And finally—finally!—Tchaikovsky, of course. Let’s be clear here: Ray may have looked like a Black American, but secretly—secretly!—he was Russian. Secretly he’d spent his life ladling borscht and nibbling pelmeni. Vodka, not blood, surged through his veins. He was melancholy because it was always winter in St. Petersburg, and jovial because Muscovites are a good-hearted people who love to laugh. He killed the Tchaikovsky. He left the Sérénade mélancolique bawling its eyes out onstage. He bowed.
He never held the Lehman out the way he’d held PopPop’s fiddle.
Whether or not he made it through to the next round, he knew that he could have done no better, and that would have to be enough.
That night, in the grand hall, he and Mikhail sat next to each other, waiting for that final list of names to be called.
Silence fell as a world-class pianist stepped to the microphone, began to speak in Russian. Above him, three enormous monitors with close-captioned English translated in real time.
Ray couldn’t read the words on the screen. He was suddenly, stupidly, conscious of Mikhail’s tuxedo-clad shoulder so close to his: Mikhail’s arm on the armrest, the satin cuff of his sleeve, and the glitter of his opal-and-silver cuff links. How had he gotten the armrest? Ray hadn’t even realized it was a competition but now wished that he could put his own tuxedo-wrapped arm—with the good-luck cuff links that Janice had given him last Christmas, picked up from a mall in Charlotte—on the armrest, claiming it as his own. Too late, and now Mikhail, next to him, seemed twice the size of Ray, looming blackly and confidently next to him like a tuxedo-covered cement truck. How could Ray even begin to compete with a cement truck?
The elderly judge with the quavering voice called Mikhail’s name, and a moment later Mikhail’s name flashed golden and enormous on the screen: Mikhail Lezenkov. There it was. Ray was sitting next to a finalist. Ray could feel eyes on him and felt flattened by them. As the crowd roared out, Ray couldn’t help nodding, agreeing with the judges’ choice. Of course Mikhail was chosen. Ray reached over and pounded Mikhail’s back, and Mikhail gripped his hand. Both their hands were sweaty.
The applause was dying down, the ancient pianist judge was moving on, saying stuff, but Ray felt like he was underwater, the sound blurred and ragged. The closed-captioned letters flashed like fish in an aquarium, wriggling away before he could read them.
And there it was, his name, alien in the judge’s foreign mouth—so alien that if he hadn’t seen his name snap into glittering gold on the screen, he might not have believed it.
Rayquan McMillian.
He wanted to jump up, fist-pump, scream “Fuck yeah!” as loud as he could. Instead he clenched his hand on the armrest—the hand inches from Mikhail’s arm—and watched his dark fingers turn almost white from the pressure. Fuck yeah. Dimly, as if in another room, he could hear the crowd roaring his name, but sounds filtered in dimly, as if from underwater, or from space.
Was this real? Could it be a mistake?
And then Mikhail was turning, shaking his hand, and Nicole was pounding his back and he was hugging her and, fuck no, it was not a mistake. It was real. He was a fucking finalist in the Tchaikovsky Competition.
Chapter 30
Day 42: Serbia
Third Round: the honor and the pressure were immense—the media clamoring for interviews, programs being shoved at him for autographs, three record companies calling to ask when he’d have “five minutes for a quick conversation.”
He knew he should milk it for everything he could. He should plaster his face over every media opportunity with a link to his crowdfunding page and a plea to donate just a dollar/euro/ruble so he could ransom back his violin.
And he had every intention of doing just that.
Then, late that night, after the latest round of gala cocktails and glasses of champagne and vodka floated past, after the chatting and the backslapping and the adulation, Alicia texted: Hi I’m in Serbia. Theres a violin that’s going on the black market. Will let you know when I learn more.
Serbia? Black market? No time to text: he called her. “So it’s there?”
“Calm down,” she said. “There is a violin here. I haven’t seen photographs yet.” A few weeks ago, she told him, one of her informants in Italy mentioned a violin somewhere in the Baltic states, newly up for sale.
A few other similar rumors floated in: It was in Montenegro; no, Croatia; no, Serbia. It was in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. Alicia’s contact had reached out to the Belgrade police. A week ago, just after the start of the Tchaikovsky Competition, the chatter grew louder: a wealthy Serbian family of musicians was interested in purchasing a high-end violin. Money was no concern. Were any such violins available?