The Gustav Sonata (32 page)

One morning in summer, when Gustav woke up, Anton wasn't in their bed and Gustav could hear music. Anton was playing the piano.

Gustav crept to the door and listened and he caught a glimpse of Adriana, on the other side of the large room, listening too.

The piece Anton was playing had begun with some rich, sonorous chords and now leaped into a new motif, played
allegro vivace
, which immediately brought to Gustav's mind the image of a fast-running stream, rushing over stones and fallen branches, then slowing very gradually, but still keeping its energy and its momentum, as if it had found a calmer channel and could now flow on, unimpeded, towards the sea.

Anton seemed unaware that anyone was watching him. His body was held in its accustomed position, leaning out from the keyboard, and on his face Gustav saw an expression of great joy.

Later, when the three of them were taking their breakfast on the balcony, Adriana said, ‘We must get the piano tuned, Anton. But what was that piece you played this morning? I thought it was lovely.'

‘Oh,' said Anton, ‘it's just a fragment I composed in Geneva. I composed it in one terrible night, when I understood all the wrong turnings my life had taken and where I wanted to be. It's unfinished, as you could tell, but I might begin work on it again now. I called it “The Gustav Sonata”'.

I acknowledge with gratitude the debt I owe to Mitya New's book,
Switzerland Unwrapped: Exposing the Myths
(I.B. Tauris, London,
1997
) for revealing to me the story of Paul Grueninger, Police Chief of the Canton of St Gallen in
1938
, as narrated by his daughter, Ruth Rhoduner. Some details from this story have been used in constructing the invented life of Gustav's father, Erich Perle.

I also want to thank the small, heroic band of ‘first readers', whose comments and suggestions helped me refine the book from first draft to final MS: Vivien Green, Penny Hoare, Clara Farmer, Gaia Banks, Jill Bialosky, Roger Cazalet, Neel Mukherjee, Richard Holmes, and most especially Bill Clegg, whose perspicacious intervention helped to turn a pumpkin into a coach.

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Epub ISBN: 9781473520349

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Copyright © Rose Tremain 2016

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First published by Chatto and Windus in 2016

www.penguin.co.uk/vintage

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781784740030