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Authors: Louise Marley

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BOOK: The Brahms Deception
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He shouldn't have argued with her. He should have understood the timing was wrong, that she was thinking of her upcoming recital, the Voss master class, all the things that drove her. He shouldn't have called her a bitch, although Erika assured him later, without the slightest heat, that the description fit Catherine Clark perfectly.
The thing that tipped him over the edge, that made it clear to him there was nothing real between them, was that Catherine had no idea how much the transfer meant to him. She didn't grasp how much he wanted to be the one who observed Brahms, the musicologist to solve the little, persistent mystery of
p dolce
. She didn't understand how deeply it mattered to him. She had no idea—and probably never would—how much all of it meant to a guy from the wrong side of Boston, who had worked so hard for every opportunity. She didn't get any of it. And even if he could have explained it to her, she wouldn't have cared.
He had taken it all the way, he had to admit that. He hadn't pulled a single punch. He cursed at the dean, insulted his adviser, quit the program on the spot. He had lost everything in the space of twenty-four hours.
He took a deep breath of the rain-scented air of Castagno. The rhythm of the raindrops soothed him a little, and he took comfort in the fact that he had not completely lost his temper this time. He swallowed, and straightened. It did no good to agonize. At this moment, nothing seemed to have any point.
He would go in, eat what he could of Chiara's good food. He would try again to call Erika. Then he would pack his duffel, bum a ride back to Pisa, and go home. He should have known this wouldn't work out.
If he had any luck at all, Angel's would let him come back. It seemed the universe was conspiring to make it clear to him that Angel's was where he belonged, his proper place. The job for which he was most suited. A piano in a bar with a broken neon sign, playing for an audience of barflies who had no better place to go, and who wouldn't know Brahms from Bach.
 
The blanket of darkness had shifted, almost imperceptibly lightening the shadows. Clara stirred, like a lost child awakening, and wondered where she was.
She tried to remain as still as she could, so as not to alert the demon, and she tried to sense what was happening. What was the demon's intent? Perhaps, if she could puzzle out what it was the demon wanted, she could find a way to loosen its grip. Perhaps, if she could break free for even the briefest of moments, she could show Hannes that all was not right, that the Clara he loved was imprisoned.
He did love her, she reminded herself. He loved her faithfully, nobly. That was why, in the end, she had given in to her feelings.
They had been in Hamburg. She was to play the Harp Songs there. She had come from Berlin with Marie to stay with friends for the rehearsal and performance period. Hannes stayed there, too. It was the most lighthearted gathering Clara had been part of since Robert's death. Everyone rose late, and breakfasted at leisure. Hannes and Clara walked to the theater for rehearsals, and often stepped around the corner for a light supper afterward. Marie was content to spend her time shopping and sightseeing. With the children well cared for in Berlin, Clara felt more free than she had in a very long time. She would not admit it, even to herself, but without Robert to worry about, to indulge—and to be scolded by, to answer to—she felt like a bird that had escaped its cage.
It was the night before the performance. She and Hannes were walking home together through a light snowfall. The rehearsal had gone well, and they were idly discussing some of the fine points of her interpretation, but with no feeling of urgency. Rather, she thought, they felt complacent. Confident. They had faith in the music, in the ensemble, in each other. They smiled up at the fat, dry flakes drifting lazily through yellow circles of lamplight, not so many as to make the road treacherous, but enough to turn the city into a fairyland. In the middle distance, the spire of the unfinished St. Nicholas Church rose majestically into the snow, its tip disappearing into a cloud of white. Clara tipped her head back to try to see the top, and stumbled on the cobblestones.
Hannes caught her arm to steady her, and then kept it, holding it close to his side. The heat of his body through layers of wool and linen was as inviting as a comforter on a cold night. She looked up into his eyes, the blue of them even deeper in the light of the gas lamps. Her body throbbed suddenly, a spasm of desire that shook her to her toes. For one stunning moment, she could hardly breathe for wanting him.
He bent to her. He kissed her cheek, then her lips. His long arm held her, grasped her waist through her fur-lined cloak, pulled her more tightly against him. His other hand came up to cradle the back of her neck, his fingers strong and warm against her skin.
She tried not to surrender to temptation—oh, so briefly she tried—but it was no use. She melted. She felt no stronger than one of the snowflakes, a pattern of icy lace dissolving at the touch of a warm surface.
“Clara,” he said huskily,
“mein Engel. Meine Schatz.”
She found herself whispering, “Hannes, dearest Hannes,” against his cheek, and then, with an unseemly rush of feeling, she pressed herself against him, letting him crush her mouth with his, allowing his hands to caress her beneath the fur of her cloak. Wherever he touched her the ice that had encased her for so long fell away. She burned with need, with repressed longing. When he released her, her legs trembled so she could barely stand.
“Mein Gott!”
she exclaimed in an undertone. “Hannes! Someone will see us!”
He lifted his head to glance around them. He laughed, a low, throbbing tone that seemed to vibrate in the very center of her body. “There is no one, Clara. And even if there was, I don't care! We are both free to love whomever we please.”
She pulled back to put a respectable distance between them, but still she gazed up at him. Snowflakes fell on his fair hair, his clean-shaven cheeks, caught on his eyelashes. He looked terribly young, and divinely handsome. He was as different from Robert as he could be, this young eagle they both had loved from the beginning.
“Hannes, it may seem so, but it's not true. I am not free,” she said sadly. The brief rush of passion shamed her, and left her melancholy and bereft. “I have my reputation to think of. And that of my children. Robert's memory.”
The look he bent upon her was understanding itself. “I loved Robert, too,” he said. “And I love your children. But Clara! I want you!”
“It is impossible,” she said sadly. “The gossip would ruin me. I would be cut in the street. My concerts would be empty. No one would have anything to do with me, and then how would I support my children?”
“Will you not marry me?” he said, squeezing her hands in his. “It would be my greatest honor to call you my wife.”
“No one would ever forgive me for betraying Robert's memory.”
“That's hardly fair to you! You are still young, and—”
“I'm a good deal older than you, dearest Hannes. You know people will say all sorts of things. They will whisper that we were already lovers, perhaps that we hastened poor Robert's death. They already say that I abandoned him, when it isn't true at all!” A flush of shame heated her cheeks, and she turned her face away. One cooling snowflake touched her forehead, and she closed her eyes in a confusion of longing and sorrow.
“Let them gossip. I don't care about that.”
She lifted her head again, and another snowflake fell on her cheek. “Hannes, you would care! They would say terrible things about you, even though you are a man. Everyone knows Robert was your mentor. They would never forgive you, and you can't afford that. Not now, when your career is just beginning to grow.”
“Come away with me then,” he whispered. “Somewhere where no one will find us, no one will know . . .”
She gave a light laugh, but it was a bitter sound in the quiet street. “Hannes, no such place exists, not for you and me! We are known everywhere!”
He was silent for a moment, staring up at the spire of St. Nicholas. They stood a little apart. Despite her protests, she found herself gazing hungrily at the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his neck above the high points of his collar. When he tucked his chin to look down at her, his eyes had gone dark with the intensity of his feeling. “Italy,” he said.
“What?” Her voice caught in her throat, and she swallowed. “What did you say?”
“Italy. We are not known in Italy.”
She took a little breath to deny it, but realization dawned on her. “Italy,” she breathed. “I have never been to Italy.”
“I know that. Everyone knows that.” He grinned suddenly, and squeezed her arm. “It's perfect! I will find a place. You will set aside a time from your concert schedule, and I will make the arrangements.”
“Oh, Hannes, dearest, I don't know—”
“Yes, yes, you do! Just a short time—two weeks, shall we say? But soon, very soon!”
“It will take time: the children, my agents—”
“May!” he pronounced, pulling her close again. “You will make me wait until May, and not a moment more!”
Laughter bubbled to her lips, too, making her feel as lighthearted as a girl—lighthearted as she had rarely felt, even when she truly was a girl. “May! That is only four months away!”
“Three,” he said. He brushed her forehead with his lips, and he whispered, “I can hardly bear to wait even that long!”
She did not, at that moment, actually say yes. It seemed she was still thinking about it, enjoying their little shared fantasy, not really being serious. Hannes was completely serious, though. When he came to her, a week later, he had already found Castagno. He had arranged to rent a house there that was called, oddly, August. It was done. The plans were made.
She had looked into her heart but found only innocence and loneliness. It had not seemed so terrible, after all, to spend two weeks with Hannes, to enjoy a private holiday to soothe her weary spirit. She began to look forward to it, to treasure their little secret, to plan how to do it, what to take, what she would say. Her step was lighter for a time, and she suspected her eyes glistened with anticipation. She felt as if she could, perhaps, be happy again.
 
Kristian brushed stray raindrops from his hair as he walked back down the dim corridor. There was no sound from the transfer room, or from the bedrooms on the floor above. He pushed open the heavy door into the kitchen. The bright ceiling light stabbed at his eyes, and he squinted at the group clustered around the island. Elliott and Max were gazing at a printout, and Chiara sat with her chin in her hands, watching a pot bubble on the stove. When the door whispered shut, she glanced up.
“
Ciao,
Kris,” she said. “Elliott has an e-mail from Chicago. They have put someone on a plane. She will be here tomorrow evening.”
Kristian glanced at the big wall clock. It read 2:15, but the hour seemed meaningless now, to both his mind and his body. Time, he thought, had become something elastic, stretching and twisting and distorting itself. It seemed he existed in two places at once—a sunny May day in Castagno of 1861 and this raindrenched February night, squinting beneath electric lights. It was making his head spin. He pressed his fingers to his temples.
Chiara was at his side in a moment, one small hand under his arm. She led him to one of the stools, and pressed him onto it. “Sit,” she said. “There will be something to eat in a moment.”
Elliott raised his head from the itinerary before him. “You're time-lagged,” he said in a flat voice. “It's a good thing you didn't go back.”
Kristian set his teeth to stop the retort he wanted to speak. Max noticed, and shook his head. “I know you're disappointed, but it's the best thing. You've already transferred three times in a short period—it's not good.”
Kristian said, in a tone that grated on his own ears, “Who are they sending?”
Without speaking, Max shoved the itinerary across the metal countertop. Kristian read the name at the top. “They can't be serious.”
“They are,” Elliott said glumly.
“Better gird your loins, everybody,” Max said. “This is going to be brutal.”
Chiara looked blank. Kristian said, “It's Lillian Braunstein, Chiara. She invented the transfer process, and she's not a particularly nice woman.”
“Ho capito.”
Chiara turned to the stove, where cloves of garlic were simmering in olive oil. The pasta pot steamed, and she gave it a stir, then turned the garlic in the skillet. “You like garlic, Kris?”
Kristian forced himself to speak lightly. “So far, I like everything you cook, Chiara.”
“
Bene
. I am making
aglio e oglio
.”
“Can I help?”
She pointed to the enormous Sub-Zero on her left. “We will have a salad. Lettuce and cucumbers are there.”
BOOK: The Brahms Deception
7.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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