Deceptive Cadence

By Timm Rolek

Ferenc Balasz, a young KGB agent tries to keep America from interfering while his superiors in Moscow attempt to control the fall of Communism and avoid a confrontation in Berlin at the Wall like the one that happened in Tiananmen Square. Balasz’s plan to temporarily cripple America’s military hinges on the right person being at the right place at the right time. But in order for it to work he must manipulate someone from his past – an American conductor who showed that music is like a code.

DECEPTIVE CADENCE is structured like a Bach fugue - with musicians and spies, the Kremlin and the White House, and the empty fields of Chernobyl and North Dakota acting in counterpoint.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timm Rolek
• Release date: Jan 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301006854

Timm Rolek

Timm Rolek has conducted performances of symphonic and operatic repertoire across America. Rolek has recorded American operas, commissioned new American music, and has appeared as commentator on both public television and radio. DECEPTIVE CADENCE is his debut novel. He lives in Brookings, Oregon.

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Deceptive Cadence

By Timm Rolek

Copyright 2013 Timm Rolek

Smashwords Edition

Music described in this book can be heard at www.deceptivecadencebook.com

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Cadence [French]

A cadence refers to a melodic or harmonic formula that occurs at the end of a composition, conveying to the listener the satisfaction of a momentary or permanent conclusion. Conversely, a deceptive cadence is one where the melody points the listener to such a conclusion but the supporting harmonic structure moves in a different direction, creating an unexpected surprise.

Harvard Dictionary of Music

Part 1 – Prelude

Prelude [from the Latin praeludere, to play beforehand]

A short composition that establishes the tone or mode of the following piece and prepares the ear for what is to follow.

Harvard Dictionary of Music

Chapter 1

Moscow. Thursday, May 1, 1986

Light rain on a spring day cleanses the air, bringing with it the promise of growth. Except this spring, for when rain fell on this part of the world it brought death.

The May Day holiday dates to the pre-Christian era as a day given to love and pageantry, and was so celebrated by many cultures through the centuries until along the way it developed a political meaning. That began when it became known as the International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago where an unknown person tossed dynamite at the police as they were breaking up a public meeting. The Soviet Union added another twist to May Day, using it as a reminder of the Revolution that formed the USSR, and to show off its latest military machinery and the size and strength of its armed forces with an hours-long parade through Moscow’s Red Square.

The intended audience of this intricately choreographed ballet of brute force was never really clear. Was it staged for the eyes of foreigners who watched for the overt signs of the latest in Soviet military prowess? Or for those who watched and speculated about the health of the members of the Politburo and military leaders on the reviewing stand, and their relative importance by their proximity to General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev? Or maybe it was simply staged to remind the people of the Soviet Union of just who was in charge. These same citizens fixed anther meaning to May Day - a change of seasons. The long dark winter has passed and light and warmth have returned, and they reveled in the irony of their double edged holiday, but behind closed doors and pulled shades away from watchful eyes.

May Day in 1986 was different. The crowds in Red Square were smaller than expected and officials attributed this to the light rain that fell that day. Soldiers are paid to march in any condition, but not so an audience stated a stiff-lipped BBC reporter. A reporter for CBS news commented on something he had never seen before in his years covering this event. The politicians and generals on the review platform stood under an awning protecting them from the weather for the first time in this reporter’s memory. This is remarkable for they always stand ramrod straight out in the elements for the entire length of the parade. Anything less is seen as a sign of weakness! he said for his American audience who cared little about yet another Soviet May Day parade and were more interested in the latest news about how someone calling himself Captain Midnight was able to disrupt the HBO satellite feed a few days earlier.

Did you get wet? asked Oksana Remenikova, Gorbachev’s personal secretary, helping him out of his coat back in his Kremlin office.

No, I didn’t. We delayed the parade two hours allowed the rain to clean the skies. At least that is what I am told. He shrugged and nodded his head to one side in that what-can-I-do expression she had seen often lately. He walked to his desk, sat, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He had travelled through the night from Ukraine to get back to Moscow for today’s ceremony and had not slept well. Sleep had not come easy for five nights. Glancing at his desk calendar he remembered April 25th as the last full night of sleep he and his wife, Raisa had enjoyed, for since the 26th he had had time for no more than naps.

Tea? Oksana asks.

Yes. Strong. I need to stay awake for the next meeting.

She set it on his desk and asked, Anything else?

No. Go home and kiss your children. We will talk tomorrow.

As the door closed he picked up the briefing notes she had laid out for him and took a sip of tea. He asked himself how could this happen? A little more than a year ago his election as General Secretary by the Politburo made him like John F. Kennedy in the eye of the Soviet public for he was the youngest man ever to lead the country and the first born after the Revolution to do so. His country and the world were full of optimism at his election, and he did not disappoint in the early months of 1986. A reformer by nature, he proposed reviving the Soviet economy after the disastrous Brezhnev years through glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), a hybrid economic policy that encouraged individual initiative and creativity but still under socialist control. The idea was presented at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party some two months ago and was seen positively at home and abroad. These have been dark days for the American space agency NASA, yet the Soviet space program was riding high following the perfect launch of its space station Mir three weeks after the space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28th. And less than two weeks ago he attended the Moscow recital of Vladimir Horowitz, the famous expatriate pianist who returned to his beloved Russia for the first time since leaving during the dark days of Stalin. People cheered Horowitz as the long lost prodigal son, finally returning now that there were signs of hope in his old homeland.

Yes, it should be a good time to be leader of the Soviet Union, he thought as he drank his tea. And it was, until five days ago when in Pripyat, Ukraine another Challenger-style explosion caught everyone equally off guard at a power station called Chernobyl.

Enter. Gorbachev said to the knock at the door. Two men entered, one in civilian clothes and the other an army general, and sat in the two empty chairs across his desk. Both were empty handed, for like the many other meetings in this office since the Chernobyl event, as it was now referred to, there would be no notes taken. What happened at the power station was something the world hadn’t quite seen since April, 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki so until the facts were known, deniability was necessary.

What do we know today? asked Gorbachev, setting down his notes and finishing his tea.

The fire in reactor number four continues to burn despite the heroic efforts of the fire brigades from the power station and Pripyat. Evacuation of the immediate area continues… said General Veligan of the Fourth Red Army, Ukraine.

But what we don’t know is the amount of graphite that has burned in the explosion area of the reactor interrupted Pavel Kolchak from the Ministry of Atomic Energy, and that will determine the extent of the fallout that we must deal with…

"And that is impossible to know until we extinguish the fire!" snapped General Veligan.

Enough! whispered Gorbachev. There has been too much shouting in the last five days. The horse has left the barn. He grew up on a farm and, to the frustration of his cabinet, peppered his conversation with agricultural metaphors. There have been test explosions of nuclear devices for decades, but all under strict controls to minimize their impact. The Chernobyl event is the first since Hiroshima and Nagasaki to have a direct impact on a civilian population. I have just returned from flying over the reactor and Pripyat and have never witnessed such destruction. We face something we have not prepared for and I need to know what we must do now and not who is to blame.

The room went silent.

We should prepare to evacuate much of Belarus, said Kolchak.

How much? For how long? There are a quarter million people immediately downwind… interrupted General Veligan.

More than three hundred thousand actually, and they all must be moved immediately. If we are lucky they can return after their grandchildren are dead, said Kolchak ironically.

Casualties? asked Gorbachev.

Twenty one so far, plant workers and some fire brigades. But by the end of the year the numbers will be in the thousands from radiation sickness, said Veligan.

Then we must move immediately to limit our losses. Begin the evacuation as soon as possible, and we will meet again here tomorrow morning, said Gorbachev, standing, the unspoken signal that this meeting had ended.

Veligan and Kolchak stood erect, bowed slightly, turned and left the office.

Gorbachev watched them leave, picked up his empty tea cup looking for the dregs of caffeine and maybe courage, and finding both wanting at this late hour, set it down and looked towards the ceiling. Closing his eyes his mind wandered back to the Moscow Conservatory, trying to recall the encore that Horowitz played. It was perhaps Scriabin? Yes, the etude in D sharp minor. Years ago he visited Scriabin’s home – now a museum honoring the pianist composer who died just before the Revolution – and marveled at the casting of his hands on display there, wondering how such small hands could produce music that needed more than a mere ten human fingers can perform. And yet the eighty-five year old Horowitz had no problem with this fast, brooding piece that straddled the emotions of hope and despair before ending in a flash. And what an ending it was! He had delayed the timing of his right hand in the last thirty seconds of the two minute work, allowing the second melody in the left hand to gain power before both hands combined in the same strong, yet melancholy reiteration of the main melody.

Hmm…, delayed timing. Too bad Horowitz wasn’t playing in Moscow this week. He could have been a useful distraction, Gorbachev thought to himself as he nodded off in another nap.

Chapter 2

Budapest. Friday, May 2, 1986

Shit! Doesn’t this thing go any faster?, Kevin Noble said to himself, straining to read the unfamiliar words on the street sign out the tram window. He looked at this watch and feared the worst. He would be late, and a musician, at least any good one in his estimation, is never late. Musicians are taught from their very first lessons that being on time means arriving early enough to unpack your instrument and music, warm up a bit, hang your coat and gather your thoughts, and make sure everything from your chair to the light in the room is just as you expect it to be before a single note is played. And you’d better pee, too, for it can be a couple of hours before your next chance. On time for a musician means walking in the stage door no later than twenty minutes before you are scheduled to make a sound, and for a conductor like Noble showing up for his first appointment in a new city with a new company that speaks a new language, late means anything less than thirty minutes before work is scheduled to begin. Noble thought he’d arrive an hour before the 11 AM rehearsal just to be sure, and now that was in jeopardy.

Noble arrived in Budapest from New York the morning of April 30, giving himself one extra day to get used to the time change and acclimate his system to any unusual things lurking in the food or water, for this gig was an important step in his fledgling career. He told his agent to book a hotel close to the Hungarian State Opera and checked into a single room at the Pest Hotel, three blocks from the main door entrance to the opera house and another block and a half and another minutes’ walk to the stage entrance. He knew this timing to the second for he’d already walked this route and several alternatives about a dozen times since he had checked in. This was his first guest conducting engagement outside the United States and he was leaving nothing to chance since the circumstances were a bit unusual.

The best way to get an engagement in the entertainment business is to be simply so well known that everybody wants you. Noble’s agent tells a joke about Arturo Toscanini, the famous Italian conductor, who gets into a cab and the driver turns and asks, Where to? Toscanini answers It doesn’t matter. They want me everywhere. The next best way to get a gig is luck, and that’s what happened to the twenty-six year old Noble.

Two weeks ago, looking forward to the end of his second season on the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, he was called to a meeting with his boss, William Jones, the head of the Artistic Department and one of the most powerful men in the classical music industry. Ari Molnar, the octogenarian Music Director of the Hungarian State Opera needed back surgery and had to drop out of the last two performances of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte scheduled for the first week of May. Typically these performances would have been handed over to a staff conductor working for the company. But these were the last two performances of the season and the underlings on the music staff of the Hungarian State Opera had already made plans to exit for the more lucrative summer festival circuit, leaving the home team without a pitcher at the bottom of the ninth. A fax to Jones was all it took.

Yes, the Metropolitan had indeed performed Cosi fan tutte that year, and Noble, the understudy conductor was not scheduled for any performance duties in the final weeks of the New York opera season. He could be released from his contract to take over the final performances in Budapest. Jones had been keeping his eye on his protégé Noble for some time and thought this opportunity would be a fool-proof way to give him some international performance credit, bolster the reputation of the Metropolitan music staff, and his own as