The Little Book (49 page)

A spark had come back into Dilly’s tired eyes. “I did. It has all been my doing.” And in that moment Wheeler saw the greatness of the man who had been held up as a hero throughout his life, the father he had never known except in legend. Dilly Burden, the hero of St. Greg’s School, Harvard College, and World War II, created his own world. Confronted with schoolboy sports he learned the games with such thoroughness that he dominated them. Confronted with academic subjects, he created new orders. Confronted with music, he played the clarinet in a way few people had heard before. Confronted with the defeat and humiliation of Nazi extermination, he created his own world in the romantic past. Not Vienna as it had been, but Vienna as he wanted to see it.

“And then it became
reality
!” Dilly’s eyes flashed now. “I created it all. The city from my mother’s stories, from the Haze’s lessons, the famous people from books and journals.” Now the frown returned to his face. He stopped for a moment and took a drink of water. “But it all started for one reason.”

“So you could escape,” Wheeler said hopefully, to show he was following. “So you could step out of your wretched cell.”

There was a hardness in his face now. “So I could track down the demon child—” He looked away, then returned to Wheeler’s eyes. “And strangle him. I surprised myself with the power of my own hatred.”

Seeing the pain in Dilly’s face, Wheeler offered what solace he could. “You did track him down, and you didn’t strangle him.”

“When we went to Lambach, I intended to do it. I was going to walk up to him wherever I ran into him and lock my hands on to his neck. I figured he would be dead before you could pry me loose.”

Wheeler thought for a moment. “You didn’t really intend to do it, though.”

Dilly looked puzzled. “How can you say that?”

“You invited me to go along. That was your safety valve, your way of insuring yourself that you would not go through with it.”

“On the contrary,” Dilly said with simple conviction. “I brought you along to keep reminding me of the reality of what I was doing. I was afraid that when I arrived and saw that he was just a child that I would not be able to conceive of him as the Hitler of history. You were my link with that reality.”

“Then why didn’t you do anything?”

Dilly shook his head. “I intended to. I tried, but he had too good a defense even my hatred could not penetrate, the ultimate shield.”

“And what is that?”

“He was, after all, a child.”

Wheeler was beginning a thought. “You were on a mission, weren’t you?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“You had an obligation to do it.” Wheeler appeared fascinated, taking in the aura of this man who all his life had been his legendary, larger-than-life father.

“You mean it is all willpower?” Wheeler said, with a flash of insight. “If only you want it badly enough, you can get it, and you wanted out of that awful torture, so you willed all this.”

Dilly tried to shrug off Wheeler’s directness. “Well,” he stammered slightly, “if you put it that directly. Yes.”

Wheeler smiled and shook his head. “That’s it.” And then he repeated, “That’s it.”

“That’s what?”

“The heroics. All my life I’ve been trying to figure out why my father was such a hero, why he did the incredible things he did.” Wheeler tapped his temple with his index finger. “I was trying to figure out what was going on in my father’s head. And now I get it.”

Dilly looked uncomfortably amused. “Well, you might as well tell me.”

“It’s a matter of will,” Wheeler said. “You really think you can control the world around you. You thought you were responsible for what went on around you. If something went right, it was your doing. If it went wrong, it was your doing.”

“Well, that’s a bit extreme—”

Wheeler cut him off, a real spark of discovery now burning in his eyes. “You thought it was all up to you. I mean, a lot of people think they are powerless in their lives, and you thought you had all the power.” He paused and looked into his father’s face, his expression changing to one of compassion. “That must have been a great weight.”

Dilly looked away, at first shaking his head slowly. “You are quite something, ” he said softly. “So like your mother.”

“And like my father.”

Dilly turned with a quizzical look. “How so?”

“In trying to find out what made my father tick, I was trying to figure out myself. I was always different from the rest of the children. I couldn’t just put my hands in my pockets and walk around like one of the guys. I was always getting myself into trouble by doing something crazy. You were the hero, and I was the eccentric, but don’t you see, it was the same thing. We both thought we could change the world around us. We both had the same curse.”

Dilly nodded slowly. “And you know what it was, don’t you?” Wheeler said. “We thought we were omnipotent.”

Separately, Wheeler had arranged to meet them in the studio. He told Weezie outright that he had someone he wanted her to meet. He had told Dilly simply to meet him at the studio at eleven in the morning. Since their escape to Baden, Weezie had glowed with a newfound confidence. She seemed no longer to hold him in awe, but to treat him as an old friend, with the utmost deference and respect, but also with a kind of profound intimacy. “You have seen into the darkest corners of my soul,” she told him.

“Once you get in there and light a few torches,” Wheeler said, “there’s not much to be ashamed of, or to be intrigued by.”

“Will I soon be so exposed that I will lose all interest for you?”

Wheeler laughed. “I am interested in you fatally,” he said, and she told him he had a peculiar choice of words.

“I cannot believe how talking about the dark and sinister things robs them of their power. As soon as I called Aunt Prudence a witch—a bit of an exaggeration, I fear—she seemed to vanish. Herr Mahler made an advance—” She smiled gently. “Or I imagined it—”

“I don’t think you imagined it. It sounds as if Herr Mahler made a first-degree move on your breasts.”

“And that is not so terrible, is it? My mother was a perfectly normal woman with a bright and cheery extroversion who died sadly by a chance encounter with diphtheria. I can even talk about the other incident—” She looked down.

“You need to call it ‘the other incident’?”

“I can talk about it. It’s just not until after luncheon.” She smiled and then grew wistful. “It was terrible on my father. He never forgave himself.” Then her face lifted up. “He could never talk about it. With all that guilt he must have been hounded terribly. If he could have just looked me in the eye and admitted it and told me how sorry he was.”

“People aren’t that way,” Wheeler said. “The worse things are, the deeper they bury them.”

She looked at him lovingly. “How did you become so wise?”

Wheeler laughed. “I’m eccentric, not wise. And besides, I didn’t invent the idea, you know. It comes from right here in Vienna.”

“And it has reached as far as San Francisco?” She looked at him for a moment. “When I ran away from Vienna that morning after the night in the cab, I thought some dark thoughts about you. You seem to know so much and seem to be so open; it is as if you are from another planet or another time. I thought for a while that you were indeed the devil incarnate that Aunt Prudence talked so much about and was ever on the look-out for.”

“Why did we ever invent the devil? Doesn’t that strike you as peculiar? ”

“Still there are things about you I cannot account for. It seems as if you were sent.”

“Sent?” Wheeler said, looking surprised.

“Yes, sent. To free me from the dark corners. For the better, I assume. ”

“I can’t imagine who would choose me to send.”

“You’ve had the effect of someone sent.”

“Sent by whom?”

“I don’t know,” Weezie said, squirming charmingly. “By whomever it is who sends. By my guardian angel.”

“That settles it,” Wheeler said with conviction. “No guardian angel in clear conscience would send me.”

“Well, anyway, I feel the recipient of whatever it is people get sent for. I feel—” She searched for the right word. “Blessed.” Their eyes met, and Wheeler could not look away.

“Thank you,” he said genuinely. “I feel a little blessed myself,” and he leaned forward to kiss her.

There was a knock on the door. Wheeler rose quickly and opened it, and Dilly walked in. He was looking drawn and tired but determined to carry on, wearing all over his face the fact that he had no idea what was coming.

“What’s up for this morning?” he said, bouncing forward into the room and stopping dead when he came into view of Weezie, standing by the window. Wheeler moved behind him to prevent any retreat.

“There is someone I’ve been dying for you to meet,” Wheeler said cheerfully, before Dilly could say anything. “This is Weezie Putnam from Boston.” Wheeler made a gracious sweeping gesture toward her. “My friend Herbert Hoover,” he said, “from California, also.”

Dilly glared at Wheeler, but there was nothing he could do. He was already fully in the room thanks to the pushing from behind. Weezie had stepped forward with her hand outstretched. She was looking absolutely radiant.

“Hello, Mr. Hoover,” she said. “I am so happy to meet you.”

Dilly took her hand. “Miss Putnam.” He shook it tentatively, his eyes so fixed on her beautiful face that he didn’t notice the paintings. “Harry has told me so much about you.” Perhaps she could not hear the annoyance in his voice.

“I have told Mr. Hoover about your virtuosity on the cello,” Wheeler said quickly. “He was wondering if you would consent to play a bit with him and me. Mr. Hoover is an enthusiast for the clarinet.” Dilly frowned, but Wheeler had already moved over behind the easel where he had stored the instruments he had borrowed. “I happen to have the necessary weapons over here.”

Dilly forced a smile. “We have a small piece of business to conduct first,” he said. “Perhaps we could step out into the hall.”

He motioned to Wheeler to follow him out the door, and when they were out of earshot of Weezie, he attacked in a loud whisper. “Listen, fellow, this is not funny.” He pointed his index finger at Wheeler’s chest. “You are playing with fire here.”

“I wanted you to meet her,” Wheeler said in his own loud whisper.

“You should be staying far away from her, and I certainly shouldn’t be anywhere near her.”

“You said you found her fascinating.”

Dilly looked as if he might explode. “I really don’t believe what you have done. You just think you can do anything you damn well please.”

“I don’t think I can do anything I damn well please, but I don’t like avoiding what is good in life because of unnecessary rules.”

“And you call tampering with the future harmless fun, I suppose.”

“It won’t do any harm for us to spend some time together. She doesn’t know who we are. What harm can it do?” He tugged Dilly’s arm. “Now come on.”

Dilly pulled his arm free. “What harm?” He looked incredulous. “Existence, my friend. That’s all.”

“What happens happens.”

“I see,” Dilly said. “You’re willing to obliterate yourself. All you need to do is destroy the chance of my being born, and bingo, that takes care of you, no matter who’s biological son you are. I am not going to contaminate destiny.”

Wheeler looked at him consolingly. “Things are already contaminated. We might as well enjoy ourselves.”

Dilly looked exasperated. “Don’t you have even a modicum of respect for limits?”

“Come on,” he said, pulling him back to where Weezie was standing looking out the window. She turned.

“Is everything all right?” she said. But Dilly was now preoccupied with something new. He stood inside the door, seeing for the first time the riot of color and sensuality in the studio’s decorations. He stood transfixed.

Wheeler had found a piece by Vivaldi, written for three strings. Dilly played hesitantly, not wanting to give anything of himself that was not absolutely required by the circumstance. Wheeler noticed that he kept from looking at Weezie. It was so obvious that at one point she looked over at Dilly as they played and made a wry face as if to say, “What is wrong with your friend?”

“Let’s improvise,” Wheeler said. He picked out the melody on the treble strings of the guitar.

As he played, Weezie picked it up with the cello. Dilly sat immobile. Finally, Weezie looked at him. “Come on,” she said with a smile that could have melted Gibraltar, “join in.”

The first few notes out of the clarinet were hoarse and raspy, but then he slid into second gear and worked his way through to the refrain. Weezie joined in, and Wheeler began picking out a counterpoint. Suddenly, Dilly raised his clarinet and reached for the third above the melody, and they had a trio going. Weezie caught Wheeler’s eye and gestured to Dilly. His eyes were closed. He was lost in the music, and from his clarinet was flowing the popular sweet soft sound that had won him his wings with his legendary Charles River Boys and captured the attention of the legendary Benny Goodman. “Keep it going,” Wheeler said, when they came to the end, and they were rolling again.

Weezie, who had never heard such music, kept her eyes on Dilly until he opened his. As much as he did not want to look at her, she had him in her sights, mesmerized by the sounds she was hearing, sounds that hinted to her the directions things would go after Mahler, the exposure that would later anchor her treatise on Vienna music. The “modern” clarinetist, the protégé of Benny Goodman, tried to look away, but it was no good. Dilly Burden smiled back at his mother, who was enthralled, drawn into the musical style she had never even dreamed of. “That’s it,” she gasped, totally enthralled by the beautiful young man, and the improvisation. “So that is where our music is headed.” It came to her in a flash.