And After the Fire

by Lauren Belfer

  Beams of sunlight silhouetted the buildings of the Upper East Side. The Lord was all around him. Mueller could have wept. He tried to do God’s work each day, in small ways and large. He would attempt to discern the message that the Lord wanted him to take from the arrest of Dietrich Bauer.

  He resolved to devote his Sunday sermon to these issues that weighed so heavily upon him.

  At 8:55 a.m., at Granville College, Dan opened his e-mail. He had fifteen minutes before his morning class—Bach, this semester—and he was fully prepared, so he allowed himself to check e-mail. Seventy-three new messages. That seemed excessive for a Tuesday morning. His account must have suffered a spam attack.

  But no. At least thirty of the messages were links from friends to an article in today’s New York Times. The others were from his Bach listserv, with an initial announcement referencing the Times article and then a series of reply messages from list members commenting on the story.

  Dan went to the Times website. He found the article. He saw the photo.

  Dan remembered Bauer at the conference in Princeton. The severity. The old-world propriety.

  Dan figured out that in the photo Dietrich Bauer was nineteen, the same age as many of Dan’s students who were gathering in the hallway now, greeting one another with jocular complaints about the dining-hall breakfast and about how hard it was to get up in the morning after a late night of studying and/or carousing followed by various intimacies and indiscretions.

  What would it take to turn them into murderers?

  The music library downstairs had copies of Bauer’s books. Should the books be removed from the shelves? He’d discuss the question later with the librarian.

  “Hey, Professor.”

  It was Derrick Lyons, the third baseman. Derrick had proven himself to be among Dan’s best students and was now taking the Bach course. Dan tried to imagine Derrick, with his open, eager expression, a wayward lock of hair continually falling over his forehead, in a military uniform, a rifle slung over his shoulder. Derrick as not only a soldier but also a murderer of civilians. The image struck Dan with its force.

  “What do you think about this music guy who got arrested? Do you know him?”

  Derrick, lifting the rifle to murder a woman or a child who stood naked on a plank over a pit.

  “Aren’t we reading some of his stuff later in the term?”

  Derrick, ordering the next victim onto the plank.

  “I did know him. I do know him.”

  Derrick, turning the rifle on Dan himself. Except most likely Dan, tall and blond, with his perfect Aryan heritage, would be among the senior officers. He’d be Derrick’s teacher in a far different educational endeavor.

  “What’s he like?”

  “Go into class, Derrick. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Derrick looked startled. Hurt.

  “I’m sorry to be abrupt. I just found out. I’m trying to work this out myself. We’ll discuss it in class. Would you be willing to check in with your classmates and make a list of questions for us to consider?”

  With this bit of responsibility, Derrick seemed to brighten. “Okay.” He went down the hall.

  Dan pushed aside the stack of CDs he’d prepared for class. He made notes for discussion points that he hoped would be meaningful to his students, to add to Derrick’s list. Dan’s first question for his students was whether they thought he should remove Dietrich Bauer’s writings from their assignments for the semester, yes or no and explain your position.

  Chapter 28

  Susanna sat at her dining table after dinner and reviewed the proposal submitted by Raffie Espinal and his students for a green roof at their school. Four thousand dollars for planters. Two thousand for plants. Six for an irrigation system.

  Where were they getting these figures? Were they guessing?

  She put down her pen in frustration. The engineer’s feasibility report was positive, so they were ready to move to the next step. They had laudable ambitions, but turning dreams into quantifiable details wasn’t easy. In a proposal like this, listing two thousand dollars for plants was meaningless. They needed to determine what type of plants, affirm that the plants were suited to the conditions on the site, and note where they were going to buy the plants. This degree of specificity was required for every purchase. Building a green roof was a multiyear project, and unfortunately the current students would graduate before it was completed.

  Taking a break, she pushed the proposal aside. She still hadn’t heard anything from Rob on the issue of the Gilbert and Sullivan center. Most likely nothing would be resolved until the next board meeting, in a few months.

  She picked up the newspaper, which she’d left half-read this morning. As she leafed through it, she glanced over an article about Dietrich Bauer. His story seemed very much in line with his era and didn’t surprise her. She assumed that Dan and Scott must know him. She turned the page.

  The CDs, she recalled. She’d acknowledged the gift when she received it before Christmas, but she’d never thanked Dan properly. On his salary, six CDs probably constituted a good deal of money. Damn. It was after 9 p.m., so she could leave a message on his office answering machine and assuage her guilt. Tomorrow she’d write a snail-mail thank-you note to him. She found his card on her desk and dialed the number.

  “Hello?”

  Oh, hell. She couldn’t very well hang up; his phone doubtless had caller ID, so he was looking at her phone number if not her name. “It’s Susanna Kessler.”

  “You’re calling because you read about Dietrich Bauer?”

  “No. Although I did read about him. Do you know him?”

  “I do. I never suspected.”

  “You really never suspected?”

  “Point taken. I always do wonder, Germans of that age. But I let myself not wonder too closely in this case.”

  “Because of his scholarly achievements and his theology degree?”

  “I suppose so.”

  She didn’t want to discuss Dietrich Bauer. Best get right to it: “I’m calling because I’ve been remiss. I haven’t suitably thanked you for the CDs. I’ve listened to them often. I appreciate you sending them.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I especially like the viola da gamba sonatas.”

  “I like those pieces, too.”

  She wanted to give him a specific detail, to show that she had indeed listened carefully. “I love the sound of the old piano.”

  “The fortepiano.”

  “The sound is so . . .” She felt at a loss, without the language to describe to him, an expert, what made the music compelling. “Beckoning.”

  “I understand what you mean.”

  To cover her awkwardness, she reverted to chitchat. “You’re working late.”

  “Becky, my daughter, is at a pageant rehearsal and sleepover tonight.”

  “What kind of pageant?”

  “I believe it has something to do with addition and subtraction. Much excitement about it in the first grade.”

  “If I’d taken part in a math pageant in first grade, I’m certain I’d still be able to add and subtract without a calculator.”

  “Me, too. Anyway, she talked me into allowing her to have a sleepover at a friend’s house after the rehearsal and go directly to school tomorrow from her friend’s. I’m sure she’s fine, but it doesn’t seem right somehow.”

  “Based on my extensive babysitting experience when I was a teenager, it sounds reasonable enough.”

  “Thank you. I’ve got a lot of e-mails to answer about the Bauer situation, and I’m trying to write some reflections about it, too, if only for my students. No one waiting at home, so I have a lot of free time for work.”

  Sensing the grief beneath his forced jocularity, she said gently, “What happened to you and your wife?”

  “It’s a sad story.”

  “I thought it might be. Don’t worry, though. You can tell me.”

  And he did, narrating his experiences matt
er-of-factly, as though they had happened to someone else.

  As he was reaching the end, Susanna heard the pain coming into his voice.

  “I keep remembering,” he said, “I mean I keep feeling, how soft Martin’s skin was. And his perfect tiny fingers and toes, even though he . . .”

  Was dead, Susanna heard, although he didn’t say it and neither did she.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  The immediate segue, before she could respond to what he’d said, shifting the conversation away from himself . . . she’d reacted this way often enough, too, in order to avoid further probing questions. Nevertheless his query raised her hackles and made her feel she had to defend herself.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  She hoped Scott hadn’t shared with him the details of their evening at the museum. Her reaction that night had surprised her. She’d experienced such an immediate and instinctive recoiling from him. Poor man, he hadn’t deserved the torrent of outrage that had come down on him. He’d done nothing out of the ordinary. A visceral, involuntary part of herself had taken over, and she’d lashed out in fear and panic. She didn’t want any repetition of that.

  “What you mentioned when we were standing outside the MacLean.”

  So no, Scott hadn’t said anything.

  “I’ve been wondering about it.”

  Dan was a sympathetic voice at the end of a phone connection. He wasn’t here in her living room. She could allow herself to confide in him.

  “A few years ago, when I was walking home from work . . .” She told the story slowly, skipping no details.

  When she reached the end, he said, “That’s not what I expected you to say.”

  “That’s what everyone tells me. What exactly do people expect?” She didn’t mean to rebuke him; it wasn’t his fault. She went to the window and looked out at the close. Moonlight illuminated the trees.

  “The phrase is only a placeholder,” he said, apparently not hearing her anger. “It gives people time to recover and think of something better. Now that I’ve thought of something better, I’ll say it: I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think we’d both like to talk about something else now,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll start: I don’t know exactly what your job is.”

  “I help a wealthy family to give away its money.”

  “People need help with that?”

  “It depends on how much they’re giving away.”

  “How much is this family giving away?”

  “A minimum of ten million dollars a year.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Yes, it is a lot.”

  “My family never had that kind of problem,” he said.

  “Neither did mine.”

  And so their conversation flowed.

  Chapter 29

  Frederic Fournier stood on the upper-level terrace of Robertson Barstow’s family home and gazed across the lilac gardens to the Hudson River beyond. The house behind him screamed imitation English aristocracy. His host was circulating through the gardens below, making certain his guests were adequately supplied with canapés and champagne.

  Frederic knew he was lucky to be invited here today, yet he noticed that many others had been similarly lucky. The garden was vast, and it was crowded. The terrace around him was packed. The reception rooms on the main floor of the house (“house” was a euphemism) were also crowded. From his position on the terrace, fortuitously poised between inside and out, he recognized more than a few famous faces. He even saw his former student Scott Schiffman (he wasn’t famous) squiring an older lady, his mother, from the look of her, as she strolled amid the fountains and the lilacs.

  No sign of Susanna Kessler, however. Her wedding photo from the Times was impressed upon his memory.

  A waiter offered him another glass of champagne, and as Frederic turned to take it—there she was. Not ten feet from him. Looking exactly like her photograph. She wore a sleeveless, form-fitting dress. She was chatting with several well-turned-out youngsters, and from her ease among them, and vice versa, Frederic concluded that they must be Rob’s grandchildren.

  He was nervous. He, Frederic Fournier, man of the world. His brow turned damp.

  What to do? He adjusted his tie, although it was already perfect. His suit jacket was impeccably cut and it smoothed over his imperfections. Now he simply had to await his opportunity. But what would he say to her? His mind grasped for the speech he’d memorized. We haven’t had the pleasure, I’m a college friend of Rob’s. How do you know Rob?

  How foolish it sounded, playing in his mind while he contemplated the flesh-and-blood Susanna several steps away from him.

  No, no, he reassured himself, he could do this. He’d pulled off greater social challenges. And she’d be bound by politesse, he being (or rather, claiming to be) a friend of Rob’s.

  The group of youngsters loosened as a uniformed server appeared carrying a tray of—he couldn’t see what. This was his opportunity. He took the ten steps to Susanna Kessler’s side as if he had nothing but food on his mind.

  “Rob certainly has an excellent caterer,” he said to Susanna as he took a sampling of—it turned out to be a strip of roast chicken on a skewer accompanied by some type of sauce on the side. He hated roast chicken on a skewer, he hated sauce on the side, but what could he do?

  “Yes,” she said politely. “He does.” She herself did not take a skewer.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met.” Balancing both his champagne glass and the skewer in his left hand, he put out his right hand. “Frederic Fournier. Rob and I know each other from Harvard.”

  “Susanna Kessler.” She shook his hand. Sensing the start of an intelligent conversation, the youngsters moved away and regrouped.

  “How do you know Rob?”

  “I work for him.”

  “Do you, then. I’m sure he must be quite the taskmaster.”

  A sweet laugh. “He’d like to believe that he works us hard, but mostly he leaves us to our own devices.”

  “The mark of a confident and creative boss. He knows how to get the best out of people. That’s my philosophy, too.”

  “What do you do?”

  The perfect transition. “I teach at Yale. Centennial professor, as a matter of fact,” he added with feigned modesty.

  “What’s your field?”

  “Music history. A specialty in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.” He spoke with a nonchalance that he’d rehearsed throughout the previous week. This was the moment when she was supposed to exclaim, Music history? Specialty in Johann Sebastian Bach? I found an unknown Bach cantata in the basement (or attic or wherever).

  Instead of leaning toward him in excitement, she stepped back, as if to gain a better view of him. She stared steadily. Her gaze made him feel as if she were stripping him, and not in a good way.

  “I’ve written four monographs on Bach, including what I must confess is widely considered the definitive study of Bach’s compositional process in the writing of fugues.”

  Still she stared, saying nothing, and he felt compelled to fill the silence.

  “Yes, my work has led me to some unusual places. Last year I organized the first Bach festival in China. Four cities in two weeks. And to follow up . . .”

  He realized he was trying too hard. Slow down, he told himself. Shut up. But like a desperate kid on his first job interview, he couldn’t make himself stop. “And a few years ago in Cracow, a young fellow stumbled upon an old painting of a group of musicians and hadn’t the least idea of what it was, so he went through the usual channels, and when the lawyers came calling”—important to mention lawyers, so she’d know he had experience dealing with unreasonable lawyers, in case any turned up to challenge her possession of the cantata—“as they always do, in these situations, you can count on the lawyers to find an opening . . .”

  When would someone, anyone, come to rescue him?

  In
the garden, Scott Schiffman stood beside his mother as she talked with Robertson Barstow’s mother.

  “Isn’t this a lovely spot?” Mrs. Barstow said. She used a walker instead of a wheelchair today.

  “Yes, lovely,” Scott’s mother said. With her white hair pulled into a chignon, she was looking very well, Scott thought. He hadn’t seen her in a while. Or rather, he’d seen her, but he hadn’t actually looked at her. She was as chic and gracious as ever.

  “We ladies should stay right here,” said Mrs. Barstow. “Claim the best view for ourselves.” She glanced to her right, and instantly a butler was at her side. She gave her instructions. Soon, two wrought-iron garden chairs with green-and-pink striped cushions appeared. Mrs. Barstow sat down. Scott’s mother sat down. A large umbrella was set up to shelter them. A table was brought over and a tier of tea sandwiches was placed upon it.

  “I think I’ll excuse myself for a moment, Mother.” Scott hoped to find a gin and tonic. He didn’t like champagne in the afternoon.

  “Yes, dear. You go find some younger ladies to talk to.”

  Scott felt a familiar sting. What she was actually saying was why aren’t you married like your brother and your sisters? Nonetheless, as impatient as he sometimes became with her, he was glad his mother had friends, her mind was intact, and she took pleasure in the world.

  A waiter told him that the bar was on the terrace. He walked up the stairs and saw the bar on his left. He also saw Susanna Kessler. He’d been hoping to run into her at this event. In fact, he’d offered to escort his mother (who attended the lilac fete every year) for the sole purpose of seeking out Susanna and trying to regain her trust.

  Who was she talking to? Could it be? It was: Freddy Fournier, lecturing her, leaning close to make his points. Susanna looked as if she were downright allergic to him. Scott could imagine how she felt, not wanting to offend him yet desperate to escape.

  Steeling himself for battle, Scott walked across the terrace and joined them. “Susanna, good to see you.”