Devils Trill

“Devils Trill”

Before the Spring Festival of 1973 the narrator’s mother brought him his violin; it was a fine German model. The narrator received the violin from his great uncle who bought it from a poor Russian musician for fifty silver dollars. His uncle was on his deathbed when he gave the violin to the narrator, and gave it to him because none of his sons our grandsons played the violin. The narrator aspired to be a musician for much of his young life; he attended a music school, but later abandoned the dream. The narrator is now in a camp for political prisoners, recently one of the prisoners was executed, and many prisoners were scared they were going to be killed. The narrator was made a prisoner of a fellow prisoner named Old Cop, and the narrator could not stand him. Even though he did not like him, the narrator tried to be on good terms with the Old Cop, but he just ignored him. On the eve of the Spring festival the narrator was playing his violin on his bed and a fellow prisoner was trying to hide cakes his wife had brought him. After a while a crowd of inmates were gathered abound his bunk listening to him play the violin. The Old Cop was annoyed when The Big Boss of the barracks came over to listen to the narrator play so he told the narrator to go outside. As he as going outside to the courtyard he started to recall past spring festivals before he was a prisoner, and how he learned to play the violin. He then entered the bathroom and saw a couple of his friends and started play the violin for them. They were very pleased. Later that night he went to the Big Boss’s barracks, and they talked about the Big Boss’s upcoming release, and how he was arrested. When the narrator returned to his barracks, he witnessed the Old Cop trying to steal the one of the inmate’s cakes and started to fight with him. He eventually won the fight and was rewarded by one of the officers. He was to be one of the waiters at the festival, a job that the Old Cop would have had. The narrator was excited to receive the job because he would be able to hear rumors from the outside world. When they got to the festival they were to help the butcher slay another pig because there were more people coming than expected.