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Two minutes and thirty one seconds.
Toby learned later on that Yo-Yo Ma spent only two minutes and thirty one seconds playing the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 in G Major. If you had asked Toby at the time, in that beautiful room ringing with beautiful music, he would have said that it felt a hell of a lot longer. He would never claim to be a connoisseur of classical music, or even a passive enthusiast, bagpipe regiments and brass quintets aside. But if you were to ask Toby Zeigler to describe Yo-Yo Ma’s performance at the Congressional Christmas Party, he could tell you, in his non-professional opinion, how every note filled the air around him and hovered there for far longer than it ought. Cruel time seemed to dance on every sound, leaving the air feeling dense. Toby wondered briefly, stupidly, if that was why Josh seemed to be struggling to breathe.
How is it that in less than three minutes a cataclysmic revelation can arrive, stupefy, and then settle deep in one’s bones? Toby, approximately a quarter of the way through Yo-Yo Ma’s recital, had turned his head to the left, not in any particular fashion, not in any obvious way. It was almost subconscious, the way his eyes sought out Josh. In the weeks after Josh returned to work, Toby would unconsciously find his head turning idly towards Josh as he passed through the bullpen; not always, and not for any deep-rooted psychological reason. Rather, it was simply a small form of reassurance that while yes, Rosslyn had happened, and no, they were not all okay, they were all still here.
Just over a quarter of the way through the piece, when Toby turned his head innocently to his left, it was in time to see Josh clutch at his torso, his chest moving once up, once down, and then seem to get caught. It was as if his body was stuck on a question during a test, only that question was simply how to breathe.
Nobody else seemed to notice – how did nobody else seem to notice? Josh was sitting one row behind the President of the United States, and no one was noticing… what?
What Toby felt there and then, sitting in that chair, listening to that beautiful music, was the dawning horror that he had only felt once before. At Rosslyn it had taken mere milliseconds to process the information in front of him: Josh, shot. Josh, dying. But at the Congressional Christmas Party, everyone dressed up to the nines, celebrating a holiday that wasn’t even his, Toby had wasted almost half his two minutes and thirty one seconds to recognise what was happening now: Josh, drowning.
Toby suddenly, instantaneously, remembered a dozen moments from the last three weeks, each more insignificant than the last, but surely all adding up to something larger, something worse. The shouting, yes that was obvious, but wasn’t everyone stressed? Toby had felt like yelling at the President any number of times, the only difference is that Josh did so out loud, instead of in his head. It was just over halfway through the prelude that Toby remembered Josh complaining about the sirens in the lobby. Toby knew then. Oh yes, no denying he knew then, and he tried to speak to CJ, but something came up, that brought up something else, that led to something else, and then before Toby knew it, it was the Congressional Christmas Party, and Josh was sitting to his left, across the aisle, eyes glossy and hands tense.
As Yo-Yo Ma was reaching his crescendo, Toby found he couldn’t turn his head away from Josh. CJ was noticing now too, but none of this was her fault. But Josh had complained about sirens in the lobby, and Toby did nothing. Josh had been all alone at Rosslyn, bleeding, dying, and Toby had been almost too late. A few minutes more, and it might have been a lifeless head Toby would cradle. Two minutes and thirty one seconds more, perhaps, and Toby would have lost his friend forever.
After the prelude ended, Toby found he could not remember much of the rest of that night. Only that Josh went home, but Toby went straight to Leo. Leo, who had been waiting for him, and who wanted him to talk to some doctor about Josh.
Toby felt his thoughts fragment, collide, and collapse in his mouth. He prided himself on his ability to take the English language by the scruff of its neck and bend it gently, lovingly to his will. That night it seemed words were not enough. The notes still seemed to tinkle on in his head. An errant thought emerged, useless really to the situation at hand: Josh had once said his sister loved music. Funny how these things turn out. Awful how these things turn out.