The National Treasure

by William P Wood

  “You had them all terrified I’d kill myself with a steak knife. I did pay them back. With a pretty generous tip,” he said, pushing his wrought iron chair closer to her. “It took a few years.”

  “We have all the time until tomorrow after lunch.”

  They chatted like that for another hour, until the sun drooped in the pastel sky and the light breeze became chilly. After dinner, no plan or scheme on the horizon, he spent time with Peszek, listening as Gabriela read to him from Hans Christian Anderson that Lidia had given to her. The Little Match Girl Gabriela read sombrely and carefully, looking up every so often to see how it was affecting Peszek, who grinned and rubbed his eyes from time to time with part of his bed covers. “No, go on, go on, kid. I got a little dust in my eye.” Peszek gave Janusz a warning glare.

  Later, he and Lidia lay in bed, listening to the wind outside which had become sharper and more belligerent, the forest sighing in it. They talked about nothing and many things and it occurred to him that he never mentioned Zosia and she never mentioned Bolek, and it was as if their recent lives had sloughed off, to be discarded.

  The trick now was to survive in the new life.

  Sometime after midnight, he slipped out of bed. Like the bad old days, he thought, when Lidia felt he was away from her, either emotionally or physically. She was right then. But now, as he wandered barefoot to her studio, switched on the single hard white light from a steel lamp over a drafting table he had set up to work on, he was with her every second.

  He worked quickly and surely again, not recreating the lost anthem from the metal warehouse, more refracting and enlarging it, one note doing the work of five, economy giving rise to sharpness.

  It was nearly four in the morning when he stopped. He carefully pushed the graph sheets covered with music into an orderly stack. On top he stared at the shortest thing he had been working on but the most purposeful in a way, then wrote unhesitatingly with a thin-pointed drafting pen at the top of the sheet, To the Risen.

  He was tired, deeply and satisfyingly, when he went outside to the patio and sat down in the wrought iron chair still pushed against the one Lidia had used. The wind reached through his shirt and the farmer’s coat and he shivered. It wasn’t very cold, but relentless. He heard the French doors open and turned around. Lidia came out wrapped in a large green blanket, her hair marvellously dishevelled. She had a bottle with her. She sat down in the chair again and wrapped the blanket around both of them, only their hands outside.

  “Brandy for a dark night,” she said, drinking and handing it to him.

  “I finished,” he said. “Not everything but for now. Finished.”

  “What are you calling the new national anthem?” Her lifesaving bantering.

  “To the Risen” he said quietly. “I know that sounds like a religious piece but it’s not. It’s a tribute after what I‘ve seen the in the last couple of days.” He drank again and handed her the bottle. “I end in D major and G major. D for your name and G for Gabriela’s. I end in joy and hope.”

  The Seventh Day

  Thirty

  Not long after dawn, Lidia woke him when she thrashed in the throes of a terrible dream, and he held her tightly, clung to her until the spasm subsided and, without waking herself, she settled back into a quiet sleep.

  Janusz felt something breaking in the centre of his being. It sounded melodramatic to put the consuming, fierce sensation in those terms, but nothing else even remotely described it. He had never felt this before. Not when either of his parents or Mickhal died or when the child was stillborn. Not even in the last few days when confronted with suffering and horror greater than he had imagined could exist. This cosmic fracturing hurt so horribly because it was about Lidia and her alone. He was frightened and helpless to save her.

  The new day’s light came through the heavy curtains like a weak acidic tea so the large bedroom was diffused, other-worldly. He kissed Lidia’s forehead. She was uneasily sighing like a child.

  Janusz never found solidity or substance in his dreams, unlike the fashionable popular and avant garde beliefs in the occult properties of dreaming. His fellow composers and theatre people were peculiarly addicted to those beliefs: dreams were the future unfolding; dreams were the past uncovered; dreams were revelations. What did any of that amount to, he thought? Wishful gibberish aided and promoted by the Viennese witch doctor Freud and his acolytes.

  But this morning holding Lidia, like she was wounded and required warmth and comfort, he did have a dream. It was prophetic and a revelation.

  She got out of bed later and he pretended to be asleep. When she was gone, he sat on the side of the bed, hands on his knees, thinking. What could he tell her? Not much? What could he expect? Even less. This dubious revelation was all he had, though.

  He washed carefully and long in the red-tiled bathroom and then spent time in front of the steamed mirror shaving off his ragged beard and clipping his hair. When he stepped back, he saw himself again, the eyes more hollow, the nose sharper, the skin darker, hair slicked down, but it was him – Janusz Rudzinski at the podium, at the piano, at the centre stage. He would know that man anywhere.

  He prowled through the clothes the absent Bolek had left behind. Wardrobe mattered, Janusz knew. Try staging Verdi in street clothes or an Expressionist freak show looking like Verdi. Result? Hoots. Headaches. Chairs thrown at the stage or screen. Rite of Spring 1913 premiere all over again. None of that could be allowed today. The effect must be created carefully. Janusz dressed in borrowed finery, closed collar black shirt – suspiciously Fascist but it would probably please Henselt – grey suit over it and brown leather shoes. Good Lord, he thought, assessing his impact in the full length mirror inside Lidia’s capacious closet of dresses, gowns, and footwear, I look like that British ape Mosley without the moustache. Well, goodbye Rybak. Welcome, the New Order.

  He took a breath when he went downstairs into the kitchen. He smelled a simple breakfast. Gabriela sat at the table eating and when she looked up, she stared.

  “You look so different, Papa,” she said, spoon in hand, frozen.

  Lidia turned from the stove where she had been making omelettes. She looked quite poignantly worn in the morning light, dressed in a watered-silk robe.

  “Janusz?” she said, puzzled.

  “The old me.” He sat down, spread a napkin on his lap as unconcerned as if nothing was strange or new or worrisome. He was as anxious about her reaction now as he had been at any performance. Much depended on what Lidia said.

  “Why are you wearing Bolek’s clothes? Why have you shaved?”

  “I assumed you were sick of my whiskers scratching you.” He looked at Gabriela next to him, spoon still in mid-air, as she tried to puzzle through his behaviour and appearance. “Don’t you think she was tired of my scratchy old beard?”

  Lidia came over. “What are you doing?”

  “Let’s have breakfast and we can talk about it afterward.” He smiled and rubbed his hands together in a theatrical show of hungry anticipation. Gabriela came to some conclusion, nodded to herself, and finished eating.

  It took an effort of willpower to pretend he was at ease. Lidia sat down finally and had breakfast herself, but she was plainly troubled. Gabriela made a simple tray for Peszek, took it upstairs, and when she came down, Janusz braced himself. He stood up. He could see the green grounds beyond the window, the fruit trees; he could smell the melted butter and leeks from the omelettes; he could even smell the lavender and citrus scent from Lidia or maybe he only imagined that. Soon possibly he would see or smell none of it.

  “Janusz?” she said, “What are you up to? I’ve seen that look too many times. It’s the one you have before you do something incredibly crazy.”

  “Never. After all our birthdays and anniversaries, you don’t know me. I avoid doing crazy things like the plague.”

  “I do know you. You’re scaring me. You’re up to something, you are,” Lidia gently rapped her fist on the table. “Just tell
me.”

  He hated to see her so upset on account of him, especially when she was so tormented by the day’s coming ordeal. Gabriela obviously sensed the upheaval going on between the two of them and she watched him with worried eyes.

  “Both of you,” Janusz said calmly, “have to trust me. I know what must be done today.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lidia asked. He sat down and took her hands.

  “Whatever happens, just remember Les Petits Coquillages.”

  Then he told them both his dream.

  Thirty-One

  “You are crazy!” she said, pacing the kitchen, holding her arms around herself. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Please don‘t keep saying that,” he begged. “It’s a show, a performance, a coup de théâtre. I can carry it off with your help,” he turned to Gabriela, “and yours.”

  “Then what? What’s supposed to happen even if it works?” Lidia shouldn’t be so organised and methodical, he thought. It obviated the spontaneous and creative. This whole enterprise depended on luck and spontaneity.

  “Well, much as I favour rehearsals, we don’t have time and I don’t think rehearsing is going to make it work any better. Just do what I said: remember the restaurant, Lidia.”

  “There must be another way,” she said. “Let me think.”

  He blew out a breath then did it again because he liked the simple equine pleasure of his lips rustling. He could see why horses did it. It was mindless and comforting. Gabriela smiled and imitated him and they both sat at the kitchen table, the dishes of breakfast remains congealing on it, flapping their lips as Lidia stopped pacing and stared at them.

  “You’re both out of your minds,” she said.

  “I hope so,” he said seriously. “Now listen, get dressed. Really dressed, just like Dr Fatso,” and this made Gabriela laugh heartily, “expects – jewellery, pile on the perfume. Lots of stuff around here,” he made a vague circle near his eyes. “Get the picture?”

  “Madame de Pompadour or a geisha?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Pompadour, I think. Won’t she look glamorous?” he asked Gabriela.

  Vigorous nods, bright-eyed as she imagined, “Like a princess.”

  “Perfect. Gabriela’s done it. You ought to present yourself to Dr Blubber as the princess of his dreams.” He deliberately banished from his mind the libidinous physician’s obscene rantings from the day before

  Lidia shook her head. “Good Lord, Janusz. You should have talked to me first. We could have thought this through.”

  “No time. Like the White Rabbit said. We tried all last night.”

  “While I’m impressing Daniel, what about you?”

  “I’ll be exactly what Major Henselt expects.” He crossed his arms, turned on them his most severe conductor’s gaze. “Important steps next. Gabriela, you go to the garage and stay there. No matter what’s happening in the house, you stay in the garage until either I or Lidia comes for you? Understood?”

  “All right, Papa,” she answered with a trace of disappointment at missing what must be an adventure ahead.

  “Lidia, you’ve got to call Henselt and persuade him to come here before twelve. That’s important. He needs to get here before the fat doctor. We need to set the scene.”

  “All right,” she said, giving in. “I’ll lay it on. I’ll tell him to come alone, sound as though he’s in for a special time and it’s best savoured without an audience.”

  “Excellent. Perfect.” He noticed that Gabriela had got up and was hanging sullenly by the doorway. “Something wrong?” he asked her.

  “I don’t want to be in the garage. I want to be here with you.”

  “And I would like to have you here, Gabriela, but it’s important for you to be ready in case I need you.”

  She studied him with that unnerving inspection that suggested she could read minds. What a strange child she must have been in the blandly ordinary Rybak household, he thought. He didn’t want to argue with her and they didn’t have time for it anyway. He was relieved when her scrutiny ended. “I’ll be ready, Papa. You know I will be.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said, patting her shoulder and she went outside.

  Lidia came to him. “What happens after Dieter? Even if everything works the way you think?”

  He put his arm around her. “I don’t know. I don’t know what else to try.”

  “There are too many variables, Janusz. Too many ways things could go badly.”

  “Worse than they are now?” He nodded. “We’re tossing the dice, gambling. Think of Prokofiev and his winnings. He’s a composer and he plays cards for a lot less at stake than us. And he wins.”

  “Sometimes he loses,” Lidia said. She was a trouper when called on, though, he knew. A risk taker. One foot on the rock face, the other dangling into the abyss, game to forge on. “I’m going upstairs. I’ll call Dieter first.” She left, trailing the scent from their youth, or again, maybe only his memory of it.

  Janusz puttered pointlessly in the kitchen, reckoning the awful, drawn-out time by the clock on the wall, the watch he had borrowed from Bolek. This was like the harried, horrible interlude in every relatively luxurious green room he had ever been in, or the cramped dressing rooms he had at the beginning when he was unknown, unrenowned, unfamous – the leaky pipes and wallpaper that showed intricate water stains and mould patterns suggesting moiré. Outside waited the orchestra, good, bad, mostly indifferent; no that was too harsh, several had been quite enthusiastic to have him and to play his music. Beyond the orchestra was the audience, impatient, eager, quick to judge and condemn or contrariwise, to praise and adore. Janusz coughed nervously. He had a fleeting yearning for a cigarette. The trouble was that you never knew, in these purgatorial interludes, which way the damn throng waiting for you would go. Maybe they would tear you to pieces. Maybe they would worship you.

  Maybe Henselt would do what he was supposed to. Maybe he wouldn’t.

  Janusz truly wanted a cigarette, his face familiarly twitching. Too late for any crutch. Too late for anything except to thrust forward, as his father used to say, largely for effect and certainly never applying it to himself. Janusz faced the irreducible proposition as the clock moved inexorably.

  Maybe Henselt would simply shoot him and Gabriela and Peszek.

  Thirty-Two

  At eleven-thirty, he and Lidia tensed hearing the sound of the heavy bank president’s car, actually the car commandeered from the bank president, crunch onto the gravel driveway outside.

  “He’s here,” Lidia said. She had outdone every expectation he had: white pants, blouse, pale pink jacket, jade jewellery, lightly made up and perfumed. Good Lord, Good Lord, he thought as he stared at her. “Oh, my God, Janusz”, she said.

  “Calm. Calm. We’re putting on the show. We’re in charge. Just remember the maître d’.”

  “But that was an age ago,” she said unerringly hitting the weakest point. “I can’t get up in the air like that anymore. I weigh ten thousand pounds.”

  Car door slammed outside, boots crushing, crunching the gravel, moving closer, closer.

  “You are weightless,” he said, rubbing her arms up and down. “We’re children again. Go, go.” He gently prodded her toward the living room.

  Don’t look at her, yearn for her, fear for her. You have a part. You’re the composer and conductor.

  The heavy knocker on the door boomed. Janusz steadied himself. This was the way he did it before going onstage, whether to find his seating at the Bechstein bathed in a spotlight or to climb the short steps to the podium, the orchestra breathless before him.

  Curtain up.

  He exhaled and strode to the door and opened it. Major Dieter Henselt stood in the doorway. He held an incongruous spray of red and white roses. His grey uniform was crisply pressed. He had a gleaming black leather holster at his belt. He was alone. The young scholarly architect who was re-designing humanity in spite of itself.

  “Major Henselt. Please come
in,” Janusz said evenly. He stood aside to let Henselt, already in jumpy motion, go by.

  “Who are you?” Henselt said, taking off his immaculate grey hat, pressing it between his arm and side in in one smooth gesture while his gold-rimmed spectacles fastened on Janusz.

  Recalling what Dr Fatso had said, Janusz imagined the two blue eyes behind the lenses were gyrating ever so slightly in a chemical dance, their probing cold gaze as crystalline as the marbles he sometimes played with when he as a child.

  “I am Janusz Rudzinski,” he said with a practised bit of self-deprecation.

  “Who?” Snapped, eyes now casting restlessly around for Lidia, the prize. “Who?”

  “Janusz Rudzinski. The composer.” It usually worked.

  “Never heard of you,” Henselt returned to Janusz, his thin mouth in a smile. “Wait. You’re the other husband. The earlier one.”

  “I was married to Lidia twice,” he said, a little more stiffly than intended. The lack of recognition actually rankled, even under these terrifying circumstances. Janusz couldn’t help himself from saying, “You banned my Song of the Fatherland’s Children”.

  “Pathetic stuff. No culture. Decadent kitsch. I would have banned it for that reason alone.” For some reason, knowing that Janusz had written the now prohibited second national anthem disturbed Henselt. He waved the roses at Janusz, “Forgive me. My manners are getting worse these days. Too much laxity or too much discipline. No balance. No excuse for bad manners.” He bowed slightly to Janusz.

  Now this was unforeseen and very worrying. Janusz didn’t want a subdued, polite Dieter Henselt. He needed the frothing, irrational, murderous Henselt, his natural propensities accelerated by that Pervert drug or whatever Sakovich called it.

  “I understand. You have a lot on your mind,” Janusz said and then Henselt, eyes darting around broke in.

  “Where is Lidia? You don’t mind my familiarity?”