No CD players here. On the stage a skinny man with a receding hairline lifts his violin. A second, a stocky gypsy nearing pension-age, strikes the cimbalom, and the rippling scale echoes in my skull like an alarm. They are just a bunch of drifters, just second rate musicians traveling round and round from one village to the next. But there is not enough air in the room to fill my lungs.
Somebody kills what is left of the Stones.
The band launches into an anonymous traditional, the legato lament of violins bolstered by the pulsing moan of cello and bass. The music resonates in my belly, plucking hidden strings, tugging at my hips and my legs like an irresistible undertow. I need to get out of here. I turn away blindly, wading to the door, bumping bodies left and right. I run into a man with a half-forgotten face.