Текст книги "Wolf Hunt"

Автор книги: Armand Cabasson

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CHAPTER 12

AT first Relmyer had rejected Margont’s suggestion in order to protect Luise, but then he decided to trust the Frenchman’s instinct.

Margont and Lefine waited in the Mitterburgs’ sitting room while Relmyer talked to Luise. A servant in bluish-black livery surveyed them suspiciously, which annoyed Lefine, who sank down on a sofa, crossed his legs and began to hum, ‘Oh, it'll be all right, be all right, be all right. Hang the aristocrats from on high! Oh, it'll be all right, be all right, be all right. The aristocrats, we'll hang 'em all.' The servant responded with an Austrian goose step. This archetypal scene made Margont despair. It summed up the paradox of the Empire. The French, hundreds of thousands of them, were starting wars to take the principles of the Revolution to the peoples of Europe, but instead of fanning the waves of republicanism, all it did was incite nationalism in its most aggressive manifestation. It had started with Prussia, then Spain, now the Tyrol and

Austria ... Where was it going wrong? Whose fault was it? How could it be put right before the Empire was crushed by a generalised European uprising against it?

Lefine noticed that the more at ease he appeared, the more irritated the servant became. He threw his head back and sighed nonchalantly.

‘Why didn’t Relmyer think of asking Luise?’

‘I think he wanted to keep her as far away as possible from the investigation.’

‘Possibly, but she’s well and truly involved in it. Relmyer succeeded in dragging us into his struggle. Now, Luise is joining in as

well. He’s leading us one after the other to the edge of the abyss >

Margont felt oppressed by the room although there was nothing exceptional about it, quite the opposite. A portrait of Mozart, comfortable armchairs with restrained floral embroidery, vases, a fireplace whose mantelpiece was covered with knick-knacks: statuettes, lacquer boxes, fans ... Everything was in the classical style, even the antique paintings and the piano with a score open on it -The Magic Flute,naturally. The only original note was sounded by the collection of seven lead or tin soldiers displayed on a small round table. Two knights sculpted in exquisite detail dated from the eighteenth century. Their lead was worth its weight in gold. What was original was that all the figurines were representations from the Middle Ages. One of them was attacking with a lance, the other with a sword while sheltering behind a shield, a third brandished a mace ... A handful of soldiers were launched into who knows what crusade. Margont realised that what irritated him about the room was its sterile conformism. Paintings of scenes from antiquity are in vogue? Quick! Over the sofa hang one depicting two columns and another of a temple at Delphi. Suddenly it is discovered that Mozart is a genius – what’s more, an Austrian genius! True, he’s dead and buried in a pauper’s grave with three shovelfuls of quicklime, but let’s not go on about the errors of the past. Instead, let’s get hold of a copy of his portrait. That was all right. People led their lives in their own way, and so what if they

decided to let others dictate their tastes? No, what bothered Mar-gont was that it was this same attitude that encouraged the halfsilence that cloaked Franz’s death. The obsession to conform contributed to the rule of silence. Because if people submitted even in their own homes, it was unlikely that they would dare speak out and take a stand in public. Suddenly all these commonplace, predictable objects in the home of these well-off people appeared stifling and a little sinister.

Relmyer came in with Luise and the old woman who had been with her when she had been searching amongst the wounded men of Essling. The young Austrian contrasted sharply with the dowdy creature dressed in grey. Margont greeted Luise courteously under the inquisitive eye of her chaperone. Luise introduced her, speaking in French.

‘Madame Hilde. I would have preferred a puppy, but instead I have this chaperone. Puppies yap, but they’re affectionate and stop barking when you give them a sugar lump. Chaperones tittle-tattle, witter on and even bite sometimes. And you can’t shut them

in the salon when you want to go for a walk without them. Don’t worry, Madame Hilde and my servant don’t understand French.’ Madame Hilde intervened in an unexpectedly melodious voice: ‘Mademoiselle Mitterburg, it would be more suitable if you spoke in German.’

‘Yes, indeed. Alas, Captain Margont and his friend Lefine don’t understand our language. It’s very unfortunate.’

While Madame Hilde searched for a solution – should they use Spanish? Or would she appear ridiculous? Would she be able to tell just by looking that no impropriety was being committed? -Luise declared: ‘I agree to help you. But I can’t guarantee that I’ll get an answer. And even if I do it’s not likely to be the whole answer. Hundreds of people are involved in the updating of the military registers so it’s possible that some names are missed.’

‘We’ll use whatever they are prepared to give us.’

‘And it will take days and days ...’

‘Is there anything we can do instead?’

Relmyer thought not. ‘No, we have to search the Austrian archives

from top to bottom! That’s what we have to do! I’ll begin immediately.’

Luise vainly tried to get him to sit down.

‘But ... you have to rest a little ... this is wearing you out, Lukas. At least sit down for a few minutes ... just to drink a cup of coffee or chocolate ...’

Relmyer shook his head. Stubborn. Intractable. Margont felt obliged to go with him. His friend would not find it easy to get authorisation to consult the archives because of his Austrian origins. Relmyer was about to go out when he noticed the collection of figurines. He froze, stupefied. He looked over at Luise again and wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come, so he just touched her arm lightly under the scandalised gaze of Madame Hilde. Then the young hussar plunged outside onto the street as if he were diving into the sea.

Margont, although he himself walked fast, had trouble keeping up with him. Lefine followed at normal pace, far behind, shaking his head. Margont was annoyed at having had to leave Luise, but he understood Relmyer’s reaction. Relmyer was hurrying towards what he thought would be his salvation, much as he, Margont, had leapt at any possibility when he was trying to escape the Abbey of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert. There was more at stake than arresting a killer and breaking the silence surrounding the affair. Relmyer also needed to liberate himself from the stranglehold of memories that kept coming back to haunt him, especially in periods of inactivity and in dreams. Yes, that was what this was – a war of liberation.

CHAPTER 13

THE Kriegsministerium displayed all the cold, oppressive grandeur of administrative buildings imbued with their own importance. The two sentries standing either side of the entrance presented arms to Margont and Relmyer. Their martial rigidity perfectly matched the facade.

Six other soldiers, grouped together in front of the marble columns, guarded the monumental vestibule. The duty officer had laid out his office so that he could keep an eye on the great staircase to his right and on the double doors opening on his left. Aided by two corporals acting as secretaries, he was applying himself to drawing up inventories; there was a strong odour, a mixture of wax, old papers, dust and leather. The officer had meticulously buttoned up his collar as protocol demanded, practically strangling himself to satisfy regulations. His red face, bloated by lack of circulation, turned towards one of the corporals.

‘You’ve missed a line, Carrefond! A little mistake can lead to a great catastrophe! Another error and I’ll transfer you to the voltigeurs.’ He tore up the paper and flung it into the overflowing waste-paper basket.

Finally addressing the newcomers, he demanded: ‘What do these officers want?’

Relmyer saluted him and explained what he was after, referring to but not explaining ‘an extremely grave personal matter’. The captain proved to be astonishingly friendly. He confirmed that they had not been able to seize the registers containing all the details of the Austrian army. He announced that, on principle, he was reluctant to let just anyone shuffle through what documents there were without official authorisation. Then he added that the French had taken over Vienna three weeks ago now. The archives that had remained in the capital had therefore already been partly examined. He made it clear that they were beginning to despair of finding anything at all of interest concerning the enemy army. So the Emperor preferred to rely only on his spies and on the reconnaissance carried out by them and their Russian, Polish and

Bavarian allies ... The duty officer concluded his discourse by saying that he did not agree to Relmyer ferreting about in the Kriegsministerium.

The refusal did not tally with the view expressed that the documents were effectively useless. Relmyer realised that there might be a way of changing his mind and laid out some twenty-and forty-franc pieces on the officer’s desk. The gold coins shone in the sun like a constellation in an ebony sky. Lefine was astounded. What a madman, to carry around that amount of money just to bribe an official! Relmyer brandished a second handful that he began to spill noisily onto the desk coin by coin. The captain immediately picked each one up with the alacrity of a hen pecking grains. Now he was turning from red to purple. There in front of him was months’ worth of a soldier’s pay, a large chunk of Relmyer’s life as a soldier.

‘Come whenever you like,’ said the officer obsequiously. ‘I’ll warn you if you ever have to hide yourself because of an unexpected inspection. The archives are stored on this floor and the one above. There are also several in the basement and in the attic, but they are the oldest ones.’

At that moment Relmyer felt a resurgence of hope, a resurgence that crumbled as soon as he had passed through the double doors.

The room, high-ceilinged and deep, was no more than a giant rubbish dump. Trampled papers and heaps of registers were strewn across the parquet. Interminable shelves blanketed the walls from floor to ceiling, some groaning with documents, others empty, having spewed their contents onto the floor. Lefine looked up, certain that the roof must be falling in. It appeared to him as if a deluge of shells had ruined everything in here, when Vienna had been bombarded. But no, the Austrians had pillaged their own archives and the French had exacerbated the disaster; it was chaos added to chaos.

Margont knelt down and picked up a ruined report written in a language he could not even identify.

‘We don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, nor even if it’s here,

and everything is in such a muddle.’

Relmyer stood in front of one of the shelves and started to read the titles of the documents. Ten feet above his head, about halfway to the ceiling, a long wooden walkway was also weighed down with paper. Lefine joined Margont.

‘Let’s go. We’ll come back and fetch him in ten years,’ he proposed amiably.

In spite of everything Margont decided to help Relmyer. He tried to put some order into the madness, by proposing all sorts of ideas. He proposed using chalk to tick off the documents examined, paying more attention to the ravaged shelves and the torn reports as perhaps they had been sabotaged because they were the most important. He also proposed asking one of Relmyer’s friends, who would understand what he was doing, to help. ‘On condition that he doesn’t run us through,’ Lefine had murmured. And finally he proposed trying to find and question the men who had been through the papers before them ...

However, little by little, Margont’s determination wilted under the weight of the tons of written notes. He excused himself and left, accompanied by Lefine, abandoning Relmyer, perched on a ladder, a skiff adrift on an ocean of paper.

CHAPTER 14

TIME seemed to have frozen in an interlude before an inevitable acceleration would re-establish the normal course of things. The days slipped by, all spent in the same way: preparing for battle or relaxing. Nevertheless, a slight excitement gradually took hold of everyone. The whole of Europe was avidly watching this section of the Danube, this little blue ribbon that separated two armies drunk on their own invincibility.

Margont had been immobilised on the Isle of Lobau, fulfilling his military obligations. Today he was finally enjoying a day of liberty. At least he felt he was at liberty, a view that did not quite correspond to what the army felt. He was not supposed to move around without authorisation but he did it all the time. The French army had many soldiers who did not possess the proper disciplined spirit of the professional soldier. During an inspection, Margont had overheard a soldier addressing the Emperor informally. And, what’s more, it was to complain about not having

received the Legion d’honneur! Not only did Napoleon not bat an eyelid at this insolence, he effectively granted the decoration, having had the soldier’s exploits confirmed.

A host of volunteers had enrolled to defend their country against invasion, to protect their newly acquired liberty or because they had been seduced by the glamour of victorious servicemen (and these volunteers received a rude shock when they discovered the true face of war). The conscripts, who were more numerous, had not asked to be soldiers. Having plunged their hands into a bag in front of their mayor and the police, they had drawn the short straw, the one that sent them to the front unless they had the money to pay for a replacement. All these people detested the over-rigid regulations, which they flouted whenever they could. Margont, who had volunteered in order to defend his revolutionary ideals, was in that category too. He often consigned his company to the care of Saber before disappearing. This time Saber was absent, so he left his men in the charge of Piquebois, who was gradually recovering from his wound. For some unknown

reason, Saber was spending his time in a Viennese cafe, the Milano on Kohlmarkt, and only rarely came back, irritated and taciturn.

Margont and Lefine galloped off to Vienna. It was time to live again.

Vienna was crawling with soldiers looking for a good time. When Austrian women went shopping they returned home with their baskets full of eggs, vegetables and half a dozen declarations of eternal love; eternal, that is, until the end of the campaign. It was called going to market.

Margont and Lefine went to Luise’s house where they were impatiently awaited. She flung herself on them while Margont still had one foot in his stirrup. She was overwrought and struggled to get the words out.

Isn’t Lukas with you?’ she finally demanded, having barely responded to Margont’s greeting.

‘We haven’t seen him for three days. He’s wearing himself out with his absurd searches. I think we will have to try to pull him out of the record office.’

Luise agreed. One servant took the reins of the horses while another one came over to join them. The Mitterburgs had left instructions that Luise was never to go out on her own.

While they were walking, Luise kept her fists clenched.

‘Why aren’t you looking after Lukas any more? This business is destroying him! Of course it’s not easy to do anything about it; he’s so stubborn! But you could ... I don’t know ...’

‘Let’s start by finding him.’

‘I’m doing everything to find the information he wants. Only, it’s so complicated ... and, is it really what’s best for him? He’s already escaped from the man once. Trying to meet him again, he’s pushing his luck, playing with fire.’

Luise took Margont’s arm; he slowed down.

‘I lost my parents, then Franz. I don’t want anything to happen to Lukas. I couldn’t stand it.’

When they arrived at the Kriegsministerium the duty officer received them with the smile of a salesman welcoming his best clients.

They found the room in an even worse state of devastation than the last time. Relmyer just dropped the documents that were no use to him, drowning the disorder in his own chaos. Perched on his ladder, as though he had not come down from it since his last meeting with Margont, he let go of an enormous bundle that crashed onto a mound of papers with an explosive sound. Luise had to call him three times before he would consent to come and greet them. Although he had emptied an astonishing number of shelves he had undertaken only a tiny part of the Herculean task he had set himself. He looked dreadful. He regarded them with a deranged intensity through swollen, hollow eyes that were reddened as if rubbed by sandpaper. He had bad breath and appeared to be starving. His crumpled uniform stank of sweat, reflecting his inner turmoil.

‘Have you come to help me?’ he asked, with an exhausted smile.

Luise’s demeanour changed completely. The minute before she had had tears in her eyes. She lifted her chin and spoke in clipped tones.

‘We’re taking you for a walk in Vienna. Well also go to the gardens of the Chateau de Schonbrunn. They’re so pretty ... do you remember them? We used to go there ...’

‘Go for a walk?’ repeated Relmyer.

He did not appear to understand. Anything not related to his obsession made no sense to him.

‘Yes, go for a walk.’

‘To Schonbrunn?’

Luise raised her voice. ‘We’re going for a stroll around Vienna and in Schonbrunn! Do you think I’m going to let you kill yourself with these papers? I demand that you leave here!’

Her voice reverberated, bouncing off the walls of the Kriegsministerium as it did off Relmyer’s closed mind.

Without really agreeing the young hussar let himself be dragged off. Luise decided that first of all her brother must eat. Margont proposed that they go to Cafe Milano so that they could see Saber.

CHAPTER 15

THE Milano’s sign was an enormous copper coffee pot held by a little black boy. Margont took an instant dislike to the crowded noisy cafe and wondered how Saber could possibly spend entire days here. Lefine, who was having all the same thoughts, indicated the billiard table as a possible reason, but Margont was not totally convinced. Saber was installed in a corner of the room. As was his way, he had taken the place over. His table was buried under maps, books, gazettes, and letters. His very bearing, sitting with an air of complete confidence and concentration, gave the impression that he was at home, and that he had graciously agreed to have his office turned into a cafe. He was in discussion with two other lieutenants. None of the numerous customers who were having to stand dared to ask for one of the empty chairs, which were piled with a jumble of letters.

Margont joined them and introductions were made. One of the lieutenants, Valle, bestowed an exquisite smile on Luise, who

signalled her lack of interest by turning to order coffee and bread before ‘forgetting’ to listen to the slew of compliments that the officer was giving her. She liked to keep her distance. Saber, who was cold towards Relmyer, annoyed with him for having wounded Piquebois, brusquely made space on the empty chairs by throwing their contents onto the ground and reorganising his documents. Like Margont, Saber loved both coffee and the effect it had on him. He drank it with exaggerated, mannered gestures. A waiter brought a tray with myriad cups, an immense coffee pot, a pitcher of milk and another of cream. Vienna was a paradise for lovers of coffee. Saber turned his into honey with dollops of sugar. Luise filled Relmyer’s up with cream, not because that was the way he liked it, but to give him some nourishment. Margont liked his pure, strong and bitter. As for Lefine, he chose to ‘sweeten it’ with schnapps, having swiped a bottle off the counter. Luise only started her drink when Relmyer had already drunk two cups. Margont had to press the servant accompanying Luise to dare to accept a cup. The man was astonished to be treated as an equal, and this little incident was to sow the seeds of republican ideas in his deepest thoughts.

The very fact of being served coffee, of doctoring it according to one’s taste, was a delicious pleasure and one that was enhanced by the company of friends. It was a very agreeable moment ... Margont temporarily forgot the war. Unfortunately Saber hastened to remind him of it.

This is Europe.’

Lefine stared, realising that Saber was indicating the maps. Maps! All the general staff were looking for those. They changed hands for extraordinary prices, as though they were valuable pictures! Or gold! And there they were, right in front of his eyes!

These are the Austrians,’ announced Saber, knocking over the sugar bowl.

The Austrian troops had possession of part of the world – a little mound of sugar represented Archduke Charles’s army. Saber also placed sugar in the Tyrol, in Italy and in Poland. Then he used breadcrumbs for the French forces and their allies.

‘Now the Russians: sugar or crumbs?’ he joked.

He opted for crumbs, even though the Russians were not proving reliable allies. In 1805, they had fought with the Austrians against the French. Four years later, new political alliances had redrawn the map, but Tsar Alexander I played a double game. As for the stubborn Russian soldiers and generals, they were loath to support the French and the Polish (especially the Polish, whom they hated). So, when Archduke Ferdinand’s forty thousand troops invaded the Grand Duchy of Varsovia, a state that was allied to France and defended by only six thousand Poles, Gallitzin’s Russian army, which was supposed to help the Poles, did not exactly hasten. And as the Russian army was already very slow when it was trying to go quickly, to say that they were slow in this instance was to understate things; it would be more accurate to say they were fossilised. As a result, Napoleon ran the risk of having to deploy thousands of soldiers just to shore up the Grand Duchy of Varsovia and to protect himself to the north.

But, Saber exulted: ‘Poniatowski, the general in charge of the

Polish, had them well and truly. When he understood that he would not be able to resist the Austrians head on, he decided to bite them in the tail/

As he said this, Saber placed the Polish crumbs in Galicia, to the south of the Austrians. He placed the bread as reinforcements, because that Austrian province had previously been Polish and welcomed Poniatowski as liberator. Archduke Ferdinand’s sugar troops retired precipitately into Austria so as not to find themselves dangerously isolated. Not only did this manoeuvre not succeed in weakening Napoleon, but it was actually detrimental to the Austrians, preventing Ferdinand’s troops from joining those of Archduke Charles, which had to continue to fend off the impetuous Poles.

That Poniatowski, what a genius!’

Saber beamed. Now he was Poniatowski. He wanted to manoeuvre the Polish troops, to continue the fight. Why had they stopped when they were doing so well? Saber had taken part in numerous battles, he had found himself soaked in blood – his own and that

of his friends shattered by round shot – yet he persisted in considering war like a game of high-level chess. His dreams of grandeur were impregnated with blood. For a long time Margont had been annoyed with him, considering him to be insensitive. But today, he was less certain. Saber was protecting himself by burying his head in the sand. The day he opened his eyes, he would be overwhelmed and destroyed.

The Tyrol! Rise in rebellion, General of Tyrol!’ exclaimed Saber. Thousands of mountain folk, furious that treaties between the powers had placed them under the control of Bavaria, had taken up arms. Their leader, Andreas Hofer, an innkeeper, had had some success in leading ambushes, attacking isolated posts, storming Innsbruck and even harassing the left flank of the army in Italy under Prince Eugene, Napoleon’s stepson. In the German states Major von Schill and the Duke of Brunswick were also agitating. The Austrians prayed for a generalised uprising but they still feared Napoleon’s might too much. Saber seized his cup and noisily crushed the Tyrolean sugar.

‘Insurrection repressed.’

In Luise’s opinion Saber was undoubtedly a bloodthirsty madman. She had also heard that the Tyrolean rebellion had not yet been beaten. The ‘sugar’ had certainly been dealt a severe blow, but that blow had only succeeded in fragmenting it and its ‘grains’ continued to pose problems for the French. Saber continued his demonstration – French officers and some Austrians had joined them, forming an attentive audience, and now he was talking more to them than to his friends. Saber was admirably well informed. Normally officers of his rank only knew about the state of their own company and any other titbits they overheard over supper. But Saber was convinced that he would be promoted to marshal one day and he behaved as if he already was one. His map began to make sense to Margont.

The Austrian plan was clever. It combined great sweeping manoeuvres to attack the French and their allies everywhere, at the same time. In the north, in Poland, and in the south, in Italy, with forty thousand men under the orders of Archduke John; in the

centre with Archduke Charles and round the edges using the partisans. This strategy forced Napoleon to disperse his force and gave notice that the Austrians were determined to open the conflict out. This was not a Franco-Austrian war, but a European war, with France and its Italian and German allies on one side, and on the other Austria and all its allies: England, Prussia, certain German states ... And what about Russia? Austria wanted to spearhead a vast coalition.

However, as is often the case in situations like this, the potential allies were hesitating. England had promised to dispatch an army to Holland, but constantly delayed doing so. On the other hand, in Spain and Portugal, the Spanish resistance and Anglo-Portuguese troops continued to recruit numerous French soldiers. When Napoleon recalled his contingents stationed in Spain to strengthen his position against the Austrians, he weakened his position against the English. He counterbalanced this by winning a victory against the Spanish, but he learnt immediately afterwards that an insurrection had erupted in Austurias and he feared that the Royal

Navy was behind it. Each conflict now took on monumental proportions because everything was linked. If Austria fought Napoleon again, Prussia would join in, guerrilla warfare would ravage Spain once again, and the English would this time send an army to Holland. Russia would probably join Austria. One error, one defeat, a single false step and the Empire could collapse completely, neighbour by neighbour, country after country. Margont lived in an extraordinarily precarious world. If the Empire collapsed would the ideals of the Revolution founder with it?

Saber’s finger tapped northern Italy and moved south-east to the gigantic Austrian Empire in Hungary.

The Italian army has pushed back Archduke John’s Austrians. The Emperor is scoring points in all the secondary theatres of operations and he is calling for reinforcements to prevent Archduke Charles from joining up with his own reinforcements. The more Napoleon destabilises his adversaries, the more the rebels’ ardour will cool.’

The principal armies resembled two queens face to face in the

middle of the chessboard, both immobilised, while elsewhere the pieces were ceaselessly manoeuvring and annihilating each other. At the end of all these moves, one of the two queens would feel sufficiently protected by its pawns to take action.

‘He should be made a general!’ decreed an enthusiastic captain. ‘Well, not really ...’ murmured Saber with false modesty.

Luise came closer to the table, the prelude to a brutal storm. ‘There’s no blood in your game. I’ll add some.’

As she spoke she tipped the coffee pot over the map. The puddle of coffee spread in a lake, soaking up the crumbs of bread and dissolving the sugar. Saber was too polite to reproach her; he merely withdrew his documents precipitately. Relmyer burst out laughing like a child, which made Luise relax. Saber, furious, was preparing to leave when suddenly he froze.

‘He’s here ...’ he murmured.

His anger had evaporated. Margont wondered who could have produced such a miracle. Normally his friend would not forgive such a humiliation; he endlessly rehashed past slights that

everyone else had forgotten. Margont looked round at the customers. It couldn’t be Napoleon – the walls and ceiling would have been reverberating to the cries of‘Long live the Emperor!’ ‘Maestro Beethoven is here,’ repeated Saber.

Margont leant towards Luise. ‘Who’s Beethoven?’

She shrugged. ‘A composer. He was very successful in the past and his sonatas have earned him some followers. But he hasn’t managed to win the heart of the public and his detractors are legion. He’s no Mozart—’

Saber reacted violently. ‘It’s Mozart who’s no Beethoven and not the other way round!’

He made more sense when he was talking about the war.

‘So who is he, this Beethoven?’ Margont asked impatiently.

Luise pointed out a strange-looking man of about forty. Red hair was escaping here and there from a badly brushed grey wig. Thin and husk-like, he resembled a solitary insect forced by hunger to go out foraging. Absorbed in his thoughts, he lived entirely in another world exclusively woven from music.

‘He hasn’t had the best of luck,’ added Luise. They were on the point of showing Fidelio here, in Vienna. That was at the beginning of May. But when people learnt that your army was on the way, no one wanted to go to the opera any more. The notices are still up on the walls ... Add to that the fifty million contribution demanded by Napoleon to punish Vienna, which led to a host of exceptional taxes, and the high cost of living thanks to the presence of your soldiers who devour everything ... Beethoven can’t have an easy life, that’s for sure. In times of war, in order to survive, most musicians are forced to eat their scores.’