Source of Inspiration

by Martin Westlake

Table of Contents

Table of Contents, parts:
1, 2, 3, 4

conclusion

When they got close to the Buvetta, Kage immediately noticed something. ‘Look at the doorway. It’s completely bricked up. Nobody could get in that way.’

They walked around the pumphouse and along the colonnaded front of the building. The windows were dirty, and the interior was dark, but they could just make out the high coffered wooden ceiling of what had once been an indoor promenade.

‘I like to imagine kings and queens...’ Giulia began.

‘And czars and czarinas,’ Kage continued.

‘Promenading up and down, tasting the waters...’

‘I suspect water was not the only thing they drank,’ Kage observed.

They walked to the second pumphouse and around it. Again, the doorway had been solidly bricked up. They walked along the back of the Buvetta until they reached their original starting place.

‘It’s a shame we can’t go in,’ said Giulia.

‘It’s a mystery,’ said Kage.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Al told me the local teenagers see the Buvetta as a dare, and that the lights I saw were their torches.’

‘It must be creepy here at night,’ said Giulia, ‘even with the lights from the Foundation on the other side of the river.’

‘But don’t you see?’ said Kage. ‘The lights I saw were inside the Buvetta, not here outside. Have you seen any possible way in?’

Giulia frowned. ‘No,’ she said, ‘unless there is a way in up on the roof.’

‘But how would they get up there? Let’s have another look.’

They were about halfway along the colonnaded façade when they heard, above the roar of the rapids, a woman screaming.

It was Alruna, in a yellow dress today. Giulia saw her first. ‘Look!’ Al was standing on the far bank, in front of the Foundation. She was shouting, but they couldn’t make out the words. She seemed to be waving them away, downstream. Then she started pointing urgently at the mountainside beyond the Buvetta.

Giulia gasped and grabbed Kage’s arm. The pine trees seemed to be moving down, towards the river, their tops dancing back and forth.

‘A landslide,’ said Kage. ‘Quick!’

They ran along the fisherman’s path until they had rounded a bend in the river, and the Buvetta and the Foundation were out of sight.

‘That was scary,’ said Giulia.

Kage stood, panting slightly from his exertions, and studied the mountainside above them.

‘I don’t think this path goes all the way back to Airns,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to work our way back up through the forest to the path we took.’

It was then that Giulia hooked her arms around his neck, pulled his head down towards hers, and kissed him.

They said nothing on the bus back. She nestled her head in his shoulder and gripped his arm. But, despite the surprise of an uninitiated kiss from a young woman many would find delightful, Kage’s thoughts were elsewhere. How had anybody got into the Buvetta if there was no way in?

* * *

That evening, Alruna didn’t wait until the early diners had left. She flapped up to their end of the table in her bright yellow dress. She ripped off her sunglasses and looked angrily at Kage. There was something frighteningly compelling about those pale blue eyes, contrasting with the pale skin and the almost white fringe of hair above.

‘That was a very foolish thing to do!’ she said.

He bowed his head.

‘It’s extremely dangerous over there, especially after heavy rain.’

‘We’re sorry,’ said Giulia. ‘We didn’t realise.’

But Alruna continued to talk to Kage. ‘I’m relying on you to stop the fun and games,’ she said.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You know what I mean, sure enough,’ she said. She turned and walked back up to the top of the table.

Sisay let out a long, low whistle. ‘What did you do?’ he asked.

Kage explained.

‘Interesting,’ said Ha-Joon. ‘What noise did the landslide make?’

‘We couldn’t hear anything above the sound of the river,’ said Giulia. ‘But it was strange to see those trees sliding down the mountainside.’

‘Hey, Kage,’ said Barbara, ‘remember to invite the rest of us the next time you go on an expedition, OK?’

Barbara seemed angry. Kage bowed his head.

* * *

The next morning, Kage returned early to his studio. The photograph of Syuuto was on the floor, face down. He picked it up and placed it back on his desk. He went to the piano, flexed his fingers and played the Chopin. Afterwards, he went to the storeroom, bowed, and then sat on his heels.

‘Good morning, Vaida,’ he said. ‘That work I did during the storm is very good, thank you. An excellent start. Today, I need a second theme, please. Do you think you could help me?’

He heard the rhythmic clicking noise of the window handle behind him. He got up, walked to the window and opened it. And there, faintly at first, then growing in intensity, was another ethereal melody. Kage dashed excitedly to his keyboard, turned it on, and started to note down the melody.

‘Thank you, Vaida! Thank you!’ he cried. And then he became so absorbed in his work that he forgot about lunch and dinner. By the time he realised, it was gone nine in the evening, and he wasn’t hungry anyway, so he went straight up the stairs to his room.

He was lying on his bed, scrolling through his e-mails, when he heard heavy footsteps on the corridor floorboards. They stopped, and somebody knocked. It wasn’t a knock. It was more an angry rap. He went to the door. It was Alruna. She was dressed all in dark green this time and had taken her sunglasses off again.

Kage bowed.

‘There was an incident in the kitchen this evening,’ she said.

‘An incident?’

‘Yes, there was a fight — well, an argument — between Giulia and Barbara.’

‘I am sorry to hear that, Al. What were they fighting about?’

Alruna growled and pointed her finger at him. ‘You!’ she said.

Kage shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, yes. you do,’ she said. ‘Stop your messing about, do you hear me? Just stop it!’

She turned and strode away. Kage closed the door, crossed to his desk and knelt before the photograph of Syuuto.

‘What is happening, my love?’ he said. ‘What is happening?’

That night Kage saw the light in the Buvetta again.

‘Students!’ he murmured, as he watched the glow move slowly along the promenade.

By now, he had just three weeks left to finish his composition. He decided to start his work early and to finish late. By so doing, he missed the communal meals in the kitchen, which was part of the point. For lunch, he would as always take a yoghurt from the fridge and eat it on the terrace, looking towards the other side of the valley. For dinner, he sneaked food into his studio or took it up to his room. If he had worked well, he would reward himself with a walk.

He could not avoid all contact with the other Fellows, but he tried to keep to himself as much as he possibly could. One morning, a few days after Alruna’s angry visitation, he saw Barbara in the kitchen. She blushed and could barely manage a ‘good morning’. Giulia seemed to have disappeared altogether, and he wondered whether she had in fact left the Foundation.

He saw Ha-joon from time to time, since they were working in neighbouring studios, but that was mostly it. He saw Alruna more frequently, but they never engaged in a proper conversation anymore. She was happy to leave him to his own devices. In the evenings, Kage spoke to Syuuto. In the mornings, he spoke to Vaida.

* * *

Then, one night, at the end of a particularly tiring day, he heard footsteps in the corridor outside his room, followed by a gentle knock. It was Giulia. She was crying. They looked at each other silently.

Finally, he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Giulia. I’m sorry,’ he said, and then he closed the door.

By the start of his last week at the Foundation, Kage had finished and polished his sonata, and now he started to practise it on the Bechstein, readying himself for the public concert on the Friday evening, his last day at Airns. He was delighted with the composition and proud of the way he had managed to intertwine the two melodies.

On the Tuesday morning, he squatted, as usual, before the storeroom, before Vaida, and thanked her for all her help. And then he made an announcement. ‘I have decided to give my sonata a name,’ he said. ‘I’m going to call it “Vaida.” I hope you like that.’

There was a sense of anticipation in the Foundation in those days, an air of excitement as the various artists completed their projects, and those who were finishing prepared to pack up and move on, as was the case with Ha-joon. Kage didn’t know about the others, but he knew his own time would shortly be up.

He was tempted to go back to the communal kitchen for a few evenings, to socialise with the others again for a short while. But he was afraid. He didn’t want to hurt Giulia anymore. And he didn’t want to upset Barbara or Alruna. So, he kept to himself.

That night, he heard distant doors banging again. Syuuto came to him in a dream. She was angry about something, but he couldn’t understand what it was. Then he was awake again. It was the middle of the night. He crossed the corridor to the bathroom.

Once more, he saw the glowing light in the Buvetta, but this time there was something different about it. It seemed closer to the windows and, as he gazed across the river, he realised with a thrill of fear, that he could see the silhouette of a figure. It was a woman — he was sure of that — wearing a black dress with a high collar, topped off by a white frill. He could not see her features properly, but she was wearing a hat, pinned back at an angle on a full head of curly hair. The sleeves were long, and she seemed to be wearing gloves. The waist was narrow. The windowsill was too high for him to see anything more. He tapped the window with his fingernails.

‘Vaida?’ he murmured. ‘Vaida?’

She seemed to turn and wave, and then she was gone.

On performance day, he went down to the studio one last time to pack. He played the Prelude as usual, then went to the storeroom to talk to Vaida.

‘So, dear Vaida, today is my last day, as you know. Tomorrow I’ll leave for Zurich and, the next day I should be back in Tokyo. I’m sorry to leave you. I enjoyed your company, and I very much appreciated your help.’

He stopped. All the window handles were rattling. Something was scraping cacophonously against the strings of the open Bechstein. Kage looked back into the storeroom.

‘Are you angry?’ he asked. ‘You surely understand I have to go.’

Syuuto’s framed photograph flew across the room.

‘Don’t be jealous,’ said Kage.

His backpack flew up and hit him in the face.

‘Vaida!’ he pleaded, but the cacophony continued.

He picked up Syuuto’s photograph and began to pack all his electronic equipment away in the backpack. When he had finished, he spoke to the room.

‘Goodbye, Vaida. I shall always remember you. It was you I saw last night, wasn’t it? I’ll remember you, and you’ll be remembered every time the Vaida sonata is played.’

* * *

The concert space was full. The Foundation tradition was that the townspeople of Airns were welcome to attend, and there were many strangers in the audience. Barbara sat high up at the back, he noticed. There was no sign of Giulia. Alruna introduced him. Kage turned on his mobile phone and placed it near the piano, so that he would have a live recording of the event — the first public performance of the sonata. Then he placed Syuuto’s photograph on the piano.

Once Alruna had introduced him, he walked to the Bechstein, stood beside it and announced, ‘Ladies and gentleman, my latest piece, Vaida, which I dedicate to my much-loved late wife.’ He bowed and sat down at the stool.

The concert was a great success, as he had known it would be from the first moment he had heard those ethereal strains coming to him across the river. The applause was enthusiastic and prolonged. For the encore, he played Chopin’s Prelude. The two pieces complemented one another well.

Afterwards, there was a champagne reception which Kage conscientiously attended, talking to those strangers among the audience who could speak in English. Not to put too fine a point on it, the whole evening was a triumph. Alruna was delighted. All her sulkiness about his alleged misbehaviour was gone, and she was bathing in the happiness of the locals and of the board members of the Foundation who had come along to listen. There was still no Giulia, and Barbara had disappeared.

* * *

When he got back to his room that evening, he placed Syuuto’s photograph tenderly, lovingly on the desk.

‘Darling Syuuto,’ he said, ‘did you hear the concert? It was a great success. Please don’t worry anymore. All of this’ — he gestured around the room — ‘will be over tomorrow.’

That night the distant doors were banging again. He had a dream in which a woman dressed in black waved at him through a window. Was it Syuuto? Or was it Vaida? The woman was too far away for him to be able to see.

‘Syuuto!’ he cried. ‘Syuuto!’

Then he was awake.

He crossed the corridor to the bathroom one last time. And there was the familiar glowing light in the Buvetta. But this light was different. It was orange, and it was flickering. Fire! He hurried down the corridor, then down the stairs to Alruna’s bedroom. He knocked on the door.

She opened it almost immediately. She was still fully dressed, he noticed, wearing her red dress. Her sunglasses were on. ‘Yes, Kage,’ she said, ‘what is it?’

‘The Buvetta, it’s on fire!’

There was only one fire engine in Airns. By the time it arrived, the fire had taken a strong hold of the whole structure. The firefighters couldn’t get across the bridge, and it was all they could do to play a hose ineffectually across the river, over the growing flames. Additional fire engines were sent from Davos but, by the time they arrived, the Buvetta was nothing more than a long mound of glowing embers.

Alruna was far too busy to take Kage to the station that morning, so he took a taxi and was glad to have avoided one final awkward conversation. All his connections went with Swiss perfection, and he arrived at Zurich airport with plenty of time to spare.

After take-off and the initial fussing of the stewards and stewardesses, he donned his earphones and then took out his phone and turned on the recording of the previous evening’s concert. But all he could hear was the roar of the river. He fast-forwarded, but it was the same. The only thing that his phone had recorded was the roar of the rapids of the River Inn at Airns. He turned off his phone, took off the headphones and settled his head back into his chair.