Forever (18 page)

'Of course!' she laughed. 'Hasn't every
schoolchild?'

'He was - for me still is! - the world's
greatest pianist!' He clenched a fist passionately and shook it.
'The greatest!

She allowed herself a tolerant, amused
little smile. 'Greater than all the others, Horowitz, Rubenstein,
Feltsman?'

He snorted derisively and made as though to
shoo away flies. 'Before he came down with arthritis, Guberoff
could play the pants off them all! Still can, probably,' he said.
'He was known as a pianist's pianist. Do you understand how good
that makes him?'

'Alan,' she said directly, 'please. Let's
get to the point? I didn't come here to play Trivial Pursuit.'

'I know. All I'm trying to establish is my
credibility. That I know my classical music. Just to make sure you
don't get the wrong impression about me.'

She looked puzzled. 'Why should I?'

'Because what I'm about to tell you sounds
so far-fetched and off-the-wall you're liable to think my elevator
doesn't go all the way up.' He paused and held her gaze. 'But
you've got to believe that I know what I'm talking about. That I'm
not crazy, no matter how crazy it all sounds.'

She stared at him.

'Can you keep an open mind?' he asked
softly.

Something in his voice made her nod. 'All
right, Alan,' she said. 'Whatever your story is, I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt. But that's the best I can promise. Okay?'

He seemed satisfied. 'Okay.' He downed the
remainder of his drink, looked around as though for eavesdroppers,
and leaned across the table. 'How familiar are you with the project
your grandfather was working on?' he whispered.

Stephanie shrugged. 'Only that it was
supposed to be the definitive Schneider biography.' She frowned.
'Why?'

He answered her question with one of his
own. 'But you are acquainted with her voice?'

'I could pick it out, yes,' she said.

'And what do you think of her voice?'

'What do you expect me to think?' she asked.
'That Schneider's voice was superlative? That it was magnificent
and distinctive? That she sang like an angel? You don't need me to
tell you all that.'

'No, but say you were to hear her right now.
This very minute.' Alan's voice could barely contain his
excitement. 'Do you think you'd be able to recognise her
singing?'

Stephanie nodded. 'Definitely,' she said. in
that case,' Alan said with a smile, 'I have a little something for
your ears.' From beside him on the bench he picked up a Walkman and
placed it on the table. 'Here,' he told her, pushing it towards
her. 'Put on the headphones.'

She looped them over her ears while he
produced two cassettes. After looking at their handwritten labels,
he selected one, fed it into the Walkman, and punched the PLAY
button.

Accompanied solely by a piano, that
familiar, crystal-clear soprano filled Stephanie's ears to bursting
- at once sweet and delicate, yet soaringly heroic and muscular -
so hauntingly beautiful she could feel goose-flesh rising along her
arms. As Lili Schneider rippled and trilled and let go with the
powerful instrument that was her voice, Stephanie was so captivated
that she barely noticed the wretched quality of the recording, the
constant hisses and crackles, the faint voice talking constantly in
the background.

All she had ears for was the Schubert
song:

'Was ist Silvia, saget an,

Dass sie die weite Flur preist?

Schon und zart seh' iche sie nah 'n,

Auf Himmels Gunst und Spur weist,

Dass ihr alles untertan . . .'

She closed her eyes, letting the music
swallow her up. It almost felt as if she were drowning in sheer
acoustic beauty.

Abruptly Alan punched the OFF button.

Stephanie's eyes opened and she removed the
earphones. 'It's so beautiful!' she whispered.

He nodded his head.

'She's magic! Absolute magic!'

He smiled, but his voice was hushed.
'Stephanie, do you have any idea when this recording was made?'

She shook her head. 'No. And why should
I?'

'Well, I didn't, either. But I have a friend
who's a sound engineer for Virgin Records, and as a favour to me,
he used professional studio equipment to fiddle around with this
recording. Now, the cassette I'm about to load is the exact same
one you just listened to . . . the . . . exact. . . samel Remember
that. The only difference is that the singing in the foreground has
been quieted, while the talking in the background has been
amplified.'

'All right.' She nodded.

He ejected the cassette that was in the
Walkman and popped in the other. 'Now, I want you to listen
carefully to the conversation.' He leaned closer to her. 'And I
mean very, very carefully.'

She put the earphones back on and waited for
him to punch the PLAY button.

First, she heard only loud crackles and the
rustling, rushing sounds of static. And then, suddenly, she could
hear the same song and piano again, but muted, almost as though the
singing and playing came from somewhere very distant.

When it came, the sudden blare of the voice
was so loud and distorted that she jumped. It sounded like a
conversation bellowed through a bullhorn. Squawk, squawks,
squawking - a single male voice, speaking English with a foreign
accent, overriding the distant music. It sounded like a cultured
voice, obviously rejecting some advice, something to do with
'a
joint venture . . . opening an . . . office . . . setting up a . .
. network?
' But only that one voice . . . he was using a
telephone, perhaps? It seemed the only explanation for the
one-sided conversation.

Stephanie screwed up her face in
concentration, struggling to glean information from distorted
words, phrases, sentences. ' ...
an agreement in principle . . .
unification is opening vast new markets . . . a capitalist
frontier!
. . .'

Alan smoked in silence, his eyes alert to
her every reaction. Trying to gauge her responses. Anticipate her
questions.

She closed her eyes, shutting him out.
Wanting to listen intently, without any visual distractions.

For a few moments, the quality of the
recording magically cleared. The piano and singing came crisper
now, and the voice gained clarity. ' . . .
bringing Western
know-how . . . training capabilities and quality control . . .
hundred million . . . three, four hundred branches. . . Dresden
. . .'

Then the recording quality became poorer,
squawkier again, the words less distinguishable. Despite high
technology, the singing now overpowered the speaking voice.

The voice was like crystal chiming true,
swirling in up-and-down draughts, like the sweetest nightingale
that had ever sung. Stephanie had trouble disregarding the song as
snatches of phrases abruptly became clearer again. ' . . .
cashing in ... negotiating . . . rapid speed, rapid! . . .
Staatsbank
. . . ' She cupped her hands over the earphones,
struggling to catch it all. Determined not to let one syllable of
sound escape. ' . . .
elections prove . . . don't need analysts
to tell me! . . . are you listening? . . . stupidity . . .
Stupidity!
. . . ' Obvious orders overrode whoever was on the
listening end - yes, it had to be someone speaking on a telephone.
Had
to be! Why else this one-sided conversation? Someone in
charge, someone of authority, of immense power! Wielding it.
Controlling. Consolidating. She could almost see it! ' . . .
Dresden
..." The man's voice suddenly clear again, as though
he were pacing while talking, moving restlessly in and out of range
of the microphone, a thick carpet muffling his footsteps. ' . . .
the headquarters for the entire . . . no, no, no . . . not
Leipzig . . . Dresden! . . . tell them Dresden, or there is no
deal
. . . '

And meanwhile, the singing in the background
continued smoothly, segueing with the rippling piano chords into
the third and last verse of the Lied:

'Darum Silvia ton, O Sang,

Der holden Silvia Ehren -

The man's voice suddenly calling out,
possibly holding a hand over the receiver. Silencing the
singer.
'Liebchen!It is done!
' The pianist was caught
unawares, and tinkled four last notes before stopping.
'One
billion Deutsche Marks will gain us control of all the
pharmaceutical concerns in the former Eastern zone! We have done
it! Do you hear? We have done it!
And
. . . 'A pause. '
. .
. the corporation, it will be headquartered in - no. You
must guess where!
From the consistent, clear quality of his
voice, he had obviously stopped his pacing. Stephanie pictured him
standing still near the microphone, could sense his quivering
excitement at the dramatic suspense he had contrived. And then came
her voice, faint but unmistakable, as though from offstage:
I
cannot begin to guess, Ernesto!
' Lily Schneider . . . sounding
just like the late actress, Lili Palmer, when she spoke.
'Please, Ernesto. Do not torture me like this!
' And he
saying, ' Then I shall have to tell you, Liebchen, since you know I
cannot bear to see you tortured.' A dramatic pause. Then:
'Dresden!
' And in the background, a sudden crack - hands
clapping together in delight?
'Ernesto! Ernesto? Is it possible?
After all these years . . . Dresden, where I gave some of my
greatest performances?
'

The cassette abruptly stopped with a snap.
Stephanie stared across at Alan, who had punched the Walkman off.
Slowly, she lowered her hands, which she held cupped over her ears
to shield her from hearing the restaurant's noise. Snatches of
words, bits and pieces of conversation, still echoed inside her
head, bounding around like trapped radio signals seeking
escape.

Her mental gears were whirling. What had she
heard? Lili Schneider singing, and someone, a man named Ernesto,
making a business deal involving pharmaceuticals in . . . Dresden?
In what used to be East Germany? No. It was impossible. Impossible!
One hadn't been able to do business with East Germany back when
Lily Schneider had still been alive. The Russians had seen to that.
And, five years before her death - before the Russians, before
Germany had surrendered to the Allies - there hadn't even been an
East Germany. There had only been one Germany. One Reich. The
currency hadn't even been Deutsche Marks, but Reichsmarks!

Stephanie shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Yet there had been no mistaking the word she had caught:
'reunification.' She had heard it. Which meant . . . which had to
mean . . . that this recording had been made in - but it was
impossible - Lili Schneider had been dead and buried for decades! -
in 1991 or later!

My God! she thought, her heart hammering
wildly inside her ribcage, how recently has this recording been
made? She felt a need to tackle the mystery, to put the matter into
proper perspective. A trick. Yes! she thought. It has to be a trick
. . . doesn't it?

'Alan . . .?'

Her voice was shaky and she was momentarily
nauseous, the room too hot, too confining, as though she had been
poisoned by the information the cassette had spewed into her
ears.

Poison. Lies.

Common sense told her to forget it.
Disregard it. To get up and leave. But her professional instincts
were not guided by common sense. They were aroused, smelling a
story even while rejecting it as fiction - as some con artist's
scam, some high-tech flim-flam- man's ultimate con.

'When?' she asked hoarsely, and wondered: If
it's fiction, then why am I finding it so difficult to speak? Why
is my pulse running away with me? Why is tension twisting my
stomach into knots? 'Alan? The tape. Is ... ' She swallowed to
lubricate her suddenly parched throat, demanding: 'Is . . . it . .
. real . . .? You've got to tell me -'

' - If the tape's genuine?' Both his voice
and eyes mocked her. 'Yes, Stephanie, it's genuine.'

'But ... it ... ' she stammered, ' ... it
can't be! Alan! Schneider's been - ' Her voice suddenly failed her
completely.

'Dead?' he supplied calmly.

She nodded vehemently. 'Yes!' she whispered.
'For forty-three years!'

He smiled with the kind of infinite patience
one usually reserves for the very young or the very old and infirm.
'Then how do you explain the singing?' he asked. 'Hmmm?'

'An old record.' She nodded swiftly,
definitely, as though it would add credence. 'Has to be.'

He shook his head. 'No, Stephanie. That
wouldn't account for the conversation. Nor for the way the singing
and the piano playing abruptly stop in mid-song.'

'Someone could have . . . put on a record!
Recorded that on tape . . . and have switched it off at a certain
point! And then . . . then they'd have . . . dubbed in a few extra
piano chords! And added the conversa -'

'You're reaching,' he told her gently.

'Yes, dammit!' she growled. 'I'm reaching
because I have to. There's no way on God's earth -'

He interrupted her. 'Oh yes, there is,' he
said. 'Because you see, Stephanie, this is not some
sound-engineer's trick recording.'

'Oh?' Her eyes were challenging. 'Then what,
pray tell, is it?'

'The real McCoy.'

'It can't be. But ... an old recording! Yes!
Someone toyed with a rejected studio recording - why, God alone
knows how many of those there must be locked away in forgotten
vaults, somewhere. And the man's voice would have been added to
that -'

He stared at her pityingly. 'You just don't
want to believe it, do you?'

'I'm trying to find a rational explanation,'
she shot back.

His voice was suddenly frosty. 'I thought
you specifically told me you would keep an open mind.'

'And I have! But ... the dead coming to
lifeT There was a note of incredulity in her voice. 'Really, Alan!'
She shook her head. 'You can't expect me to fall for thatV