The Brahms Deception

by Louise Marley

  Clara struggled, when she was older, to understand how her mother, who couldn’t bear to live with Friedrich, could have handed her five-year-old daughter over to him forever. Later she learned that it was her father’s legal right to take custody of her. He was a man, the owner of his children. It was the way of the world. But at the time, all Clara knew was that it was dark within and without.

  She had thought then, as she wept until she couldn’t breathe, that she might die of grief. She had learned in time that it was not so easy to die, even when the pain of life seemed beyond bearing.

  But if this was not death, then what was it? What could be happening? She felt as if someone, or something, was trying to usurp her. To steal her soul away from her, as her father had stolen her away from her mother. She was losing herself. Even Hannes was growing fainter by the moment. There was nothing left to her, it seemed, but the last melody she had heard, Hannes’s dear little Lied. “Guten Abend, gute Nacht . . .”

  She clung to it, a lifeline in a dark and formless sea, and held on with all her strength.

  Kristian found himself, this third time, hovering just beyond the stone wall surrounding Casa Agosto. He moved swiftly, now that he knew precisely what was going to happen in the next hour. It was a movie he had already seen, and he watched it again as Frederica Bannister appeared, made her tour of the house, went in through the French windows. He followed behind her, keeping well back, where he felt certain she could not perceive him. He indulged himself in gazing at Clara Schumann, memorizing her appearance, the magnificence of her eyes, the fine texture of her clear, pale skin. He longed to hear her play, to know what it was that had so enchanted the audiences of the day, who flocked to her concerts and begged her to play in their salons.

  As before, Frederica followed Brahms and Clara into the kitchen. This time Kristian hung back, so when they rose from the table he was not directly in front of them. In a way, he supposed, this meant he was changing the time line himself. Would that be a paradox? If so, it could hardly matter. He was not, after all, really here.

  As Brahms and Clara moved leisurely to the fortepiano, Kristian hovered behind the drifting white curtains at the French windows. He watched the two settle onto the padded bench, and watched as Frederica floated behind them, peering over Clara’s shoulder as she opened the manuscript. Kristian wished he could do the same. He watched through the gauzy fabric as Clara began to play.

  It was magical, seeing her slender fingers on the keys of the instrument, hearing the liquid phrasing of the melody. It was a piece of music that was deeply familiar to Kristian, but it was new to Clara. He tried to listen as if he had never before heard it, to listen as if it had been written only a short time before instead of more than a century and a half. He heard how she searched for the inner meaning of the harmonies, the rhythms, the progression of chords that was both simple and profound. For a moment he forgot himself in sheer admiration of Clara’s musicality, the grace of her technique, the charm of her interpretation. He found himself beyond the shelter of the curtains, drawn toward her as if by some magnetic force. Only when she reached a cadence, and paused to ask Brahms some question, did Kristian realize he was nearly on top of Frederica.

  He drew swiftly back again behind the curtains. Clara and Brahms turned to the A-Major Quartet, discussing the markings, toying with the progressions. Kristian watched Frederica as she watched them. Her intensity mirrored his own as she hovered at Clara’s shoulder, observing the handwritten manuscript, the pianist’s fingers on the keys, the way Brahms’s arm encircled Clara’s waist. Brahms and Clara looked at each other, laughed, joked together. They rose, and moved away from the fortepiano together, with Frederica so close behind Clara that Kristian could hardly tell them apart.

  He slipped out from behind the curtain, meaning to follow, to miss nothing. He was looking at Clara Schumann, at the cloud of her dark hair, thinking how small she was, really, for a woman who had left such a powerful impression on the musical world. He was, for a moment, only half-aware of Frederica’s presence, slightly irritated because she made it harder to see Clara, because she blurred his vision of Clara . . . and then he couldn’t see her at all. Frederica had disappeared.

  He looked again, alarmed. She had been right there, right behind Clara, so near it seemed she would dissolve into her. Kristian spun around, panicked. How could he have lost her? Where had she gone?

  He had to find her. He didn’t dare go back without some sort of answer. They would bring in someone else, or use the pulse on Frederica. They would never give him the chance he really wanted, the solid eight hours to spend here. He had to know what had happened.

  He looked back at Clara Schumann, and his heart lurched. Her shoulders had gone stiff, and her arms stuck awkwardly out from her sides, as if she had been struck, or shoved, and was trying to regain her balance. Brahms looked at her strangely, murmuring, “Clara?” She didn’t answer. Her head was thrown back, her neck and back arched as if she were in pain. She stumbled back a step. She almost fell, as if her legs had gone numb. She grasped at Brahms, struggling for balance, and he caught her with his hands. She turned her head to one side, and Kristian saw that her lips whitened and her eyes were wide, the pupils swelling until they nearly drowned the iris.

  Kristian knew shock when he saw it. Clara was in shock. He was shocked himself.

  Frederica hadn’t disappeared. She had moved into Clara Schumann, faded into her like a wisp of vapor absorbed into sunlight. It was not possible, but it was true. It was appalling, but it was undeniable. Frederica had possessed her, and it was the battle for that fragile, slender body that now made Clara’s steps falter and her cheeks turn pale as ice.

  A cold shudder swept Kristian, and his stomach crawled with horror. He stared at the place where Frederica should have been, where she was no more. Frederica! What have you done?

  The lost girl wasn’t lost at all.

  Frederica, breathless, waited for the transfer to be reversed, for her to be forced to give in, to depart. She expected at any moment to feel the tug, to open her eyes on the cold, impersonal view of the transfer clinic instead of this precious, colorful garden. She felt the minutes passing, the seconds. The time came, and the time went. Nothing happened.

  They couldn’t do it! Surely they had reversed the transfer, had tried to snap her back to her own time, but they had failed! Was it possible she could really stay?

  Hardly believing her good fortune, she uncurled herself from the bench beneath the olive tree. She stretched, beginning to feel comfortable. Clara’s arms were thinner than hers. Clara’s neck was longer than her own, and her frame was light and flexible. Frederica’s was cumbersome. The smaller body felt as if it weighed nothing, as if its slighter substance could unburden her spirit.

  Brahms rose, and held out his hand. “You’re feeling better,” he said, and now Frederica understood him perfectly. Her ear had caught the rhythm of his accent, and when she spoke she felt confidence in her own.

  “I feel wonderful, Hannes,” she said, with perfect honesty, daring to look directly up into his face. He gazed back at her. No hint of suspicion or doubt clouded his eyes.

  Frederica had only once in her life been this close to a man. A boy it had been, really. They had sat together at a concert, and afterward had walked side by side through the campus. In the shadows of an oak tree she had looked up into his face. She thought—she hoped—he might kiss her, but at the last moment he had pulled away, looked away, cleared his throat, and made some excuse.

  Brahms didn’t pull away. He squeezed her hands, holding her close to him. “Shall we go down into the village?” he asked. “We could stop at the café, see if the post has come yet.”

  “Oh, it is so hot, Hannes! Let Claudio bring it up.”

  He smiled, making his eyes crinkle in his smooth face. He was only a few years older than Frederica. Far too young for Clara! She repressed the fresh resentment that surged in her breast. This was her moment. She should savor it. Sh
e should be serene, as serene as her rival. She sensed Clara struggling, far beneath the surface, but she had to ignore her. She must take care not to be distracted, not to loosen her control. Perhaps it would get easier, but in the meantime her concentration must be absolute.

  “What would you like to do then, meine Schatz?”

  Frederica leaned close to him to press her forehead against his smooth cheek. She gathered her courage, and gave in to her pent-up longing. It took almost as much courage as the stepping into Clara’s body had, and her voice caught in her throat. “Perhaps now . . . a little . . . sleep?”

  He laughed, and caught her to him, lifting her off her feet as he pressed his lips to her neck. “A little sleep, my Clara? Oh, yes. You know I am always happy to . . . sleep . . . when you are here.”

  Still laughing, he lifted her in his arms. She felt as light as feathers, as sensuous as a cat in the sun. She felt delicate, and precious. As he carried her up the narrow staircase she let her head fall back against his shoulder. She could see one tiny foot—Clara’s foot—bobbing past his arm. How different from Frederica’s own wide-soled foot it was! It was so dainty, with its high arch, its straight, long toes. It was adorable.

  And it was hers now.

  Hannes pushed open the door of the bedroom with his elbow, and slipped her out of his arms and onto the embroidered coverlet.

  Frederica sat up, one hand at her throat. Anticipation and anxiety, in equal parts, made her breath come fast. Brahms pulled off his coat, and threw it hastily on the little chaise longue in the corner. He unbuttoned his shirt, and pulled his tie free, tossing it after the coat. She remained where she was, watching, her lips parted, her mouth dry.

  “Clara? You surely are not meaning to”—a smile—“sleep in your dress?”

  Frederica didn’t know what to do, or what to say. Sunlight made the room brilliant, gleaming on the whitewashed walls, the white coverlet with its red and blue and green flowers, the sheen of Brahms’s blond head. She had no experience of this. None. And she didn’t know if Clara—who had years of experience, and a revolting flock of babies to show for it—was bold, or shy. Modest, or demonstrative.

  With trembling fingers, she reached for the buttons at the back of the morning dress, fumbling, uncertain. Her cheeks burned, and she watched Brahms with eyes both eager and wary as he threw off his shirt, unbuttoned his trousers, shucked out of his drawers. He crossed to the bed naked, with a complete lack of embarrassment. His maleness shocked her, and thrilled her. She trembled.

  Chuckling, he murmured, “Let me help you, mein Engel.” He turned her gently by the shoulders. He knew her clothes better than she did. He untied the scarf at the neck of her gown, slipped the buttons from their loops, and loosened the ribbon at the waist. He let the whole drop to the floor in a wide puddle of dyed muslin. The corset had metal hooks, and he undid these with apparent ease, then started on the strings of her underskirt. He left the loose chemise and the voluminous undergarment beneath it. There were white stockings, too, long thick ones that reached above her knees.

  He folded back the coverlet, and Frederica shifted to move her legs out of the way. When he lay beside her, he plucked at the chemise that still covered her, chuckling, lifting the bodice to blow gently beneath it.

  Suddenly feeling bolder, Frederica sat up, and stripped off the white cotton stockings. She loosened the combs in her hair so that it spilled across the pillow behind her. She didn’t know what to do about other things, so she lay back on the pillow, biting her lip, waiting for a hint as to how to go on.

  It seemed he would leave the chemise where it was. The undergarment was some odd construction, with lace at the bottom and top, and with legs that were not sewn together. He pressed his lips to her breast, to her belly. He kept the chemise over her as he untied the ribbon that held the undergarment in place. At last he pulled this down, tugging it off her hips and over her ankles. He flung it aside so that it joined the rest of her clothes on the floor. He lifted himself above her, kissing her cheeks, her eyes, her ears. When he kissed her lips, his mouth was cool and firm, growing warmer as he kissed her more deeply, pressing his mouth against hers as if he couldn’t get enough.

  Frederica’s breath came quickly, shallowly, now. She put her arms around him, shyly at first, then more tightly. She closed her eyes as it began, that wonderful experience she had so yearned for, had dreamed of and fantasized about, but had nearly resigned herself to never having. His body was heavy, and hard. He was insistent, but not hurried. Her own body seemed to know what to do, and in the ecstasy of the moment she forgot to be shy, forgot to worry whether this would be different, a surprise to him, a disappointment.

  It was like learning a piece of music. Indeed, all the parts of it were musical. The rhythm was slow at first, and then faster. As the tempo increased, the intensity grew also. The touch of skin, the sound of breath, even the sliding of the sheets beneath them, the rumpled pillow behind her head, all came together in a supreme crescendo of abandon. The climax and resolution left Frederica gasping and hot, dripping with her own sweat and with his.

  He fell to one side, but he kept her clasped close to him, stroking her hair back from her wet forehead, tracing her profile with a fingertip. “You are magnificent,” he whispered. “Magnificent.”

  And deep inside her, in a place deeper even than he could reach, Clara struggled.

  Kristian drew back in shock, unable to watch any more. He was no voyeur, nor was he a prude. Even before Catherine, he had not lacked experience or opportunity. But this—Frederica Bannister in Clara Schumann’s body—was obscene. It was the deepest, the most shameful, of insults.

  He acknowledged his envy of Brahms, for having the love of Clara. But that was not what offended him. What Frederica had done—what she was doing—there was no word for it!

  Numbly, he withdrew from the bedroom and moved back down the stairs to the little sun-filled salon. He glanced at the manuscript on its stand, but the marking of p dolce seemed meaningless now. He drifted around the room, gazing, hardly registering what he saw. The light had begun to change in the garden, and he had to think what to do. What could he tell Frederick Bannister? That his daughter had stolen the body of an unsuspecting woman, slipped herself inside it as if it were no more than a stolen coat—and stayed there for four days?

  He thought, with his heart thudding in his ears, that the protesters could be right. Frederica Bannister, having found a way to be physically present in 1861, could resist the transfer, take charge of events around her. She could even change the time line. It was a disaster in every way, and it made him sick with helpless fury.

  He found no answers. As the sun dropped below the folded Tuscan hills, he went out into the garden. The cook was just coming up from the village, a basket of bread and greens over her arm. Stars sparkled from a clear lavender sky, more stars than Kristian had seen in his entire life. He lingered beneath the olive tree, gazing out over the quiet valley.

  The dusk thickened, hiding the village of San Felice from view, shrouding the hills and fields. In the houses of Castagno, lamps flickered to life through the blue evening and curtains were drawn against the darkness. Someone, the cook perhaps, had closed the French doors of Casa Agosto, and left the little salon in shadows. The temperature was no doubt dropping, though Kristian couldn’t feel it.

  He saw no point in remaining. He didn’t know what he could do, or how he could help. He also didn’t know what he would say to anyone at the transfer clinic, but he couldn’t stay here any longer. The joy of seeing Brahms, of being in 1861, of the surprise of observing Clara, had evaporated. He could hardly bear looking up at Casa Agosto, knowing what was happening behind those walls.

  Feeling heavy and sad, he moved beyond the stone wall, and farther, until he felt the slight dizziness, the disorientation, that meant he had reached the perimeter. He went through it, past the limit of the zone. There was a moment of vertigo, a slight shudder as he broke the transfer, and once again he opened
his eyes in his own time.

  8

  “What happened?” It was Max, looking startled to find Kristian’s eyes open. He had a cup in his hand, and as he jumped up he slopped a bit of tea over its rim. “Was she there?”

  Kristian glanced past him. Frederica’s mother sat on a chair beside her daughter’s cot, holding one of her hands, her head tipped back, her eyes closed. No one else was in the room. Kristian raised a warning finger, and whispered, “She was there all right.”

  “Then what—why are you back early?”

  “There was nothing more I could do. She disappeared.”

  “She did what?” Max’s eyebrows rose, creasing his forehead. He set his teacup down, and began unhooking Kristian’s wires and tubes. The cap came off with a rubbery slither of wires through his hair. Max stowed it carefully on its hook. As quietly as he could, Kristian threw back the blanket and slid his feet into his sneakers. On tiptoe, he and Max made their way out of the room. Bronwyn Bannister didn’t stir. Neither did her daughter.

  Kristian glanced at the big clock as they went into the kitchen. He had been gone seven hours of the eight they had allowed him, and the day was far gone. Chiara and Elliott were seated at the island, drinking coffee. The crumbs of sandwiches remained on the plates before them. They both jumped up when they saw Kristian coming in behind Max.

  Elliott said, “What’s wrong?”

  Chiara said, “Are you all right, Kris?”

  “Yes. I’m all right.”

  “Why are you back already?”

  “There wasn’t anything more I could do. Not at the moment.”

  “You came back early—on purpose?” Elliott asked.