“No. Should I?”
“Perhaps not.”
She looked not unlike Amalia Materna, who sang Brunnhilde’s role. But this woman was taller. And, despite her slenderness, even more majestic.
Wagner looked around, hoping to find a coach in the empty streets. But nothing moved. He could still hear the orchestra and the singers, muffled behind the walls of the opera house.
“I am a friend, Herr Wagner. Perhaps the truest friend you will ever have.”
A lot of people were jealous of Wagner. Would like to humiliate him. “Step out of the shadows, please,” he said. “Let me see you.”
She came forward into the pool of light spilling from the gas lamp on the corner. She was younger than he had first supposed, and though he did not know her, she was nevertheless strangely familiar. No doubt it was her resemblance to Amalia.
“Were you inside?” he asked.
“Yes.” She looked down at him with those intense blue eyes.
“I didn’t see you.”
“I was in back.”
“You left early.”
“I wished to speak with you.” She rearranged her cloak. “You are a musical genius, Herr Wagner. It is a pity that your work is misunderstood. And destined to remain so.”
He was trying to edge away from her. But the comment stopped him. Or her manner. Or those eyes. Something. “What do you mean misunderstood? Genius is always recognized sooner or later.”
“It is…perceived…as being nationalistic.”
“Nationalistic.” He told himself to remain calm.
“You are perhaps too much the genius. Your music has effects beyond those you intend.”
“My music is intended to uplift and transform.” He was trying to hide his irritation. Never provoke a Valkyrie. (And where had that come from?) “My music is meant to be heard with the soul as well as the ears.”
“I fear you will succeed only too well, Herr Wagner. Unless you stop now.”
“Stop? You would have me do what? Become a carpenter?”
“If need be. Whatever else you choose, you must renounce your intention to create a German musical art.”
And now the anger was there. He could control it no longer. “Ridiculous,” he said. Where in God’s name were all the carriages tonight? Well, then, he would walk. “Madame, if you will excuse me, I really must be going.”
“Not yet.” It was more than a request. “Let me show you why you should put your ambitions aside. Why you must bury the Ring. Refuse, after the present engagement, to allow another performance. Ever. Do what you can to kill it. Permit no one to perform your music ever again.”
“In God’s name, why would you demand such a thing?”
She led him back through a door in the bake shop, and through another door into the rear of the building. He’d expected to emerge in a kitchen, but instead found himself, somehow, in a forest. Insects hummed contentedly, and a full moon slipped between branches overhead. Three old women, dressed in black robes, crouched over a fire. They held a long strand of rope among them, and, as he watched, they passed its coils back and forth. In the distance he could hear music, faint music, music that was his, that would be performed in public for the first time this week.
A fourth woman appeared, her face pale and spectral in the glimmering light from the fire. She looked very old. And as Wagner watched she lifted her arms to the moon and turned toward him. “Richard,” she said, “escape the curse of the Ring.”
A chill ran through him.
“Do you recognize her, Herr Wagner?”
“It’s Erda. The earth goddess. The others are her daughters—.”
“They are.”
“The Norns. They foretell the future.”
“That is correct.”
“We are back in the theater.”
“No. We are where we seem to be.”
“But they are myths.”
She smiled. “Am I not a myth?”
The anger was draining away. His hands shook, and his body trembled. “Who are you?”
“I think you know.”
He listened to the wind moving through the trees. Waited until his voice steadied. “And the Norns? What have they to do with me?”
“They know of the effect your Ring operas will have. And they know that this will lead nowhere but to disaster.”
“That’s rubbish!”
“Is it? Ask the Norns, Herr Wagner. I know what they have read in your future, and I think you should know of it too.”
One of the Norns held up a skein. “This is the future that will be, that you will help bring about.” She stepped aside and Wagner looked past her into a clearing. Into a field, which widened as he watched. And he could see movement. Hundreds of gray, shabbily dressed people staggered past in a line that seemed to have no end. They were little more than skeletons. Their skin was mottled and he could see their bones. Their eyes were black, and he could smell sickly, unwashed bodies. And there were children with them. Cries and moans escaped the marchers and were blown away on the wind.
They walked beside a fence, topped by cruel-looking spikes. Soldiers wearing steel helmets escorted them, struck them with the butts of their weapons, hit them again when they stumbled and fell. And the soldiers laughed.
The commands were given in German. Occasional curses were in German. The laughter was German.
“That’s not possible,” Wagner said.
“What isn’t?”
“We would never behave that way. We are a civilized people.”
“One might make the argument there are no civilized people.” Ahead, at the front of the line, orange lights had come on.
“Nonsense. Why are these people here?”
“They have been declared criminals.”
“Criminals.” While he struggled to understand, the majestic opening chords of Siegfried’s Funeral Music from Gotterdammerung rose into the night air. Impossible. “That is my music.”
“So it is.”
“But—”
“They use it in an attempt to give meaning to this.” She studied the people stumbling past.
“You said they are criminals. What crime have they committed?”
“They are Jews.”
“And—?”
“They are Jews, Herr Wagner.”
The air was heavy. The Funeral March swirled around him, graceful and magnificent and clinging to the stars. A farewell to the greatest of German heroes. “What are the lights? Up where the orchestra is?”
“Those are ovens, Herr Wagner. Welcome to the new world.”
“Tell me again why this is happening.” They were back on the street, in front of the bake shop. Wagner’s cheeks were wet, and he was still trembling.
“It’s not happening yet. It will happen.”
“When?”
“In a little more than half a century.”
“And you’re telling me that my music is the cause?”
“It’s an appeal to a tribalism that has always been dangerous. But it becomes more so in a future world where everyone can hear your music. A world with ways to communicate you cannot now imagine.”
“And these people are being killed because—.”
“—They belong to the wrong tribe.”
“So you are saying that if I go no farther, if I cancel what I have already produced, that march we saw out there tonight will not come to pass.”
“Oh, no, Herr Wagner. It will happen. There is too much entrenched hatred and stupidity for it not to happen. What I am offering you is a chance to keep your name clean. To avoid being drafted into it as a collaborator.”
“A collaborator? How can I be a collaborator? I’ll be long dead when these things occur.”
“Nevertheless, your hand will be part of it. Your genius will make its contribution.”
Finally a coach appeared on the street. It was unoccupied. But Wagner made no move for it. “If it means so much to you, why don’t you intervene? Step in. Stop it cold.
Surely you can do that.”
Her eyes slid shut and he was able to breathe again. “Unfortunately,” she said quietly, “we cannot halt the flow of history. We could strike dead the madman who will perpetrate it. But there would only be another madman. It is the attitude that is the problem. The attitude that you, Herr Wagner, are at this moment helping to foster.”
He was silent a moment, knowing that what she said was madness, but feeling in it the ring of truth. “No,” he said finally. “I can’t believe that.”
“The problem is not the occasional murderous dictator,” she went on. “It never is. The problem is the help he receives from the likeminded and the fearful. Civilization will collapse here not because of one man and his army of thugs, but because ordinary people will turn in their neighbors. And because geniuses will write martial masterpieces. There are too many collaborators.”
He was never certain it had actually happened. So, even though he briefly toyed with the prospect of giving up his career, of abandoning everything he loved, everything that made life sweet, he could not bring himself to do it. It wasn’t the money. And it wasn’t even that his name would be lost to history, that Richard Wagner would simply become one of the millions who pass through this life unnoticed except for the few around them, ultimately having no impact.
No.
At the end of the week, as he sat watching Brunnhilde in Gotterdammerung, he was swept away by the power of the performance, and he understood that he could not deprive the world of such a magnificent creation. He owed it to the future to hold his ground. Whatever the cost.
He needed only look around at the audience, which was utterly transported, to know he had done the right thing.
When it was over, he did not linger as he traditionally had after an opening night performance. Instead, he left quickly, signaled a carriage, and gave the driver his destination. As it pulled away from the theater, he saw a woman in a red cloak watching him. He almost told the driver to stop.
TYGER
Did he smile his work to see?
—Blake
David was dead at last.
I will carry all my days the vision of Nick frozen against the sunlight while the wind blew the preacher’s words across green fresh-cut grass.
The boy had never drawn a breath that was free of pain. He’d slipped away, almost unexpectedly, on the eve of his fifteenth birthday “In God’s hands,” they murmured over the sound of the trees. “He’s better off.”
Afterward, Nick refused my offer to stay with us a few days. I was uncomfortable at the prospect of my brother buried in his apartment. But he assured me he’d be all right, that there was enough going on at work to keep him engaged. “It’s been coming a long time,” he said, voice tight. And: “What I’m grateful for is, he never gave up. I don’t think he ever believed it would actually happen.”
I tried to stay in touch, but it was a busy time for me, and Nick wasn’t very good at returning phone calls anyway. On the occasional evenings when my duties took me to the branch bank on Somerset, I made it a point to drive a few blocks out of my way, past his condo. It was on the rooftop of a squat five-story stone building. I stopped to talk to him only once, and he seemed so uncomfortable that I did not do so again. But from the street I could see him moving around in there, backlit, staring out over the city.
If you’re concluding that I neglected him during this period, you’re probably correct. In my defense, I should mention that Virginia delivered our second child two days after the funeral and immediately fell ill. In addition, the markets went south, and I was working well into the evening on a regular basis trying to protect the bank’s investments. So I forgot about Nick until Edward Cord called.
Cord was the director of the particle accelerator lab at the University of Washington, where Nick was a researcher. “Have you seen him recently?” he asked. “He’s changed.”
“He’s still upset.”
“He’s changed. Talk to him. He needs you.”
I couldn’t get past his telephone answering system. Finally, disgusted, I got in my car early on a Friday evening, and drove over.
Lights were on in the penthouse condo, one on the deck, one in back. I parked across the street, went into the lobby, and punched his button. Punched it again.
“Who’s there?” The voice rasped. He sounded annoyed.
“Michael.”
A long pause. The lock on the security system clicked.
The elevator opened off the terrace, and he met me with drinks in his hand. The usual rum and Coke. “Michael,” he said. “Good to see you.” He managed a smile, but his eyes were bleak and wintry.
“How’ve you been, Nick?”
“Okay.” It was an unseasonably warm evening in October. A quarter moon swam among wisps of cloud. There was a taste of salt air off the Sound. “I take it you’ve been worried about me.”
“A little.”
“You have reason.” We crossed the terrace and went into the apartment. A desk lamp dropped a pool of light across a pile of notebooks and printouts. There was no other illumination in the room. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been out of touch lately.” He tried again for a smile. It wasn’t there. “I’ve been busy.”
“Cord called.”
He nodded. “I’m not surprised.”
Bookshelves lined the room. Beyond the pale cast of the lamp, the walls grew insubstantial, gave way to void. An X-ray photo of the Milky Way hung by the door, and several of Nick’s awards were mounted near the fireplace. A couple of landscapes broke up the academic character of the place.
Framed photographs stood on the desk: Terri alive and happy against a clutch of blue sky, windblown hair sparkling in sunlight. And David: on his bike at about eight, and again two years later locked in the embrace of a Mariners outfielder who had heard about the case, and a third depicting him in a baseball cap standing between Nick and me. In all the pictures the child, like the mother, looked happy. In love with life.
“Nick, you can’t mourn forever.”
He waved me onto the sofa and sat down in the big leather wingback. “I know,” he said.
“You understand what I’m saying.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.
He shrugged. Sipped his drink. It looked like wine. Chablis, probably. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Nick, we’d like to have you over for dinner. Maybe Sunday? Virginia would like to see you again.”
He shook his head. “Thanks, Michael. But no. Not at the moment.” He took a deep breath. Straightened his sweater. “Maybe another time.”
“Nick—”
“Please, Michael. We know each other too well, so I’ll not lie to you. I have no interest just now in dinners and evenings out.”
I waited until he could not misunderstand my dissatisfaction. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“No.” He rose, expecting me to go.
“Nick,” I said, composing myself more comfortably, “it’s been six months. You need to get your life together.”
“Just soldier on,” he said.
What the hell do you say in a situation like that? Everything sounds dumb. “I know it’s hard. But these things happen. You have to be able—.”
“They do not,” he snarled, “happen. Nothing simply happens.” He shook his head and his eyes slid shut. His lip trembled, and he fell silent.
The place was empty without David. Quiet. Not lifeless, because Nick possessed a relentless energy and vitality of his own. But it seemed as though direction had been lost. Point. The reason for it all.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I had drunk very little of the rum and Coke, certainly not enough to account for the subtle sense of disquiet that had settled about me. I don’t know whether there was a modulation in his tone, or some curious juxtaposition of hand and shoulder, or a glint of terror reflected in glass. “No,” he said quietly, “nothing happens save by design.”
Curious remark: he had always been aggress
ively secular. Dad had provided a religious education for both of us, but in Nick’s case it had not taken.
His face twisted briefly. Grief. Rage. I couldn’t tell. But in the end it settled into a hard smile. “Michael,” he said, “what do you think lies behind the stars?”
I tried to penetrate his expression. To determine what he was really asking. “God,” I said at last. “Or nothing.”
His eyes locked with mine. “I quite agree. And I believe we’ve found His footprints.” He smiled at my confusion. He leaned forward, and his voice gained intensity. “Michael, the universe is wired. The fix is in. David never had a chance. Nor do you. Nor I. From the very beginning—.” He got up and strode toward one of the windows. Seattle glittered in the distance, a crosspatch of illuminated highways and skyscrapers and bridges.
“Nick—”
“We’ve begun to understand how it was done. Michael, there’s a complete set of instructions written into the post-quantum world, a concordance of particle harmonies, a manipulation of the more exotic dimensions. Directions, establishing the rules, setting the value of gravity, tuning the electroweak charge, establishing the Mannheim Complexity Principle. Ultimately writing the nature of Man. It’s all there, Michael. There’s a lot we don’t know yet. But someone wrote the program. The theologians were right all along—.”
“This is old stuff, Nick. Railing at God when things go wrong.”
“It comes with a twist now. We know how to make a universe. Were you aware of that?”
“No.” It was hard to know whether he was mocking me, or delirious. In the uncertain light, I could not get a good look at his eyes. “I wasn’t aware.” And after a moment: “The idea is absurd.”
“Nevertheless, it is quite true.”
I sighed. “And how would we go about doing that?”
“Quite easily, Michael. We pack a relatively modest quantity of matter, a few kilograms, into a cramped space.” He looked past me, toward the shadowy area where his bookshelves met the ceiling. “The space would have to be quite cramped, of course. It would be considerably smaller than an atomic nucleus. But after we’ve done it, we have a cosmic seed.” His lips parted in a distorted smile. “Then all you have to do is let go and stand back.”
Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt Page 49