Back at the Cornhusker, they gave up their individual rooms and moved into a slightly larger suite that had a nice view of the sower atop the capitol dome. “Newlyweds,” Danek white-lied to the hotel manager, who obliged by sending up a dozen red roses.
5
FOR EVERY FOOL THERE IS A FOLLOWER. So Wittmann silently sneered as he exited Konvikt in Mandelbaum’s wake. For every dunce, a devotee. Mandelbaum himself, pacing along the narrow echoing streets, struggled with the raw threat his old friend, once his partner, posed to Meta and her project. Each man, assuming the other had walked back to his home or hotel, in fact strode with deliberate haste toward another destination.
Kohout was in bed when the door buzzer woke him. His wife stirred, rolled over, and went back to sleep while Kohout semi-consciously tried to do the same. Given it was past midnight, he assumed some damnable fool down in the street had made a mistake or maybe was pulling an unfunny prank. A third and then fourth insistent buzz forced him to climb out of bed, cursing, and in pajamas the professor made his way to the front-room foyer. Standing in the dark, annoyed, he pressed the intercom button and asked, What the hell is it?
Let me in, Karel.
Who is this?
Karel, it’s Petr and it’s urgent we speak.
Are you injured, dying? Otherwise, can’t this wait until morning?
A pause before Wittmann shot back, It’s a matter of urgency.
That damned sonata, Kohout grumbled, reluctant to let his colleague come bursting into the apartment.
Yes, to be sure. Let’s talk. I won’t be long.
Huffing with indignation, Kohout pressed the button that unlocked the downstairs door. He returned to the bedroom, put on his bathrobe and wool slippers, quietly closed the door behind him so as not to disturb his snoring wife, and turned on floor lamps in the living room. Their old mica shades cast a golden glow over a pair of club chairs and a sofa that were in need of reupholstering and a large Kazak rug that had been passed down from his grandparents, once bright with a thick nap underfoot but now sun-faded and worn thin. It occurred to him, as he waited for Wittmann to ascend the stairs, that this once dignified parlor had, like its occupant, seen better days. Still, it was home. A sanctuary he didn’t want to risk losing.
This really must be the end of it, Kohout thought. I am too old, too tired for this kind of thing. I can’t allow Wittmann to count me in on whatever he’s scheming any further.
But antagonizing or disappointing the not uninfluential Wittmann wasn’t what Kohout, or anybody else, wanted to do either. He was in a lamentable bind, he realized, as he opened his door to a very wide-awake Petr Wittmann.
At about the same time, on the other side of the inky Vltava, Gerrit went downstairs to answer his door. Unlike Kohout, he and Meta were still up, discussing Otylie’s letters. Neither was prepared for Mandelbaum’s words when he followed Gerrit into the room and, without the slightest preliminary, asked Meta, “You have the manuscripts, right?”
“Of course, Paul—”
“Okay, good. Listen to me. It’s time for you to leave Prague. Even tonight, if there’s a train.”
“What the hell?” Meta protested, as Gerrit answered, “At this hour, I doubt it.”
“Or, Gerrit, do you have a car?”
“No,” and for a moment all three were talking at once, Mandelbaum asking about ways to depart, Gerrit trying to find out what had prompted this upheaval, Meta objecting that she had every right to be here, insisting this made no sense at all.
Finally she placed her hands on Mandelbaum’s shoulders and said, “Wait, Paul, stop. Stop. What’s going on, what’s this about?”
Catching his breath, he apologized, “I’m so sorry, Meta, so sorry. I don’t think you could have come here without talking to Petr, but I’m angry with myself for not having thought it through more carefully. Too late now. It’s crucial you get the originals not just out of Prague but out of the country, quickly and quietly.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“My dear colleague has threatened to go to ‘friends in high places’ and accuse you of theft of national cultural property.”
“That’s totally crazy. It was given to me. I have written proof,” Meta said, backing away, clenching her fists at her sides.
“He doesn’t give a damn one way or the other.”
“But the law’s on my side.”
“Not if it’s on his,” said Gerrit, watching Mandelbaum with a growing sense that the man knew Wittmann’s complexities far better than he’d ever let on. No time to worry about that, he thought, then added, “I have an idea. My friend Jiří Pelc—Meta’s met him—has a car. He can get us to Germany, I’m sure of it, and from there we can go to England like we’d planned anyway.”
“He’d just drop everything and do that?” she asked.
“Heart of gold and soul of a firebrand. During the revolution we did far crazier things than this. Knowing Jiří, I’d say he’ll consider it a lark.”
Mandelbaum said, “A lark it isn’t, but if you think he’d be willing, give him a call first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll call him right now. Guy never sleeps anyway.”
“Good. I can stall Petr for a couple of days. All I want is to see that Meta, and you, and the manuscript are beyond whatever immediate reach he’s got.”
Meta clamped both hands over her eyes. “This is all so insane. What does any of it have to do with Otylie Bartošová’s wishes? What does it have to do with music?”
Picking up his phone to call Jiří, Gerrit answered her as calmly as he possibly could. “It’s clear that Wittmann wants it for something beyond music and cultural integrity and national pride and all that bullshit. It’s valuable, as in money valuable.”
Hearing this, Mandelbaum realized that Wittmann might be playing with more dangerous fire than he thought. To his credit in some ways, to his detriment in others, the man had gotten away with a lot over the years, had successfully walked razor-thin lines, manipulating authority for personal gain. But Gerrit was no doughy operative looking for quid pro quos. And he was in love with Wittmann’s possible prey.
“Jiří’s on,” said Gerrit.
“Just like that?” asked Meta.
“Just like that. He picks us up at the end of Jánská in an hour.”
Before Wittmann departed Kohout’s apartment about half an hour after making his impromptu appearance, his reluctant accomplice had consented to stand by the complaint that Petr proposed to take to the cultural ministry the next day. While it would be up to Wittmann to present the matter, Kohout agreed to second his opinion that the musical documents Meta Taverner possessed were very likely not her property, were possibly stolen from a Czech citizen, and were above all of signal cultural import.
The more Kohout had listened to his pontificating, however, the more he believed Wittmann, for all his reputation, would be shown the door. Hadn’t another faculty member at Charles University only the day before privately whispered that she worried a little about Wittmann’s stability? A few students had complained to the department chair about his lateness to classes, the fellow music professor shared. As meticulous as ever with his lectures, but leaving seminars early too. Acting odd, curt. Not himself.
Kohout defended Wittmann by saying, He’s just finished this Mahler book and he always gets edgy when he turns in a big project like that. Postpartum anxiety, I rather think.
Postpartum? Let him ask for maternity leave next time, I say.
Karel Kohout didn’t disagree that Petr seemed unbalanced. Despite any differences they may have had in times past, he felt a bit sorry for his colleague. This sonata business had become a toxic obsession, and it was Kohout’s hope, in fact, as he hung his robe on the back of the bathroom door and returned to bed, that the ministry would dismiss Wittmann’s claims as baseless hearsay unworthy of investigation. Petr could use a healthy reality check. And a vacation. Spend a week in Greece over the holidays. Start a new book. Go
on a date. Listen to some damn music.
Kohout’s thoughts weren’t all that far from those of Mandelbaum, who was ready to leave Jánská to return for a few hours’ sleep at the hotel now that contingency plans were in place. A few minutes before Jiří was to arrive, he said his goodbyes to Meta after shaking Gerrit’s hand.
“I’m sorry this didn’t go according to plan in any way conceivable.”
“Not to worry, old owl,” she said, giving him a hug. “I never expected things to go as well as they have, frankly. Didn’t think skulking out of town would be my exit strategy, but what’s a woman to do?”
“You shouldn’t underestimate Wittmann,” he warned.
“He shouldn’t underestimate me.”
Mandelbaum looked her in the eye. “All right, so go find that other movement.”
“And restore it to its rightful owner.”
“That’s vital because that’s what defangs Wittmann.”
“Then the musicology can begin,” she said.
“Then the musicology can begin.” And with that Mandelbaum left.
Meta placed a call to tell her mother that she was leaving Prague and, echoing her mentor, asked her not to discuss her daughter, the manuscript, her departure from the Czech Republic, or anything else with a soul. Much as Mandelbaum had done, she told her that she would explain everything later.
“Are you all right? Can you tell me that much?” her mother asked.
“I’m very much all right. Better than all right. Believe me.”
“Well, I always have,” her mother said. “No reason to stop now.”
While she was on the phone, Gerrit sat down to write the Hodeks a letter apologizing for his abrupt departure and to let them know he would be back soon. Impromptu holiday, he fibbed, in case Wittmann or others inquired. He enclosed two months’ rent inside the envelope. In a second letter, he wrote a note to Andrea. Keep studying your English, keep practicing the piano, little platitudes at which he could picture her scoffing with a good-natured laugh. To her too, he gave assurance that he would be back. And if anybody dared to tell her that Meta was guilty of anything bad, she shouldn’t believe it. If Meta was guilty of anything, it was conscience.
This was, he thought as he sealed the envelope, in many ways a wonderful trait, in others an onerous burden. In Meta’s case, both.
True to form, Jiří was decked out in his worn black leather bomber jacket as he sat behind the wheel of his car, caffeinated and jazzed to participate in anything that undermined oppressor authority. Headlights off, engine idling. As they had hoped, no one was about. It was too late for the last of the pub-crawlers and too early for the work-at-dawners.
“Thanks for this, Jiří,” Gerrit told his friend.
“Please, man. No sweat.”
Recalling that Meta loved heavy metal, Jiří offered to play a mixtape of Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Burzum he’d brought along.
“Believe it or not, I don’t want to hear any music right now, metal, classical, or otherwise. Just wind on the windows.”
“No problema.” Jiří knew the road well, having driven many a time past Pilsen into Bavaria on vacation. Careful not to exceed the speed limit, he drove like “a saint,” as he put it with a laugh.
Although Gerrit’s and Meta’s minds were racing, both remained silent. Without saying as much to one another, they found themselves wondering if running off like this on the spur of the moment, in the middle of the night, might not undermine Meta’s case. In urging them to flee had Mandelbaum been operating under the influence of a mind-set that would have been valid a decade ago but was no longer justifiable?
Meta wasn’t in the habit of doubting her mentor. She had always placed faith in his every small pronouncement, every idea, no matter how outré it happened to be, about life, music, anything. Even when they disagreed, she respected his position, knew it was well considered. But this fear of Petr Wittmann, what fostered it? Wittmann was a complex bundle of impulses, some good, some not. Was he such a towering figure that skittering away like cockroaches startled by a suddenly switched-on overhead light made real sense?
A crescent moon shed little radiance as the car moved swiftly toward the German border, taking a less traveled road through the heavy woodlands of Český Les. Meta couldn’t help but think of Jakub Bartoš hiding in tall forested isolation like this when the Nazis drove him into the underground. Which meant, of course, that part of the manuscript she clutched in her lap had been out there in similar cold and pitch-darkness. Once more she was reminded how far the Prague Sonata had come—now leaving its titular home again—and had yet to go.
The tiny border crossing at Eslam, to their surprise, appeared deserted. Lights in the small guard station were on. A radio was faintly playing. But there was no sign of life.
“Do we wait?” asked Meta.
“Does the nest build the bird?” Jiří said, dropping the clutch into first gear and crossing the frontier.
Their collective sigh, once the travelers had entered Germany, was audible. For all his threats and bluster, Wittmann had failed to stop them from exiting the country with the manuscript in hand. They drove for a time in silence, Meta fitfully dozing off as the engine hummed and breezes whistled.
When she woke, dawn had broken on the eastern horizon and Gerrit was at the wheel.
“If life were a more reasonable beast,” she said with a yawn, “I’d love for us to go first to Bonn, Bonngasse 20. We’re only a few hours from the place where maybe this all began.” Even as the words came out, she knew this was not the time to rest on the laurels of an unresolved hypothesis. A side trip to pay homage to Beethoven would be an unnecessary caprice, a whim that would only slow them down.
“We talked about it while you were asleep,” said Gerrit. “Subject to your approval, we think it’s going to be best to head straight up to the coast.”
“It’s not too long,” Jiří added. “Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Köln, then the ring road around Brussels after Aachen and Liège. Will take all day into evening. On to Ostend and Dunkirk, where I can drop you off. Or Calais.”
“The ferries run regularly out of Calais. It’s a crossing I’ve made many a time.”
Meta took a deep breath. They were right. Life was not a reasonable beast.
Their passage across the English Channel seemed somehow imaginary. The French shoreline shrouded in sea mist, the light gray-green chop of the Channel waters and hypnotic cries of gulls trailing the ferry, the British coast also carpeted in fog—it all only added to the dreamlike quality of the trip. Meta and Gerrit sat close together on a sternward bench out of the salt breeze. During this leg of the journey it was Gerrit who napped, his head resting heavily on Meta’s shoulder, while their shared duffel, which housed spare clothes, his laptop, the manuscript, lay across her lap. Things had changed so much since Otylie made this crossing, Meta knew, but a part of her urgently tried to imagine what the woman’s experience might have been like. More nightmare than dream.
Not far from Paddington Station they set themselves up in a nondescript, inexpensive hotel. They registered under Gerrit’s name, aware it wasn’t much cover. The thin mattress on their bed sagged like a hammock, and the plumbing clanked and banged. Still, after a pub dinner and pints of Guinness, the sorry state of the hotel bed didn’t stop them from making love. “I adore you,” Gerrit whispered, still inside her, as Meta shuddered in the wake of her orgasm. Before she slipped toward unconsciousness, she repeated his words, a whisper of warm breath against his cheek.
In the morning, at Gerrit’s suggestion, Meta phoned Sam to tell him they had arrived in London without incident, and to ask him to pass the word along to Mandelbaum. If Wittmann was as much of a threat as Mandelbaum seemed to believe, best not to have him receiving transnational calls from her via a hotel desk.
“We miss you already,” Sam said before they rang off.
“Miss you too. Maybe I’m being overly hopeful, but I promise you we’ll be seeing each other again soo
ner rather than later. And it won’t be through jail bars.”
Gerrit had helped her do some on-the-fly research about the Czech government in exile just days before she found herself exiled from Prague. They had discovered that many of the main offices in London proper had been housed in Fursecroft, a large building on George Street in Marylebone. Otylie might well have worked there herself, Meta began to think, maybe in the support staff or secretarial pool, or possibly as an assistant to someone in the middling ranks. None of the wartime offices would still be around, so, as when Meta first arrived in Prague, the search would be one of going from door to door.
Other possibilities loomed as well, including Buckinghamshire, in the south of England, where exiled Czech president Beneš was forced to move for safety’s sake after the Park Street building in which he’d first set up shop had been leveled by German bombs. Meta learned that all the staffers, Otylie undoubtedly among them, had been situated in London during the devastating worst of the Blitz. After that, there was a slim chance the woman had moved to the safety of Aston Abbotts, out in the countryside, with Beneš’s close circle, so that area would also have to be checked out.
With these destinations ahead, Meta felt a new resolve and a stirring excitement that put Prague in the background, along with Wittmann. At least somewhat.
They spent their first couple of days tracking people whose movements were known to history. They’d read that in October 1938 President Beneš had first moved to the Putney district of London, where he lived for a time with his wife, Hana, and their nieces. This was as good as any other starting place, if only to rule it out. As Meta and Gerrit wandered along Gwendolen Avenue, and up and down side streets, she was reminded of her first days with him in Malá Strana, blind-knocking on doors and asking questions of strangers. But other than finding a handsome circular blue plaque that read “Dr. Edvard Benes 1884–1948 President of Czechoslovakia lived here,” they came up empty.
The Prague Sonata Page 40