The Brahms Deception Page 4

  Oh, my God.

  She hadn’t meant to do it. Not really. She hadn’t planned it. She had not really thought it was possible, but . . .

  The temptation had been too great to resist.

  Could anyone blame her? Wouldn’t anyone have done the same? It had been so easy!

  It had been no more difficult than putting on a new dress. She had aligned herself so that her presence was perfectly synchronized with Clara’s. She had taken a breath, stretched out her arms, and found that Clara’s hands were hers. She flexed her toes, and they were Clara’s, too. She sensed her small breasts, her soft thighs, her slender hips. She drew a breath, and tasted the scent of roses. She felt the silkiness of Clara’s dress around her, the flat soft soles of her shoes, the aftertaste of wine in her mouth.

  And she felt—deep in her body, in a part of her that, in Frederica, was untouched—the satisfaction of a woman who has been well and thoroughly loved.

  Clara panicked, her mind fluttering beneath Frederica’s like the wings of a terrified bird captured in two relentless hands. Frederica, looking up into the eyes of her beloved Brahms, Brahms in the flesh, ignored her. She held fast. She could not resist the need that had so suddenly driven her. She didn’t want to resist. She exulted.

  Brahms put his arm around her. “Mein Engel?”

  It wouldn’t be for long . . . just for a little while, to know how it felt to be loved, to be desirable, to be beautiful. To be Clara Schumann. She would be gone when they reversed the transfer, in any case.

  Cautiously, careful not to betray herself with her twenty-first-century accent, Frederica said, “Nein, nein. Moment, bitte.” She put her hands to her face, her lovely, smooth face. She brushed back her thick hair from her temples. She felt Clara struggle within her, but weakly, numb with confusion and shock.

  For a moment, Frederica felt disoriented. She, too, was shocked. And thrilled.

  Clara’s body was different, shorter, lighter. Her feet felt odd, the toes long, the soles more sensitive in their thin slippers. Her neck was long, and the weight of her hair surprising. Her vision was different, a bit weaker, and her legs were thin and fragile. Her waist was cinched beneath a corset that made it hard to draw a deep breath.

  A wave of nausea rocked Frederica as she strove for balance in the unfamiliar body.

  But she felt the delicious strength of Brahms’s arms, the intimate touch of his hand on her waist. She looked down at his spread fingers, and she wanted to put them to her lips, to take his fingertips into her mouth. He had pulled back in his concern, but she wanted to press herself against him again, to know his caress on her skin, on her breasts, the bare flesh of her belly.

  She steadied herself. There was no hurry. Not now. Now there was plenty of time.

  “I’m sorry, Hannes,” she said softly. “I felt a bit faint for a moment.” Her accent sounded right to her ears.

  He tilted his head to one side, and regarded her. “You are never faint, Clara.”

  “No,” she said, with a slight laugh. “It is just so warm here.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her about, toward the open windows leading into the garden. “Come, we’ll sit under the olive tree for a bit, take a breath of fresh air.”

  So long as we stay inside the zone. Frederica allowed him to guide her past the fluttering white curtains and out into the warm air. Now that she could feel and smell and taste as well as see, the sheer sensuality of the Italian scene made her belly dissolve and her thighs tremble. She sank onto the painted bench beside Brahms.

  The solid wood beneath her legs was delightfully warm from the sun shining on it. She would never have known that. The clothes she wore were heavier than she would ever have imagined. The word fresh hardly described the air she breathed. It was so clean it seemed charged, infused with some magical elixir, something that would be suffocated in the future by the fumes of mechanization. She might not have experienced any of this if she had held back, if she had been afraid. These details, this richness, would have been lost to her!

  How could it be that none of the other researchers had ever attempted what she had just accomplished? Were they never tempted? Were they not imaginative enough?

  No, she thought. It wasn’t that. It was that they didn’t care as much as she did. They didn’t long to truly experience the past, to live in it. They didn’t have the courage to take a chance, as she had done. They didn’t dare.

  She did. And here she was. No one need ever know what she had done. She had put out her hand to take what she wanted. She would enjoy it, just for these few moments, her last ones here in 1861.

  She kicked out of her soft shoes, and pulled her legs up beneath her skirt, wriggling closer to Brahms. It was a dream made real. It was her sweetest fantasy. Who could ever understand how it felt to know she was lovely, to know she was wanted? She could put her hand to her hair and find it thick and soft. She could drop her hand to her waist and find it deliciously small and firm beneath the corset. Clara had borne eight children and suffered two miscarriages, yet remained slender as a girl well into old age. It was just another example of how fortunate she had been. Even her genes had blessed her! She had more than her portion of good luck.

  Frederica stretched out her arm and opened her hand to admire the tapering fingers, so white in the brilliant sunshine. She leaned back against Brahms’s strong shoulder, and closed her eyes to feel the breeze on her eyelids, the cooling air on her flushed cheeks. She had seen Clara’s portraits. She knew how she must look, the long neck arching back, the perfect chin tilted up, the long, curling eyelashes so dark against the white cheeks.

  Frederica felt Clara within, crying out to Hannes for help. She was frightened, naturally. That was too bad. Unfortunate. Frederica even felt sorry for her, a little. But not sorry enough to give way.

  Just a little while. Just let me have this for a little while.

  4

  Kristian’s stomach still felt hollow as he paced the American Airlines boarding area at Logan. He had eaten the meat loaf sandwich Erika fixed for him and drunk the beer, but none of that had assuaged the feeling. Gregson’s call and the subsequent sleeplessness had only intensified it, until he began to feel queasy and regret the beer.

  He had spent the remaining wee hours packing a bag while Erika watched him with wide eyes and peppered him with questions.

  “I don’t know, Rik,” he kept saying. “They didn’t tell me much. I think they don’t want anyone talking about it.”

  “But she didn’t wake up,” Erika had said. “What if you don’t wake up?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be careful. I know all about this procedure.”

  “It could have been you they lost,” she repeated.

  “But it wasn’t,” he said, trying to suppress a spasm of nervous irritation. She had said the same thing three times, but he knew it was only because she was worried. And tired. He had tried, and failed, to get her to go back to bed.

  “And what about time lag?” she said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Erika! Stop thinking up new problems.”

  “I didn’t think it up!” she protested. “There was that man, the one who went to France in the—what was it?”

  “Seventeenth century. Versailles.”

  “Right, that one. He never recovered, they say.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true, but I promise I’ll be careful.”

  “And why do you have to go to Italy? Why can’t they do this in Chicago?”

  He stopped what he was doing, and went to kneel beside her wheelchair. “They could.” He had explained this to her before, when he thought he was going to be the lucky one. She hadn’t been enthusiastic about the transfer then, either.

  Patiently, he went through the process again. “If the subject is in the right location, or close to it, it’s significantly simpler to program the transfer. The coordinates are wickedly complicated as it is.” He patted her hand. “Rik, it’s going to be okay. I
promise you. I won’t be gone long. Dee Dee can come by to help you.”

  “I don’t need help, Kris. I keep telling you. I can manage on my own.”

  “Just to check on you, then. So I won’t worry.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “So you won’t worry!”

  “Rik, look—I know I should be concerned about what’s happened to Frederica Bannister, about leaving Angel’s with no piano player on a Saturday night, about—I don’t know, about everything! But this is what I’ve wanted for so long. It should have been me to begin with.” His stomach quivered when he said it, with something like recognition.

  “My God, Kris, it might be you lying there—”

  Kristian put up a hand. “Don’t say it again! We don’t know yet what’s wrong, so we shouldn’t make assumptions.”

  Erika leaned back in her wheelchair. Her eyes were red with sleeplessness, and he was glad she didn’t have to teach tomorrow. At least, once he was on his way, she could go back to bed. She said quietly, “When I think how close you came . . .” Her voice trailed off beneath his warning glance.

  He grinned at his sister. “Rik, I wouldn’t wish trouble on the damned girl, you know I wouldn’t. But I’m glad for the chance, even in this rotten way. I’m thrilled about it, to tell you the truth.” His stomach quivered again. “And it’s a chance to put things right, after I’ve made such a mess of everything.”

  She touched his hand with hers. “I know, Kris. I know.” She was quiet for a moment, but he could see she wanted to say something more.

  He chuckled. “Go ahead. Unburden yourself.”

  “It’s just that—I’ve never really understood what happened.” Her voice rose a little. “You were supposed to be the one. You were already chosen, weren’t you? You thought so! I know you did.”

  Kristian’s smile died on his lips. “I did,” he admitted. “They were already talking about flights, schedules. I had all the medical tests, and they completed the mapping, which is the most expensive part of the whole thing. The transfer itself—once the math is done—is fairly simple.”

  “So what—” Erika shook her head, and made a gesture with her hand, the fingers flicking as if she could brush away the questions. It was interesting to Kristian to watch those precise fingers—on the keys of a piano, the keys of a computer, wielding a knife. Erika’s illness showed only in the weakness of her legs.

  “You know everything I know,” he said. “I was going to be the one; then I wasn’t. No explanation, no excuses.”

  She sighed. “I just wish I could understand.”

  “Me too.” He stood, and gazed down at her, still holding her hand. “But now I have my chance, Rik. And I really want to take it.”

  Her eyes were the same pale blue as their mother’s had been, as his own, with long, light lashes. They glimmered briefly with tears until she blinked them away. She managed a grin, also very much like his own. “Go on now, get your packing done. The cab will be here in twenty minutes.”

  “I don’t need much. I won’t be gone more than a few days.”

  “You’ll be in Italy! You might as well see a few sights.”

  He laughed, his cheerful mood restored. “I’ve been to Italy before. Besides, I’ll be in a hurry to get back. If this works out, maybe I can finish the dissertation after all!”

  He took two shirts and a pair of pants from a dresser drawer and folded them into his duffel bag. He dug out shorts and socks and tee shirts and tossed them onto the bed.

  “Take a sweater, Kris.”

  “I have one here.” He held it up, a disreputable black wool with threads coming loose at the hem.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Where’s the new one I gave you at Christmas?”

  He tossed the black sweater aside. “Okay, okay. I’ve been saving it.” He bent to his bottom drawer and pulled out the blue plaid Pendleton. He hadn’t had the heart at Christmas to tell her it was too old-fashioned for him, and he definitely was not going to tell her now. Ostentatiously, he folded it neatly and stowed it in the duffel. “There. Are you happy? I won’t freeze to death in the wilds of Tuscany.”

  Erika managed a tired laugh, and he bent to kiss the top of her head. “I’m a big boy now, Rik. You don’t have to play mom anymore.”

  “I never played mom,” she said.

  “Oh, yes, you did. And no one could have done it better.”

  “Even if that’s true, Kris, it doesn’t mean now you have to be my parent.”

  His belly jumped. “I know that.”

  “Hah!”

  “Come on, Rik. Sometimes—when you’re sick—”

  She held up her perfectly steady hand. “I need to live my life, Kris. Just like you do. I keep telling you.”

  “I know.” He sighed as he zipped up the duffel. He was about to lift it when he caught sight of the Brahms biography on his bedside table. It was a worn paperback and some of the pages were falling out, but it still seemed like a good idea. He unzipped the duffel, stuffed the book in on top of the sweater, then zipped the bag one more time, lifted it, and carried it to the kitchen.

  Erika followed him. “You have your passport?”

  “I do. I renewed it when I thought I had won the transfer.”

  “Some money?”

  He patted his pocket. “I have a credit card. I’ll have to get some euros when I’m there.”

  “You have room on the card? You’re not maxed out?”

  He shrugged. “I have a little room left. I made a payment last week.” I think.

  “I have some money,” she said, turning her wheelchair. “I’ll go get it.”

  “No, Rik, don’t bother. I won’t need much. The Foundation should take care of everything.”

  It was a relief when the doorbell rang. He lifted the blind and peered out to see the taxi at the curb. He shouldered the duffel, and bent to kiss Erika’s cheek. “I’ll call you soon.”

  “Kris—,” she began.

  “I know, I know. I’ll be careful.”

  She grinned up at him. He liked that expression on her face. It made her look younger. It also made her look a lot like him. Even her hair, blond and untidy, was like his. She said dryly, “I was going to say, try to keep your temper. Obviously somebody’s screwed something up, but it won’t help if you’re telling people off all over the place.”

  He laughed, and winked at her before he clattered down the stairs to meet the cab. It was good advice, and he knew it all too well.

  Now, he wove his way back and forth through the crowd of bleary-eyed people. Most were British. He would be changing planes in London. A group of kids were chattering to one another in Italian, but they spoke so quickly he could only catch one word in five. A German family was easier for him to understand, but he moved away so he wouldn’t be eavesdropping. He found a television monitor, and leaned against a column to watch an expanded report of the scene in Chicago, picketers shouting and waving their signs outside the Foundation offices. He was pretty sure they were the same people he had seen on the pawnshop television. They looked tired and defeated.

  One of the networks had found a scientist to say that remote research was a euphemism for time travel and that the Foundation was taking chances with the time line. A congressman sat beside the scientist, explaining that his bill would outlaw the transfer process. Another scientist argued that the process was already proven safe. In the boarding area, no one but Kristian seemed to be paying any attention at all.

  He was dry-eyed and sleepy by the time the flight was called. He shouldered his duffel, and joined the line of passengers headed down the Jetway.

  Everything had been different when Frederica Bannister made her trip to Pisa. There had been an article in the Globe about the young scholar who was to be the newest remote researcher. There had been a lengthy report of her plan to observe Brahms on his summer holiday in Castagno in 1861, where he was thought to have worked on the A-Major Quartet. NPR had done an in-depth interview with her. Kristian had listened to some o
f it, but when his heart began to pound he turned it off. Erika had been listening, too, sitting in her wheelchair in their cramped kitchen. She didn’t say anything, but the look on her face was a study in repressed fury. He wasn’t the only one with a temper.

  And now, despite it all, he was on his way. Under the worst possible circumstances, he supposed. It was like having a wonderful meal, cooked to order, but allowed to go cold before it was served. He smiled to himself. Cold or not, he was going to take it!

  He settled into his cramped coach seat, wriggling to find space to stow his long legs and trying not to hate the first-class passengers. He could just see them through the little curtain, being served coffee before takeoff, stretching out in their loungers, arranging their things around them. He had just managed to stuff his duffel into the overhead above his seat. Now he pulled the thin airline blanket up to his chin. He unwrapped the eye mask provided for him, but he held it in his hand, gazing out the unshuttered window as the engines began to thunder. The aircraft lifted from the tarmac and banked above the city on its steadily ascending path over the gray waters of the Atlantic. The sun had risen behind the clouds, but the rainwashed high-rises of Boston were hidden by billowing clouds of fog.

  Kristian pulled the little shade down over the window. He leaned back in his seat, and pulled the eye mask on. He tried to sleep, but his thoughts spun in circles, worrying over Erika, over Angel’s, over his bills—he had left his Friday-night tips in his jeans pocket—alternating with exhilaration that he was actually going to Castagno, that he would get to observe Brahms in 1861 after all. That he might have the chance to redeem himself. That he might learn, finally, why Frederica Bannister had been chosen over him.

  It was a shame all of this had to be kept out of the press. Catherine might never know he had finally succeeded at something.

  The flight from London to Pisa was delayed by fog. When Kristian finally reached Pisa, it was nearly midnight, but the Pisa airport was colorful and crowded despite the hour. Rows of shops and coffee bars and money-changing kiosks were doing a brisk business, and the silhouette of the famous tower tilted across every sign and poster. Kristian smiled at the name of the airport, Galileo Galilei. He had forgotten that bit of history, and the romance of it filled him with fresh excitement. He knew he should be tired. He had slept little over the Atlantic, and then restlessly wandered Heathrow until the fog cleared enough for his flight to take off, but being so close to his goal now, at last, set his nerves afire. His stomach had settled once he was in the air, and despite lots of airplane coffee and not a lot of food, he was eager to get to work.