Chapter Text
There were few things Balthazar hated more than questions. Not just the regular; ‘you busy Balthazar? How was school Balthazar?’ questions, more like the ones that meant he had to tell you about himself. Or his music. He hated those questions because they made him feel unsafe. He would tell you what he wanted to. But those questions, they unpeeled the thin shell of security that he had built. They made him be someone that he wasn’t. Someone who tells you about himself. And Balthazar wasn’t someone who told others about himself.
Questions were bad, but silence? Balthazar hated silence. Not when he was silent, he could be silent and it was fine, but when the house was silent. He couldn’t think. You can’t play music when it’s silent. Then everyone will know.
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Balthazar’s father was a radio host. Balthazar’s mother was a radio host. His father worked at a music station, and his mother talked about everything and anything on another station. That was how they had met, through red carpet events and radio presenter dinners. When Balthazar was younger it was amazing. His parents brought their children signed shirts and pictures from celebrities, and everyone at school knew him. He had a name. Despite being small, with a timid smile and an even quieter personality, he was someone. He was Balthazar.
The best thing however, was the noise. The house was always filled with noise, which was good, because Balthazar usually kept to himself, and when there’s noise, it means they don’t ask questions about you. Or to you. But then again, maybe that was why Balthazar was always so quiet.
Noise was good. Noise meant safety. Noise meant that Balthazar could think. Write. Compose. Noise meant that Balthazar could sing and play. Without the questions.
Even Rosa didn’t ask questions. She was just like Balthazar in a way. Rosa didn’t ask Balthazar questions, as long as he didn’t ask her. She was different in the music she made. She was an artist. Her words she didn’t weave into music, but rather into colours. She made voids of blue and purple, colours so deep and vibrant Balthazar drowned in them. Moulded orange and red into sparks that grew into flames and burned the page into a cacophony of colour so rich and yet so delicate that it seemed as if it could shatter like glass with one touch.
Rosa understood him.
When he was younger, their home usually had only one parent in it at a time. His father would travel as a DJ around the world, his latest fiascos charted in the newspapers in harsh ink. The blunt words reciting the exotic countries he visited. The capitals he partied in. The islands he stopped at. The newspapers told Balthazar about what he did there, even when he didn’t phone home or was gone for a few weeks.
His mother would go to conventions, staying in elegant hotels which she showed him pictures of, the sofas velvet and satin, the curtains heavy and tasselled, and travel on 12 hour flights to places even she couldn’t pronounce. The newspapers told Balthazar about what she did there, even when she didn’t phone home or was gone for a few weeks.
But when the newspapers spun webs of cheating fathers and showcased pictures of him having iced coffee and blueberry tart with a lemon crust at a café with a women with auburn hair and eyes that narrowed into moon like slivers when she smiled and three freckles on her left cheek, Balthazar wasn’t worried. He didn’t know. He was too young to know, to understand. As long as there was noise.
And when his mother did the same, chai tea and chocolate iced donuts with a man who had an earring in his right ear, long piano fingers and a dimple that carved like a crater into his cheek, he wasn’t worried. He didn’t know. Didn’t understand. As long as there was noise.
Which there always was. At home, silence was a creature hid in the corner, crammed hurriedly into a cupboard or trampled into the crevices between the floorboards. So much so that when the house was silent, it was dangerous. Because when the house grew silent, things started to go wrong. As long as the house had noise, the thin threads that held together his parents’ marriage weren’t stretched. When there wasn’t noise, it meant both Balthazar’ parents were away. And it meant that he couldn’t play. Because someone would hear. Someone would ask questions. Someone who wasn’t Rosa would know.
Noise meant loud parties in the kitchen at winter, hosted by one parent, or on the rare occasion, both. Frost edging the windows and heels leaving iced footprints in the hall. The smell of mulled wine and hot chocolate sneaking up the stairs so that when Balthazar’s mother said “Balthazar. Sweetie. Bed?” he could still pretend he was at the party, and sit in his plaid pyjamas on the top step of the stairs right beside Rosa, listening to the blurred sounds of laughter and music and the deep bass beats that mingled together into an eclectic mix that was just pure noise. And he could feel safe.
And in the summer, at the barbeques that infused the air with short bursts of meat and spices, and the garden parties where Balthazar sipped lemonade that made his face twist and his eyes water, there was noise. There was music. And he felt safe.
Only when there were no parties, because his parents weren’t happy, or the house was empty because his parents were away, did Balthazar stop playing, stop feeling safe. Music was his escape, his haven, his oasis, his secret that no one could know, because if they knew, there would be questions. And Balthazar hated questions. It was just as well that there was always noise.
And every night for a long time, there was noise when Balthazar wanted to sleep. And that was just fine because Balthazar could only sleep in noise. Silence was dangerous.
Only ever so slowly, Balthazar found it harder to sleep. Balthazar found it harder to feel safe. And the noise started to ebb away, ever so slowly.