The Brahms Deception (13 page)

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Authors: Louise Marley

BOOK: The Brahms Deception
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Kristian knew shock when he saw it. Clara was in shock. He was shocked himself.
Frederica hadn't disappeared. She had moved into Clara Schumann, faded into her like a wisp of vapor absorbed into sunlight. It was not possible, but it was true. It was appalling, but it was undeniable. Frederica had possessed her, and it was the battle for that fragile, slender body that now made Clara's steps falter and her cheeks turn pale as ice.
A cold shudder swept Kristian, and his stomach crawled with horror. He stared at the place where Frederica should have been, where she was no more.
Frederica! What have you done?
The lost girl wasn't lost at all.
 
Frederica, breathless, waited for the transfer to be reversed, for her to be forced to give in, to depart. She expected at any moment to feel the tug, to open her eyes on the cold, impersonal view of the transfer clinic instead of this precious, colorful garden. She felt the minutes passing, the seconds. The time came, and the time went. Nothing happened.
They couldn't do it! Surely they had reversed the transfer, had tried to snap her back to her own time, but they had failed! Was it possible she could really stay?
Hardly believing her good fortune, she uncurled herself from the bench beneath the olive tree. She stretched, beginning to feel comfortable. Clara's arms were thinner than hers. Clara's neck was longer than her own, and her frame was light and flexible. Frederica's was cumbersome. The smaller body felt as if it weighed nothing, as if its slighter substance could unburden her spirit.
Brahms rose, and held out his hand. “You're feeling better,” he said, and now Frederica understood him perfectly. Her ear had caught the rhythm of his accent, and when she spoke she felt confidence in her own.
“I feel wonderful, Hannes,” she said, with perfect honesty, daring to look directly up into his face. He gazed back at her. No hint of suspicion or doubt clouded his eyes.
Frederica had only once in her life been this close to a man. A boy it had been, really. They had sat together at a concert, and afterward had walked side by side through the campus. In the shadows of an oak tree she had looked up into his face. She thought—she hoped—he might kiss her, but at the last moment he had pulled away, looked away, cleared his throat, and made some excuse.
Brahms didn't pull away. He squeezed her hands, holding her close to him. “Shall we go down into the village?” he asked. “We could stop at the café, see if the post has come yet.”
“Oh, it is so hot, Hannes! Let Claudio bring it up.”
He smiled, making his eyes crinkle in his smooth face. He was only a few years older than Frederica.
Far too young for Clara!
She repressed the fresh resentment that surged in her breast. This was her moment. She should savor it. She should be serene, as serene as her rival. She sensed Clara struggling, far beneath the surface, but she had to ignore her. She must take care not to be distracted, not to loosen her control. Perhaps it would get easier, but in the meantime her concentration must be absolute.
“What would you like to do then,
meine Schatz?
”
Frederica leaned close to him to press her forehead against his smooth cheek. She gathered her courage, and gave in to her pent-up longing. It took almost as much courage as the stepping into Clara's body had, and her voice caught in her throat. “Perhaps now . . . a little . . . sleep?”
He laughed, and caught her to him, lifting her off her feet as he pressed his lips to her neck. “A little sleep, my Clara? Oh, yes. You know I am always happy to . . .
sleep
. . . when you are here.”
Still laughing, he lifted her in his arms. She felt as light as feathers, as sensuous as a cat in the sun. She felt delicate, and precious. As he carried her up the narrow staircase she let her head fall back against his shoulder. She could see one tiny foot—Clara's foot—bobbing past his arm. How different from Frederica's own wide-soled foot it was! It was so dainty, with its high arch, its straight, long toes. It was adorable.
And it was hers now.
Hannes pushed open the door of the bedroom with his elbow, and slipped her out of his arms and onto the embroidered coverlet.
Frederica sat up, one hand at her throat. Anticipation and anxiety, in equal parts, made her breath come fast. Brahms pulled off his coat, and threw it hastily on the little chaise longue in the corner. He unbuttoned his shirt, and pulled his tie free, tossing it after the coat. She remained where she was, watching, her lips parted, her mouth dry.
“Clara? You surely are not meaning to”—a smile—“
sleep
in your dress?”
Frederica didn't know what to do, or what to say. Sunlight made the room brilliant, gleaming on the whitewashed walls, the white coverlet with its red and blue and green flowers, the sheen of Brahms's blond head. She had no experience of this. None. And she didn't know if Clara—who had years of experience, and a revolting flock of babies to show for it—was bold, or shy. Modest, or demonstrative.
With trembling fingers, she reached for the buttons at the back of the morning dress, fumbling, uncertain. Her cheeks burned, and she watched Brahms with eyes both eager and wary as he threw off his shirt, unbuttoned his trousers, shucked out of his drawers. He crossed to the bed naked, with a complete lack of embarrassment. His maleness shocked her, and thrilled her. She trembled.
Chuckling, he murmured, “Let me help you,
mein Engel.
” He turned her gently by the shoulders. He knew her clothes better than she did. He untied the scarf at the neck of her gown, slipped the buttons from their loops, and loosened the ribbon at the waist. He let the whole drop to the floor in a wide puddle of dyed muslin. The corset had metal hooks, and he undid these with apparent ease, then started on the strings of her underskirt. He left the loose chemise and the voluminous undergarment beneath it. There were white stockings, too, long thick ones that reached above her knees.
He folded back the coverlet, and Frederica shifted to move her legs out of the way. When he lay beside her, he plucked at the chemise that still covered her, chuckling, lifting the bodice to blow gently beneath it.
Suddenly feeling bolder, Frederica sat up, and stripped off the white cotton stockings. She loosened the combs in her hair so that it spilled across the pillow behind her. She didn't know what to do about other things, so she lay back on the pillow, biting her lip, waiting for a hint as to how to go on.
It seemed he would leave the chemise where it was. The undergarment was some odd construction, with lace at the bottom and top, and with legs that were not sewn together. He pressed his lips to her breast, to her belly. He kept the chemise over her as he untied the ribbon that held the undergarment in place. At last he pulled this down, tugging it off her hips and over her ankles. He flung it aside so that it joined the rest of her clothes on the floor. He lifted himself above her, kissing her cheeks, her eyes, her ears. When he kissed her lips, his mouth was cool and firm, growing warmer as he kissed her more deeply, pressing his mouth against hers as if he couldn't get enough.
Frederica's breath came quickly, shallowly, now. She put her arms around him, shyly at first, then more tightly. She closed her eyes as it began, that wonderful experience she had so yearned for, had dreamed of and fantasized about, but had nearly resigned herself to never having. His body was heavy, and hard. He was insistent, but not hurried. Her own body seemed to know what to do, and in the ecstasy of the moment she forgot to be shy, forgot to worry whether this would be different, a surprise to him, a disappointment.
It was like learning a piece of music. Indeed, all the parts of it were musical. The rhythm was slow at first, and then faster. As the tempo increased, the intensity grew also. The touch of skin, the sound of breath, even the sliding of the sheets beneath them, the rumpled pillow behind her head, all came together in a supreme crescendo of abandon. The climax and resolution left Frederica gasping and hot, dripping with her own sweat and with his.
He fell to one side, but he kept her clasped close to him, stroking her hair back from her wet forehead, tracing her profile with a fingertip. “You are magnificent,” he whispered. “Magnificent.”
And deep inside her, in a place deeper even than he could reach, Clara struggled.
 
Kristian drew back in shock, unable to watch any more. He was no voyeur, nor was he a prude. Even before Catherine, he had not lacked experience or opportunity. But this—Frederica Bannister in Clara Schumann's body—was obscene. It was the deepest, the most shameful, of insults.
He acknowledged his envy of Brahms, for having the love of Clara. But that was not what offended him. What Frederica had done—what she was doing—there was no word for it!
Numbly, he withdrew from the bedroom and moved back down the stairs to the little sun-filled salon. He glanced at the manuscript on its stand, but the marking of
p dolce
seemed meaningless now. He drifted around the room, gazing, hardly registering what he saw. The light had begun to change in the garden, and he had to think what to do. What could he tell Frederick Bannister? That his daughter had stolen the body of an unsuspecting woman, slipped herself inside it as if it were no more than a stolen coat—and stayed there for four days?
He thought, with his heart thudding in his ears, that the protesters could be right. Frederica Bannister, having found a way to be physically present in 1861, could resist the transfer, take charge of events around her. She could even change the time line. It was a disaster in every way, and it made him sick with helpless fury.
He found no answers. As the sun dropped below the folded Tuscan hills, he went out into the garden. The cook was just coming up from the village, a basket of bread and greens over her arm. Stars sparkled from a clear lavender sky, more stars than Kristian had seen in his entire life. He lingered beneath the olive tree, gazing out over the quiet valley.
The dusk thickened, hiding the village of San Felice from view, shrouding the hills and fields. In the houses of Castagno, lamps flickered to life through the blue evening and curtains were drawn against the darkness. Someone, the cook perhaps, had closed the French doors of Casa Agosto, and left the little salon in shadows. The temperature was no doubt dropping, though Kristian couldn't feel it.
He saw no point in remaining. He didn't know what he could do, or how he could help. He also didn't know what he would say to anyone at the transfer clinic, but he couldn't stay here any longer. The joy of seeing Brahms, of being in 1861, of the surprise of observing Clara, had evaporated. He could hardly bear looking up at Casa Agosto, knowing what was happening behind those walls.
Feeling heavy and sad, he moved beyond the stone wall, and farther, until he felt the slight dizziness, the disorientation, that meant he had reached the perimeter. He went through it, past the limit of the zone. There was a moment of vertigo, a slight shudder as he broke the transfer, and once again he opened his eyes in his own time.
8
“What happened?” It was Max, looking startled to find Kristian's eyes open. He had a cup in his hand, and as he jumped up he slopped a bit of tea over its rim. “Was she there?”
Kristian glanced past him. Frederica's mother sat on a chair beside her daughter's cot, holding one of her hands, her head tipped back, her eyes closed. No one else was in the room. Kristian raised a warning finger, and whispered, “She was there all right.”
“Then what—why are you back early?”
“There was nothing more I could do. She disappeared.”
“She did
what?
” Max's eyebrows rose, creasing his forehead. He set his teacup down, and began unhooking Kristian's wires and tubes. The cap came off with a rubbery slither of wires through his hair. Max stowed it carefully on its hook. As quietly as he could, Kristian threw back the blanket and slid his feet into his sneakers. On tiptoe, he and Max made their way out of the room. Bronwyn Bannister didn't stir. Neither did her daughter.
Kristian glanced at the big clock as they went into the kitchen. He had been gone seven hours of the eight they had allowed him, and the day was far gone. Chiara and Elliott were seated at the island, drinking coffee. The crumbs of sandwiches remained on the plates before them. They both jumped up when they saw Kristian coming in behind Max.
Elliott said, “What's wrong?”
Chiara said, “Are you all right, Kris?”
“Yes. I'm all right.”
“Why are you back already?”
“There wasn't anything more I could do. Not at the moment.”
“You came back early—on purpose?” Elliott asked.
“Yup.” Kristian shrugged.
Max glanced back at the door to make certain it was closed. “Is Mr. Bannister in bed?”
“Yes,” Chiara said. “He just went up a couple of hours ago.”
“And Mrs. Bannister is asleep in her chair next to the transfer cot.” Max pulled out one of the high stools for Kristian. “You need coffee first? Or are you ready to tell us?”
“I'll start some fresh,” Chiara said. “But I can listen at the same time.”
“Thank you. Coffee would be good.” Kristian stepped around to the sink and ran himself a glass of water. He carried it back to the island, and took the stool Max had offered him, using the bits of business to give himself time to think.
He sipped from the glass, and set it down. Chiara was busy at the counter with coffee grounds and steaming water. Elliott and Max were watching him, Elliott looking tense and unhappy, Max with eyes bright with curiosity. “I saw her arrive,” Kristian said. “And I watched her through the afternoon.”
“Yes? So she was still there, everything was okay,” Elliott said.
“Yeah. Everything was fine until—” Chiara set a cup of coffee in front of Kristian, and he nodded his thanks.
“Until what?” Elliott pressed.
Kristian picked up the coffee cup, thinking of Clara. She had been much maligned over the years. They criticized her for being a distant mother when she had had to work so hard to support her children. They said she refused to visit Robert when he was ill when, in fact, it was the doctors who forbade her, thinking it would upset him more. They accused her of selfishness, of the ego of the star performer, of greed in trying to publish Robert's music after his death, when the truth was that her entire career—as performer and most particularly as a composer in her own right—had been subverted, suppressed, first by Robert and then by the demands of her family. It wasn't fair. And Kristian couldn't bring himself to this final betrayal.
He took a sip of coffee. When he tried to set the cup down, he had a bit of trouble. He felt as if the countertop moved slightly, as if his hand couldn't find it. He felt Max's gaze on him sharpen. When Kristian succeeded in finally releasing the cup, he dropped his hand to his lap to hide its shaking. He said, “It was strange.”
Chiara said, “What was strange?”
“She—Frederica—she disappeared. She vanished.” Kristian tried to speak calmly, but fury built in his chest. How could she? The cruelty of it, the sheer selfishness, made him want to stamp into the transfer clinic and rip the cap off her homely head.
Everyone was staring at him. “Look, I can't explain it,” he said.
“But you were there!” Elliott said plaintively. “What did you see? For God's sake, Kris, she couldn't just disappear. She has to be
someplace!
” Tears reddened his eyes, and he put both fists to his face to hide them. Behind his hands, he gulped back a sob. Chiara crossed to stand behind him, and put her steadying hands on his shoulders.
Kristian said, “It isn't your fault, Elliott. It wasn't anything you did, or didn't do.”
“Then what is it?” Max asked. “What the hell's going on there?”
Kristian gritted his teeth, trying for Elliott's sake to cool his temper. His face felt hot at the lie he was about to tell. It was for Clara's sake, not his own, but he still hated doing it. He said, “I can't tell you that.” He remembered his mother, standing beside the window of his bedroom on the night she died, disappearing into the gloom. “She was there, and then she . . . she sort of . . . faded.”
“What does that
mean?
” Elliott cried. “She can't fade!”
Chiara had taken her seat, and was gazing at Kristian, her small chin propped in one hand. Her hair had come out of its combs again, and dropped in curling hanks around her cheeks. Absently, she pushed at one of the strands with her free hand, but her eyes never left Kristian's face. “Were you watching closely?”
“I was looking right at her.” Chiara's bright dark eyes seemed to see through him, and he wondered if she knew he was inventing something. “She was there, observing Brahms at the fortepiano. She . . . she was there and then—” The lie caught in his throat, and he coughed. “She was gone.”
“But where could she go?”
“I don't know.”
“This makes no sense!” Elliott's voice was rough, but he had regained control.
Kristian felt a stab of compunction over Elliott's misery. “You have to believe me, Elliott,” he said. “Everything was fine until she . . . until she did—whatever she did.”
Chiara turned to the other men. “She could disappear, if she wanted to. It's just coordinates,
non é vero?
She could alter them, perhaps? Change them so she could hide herself. So you couldn't bring her back.”
“It's insane,” Elliott said.
“It's crazy,” Max said. “Why would she want to do it?”
“To stay,” Kristian said. “To have more time.”
“How much fucking time does she
need?
” Elliott said. Max shook his head, scowling.
Chiara said, “Does the Foundation do psychological profiles?”
“They certainly did on me,” Kristian said. “It felt like a hundred interviews before I was accepted.”
“She seemed perfectly normal,” Max said. “I talked to her before the transfer. She was a little nervous, but she didn't seem unbalanced.”
Kristian looked away, unable to meet anyone's gaze, painfully aware that the excuse he had just given them had a hundred holes in it. And afraid the lie would show in his eyes.
Elliott said, “God, it would be such a relief to think she was just—just a head case.”
Chiara said, “Head case? A case of the head?”
Max gave a sour laugh. “Person with mental illness,” he said.
“Ah.”
“I don't want to be the guy who has to tell the Bannisters their daughter went to 1861 and lost her mind.”
“I have to go back again,” Kristian said. “A little rest, and then go back. I have to figure this out.”
A scratchy voice demanded, “Figure what out? What's happened?”
Every eye turned to the door. Frederick Bannister stood there, his sparse hair rumpled, his shirt wrinkled beyond recognition, his face marked with sleep lines. He said again, “Mr. North? Figure what out?”
 
Frederica knew she would have to think about all of this, think of what it meant, what she would do next, what she wanted. For the moment, though, it was enough to lie beside Brahms, savoring the warmth of his body, of the afternoon sunlight streaming into the bedroom. Of these delightful new physical sensations.
She lifted one arm above the bed, and contemplated the soft white skin. She spread the fingers of her hand in the gentle light, admiring the length and strength of them. Hannes turned on his side, away from her, and his breathing grew shallow and slow as he drifted to sleep. He snored lightly, and she cast him an indulgent smile.
Gingerly, careful not to wake him, Frederica sat up and slid her feet to the floor. She found a dressing gown on a hook, and though she wasn't sure if it was Clara's or Brahms's, she pulled it around her. She moved to the dressing table, and sat down before the oval mirror. It was old-fashioned and the glass was murky, but she could see well enough.
She let the dressing gown fall open, and lifted the loose hem of the chemise to examine her body. Clara's body.
Not now, it's not.
For the moment, it was hers. And she liked it. She liked it very much indeed.
The breasts were small, depleted, she supposed, by so many babies. Despite the pregnancies, the waist was also small, the belly flat, with only a faint looseness of skin beneath the belly button. The neck was smooth, and the face was, too, the chin gently pointed, the skin flawless. Frederica touched her cheeks, traced the unusual shape of her eyes. A silver-backed brush lay on the dressing table, and she picked it up. Her hair was so thick she could barely get the bristles of the brush to penetrate it. It must take a long time to brush such hair each day, to tame it into the fashionable rolls at each side, held there by tortoiseshell combs.
She would not, she told herself, think about the face and figure of that unfortunate girl lying on the transfer cot a century and a half in the future. That girl had not yet been born. She would not compare the porcelain skin she saw now with the sallowness of that skin to come, or think of the receding chin, the lumpy forehead, the ungainly body. She would live in this moment. She would take pleasure in what she saw before her. She was—for now—beautiful. She was beloved by the great Brahms. She had not meant for this to happen, but now that it had—was it so evil to enjoy it?
Deep within her, below her heart, she felt Clara striving to surface. The ruthlessness with which she pressed her down was, perhaps, a little disturbing. She was surprised at herself, but of course her reaction was reflexive. Automatic. It was not that she intended to be cruel. It was, rather, instinctive. She was defending herself—who could object to that?
When Hannes woke, yawning, stretching like the young eagle Robert Schumann had dubbed him, she smiled at herself in the mirror, enjoying the way it lifted the lines of her face, softened the shape of those great eyes. She turned, directing the smile at Brahms. “Hannes,” she said softly. “Don't get up. I'm coming back to bed.”
She stood, and let the dressing gown slip from her shoulders.
 
The transfer clinic was quiet in the darkness shrouding Castagno. Kristian stepped out into the fragrant night and gazed at the silhouettes of the twelve houses rising beyond the parking lot. Stars pricked the sky, and the chill air smelled faintly of gasoline. He leaned against a pillar and gazed unhappily into the night.
Chiara emerged from the building and came to stand beside him. Her head barely reached his shoulder. “It is a very pretty place,” she said. “I think it was even better in those days of the past, before the train station, the tennis courts, the swimming pools.”
“When it was just a village.”
“Yes. Just the twelve houses. They are very old.” She waved her arm, including everything in her gesture. “Over there is the
chiesa,
dedicated to San Francesco, constructed in the sixteenth century. That tower outside of the town—” She pointed. “And the one to the south—” She pointed again. “They were for the soldiers to protect the people. The people were very good at protecting themselves, though.” She laughed, her eyes sparkling in the dim light. “They threw things out of their windows, so their attackers could not get into the houses. They are famous for this. They dropped frying pans and chamber pots on bandits who came to rob them. The bandits fell over each other trying to get away down these narrow streets.”
“I can see how that might be.” Starlight, barely faded by the few lights showing here and there, framed the uneven silhouette of the town. More lights showed at the bottom of the hill, glowing from the distant windows of San Felice. “Such a tiny place. Everyone was surprised to learn that Brahms came here for his holiday.”

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