. He backed up further and stared down at the blood streaming from his crushed fingers.

The Father stood with the cane poised to strike again.

And now it was Stefan's face that changed; all compassion gone as if it were never possible in such a mask of rage and vengeance.

"You do this to me!" he cried. He waved his useless bleeding hands in the air.

"You do this to my hands!"

Stunned, the Father took a backward step, but his face grew hard and stubborn.

The doors of the room were filled with those who watched, brothers, sisters, servants, I didn't know.

The young woman tried to come forward, but the old man ordered her: "Back away, Vera!"

Stefan flew at his father, and used what was left to use, his knee, kicking the man back hard against the hot enameled stove, then lifting the tip of his boot to kick the Father's crotch as the old man's hands let loose the cane, and the old man fell to his knees and struggled to protect himself.

Vera screamed.

"You do this to me!" said Stefan, "You do this to me, you do this to me," the blood pouring from his hands.

The next kick caught the old man beneath his chin and sent him down in a spineless slump onto the rug. Again Stefan kicked, and this time the boot struck the side of his father's head, and then again.

I turned around. I didn't want to look, I didn't. No, watch with me please. It was so soft, so imploring. He's dead, you know, dead there on the floor, but I didn't know it then. See, I kicked him again. Look. His knee doesn't rise, though the blow strikes him right where your mother's blow struck you, in the stomach I kick him, see. . . he was dead already from the kick to his chin perhaps, I never knew.

Parricide, Parricide, Parricide.

Men rushed forward, but Vera swnng around, stretching out her hands to block the path. "No, you will not touch my brother!"

It gave Stefan an instant to look up, hands still dripping blood, and in that instant he ran to the nearest door, knocking stunned servants out of his path, clattering down the marble staircase.