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.

The funeral is held a week later, in Endre’s hometown. He is buried next to his parents. It is raining. Everyone wears black, so it’s not that different from the crowd at a Steelbird show. Most of the band members are there, even Tibi, the original singer. Nobody cares anymore whether he was an informer or not. The song ‘Like Crows in the Sky’ plays from the speakers. Everyone is crying by the time the song is over, then they bury Endre. Later on they drink in the pub across the street from the cemetery. They drink and remember, drink and laugh, drink and cry. I wish I could be drinking with them, but I just watch from the dark corners. If I closed my eyes I could imagine them talking to me.