by M. J. Rose
“Funny. It’s from the thirties…not so new. It’s difficult in a city with so much history to find a balance and keep Vienna’s architectural integrity…”
Meer had stopped listening. Up ahead was a café with large plate-glass windows framed in carved, weathered wood. “I know where we are. I’ve seen this street before. The auction house is only another half block from here.”
“How do you know how far it is?”
“I must have seen it in a movie. There have been so many movies shot here. Isn’t this a famous area of the city?”
Sebastian parked the car and came around to the passenger side, opened the car door for her and offered his hand to her to help her out. The gesture surprised her for its old-fashioned sweetness, which made the intense shivering that overtook her and the sense of foreboding that flooded her all the more unusual. Within seconds, the people passing by, the car, the reality of the moment, all shimmered and seemed to become translucent. A metallic taste filled her mouth and made her teeth hurt. Her shoulders tensed and her jaw muscles tightened. A ripple of pain shook her. Deep in her back, where she’d broken her spine when she was nine years old, the fused vertebrae throbbed. And then she heard the beautiful and terrifying music and disappeared into remembering.
Chapter 13
Vienna, Austria
September 22nd, 1814
As the music began, Major Archer Wells, resplendent in his crisp blue uniform with his rows of gold medals and insignia, extended his hand to Margaux and she allowed him to escort her onto the overcrowded dance floor. Waltzing was the last thing on her mind but Caspar would be disappointed if she sat at home and worried. You can do this, she could hear him say in his deep voice that always seemed to reach out and embrace her. You can do anything.
Looking around the ballroom it seemed as if all of Europe was in Vienna for the Congress and that most of them were at this gala affair being given by Austria’s foreign minister, Prince Klemens Lothar Wenzel von Metternich. Reapportioning Europe after Napoleon’s devastating wars was hard work but it was also an excuse for Vienna’s hosts and hostesses to show off to the sixteen thousand dignitaries and delegates who’d taken up residence in the city, bringing not just their wives, mistresses and servants but their own spies as well. Surely with so many people here, she could find a way to raise the money she needed to put together a search party to find and save her husband. There had to be a way. Her heart had been frozen until yesterday, and now there was hope. She was finally living again because of that hope.
“I’m pleased to see your mourning period is over,” the British officer said as he expertly led her in a dance.
Tonight, for the first time in nine months, Margaux Neidermier wore her emerald-green ball gown. Yesterday’s news had caused her to fold up the black frocks and put them away.
“You’ve been misinformed, Major. I’m not a widow.”
“Forgive me but even in England we followed your husband’s explorations. We all heard about his tragic death in the Himalayas.”
Margaux hesitated, wondering if there was any reason to keep her news a secret. “That was what I also believed but just yesterday I received correspondence that’s convinced me Caspar is very much alive and being nursed back to health by a group of monks in the mountains. I’m determined to raise funds to send a search party to bring him home. That’s why I’m here tonight.”
“How wonderful. Congratulations, Madame. While you’re working so hard you will need some distraction. Let me seduce you.”
“I’m afraid I’m old-fashioned about faithfulness.”
“Faithfulness is no more valuable a currency these days than the coins Napoleon had minted.”
Despite herself she smiled; there was no denying Archer was charming but for Margaux, a liaison was out of the question. He was right; taking a lover was no more serious a diversion than a game of whist and of course she was free to do what she wished. She always had been. Caspar had taught her about free will: a woman’s not a possession. His ideas were revolutionary, a word that was tarnished in these post-war days. When they’d traveled across the continent after their wedding, during the worst of the Wars, he’d insisted that for safety’s sake she dress as a young man in his employ and then had been delighted when the freedom exhilarated her. Margaux was in the unfortunate position of being very much in love with her husband. That’s why it didn’t matter that the British major held her too close as they waltzed. If with each one, two, three, one, two, three, memories of what it was like to be a woman in a man’s arms returned, it was only because she was imagining her husband’s hand on her back.
Caspar, hold on, I’m coming.
She had to close her eyes lest the major see them filling up with tears.
“If you won’t let me seduce you, then perhaps you’ll allow me to help you raise the funds you need. If what I’ve heard is correct, there may be something that belongs to you that would be of value to some friends of mine. It’s rumored that while in India your husband found an ancient flute, is that true?”
“Meer?”
Whose name was that? Whose voice?
“Meer?”
She looked around in the shimmering air and found the face. A different face, a different time. The metallic taste dissipated. She wasn’t as cold anymore. But the sadness…the sadness was unbearable.
“Meer?”
Meer knew what had just happened to her: she’d experienced a detailed but false memory her mind had manufactured to cope with the stress of her father’s disappearance. It was similar to the way the unconscious translates actual incidents into symbols and far-fetched actions in dreams. Except if that was all it was, how could the grief and passion some unknown woman felt be lodged so deeply in Meer’s own heart?
Chapter 14
Vienna, Austria
Saturday, April 26th—10:45 a.m.
The black sedan came careening toward him, and for an instant David contemplated taking a step forward instead of back and putting himself in its path. But instinct took over and he jumped back. He watched the car as it disappeared and memorized the license plate number. Had he just avoided an accident? Or a hit? How far had Wassong gone in selling him out? Dying didn’t scare him but being locked away in a prison remembering for the rest of his life did. He’d been a journalist for twenty years and had seen enough men in prison to know that just breathing and eating and shitting and sleeping wasn’t living. When he got back to his hotel he’d e-mail his Interpol contact and have the number checked. If the car was owned or rented by one of Abdul’s men it would be unlikely David could track it back to the PPLP. He could, however, eliminate certain other possibilities.
Crossing the street, David had just entered the museum grounds at Maria Theresien-Platz where formal gardens were laid out in geometric certainty when his cell phone vibrated. He checked the number and answered. It was Tom Paxton’s assistant, confirming the interview with the head of Global Security Inc. for the next afternoon. David assured her he’d be there.
Continuing on as a journalist after the tragedy made it easy to obtain all the information he needed without raising suspicion. Terrifyingly easy, really. Once the posthumous story he was writing revealed his duplicity in compromising his position and his sources, other reporters would likely suffer, but for the first time in his life something was more important than the ramifications to the fourth estate. Missing family occasions, working on holidays, putting everyone second while he chased the lead, he’d given his job everything it had demanded of him—for what in return?
As years of reporting on terrorism and global security had taught him: no new and improved mousetrap would ever solve the problems facing the world and men like Paxton had to stop pretending they would.
And that was why he worried about who’d been driving the car. David wasn’t only hiding from Abdul and his thugs but from the police and the security firms like Global who were attending and protecting the ISTA conference. Even if they didn’t know it, the
y were searching for him—not for David Yalom—but for the nameless, faceless threat lurking in the shadows, intent on disrupting the conference. He knew how men like Paxton ran their firms: they didn’t wait for danger to show itself, they invented hundreds of hypothetical attacks and planned how to circumvent them all. Frequently over the next five days, people would be looking for him even if they didn’t know his name or have his picture, and he had to be more prepared than they were. And that was why he was at the museum.
Walking toward the grand staircase, he fought his inclination to turn and see if he was being followed. If he was, the last thing he should do was let on that he was aware of the surveillance. Looking down instead, he noticed the slightly depressed center of each marble step, worn by the millions of visitors who’d passed this way.
At the landing, David followed the museum’s map to the library where he had an appointment and presented his credentials to the younger of the two librarians sitting at the front desk. After studying his papers for a few moments she looked up and smiled. “So you are working on an article about the author Hermann Broch,” she said, and the research facility opened to him like Ali Baba’s cave.
“Yes,” he said, lying. “In his correspondence he mentioned using this library to do some of his research and I’d like to see the material he refers to…here’s the list…mostly historical prints, books and maps.”
There was no such correspondence but the fabrication passed muster and within fifteen minutes all the materials David requested were brought up from the stacks. For the next hour he sat at the end of a long wooden table working his way through each item, taking notes in a spiral-bound notebook. Finally he reached the one piece of ephemera he’d come to inspect: an antique map of the city of Vienna, circa 1750, detailing excavations of Roman ruins. Wassong had insisted no drawings or diagrams of the underground crypt existed, but with sick satisfaction David had tracked this one down from an obscure reference in the Vienna City Cartography Archives.
The drawing was faded, worn down the crease line, frayed at the edges, but definitely problematic since it showed chambers under the exact area where the Musikverein concert hall was now located at Bösendorferstraβe 12. If anyone at Global had already found this map, the existence of the labyrinth David had turned into his personal ground zero would be exposed and he would fail.
Getting up, he walked through the narrow aisles between tables and chairs to reach the front desk. “Excuse me,” he said to the librarian who’d helped him when he first came in. She was by herself at the desk now.
“Yes, Herr Yalom? How may I assist you?”
“Do you have records that would show me how often these papers and books have been requested? It would be helpful for me to see their popularity.”
It turned out to be exactly the sort of literary treasure hunt that appealed to her but instead of just looking them up on the computer and giving him the most recent dates, she invited David into a dusty, windowless storage room, filled with dozens of wooden file cabinets.
“We can start here.” She pointed to a section on the back wall. “And work from the past forward. What year would you like to start? Our records go back more than two centuries.”
“1930. Right around the time Broch looked at them.”
It was certainly further back than necessary. David only cared about anyone asking to see the map in the last couple of years but that request wouldn’t have jibed with his research.
As it turned out, the map had not been requested since 1939. And from 1930 to 1939 it had been examined only once. So it really was relatively unknown.
Now David had twenty-five minutes before the library’s early Saturday closing time to figure out how to ensure no one else found this map if they came looking for it. Stealing it, he knew, was out of the question. The library was too well-guarded; everyone’s bags were inspected when they left.
Sitting at his table again, making a show of searching through the books spread out before him, David took more notes he didn’t need until the librarian announced closing time in ten minutes. He didn’t get up during the ensuing flurry of activity at the front desk as scholars returned their materials. Instead, he picked up the map that showed the area under the concert hall. He checked its call number, then checked the call number on the archival box closest to him. He put the map in the box. Then he put away the next map and picked up the third—
“Was tun Sie?”
David didn’t understand the words but the tone was sharp and accusatory. Looking up, he found the middle-aged librarian he hadn’t interacted with pointing to the map he was about to return to its case. He also noticed that the guard by the front door had come to attention.
“I don’t speak German,” David offered diffidently.
“You are not supposed to be putting away those maps. We are supposed to do that.”
The guard took a step closer and David’s adrenaline surged. The librarian held out her hand and David gave her the last map. She picked up the last archival box, checked the number to make sure it corresponded and slipped the map inside.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I’ll take care of the rest of your materials,” she interrupted. “The library is closing now.”
The guard waited for him at the door. “I will need to look through your papers, please. Just a precaution.”
David nodded, handed over the spiral-bound book and watched as the man inspected it. Nodding, he offered it back. “We have to be careful, you understand. There are many valuable papers here.”
“Yes. Of course.” David took his notebook and left without glancing back.
Descending the marble steps, he again focused on the slight depressions and wondered if his efforts would prove successful. First, it depended on whether or not the librarian checked to see if he’d correctly put those first two maps away in their corresponding cases. He was counting on the fact that it was a lovely Saturday afternoon and the end of the workweek and she’d be in a hurry. If he’d passed that hurdle, his plan required that no one request either of the two maps for the next five days since the box supposedly containing the map of the cave under the concert hall now held a map of the Lurgrotte cave beneath a pine forest near Graz, two hours from Vienna. And the box that should have contained the 1894 Lurgrotte cave map now held the map of the area under the Musikverein at Bösendorferstraβe 12.
Crossing the lobby again, he glanced at the extravagant murals, taking mental notes of the splendor for the last set of articles he’d be doing, unassigned but certain to be published.
Outside he caught a whiff of flowers in the air and knew instantly there were lilacs blooming nearby. Spying the thick bushes he walked the other way, avoiding the flowers his wife used to put in their bedroom. He thought about what he’d accomplished in the last few hours, wondering if it had just been a lot of extra work for nothing. Global Inc. had a state-of-the-art GPR system so would they even need to search out old maps? Well, if they did, it was unlikely they’d be able to find the one he’d just hidden by Thursday when he planned on turning Beethoven’s Third Symphony into a referendum, a warning call and his own requiem.
There was a better chance they’d find him first.
Chapter 15
Saturday, April 26th—11:20 a.m.
Inside the Dorotheum auction house Sebastian pointed past the main rooms toward a staircase. “The offices are up here.”
Meer was still distracted by the disturbing daydream she’d had outside when Sebastian offered her his hand. Her father and Malachai would have insisted what had happened was a full-blown memory lurch—a fragment of a past life bubbling up to the surface of her consciousness. What they’d always suggested her storm/chase/forest memories were. But based on her own studies, she’d merely experienced another pseudomemory—episodic rather than solitary this time.
She’d read enough about Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to have conjured this little scene out of her imaginatio
n, just the way she’d come to believe her childhood daydreams must have stemmed from a story someone had read to her—a fairy tale that she had morphed into her own nightmare. Inflated imagination, scientists called it. It even made sense that her mind had manufactured this falsity now. She hadn’t slept much on the plane, was overtired…in shock over finding Ruth and worried about her father…
They’d reached a suite of offices where there was already a fair amount of chaos. A dozen people Meer assumed were Dorotheum employees were crowded into a small reception area along with several policemen she recognized from her father’s house.
Sitting at a fortresslike desk, a carefully dressed young woman with pearls around her neck and dark hair in a bun stopped Sebastian and Meer and asked them something in German. After he responded, the woman stood and walked around to Meer. “Please, come in. It’s very confusing right now. The police have just arrived and are asking to see your father.”
“Is he here?”
“Herr Logan always goes to temple on Saturday mornings—but you know that of course. He should still be there…”
Meer didn’t know her father went to temple on Saturdays but it didn’t surprise her.
“Could he have been on his way to temple when he called you?” Meer asked Sebastian.
“No, he only told me it was business related and—”
“Does he usually come here after temple?” Meer asked the receptionist before Sebastian finished.
“On Saturdays before a big auction, like the one we will be having on Wednesday, he would, but I think you should talk to Enid, she’ll know more,” she said and disappeared.
Seconds later, an imperious woman, dressed impeccably in black slacks and a caramel-colored jacket, her hair coiffed into a smooth gold helmet, offered a manicured hand and an introduction.
“I’m Enid Parnell, associate curator of the department. I recognize you from your photo in your father’s office.” She spoke with a clipped British accent.