The Line Between

sprawling at our feet before the rest of the company had drawn breath to cry out. Sigerson looked down at him and remarked placidly, «Come now, Herr Andrichev, we did not play that poorly in Boskvila.» The incipient screams were overtaken by laughter, quickly dissolving any suggestion of anything more sinister than an accident. At the livery stable, before shambling away, Andrichev thanked Sigerson gruffly, apologizing several times for his clumsiness. It was early in the evening, and I remember that a few snowflakes were beginning to fall, a very few, twinkling for an instant in his mustache.

This night, for some unspoken reason, I passed up my own house and walked on silently with Sigerson, all the way to the Ridnak farm. The Widow and her sons were already asleep. Sigerson invited me into the back kitchen, poured us each a glass of the Widow's homebrewed kvass, and we toasted each other at the kitchen table, all without speaking. Sigerson finally said, «A sorry business indeed, Herr Takesti. I could wish us well out of it.»

«But surely we are," I answered him, «out and finished, and at least some kind of justice done. The magistrate has already passed sentence — three years in prison for the woman, five for the man, as the natural instigator of the plot — and the money will be restored to Volodya Andrichev within a few days. A miserable matter, beyond doubt — but not without a righteous conclusion, surely.»

Sigerson shook his head, oddly reluctantly, it seemed to me. «Nothing would please me better than to agree with you, concertmaster. Yet something about this affair still disturbs me, and I cannot bring it forward from the back of my mind, into the light. The evidence is almost absurdly incontrovertible — the culprits are patently guilty — everything is properly tied–up … and still, and still, something…» He fell silent again, and we drank our kvass and I watched him as he sat with his eyes closed and his fingertips pressed tightly against each other. For the first time in some while — for there is nothing to which one cannot become accustomed — I remembered to be irritated by that habit of his, and all the solitary self–importance that it implied. And even so, I understood also that this strange man had not been placed on earth solely to puzzle and provoke me; that he had a soul and a struggle like the rest of us. That may not seem to you like a revelation, but it was one to me, and it continues so.

How long we might have remained in that farm kitchen, motionless, unspeaking, sharing nothing but that vile bathtub brandy, it is impossible to say. The spell was broken when Sigerson, with no warning, was suddenly on his feet and to one side, in the same motion, flattening his back against the near wall. I opened my mouth, but Sigerson hushed me with a single fierce gesture. Moving as slowly as a lizard stalking a moth, he eased himself soundlessly along the wall, until he was close enough to the back door to whip it open with one hand, and with the other seize the bulky figure on the threshold by the collar and drag it inside, protesting, but not really resisting. Sigerson snatched off the man's battered cap and stepped back, for all the world like an artist unveiling his latest portrait. It was Volodya Andrichev.

«Yes," Sigerson said. «I thought perhaps it might be you.» For a moment Andrichev stood there, breathing harshly, his blue eyes gone almost black in his pale, desperate face. Then with dramatic abruptness he thrust his hands towards Sigerson, crossing them at the wrists and whispering, «Arrest me. You must arrest me now.»

«Alas, all my manacles are old and rusted shut," Sigerson replied mildly. «However, there is some drink here which should certainly serve the same purpose. Sit down with us, Herr Andrichev.»

A commanding person, as I have said, but one who did not seem to command. Andrichev fell into a kitchen chair as limply as he had rolled out of the wagon, only an hour or two before. He was sweating in great, thick drops, and he looked like a madman, but his eyes were clear. He said, «They should not be in prison. I am the one. You must arrest me. I have done a terrible, terrible thing.»

I said firmly, «Andrichev, calm yourself this instant. I have known you for a long time. I do not believe you capable of any evil. Drunkenness, yes, and occasional vulgarity of attack when we play Schubert. Spite, vindictiveness, cruelty — never.»

«No, no one ever believes that of me," he cried out distractedly. «I know how I am seen: good old Volodya — a bit brusque, perhaps, a bit rough, but a fine fellow when you really get to know him. A heart of gold, and a devil of a cellist, but all he ever thinks of is music, music and vodka. The man couldn't plan a picnic — let alone a revenge.»