Silence settled upon them. Csaba was quiet. I could feel that deep down in him something was changing. He remained silent a little longer, then said, ‘Yeah,’ and took another sip.

By the next day they had finalized the song, but the finished version conveyed very little of the atmosphere of the previous night. The audience still liked it. It was often the penultimate song at their shows.

I’m looking at Csaba now. He’s sitting by the table crying. I want to hug him, but he would only push me away, even if he saw me crying. Tonight I will be ready with a new nightmare. It will be about the afternoon full of crows, the last conversation between them in Csaba’s kitchen, the bills and the welfare office. I hope this will be the push that will finally convince him.

At midnight I put the spider in his mouth and walk out to the garden. I remember his bitterness when he ended up moving here, to this dreadful little village in the eastern part of the country. At the time he wanted to start a post-­Steelbird career, but his second band failed. The youngsters were listening to music that he simply couldn’t understand anymore. The new, trendy online outlets even saw the legacy of Steelbird as a mere joke, an embarrassment to modern music, made up of elements stolen from here and there. It was revealed that Tibi, the first singer, had been an informer for the Communist regime up until ’89. Csaba had had enough, and he couldn’t afford an apartment in Budapest anymore.

Csaba spent almost all of his money on this crumbling house, as far from Budapest as possible. But life in the countryside was harder than he thought. He had no talent for anything apart from making music (and not even for that, according to some). He quickly burned through his meager savings.

I sit down on a bench in the garden and listen to the nighttime noises. This time they are sending me a message; every fiber of nature screams it, yet only I can hear. Now I know for sure that I have a heart, because it withers from sadness when I learn the news. I knew this day would come eventually; just as Csaba knew that one day he would grow old. Still, neither of us tried hard enough, we didn’t pursue our goals ferociously enough.

Why is he so stubborn? Is it my fault? Did I shape him to be like this with the tapes? I hear his thoughts in my head, I can feel what he feels, as if we were guitar and amplifier connected; and yet I can never fully get to know him. He will forever remain a beautiful mystery to me. I hear screaming from inside the house: Csaba is waking up from the nightmare.