The Brahms Deception Read online

  “You could, too.”

  “I don’t know, Rik. I just—I’m not sure.”

  “Because you want to protect a woman who’s been gone for more than a century.”

  “I can’t explain it any better than that.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, and sighed. “You didn’t see her . . . see how sad she was, how—how weary. Her honor was everything to her, and I just can’t—I won’t—take that away.”

  “No one cares about that stuff these days.”

  He made a wry face. “No. I guess not. But she does.”

  “Did, Kris. I keep telling you. Did.” To this he had no reply.

  He tried to catch up on his e-mail, but everyone he had ever known somehow wanted to talk to him now. There were more messages than he could possibly answer. He gave it up and closed his account. He and Erika ignored most of their voice mail. At night they turned off the phone. Kristian only considered returning two calls. One was from the dean at Juilliard. The other was from Catherine.

  “Kris?”

  Kristian knew the dean’s voice well. He pictured him in his office overlooking Lincoln Center Plaza, looking down on the tourists admiring the fountain. “Hello, Dr. Underwood.”

  “Thanks for getting back to me.”

  “I didn’t think you’d ever want to speak to me again.”

  “Now, now,” Underwood said. Kristian visualized the dean’s gray beard bobbing as he spoke into the phone, his round glasses reflecting the spotlights from the plaza. “Everyone loses their temper now and again. I certainly have.”

  “I may have lost mine more spectacularly than most.”

  “Yes, you may. You may indeed.” Dr. Underwood chuckled. “Sometimes, of course, a temper can be useful.”

  You’ll never know. “That day in your office . . . I left a bit—precipitately. I should have apologized. I’d like to do that now.”

  “Accepted.” Underwood cleared his throat, and Kristian was sure he was pushing his spectacles up onto his head, where they typically perched just on his bald spot. “We should talk, Kris. Now that you’ve had your transfer opportunity after all. And spoken to Congress! That must have been interesting.”

  Kristian couldn’t think of what to say. He hadn’t planned for this. He had been certain that no one at Juilliard would want anything further to do with him.

  Underwood said, with a thread of doubt in his voice, “Unless you don’t want to come back?”

  “Come back?” Kristian’s voice broke on the word. “Is that possible?”

  Underwood laughed. “Come on, Kris. We’ve all had bad moments. Yours was spectacular, as you say, but you had your reasons. Let’s put all of that in the past, shall we? I’d like to talk about you resuming your doctoral studies. Tell me—did you discover what Brahms meant by p dolce?”

  Catherine’s call surprised Kristian even more than Dr. Underwood’s. When the phone rang, Kristian was standing beside the sink eating his breakfast, hurrying so he could catch the train to New York. He had an appointment that afternoon with his dissertation adviser, who had been nicely softened up by Dr. Underwood. Erika was slicing an apple at the counter. She laid down the knife and turned toward the phone when Catherine’s melodic voice sounded on the caller ID.

  Erika said, “I thought she was in Houston. The apprentice program.”

  “Pretty sure she is.” Kristian put down his toast.

  Catherine said, “Kris, are you there? Erika? I don’t have much time, but—”

  Erika said, “Do you want to talk to her?”

  “I don’t know.” Kristian could visualize Catherine even more clearly than Dr. Underwood. He remembered the way her black hair flowed over her shoulders and lifted in the wind. He recalled the trick she had of looking up beneath her dark eyelashes, especially when she wanted something. Her voice resonated with her years of voice study, recalling to him the way he felt when he accompanied her, that intoxicating feeling that they were one in the music, united in their intent. It had been a false feeling, he reminded himself. He had confused musical agreement with love.

  Catherine was reading out her phone number, now. There was a beep, and she was gone.

  “Shall we save that?” Erika asked quietly.

  Kristian shrugged.

  “Kris, do you want to tell me what happened between you and Catherine?”

  “She just—she had her life to live. And I’d made a mess of mine. Lost the transfer. Lost my temper.”

  “It was understandable, after all.”

  “Got kicked out of Juilliard.”

  “If she loved you, she would have stood with you, no matter what.”

  “She’s ambitious. And she should be.”

  “I understand that. It’s a great voice. But still, Kris—”

  “She’ll have a big career. She wouldn’t let anything hold her back.” Like children. A husband. A lover.

  “Why do you think she wants to talk to you now?”

  Kristian grinned. “Nine-day wonder, remember? Maybe she wants a little fame to rub off on her.”

  Erika grinned back at him. “That’s cold, Kris.”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  “I guess you don’t want to save her message, then?”

  He considered for a moment, then turned to the sink to rinse his plate. “Nope. Don’t think so.”

  “Kris, it’s not—” Erika’s smile faded, and he glanced over his shoulder at her. “It’s not because of—because of her, is it?”

  “Who?”

  She pursed her lips. “You know damn well who.”

  “Do you mean Chiara, by any chance?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “I do not, and you know it. I mean Clara Schumann.”

  He set the plate in the strainer, and flipped the dish towel over the rack. “Maybe,” he said slowly. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “It will pass,” she said.

  He pushed away from the counter, and walked toward his bedroom to get his briefcase. He paused on the way to plant a kiss on Erika’s head. “I guess you’re right, Rik,” he said. “Everything passes. In time.”

  It was past midnight when he returned to the apartment. Erika’s chair sat outside her room, and the apartment was dark except for a light in the kitchen. She had left a pan of vegetable soup on the stove. He turned on the heat underneath it, then went to the fridge. He smiled as he opened the fridge and bent to retrieve a beer. The Sub-Zero in Castagno would swallow their decrepit Kelvinator whole, he was sure.

  He was still smiling as he stirred the soup and sipped from the beer. He felt good. No, he felt great. He hadn’t lost any time in two days, and his future beckoned once again.

  When the soup was hot, he took the whole pan to the table and set it on a trivet. He got a spoon and a fresh beer, and sat down. His briefcase lay on the edge of the table, stuffed now with a class schedule, a list of requirements for the completion of his doctorate, and a letter from the dean reinstating his fellowship. He took a sip, then saluted Erika’s closed door with his spoon. The soup was full of carrots and celery and glazed onions and dotted with basil and thyme. Chiara Belfiore would approve.

  Odd, that he should think of Chiara now. He had an urge to call her, to tell her his good news. He might just get her number from Erika.

  He finished the soup, and lingered over his second beer, not really feeling tired. It had been a stimulating day, and the world looked considerably brighter—despite the hour—than it had the day before. He glanced at the phone, but no light blinked on the console. Erika had deleted Catherine’s message. He saluted her again, this time with his beer bottle.

  By the time he finished the beer, he thought he could probably manage to sleep. He set the pan in the sink and ran water into it. He dunked his bowl and spoon into the water to soak. He turned out the light, but he left his briefcase where it was. He would go over it all again in the morning.

  He didn’t bother with the light in his bedroom. He kicked off his shoes and peeled off his shirt and
pants, shivering a little in the chill of the small hours. He kept his socks on against the cold, and slid into bed with a sigh of satisfaction. He had pulled the shade, but the streetlights shone through just enough to reveal the shapes of his bureau and the old coatrack behind the door. He lay on his back, hands behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling for a time, thinking about how good it had felt to go back to Juilliard, be welcomed by the dean and his adviser, to belong again. To be forgiven. He would finish it this time. The transfer would guarantee him a university position once he had the doctorate. It only remained to make a good job of it, and he had every intention of doing just that.

  He finally turned on his side, yawned, and let himself drift off.

  When he startled awake, the light had begun to change. His room was gray with dawn, and he could see the pile of clothes he had left on the chair, the battered leather jacket hanging on the coatrack. He couldn’t have been asleep more than four hours. He turned over, toward the window, wondering why he was awake.

  She was there. In his room. She made a slender, dramatic figure, barely visible in the dim light from the window. She wore the same dark dress, the scarf tucked into the bodice. She gazed at him, her small mouth curving slightly in her melancholy smile. Her great eyes were pools of darkness, and her hands, with their fine, strong fingers, were linked before her in a relaxed fashion.

  Kristian sat up, his mouth gone dry and his heart suddenly beating fast in his ears. He tried to speak, but nothing came. He stared at her, not completely sure he was awake, not wanting her to fade as his mother had, to evaporate like a wisp of mist. Finally, he managed to whisper, “Clara?”

  She pressed her entwined hands to her breast in a gesture of gratitude.

  He croaked, “I never expected to see you again.”

  She smiled. An instant later her image began to shimmer, and Kristian’s head started to spin. He said, “Wait! Wait, are you here, or am I—”

  He didn’t receive an answer. He blinked, and full daylight was spilling into his room, the hours of dawn lost to him. There was no specter beside the window. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see. He lay on his back again, his blankets pulled up and tucked under his chin.

  He had no idea what the hell had happened. His urge to call Chiara vanished. He couldn’t worry her by admitting he was still losing time.

  And seeing ghosts from 1861.

  22

  “Dr. North?”

  “Yes.” Kristian opened the door to his office, and stood back to let the young woman pass by him. She had a leather portfolio under her arm, and a recorder and microphone in a jumble in her hands. She stood uncertainly in the center of the room, looking about her at the crowded room with its baby grand piano, small sofa and stuffed chair, floor lamps, and a vintage cherrywood desk piled high with books and music. It was the classic picture of a professor’s office, and it had only taken him three months to make it look that way.

  “You must be Emma. Have a seat.” He pointed to the chair opposite the desk, then went around and sat down behind it. He pushed his computer and an empty coffee cup out of the way, and propped his elbows on the wood.

  “Thanks for your time this morning,” she said. She gingerly set the recorder on the edge of the desk, and held the mike up as if asking a blessing. “Do you mind this?”

  “Nope.” He smiled at her. “It’s probably just as well. Then we can’t dispute what either of us said.”

  Her cheeks flamed, and she shook her wispy mop of brown hair. “Oh, no, Dr. North! I would never dispute . . . that is, I only want to write what—” She stopped, biting her lower lip.

  “I was kidding,” he said. “You can relax, really. Go ahead, turn the thing on, and ask away.”

  When he saw that her hand shook a little as she reached for the recorder, he said, “Really, Emma, you can take it easy. It’s just an interview. Writing the article is the hard part.”

  She dropped her hand to her lap, but she gave him a shy smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m so new at this.”

  “I know. That’s why I thought you’d be the right person.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “You did?”

  He laughed. “Sure. Why not? Your magazine wants an article, and I would imagine you could use a break.”

  “I do, I’m afraid. I didn’t know being a reporter would be so hard. Not the writing part, but the interviews—” She broke off, blushing again.

  “All the good jobs are hard, Emma.”

  “I thought everyone would love talking to a reporter,” she said. “Get their name in print, a bit of publicity. It turns out it’s only people who haven’t done anything—oh, that sounds wrong. I mean, famous people don’t need to talk to me, so—”

  He chuckled. “I’m hardly famous.”

  “Oh, but you are, Dr. North! All the journals want this interview.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that. I thought it was time to answer some questions. It’s been long enough now, and the university seemed to think it was a good idea.”

  “They’re thrilled to have you here, I bet.”

  He shrugged. “This is a good school. And it’s going to get even better. The administration is investing a lot in the future of musicology.”

  She smiled. “That’s kind of funny, isn’t it? Sort of a—”

  Kristian grinned. “A paradox. Yeah. I like it.”

  She clicked on the recorder, then pushed it to one side. “So, can you tell me, Dr. North—what does it feel like to know you’re the last person allowed to do remote research?”

  He laughed. “Is that your slant?”

  She nodded. “That’s what my editor suggested,” she said. “Now that the Remote Research Foundation is shut down. Actually, I’m an amateur musician myself, and I’m more interested in what it was like to see Brahms, to hear him play the piano. I’d love to write a whole article about that.”

  “It wasn’t a piano, actually,” Kristian said. “It was a fortepiano, very old-fashioned even for the time. Although I only heard him plunk a couple of notes, so it hardly matters.”

  “Did he look like you expected?”

  “Very like the photographs of him when he was young. Perhaps not as tall as I thought he would be, and more slender.”

  “Clara Schumann wrote that his eyes were an unusual blue.”

  “Are you a Schumann scholar, Emma?”

  “Not a scholar exactly.” She leaned forward a little. “But she was so fascinating, wasn’t she? I mean, a woman of that time, and all she accomplished—her music is beautiful. If only there were more of it.”

  “It was hard for her, I think. She had a lot of kids, and a long concert career.”

  “I know.” Emma smiled. “If I were going to transfer, I think I’d like to meet someone like Clara Schumann.”

  “Really,” Kristian said.

  “Sure! Or maybe George Eliot.”

  “Ah. A feminist.”

  She flushed again. “You think feminism is outdated, maybe.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said. “My original dissertation topic was ‘Feminism in the Songs of Clara Schumann.’ My advisers were the ones who thought that was outdated.”

  She had a pen in her hand and a notebook on her lap, but she hadn’t written any notes. “That’s stupid,” she said bluntly.

  He laughed again. “Well, ‘P Dolce in the Works of Brahms’ did well enough for me.”

  She was nodding, playing with the pen. “Yes, I read it, Dr. North. I didn’t really understand, though.”

  “What instrument do you play?”

  “Piano. A bit of organ.”

  “But the description didn’t make sense?” She shook her head. He stood, and crooked a finger. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  She followed him to the piano, and stood behind him as he sat down on the bench and opened the score of the Quartet in A Major. He turned the pages until he came to the marking, p dolce. He demonstrated, playing through the passage once, then again. It was a sub
tle difference, that interpretation he had absorbed from the Master’s mind, but it was as clear to him as if he had heard Brahms play it himself. Clearer, perhaps. He had spent no more than an hour with the Master, but it had been enough. He shaded the phrase so that it was both soft and sweet, but with an underlying strength, a meaning that no mere marking could convey.

  When he lifted his fingers from the keys, she breathed, “You play so beautifully! You could have had a concert career.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. Nothing like Clara’s. “I got my start much too late. And really, musicology is what I love. Always loved.” He closed the score and stood up, but instead of going back to his desk he went to the window to look out over the campus. He had only been here at the University of the Pacific for a short time, but already he felt proprietary about it. The Conservatory building stood at the edge of the campus, traditional brick with ivy drooping over the windows and climbing up the walls. The lawns of the campus were littered with damp red and gold leaves now, and the December sunshine gave them a festive glitter. The term was almost over. The Christmas holiday wasn’t far off.

  Beyond the campus was his apartment building, where he lived alone in a one-bedroom. He had asked Erika to move with him, but she had preferred to stay in Boston. It was probably just as well. She wouldn’t like his solitary life. And she had met someone.

  “Do you mind answering the other question?” Emma asked. She repositioned the mike, and she poised her pen over her notebook.

  “You mean, what it feels like to be the last remote researcher?” He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “You know, Emma, I think it’s the wrong question. The real question should be how we feel about remote research, whether one tragedy should be enough to stop the whole program.”

  “Frederica Bannister has been in a coma for nearly two years now.”

  “Yes. Think, though, about all the others who went before her. Twelve, fifteen? We learned a lot from them. The real question is whether we should ever do this again.”

  “One of those researchers never recovered from the effects of time lag, I read. The one who went to seventeenth-century France. Did you have difficulty with that? You transferred four times.”