The Memorist (33 page)

Thursday, May 1
^st
—8:15 p.m.

T
he air moved in waves around him, its current trying to drag David away from where he was and what he had to do. From one moment to the next, he existed in two alternate realities. Trying to secure a place in either, he was lost between them. What was happening?

He needed to set off the Semtex now but something was wrong with his coordination and his vision. He couldn’t concentrate on anything but the sound that wrapped around his head and pulled so tightly he felt as if his brains were being squeezed out through his ears and nose and eyes.

Was this some new technology Paxton had created to drive rats like him out of the tunnels? Except as terrifying as the sound was, it was also beautiful. As frightening as it was, it was also tempting. He needed to attach the last wire to the battery pack and then press the det cap but he had to stop…no, he had to listen…he couldn’t protect himself…the music was seducing him…drawing him into its circle.

Indus Valley, India—2120 B.C.E.

W
ithout a moon, the terrain was treacherous but Devadas had no choice. He had to travel during the night in order to reach his destination in time. Tradition required that all sacrifices be made at sunrise. So in just a few hours, Sunil would lay his daughter Ohana upon the stone altar and with great ceremony slit her throat from one side to the other, giving his virgin daughter up to the gods.

As if the gods wanted human sacrifice.

For the rest of the night, as he trudged through the countryside, Devadas tried to come up with an argument to talk Sunil out of his plan. Searching for any line of reasoning that might change the mind of a man so mired in superstition and the old ways. Why would Sunil listen to him? As one of the village’s seven holy men, Ohana’s father thought Devadas and his brother, Rasul, were heretics.

But when they played certain songs on the instruments they crafted, the listeners
were
healed and soothed. The tones from their flutes and drums
did
ease complaints like
sleeplessness, pain and nervousness. If their own father hadn’t been one of the holy men, the two brothers might have been run out of the village. Instead a small cult had formed around them while rumors about their practices raged. Radical thinking and alternative forms of healing were suspect; the brothers were too controversial for their elders.

But since what they offered helped even if it put them in danger, they’d decided to live with the risk. It was worth the threats to see the look of suffering fade from a woman’s eyes, or feel a child’s forehead cool. Even when Devadas’s wife and her family ostracized him, forcing him from their home, giving him the ultimatum that he’d lose his own children if he didn’t forsake his healing practices, he couldn’t.

Sunil must have seen him approaching from inside the house because he cut him off on the road. “What business have you coming here?” he snarled.

“I request some time to speak with you.”

“You don’t speak. You blaspheme. And I’m busy. I have preparations to make.”

A faint glow of light materialized on the lowest part of the horizon. Devadas estimated that the ritual practice would begin in less than two hours. Staring beyond Sunil at the family domicile, he imagined Ohana asleep on a rush mat in the room she shared with her two sisters.

Rasul had begged Devadas not to make this trip, but he was determined to save his lover. No matter what happened, he owed it to Ohana for what he had taken from her, even if she’d given it willingly.

They had met innocently. Devadas’s wife had thrown him out and he had been living on his own at the workshop he shared with Rasul for over a year when Ohana had come to him for help with terrible headaches she suffered.

She came back five times. On the sixth, after he’d soothed her pain with the music, he offered her a cup of tea. They talked as they drank and he came to realize her pain was related to her fears about her upcoming arranged marriage with a man who was off at sea. All young girls were betrothed to men their fathers chose for them but Ohana was rebellious; she didn’t want to wed a stranger. Devadas understood—he and his brother didn’t agree with the old superstitions either.

As the sun set, they discussed what they each believed. Her mind was so keen and her curiosity was so honest, he was drawn to her. Too drawn to her.

Their dangerous affair had started that day and had been conducted in the shadows. More than once, he’d tried to end it but she’d changed his mind, telling him it would end soon enough when the man she was to wed returned from his voyage.

Then a month ago her intended had drowned, and Sunil read the tragedy as a sign his daughter was destined to be the village’s annual barbaric solstice sacrifice.

Did Ohana even know what today was to bring? Was she sleeping peacefully or staring out the window at this moonless sky imagining her death? The thought chilled his heart.

“Please, indulge me just for a few moments, Sunil.” Devadas made a great effort to be humble, knowing it was his only chance.

“If you want to walk with me, then fine. I have to collect wood,” Ohana’s father said as he took off toward the riverbank and the grove of sacred
ashoka
trees that stood by the shore, tall and straight like sentinels. Walking beside the elder, Devadas helped Sunil pick up the twigs and branches he’d need later to burn at the altar. Although it was dark,
the melon-colored flowers on the trees glowed as brightly as if they had their own internal light and the air was so heavily scented with their perfume, Devadas felt nauseated. It was said that if you washed the flowers in water and then drank it, you’d be protected from grief. All healers kept jugs of it at the ready.

“Are you still planning on giving your daughter to the gods this sunrise?” he finally asked.

“What business is that of yours? You, whose very name means ‘servant of the gods,’ dare to question me on a holy day?”

In a few hours, hundreds of people would be coming from far away for the ceremonial welcoming of the new season, but no one was out yet. Devadas knew it was still safe to speak without being overheard.

“I came here to tell you that if you offer Ohana to the gods you’ll be insulting them and they will visit their wrath on you and our village.” The words were like salt in his mouth but Devadas knew this was the only chance he had to change Ohana’s fate.

“And why is that?” The elder man sneered.

“Because the gods require a virgin.”

The older man straightened up. His face was set in cold fury. “What are you saying?”

“Ohana isn’t a virgin.”

“How dare you?”

“I’m telling you what I know as the truth.”

Sunil stood as immovable as the mountains on the horizon. “How do you know such a thing?”

“Because I’m the man who has been with her,” Devadas whispered, feeling ashamed, not for what he had done with Ohana but for sullying those precious moments by talking about them now using ordinary words.

Water lapped gently on the shore of the Ganges. A single bird flapped its wings as it flew overhead. A dog, in the distance, barked a steady warning.

“My daughter…” Every one of Sunil’s words was an effort, each threatening to explode in his mouth. He swallowed and began again. “My daughter has been promised to another man since she was a child…” He paused, thinking, trying to process the new information. “My daughter was promised to another man and you took her? You, who have a young wife and children of your own?”

How could he defend his actions? Even being exiled from his wife’s home, Devadas was still married. How could he explain what it was like to be with Ohana? How he’d felt as if his very soul had been waiting for her from the very beginning of its first incarnation. He could see in the man’s eyes that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. Sunil believed him. Ohana’s life would be spared.

The blow took him by surprise. Sunil was older but had rage on his side. The rock hit Devadas on the side of his head and he went down. Lying on the ground, looking up at the furious man towering above him, Devadas was sure he could take him but a lifetime of instinct kept him from striking out at Sunil. It was in those few moments, while Devadas made the effort to overcome the lessons that he’d been taught—to respect his elders even if he didn’t agree with them—that Ohana’s father brought the heavy stone down on his head again and Devadas, drifting in and out of consciousness, lost his chance to defend himself.

Unable to move or see through the blood filling his eyes, Devadas sensed this was his end. Here, on the road in the early dawn hours, he was going to die. Through the pain he thought he saw Ohana. Or was he just wishing he could see her? He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have
to cry, that he’d done this gladly. Given her his life and his love. Nothing hurt him anymore. He’d stopped feeling the rock even as Sunil hit him over and over, venting his rage. All the pain was gone. In its place was the great golden sense that he was saving someone’s life. There was nothing more he could offer up. He’d been given a chance to make this sacrifice—maybe had lived expressly so he could die now and save her life. Everyone had a purpose. Understanding that purpose was a gift and he took it with him as he left this life and went into the darkness where the past and the future merged in another dimension.

Thursday, May 1
^st
—8:23 p.m.

A
n obese man in a tuxedo was coming at Meer and was going to mow her down if she didn’t get out of his way. But there was nowhere to go. The crowd had her hemmed in. He shoved her as he ran by; she fell, smashing her leg on the side of a seat. The pain hit as the next note of the ancient flute split the air. It was glorious and horrible in a way that had nothing to do with ordinary music; the note seemed to shatter into a million sparks of light that pulled her back into Margaux’s storm.

There was sorrow in Archer Wells’s eyes as he aimed the pistol at Margaux’s chest and his voice sounded sincere. “I’m sorry but this whole scheme has taken on ramifications far beyond what you imagined. The British government can’t take the chance of this becoming an international incident. Don’t you see? If you refuse to steal the flute from Beethoven and sell it to the Tsar now he could become belligerent and leave the conference. The
same could happen if you do sell it to him and it doesn’t work. I have to take charge of this. If only you had kept to our bargain. When I negotiated with you I made you an honest offer—”

“Based on a lie! You told me my husband was still alive.”

Archer ignored her taunt. “Now we run the risk of this becoming a political inferno and I intend to stop that from happening. I must have everything connected to the damned flute and the music. And that includes that box. Give it to me.”

“No!” Beethoven had asked her to do this for him and she didn’t intend on letting him down.

As she watched Archer’s finger move on the trigger, Margaux fired her pistol at him and simultaneously kicked her horse. Pythagoras rose up—partly from the noise of the gunshot and partly from her boot in his ribs—and took off. Margaux let him ride full out, galloping toward the estate. She didn’t look back at Archer and had no idea if her bullet had hit its mark or not. She didn’t care as long as she got away, as long as she made it to the mansion and handed Beethoven’s gift to his friend, Antonie Brentano.

Margaux couldn’t see Archer lift his gun in his right arm, despite the throbbing pain in his left shoulder, and take aim at her retreating form.

When she heard the bullet she thought the sound was more thunder. When it hit her and burrowed deep into her side she thought someone had set her on fire. She was aware of only two things—the pain and the thought that before she collapsed she had to reach the main house and deliver the gaming box to protect the secret that Caspar had died for. They’d know how to help her at the house, how to relieve the pain. She just had to make it that far.

A bird sang in a tree behind her. Amazing. To hear birdsong now while she galloped through the storm-drenched forest. She thought about the bird and then about Beethoven. About the flute. About its secret. About her husband. His hand holding hers.

Sebastian took a breath before starting the song over again, and in the beat of silence Meer’s mind came back to the present and she found herself sitting on the carpet, sheltered by the chairs. She had to get up and get to the stage and stop him. Around her, the chaos had intensified as people’s memories sparked more suffering. Pulling herself up, Meer checked the aisle. The crowd still surged, but she had no choice. She was too dizzy to move but she had to. Margaux was dying and Meer wasn’t sure she could go through her death. Didn’t know if she would survive feeling the pain of it.

Margaux could no longer sit up on her horse and lay slumped over, holding on to Pythagoras’s neck with both hands but she barely had any strength left. The pain was so powerful that she didn’t want to stay conscious, except a small part of her mind knew that if she gave in she might not be able to hold on and then what would happen? Would Archer overtake the horse, or worse, shoot him to get to the box?

Gritting her teeth, she clamped her jaw and tried to think about what she would say when she reached the house—the fewest words to explain what was happening—but it wasn’t about words, it was about the music that Beethoven didn’t want anyone to hear. That was what she needed to warn them about…to make sure they didn’t let anyone steal the secret of the music.

Meer fought her way down the aisle, through the crowd, finally reaching the stage where she climbed up onto the proscenium and maneuvered through the throng of the orchestra members, who, like the audience, were in extreme discomfort and duress.

One musician lay on the floor rolling back and forth and shrieking as if he were on fire and trying to put out the flames. Another cowered under his chair, his hands in front of his face, trying to protect himself from an invisible enemy, shouting the same phrase over and over in a language she didn’t recognize. Some of the performers were in physical discomfort, others in mental distress. The very few who were unaffected tried to help those who were in worse shape.

Ignoring them all, Meer kept advancing toward Sebastian who, immune to the havoc he created, played on. His eyes were closed and so he didn’t see her approach, didn’t see her reach out…until he felt the pressure of her hand as she tried to pull the flute away from him.

He opened his eyes, and when she looked into them all she saw was desperation as he held tight and blew the next note. Meer fought to stay present, focused with all her energy on staying present, the pain in her back intensifying with every breath.

“You’re done. You can’t keep playing it over, Sebastian. You’ve done as much as you could. Give it to me now.”

In her peripheral vision Meer could see a half-dozen police officers making their way onto the stage. Sebastian saw them too, and for one second his fingers loosened on the smooth bone and she was able to pry it from him and slip her hand under her jacket, hiding it. Stepping back she made room for the uniformed men who’d jumped up on
the stage and surrounded Sebastian. None of them seemed to notice her. Had they even seen her take the flute? Did they understand that the instrument Sebastian had been using wasn’t the silver-and-black oboe on his music stand? She didn’t think so. She’d told Fiske but she doubted there had been time for him to alert everyone. Either way she wasn’t going to wait and find out.

Putting more distance between herself and Sebastian and the police, she started backing away. None of the policemen followed her: three remained with Sebastian; the rest walked among the psychically wounded, offering help.

Meer was heartbroken. Her father was gone. And it was Sebastian’s fault. He’d done a terrible thing to her and her father and to the people in this hall, but he’d also unlocked the secret she’d been looking for all of her life. This—what she held in her hand—was all that was left of Devadas. Was what Caspar had died for. Was what her father had put himself in danger for. No one was going to take it away from her again. She was bewildered about everything except this: in time, over lifetimes, she had been responsible for this object, and now she was its guardian once again. No matter what happened or what it took, she would do the right thing with the memory flute. That was her karma. It had been before. It was again.