Page 59 of The Maestro's Mates
The ancient composer jiggled an empty glass in front of Pavel’s eyes enticingly. At some point, Henry had purchased a case of Pavel’s favorite, a lovely and complex spirit distilled in the mountains of Tennessee. After forty years of friendship, Henry knew what he liked.
Pavel grunted in affirmation, and the old man laughed and hobbled over to the nearby liquor cabinet.
Henry was in his eighties now, still spry for his age, although his diminutive frame had grown even slighter in the last decade. Sporting a sparse white beard, the human did not have protection from the ravages of time, unlike Pavel. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“What’s gotten into you?” Henry asked as he pulled out a bottle of the elixir. “Gargoyle problems?”
Pavel groaned and sank further into the cushy velvet upholstery. Henry had lived in Chelsea for most of his adult life, managing to score a rent-stabilized apartment in his twenties. It had the lived-in feel of an artist’s home:books about art and music piled everywhere, eclectic antiques crammed into the tiny space, a baby grand piano taking up the entire living room. Pavel’s friend was a creature of the city, and the man planned to die where he had lived.
He was also the only human Pavel had revealed himself to in the last five hundred years.
“Did I hit the nail on the head, my friend?” Henry’s voice had grown scratchier as he aged, only enhancing the impression he gave of being an acerbic academic.
“It will be a relief when you die, old man,” Pavel grumbled. “Then there won’t be anyone left to call me on my shit.”
Henry cackled as he crossed to Pavel, setting down the crystal tumbler of brown liquid on a table within the gargoyle’s reach.
“My funeral service better be a fucking masterpiece,” Henry said, his eyes bright with amusement. “And don’t you dare play anything of mine. I want the good stuff, the funeral classics. Gounod’sAve Maria. Barber’sAdagio for Strings. Fuck it, do all of the VerdiRequiem. Send me off with a bang.”
“You don’t believe in God,” Pavel retorted. “Doing a requiem mass would be sacrilegious, don’t you think?”
“My god is the music. That’s good enough.” Henry squinted at Pavel, his bushy white eyebrows set off by the amber light. “And don’t avoid the question. We’re both too old for that. You arefartoo old for that.”
Pavel sighed. “I’m coming to the end, old friend.”
Henry cocked his head, a confused look on his face. “That’s a good thing, right? You’ve been ready to wind down for a while now. How long do you have?”
“Maybe two or three years? I suppose it could be shorter. It depends on how much I exert myself.”
Henry shrugged. “I better beat you out. You’re in charge of my funeral. If you’re gone, it’ll be my niece, and she’s liable to make it all twelve-tone or something.”
“She would never,” Pavel replied with a smile. “She knows you would haunt her house in Provincetown.”
“I fucking would.” Henry leaned over and tapped Pavel’s knee in a grandfatherly way, which the gargoyle found a little ridiculous. He had a few thousand years on the human.
“Be honest, friend,” Henry continued. “What’s going on?”
“It’s ridiculous this would happen now. It’s cruel. I’ve been around for more than three thousand years, but the universe waits until the end.” Pavel took a hefty swig of whiskey, the sweet familiar burn comforting him, even if his gargoyle constitution meant it wouldn’t get him drunk.
“Thatwhat’s happened? You are being willfully obtuse.”
“That I would find my mates!” The end table’s spindly wooden legs shook as Pavel slammed down the glass with more force than he’d intended. “I gave up hope centuries ago. For them to come now is enraging.”
“Ah.” Henry leaned back, crossing his arms, comprehension dawning on his face. He was the only human Pavel had ever been completely open with, and he knew everything about Pavel’s life. It had taken thirty years to build that trust.
“It feels like a punishment.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Henry said, sipping on his own glass of whiskey. He was still on his first. “Why not enjoy the time you have leftwith them?”
Pavel felt as if he’d been stabbed in the gut. Even his friend didn’t understand.
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?” Confusion flashed across Henry’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a frustrated understanding. “Ah. You are being a self-sacrificing twit once again.”
“I am not!”
“Are you not?” The old composer crossed his arms, looking down on Pavel with an expression he normally saved for unruly pupils. Pavel hated when Henry got like this.
