The Memorist

Chapter 92

Thursday, May 1^st-8:02 p.m.

On the stage Sebastian, holding his oboe with one hand, reached inside his tuxedo jacket with the other and extracted a small, fragile instrument from his pocket. The orchestra was playing the last measures before his solo. No one was yet focused on him. Unobtrusively lowering the oboe to the floor, he brought the flute up to his lips, waited a beat and then looked up and over at Leopold Twitchel.

In deference to the conductor, he’d start at the right moment; give the maestro and Beethoven that much respect.

Twitchel pointed his ivory baton at Sebastian and as it quivered in the air, his eyes narrowed. Sebastian knew he’d noticed the absence of the silver-and-black instrument he expected. Arching his eyebrows, Twitchel silently questioned his principal oboist.

Sebastian ignored the conductor’s glance. He no longer cared what his maestro thought. Focused on another goal, he only cared that the thousand euros he’d promised the male nurse at the Steinhof hospital when he called him earlier were enough to ensure that the radio in his son’s room was on as usual and tuned to the station carrying this symphony in its entirety, and that what he was about to play would reach Nicolas’s ears. The flute felt brittle in his hands. Dry against his lips. Positioning his fingers he pictured the notes he’d written on the staff as Meer had dictated them.