And After the Fire

by Lauren Belfer

  Hensel had slipped into a stupor.

  Paul added the Bach cantata to the collection of items he was taking away with him, the family heirlooms that had to be protected from the grieving man slumped before him.

  A few days later, Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy knocked upon the door of the Baroque palace at Hinter dem Neuen Packhof 3. What a shock this neighborhood was. A steam engine pounded pilings into the swampy ground. A rail line carried building materials to the site and took away refuse. The noise was deafening. Mud, smoke, sawdust . . . not the green serenity Paul had been expecting. The king had determined that museums and public grounds should cover this island in the Spree, not the palaces of the wealthy. Tante Levy’s home and garden were the last vestiges of a lost era. Paul recalled a story that had made the rounds: Sara had stood up to the king himself to protect her property, when Frederick William wanted her land and part of her house for a new museum. Frederick William IV might think he owned Prussia, but he didn’t own her, was the rumor of what she’d said. She’d forced the king to change his plans. Such was his great-aunt Sara.

  After a moment, an elderly, stooped servant opened the door. The servant wore an embroidered waistcoat and a swallowtail jacket. At first Paul thought the man was dressed for a costume party, and then he realized: this was the uniform of servants fifty, sixty years past, unchanged. The man could easily be eighty, or even older.

  “Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to see Frau Levy,” he said.

  “You are expected, sir. You will please enter.”

  Paul followed along with the pantomime. The servant closed the heavy door. The construction noise was muted. Paul gave his topcoat and hat to the servant. He was ushered into a receiving room. He heard a piano being played. As the servant ushered him forward, the music became louder. The servant opened a door, into an oval music room, the walls painted with country scenes. The furniture was from the late eighteenth century, although none of it appeared worn. All was up-to-date, for the year 1790.

  A harpsichord and a fortepiano graced the room. Sara sat at the fortepiano and played from memory what Paul recognized as one of old Bach’s Two-Part Inventions. She wore the black clothing of a widow.

  The servant watched her play. When she finished, raising her hands from the keyboard and holding them still, he said, “Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, madame.”

  She turned. “Paul! How good to see you!” Her skin was wrinkled, but her expression was animated and filled with life. She was ninety-one. “Thank you,” she said, indicating to the servant that he could leave. “Come into the light, Paul, let me look at you.”

  She took his hands and led him to the French doors.

  “I see your parents and your grandparents in you.”

  “Thank you.” He felt moved for reasons he couldn’t have explained.

  “We’ll walk in the garden.”

  She rang the bell and the butler reappeared. Instructions were given. Paul’s coat and hat were returned to him. A lady’s maid entered, bearing walking shoes, a cape, and a bonnet. Sara sat, and the maid helped her to change her shoes. The bonnet and cape were secured. A walking stick was provided for Madame.

  At last Sara was prepared to go outside.

  The butler opened the door onto the veranda. “Take care, Madame Levy. The lawn may be damp. Shall I accompany you at a distance?”

  “Paul will look after me, won’t you?” she said, patting his arm.

  “She is safe with me, I assure you,” Paul told the butler, who shook his head in disapproval.

  Sara smiled wanly. She held Paul’s arm as they went down the veranda steps. She used her walking stick as they crossed the lawn and reached the path along the river. She displayed an inner determination that overcame her outward frailty.

  “I’m very pleased that you’ve come to see me, Paul.”

  The construction noise was in the distance, the booms and screeches of machinery providing a startling contrast to the peace of the garden. She appeared not to notice the noise. He, in turn, didn’t mention it. The breeze touched his face. The sunlight filtered through the weeping willow trees, the branches touching the surface of the water.

  “I remember you when you were a boy. You were delightful. And handsome, even as a boy.”

  He felt himself blush. “Thank you.”

  “Do you remember coming here for concerts when you were young?”

  “Truthfully, I don’t. Not the concerts, I mean. I do remember skimming stones into the river.”

  “That’s what a boy should remember. How the years pass . . . here I am, ninety-one and still not dead. I’m a living miracle.”

  “Didn’t I hear a rumor about you dancing in the street?” The story came back to him.

  The look she bestowed on him showed how pleased she was. “Sometimes the weather is so glorious, what choice does an old lady have, but to dance in the street?”

  What a wonderful woman she was. A pity she’d never had children. Nowadays this was the first thing people remembered about her. At breakfast, when he’d told Albertine where he was going, she’d said: Tante Levy, isn’t she the one without children? A grief that never lessened. Or so he imagined. He knew of her work for the orphanage, and he hoped it consoled her.

  “At my age, Paul, I’m allowed to speak frankly, and so I will confess to you: everyone comes to visit me. Poets, dramatists, writers, musicians, artists. The famous and accomplished from across Europe. You should attend my gatherings, too. Bring Albertine. And your cello. I remember you as a brilliant cellist. Do you still play?”

  “When I can. When business allows. You’re kind to ask.”

  “My husband was a banker who played the flute, and very well, too, I must say. I understand the demands of business.”

  “I wish I could have heard him play. I wish I could have met him. I was born too late.”

  “And he died far too young. I miss him every day. He would have liked you. And you would have liked him.”

  Paul stopped walking and turned to her. Her eyes were watery from age yet filled with encouragement and affection—for him.

  Paul said, “I must ask your advice on a difficult question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Leipzigerstrasse Three must be sold.”

  “So I’ve heard. And I’ve heard that your unfortunate brother-in-law is suffering. Is there anything I can do to help him? Or to help you, as you try to help him?”

  “Thank you. If there is, I will let you know.”

  “And what about Fanny’s compositions? Can anything more be published?”

  “I don’t know. Organizing a publication—I just don’t know. There’s so much to be done, taking apart the house. I—I . . .” He stumbled over his words, unable to continue, tears smarting in his eyes . . . now, here, with his great-aunt, would he weep at last?

  She placed her hand upon his arm.

  “Time will pass, Paul, and the pain will lessen, although it will never cease completely. Alas, I have enough experience of grief to have learned this. Months from now, your torment will ease. One morning you’ll wake up and you’ll see a way to resolve these questions that now seem impenetrable. Try to wait until that moment, before pressing forward.”

  “Thank you, Tante.” He regathered his strength. Gradually he resumed his habitual, concealing cloak of stalwart, steady banker. Procurator Paul. “I must discuss something else with you.”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “The fact is, I discovered something. Something surprising, when I went through my sister’s music manuscripts. A cantata by the old master himself.”

  “Ah.”

  She didn’t seem curious about it. All at once Paul perceived that she already knew what he was going to say. Nonetheless he continued with his prepared speech.

  “The text is repugnant. I don’t know where the manuscript came from. I don’t know what to do with it. The music is magnificent. I’m hoping you can guide me.”

  Sara stared out at the boats and barges, at the b
usy commerce on the river. He thought of all his great-aunt had seen during her lifetime: the French occupation of Berlin during the Napoleonic Wars; the coming of the railroads; the development of gas lighting; the invention of the telegraph. The changes of four generations. What was she seeing now? The city as it was from this spot sixty or more years ago, when she first lived here? Was she remembering the incident with Count von Arnim, who’d shown himself to be a nobleman in name only? The events of that afternoon were still debated, still written about. Of the many guests who’d been here, each seemed to have a different memory of what had occurred—yet everyone agreed that she, Sara Levy geborene Itzig, had proven herself to be the proper aristocrat.

  “Do you ever consider returning to the old faith, Paul? Your parents are gone now. You could go back, without them pressuring you in one direction or another.”

  “No, I don’t think about it. Faith has never played much of a role in my life.”

  “I expect not.”

  He didn’t know how to interpret this.

  “I have read Richard Wagner’s screed in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, ‘Das Judenthum in der Musik,’” she said.

  “Richard Wagner is jealous of my brother.”

  The article had enraged Paul. Coward that he was, Wagner published it under the pseudonym of K. Freigedank, Free Thinker, but his identity as author quickly became an open secret. In his long harangue, Wagner had condemned Felix’s music as lacking in passion and profundity—because Felix was born a Jew.

  “Wagner wanted my brother’s approval, and when he didn’t get it, he plotted this revenge. And a craven revenge, too, since my brother is dead and can’t defend himself.”

  Sara waited before replying. Paul felt her giving him time to regain his composure.

  “Does Wagner represent the future of Europe?” she asked. “I suspect that he does.”

  “I hope not.”

  “I’m the one who gave the cantata to Fanny. My teacher, the master’s son, gave it to me.”

  Paul reflected with awe that he was walking beside a person who had a direct link to the Bach family.

  “I’ve been intending to speak to Hensel about it. But given his sad hardships, I hesitated. I’m relieved that I may now speak of it with you. I thought Fanny would outlive me. Sebastian is too young to entrust with this cantata. You must have it now, Paul. And you must outlive me. In fact, I’m relying upon you to do so.” Her eyes glistened. With tears?

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “I trust you to do what’s right with it. You’re only thirty-nine. From my perspective at the elevated age of ninety-one, you’re very young. You’re a brilliant man. You think that here in my isolated palais I don’t hear about your work in Russia? About the prosperity you’ve brought to the Mendelssohn bank and to the nation? Of the sacrifices you’ve made, to devote yourself to business? You’ll survive for a while more. Decades from today, you can decide what to do with my cantata.”

  “Thank you, Tante.” He felt an outpouring of love toward her. She’d given him a profound gift today, one he couldn’t quite define.

  The gift, he realized as she turned and they continued their walk along the Spree, was that she’d seen him for himself, as he truly was, and she respected him for it. “I won’t disappoint you.”

  “I know.” She took his arm for support.

  Chapter 40

  Frederic Fournier felt a frisson of excitement. Right here in the standardized, excessively air-conditioned, air-freshener-saturated reception room of the Westin, a convention hotel that could be anywhere in the world but in this case was in Leipzig, Germany; right here at the opening cocktail party for the Wissenschaftliche Konferenz of the Neue Bachgesellschaft—who could have predicted? Susanna Kessler, waiting for him across a crowded room (to paraphrase Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, a musical that he publicly hated and secretly adored). She didn’t yet know that he was here, but he’d enlighten her soon enough. He found an extra measure of pleasure in the realization that he possessed information not yet known to others in the crowd. Yes, she was here, the woman who could—who would, if he had anything to do with it—galvanize their field.

  “Excuse me, Herr Professor Doktor Doktor Honoris Causa Fournier,” said a man wearing dark-framed glasses and an unpressed suit, press credentials hanging on a chain around his neck.

  Frederic had an honorary degree from Humboldt University in Berlin in addition to his PhD from Harvard, which accounted for the somewhat complex title. He appreciated that Germans showed proper respect for academic degrees.

  “I’m Joachim Schmidt, representing the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,” explained the man. “I wonder if you might honor me with a few minutes of your time.”

  Always accommodate the press, that was one of Frederic’s rules. He was pleased to admit that in Europe, the press hounded him. Classical music remained a vital part of European culture. In Germany every town had its always-packed opera house, its oversubscribed summer music festival. The opinions of conductors and musicians counted even in politics, especially in the former Communist bloc. If the press needed him, Susanna Kessler would have to wait.

  “Yes, of course. How may I help you?”

  “I’d like to get your opinion on the arrest of Herr Professor Doktor Doktor Honoris Causa Doktor Honoris Causa Pfarrer Dietrich Bauer.”

  Frederic had already foreseen and planned his response to this question, and he jumped into it: “Pardon, who?”

  “Professor Dietrich Bauer, arrested for mass murder and crimes against humanity during the war.”

  “Ah, yes . . . I believe I saw something about that in the newspaper. I can’t recall ever meeting him.”

  Frederic knew that photos might surface showing them together in a group, so he’d given himself the out of saying he couldn’t recall ever meeting Bauer rather than categorically denying it. His memory could be refreshed, and he’d thank whichever member of the press kindly did him the service.

  “I wish I could help you. But look here, if you need information about anything else, don’t hesitate to be in touch.” Frederic gave the journalist his card. “We’ve got a terrific group of scholars gathered for the conference. I hope you’ll be able to attend some of the sessions.”

  “In regard to Professor Bauer, my editors . . .”

  Frederic looked around to find someone to relieve him of Herr Schmidt. He spotted the Bach-loving minister—what was his name?—ah, yes, Reverend Frank Mueller, in full-collared religious uniform. Frederic called to him, “Reverend Mueller, do you by any chance know Joachim Schmidt from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung?”

  Mueller joined them with alacrity. “No, we haven’t met.” In a hearty fashion, Reverend Mueller put out his hand. “I’d love to get your advice, Herr Schmidt, on any concerts or plays I should attend while I’m in Leipzig, and also your advice on the best beer gardens . . .”

  Ministers could always be counted on for small talk, so with God’s help, Frederic was free to return to his previous pursuit: Susanna Kessler. Oh, damnation—while Frederic was doing his journalistic duties, Daniel Erhardt had found her and now seemed glued beside her. Nothing to be done but face down the challenge.

  “Dan, how are you?” Frederic greeted Dan as if they were long-lost friends unexpectedly reunited. “And Susanna Kessler, am I right? I believe we met at the home of my Harvard friend Robertson Barstow.”

  Yes, yes, good to see you. Handshakes ensued, Frederic all the while planning his next move. Look ahead, his childhood piano teacher had always instructed him, advice he’d found useful throughout his life.

  “What brings you to Leipzig, Ms. Kessler?”

  “A short summer holiday.”

  She was smooth. He had to admire her.

  “Beautiful time of year for a holiday,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And where do you plan to travel from here?”

  “I haven’t made any definite plans. I’ll go wherever the spirit mov
es me.”

  “The perfect way to travel! You know,” Frederic leaned toward her and feigned speaking to her in confidence, “Dan here was one of my most prized students. He’s gone far in his career, if I do say so myself.”

  Susanna smiled, but Dan had the effrontery to look annoyed. He, Herr Professor Doktor etc., etc., Frederic Augustus Fournier, was the one who had every right to be annoyed, what with his former students attempting to surpass him.

  “Professor Fournier! Good to see you!”

  It was Scott Schiffman. What in God’s name was he doing here? Okay, of course he was here, this was an international Bach conference.

  “How are you, Professor?” Schiffman asked, with a tone that told Frederic that Schiffman had no interest whatever in how he was.

  Were all of his former students so irritating? Frederic regretted every recommendation he’d ever written for these two, every research paper he’d vetted for them before publication. To make matters worse, as far as he could ascertain these two hadn’t yet completed their research on the newly discovered cantata. What on earth had they been doing these past months when he was relying on them to pave the way?

  “Susanna Kessler is our emissary from the outside world,” Schiffman said.

  “Yes,” Frederic agreed, “we’re fortunate to have you here, Ms. Kessler. Bringing in some fresh air. How did you become interested in Bach?”

  She paused an instant, and Frederic thought, now, at last, she’ll reveal the secret.

  “I would have to say that Bach’s music made me interested in Bach.”

  What an impossible young woman.

  “Excuse me, Herr Professor Fournier.” A black-haired, black-clad youth joined them. “So sorry to interrupt.”

  What now? Who was this? Right—the German twit who’d organized the logistics for the conference.

  “Would this be a convenient moment,” he stammered.

  The time had arrived for a few words of welcome from Frederic, as the senior scholar in attendance. Frederic was pleased that Susanna would see this public recognition of precisely who he was: the leader of the group.