The Memorist

Chapter 61

I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time.

– Walt Whitman

Vienna, Austria

Wednesday, April 30^th-9:15 a.m.

Jeremy Logan looked more exhausted than he had the day before and when he told Meer and Malachai that he wouldn’t be leaving the hospital that morning or probably even that afternoon, she wasn’t surprised but she was worried.

“I’m running a slight fever. Something I’m sure I picked up here in the hospital yesterday. The longer you stay in a hospital, the sicker you get.”

“How high a fever?” Meer asked.

“It’s nothing serious but because of the episode that showed up on the EKG, the doctors want to keep me under observation a little longer. Damn their efficiency. Now, I insist you stop asking about my health and tell me everything you’ve found out since yesterday.”

The only part of the trip to Baden and finding the mess of parchment that once must have been the memory song that Meer left out was the attack in the woods.

“Let’s not worry about what we lost,” Malachai said when she finished. “We’ll figure out the song once we’ve found the flute. That’s what we should be concentrating on. It’s clear from everything we’ve read that von Breuning must have had the flute even if he never realized its value. Fathers leave their estates to their sons, especially in the nineteenth century. Did Stephan have a son? Did his son have children…did the family stay in Vienna? Maybe some old man has it still and doesn’t know what it is.”

“He had a son, yes. Gerhard von Breuning,” Jeremy said. “In fact, Gerhard wrote one of the few firsthand accounts of knowing Beethoven. I’m certain the library has the book.” He looked at his watch. “But it doesn’t open till noon on Wednesdays.”

“Isn’t there a bookstore open now?” Meer said.

Jeremy stared at her. “I don’t want you involved anymore.”

“Too late for that.”

“Let the people who know how to handle dangerous situations do their job.”

“At this point we’re only talking finding a book and seeing if it offers up any more information.”

Meer could tell her father wasn’t convinced so she gave him something she knew would satisfy him. “Malachai can come with me.” Hesitating, she wondered if she was reading her father wrong. Maybe this was about him. “Unless you want me to stay here with you.”

“Yes, but only because it will keep you safe. Certainly I don’t want you to stay here for my sake.”

“I feel like I have to keep looking, Dad,” she said, lifting her hands and letting them drop.

Jeremy smiled. “There’s an answer to every question even if it’s elusive. The Kabbalah tells us that there’s a level of our souls where we all connect to all the world’s accumulated knowledge. Jung agreed, just used different words and called it the collective unconscious. It manifests itself in an inner voice we all can hear if we listen deeply enough. You hear that voice. You’ve always heard it. Now you have to trust it. Just promise me,” he said with a smile, “you’ll be very careful.”

There was no way Meer or Malachai would be able to find the book or read it since neither of them spoke German so Jeremy called Sebastian, apologized and asked for one last favor.

The scent of leather and ink, glue and oil greeted them when they walked into the used bookstore off the Graben. A middle-aged woman with thick black hair looked up from her perch at a drafting table. Around her were pots and razor blades, papers, soft cloths, books in various states of repair, along with a battered copy of Gerhard’s memoir, which she handed to Sebastian.

As he scanned the pages, Meer noticed the circles under his eyes and felt sorry that he’d been pulled back into her crisis when he had one of his own to deal with.

After only a few minutes he closed the book and handed it back to the shop owner, thanking her.

“What did you find out?” Malachai asked over the sounds of the traffic once they were back out on the street.

“When Stephan died, Gerhard von Breuning inherited his father’s estate, which included dozens of items that had belonged to Beethoven.”

“Was he specific?” Malachai asked.

“Many books, several metronomes-a new invention at the time that Beethoven had been involved with-a dozen conductor’s batons and several musical instruments including a piano, two violins, an oboe and two flutes.”

“Did he describe them in detail?”

“No.”

“We need to find out what happened to Gerhard’s estate,” Malachai said.

Meer suddenly felt her father’s presence, almost as real as if he were standing there with them. Everywhere she’d been for the last two days, she’d pictured him making the journey with her and offering advice on how to proceed. She should have told him that in the hospital this morning. He would have liked knowing. When she went back later she’d tell him what it had been like in Beethoven’s apartments, both here in Vienna and in Baden, to sense his presence so strongly.

Thinking about the apartment on Mölker Bastei she’d visited on Sunday she had a strong feeling that there was something she’d seen there she needed to remember now…but what? It had only been three days ago.

While Malachai and Sebastian continued talking, Meer concentrated on playing Cicero’s memory game. Picturing herself in Beethoven’s apartment, she walked through the foyer…noticed the piano…circled the room…read the legends beside every item and artifact…and then she remembered exactly what she’d seen. What she’d read on the legends beneath each and every item in the house and why it mattered so much now.

“I know what happened to his estate and where those instruments are,” she said.