Yuen-Mong's Revenge (41 page)

 
     
He held out the flute for her. She took it, while he quickly switched
on the recording device, and after breathing deeply several times to
restore her calm, she played the haunting tune, shedding tears freely, and
then improvised around it. When she finished and opened her eyes, she
saw that Anco still had his closed. Atun looked at her pained and then
held out a tissue for her. She took it and dried her tears, trying to smile.

     
After a while, Anco opened his eyes and said: "Yuen-mong, this is too
beautiful a piece to be hidden. You must share this with us. Please, let me
set it up as a series of variations around an original theme. It has the
classical structure for that. Don’t say no, I beg you."

 
     
She struggled with herself, wanting to hang on to it, to keep it only for
herself, while at the same time feeling the deep satisfaction of being able
to share it with others. Would she ever again wait on her rock for the
night hunters, the souls of her parents, to meet up with her? She heard
herself saying: "You may."

 
     
"Thank you, Yuen-mong, thank you." He grabbed both her hands and
squeezed them.

     
As they left the hotel lobby, she heard the first chords of the song of
the dawn bird over the hotel sound system and at the same time felt the
searching mind of the man trailing them like a shadow. The day before
he had followed them to the shuttle manufacturer. How much had he
been told?

17

There was not much to do for them but wait. Yuen-mong judged that
Anouk had reached a level of empathic skills that would be sufficient for
the task. The next one was to get her to do self-hypnoses. So both of
them took instruction from a hypnosis teacher. They did not give their
real names, although Yuen-mong realized that this might not help much,
since the shadow would know the approximate time of their visits. They
went early on purpose and cut the sessions short, for added confusion.
When they arrived for their third time, the teacher was very upset,
reporting that her consulting rooms had been burgled, although nothing
of importance had been stolen, except for some records. Yuen-mong
wondered if whoever was behind this also installed listening devices and
from then on kept conversation to a minimum, disguising her deep alto
by talking a pitch higher.

     
As usual, she visited her grandfather, but did not see any of her other
relatives. He commented that he was pleased she had not sprung any
other surprises on him these last two weeks.

 
     
Syd Twan invited her to a dinner to introduce her to some of his relatives who were eager to meet her. She only accepted when he extended
— reluctantly she felt — the invitation also to Atun. It had become clear
to her that Syd had taken an interest in her that was way beyond that
either for a client or for the daughter of a former love, that it was directed
at her personally. She had grown fond of him — not the steady, quiet,
nurturing fondness she had for Atun, but something more volatile, more
disquieting. She wondered whether this was love. He was often on her
mind, and more than once she caught herself thinking of him while in
love play with Atun and it bothered her. It felt as if she were cheating on
Atun.

* * *
 

The third concert of the Anco Molena’s series, this one for flute quartets
— Haydn and Mozart — saw them again at their usual seats next to
Moira Grant and her husband. She liked the couple and felt she could be
herself with them, although they had not yet met socially, and the two
men seemed to have an engineering background in common.

     
At the end of the applause to the announced program, when everybody
again expected an encore and Moira whispered that she hoped it to be the
song of the dawn bird, Anco Molena raised his hands to ask for silence.
"As part of this last concert, I will again depart from my tradition. I
would like to share with you another new composition, by the same artist
who composed the ‘Song of the dawn bird’. This one is entitled ‘Calling
the souls of my parents’. It is a set of six variations arranged by me on the
original theme."

 
     
Yuen-mong grabbed Atun’s hand and felt his support flow to her. The
quartet first played the original theme, arranged for four instruments, followed by the six variations, the first one almost identical to the one she
had played to Anco. They finished by repeating the original theme. She
liked the performance, although she felt it lacked the depth of feeling that
she had for it. For several seconds there was a complete hush in the Hall
and then thundered the applause. People rose, shouting "Bravo, bravo’
and "Encore, encore."

     
"Is that yours too?" queried Moira into her ear.

     
Before she could answer, Anco Molena again asked for quiet.

     
"We are very fortunate to have the composer in our midst." He came
down from the stage and walked to her row. "Yuen-mong, may I have the
honor of presenting you?"

 
     
She saw no way of refusing and walked self-consciously in front of
him to the stage, not quite knowing what she was supposed to do. He
took her hand and held it up. "The composer of ‘Calling the soul of my
parents’ and the ‘Song of the dawn bird’, Yuen-mong Shen."

 
     
Stunned silence followed. There was a lone "Boo, cripple", instantly
followed by a single pair of hands clapping, and she saw that it was Mai
standing in the Young stall. It was followed by three more sets of hands,
Atun’s and the Grants’, and then the applause took on a momentum of its
own. Anco Molena had to hold up his hands repeatedly to ask for silence.
Finally, he handed a second flute to her, and gave the other musicians the
signal to start. For a split second, panic gripped her, but then her survival
instinct took over, and she began the original theme. Silence fell
instantly. She put all her soul into it, closing her eyes, letting the haunting
call reach out, and then went into her own improvisation, aptly supported
by Anco Molena and the other three musicians. When she went into her
second improvisation, only Anco kept up with her, but the quartet was
back in force for the repetition of the original theme.

     
This time the applause came full strength the instant she finished. She
handed the flute back to Anco and without a look at the audience hurried
back to her seat, taking Atun’s hand and sat down and so did he. She
wanted to hide, feel his support. She did not want to be in this crowd
with its dissonances of minds, but the crowd was the only place she could
hide.

     
She was glad when Anco Molena and the musicians also left the stage
without playing another encore. There was only one more ordeal left,
walking the gauntlet of the people, who were still standing, waiting for
her to precede them. She held firmly to Atun’s hand. Once outside the
hall, she rushed out of the building, away from the people, but Syd Twan
intercepted them.

     
"Yuen-mong, please let me celebrate you," he exclaimed, taking both
her hands.

     
She withdrew them, trying to hold back the tears that had threatened
her ever since she stood on the stage. "Not now, Syd, not now. Atun,
please take me home." It sounded like a desperate cry.

     
He murmured; "Yes, love," and took her hand.

     
She let herself be undressed like a child and then clung to him as they
lay in bed. For the first time in her life, she regretted something; she
regretted having revealed her heart to these people. Only months later
would she reconcile herself to it when Anco Molena told her that the
royalties on the songs had surpassed the 100 million credit mark,
invested in the Yuen-mong Shen Trust for young musicians.

* * *

She dreaded her weekly visit to her grandfather the following day. For
the first time, she did not kneel, but only stood with a bowed head in
front of him.

     
"Come, child," he said, taking her hands, "tell me what pains you."

 
     
"I betrayed the memory to my parents. I cannot forgive myself."

 
     
"Yuen-mong, I would like to thank you for sharing your memory to
my daughter. Since I heard you play that song, I have been thinking of
nothing else but your pain of losing your mother so young and of how
brave you have been."

 
     
"Thank you, grandfather," she murmured, trying to smile though her
tears.

     
"I have discovered a beautiful, new person in you, a person with deep
feelings, a person able to express these deep feelings in the most poignant
ways. I am proud of you."

 
     
She dried her tears with her sleeves.

     
"Here, take this tissue," he said, smiling. "And I would like that you
come again to our weekly Sunday dinners."

 
     
The shadow passing over her face betrayed her feelings. "I’m not welcome there."

 
     
"But it is my wish. I welcome you there, and I know that Mai would
like you to come. In time, the others will learn to appreciate you or fear
you, and you will learn to appreciate them. Ming has been asking for you
every Sunday. If you do not want to come for the others, come for her."

 
     
"Thank you, grandfather. I will."

 
     
"Now tell me about those two beautiful songs."

 
     
She told him of the morning song, the departure of the night hunters,
the first stirring of the dawn birds, the teasing, the duet and then her practice of t’ai chi. She told him how she would wait at night for the night
hunters to return from their offshore island, how she would call them,
how they would answer and circle above her, and she would follow them
with her tune as long as she could hear their haunting response, of how
for her this was like meeting up for a short moment with the souls of her
parents.

     
He did not say a word for a long time, looking out the window, letting
his gaze lose itself in the distance. Then he turned back to her and said:
"I will have a flute for you next time you visit. Will you play for me? I
beg you and I have never begged anyone in my whole life."

 
     
"Yes, grandfather, I will, for you only."

* * *
 

She and Atun attended the next Sunday lunch. When she entered, dressed
in an elegant black dress that enhanced her beauty, Ming came running
to her, crying: "Yuen-mong, hold me."

 
     
She swept the little girl into her arms and kissed her.

     
"I’m so happy you have come," Ming exclaimed and kissed both her
cheeks.

     
"She asked after you every Sunday," murmured Bee. "I’m glad too
that you are here."

 
     
She sensed the mixed mind messages in the room, positive from Mai
and Bee, neutral from Bee’s husband Dan, confused from Susan and her
uncle, and increased hostility from Pat.

     
When they sat, her grandfather held up his hand for silence. "Yuen-mong wishes that she is not asked any question or explanations about the
songs Anco Molena played at the concert, and I ask you to respect that."

 
     
"Suddenly coy," muttered Pat and got angry glances from everybody,
except Yuen-mong, who deliberately did not look at him. She wondered
how her grandfather had guessed that she did not want to talk about the
songs. She had not asked him for it.

* * *

But there was no escaping from both her status of notoriety and celebrity.
Wherever she went, she heard one or the other of her songs. They had
taken Androma by storm. Her face appeared on holoscreens and wall
projections everywhere, often followed by her cartwheeling action of
disabling the android, shown in eerie slow motion. She watched herself
a few times, pleased by the grace of her movements, and then tried to
ignore it. But it meant that wherever she went in the Sanctum or the BD,
people stared and recognized her. She adjusted to the heightened
murmurs around her and learned to block most of them out. She avoided
going out, unless there was a compelling need. In the Sanctum, many
younger women greeted her warmly, others, particularly young men,
avoided her. She was amused that none ever challenged her again to yield
passage. In fact, they made it a point to step aside. She herself applied the
rule that she would yield to both men and women she judged to be
considerably older than her and that seemed to work well.