City of Lost Dreams

SIXTEEN

Geschichtsbewältigung, shouted the sign in large black letters on a white background. It was the only object in the otherwise empty room. The word meant “coming to terms with the past.”

Sarah had just missed him again.

Finding Gerhard Schmitt had turned out to be about as easy as stalking a real lion in the wild. After leaving Marie-Franz and the university, Sarah went first to the Konzerthaus on Lothringerstrasse, the home of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. It turned out to be—no surprise—a massive white building trimmed in gold. She was knocking on the stage door when a helpful bassoonist came along and told her that Herr Kapellmeister Schmitt was speaking right now to a group of schoolchildren at the Haus der Musik, Vienna’s museum of sound and music, which wasn’t far. If she hurried, she would catch him.

Sarah dashed up Schwarzenbergstrasse, raced into the Haus der Musik, jumped from foot to foot as a group of British tourists counted out their euros, finally bought a ticket, and sprinted up the stairs, bisecting groups of schoolchildren as she wound her way through the labyrinth of the museum to the room where a guide had said the Kapellmeister was speaking. I’m on a roll, Sarah thought, getting information out of people. This will be easy.

She was not on a roll. Gerhard had gone.

Thinking through her next move, Sarah wandered back through the Haus der Musik’s highly interactive and well-curated exhibits. She would have loved this place as a kid, Sarah thought as she passed children wearing headphones, listening to different frequencies. She lingered just a minute at a display of Beethoven’s household expenses in one of his sixty-eight different apartments in Vienna (“marrow, 8 kreuzers”). When no one was looking, she pressed her hand against the pale green door from Beethoven’s last residence. Luigi, come out and play with me.

Yep, I’m just as crazy as everyone else.

The final exhibit of the museum consisted of a virtual Zubin Mehta inviting participants to take a turn at “conducting” the Vienna Philharmonic on a video monitor. Sarah watched a boy of about ten attempt to set a tempo for the “Radetzky March.” His parents laughed and applauded as the boy struggled to wave his arms in a regular beat and the recorded performance alternately lurched or dragged.

It was silly, but Sarah felt a stab of pain in her chest. She had studied conducting as an undergraduate, a requirement for all conservatory students. She remembered raising a baton for the first time in front of a roomful of players. She had felt no fear, which wasn’t saying much, for Sarah. But the experience had been better than sex, which was saying a lot, for Sarah. One of the best moments in her life, really.

There weren’t many world-class women conductors. There were plenty of world-class women scientists and historians, though. Had she somehow taken an easier path, without realizing it? She, who had always been so fearless? Pols had told her she should be a conductor. Why wasn’t she on the path to becoming the Lioness of Boston?

Jesus, what was it with Vienna? she thought, heading down the stairs and out onto the street. It made you all introspective and melancholy. No wonder half the intellectuals and artists who had lived here ended up committing suicide. Maybe it was just hard to stand up to all the architecture, all the greatness of the past. Geschichtsbewältigung indeed.

Sarah called the Konzerthaus to see if Schmitt had returned, but was told he had not. “I am a reporter for the Boston Globe,” Sarah said. “I was hoping for a few minutes of the Kapellmeister’s time this afternoon.” Gerhard, she then learned, was attending an auction at the Kinsky Palace. She set off to cross the Innere Stadt of Vienna.

Her plan could use a little finessing, anyway. What would she do if, when confronted, the Lion just said, “She is crazy/I don’t know what you’re talking about/Yes, I took her laptop and you can’t have it.” Threaten to cut off his hair? Threaten him with her plastic sword?

She would tell him about Pollina. The man was, after all, a musician. Whatever was going on between him and Bettina was none of her business.

Sarah turned right on Krugerstrasse, which became a lovely pedestrian-only street, and crossed swanky Kärntnerstrasse, passing Café Mozart and traversing the triangular Platz toward red and white banners denoting the majestic white stone (shocker!) façade of the Lobkowicz palace, completed in 1687. Beethoven had walked on this street. For a moment she thought she could see the back of his head just in front of her. Hey, Luigi, turn around! Wishful thinking. To see the past you needed really good drugs.

Vienna was a difficult city to hurry through. It was so distracting. Sarah crossed Michaelerplatz and looked up at Looshaus. The Modernist work of architect Adolf Loos had so shocked Emperor Franz Joseph in 1911 that he ordered all the curtains on the windows of his palace that faced the “horror” to be permanently closed. The big scandal had been merely the house’s simplicity, and its windows’ lack of ornamental detail. It was now considered a masterpiece.

It was easy to imagine how startling the building would have been, though, especially to people used to something like the Palais Kinsky. Sarah drew up in front of the white (you don’t say!) and yellow building, which fronted on a lovely little Platz. A dynamic pair of scantily clad sculpted gents held up a Baroque doorway to the palace. She moved into a white rotunda crammed with more statues and massive cast-iron lanterns, before she was politely blocked by a uniformed concierge. The auction, she was told, was a private one. Sarah flashed her Boston Public Library card.

“I am a journalist,” she said. “I am here to meet Kapellmeister Gerhard Schmitt.”

But the impassive concierge didn’t laugh and kick her to the palatial curb. Kapellmeister Schmitt, she was told, had already left the building.

Sarah made another call. The Kapellmeister would not be able to speak with her. He was in rehearsals for the rest of the day at Theater an der Wien. Sarah looked at her map. The theater was about four blocks away from where she had just come from.

Sarah decided that she could schlep no more Platzes and jumped on a tram.

Theater an der Wien was quite cheerful looking: yellow and green. The Papageno Gate at the entrance featured the feathered sidekick from The Magic Flute playing his pipes, and the front door was open, which was refreshing. Apparently the management didn’t mind tourists taking a peek at the famously ornate interior. She wouldn’t have to try to brazen her way in as some sort of Lois Lane.

The inside of the theater was overwhelming. Sarah stood completely alone in a jewel box of red and gold. She turned around and around, gazing up at the massive height of the stage, the frescoes adorning the round ceiling, the tiers of boxes. So many performances, so much history.

Entranced, she walked up the stairs onto the stage and stood where Beethoven had stood, conducting the premiere of his only opera, Fidelio. The composer had lived onsite for several months beforehand, finishing the work. It had been a difficult time in a life filled with difficult times. Beethoven had struggled with the work. The occupation of Vienna by the French had depressed him and hurt his finances. And his hearing was going.

So he had done what he had always done in difficult times. Written music that didn’t quite sound like anything else and challenged his listeners to follow him or not.

She closed her eyes and breathed. Then she raised her hands, feeling the heroic measures of the Fidelio Overture in the tips of her fingers. The opera told the story of a woman, Leonore, who must rescue her husband, Florestan, from the prison where he has been unjustly incarcerated.

It was electric. Luigi, I can feel you.

And she could see the orchestra, all eyes on her. The music had to come out of silence, had to emerge from emptiness inexorably, inevitably. She coaxed the violins gently as they began their faint melody, then signaled the percussion. E minor. Every member of the orchestra needed to be engaged in this battle. No one gets left behind!

The sound of a door shutting somewhere broke her concentration. What on earth was she doing?

“Hallo?” she called. “Anyone here?” She crossed into the wings and found herself backstage. She tilted her head back, peering through the darkness up into the soaring flies, making out lights and ropes and metal catwalks.

“Hallo?” she called again. Really, she thought, anyone can just walk in here? Surely the management didn’t want people tromping around on the stage or poking through the sets and scrims. At any rate, the Kapellmeister was probably in the rehearsal rooms of the building somewhere, and not here on the actual stage. Sarah stepped back into the theater and was halfway up the aisle when she heard a collection of voices. Her sharp ears caught Gerhard’s name being used. She hesitated.

“Okay, Fritz? Bring down the platform, please,” someone shouted backstage. “Kapellmeister will want to see it. When he shows up.”

A hydraulic motor sounded and two men in work clothes came onto the stage.

“Hey!” one of them shouted, spotting her in the aisle. “What are you doing here? This is a private rehearsal!”

“I’m so sorry,” Sarah apologized. “The door was open. I am meeting Kapellmeister Schmitt.” A large platform, draped with billowing fabric, was slowly descending toward the stage.

“I’m glad to know he’s still coming,” the man said dryly, before turning away and shouting more orders. “Karl! Get the door! Put out that damned sign!”

“Do you know”—he turned back to Sarah—“where the Kapellmeister is?”

Sarah did know, but for the moment all she could do was point to the platform now hovering just above the stage.

The Lion of Vienna lay sprawled across the platform’s edge. The angle of his head told her that he was very, very dead. And next to him, clasped in his arms . . . a woman. Surely there was another girl in Vienna, Sarah thought desperately, who had hair that particular shade of pink?

Someone other than Nina Fischer?