Song to listen to:
"Farandole" from L'Arlésienne by Bizet
_________________________________________________________________________________________
The drums arrived in pieces.
Yaz watched from the doorway as two men carried them into the storage shed behind the orphanage, a building he had never been inside before, a place where broken furniture went to wait for repairs that never came. They brought in the bass drum first, then the snare, then the toms in descending sizes like a family portrait where everyone was round. The cymbals came last, wrapped in cloth, gleaming even in the dim light that filtered through the shed's single dirty window.
"Not the Practice Room?" Yaz asked.
The men did not answer. They were already leaving, their boots crunching on the gravel path, their job done. The drums sat in the center of the shed like visitors who did not know they had arrived at the wrong party.
"Too loud," a voice said behind him.
Yaz turned.
The man standing there was built like the drums themselves. Broad and round, his chest a barrel, his arms thick as the legs of tables. His skin was dark, darker than Mrs. Okonkwo's, a deep brown that seemed to absorb the gray light rather than reflect it. He was smiling, but the smile was too big, too immediate, the smile of someone who had decided to be your friend before you had decided anything at all.
"Kwame Osei," the man said. He did not offer his hand. He clapped it against his chest instead, once, like a greeting from somewhere far away. "I am here to teach you to speak with your body."
"With my body?"
"Music is in the body first." Kwame walked past him into the shed, his movements loose and rolling, as if his joints were connected by rubber rather than bone. "Before the ears hear, the body feels. Before the mind understands, the body knows. The drums..." He ran his hand along the rim of the bass drum, a gesture almost like a caress. "The drums let the body say what the mouth cannot."
He picked up a drumstick. It looked small in his large hand, a twig clutched by a tree.
"You are angry, yes?"
The question was sudden. Direct. It landed in Yaz's chest like a stone dropped into water.
"I don't know."
"You do not know if you are angry?" Kwame laughed. The laugh was as big as his smile, filling the shed, bouncing off the walls. "Of course you are angry. You are eight years old, almost. You live in an orphanage. You have talent that could shake the world, and instead you shake only this shed." He gestured around at the dusty space, the broken chairs stacked in corners, the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling like decorations for a party no one had thrown. "If you are not angry, you are not paying attention."
He held out the drumstick.
"Put it here. The drum does not judge. The drum only receives."
The Farandole was nothing like the music Yaz had learned before.
The guitar had been warm, intimate, a conversation between his fingers and the strings. The piano had been structured, architectural, a building he was constructing note by note. The violin had been questioning, each stroke of the bow an inquiry into something he could not name.
But the drums. The drums were release.
Kwame taught him the piece in fragments, breaking it down into rhythms that Yaz could feel in his chest before he understood them in his head. The bass drum on the downbeat. The snare on the upbeat. The toms rolling between like waves approaching a shore that never arrived.
"Bizet wrote this for an orchestra," Kwame said, demonstrating on the snare with hands that moved faster than Yaz could follow. "But we are not an orchestra. We are a body. One body. Many limbs. All moving together."
Yaz picked up the sticks. They felt strange in his hands, different from the bow, different from the guitar pick, different from the way his fingers found the piano keys. These were not tools for precision. These were weapons. These were extensions of the parts of him that wanted to hit things.
He struck the snare.
The sound was sharp, immediate, violent in a way that startled him. It cut through the air of the shed and disappeared, leaving nothing behind except the ringing in his ears and the vibration in his wrist.
"Again," Kwame said. "Harder."
He struck again. Harder.
"Again. Harder."
Again. The sticks came down on the drumhead with a force that traveled up his arms and into his shoulders, into his spine, into the center of his chest where something had been coiling for months, waiting for somewhere to go.
"There." Kwame nodded, satisfied. "You feel it now. The anger has somewhere to live."
The anger did have somewhere to live. But only for the moments when he was playing.
Between lessons, it returned. It crept back into his body like water seeping into a basement, filling the spaces that the drums had emptied. He would wake in the morning with his hands clenched, his jaw tight, his legs restless beneath the thin blanket of his bed. He would walk through the orphanage's hallways feeling like something inside him was trying to get out, something that did not have a name, something that pushed against his skin from the inside.
The forty-seven tiles above his bed had not changed. He counted them every night, the same way he had counted them for years. But now the counting felt different. It felt like measuring the walls of a cell.
"You're not eating," Suki said one evening at dinner.
She was right. The porridge sat in front of him, its surface developing that gray skin it always developed when you waited too long, when you let it cool to the temperature of the room instead of eating it while it was still warm enough to pretend it tasted like something.
"Not hungry."
"You're never hungry anymore." She poked her own porridge with her spoon, making small craters in the surface. "You just sit there. Looking at things. Like you're counting them."
"I am counting them."
"Counting what?"
"I don't know. Everything. The tiles. The steps. The days." He looked at her. Her dark eyes were watching him the way they had always watched him, seeing things he did not know he was showing. "Do you ever feel like you're waiting for something, but you don't know what?"
"Every day," Suki said. "That's what living here is. Waiting for someone to choose you."
"What if no one ever does?"
The question hung between them. Around them, the other children ate and talked and laughed, the sounds of ordinary life continuing without regard for the conversation happening at their corner of the table.
"Then you choose yourself," Suki said finally. "You wait until you're old enough, and you walk out, and you choose yourself."
"How long until you're old enough?"
"I don't know. A long time." She stirred her porridge, watching the gray skin break and reform. "But at least we know it ends. At least we know there's a door, even if we can't reach it yet."
A door. Yaz thought about the Practice Room. About the instruments lined up along the wall. About the contracts and the lessons and the teachers who came and went, some fired for asking questions, some content to take their money and not look too closely.
There was a door. But he was not sure anymore that it led outside.
Thorne's visits changed in March.
He still came on Thursdays, still sat in the chair in the corner, still offered his smooth words and his careful questions. But there was something different now. An urgency beneath the warmth. A hunger that had not been there before, or had been there all along and was simply becoming harder to hide.
"We need to accelerate," he said one afternoon, watching Yaz practice the Farandole on a practice pad in the Practice Room. The drums were still in the shed, but Thorne did not go to the shed. The shed was not his territory. The Practice Room, with its acoustic panels and its good lighting and its recording equipment, was where he belonged. "Investors are asking for demos. They want to hear what we've been building."
Investors. The word was not new. Yaz had heard it before, in fragments of conversations he was not supposed to overhear, in documents glimpsed on Dayo's tablet, in the careful language Thorne used when he talked about the future. But it felt different now. It felt like a key turning in a lock he had not known was there.
"What kind of demos?"
"Something that shows your range. Your growth. Guitar, piano, violin, percussion, all woven together." Thorne's hands made a gesture, fingers interlacing, as if he was showing how the pieces would fit. "A showcase. A taste of what's to come."
"When?"
"Soon. We've been patient, Yassine. We've been careful. But patience has a cost, and some costs can't be recovered." He leaned forward, his hazel-green eyes bright with something that might have been excitement, might have been calculation, might have been both. "This is what we've been building toward. This is why we've kept you hidden. So that when we reveal you, you'll be ready. You'll be undeniable."
Undeniable. The word sat in Yaz's chest like a weight. Being denied was what he had grown up with. Being undeniable sounded like the opposite of that. It sounded like safety. It sounded like being seen.
But something in Thorne's voice, in the urgency of his gestures, in the way his eyes moved to the recording equipment in the corner, made the safety feel fragile. Made the being seen feel like something else.
"When you say investors," Yaz said slowly, "what are they investing in?"
Thorne's face did something complicated. A flicker of surprise, quickly smoothed away. The face of someone who had not expected the question and was deciding how much truth to include in the answer.
"In you, Yassine. In your talent. In the future we're building together."
Together. But Yaz noticed that Thorne's hand had found his watch, that gold antique, and was rubbing the face of it absently, the way he did when he was thinking about things he did not want to say out loud.
"The drums help," Yaz said. "With the waiting."
Thorne nodded. The urgency faded, replaced by the familiar warmth. "Good. That's good. Kwame is excellent. Very focused. Knows what we're building here."
Birds of a feather. That was what the Maestro said later, when Yaz was alone in the Practice Room, replaying the conversation in his head. They see the same thing when they look at you. Something to be built. Something to be sold.
I thought he was helping me.
He is. Both things can be true. That's what makes it complicated.
Mrs. Okonkwo found him at the fence on a Thursday in late March.
The sky was gray, as it always seemed to be gray now, as if the world had forgotten that other colors existed. The chain-link pressed against his fingers, the diamond pattern cold and familiar, a texture he could map with his eyes closed.
"It's been almost a year," she said, coming to stand beside him. Her orange headwrap was bright against the gray, a splash of warmth in a landscape that had forgotten what warmth felt like. "Since the contract."
"I know."
"You've learned so much. Guitar. Piano. Violin. Now drums." She paused. The pause was full of things unsaid, things that lived in the space between what she could say and what she wanted to say. "But you're still here."
"Mr. Thorne says I'm not ready yet."
"Not ready for what?"
The question was gentle, but it landed hard. It was the same question Yaz had been asking himself, the same question Anya had asked before she disappeared, the same question that lived in the violin now, in the space between notes where doubt had learned to hide.
"For the world," he said. "He says the world isn't ready for me. Or I'm not ready for it. I don't remember which."
Mrs. Okonkwo was quiet for a long moment. Her hand found his shoulder, warm and steady, the weight of it familiar and comforting in a way that made him want to lean into it and pull away at the same time.
"I brought you to Dayo," she said quietly. "I thought I was helping. I thought... I thought it would open doors for you."
"It did. It opened lots of doors."
"But you're still behind them." Her voice cracked slightly. "All those doors, and you're still on this side of the fence."
Beyond the chain-link, a woman walked past with a stroller. The baby inside was crying, that thin, piercing cry that babies made when they wanted something they could not name. The mother was singing, a soft song in a language Yaz did not understand, trying to soothe the crying into silence.
"How long will this take?" Mrs. Okonkwo said. Yaz realized she was not talking to him anymore. She was talking to herself. Or to someone who was not there. "How long do we keep him hidden?"
She did not have an answer. Neither did he.
Another family came in April.
Yaz did not see them. He only heard about it afterward, from whispers in the hallway, from the careful way Mrs. Okonkwo avoided his eyes at dinner, from the particular quality of silence that filled the orphanage whenever something important had happened and no one wanted to talk about it.
"They asked about you specifically," Suki told him that night, her voice low, her dark eyes serious. "I heard Director Henriksen talking to one of the staff. They had a file. They knew about the music. They wanted to meet you."
"What happened?"
"Mr. Thorne was here. I saw him in the office." Suki's hands twisted in her lap, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. "He was there for a long time. And then the family left. Without meeting anyone."
Stability. The word floated through Yaz's mind. The excuse that was not an excuse. The reason that was not a reason.
"Did they choose someone else?"
"No. They just left." Suki looked at him. The look was long and complicated, full of things she understood and things she did not, things she wanted to say and things she knew better than to put into words. "Yaz. Is that normal? For families to just... leave?"
He thought about the contract. About the thumbprint he had pressed onto paper, blue-black ink settling into the whorls and ridges that made him him. About the word investment, and the word protection, and all the ways they could mean the same thing and completely different things at the same time.
"I don't know what normal is anymore," he said.
His birthday was on March 15th.
He had turned eight. The number felt strange in his head, bigger than seven, more real somehow, as if having two digits meant he was closer to being a person instead of just a child. Eight was the age when you started to understand things. When the world stopped being a collection of mysteries and started being a collection of patterns, predictable and disappointing and occasionally beautiful.
Mrs. Okonkwo remembered.
She brought a small cake to the Practice Room that evening, after the other children had gone to bed. It was chocolate, or something that was supposed to be chocolate, a dark brown that might have come from cocoa or might have come from food coloring or might have come from somewhere else entirely. A single candle burned in the center, the flame small and wavering, casting shadows that danced across the acoustic panels.
"Happy birthday, Yassine."
Her voice was warm, but there was something beneath the warmth. Something sad. Something tired. The voice of someone who had hoped for better and was learning to accept what was.
Yaz blew out the candle. He did not make a wish. He had learned, over the years, that wishes were not reliable. They lived in the space between what you wanted and what you got, and that space was almost always larger than you expected.
"Thank you."
"I tried to get Mr. Thorne to come," she said, setting the cake down on the music stand, using a paper plate as a makeshift surface. "He's busy. He said he'd send his congratulations."
Congratulations. As if turning eight was an achievement. As if surviving another year in the waiting room of his own life deserved applause.
"It's okay," Yaz said. "It's just a birthday."
But it was not okay. And it was not just a birthday. It was the first birthday since the contract, the first birthday since someone had decided that his talent was worth investing in, the first birthday since he had become something more than a child and something less than a person.
Thorne had not remembered. The man who called him extraordinary, who spoke of the future they were building together, who visited every Thursday to check on his progress and praise his growth and remind him of everything that was being invested in his development. That man had not remembered that Yaz was now eight years old.
He sees your talent, the Maestro said. The voice was quiet, almost gentle. But he does not see you. There is a difference.
I know, Yaz thought. I'm starting to understand the difference.
The thunderstorm came in late April.
Yaz heard it building throughout the afternoon, the pressure in the air changing, the light outside the Practice Room window turning from gray to green to something dark and electric. By the time Kwame arrived for his lesson, the first drops were hitting the shed's metal roof, a scattered percussion that grew louder and more insistent as the minutes passed.
"We will play with the storm," Kwame said, grinning. His teeth were very white against his dark skin, and for a moment he looked like something from a story, a spirit of rhythm summoned by the changing weather. "The rain is a drum. The thunder is a drum. We will be a drum together."
They set up in the shed. The bass drum, the snare, the toms. Yaz held the sticks in his hands, feeling the weight of them, the potential energy waiting to be released.
The rain came harder. It hit the roof in waves, rhythms that seemed almost intentional, almost musical. Kwame started playing, a simple pattern on the snare, and Yaz joined him, finding the spaces between the raindrops, filling them with sound.
And then the thunder.
It came like an explosion, like the sky splitting open, like something enormous and ancient announcing its presence. Yaz felt it in his chest before he heard it in his ears, a vibration that shook the shed and made the drums hum in sympathy.
He played back.
Not thinking, not planning, just responding. His sticks came down on the bass drum, answering the thunder with thunder of his own. The rain fell faster. He played faster. The storm grew louder. He grew louder.
Kwame was laughing. That big, room-filling laugh, but different now. Surprised. Delighted. The laugh of someone seeing something they had not expected to see.
"Yes! Yes! Talk to the storm! Let it hear you!"
And for a few minutes, maybe five, maybe ten, Yaz forgot. He forgot the contract and the fence and the cage made of investments and protection. He forgot the birthdays no one remembered and the families turned away. He forgot everything except the rain and the thunder and the drums and his own body, finally, finally, speaking a language it understood.
When the storm moved on, leaving silence in its wake, Yaz's hands were shaking. Not from exhaustion. From something else. From the feeling of having been, for just a moment, completely free.
Kwame clapped him on the shoulder. The hand was heavy, but the weight felt earned.
"That," he said, "is what I have been waiting for. That is the body speaking. That is the anger becoming music."
Yaz looked at his hands. The sticks were still there, extensions of his arms, tools that had helped him say something he could not say any other way.
"Will we do it again? When the next storm comes?"
Kwame's smile flickered. Just for a moment. A shadow passing across his face.
"If Mr. Thorne permits. The schedule is very full. Many investors to impress."
Investors. The word again. The reminder that even this, even the storm, even the moment of freedom, belonged to someone else's plan.
May arrived. The gray sky softened into something almost blue. The days grew longer, the light lingering past dinner, past the time when children were supposed to be in bed, past the boundaries that had seemed so fixed and immovable through the long winter.
Yaz stood at the fence during outdoor hour, watching the world that continued without him. Families walked past. Children on bicycles. An old man with a dog. The ordinary traffic of lives being lived, of people going places, of freedom worn so casually that no one even noticed they had it.
The Practice Room was beautiful. The instruments were wonderful. Four of them now: guitar, piano, violin, percussion. Four languages he was learning to speak. Four ways of saying things that words could not hold.
But he could not leave.
He could walk out of the Practice Room anytime. The door was not locked. No one stood guard. There were no chains on his ankles, no bars on the windows, no obvious signs of imprisonment.
But the fence was still there. The contract was still signed. The families who asked about him were still turned away, one by one, with explanations about stability and development and all the patient words that meant wait, that meant not yet, that meant stay where you are until we decide you are ready for something else.
Energy without direction becomes despair, the Maestro said. The voice was urgent now, pressing against the inside of his skull. What are you building toward?
I don't know anymore, Yaz thought. They say I'm building toward a reveal. A showcase. A moment when the world will finally see me.
And what do you see?
He looked at the Practice Room. At the acoustic panels that covered the walls, professional and gray. At the instruments lined up in their cases, expensive and waiting. At the recording equipment in the corner, the red light that blinked even when no one was watching, the eye that was always open.
A cage. That was what he saw. A beautiful cage. A gilded cage. A cage filled with everything he could want except the one thing he needed.
The door.
Not the door to the Practice Room. That door was always open. But the door to the world. The door that led beyond the fence, beyond the orphanage, beyond the waiting room of his own life.
That door was still locked. And Thorne held the key.
That night, he played the Farandole alone.
Not in the shed. In the Practice Room. On the practice pad, which was quieter, which would not disturb the other children sleeping above him, which would not bring adults running to ask what he was doing and why.
His hands moved through the rhythms. The bass drum pattern on his right. The snare pattern on his left. The fills between them, the spaces where the energy went when it had nowhere else to go.
He thought about the thunderstorm. About playing with the rain. About the five minutes of freedom that had felt like a lifetime and ended like a dream.
He thought about Kwame, who laughed big and hit hard and saw Yaz as something to be proud of, something to show off, something to put on display for investors who wanted to see what their money was building.
He thought about Thorne, who had not remembered his birthday. Who spoke of "we" when he meant "I." Who called it protection but built it like a prison.
The drums fell silent. His hands ached from pounding. The energy had drained out of him, but it would return. It always returned.
He looked at the Practice Room door. It was open. He could walk through it anytime.
But where would he go?
The fence would still be there. The contract would still be signed. The world that was supposedly not ready for him would still be spinning on the other side of walls he could not climb, gates he could not open, decisions he could not make.
The cage is gilded, the Maestro said. Soft. Sad. Present in a way that felt like company, even if it was not the kind of company you could touch. But it's still a cage.
Yaz nodded. He did not need the words. He had learned to see it for himself.
The Practice Room was beautiful. The instruments were wonderful.
But he could not leave.
And for the first time, he understood that not leaving might be the point.