Oh, the ugliness and foolishness of war! The audience with furrowed brow flinched at the jagged shards of sound that sliced the air, the belching and burping leviathan that slithered and crawled and died before us. What unholy intervals and strange, dead whinings did the Pan-Pacific Orchestra put forward in all its dribbling vulgarity. Wincing from the brutal candor of the composition, audience members looked to each other with slow nods of respect. We, the assembled, knew. Others would not, but we could look the repugnant kraken in its face and not go mad.

And as suddenly as the inexcusable wailings began, they ceased, and my arms flew high again into the air. Thank God it was over, and we could hear God in the slight stirring of the wind chimes, the timid trickling of the koi pond, the light lavings of the lagoon beyond the castle walls.

I let my arms drop to my sides and bowed my head, signaling that the work was finished.

The audience began to applaud enthusiastically, one person after another rising to their feet. The assistant manager of the San Francisco Opera was particularly demonstrative. I gestured to Kat, he gestured to me, and we put our arms around each other’s shoulders.

The crowd applauded further at this display of International Understanding; then people began to chat in excited little groups.

Now the tough stuff.

I watched as Key Kaisa, the band boy with aspirations as a trumpet player, collected the Swing parts off the music stands. He quickly carried them over to the side of the stage, where he put them in the RC Copying envelope. Standing over him was Fumio Dakuzaku. As Key closed the envelope, I took the boy by the arm and walked him back to the podium. I called out to the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, a brief announcement!”

They turned to look, and I indicated Key. “This young man hopes someday to be a jazz trumpet player and I predict great things for him. As a gift of friendship from the Jack Donovan Orchestra . . .” I walked Key a few steps to the white keyboard, took the envelope with Swing in it from him, and set it down in the recess of the piano. I took out the substitute Swing envelope and continued, “I present him with the trumpet parts from our recordings of ‘Believe You Me’ and ‘Soup du Jour’ ”—I withdrew these from the envelope—“and our actual recordings of these same songs, so that he can play along with us when he returns to his homeland! How about that, folks?”