Season 1, Episode 6 - The Tree Plot XXXIII - "Autumn Sonata"
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Back up in Androscoggin, in the early afternoon. After checking out the homes of several second-year transfers who lived in the area, Clayton and Hanai arrived at the final spot on their list.
“The Mozhzhevelnik twins of Class 2-B,” Clayton read off from the paper in his hands. “More commonly known as Fire and Ice.”
The two young men, standing at the curb of the neighborhood street, looked up at the twins’ residence - a tall house painted a striking purple, complete with black balconies and and white columns. That made Clayton rub his chin in thought.
“I mean, the address checks out,” he supposed. “But their records state that the family arrived here around five years ago. Could they really have afforded a house like this in such a short period of time?”
“Mrs. Mozhzhevelnik is a world-class pianist,” Hanai reminded him.
Clayton let the feeling of wealth emanating from the mansion ensconce him. Being a pianist can buy you this much?
He let out a whistle, then Hanai got the show on the road. As the two headed up the long brick path to the house, passing by stone statues and hedgerows, Clayton noticed his partner looked a little antsy.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
Hanai adjusted his glasses. “Let’s get this done quick. I want to be on the six o’clock train out of here to Salem Slot.”
Clayton gave him an easy smile. “Quick is my middle name.”
The two arrived at a set of thick mahogany doors. After a taking a moment to simply look at all the signs of opulence around them - stone Roman emperors and American presidents, thick patches of red chrysanthemums, and an artisan-designed door knocker shaped like a Russian bear - Clayton grabbed the metal ring in the bear’s mouth and gave the door a strong knock. The sound echoed with authority across the lawn.
After a moment, a woman dressed in a purple sundress - despite it being late autumn - answered the door. Red hair with a hint of gray curled down to around the nape of her neck, around which she wore an expensive-looking necklace of pearls.
Clayton looked down at the paper in confusion. “Huh…you’re not Fire or Ice. I didn’t know they were actually triplets.”
The woman gave him a cheeky smile. “Actually…I’m their mother.”
Clayton looked at her in surprise and gave her a cheeky grin. “No way.”
Mrs. Mozhzhevelnik pointed at herself in faux-surprise. “Yes way.”
Hanai deliberately coughed. “Mrs. Mozhzhevelnik-”
“Please,” she interrupted, raising a hand. “Call me Charlotte.”
That was certainly a lot easier to say than Mozhzhevelnik, so neither guy complained about it. “Charlotte,” Hanai continued. “I’m Hanai Hazaki and this is Clayton Wesley. We’re seniors at West Narragansett Technical Academy and we're writing our thesis on the students who make up the Academy. Sorry for not calling ahead, but if possible, we’d love to get to know your family circumstances a little better for our paper.”
Charlotte looked them over for a moment; her eyes finally resisted on Clayton, who gave her a goofy grin. “Well, you’re not Russian spies, I can tell you that much.” She opened the door. “Please, I’d love to tell you about myself.”
“We’d be interested in Fire and Ice as well,” Hanai spoke as they followed her inside.
Charlotte went to shut the door behind them. “Sure, there’s lots to say about Fire.”
The sense of wealth interrupted Clayton and Hanai before they could bring up ice. Much like the Coleridge residence, the home was bursting with displays of affluence. Large fireplaces, golden-framed portraits of famed ancestors on the wall, long red rugs and tapestries. The only difference came from the Russian bend of the Mozhzhevelnik mansion; a rug made out of bear fur, complete with bear head, was sprawled in front of the fireplace, and paintings of Russian landscapes hung from the walls as well.
Before she shut the door, Charlotte poked her head outside. “Would you like to come in?” she called out to Coleridge, still standing beyond the lawn at the curb. He kept his jackets in his pockets and stared at the ground when he spoke, his whiny voice barely strong enough to reach the front door.
“My girlfriend left me,” he mumbled. “And took my goddamn turkey.”
“Huh?”
“In the middle of the night, she left. I woke up. And she was gone. And so was my family's goddamn Thanksgiving turkey.”
Charlotte eyed him for a moment, then let out a quiet mutter beneath her breath.
"Pussy."
After shutting the door, she reunited with Clayton and Hanai, who were still looking around the living room. “Is he your friend?”
“That might be a strong word for it,” Clayton admitted. As Charlotte’s urging, the three sat around a table brought in by a butler. He spread a white tablecloth across it and disappeared down a hallway, presumably towards a kitchen.
“You’ve come all this way, please allow me to feed you,” Charlotte proposed. Clayton nodded hungrily; Hanai kept his composure but agreed as well.
While they waited for the food, Charlotte sparked up a cigarette. “I came from a small village in Russia,” she began completely unprompted. “The only ways to leave that village were death, the world’s oldest profession, or to make a name for myself. I decided to be somebody. Since the village headman was my uncle, I had access to a piano. I wasted no time in my studies. I played, and played, and played, and the village scrounged up enough to send me to the musical academy in Moscow.”
She alternated between describing her own journey and taking dainty pulls on the cigarette. Clayton and Hanai kind of just sat there as she went on and on about it.
“When the European Exchange ended, I thought Russia was out of the woods. But nyet. Civil war began almost immediately. The day after I left the city of Hashtarkan following a performance, an atomic weapon struck the city. I decided, for the sake of my family, that we must leave Russia.”
She shook her head. “The faces we saw as we left. There was one girl who stuck out to me - we crossed paths at a depot while refueling my car. The remnants of her people had just escaped a gulag. I thought this girl dressed in rags was speaking to me, but when I looked back, she was speaking to nobody in particular. It might have been just to herself. But then she started speaking to Nikolai Bukharin - you know him?”
She continued when the two boys provided confused looks as their answers. “He was a Soviet official who died in the 1930s. This girl was completely delusional. This is what modern war does to people. Fortunately, we escaped and arrived here.”
Clayton felt sorry for the poor girl as he asked his first question. “Why New England and not New York?”
Charlotte let out a long puff. “There’s no room for advancement in New York. The natives there aren’t keen on outsiders, especially within cultural institutions like their musical academy. New England, at least before the depression, had far more opportunity. It’s why you see so many Eastern Europeans here." She then gave them a sly grin. "And, as a bonus for musicians like me, your country has no musical tradition.”
She gestured at the statues and paintings all around them. “I perform regularly in Narragansett, especially for the Presidential Administration. It brings in the money. Unfortunately-”
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At this point, her eyes narrowed.
“It was not enough for Cambridge to allow Fire to study there. As an institution, they are old money, very much like New York. And, after my experiences with the mafiya back home, I would not allow my daughter to attend a school run by criminals.”
The rumors about the Institute having mob connections went back to its founding in the decades before the First American War. Officially, there was no such connection, and people who spoke about it often got a midnight knock on the door.
Even with the State Police running the Androscoggin Steel Works, Charlotte apparently feared no such visit here on the other side of town.
She finished her first cigarette and lit up a second. “So, Fire ended up enrolling in your Academy. I’ve heard your piano teachers there - not the best. I just hope this doesn’t derail her career.”
“Career?” Clayton repeated. “As a Rddhi user, she’ll face mandatory conscription after graduation.”
“I’ve spoken with your Chairman Stockham,” she said, the sly grin remaining on her face. “I’m sure he can arrange a cozy, music-related assignment for her. But enough about Fire, back to me. I’ve sacrificed a lot of free time for the sake of my family. My husband died of illness shortly after arriving here, so it’s been up to me to provide for the family. I’m at my piano nearly ever hour, whether it be here or on the road. I perform quite often…”
Clayton and Hanai waited as she kept speaking about her own accomplishments. Every time they tried to ask a question, she would break off into a tangent about her own sense of sacrifice, the pains she had to endure. To be fair, she was in a new country; to be fair, she made it sound like she had literally built this mansion, if not the entire country and its music institutions, by her own hands.
“Big band rock,” she spat out. “Combining jazz and the guitar will lead to the death of nations.”
Hanai let out a loud ahem. Charlotte simmered for a brief moment before her elegant mask came back on. Smoke drifted from her fifth cigarette.
“How about Ice?” Hanai asked. “I take it she followed the same path as Fire?”
Charlotte laughed. “Ice? She can’t carry a piano tune to save her life. She’s only at the Academy because Stockham offered to take them both, heaven knows why.”
“I like the Academy!” Ice called out, poking her head into the living room from the hallway. “It’s not like I’ve been standing here for the past forty-five minutes, waiting for a chance to talk with visitors since people rarely come to visit this mansion for anything remotely involving me. But, well, here I am-”
“Ice!” Charlotte cut in. She glared at her. “Do you want to go in the box?”
Ice looked at her shoes. “I-I…”
Charlotte spoke slowly and deliberately, emphasizing each word with a sharp edge to it. “You heard me. Do you want to go in the box? Yes or no?”
“...no,” Ice sadly admitted.
“Then don’t interrupt me during an interview again!”
Ice twiddled her thumbs and withdrew from the living room.
Clayton and Hanai glanced at each other.
Charlotte lit a sixth cigarette. “As I was saying, I really think New England ought to consult me on geopolitical matters - I think a musician can be just as good of a diplomat, if not better, not to mention my status as a cultural symbol…”
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Coming up with angsty lyrics in his head for his non-existent big band rock group, Coleridge frowned and spat on the curb again.
“Damn you, Samuel,” he muttered. “You and your band. Audrey Adzinoki and Her Jazz Cats. You make it look so easy. That’s because your lyrics are full of bubblegum and sunshine. You haven’t felt pain like me!”
“Are you alright?” Ice asked, poking her head out a nearby hedgerow. “You can-”
Coleridge flinched and nearly fell over. “Good lord, don’t just sneak up on somebody like that!”
When he realized he was talking to a girl, Coleridge neatened his hair and looked away. He imagined the sound of a mournful saxophone drifting from him. “You might get hurt, doing something like that. There are some real creeps out there.”
Ice laughed. Coleridge fell in love.
“What happened?” she asked, emerging fully from the hedgerow to stand next to him on the curb. She twirled strands of silver hair around her finger.
“My girlfriend left me in the middle of the night,” he explained. “I went to asleep next to her. When I woke up, she was gone. And so were some of my mother’s earrings, my dad’s cigars, and worst of all, our Thanksgiving turkey. Thanksgiving is in two days! Where am I going to get a turkey now?”
“I would never leave you or anybody,” Ice sister said, her voice a near whisper, her hands balled into excited little fists.
Coleridge thought about it. “What’s your type?”
“Guys desperate for a girlfriend.”
Coleridge heard the trumpets of heaven blowing a victorious tune from up above. Little cherubs and cupids danced around him as he looked at Ice in a new light.
“I heard they’re still selling turkeys in the southwest part of town,” Coleridge said. “Wanna go buy one with me?”
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Hanai nudged Clayton awake right as Charlotte and Fire finished their performances together. Sometime earlier - they couldn't quite tell anymore - they had been brought to a large room with a piano where Charlotte played. Then Fire played. Then the two played together. Then Charlotte critiqued Fire. Then Fire played again. Then the two played together again.
When Clayton glanced at a window, he saw that it was already dark out. Next to him, Clayton recognized the look on Hanai’s face, usually well-hidden by his glasses - he was fuming.
When Charlotte and Fire bowed - Charlotte positioned slightly in front of Fire - Hanai stood up and nudged Clayton stand up beside him.
“Thank you so much for today, Charlotte,” Hanai said. “But we need to get going now.”
“Will you tell the Academy about my plans for a geopolitical settlement with the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Mandates?” Charlotte called out.
“Sure,” Hanai said, lying. After getting delayed several times by more side discussions, the two finally made their way to the door. They used the opportunity of placing their coats and hats back on to dodge any more conversation prompts.
Fire pushed her auburn hair off her shoulders as she smiled at Clayton. “Don’t be a stranger at school."
Charlotte was more direct. “Call me when you’re eighteen.”
Clayton looked over each of them. Between the physical appearance and haughty smiles, Fire looked like the splitting image of her mother.
“Nah,” he decided, then left. Hanai followed him out.
A blast of cold air accentuated by the night sky hit them in the face as they followed the brick pathway out of there. Clayton burrowed the lower half of his face beneath his jacket while Hanai looked impatiently at his watch. “We can still get the eight o’clock train-”
“WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?”
Clayton and Hanai heard cries coming from the curb at the end of the pathway. Coleridge and Ice stood there; both of them were crying. Something was smashed on the ground between them.
Coleridge looked up at the duo and rubbed his eyes. “Five minutes after becoming my girlfriend, she dropped my turkey!”
“I’m sorry!” Ice called out. She knelt down and tried to re-attach all the smashed turkey parts together, but to no avail. “I got spooked! I swear, someone’s been following us ever since we hit the deli!”
“We’re done! We’re through!” Coleridge called out. He cried even harder. “But it’s not you, it’s me! If I don’t have the patience for you, then I don’t deserve you! I feel like...I feel like I'm crawling in my skin!”
Ice couldn’t say anything. She just opened her mouth and tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. Coleridge tried to comfort her, but he was just as mute.
“Alright,” Clayton cut in, having had enough of (the rather pathetic) moment. “No point in crying over spilled milk. Let’s just grab a new turkey.”
Hanai gestured at his watch.
“It’s for true love,” Clayton told him.
Ice nodded, but Coleridge interrupted. “I think we’re just better as friends.”
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Hanai looked at his watch. “Alright, I think we can still get the ten o’clock train. That’s the last one, so no more side missions.”
The group of four happily walked away from the tiny deli located on the outskirts of Androscoggin. It seemed like they had gotten the last turkey in the entire city - this was their fourth try at buying one. Everywhere else had been picked clean.
Coleridge held tightly onto the turkey as they headed down the sidewalk past brick buildings, looking for a spot to pick up a horse-drawn carriage. They heard the squeak of an incoming car, then all four were illuminated by its headlights. A beat-up Argentine model pulled up alongside them; the back window rolled down.
“Good afternoon, sirs and ma’am,” the man in the backseat said, his face darkened by the shadows. “I-”
The Ice sister squealed in happiness at being acknowledged.
The man waited until she was done. “I-”
“Sorry, sorry,” Ice said. “I always screw up. I’m sorry. I'm sorry! Stupid Ice!”
The man waited until she was done. “I was wondering - where did you get that turkey? Much to my regret, I waited until the last moment and am now stuck scrambling.”
Clayton gestured with his head. “We got it back that way, but they’re fresh sold out. Not sure where to get another turkey in this city.”
“I see,” the man said. He then pulled out a pistol. Clayton immediately sent a gust of wind, but the sight of the pistol sent Ice sister stumbling right into the path of the gust. Her head slammed against the back of the car and she slumped to the ground, seeing stars the whole way down.
The man pointed his pistol at Coleridge. “No more gusts of wind or cheddar cheese here gets it. Give me the turkey.”
Coleridge puffed out his chest; he was not one to take being called cheddar cheese lightly.
“Oh yeah, what are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
The man shot him.