City of Dark Magic (3 page)

Now she followed her roommate into their cramped but immaculate (that was Alessandro’s doing) kitchen and showed him the letter from Prague.

“The first thing you must do when you get there,” Alessandro said, “is visit
Il Bambino di Praga
, and say a prayer to him.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. Alessandro was a scientist. He was studying yeast, although Sarah wasn’t totally clear on the specifics. Mostly because the way Alessandro pronounced the word “yeast” always cracked her up. She knew his work had something to do with brain functions, but in a way that didn’t seem to overlap at all with her own interest in music and the brain.

“What’s a bambino of Praga?” she asked.

Alessandro shook his head in mock despair. “What kind of a nice Catholic girl are you?” he asked.

“I’m not,” said Sarah. That, too, had been a showdown with her mother. The day she had decided that she wasn’t going to mass anymore.

“It’s an ancient statue of Gesu Bambino, the baby Jesus, that has magical powers when you pray to him.”

“This from the man who stares into an electron microscope all day.” It never ceased to amuse and perplex her that Alessandro, a neuroanatomist, freely switched from evil eyes and the magical abilities of saints to Einstein’s unfinished unified field theory in a microsecond.

“Sarah,” Alessandro said, sternly. “There is much more to this life than what we can see even through an electron microscope. You will learn, when you go to Prague. There is magic there.” He crossed himself. “Dark magic. Prague is a threshold.”

“Prague is a city,” she said firmly. “A place where, just like here, the rules of science apply.”

“Rules of science.” Alessandro shrugged his elegant shoulders. “And what are those? We don’t even know how this works.” He pointed to his head. “Eighty-six point one billion neurons. And glial cells surround neurons—eighty-four point six billion glia. For over a century,
cento anni
, we know glia are there, but not what they do. Now we know they modulate neurotransmission. But how? We don’t know. And universe? Ninety-six percent of the universe is dark matter and dark energy. What are they?
Chissá?
No one knows. I tell you, rules of science are
molto misterioso
.”

Sarah downed the rest of the Campari. The doorbell rang.

“One of your lovers?” Alessandro raised an eyebrow. “I thought you say no sex till you finish paper on pitch perception in the brain?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’ll see who it is,” she said, and handed Alessandro her glass. “If we’re going to talk about d
ark matter I think I need another drink.”

TWO

W
hen Sarah opened the door the hallway was empty. Then she turned her head. And then she looked down.

The man was . . . small. Was he officially, Sarah wondered, a “little person,” or whatever the correct phraseology was these days? She looked at the top of his head, which was large and blocked the rest of his figure, except for a set of feet in brown shoes. The toes pointed outward, in the manner of ballet dancers. Or paper dolls.

The shoes were odd. Retro, but more so. They had buckles, not laces. Sarah blinked.

“Sarah Weston?” The man’s voice was not small. It was loud, and very deep. A bassoon. Well, he was about the size of a bassoon, Sarah thought, and probably the weight.

“Can I help you?” Sarah hedged. You couldn’t be too careful. Not with the kind of student loans she was carrying. A tantalizing image involving stacks of Czech crowns floated before her eyes. Did you have to declare that kind of thing to the IRS?

The little man tilted his head. Raised tiny hands to frame his eyes as if he were cutting off the glare of the hallway’s fluorescent lighting. Or instigating a game of peekaboo. His eyes were large, and very dark, almost black.

“So?
Chi é?
” Alessandro appeared at Sarah’s elbow. The knot of his towel was on the same level as the tiny man’s chin.

“You do not look like her,” said the stranger, ignoring Alessandro and continuing to scrutinize Sarah.

“Maybe you’ve got the wrong Sarah Weston,” she offered. “What is this about?”

The little man studied Sarah calmly for a moment, and then spoke softly, almost chanting, his deep voice now in a minor key:

Hitherto I thought there were only Nine Muses, but

now Weston makes me believe there are ten.

For she decant Fonts ve ths songs that are musical, in fact Musty as new

Wine, songs full of Cecropian honeycombs.

Alessandro let out a short whistle, the complicated and expressive whistle of all Italian men born south of Rome. Sarah had learned most of them. This one meant, “Oh, so I guess you like your men
pazzo
, eh, sweetie? Nice conquest.” Sarah wondered how Alessandro could actually manage a sarcastic whistle. In a towel. And what the hell were Cecropian honeycombs?

“It’s not mine,” the stranger said, modestly. “It is the verse of one Balthasar Caminaeus, a doctor of laws. Written in praise of
Elizabeth
Weston. Whom you do not resemble. Which is very fortunate for you. She was not an attractive person, even allowing for the costume of the era.”

Alessandro licked his lips. He clearly had no intention of going anywhere, or aiding Sarah in managing this absurd exchange. Or putting on pants. The tiny man appeared to be waiting for a reply. One buckled shoe tapped the carpet softly.

“Did Bailey send you?” Sarah waited for the stranger to pull a recorder out of a sleeve and serenade her with another round of “Hail the Buds of Spring.”

“I’m afraid Elizabeth Weston is not widely read,” the little man said. “Forgotten, like so many others. But not gone. Not quite.”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “But I’m kind of . . . in the middle of something. So, if you have something to . . . say . . . or do?”

“She has to pack for Prague,” Alessandro said, making himself useful at last. “She has recently become a scholar
molto importante
.”

“You are going, then?” The little man leaned forward and touched Sarah lightly on her wrist. “I thought you would. I was hoping. I think you are needed.”

Sarah was suddenly on the alert. How did this person know her business?

“Yes, I think this is very good,” the man continued in his strange bassoon voice. “You have an interesting face. This man in the towel smirks at me. He thinks I am
pazzo
, but what does he know? He’s looking in the wrong place, I tell you. Or rather, the right place but in the wrong way. Yeast! Bah!”

“Okay, maybe I call the cops now,” Alessandro said, shrugging and turning back into the apartment. Sarah watched the back of his towel retreating, the Renaissance shoulders above it in an apparent huff.

“How did you know the Lobkowicz family invited me?” Sarah asked. “I only got the letter a few hours ago.”

“I am on very intimate terms with the Lobkowicz family,” the little man said. “Indeed, I have just come from Prague.” He brought his hands up to his face again, and this time he did cover his eyes with his palms, then held them out to Sarah. Balanced in the center of his left palm lay a copper pillbox.

“For you,” he said, simply.

Sarah could hear her cell phone ringing in the other room.

“I should get that,” she said. She didn’t want to let the litt K le

“I will wait,” said the man, calmly.

Sarah half-shut the door and picked up her phone, noting that it was the head of the Music Department, Professor Klyme, calling. “Hello?”

“Sarah, I have some bad news,” he said. “I’m sorry to tell you this. Professor Sherbatsky is dead.”

Sarah sat down on the forest-green sofa she and Alessandro had scavenged from the corner of Mass Ave and Arlington on trash day. Her mouth suddenly felt dry.

“What?” she demanded. “When? How?”

Professor Klyme told her what he knew, which was very little. There had been some kind of accident. In Prague. No doubt details would be forthcoming.

“An accident?” Sarah repeated. “Prague?”

“A terrible tragedy,” Professor Klyme said, somewhat mechanically. Sherbatsky had not been particularly liked in the department, where professional jealousies ran high.

“I received the news from a Mr. Miles Wolfmann,” he continued. “A colleague of Professor Sherbatsky’s. He offered his condolences and then informed me that you are going to Prague yourself to assist in restoration work at the new Lobkowicz Palace Museum. He’s sending a plane ticket Federal Express. I should congratulate you. This is quite an opportunity.” Professor Klyme sounded miffed and more than a little skeptical. Sarah thanked him crisply and then asked if there was anyone . . . would a funeral be held? Some kind of service? Professor Klyme did not know, and after a few more conventional phrases of regret and well-wishing, he hung up.

Sarah sat on the couch, stunned, for a few minutes, before realizing she had left a strange little man standing in her hallway. She crossed the room and opened the door.

The little man was gone. The pillbox lay on the ragged carpet where his feet had been. Sarah picked it up and shut the door. She wandered back into her apartment and looked out the window, but the little man was nowhere to be seen. She had the weird sensation that something cosmologically enormous had happened, that the orbit of the earth had shifted, and yet outside her window her neighbor was planting tomato seedlings in her garden, and a little boy was bumping his tricycle down the sidewalk while his mom walked behind him with a fat Labrador.

She went to her bedroom and clicked on her computer, entering “Sherbatsky” and “Prague” into the search engine. The first result was a page from the
Prague Post
.

American scholar dies at Lobkowicz Palace.

“Shit,” Sarah said out loud. She read on in shock: “Dr. Absalom Sherbatsky was recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on Beethoven, and had come to the palace to offer his services to the Lobkowicz family. He apparently fell from a window at Lobkowicz Palace late Wednesday night. Police have ruled it a suicide.”

Suicide? Sherbatsky? Sarah continued searching online but found no more information. She pulled the letter from Lobkowicz Palace out of her backpack. The invitation to come to Prague was dated
before
the (appa K/emon Pro">rent) suicide. So Sherbatsky
must
have recommended her. Perhaps he wanted an assistant.

They had sent her the job offer. And then Sherbatsky threw himself out a window? It just didn’t make sense. Had he simply fallen? He was not a physically strong man. It had been a joke between them. He always commented on Sarah’s mental and physical toughness, on her “townie” upbringing. Thin and gangly Sherbatsky seemed to admire her combination of brains and brawn, and unlike the Professor Klymes of the world, he had never treated her like a bimbo just because she also looked good in a bikini. Sarah felt tears come to her eyes. Poor Sherbatsky. What had happened to him?

Alessandro appeared in the doorway and Sarah told him the news. She read the
Prague Post
article to him.

“Are you sure you should go?” asked Alessandro. “Look at what happened in Venice two weeks ago. People go crazy and throw themselves out window in middle of party. There is something about this,
cara . . .
”

“I’m going,” said Sarah. Of course, there was the money. She’d go just for that. She’d go just to show the snobs like Professor Klyme that a girl from “Southie” could distinguish herself in academia. But she also wanted to find out the truth behind the death of her beloved mentor. The whole invitation to Prague sounded like a challenge.

And Sarah never backed down from a challenge.

THREE

“Y
es, it’s all coming together. It’s all happening. You must find her,” said Pollina, frantically poking the fire with a stick, even though the windows were wide open on this spring evening. Sarah had had a busy day, organizing herself to leave for Prague, but she would never have missed a music session with her favorite pupil. “Pupil” was the wrong word. Pollina was more of a colleague. Even though she was only eleven.

“You’re sad.” Pollina suddenly turned to Sarah, her eyes shining brightly in the semidarkness. “You want some ice cream?”

Sarah did not want to tell Pollina about Sherbatsky. The girl was already in fragile health, and the news that Sarah was leaving for the summer would upset her enough. Pollina was too alert to miss Sarah’s mood, though. She had been thinking over the death/suicide of the professor all day, and it still didn’t make any sense.

“Chunky Monkey or Oreo Cookie?” Sarah asked, heading for the kitchen, stepping over Boris, the elderly giant mastiff who napped next to the fire.

“Both,” said Pollina.

While still in high school, short on cash and wanting to avoid babysitting, Sarah answered an ad taped to the music room bulletin board for someone seeking a violin tutor. Sarah dearly hoped the person who needed the tutoring was not a horrible child, forced into the violin by crazed aspirational parents. She called the number, left hers, and received a brusque message back telling her to report to the address on Commonwealth Avenue at four p.m. on a Friday afternoon. No other details. She pedaled over on her bike and stared up at the massive mansion.
Must be divided into apartments
, she thought, but there was only one doorbell. Sarah pushed it, there wa Nmass a long pause, and finally an actual uniformed butler answered the door. “Meess Weston?” he said. Sarah just stared at him, openmouthed, unable to believe that Jeeves had in fact come to life. And was Mexican. Finally, he sighed and leaned in conspiratorially.

“Okay, they’re all a little crazy, but they pay really well,” he said, stepping back to let her in.

Sarah nodded, wondering what Wonderland she had just tumbled into. This was the kind of wealth that her mother always talked about with resentment. The door shut behind her and the house was plunged into murky gloom. It took several seconds before Sarah’s eyes adjusted to where she could see the place was chock-full of what her mother would have called “old junk.”

Jeeves—Sarah would learn his name was actually Jose Nieto and that his previous job was maintaining the swan boats in Boston Common—climbed the stairs, and Sarah hurried to catch up. “There’s an elevator,” he said. “But it’s wicked slow.”

He showed Sarah into another dark room and left. She could make out some oversized stuffed animals looming in the darkness—a zebra, a giraffe, and a prostrate lion. There were creepy dolls on velvet tasseled sofas draped in huge paisley scarves—her mother would be in hives—and a grand piano. Sarah went over to the piano and ran a hand over its inlaid top.

“It’s from 1795,” said a small but strong voice. Sarah caught movement and turned toward it, but found herself staring at her own image in a smoky old mirror across the room. “It’s unsigned, but we know it’s Viennese.” The voice was coming from the sofa. Sarah turned—she hadn’t seen anything there but pillows and dolls. “We bought it from the Frederick Collection. I wanted the Joseph Brodmann from 1805, but even though the moderator was missing, they felt it was too valuable to sell.”

Sarah realized a child was sitting there. A child who looked to be no older than four. She was wearing a white dress with a poufy skirt and a red sash. Then the lion shifted and raised its head and Sarah realized it was a dog, a mastiff. She glanced at the giraffe, half expecting it to reach up and nibble on a drape.

“Is your, uh, mom around?” asked Sarah.

“She’s in India,” said the little girl, gesturing toward the piano. “Play.”

“Um, well, okay,” said Sarah. The kid was a little spooky, but she was excited about the idea of playing a historic piano. “What do you want to hear?” she asked.

“Dvorák.
Romanza.
Opus eleven.” The girl picked up a violin off the table in front of her. Sarah had only a moment to wonder if it was a Stradivarius before the girl began to play the obscure, lilting piece, from memory, and Sarah had to hustle over to the piano, flip through a stack for the music, and catch up.

The child was incredible—she played as if she actually felt the romance of the music as strongly as Dvorák himself. How could someone feel so much, someone who had been alive for such a short time?

When they finished, the girl laid the violin down.

“It’s twenty dollars an hour,” said the girl. “Five days a week for two hours a day.”

Sarah nodded. “I’ve never met a child prodigy before,” she said. “Do you want SDn Pro">T me to teach you, or just accompany you?”

“My hands are too small to play what I compose on the piano,” the girl said, holding them out for Sarah to see. Her eyes filled with tears. “I need someone to play the music in my head.”

Though she cringed to admit it, it had taken Sarah three entire sessions to realize Pollina was blind. That day, while playing a game of fetch with Boris, Sarah had tossed the ball over to the stiffly serious little girl to try to engage her, too. The ball bounced off the child’s face.

“What was that? What hit me?” cried Pollina, who suddenly lost her balance and stretched out uncomprehending arms in front of her.

“I’m so sorry,” said Sarah, rushing over to put her arms around the girl.

“Stop it,” said Pollina. “Write this down.” She then proceeded to dictate to Sarah an entire sonata. In twelve minutes.

So it had gone for the past seven years. Pollina had composed fifteen symphonies and hundreds of other pieces of music that Sarah transcribed and played on the piano. They were beautiful, eerie, enchanting works, widely varied in emotion and complexity, often inspired by whatever book Pollina was listening to, from
Green Mansions
to
Misty of Chincoteague
.

Sarah never really got to know Pollina’s parents, though they made the occasional breathless appearance as she was coming or going, and thanked her profusely for being such a good companion to their daughter. They were passionate amateur archaeologists who had met in Sicily, both searching for an ancient Greek city in a tiny village called Pollina, for which they had named their daughter. They were not themselves musical in the least, and seemed kind of clueless about her talents. When Sarah tried to talk to them, they said, “We don’t want her to have the pressure of performing or being famous. Music should be fun for her. There’s plenty of time for that later.”

So no one in the world besides Sarah and the parents seemed to know that a baby Mozart was living in Boston, right down the street from the Baby Gap.

In lieu of schooling, Pollina—and God help anyone who called her Polly, though Pols was acceptable in some cases—had a tutor named Matt, an English major at Harvard, who came and read aloud to her on whatever topic caught her fancy. She loved European history, and English poetry best. She would often perplex pizza delivery boys by hiding behind Jose and reciting large chunks of Spenser’s
Faerie Queene
. Jose would sigh, roll his eyes, and tip the kid double.

When Sarah started college, Pollina had asked Matt to read her everything on Sarah’s syllabi. At this point Pollina probably knew more about Beethoven than she did, Sarah guessed.

“Hey, I have some news,” said Sarah carefully. “Something came up and I’m going to be leaving town for the summer. Just until Labor Day. But listen, it’s really exciting.” She explained the job, focusing on the parts she knew would interest Pols. Manuscripts in Beethoven’s own hand. Priceless antique instruments.

Pollina frowned.

“You said we would work on the music together all summer.” Pols hated changes to their routine.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Sarah soothingly. “I’ll find s SIoutineomeone who can transcribe your music for you, I promise.”

“Actually I’ve been using a voice-activated computer for two years now.”

Sarah was surprised. “Really?”

“Yes. And my hands, they’re big enough to play everything now.” Sarah looked at Pollina’s hands, her long slender fingers. When had they grown longer than Sarah’s own?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sarah asked.

“I didn’t want you to feel useless,” said Pols, sharply.

Sarah was rather touched that Pols was being so sulky. It would be nice to be missed.

“I had a dream last night,” Pollina continued. “I dreamed that you were swallowed by a dragon. And you died. You were dead, and trying to talk to me.”

Sarah thought of Sherbatsky with a pang.

“I’m right here. I’m not dead and don’t plan to be for a long time.”

“I suppose God will look after you while you search for her,” said Pollina.

“Who?”

“Duh, the Immortal Beloved.”

Sarah laughed. It had been one of the great musical mysteries of the last century: the identity of the woman to whom Beethoven had written three passionate letters. He had called her his
Unsterbliche Geliebte
,
or Immortal Beloved. They had even made a bad movie about it, with Gary Oldman as Beethoven.

“I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits,”
Pollina quoted with a sigh. “It’s so romantic.”

“Pols, I know you had Matt read you Maynard Solomon’s book,” said Sarah, referring to the great musical scholar who had presented a masterful and nearly incontrovertible case for the identity of the Immortal Beloved. “Antonie Brentano was the
Unsterbliche Geliebte
. And she was married, and had a few children, and it seems pretty clear that LVB really wasn’t interested in taking on all that.” Sarah’s shorthand name for Ludwig van Beethoven usually got a smile out of Pols.

“It wasn’t
her
,” burst out Pollina with passionate disgust. “Antonie Brentano. She was just another one of his silly flirtations.” She started coughing, and it took a few moments for her to stop.

“Okay, okay,” said Sarah gently.

As much as Sarah loved Beethoven—and it seemed to her at times that no other kind of love could possibly come close to it—she wasn’t particularly interested in Beethoven’s own love life. Much had been made of Ludwig’s series of failed affairs, aborted attempts at marriage, passions for married ladies, etcetera, and the subject was exhausted. Sarah had done far more research on how Beethoven’s intestinal troubles were reflected in his work. When it came to giving bad gas a melody, nobody did it better than LVB.

“I promise I’ll keep in touch,” Sarah said, but Pollina, deep in thought now, interrupted her.

“In my dream, the dragon breathed flames at you and you wouldn’t ask for help. You have to ask for help. There was a dwarf there, too.”

Sarah felt the hair on her arms rise up.

“And a prince, and a witch.” Pols reached out to stoke the fire. “Sarah you must
promise
me that you will pray to the Infant of Prague to help you.”

The one thing about Pollina that made Sarah uncomfortable even after all these years was her extreme religiosity. Sarah avoided all talk of God with Pols, but it wasn’t always easy to keep silent when she was talking about God’s love for everyone, and how we must all labor for the glory of God, and telling Sarah not to worry, that it was all in God’s hands. Sarah understood that Pollina, being blind and a musical genius, felt especially noticed by God, but couldn’t quite grasp why Pols wasn’t angry about some of the special attention. Still, she was glad that Pols felt there was meaning to it all, since it seemed to give her comfort.

“Alessandro went on and on about that, too,” Sarah said, hoping to avoid making an actual promise to pray to a statue of baby Jesus. “ ‘
Il Bambino di Praga
,’ he called it.”

“You have to pray for help. But Sarah, don’t ask until you’re sincere.” Sarah said nothing. “Be careful,” Pols added, continuing to cough in a way that worried Sarah. “Prague is a threshold.”

“A threshold?”

“Yes. Between the life of good and . . . the other.”

Sarah thought of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I’m not going to have to fight demons, am I?”