THE CURSE


By KATZMAREK(C)


Chapter Twentyone


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"C sharp?" The Dodger raised his eyebrows. "Who plays in C sharp?" 


"I didn't write it," shrugged Mick.


The Dodger kicked the stompbox at his feet. He tried the pedals - bass, treb, fuzz, wah/fuzz and something called a 'swell.' He pressed down the reverb pedal and strummed a C sharp chord. "Cool!" he said. "Shall we start? Someone count me in?"


The song started with just the bass and drums - only a little hi-hat, with the beat hammered out on the floor tom. The Dodger came in next followed by Mick.


Michelle's father furrowed his eyebrows and moved next to Mick. "You're playing flat, mate," he shouted in his ear.


"S'posed to be," Mick yelled back. "A dischord!"


"Silly me!" he shrugged. "Wouldn't do for the Eagles," he told his daughter as she came in to listen.


"The Eagles suck!" Michelle told The Dodger.


Her father recoiled in shock, having not heard such disrespect in a long time.


'Nice limbo you have here,' Anna sang - clear and beautifully. 'Baby come back to my world.'


In front of them in their old rehearsal space Mick could see Donna dancing in twirls, her dress flowing around her. Sabra on the other side of the sound desk was nodding to the beat with a big grin on her face.


'Death is next door, death is next door - baby come back to my world.'


The Dodger made it to the end and, he had to admit, he enjoyed playing this music with his daughter.


"Donna," he called, "would you say Mick was playing off key?"


"Um, no," Donna replied. "I thought it was supposed to sound like that?"


"See?" Mick grinned.


"Sounded off key to me," he grumbled.


They'd nailed the song, then it was on to the next - the a'la'capella number Mick had written especially for the occasion. Mick gave them a key on a mouth harp, then began to sing.


'Smoke from smooth Havana drifts lazily in the sky'


'The distant sparkle shines blue in your eyes.'


'Your crazy visions all around my head'


'Dreaming you were no longer dead.'


"That's Bessie Smith, isn't it?" The Dodger said. "You're paraphrasing!"


"It's a reference, no more," Mick snapped, irritated.


"More than a fucking reference I woulda thought," The Dodger continued.


"I think it's nice," declared Anna.


"See?" said Mick.


"So, what, if it's not completely original?" Michelle began.


"Hey?" Mick started.


"Guys," Donna said, "do you always argue like that?"


"Sure!" Anna shrugged. "It's creation!"


Everyone laughed at Anna's comment, besides Anna, who couldn't quite fathom the irony. Mick thought it felt good to be playing and arguing with everyone again.


Freddie's funeral was held in a church - only the second time, Terry mused, that he'd set foot in one. There were more people inside than out and the pews were crammed. The immediate family and a few friends then held a private ceremony before the casket was fed into the flames. Following that, it was back to the gardens they'd hired for the celebration of Freddie's life.


At one end, a stage had been set up and a roster of bands and musicians had been organised to entertain the mourners. A brief appearance of the still-living members of Freddie and Mick's old band The Strobes was to be followed by a cameo from The Curse.


Donna enticed her father to leave the Mercury and attend. He'd told her he'd had enough of funerals but this was a funeral like no other. Instead of tears and sadness, by nightfall, the place was rocking and noise officers had been to insist they turned down the volume.


"Have a heart," The Dodger told the officers. "Can't you see this is a fucking funeral?"


Video cameras were on hand to record the possible final appearance of The Curse, or, as Mick called it, in reference to The Dodger's inclusion, 'The Curse heavy'.


'Nice Limbo you have here. Baby come back to your world.'


The place was jumping and Anna sparkled. It was like old times, Mick thought, and a shame to let something so special, die.


"I still say you were playing off key," grumbled The Dodger afterwards to Mick.


"Who's Peter Perfect?" Mick retorted. "That last part on Limbo was open string, dampen the strings with your hand, then strum over the pick up. Why'd you use a plectrum?"


"Cos me fingers are too soft, smartarse. I haven't played seriously in years."


"It showed!"


"You cheeky bastard..."


Listening in to the bantering was Michelle and Donna. The two women found they actually got along well.


"They'll be fighting in a minute," Donna warned.


"Nah!" she grinned. "Dad's all wind and Mick's a pussy. Dad actually thinks the world of Mick. They go back a long way."


"Seems everyone thinks the world of him," Donna sighed. "Women especially."


"Ah!" Michelle patted Donna on the shoulder. "Sabra knows him better than anyone. Ask her why you're perfect for Mick?"


"Give me the short version?" Donna replied.


"Cos," she shrugged. "For one, you're not in the business. Two, you get along fine..."


"Three?"


"Ah, three?" Michelle sighed. "Three? Mick's only asked two women to marry him, Sabra and me. We both turned him down. *You,* on the other hand, asked *him* and he said yes. I'd say you're in for the long haul."


"Huh? How so?" 


"Cos now the fucker will be too scared to cheat," he said, laughing. "You've established control."


"I didn't see it that way," Donna protested. "It seemed a natural thing to do at the time."


"Hey, did you do it the traditional way? Mick likes tradition. Y'know, on bended knees?"


"Um," she reddened, "sorta."


"Sorta? Oh, haha, I get it. Oh, Donna, that's a good one. I'll have to remember that. 'On bended knees'? Well, he couldn't say no, could he?"


"I guess not," she laughed.


Out of the corner of his eye, Mick spotted Sabra quietly disappearing out the gate with 'Stud,' the sometime male model and aspiring actor. Her hand was lodged in the guy's belt and he nad his arm around her waist. 'Stud', he thought, was Anna's pick up, but, now, he realised, he was Sabra's 'piece of rough,'


He hadn't caught up with her yet, being too busy. Their passion had endured these twenty years and now, it seemed, they'd finally put it to bed and moved on. He felt a strange kind of disappointment and sense of loss. He wondered if they ever would have made the distance together - whether it remained a 'might have been' - or would the distrust still come between them?


Michelle was giggly drunk and shmoozing with Donna. They'd shared some good memories and a fleeting vision passed through his mind of the three of them, Michelle, Donna and he, all bunked up together in his bed. An intriguing notion, perhaps, but unlikely, given the circumstances. Her boyfriend, Garcia, was another drunk, he thought, as he looked across at the staggering singer. He speculated on how long the relationship was going to last. Given that, another tripartite set up wasn't entirely off the table, he mused.


Anna? Well, Anna was still working the crowd and had a small cluster of men grouped around her. Had she really fucked Dwight, he wondered, or was it all show? She was the master of the tease and could throw a bone now and again just to keep the guy interested. Maybe she was still technically a virgin and waiting for Mr, Right? Does this legendary guy actually exist? If he did, no doubt Anna will suss him out one day.


They'd had a good time tonight and The Curse felt good together. Without question they could reform and knock over the crowds again. America was the home of the second act and embraced stars that came back from the dead.


But at what cost, he wondered? Could he and Donna survive a revival? Donna, who eschewed the 'celebrity bullshit' but, at the same time, seemed to be enjoying the night - and the reflected attention of being Mick Johnson's fiance. Perhaps show business had stalked up to her from behind and seduced her with its glamour and falsehood? Here, at the funeral of his old pal Freddie, everything seemed possible.


"Hey babe?" Donna came up behing him and put her arms around his neck. "You didn't tell me Michelle was such a hottie?"


"Huh?" Mick looked back in surprise. "Don't tell me you want to go off with her?"


"Depends," she giggled, running her hands over his chest, "on what you have to offer?"


"Mmm," he kissed her on the mouth. "Wanna split?"


"Mmm," she kissed him back. "Then what, hmm?"


"Aw, you two get a room," grumbled The Dodger, getting up.


"Then what?" Mick smiled. "We'll get you naked and then see."


"Ooo!" Donna slipped into the space vacated by The Dodger and cuddled up to Mick. "I enjoyed tonight," she told him. "I like your friends. I thought they'd be all wankers but I'm surprised."


"They're just normal people placed in abnormal situations," he replied. "Some let it go to their heads and others..."


"Y'think Anna's normal?"


"Tries to be," he laughed. "She's had a struggle to get where she is - stuff to overcome. With that much talent and beauty, it's hard to keep grounded."


"Too thin and leggy," she declared, "I prefer my women - more like Michelle."


"You checking out the talent?" he laughed.


"Don't you? Who would you have - ah, silly question, we already know..."


"Right now? You!" he declared.


"Liar!"


Mick took her hand and drew her to her feet.


Sabra was staying at Junior and Karen's. Mick arranged for the band to meet there to plan their future - if they had one - afternoon, the next day.


When he arrived, there was no sign of the male model. In answer to Mick's question Sabra told him she'd sent him out for milk, with a few dollars with which to buy candy.


"Funny!" he chuckled.


"And where's your squeeze, Mick? She seems to have a brain, which must be a pleasant change - Michelle accepted, of course."


"I'd say!" Michelle protested. She hadn't really got used to Sabra's ascorbic banter. "Donna's cool," she declared. "I like her."


"There you go, Mick?" Sabra smiled, evilly. "Possibilities?"


"What are you suggesting, Sabra?" Michelle glared at their manager.


"Just winding you up, Michelle," Mick said, soothingly.


"Anyway, guys," Sabra brought everyone to order. "What are we going to do? How does everybody feel?"


"Good," Anna told her, "but, I must leave soon for the USA. I have a tour..."


"So that's Anna out," declared Sabra. "You? Mick?"


"What's the point? We haven't a singer."


"Michelle? Sabra asked.


"It felt really good playing with everyone again," she said. "I think if folks wanted to reunite down the track a ways, I'd be game."


"Karen?"


"Sure," she shrugged. "Like Michelle. I have a baby..."


"Yes, so full child care facilities on tour? Provision for families and partners, Mick? How would Donna take to an all expenses paid trip to Moscow?"


"Huh?" they chimed.


"Anna? You'll be in Berlin in two weeks, no?" she nodded. "How would you feel about joining The Curse for a one off gig in Russia?"


"Russia?" Anna replied, aghast.


"You haven't any outstanding warrants, there, I hope?" she grinned. "For arrest, I mean."


"No, no!" she replied, quickly.


"So, what's this all about?"


"The Russians want you to play at a festival on the 15th. There'll be five overseas acts - mostly Europop, so you ought to have the field, I'm thinking. No-one's doing your kind of material."


"Why us, Sabra?" asked Mick. 


She turned towards Anna. "You can't see why they'd want The Curse, Mick?"


"You up for this, Anna?" Mick asked. "How do you feel about going back home?"


"Home? It's not my home anymore. USA is..."


"Do you have any outstanding issues, there, Anna?" Sabra narrowed her eyes. "We need to know beforehand."


"I, I don't know what you mean."


Mick thought she looked pale. "Sabra means - she means, Anna, surrounding the death of your brother? You've told us the Chechens killed him..."


"That's right!" Anna insisted.


"But I've heard - have known a long time - that it was an accident and he was shot accidently when..."


"It didn't happen that way!" Anna raised her voice. "What have you heard?"


"You were playing with guns, Anna," Michelle told her, helpfully. "You were just children - no-one's fault!"


"No-one's fault?" she replied, outraged. "It was the Chechen's fault!"


"Y'sure about that?" Sabra continued. "You may have blocked some memories..."


"I remember everything!" she declared.


"Ah, guys?" Mick intervened, "maybe we ought to drop it? None of us are trained in..."


"Trained in what, Mick?" Sabra turned. "I just asked a simple fucking question?"


"Sure, but, if we're going into repressed memories - all that shit - maybe we should leave that stuff to the professionals?"


"Bullshit!" Sabra retorted. "I'm not going there to have my singer thrown in jail for..."


"Jail?" Anna looked shocked. "Why would they throw me in jail? I haven't done anything."


"Sabra? This is getting us nowhere."


"Why don't you just tell us what you know, Anna?" Sabra softened her voice. "How did Alex die?"


"It was at the hospital," she began. "He died there -  at military hospital."


"Before that?" Sabra insisted.


"In 1994 it was very dangerous for Russians, there," she told them. "Some Chechens didn't want the Russians and they threw things - called us names. My father wanted to send us to school in Stavropol' but my mother didn't want us to leave. She told him it would be like ripping her heart out to part with her children. I heard them argue about us."


"So you stayed on in Chechnya?" Sabra asked. "What town was it?"


"Does it matter?" Michelle said.


"Yes, it does. It will help her memory," Sabra told her.


"Groznyy," Anna replied. "It was a Russian enclave in those days. Paratroopers used to help us to school. They were very kind to us children and gave us candyapples and boiled sweets. We each had our friends among the paratroopers. Mine was Vladimir Podsniakov - he was a Sergeant..."


"Alex?" Sabra prompted.


"His was a man called Kasimir and he was just an ordinary soldier. Alex was jealous that I had a Sergeant and he, a - how you say in English,  Gefreiter?"


"No idea," Sabra shrugged.


"I think she means like a Private First Class in the American army," Mick suggested.


"Anyway, he had a lower rank and Alex couldn't stand it," Anna continued. "This man Kasimir gave him a gun. Alex wanted a gun to show off to me so he begged this 'Private First Class' until he gave him one. It was a pistol - very old, and it didn't have a safety catch. Kasimir took it off a Chechen. They weren't allowed to have guns."


"I'm beginning to get the picture," Mick said.


"You saying the gun went off by accident?" Sabra asked.


"Not sure," she replied. 


Her voice had the vague quality Mick recognised came before one of her fits. He was growing worried she was about to fade out on them. "Maybe we ought..." he started to say. "I mean, it does sound like an accident, doesn't it?"


"This fucking Kasimir should be in jail," Michelle suggested, angry.


"Kasimir? He's dead!" Anna told them.


"Oh," Michelle subsided.


"How?" Sabra persisted.


"Alex shot him in the head!" Anna explained. Her eyes welled up with tears and Michelle put her arm over her shoulders.


"Don't do that, Michelle, you'll shut her down," Sabra snapped.


"But? What do you know?"


"Plenty! Don't fuck with me," she snapped.


Mick learned to duck when he heard that tone in her voice. This was a serious Sabra and better to do as you're told.


"There was shooting just outside of the checkpoint. The paratroopers were fighting some Chechens and we heard bullets rattling on the walls of our house. My father got us all under the dining table, but he couldn't find Alex. The next thing, he saw him outside with his gun. He wanted to fight with the soldiers."


"Good lord!" gasped Mick.


"My father screamed for him to come inside because there were bullets coming over the wall. I think he saw Kasimir shooting back over the wall."


"How old was your brother, then, Anna?" asked Sabra, kindly.


"Hmm, I was nine so I think, six or seven?"


"Ok, so we have a six year old with a gun and no safety catch? We then have a firefight and he wants to go and help out his pal, the soldier? Not exactly New Zealand, is it?" Mick grinned wryly.


"Maybe South Central LA?" suggested Michelle.


"Shut up, you guys!" Sabra ordered. "Go on, Anna?"


"I didn't see it," she continued. "My father cried 'no, no' but, there were many shots and I couldn't tell one from the other. Alex comes running in waving his gun and crying. I ask him what the matter is and he says 'he didn't mean it.' He still had the gun..." she continued. Anna was crying steadily, now, and paused to collect herself. Mick and Michelle were still concerned but Sabra warned them away from her. "The gun fired again and, this time, it nearly hit my father. I yell - I yell at Alex to put it down, but he doesn't hear. Everything was loud - gunfire outside, shouting, soldiers running. I heard a jet coming over very low and no-one could hear above the noise."


"He didn't put the gun down, did he Anna?" Sabra suggested.


"No! Alex was hysterical and couldn't hear us, I think. Battle, it's very noisy, isn't it Sabra?"


"Yes, dear. Go on?"


"Huh?" said Mick, surprised. "How do you..."


"Later, Mick. Go on, Anna?"


"Alex was waving the gun around. I thought he was going to shoot my father by mistake. Then I thought, if only I could kick the gun - I just thought I might kick it out of his hands so he didn't hurt my father."


"Good idea. So what happened when you kicked it, Anna?"


"It flew up - so!" she demonstrated. "Right under his chin. The barrel was here..."


"Oh, shit!" gasped Michelle.


"His face..." Anna went on.


"Ugh!" said Mick. "Sabra, shall we end this?"


Sabra moved towards Anna and drew her in for a hug. Anna sobbed bitterly into her chest why the rest of The Curse fidgeted, not knowing what to do.


"If there hadn't been any war," Karen suggested, "then a six year old wouldn't be running around with a pistol, would he? So, in a sense, Anna was right all along. It was the Chechens who killed him, in a way."


"Yeah, but," protested Junior, "that soldier gave him the gun so it was kind of poetic justice. But then, her brother, that was tragedy. Maybe the Russians shoulda just pulled out and left them to it?"


"You don't understand the history and the underlying causes..." Mick began.


"And you do, Mick?" Sabra said, coldly. "You honestly have any idea? Let's drop it now, shall we? I'll take Anna out for a walk, now, ok? You four debate the causes of the world's conflicts and let me know your conclusions when you've finished?"


"That was unnecessary," Michelle said when they'd left.


"How does she know about battles?" Mick asked, more to himself, while watching Sabra and Anna disappear down to the beach.


"She's Israeli," Michelle replied. "Why wouldn't she know?"


"I suppose," he shrugged.


Sabra later explained that Anna's father insisted Alex was killed by a stray round and impressed on her she must never tell the whole truth. Her father was so insistant, the two scripts ran together in her mind and the cover story became like a mantra she had to recite whenever asked.


The repressed guilt, the confusion, post-traumatic stress - was likely far more than a sensitive nine year old could handle, causing psychotic episodes and fits resembling epilepsy.


"There is always comfort in childhood," Sabra told them. "You needn't confront reality if you don't want to. Someone will be there to give you a cuddle and tell you 'not to worry.' Adults will shoulder the responsibility, but, deep in her heart, she 'knows' she killed her brother."


"So," Michelle said, thinking, "she looks to relationships with women who will mother her?"


"I guess," Sabra replied, "as I imagine her mother 'made everything alright'."


"As they do," Michelle acknowledged.


"Precisely! As they do."


"Why fucking Russia?" was Donna's response when Mick gave her the news.


"It's just a one off," he explained. "Y'want we could go down to Italy after, or Spain?"


"Greece? I've always wanted to see the Parthenon."


"Why not," Mick shrugged, "all three if we have time?"


"Hey? We could swing through the UK?" she said, excitedly, "look up my rellies?"


"Look up anything you like," he grinned.


"Yeah, ok. All expenses paid? Y'kiddin' me? The whole fucking lot of us? Kids? The lot?"


"Everyone! Remember, there's a lot of money in Russia these days and they want to spend it."


Eventually, the lure of foreign travel was too much for Donna and she found she could take some annual leave from her job.


Moscow in winter was an unlikely venue for The Curse's possible final gig. Would there ever be another CD, another tour? Mick couldn't rule that out, although a lot would hinge on Anna's solo career. If she was to go stratospheric, what need would she have of the band?


The public came to believe it was always Anna's band and they'd been alright with that. She was the image, the frontwoman, and Mick was under no illusion the crowds came out to see a fifty something old rocker.


But the band had enriched them all and made dreams come true. It had brought him out of limbo and back into the public eye. That may have a been a curse but, on balance, it wasn't a bad trip.


One last time they'd have a huddle before going on stage. There'd be the screaming from the girls in the audience as Anna stepped forward to find some poor sucker in the front row. She would then scare the living daylights out of him with a roar from her big, husky, classically trained contralto voice.


Anna deserved all the accolades she could get, Mick thought, because she worked her high boots off for the applause, the acclaim. Anna Kuznetsova - the tormented Russian teenager with God-given beauty and a nurtured talent who, if there was justice in the world, should render to oblivion the legion of manufactured and lesser talented stars thrown up by the entertainment industry. Anna had genuine star quality and she marketed herself.


The Curse was family - fractious, argumentative - but, family after all. Families reconcile and get over differences because, when all's said and done, blood's thicker than water.


For Manfred Norman 'Freddie' McCann - 1953 - 2007. 


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KATZMAREK(c)

