Maggie felt the grief rise in her throat. “Oh, dear God.”
“There had been a struggle, but there was no sign of the child. Madame had been bleeding for hours, her knife wounds terrible. We could not find her pulse…”
Maggie turned to her, holding her breath. “But?”
“Come with me,” said the nun.
* * *
Maggie followed the nun through the cloister and into the small, high-roofed convent chapel. In the late-day gloom, she saw the simple stone altar, the worn wall tapestries, an ancient organ set against the far wall. Off to the side, a small, glassed cabinet glimmered with the flicker of candlelight. Inside, an open manuscript.
Maggie stopped, drawn inexplicably toward the case. Somehow she knew it was important.
She moved closer and caught her breath, staring in shock at the torn, stained pages before her. Her hands moved involuntarily, aching to touch the paper, the notations. The cascade of black notes.
“It can’t be…”
The manuscript, opened like a book in the glass case, looked to be some eighty pages thick. The paper appeared to be very old, faded, marked with penciled scribbles, violent jabs, erasures worn into holes. Musical notes spilled across the two pages she could see, furious and impatient, marked by splatters of black ink, drops of sealing wax.
Swoops, gouging, splashes, smudges, dark smeared blotches. But still the musical notes shone through. Electric, desperate. Savage.
And she knew she was looking at the electricity of genius. Across the bottom of the right page, a scrawled name. An autograph. She bent closer, holding her breath. “Jesus God,” she breathed. “Beethoven!” It appeared to be a concerto for violin, one she had never heard before. One the world had never heard? He’d only written one violin concerto. And now…another?
It had to be the manuscript Fee had stolen from Victor. Hidden in plain sight in a tiny fog-bound chapel…
Again her fingers brushed the glass with reverence. Beethoven. The real thing, she thought, gazing at the blotched, ancient pages. The Holy Grail of music. “Mrs. O’Shea? Are you coming?”
The nun’s voice broke into her thoughts. She forced herself to look up, smile.
“Yes, Soeur, I’m coming.”
And she followed the white-wimpled nun out into the fog-lit garden.
* * *
The nun stopped at a small gate, gesturing Maggie forward. “Soeur Marie Clair found your friend just moments before death. She was able to stop the bleeding. Your friend did not die that morning, Madame O’Shea.” The nun shook her head. “But, we knew she was in terrible danger. We did not know whom to trust. God forgive us, we thought her boy was dead. We wanted only to protect her from more pain. She has only spoken two words since that terrible day. Thomas. And Magdalena.”
Shading her eyes, Maggie moved into the garden.
The convent garden, wreathed in a silvery fog, sloped down toward the sea. Bright flowers and twisted trees spilled along the paths like ghosts in the shimmering light. She could hear the waves thundering in the distance.
There, by the rocks—a bench, a woman. Very still. Facing out to the sea.
Barely able to breathe, Maggie walked toward her across the damp, misted grass.
She stopped just behind the woman. Looking down at a mass of black hair, shot now with strands of silver, she laid a gentle hand on the thin, bony shoulder.
The woman startled, then turned.
Deep blue eyes gazed without recognition into Maggie’s.
Fee’s eyes.
“Fee,” whispered Maggie. “It’s me. Maggie. Oh, God, Fee. You’re alive!”
She dropped to the bench, encircling Sofia Orsini in the safety of her arms. “It’s going to be okay,” she said against her friend’s cheek. “Your son is alive. Tommy is waiting for you.”
Sofia Orsini pulled away to gaze at Maggie. Her eyes widened. Just for a moment, a flicker of light behind the vacant sea-blue.
“Magdalena…”
CODA
(in music, a passage formally ending a composition)
Is this chair empty? Is the king dead?
—Shakespeare, Richard III
TWO MONTHS LATER
GREECE
The last lights glimmered and dimmed around the harbor of Mykonos as dawn touched the wine-dark edge of the Aegean Sea with a faint pink glow.
Soon, in the relentless sun of midday, the cubed homes scattered on the hills of this Cycladic island would shine with a blinding white radiance against the brilliant blue of sky and sea. But now the hillside was cloaked in shadows that spilled across the houses and olive trees and the terrace high above the sea. There, a man stood alone in the dark like a sleepless Odysseus, thinking about a woman with night-black hair.
Soon, the sun would edge over the horizon and the sea would flash with azure light. It would touch the harbor cafés with gold and climb the hillside, lighting each home with white flame. Soon it would wash across the terrace and touch the man, turning his pale wheat hair to fire and burning like twin torches in the glittering mirrored eyes.
BOSTON
She had never seen her beloved Symphony Hall spark with so much electricity.
Maggie O’Shea, resplendent in a strapless tube of midnight blue, leaned forward to look down from her center box. In the theatre below her, the expectant faces glowed like stars in the glittering light from the chandelier.
A waving hand in the center aisle caught her eye. Simon Sugarman, standing next to the newly appointed deputy director of the CIA, smiled and gave her the thumbs-up sign.
She hadn’t seen him since Aix, the night before that terrible moment in the monastery garden when gunshots had shattered the morning stillness and Victor Orsini had fallen at her feet.
Maggie returned Sugarman’s wave with a shake of her head. When his team had searched Victor’s yacht, they’d discovered one small Cézanne left behind—a portrait since proven to have been stolen from a Jewish banker in 1943. So now Sugar was back in Washington, searching for art missing since World War II and “doing what he had to do.” But still he called her, late at night when dark memories wouldn’t let him sleep. “The art’s still missing, the bad guys are still out there,” he would say. “Just be careful. It’s not over.”
She remembered so clearly that day three months earlier, when he’d shown up on the doorstep of her music shop to talk about the death of Sofia Orsini. It had begun with one woman’s courage, one woman’s profound love for her child. Sugar had asked her to find Fee’s son. To make it right. For Sofia, thought Maggie, nodding at Sugarman.
She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of Fee. The nuns, afraid for Sofia’s life, had hidden her, cared for her, planted flowers on the grave that held the body of Soeur Marie Clair and pretended that Fee was dead. Fee was living, now, in a small medical facility in Aix. Getting stronger day by day. Able, at last, to recognize her son. Able to hold him.
Healing. For both of them. Mother and son.
Maggie smiled, picturing the moment when she had reunited mother and son for the first time. Tommy, racing down the long white hall of the clinic, arms stretched in front of his pumping body, calling out for his mother. The look on Fee’s face as she enveloped her son in her arms.
No, this was not a night for sadness. Maggie turned her gaze to her new grandson, sleeping so peacefully in his mother’s arms just a few seats away, and then her eyes were drawn back to the stage, where the empty chairs and music stands waited for the members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Where a black Steinway Concert Grand Piano stood center stage, alone in the spotlight.
“Is it time yet?”
The flutelike voice broke into her thoughts. She smiled at the little boy sitting on her right.
“Almost, TJ. Did I tell you how handsome you look in your new suit?”
“Zach helped me pick it out,” whispered the child. Maggie nodded, pleased that TJ had begun to use Zach’s given name. The formal guardianship was now legal, until
Sofia was well enough to be with her son once more.
“TJ has good taste, doesn’t he?” said Zach, who sat to the boy’s right. He ruffled the child’s newly-trimmed hair. Just beyond Zach, Cameron Law sat watching his son and the little boy with a wistful, yearning expression in his faded eyes. Father and son had spoken twice and formed a tenuous truce. Just keep trying, she told the old man silently.
In a few days, Zach would return to Aix with TJ, to work on the authentication of the Beethoven manuscript—the Violin Concerto in E minor, stolen in Florence during World War II from a Jewish collector of music. A violin concerto never played in a concert hall, never heard by an audience. Hidden for decades—and now, perhaps the greatest classical music find of the century.
Zach leaned forward, scattering her thoughts. He nodded toward the stage and looked into Maggie’s eyes. “Nervous?”
Her bare shoulders shrugged as she held out her shaking fingers. “Not a tremor,” she lied. “What about you, Mr. Composer?”
He held out his left hand. “Like a rock.”
“Will you two stop,” whispered Luze Jacobs. “I’m a nervous wreck.” She and her husband sat behind Zach and TJ. The velvet chair behind Maggie was still empty.
“Relax, Luze. The worst that can happen is that he blanks on the opening passage.”
Theatre lights flashed as members of the orchestra moved onto the stage and found their places. The first violinist stroked his bow, sounding the long A note to tune the instruments. As the audience stirred at the familiar sound, Maggie glanced once more over her shoulder at the empty chair and sighed.
She hadn’t seen Michael since the morning he’d left her in Provence. There’d been a postcard from Geneva and brief scattered phone calls, the last one waking her at midnight from Afghanistan. Then a bright orange t-shirt mailed from Istanbul that proclaimed Musicians Duet Better.
She blushed in the darkness and raised cool fingers to her cheeks. She wasn’t even certain that tonight’s invitation had reached him.
The theatre darkened. It was that magical moment just before the conductor strode onto the stage, when all things were possible. In the sudden quiet, Maggie closed her eyes, intensely aware of the empty seat behind her. Just one year ago, her heart told her, you would have been waiting for Johnny.
Just because I can’t see you anymore, her heart whispered, doesn’t mean you’re not here. And then, I kept my promise, Johnny.
It was time. She looked down at her wedding ring for a long moment, then gently slid it off her finger and slipped it into the hidden pocket of her gown. Whether or not Michael Beckett came tonight, she was ready to move on with her life.
At that moment her son appeared on the stage.
Tall, slim, with dark curling hair, Brian emerged from the wings of the concert hall and approached the piano with rapid steps, back straight, arms swinging slightly at his sides. Exactly like his father had, so many years before. Maggie’s heart skipped in her chest as applause filled the great hall with sound.
A classical musician by education, he’d been practicing his father’s concerto since they’d met. She watched her son now as he stood in front of the piano in his tuxedo, so proud and handsome and fine. He looked up toward their box, dark eyes searching for his wife, Laura, and the tiny baby boy wrapped in her arms. Then his eyes moved to his mother—and his father. Maggie saw him give a slight nod of recognition, then a quick, self-conscious bow. That chore over, he turned and sat down at the piano. She watched him lift his hands above the keys and pause for a moment, as if listening.
As Brian’s fingers came down on the keys, Zach’s hand reached for hers in the darkness. She squeezed his fingers in silent recognition of the overwhelming love and pride they shared for their extraordinary son. And their astonishing new grandson.
The healing power of music, she thought. And the healing power of love.
Then she sat back and listened to the opening bars of the American premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor—The Lost Concerto explained the program notes—composed by Zachary Law.
Zach’s concerto, lost to her for almost thirty years, given life tonight in their son’s hands.
Then the pure notes were falling around her like stars and the roof fell away and she felt herself lifted on the wings of the music, high into the night sky.
A sound in the darkness behind her and the sudden sweet scent of lilacs as a strong hand closed over her naked shoulder. A spray of blossoms spilled onto her lap in a pool of white snow.
“I’ve come to take you home to my Blue Mountains, ma’am,” murmured a soft Virginian voice in her ear.
The music swelled around her. “I’m ready, Michael.”
When she leaned back, his arms came around her. “I’ve got you,” he murmured.
Now, once more, she could hear the music.
The powerful notes of Zach’s concerto flew toward them like bright sparks in the pulsing darkness.
Full of pain. And passion.
And promise.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you for joining me in Maggie’s world.
More than anything, I wanted to tell a good story, create characters with depth, and paint pictures with words. And, whenever possible, make the readerfeel.
The Lost Concerto was written over several years. Like my first novel, Firebird, much of the plot comes from the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, and NBC Nightly News. References to the CIA’s “Veil” operation are based on Bob Woodward’s fascinating book on secret American foreign policy in the 1980s—Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987.
As for the settings and locations, there are some places that just speak to you.
Many years ago I exited the underground Paris Metro by elevator and found myself surrounded by the shrill cries of thousands of birds. The moment I entered the high, shadowed aisles of the Bird Market (Marche aux Oiseaux), I knew that one day it had to be a scene in a novel. The Bird Market still opens in Louis Lepine Square on Sunday mornings.
Likewise, I spent a morning wandering the twisting paths of Cimetiere du Père Lachaise with my children, and knew I would one day send my characters up those same paths.
Also in Paris, Sacré Coeur, Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle’s stained glass windows, the house boats along the Seine, Jardin du Luxembourg’s puppets and carousel, the gorgeous old Opera House, and the Café de la Paix.
The tiny Italian town of Ravello, perched high above the Amalfi Coast and host to an annual summer music festival, is another place of inspiration. We arrived just after the final performance, but I will never forget standing on the Villa Rufolo’s outdoor orchestra ledge, surrounded by empty chairs and music stands, overlooking the distant Mediterranean. Victor Orsini’s sister, and their story, came alive for me at that moment.
In Provence, Aix-en-Provence. The Archbishop’s Palace, Cézanne’s studio, and Deux Garçons are real and wonderful places, as is the unforgettable Abbaye de Sénanque to the north. Every July, the Festival d’Art Lyrique et de Musique is held in Aix-en-Provence, although traditionally it is a showcase for Opera.
Both Relais Odette in Paris and Maggie’s inn in Aix-en-Provence exist only in my imagination but were inspired by two beautiful French inns that I visited several years ago. The vineyard of Le Refuge also exists only in my head.
The missing musical score discovered in the last chapters of The Lost Concerto is based on a true experience at a cathedral in Toledo, Spain, where, in a small, narrow chapel at the end of a dark corridor, we found a nun—almost wider than she was tall—guarding priceless original works of art by El Greco, Dalí, Picasso, and Murillo. All hidden in plain sight.
Over the centuries, thousands of musical scores and valuable instruments have been documented as stolen, destroyed accidentally or purposely, or simply disappeared. A composition by a young Mozart was found in a notebook in an Austrian attic in 2012; a lost trumpet concerto by Mozart is still missing. A Vivaldi Flute Concert
o, lost for 300 years, was found in Scotland. A lost Piano Concerto by Beethoven was found in the British Museum. A Bach wedding cantata was found in Japan, while a Benjamin Britten orchestration for Les Sylphides appears to have been discovered not long ago in a New Jersey warehouse. Pieces that are still missing by composers include Haydn, Sibelius, Brahms, and Liszt, while the Art Loss Register lists eighteen missing Stradivarius violins.
You may be interested to know that, like Firebird, a good percentage of the net proceeds from The Lost Concerto will go to my SunDial Foundation, Inc., which, since 1998, has benefited our most vulnerable women, children, and families. SunDial supports inner city food banks, education, health, shelter, child protection, the arts and economic development, with an emphasis on programs that promote dignity, independence, and safety, and combat poverty, hunger, sickness, and homelessness. (sundialfoundation.org)
As mentioned in my dedication, my son, Sean, was the inspiration for Maggie’s vocation and her beloved classical music pieces. I am not a musician, and any mistakes regarding music are all mine. For those of you who love classical music, I have listed several of “Maggie’s” favorites below.
Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 (Yo Yo Ma)
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat (The Emperor)
Beethoven - Concerto in D major for violin
Beethoven - 5th Symphony
Chopin - Piano Concerto in E minor
Chopin - Ballade No. 4 in F minor
Grieg - Piano Concerto in A minor
Haydn - Symphony No. 45 - “The Farewell”
Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, C-sharp minor
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 in C (associated with
Elvira Madigan)
Paganini - Caprice No. 24 in A minor
The Lost Concerto Page 37