The Maestro

It was the maestro’s first composition since the war began. The rehearsals were held in private; the audience knew only that it was a setting of the Te Deum.

It wasn’t a simple hymn of praise. The maestro, without altering the text, made it communicate the anxieties of its listeners. They had never heard such anguish and questioning in a sacred composition, but they accepted it at once. And, as the greatest art does, it momentarily freed them from the present. Thousands of men and women forgot the years of terror, their shabby and loose-fitting clothes, the unrepaired damage to the concert hall; they nearly forgot the many, so recently among them, who would never hear this or any other music. The Te Deum was a triumph, and twelve minutes of applause followed before the maestro could start the unexpected second movement, announced in the programs—De Deum.

The maestro raised his baton: the choristers stood watching him, the musicians held their instruments ready. The maestro marked four beats, lowered his baton, and then picked up his sheet music and walked off the stage. The choristers and musicians did the same.

BIO: Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his novel, Vow of Silence, was favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly. His website is at www.pw.org/content/robert_laughlin.