The Memorist

Chapter 105

Thursday, May 1^st-8:46 p.m.

The lighting director threw a switch and the bank of klieg lights blinded the crowd. The TV crew was determined to interview some of the people who’d been inside and affected by the strange phenomena, and nothing was going to stop them.

From down on the ground, seeing everyone around her surging in hyperrealistic brightness, Meer’s panic intensified. She and Malachai were in danger of being trampled. This was worse than what had happened inside the auditorium. There was no chair here to grab hold of. Nothing to hide behind. Getting to her knees, she tried to force him up with her but he was just too heavy and she let go, her hands coming away wet. She looked down. It was blood. Blood? What had happened? He’d been hurt, but this badly? Oh, no, not her father and Malachai on the same night?

I need help.

Almost as soon as she thought it, out of all the thousands of people streaming by, one stopped. It seemed he was holding back the surge of people and clearing some space. Meer was certain that she’d seen him before, but where? She remembered the deep-set brown eyes that were filled with awful sadness. No, it was more than having just seen him before, she knew him. And knew he was barely containing his grief.

He held out his hand to help her up and as she took it, Meer remembered. She’d seen him on the steps of the library a few days ago…as she was going in he was leaving. She understood now what she hadn’t been able to then because she hadn’t yet heard the memory song.

“Devadas?” she asked.

His eyes widened and a spark of something like hope broke through his anguish.

“We have to get him help,” she said, shouting over the crowd. “Malachai’s bleeding.”

The man she knew only as Devadas reached down to lift Malachai up just as Fremont Brecht, her father’s friend and the head of the Memorists, inserted himself between them, separating them, thrusting Devadas out of the way.

The crush of oncoming people swallowed him up. Meer watched him struggle against them like a swimmer fighting a strong undertow but he couldn’t beat them back this time and he was carried away from her. Carried away again-she thought-again.

Suddenly she wasn’t sure he’d even been real.

“Malachai’s hurt,” she shouted to Fremont. “He’s bleeding. We have to get him out of here.”

“I know. I saw what happened. Do you have the flute?”

“The flute? Yes. But Malachai-”

“Don’t worry, first give me the flute-we have to protect it.” He grabbed her and his grip sank into her flesh. “Quick.”

In the distance a man on a bullhorn shouted instructions as the crowd continued surging. A man tall enough to be visible above the pack broke through and stepped up, pointing a gun at her. Did this man know about the flute, too? Then Fremont grimaced and let go of her, and it took Meer a second to realize the man with the gun was tackling Fremont, that his gun was aimed at him, not at her.

It only took him seconds to secure Fremont’s arms. “I’ve got him,” the man shouted in English to two policemen emerging from the mob. “But we have a man down and hurt,” the American explained. “Brecht shot Samuels.”

“Ambulance on the way, Lucian,” one of the Viennese policemen called out.

“You shot Malachai?” Meer asked her father’s oldest friend.

Fremont’s hands were cuffed behind his back but he stood as erect and proud as if nothing had happened, ignoring both the police and Meer’s question. She insisted. “Did you arrange to have the letter and the gaming box stolen?”

Fremont’s continued silence was tantamount to a confession.

“You’re responsible? But why? My father was your friend. He told me he was your friend.”

“I had a greater responsibility to safeguard our heritage and keep it from public ridicule,” he said with conviction.

“Regardless of who you hurt? I don’t understand that kind of responsibility.”

“Neither did your father. Jews in the twenty-first century can’t afford the wrong kind of attention.” The conviction was transforming into rage. “Just as we’re losing our stigma as outsiders, if it’s discovered we have a memory tool that proves reincarnation, we’ll be reviled again as crazy mystical zealots.” The rage was edging toward hysteria. “We can’t afford to go backward and be outcasts in ghettos-”

Inspector Fiske interrupted, speaking to Fremont in German, saying something Meer didn’t understand. Fremont clenched his jaw and looked away, up at an invisible point in the sky, and then the inspector led him away.

Off to the side, Malachai slumped against the building, holding his ribs with one hand, his eyes closed. The American knelt beside him, taking his pulse. She joined them.

“Malachai? Can you hear me?” she asked.

He opened his eyes to look at her but noticed the American. “What are…you…doing here?” He was in pain but coherent.

“I like Beethoven,” the American answered, actually grinning.

“Enough to travel…all the way from New York to catch a performance?”

“Why not? The Eroica wasn’t playing at Carnegie Hall.”

“You’re the one who’s been following me…on my street…in the car…I know the tricks. You got them to release my passport thinking I’d come here for the flute, didn’t you?”

The American didn’t answer because the medics had arrived and he’d stepped back to allow them in. But Meer wanted to know the answer. “Have you been following Malachai? Why? He hasn’t done anything but help me.”

“So it seems. At least this time.”

“Is he being arrested?”

“Nope, just going to the hospital. And how about you? Are you hurt? Do you need to stop by the hospital?”

She shook her head. “Who are you?”

“Special Agent Lucian Glass,” the American said. “FBI Art Crime Team. I’m so very sorry about your father. Will you let me help you, Miss Logan?”

“How?”

“Well, from the way you’re protecting it, I’m guessing you’d like to get the flute someplace safe.”

“Yes. Someplace safe,” she said.

The medics had Malachai on the gurney now. Walking with him as they rolled him toward the ambulance she reassured her old friend that he’d be fine. Lucian followed close behind her. They’d reached the car. The medics moved away from the gurney to open the door. Wincing, Malachai reached out for Meer’s hand-the one that held the bone instrument. “It’s real, Meer. I saw it work.”

“But so many people suffered so much pain…didn’t you see that?”

Malachai wasn’t listening. “It worked. It worked for you, didn’t it? All your frozen memories thawed. You don’t have to tell me, I can see it in your eyes. You remembered what you had to, what you’ve been trying to for so many years. What I couldn’t help you remember.”

She nodded. “But not the way I was supposed to remember…it was horrible…”

He still wasn’t listening. His eyes were looking beyond her. Filled with a longing she’d never seen in them before. A longing that scared her. “I didn’t have a single memory.” His bitterness was as dark as the sky above them. “Not one.”

The medics lifted Malachai up and into the ambulance and then jumped in after him. Through the window Meer watched them worrying over him. He looked so pale. As if he were fading while she watched.

The siren started up and the car pulled out. She was aware that the FBI agent was behind her but she didn’t turn around. Keeping her eyes on the vehicle as it drove off, Meer reached into her bag and feeling around found and pulled out the flute. No matter how amazing, it wasn’t worth killing for. Wasn’t worth dying for. Not bothering to even look down, without any hesitation, Meer raised the instrument high over her head, and in one fierce motion threw it down on the pavement where it instantly shattered into dozens and dozens of shards of old, fragile, brittle bone.