The Memorist

Chapter 66

Wednesday, April 30^th-5:45 p.m.

Sebastian paid the taxi driver, got out, offered his hand and helped her exit. Her back had stiffened up and she needed the assistance. Despite steeling herself not to, she winced with the exertion. It was only drizzling and there was no reason to rush but they hurried across the street and quickly slipped through the frosted glass doors of the Thonet Hotel. Both of them were stressed and anxious. They’d spent the afternoon at the Prater, making sure they weren’t being followed, trying out alternative plans for what to do and where to go.

The eighteenth-century villa’s ancient wooden beams, old stone floors, vaulted ceilings and six-foot-tall leaded glass Gothic windows had been restored so that the modernized space exuded character. Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G Minor played in the background and the air was scented with apples and burning wood. Under any other circumstances, it would be very pleasant here.

Sebastian nodded toward a small seating area where maroon velvet club chairs nestled around a roaring fire.

“Have a seat, let me see if there’s any room at the inn,” Sebastian said, smiling.

Watching his tall figure cut across the room as he headed over to the reception desk, she wondered at his calm demeanor. A few minutes ago he’d been just as jittery as she was. Which Sebastian was real? Meer’s anxiety level accelerated at the thought that she didn’t know him at all. Not really.

Her internal metronome kept swinging wildly from the sense that everything would work out to the certainty that disaster was imminent and she should take off and run away now, even from Sebastian. Meer had suffered free-floating anxiety before, first when she was a child and then again in college and knew the symptoms: sweating, trembling and a racing heart.

Five minutes later the manager opened the door to room 23, a junior suite painted dusty blue that had high ceilings, parquet floors and large double windows overlooking the church across the street. And in front of those windows, almost as if it waited for Meer, was a shining black lacquer Bösendorfer piano. Its surface was like satin. Its keys gleamed. The instrument was begging her to sit down and play.

For the first time in four hours Meer put her handbag down, actually let go, placed it on the piano bench and sat down beside it. Placing her fingers on the keys, she shut her eyes and sat there quietly, just feeling the smooth ivory.

Somewhere behind her, Sebastian talked to the hotelier but Meer wasn’t paying attention to them or thinking about the priceless treasure in her bag as she began to move her fingers about the keyboard. She hadn’t chosen the Appassionata Sonata as much as it had chosen her. Nothing mattered in that moment but the blanket of sound that blocked all her thoughts, chased away her physical awareness of herself, picked her up in its arms and flew her away, soared with her into another plane where there was only sound. Rich, full, rounded-note sound.

Meer only became aware that Sebastian was talking to her when he put his hand on her shoulder but she didn’t want to return to the moment, she wanted to-no, needed to-finish at least this one piece. Afraid the piano was the bridge to her nightmares, she’d avoided it for so long but now that she couldn’t escape her memory lurches anyway, there was no reason to hold back.

Finished, she lowered her head and listened to the last notes lingering in the air, to the metamorphosis from sound to silence, from timbre and tone to only vibration. She didn’t feel any less worried when she stopped, but she was better prepared now for what was coming next, as if the music had fortified her.

With a sigh, she pulled her bag toward her. It was time. Opening the oversized leather satchel, she reached inside, felt the handkerchief she’d wrapped the flute in, and pulled it out. The thin object was covered in the cotton, inert, yet her fingers experienced something living, with potential. Not unlike how the keyboard had felt to her.

“Meer? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said for five minutes. Are you all right?” He sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulder. “You’re shivering.” He stroked her hair as if she were a child in need of calming. “I’m afraid for you. Look at you-and you’re just holding it.”

“That doesn’t matter. This could mean so much to so many people. Including you. What if this is the one thing that could pull Nicolas out of the abyss?”

He leaned in, kissing her lightly on the lips. To Meer it felt as if he were transferring fire from his mouth to hers, that where he’d touched her would be indelibly scarred and she pulled back lest he scorch her more.

“I need to do this,” Meer said. “I can’t be scared of it.” Unfolding the handkerchief, she exposed the flute and they both stared down at the ancient human bone engraved with hundreds of complicated, exotic symbols.