Chapter III: What Goes Around, Comes Around

Magda approached the mike. She was excited about performing the new material but also apprehensive. They were such a motley crew, anything could set them off. Arturo, the Cuban percussionist would not play gigs if his horoscope said the stars were unfavorable. Cierran and Dmitri, the two guitar, bouzouki and mandolin players, were absolute love birds off-stage, but their arguments about the more arcane aspects of tuning had disrupted more concerts than Magda cared to remember. When faced with conflict, Siobhan had a disturbing tendency to withdraw into herself and sing on auto-pilot.

"We'll just do a brief sound check and then we'll begin."

Just then there was a wail from Dmitri.

"Pig! I told you not to touch it!"

"Like bloody hell I did," Cierran responded.

"What kind of tuning do you call this then?" shrieked Dmitri striking a sour chord from his bouzouki.

"I didn't touch it, I swear!"

"Never mind, it won't take long to retune," said Magda. "Here's an A...That's strange...Someone's been playing with the pitch control. Instead of a 440 A, I'm getting a 415!"

"What can you expect when the moon is in Taurus?" Arturo commented philosophically to Siobhan who was beginning to get glassy-eyed.

"Just give us a minute to regroup and retune." Magda said. "Perhaps someone from the audience could sing a song while we get ready?"

A rawboned, gray-bearded man strode to the mic.

"Oh no!" Molly whispered, "It's Sick Nic!"

"Good afternoon, I'm Nic Ardis and I'll be leading the Bathtub Luthier Workshop today at 3:15. Hope you all can come.

"As many of you know, I have been collecting songs of cannibalism for many years. Of all the many cultural traditions I've surveyed, the Serbo-Croatian is the richest, both for the nicety of description and for the infinite variety of cannibalism songs. The song I am going to sing to you as soon as I get my gusle tuned up, is typical of the tradition. The title, which is also the refrain, can be loosely translated as What Goes Around, Comes Around. It's about a nobleman who got angry with a servant and vowed to eat the servant's heart. The servant knew black magic, however. When the nobleman came to rip out his heart, the servant cast a spell over the nobleman's vision so that the nobleman thought his wife was the servant and he ripped out her heart and ate it in a yogurt sauce. Then, when the nobleman's vision cleared and he saw he had been tricked and he became doubly angry. Again he vowed to eat his servant's heart and again the servant bewitched his vision and this time the nobleman ate the heart of his eldest son in a vinaigrette. And when the nobleman's vision cleared and he saw what had happened, he went mad with rage. Twelve times he attempted to kill his servant and twelve times the servant bewitched him so that by the end of the day, nobleman had eaten the hearts of his seven virgin daughters, his three favorite greyhounds, his favorite horse, and a cow. Then the nobleman died of indigestion, and the servant danced on his grave singing What Goes Around, Comes Around."

"Excuse me," said Magda. "We are finally ready. If you could perform something brief..."

Ardis said nothing and began sawing away on a one-stringed folk fiddle. He sang in a cracked, off-pitch wail and intermittently stamped his foot. The net effect was that of a cat giving birth in a bowling alley. Ardis was still at it fifteen minutes later when Magda walked to the front of the room and said:

"In my homeland, a ballad performance could last for many days, but here we must stick to a strict timetable and I'm afraid its time we cleared out and let the next workshop in."

"But you haven't played anything!" Rosebuns shrieked in agony.

"The equipment problem has gotten the better of us, we will try to arrange another concert later today."

"I'll kill him! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!" Rosebuns leaped for Ardis's throat but the height differential was too much for him. The two men ended up in a clumsy embrace with Rosebuns gripping the taller man beneath the armpits shouting: "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

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