“You think so,” Heinrich said, “I think so, Master Luder thinks so, but apparently whoever broke in to the forge does not.”
They were getting close to the forge, and Johann could see a familiar figure dismounting from a cab. “Sergeant Peltzer,” he called out. The sergeant paused at the door to the building. “Any news yet?” Johann asked.
The sergeant’s mouth quirked at one corner. “I just arrived, Herr Bach. It has been a busy morning for the Polizei investigation department, I am afraid, and I was just now able to break free and come over. Shall we enter together?”
Johann followed the sergeant through the door into the forge area of the building, with Heinrich treading on his heels. A thought crossed his mind, and he turned toward his brother. “Where’s Christoph?”
Heinrich shrugged and held out his hands. “I thought he was at the opera house with you.”
Johann resisted the urge to slap his forehead. Of course he was at the opera house! But the news had flustered Johann just enough that he hadn’t thought of calling Christoph out to come with them.
Peltzer led the way through the door, and Johann was on his heels.
Master Luder was waiting. The sergeant introduced himself and began his questions. Having been through a similar routine with the earlier theft, Johann’s attention wandered. A low cabinet set to one side attracted his attention, and he sidled that direction until he could see what lay atop it, which were some of his organ pipes—four of them, to be exact. They must have been the four that were not taken. And they were small, flue pipes that were somewhat larger than his thumb, and perhaps as long as his forearm. The larger ranks were mostly completed at this point, and now they were filling in the smaller pipes, focusing mostly on flue pipes without the reeds at this point, creating the variety of different length and width pipes which produced the different timbres of the organ sound. These looked like the pipes for the string ranks, open-ended rather than closed so they would produce higher-pitched notes.
“Johann,” Heinrich said from beside him. Johann looked up, startled. “Sergeant Peltzer has a question for you.”
“Master Bach, do you still think there may be some connection between these thefts and Master Compenius?” Peltzer’s pencil was poised to make notes.
“No more than I did before,” Johann said. “But two thefts now involving this project is perhaps pushing the limits of coincidence.”
The pencil made some marks, then was caught up in the notebook as the sergeant put it away. “We shall make some inquiries,” Peltzer said. “Good day to you, Master Luder, Master Bach.”
“Johann looked at Luder after the detective left. “Well?”
“Numbers thirteen seventy-one, thirteen seventy-three, thirteen seventy-four, and thirteen seventy-six,” the whitesmith counted them off on his fingers. “I have the milled sheet tin in hand to do the work; I can rebuild them in a day.” He turned and spat into the forge. “At least this time they took little ones—not much metal and flue pipes at that, so easy to replace.”
“That makes me wonder if it was the same people,” Johann mused. “Not much gain, really, in lifting the small pipes. You might give the Polizei a little time…they might actually find these.”
Luder shook his head and spat again. “Stupid either way, but very stupid this, ja.”
“If they are stupid, maybe the Polizei will catch them this time,” Heinrich said with an evil grin.
“I’d like that,” Luder said with an answering smile. “I would pay money to see them standing before Gericke in his magistrate role.”
And with laughing agreement on that, Johann and Heinrich took their leave and headed back to the opera house.
* * *
“So, Herr Bach.”
It was two days after the most recent theft. Johann was having one of his brief reviews with his brothers at the Green Horse. He looked up to see Master Compenius looming over their table.
Compenius continued without interruption. “Is it you I have to thank for the visit from the Polizei yesterday? Something about stolen organ pipes?”
“I was asked if I suspected anyone. I said I did not suspect you, but that when two projects are in competition for the same resources, which you must admit we have been to some extent, then it is possible that someone in a low rank or peripheral position might perform or instigate something that he thought was to his advantage.”
Compenius’ frown deepened. “So you said that I could not manage my workers? Is that it?”
Johann stood and faced the other. “No, Master Compenius. I did not say that. But you must admit that someone who knows about your project but is not part of it might see a way to gather some coins by taking pipes from us and melting them down to sell the new ingots to one of your smiths with no one being the wiser.”
A grudging look of acknowledgment crossed the master’s face. “Perhaps, Bach. Perhaps.” His eyebrows lifted, as if a thought occurred to him. “What is this I hear about your organ having no bellows?”
“An up-time device called a fan fills the wind-chest and maintains the pressure,” Johann said.
“A…fan…”
“Ja. A fan.”
“And how does this work?”
“Talk to one of the up-timer engineers or mechanics,” Johann said with a grin. “They will be happy to work with you.”
“For a price, I am sure,” Compenius grumbled half-heartedly.
“The way of the world, Master Compenius.”
* * *
A few nights later Johann was sitting in the Green Horse again, this time poring over some of his music by the light of a lantern, when he felt someone move up beside him. He looked up to see Marla Linder staring down at him, but it was a revivified Marla, one who looked much more like the Marla of old than the Marla he had seen at the funeral—the Marla he had heard report of. He sprang to his feet, almost knocking his bench over backward as he did so.
“Careful,” Johann heard her say.
“Frau Linder!” he replied. “It is good to see you out and about again. But how…” He bit off the beginning of the question two words too late.
“You can blame or give thanks to Maestros Abati and Carissimi,” she said with a bit of a smile. “Andrea would not allow me to ‘wallow in my grief,’ as he put it, any longer, and so he and Giacomo intervened. Good friends…” Her voice died away and her gaze grew distant.
Johann didn’t know quite what to say, and there was a bit of an awkward silence between them before Marla’s eyes refocused and she cleared her throat. “I, ah,” she paused, then started again. “You’re not one of my favorite people, you know, after what you did to Staci.”
Johann said nothing. He wasn’t going to defend himself, and anything else he said would seem fatuous.
“But…” Marla continued, “…Franz told me what you said to him. That was kind of you. It showed a level of compassion I didn’t know was in you…that I was sure wasn’t in you after what you said to Staci that night. So now I’m torn. I’m still very angry with you, but I’m also grateful for what you said and prayed for me…which almost makes me angry all over again, because I’m not used to having to change my feelings about folks.”
She gave another small smile at that point. It was quiet, it was sad, but there was some warmth to it as well, and it stirred Johann’s heart to see it on her face. It was a mark on how far she had come.
“Thank you,” Marla said at the last. “It was kind of you, and I do appreciate it. I just wish you…” She broke it off there.
“Thank you in turn,” Johann finally said. “And your wishes are no stronger than my own.”
Marla looked at him for a long moment. “I think,” she finally said, “that I shall pray for you as you prayed for me.”
“Thank you,” Johann said in as sincere a manner as he knew how to express.
December 1635
On December 1st, Johann’s meeting with his brothers was short.
“As of this moment, we
are not making any more changes to the organ until after the concert,” he said. “I need it to be stable now, so that I can finish preparing and know exactly how everything is going to sound.”
Christoph nodded. “We have caps on the end of the wind pipes that do not have ranks installed yet, so that should not be a problem. The ranks are reasonably balanced between the two pipe lofts. I can have the two Georgs finish building the final rank frameworks, but we will simply store them until after the concert.”
“Ja,” Heinrich said. “I am surprised that you had not shut it down before now.” He shrugged. “No problem with Master Luder. He will simply continue making the pipes needed to finish it. Since these are mostly the small pipes, he has little problem in storing them for a short time until we need them.”
Johann looked at his brothers, and saw only commitment and encouragement, even from Heinrich the japester. He held his fist out and they placed their hands atop it.
“Do this thing, brother,” Christoph said. “We will be—we are—the Magdeburg Bachs, and it begins now, with you, with this music.”
“What he said,” Heinrich concluded.
* * *
Every day now consisted of practice time. Johann had for the most part learned the notes. Now he was exploring the best ways to translate the written notes into music, for he had determined that while the notes might be what the future Bach had written, they were only an approximation of how the music was to be played, to be realized. It was up to him to find the spirit of how Old Bach would have wanted the music to sound. He had a total of ten works: three organ chorales, three preludes, three fugues, and “Komm, süsser Tod.”
It was a grueling challenge, but it was exhilarating as well. Piece by piece, Johann would take them apart, line by line—sometimes measure by measure—and try different emphases, different volume gradations, different phrasings, different stop settings, even different fingerings. More than once, something that he determined worked best for one of the pieces made him go back and revisit one of the earlier pieces to try another approach in something he had previously settled.
Day after day Johann did this as long as there was light enough to see the keys, light enough to read the sheet music if he needed to refer to it. He began drinking coffee, large cups of it, one after another, throughout the day. His stomach most evenings was a roiling mass of acid, so his evening meals were seldom more than a portion of bread, more often than not the remainder of his morning roll which he hadn’t finished because he was so intent on getting to the music.
Bit by bit, line by line, page by page, Johann began to arrive at his performance interpretations. To some extent they were shaped by some of the up-time recorded music he had heard in Grantville, especially those performances by Helmut Walcha and E. Power Biggs, two musicians whose hands he greatly wished he could have shaken. They were very different in their approaches to performing the music of Old Bach, but they both played with élan and with authority, and the impressions left in his memory both inspired and challenged him.
From time to time Johann was aware of his brothers standing behind him or to one side just watching him; sometimes together, sometimes singly, and never speaking, just watching. Finally, one day he looked up at a time when they were both there. “What?”
Christoph looked at Heinrich, who shrugged, then back at his older brother. “Just trying to understand you,” he said. “You have never been like this before. Proud, yes. Pushy sometimes, yes. Arrogant know-it-all big brother at times, oh, yes. And other things like organized as a Jesuit and focused on your goals like a terrier on a rat as well.”
“Thank you, I think,” Johann responded drily.
“But you have never been this focused. You are losing weight, you look gaunt…feverish, even. It concerns us—both of us,” he waved a hand to include Heinrich in the conversation.
“It is almost enough to make you think of the old legends of soul-stealers or Loreleis or lamias,” Heinrich added. “You were focused on that Matowski woman before…” he stumbled at the frown on Johann’s face, then continued with, “…but that was nothing compared to now.”
Johann crossed his arms. “Is it not enough that I am striving to build our future, that I am reaching for something that would not otherwise exist for our family for two more generations?”
Christoph shook his head. “No. Not for what we see. Not for driving yourself to the precipice of exhaustion day after day after day. I would blame it on a woman, but there is no woman.”
“There you are wrong,” Johann said in a low voice. “There is a woman…the same woman who has been part of my thoughts for over a year: Fräulein Anastasia Matowski. And yes, she is my Lorelei, my lamia. She haunts my dreams at night. She stole my soul long ago. And I foolishly…oh so foolishly…drove her away. That, my dear brothers, is proof that I can be as folly-ridden as anyone. And my one desire now is to convince her to accept me again, to forgive me, to allow me to make the great amends to which she is oh so entitled.”
His brothers looked at him. Heinrich finally said, “You have a plan, then?”
“Call it an idea,” Johann responded, hands clamped tight to his elbows, “a plea, an outreach. Not a plan, not a ploy, but a desperate forlorn hope.”
“And it involves the concert?”
“It rests totally upon the concert,” Johann said. “And so I bend all thought, all energy, every waking moment to make the concert as extraordinary as I can.”
“Ah,” Christoph said, eyebrows lifted. “That is the way of it?”
“That is the way of it.”
“She was better than you deserved before, you know,” Heinrich said, “not to mention now.”
“I know.”
“We will wish you well, brother,” Christoph said after a moment as Heinrich nodded. They stepped forward and clapped their hands on his shoulders in affirmation. For a moment, Johann’s throat was thick, and all he could do was nod himself.
The younger Bachs slipped away, leaving Johann to understand that perhaps he had more in his brothers than had been apparent to him before. After that quiet moment of appreciation, he slipped back onto the organ bench, took a deep breath, and set his fingers on the keys. There was much yet to do before dusk.
* * *
Staci followed Casey into Lady Beth’s office at the school. She stutter-stepped to a stop when she saw Mary Simpson sitting in a chair beside Lady Beth’s desk. Lady Beth herself, of course, sat in the chair she’d had custom made for herself behind the desk. It wasn’t padded, but the wood of it had been shaped to perfectly conform to her body and her build when she sat in it, and she swore that it was more comfortable than any padded desk chair she had ever had in Grantville.
“Sit, ladies,” Lady Beth said, pointing at the two armless chairs that sat across from the desk. Wondering what was going on, Staci moved across and sat in the furthest chair. She heard Casey close the door behind them, and a moment later settle into the other chair.
“What’s up, Lady Beth?” Casey asked with a grin. Staci was content to let her friend do most of the talking. She’d gotten somewhat out of the habit herself in the last few months.
“I actually asked for you,” Mary said.
That got both their attentions, and Staci stiffened a bit. After seeing Mary work with, through, and around her mother in previous years, she knew that there was more to Mary than the smiling, friendly, gracious, glad-handing “hostess with the mostest” that was Magdeburg’s usual perception of the admiral’s wife. If she was here, there was a reason, and if she asked for them, she wanted something. The question was what?
“We will be having a concert on December fifteenth, Saturday, at the Opera House. The Royal Arts League is very involved in all of that, as you know, so we would like representation for all of the league’s activities there.”
Aha. Translation: Mary and her arts cronies want some dancers at the concert to dress things up a bit and put a smiling pretty face on it for the money people. That ma
de sense to Staci, and she relaxed a bit. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been paraded out on display before. It was a pretty common part of being a dancer, doing things to keep the art in the public eye. Even in the down-time it seemed fundraising was a perennial activity.
Lady Beth cleared her throat. “The school calendar is clear that evening. The Christmas concert will be on the thirteenth this year.”
“And boy am I glad that Marla’s back,” Casey said. “I wasn’t looking forward to having to lead that. I mean, I could have gotten it done—I helped enough with church children’s choirs to be able to fake it as a director—but the girls just do better when Marla’s standing in front of them.”
Mary smiled. “They undoubtedly respond to her authority.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Staci said, finally contributing to the conversation. “Authority ought to be Marla’s middle name: Kristen Marlena Authority Linder. Has a nice ring to it, actually.”
That got laughs started from everyone in the room, and it was a few moments before things settled enough that the conversation resumed.
“Actually,” Mary said as she wiped at one eye, “I could have seen something like that if she’d been around in the Puritan colonies in about a hundred years. ‘Goodwife Authority Linder, of Salem, Massachusetts.’” A couple of chuckles surfaced after that one, but Mary had everyone’s attention again, which was undoubtedly why she had made the remark.
“So who’s doing the concert?” Casey asked. “Franz and the orchestra?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Staci saw Lady Beth freeze for just a moment, and her heart sank. She didn’t know why or what yet, but this was undoubtedly going to be something they didn’t want to hear.
“No,” Mary said without a pause. Staci noted just how smooth she was about it. “This will be a solo performance.” She paused for a beat, then concluded with, “An organ recital.”
It took a moment for that to register, but when it did Staci flinched and leaned forward a bit as if she had been hit in the stomach.
“What?” Casey sounded incredulous. “Who’s going to play it? That bastard Bach?”
1636- the Flight of the Nightingale Page 33