The Memorist

by M. J. Rose

  “Do you know if Beethoven found the song?”

  It was dark again. A familiar darkness worse than any of the memories. When she was a child, this was the darkness that surrounded that one memory that repeated over and over—a woman on horseback wearing a man’s coat, racing through the woods in a storm while being followed. She could hear the sounds of the horse’s breathing and the rain and smell the wet wool of her coat. But then the scene would fade to black and leave her enveloped by this same force field of sadness.

  “Margaux?” Malachai asked.

  “Enough, Malachai,” Jeremy insisted.

  Malachai half turned to respond. “If this flute really does still exist and if we can confirm Margaux Neidermier was studying with Beethoven at that time—”

  “You don’t have to bother Meer for that. I can confirm she was a student of Beethoven’s during 1814. I searched through a database of his letters when we came back from the cemetery this afternoon and she’s referenced several times.”

  The cold was disappearing and the shivering stopped. Meer was listening to her father explain about Margaux’s studying with Beethoven.

  “Did you find out anything else about her?” Malachai asked.

  “I don’t have access to the complete letters. The database only gives me highlights but she first appears in a letter dated September of 1814.”

  This was what it had been like when she was a child and under their constant scrutiny—a discussion topic and not a person at all. She stood up. “I can’t listen to any more of this now. I need a break.”

  “Of course you do,” Malachai said. “We all need a break.”

  Meer heard the concern in his voice but she also heard the hope…always hope. She looked at her father. Despite himself, the same hope shone in his eyes.

  Chapter 40

  Monday, April 28th—8:50 p.m.

  “I can’t see how far down the shaft goes.” The American’s words echoed in the underground chamber.

  David sucked in his breath. What was going on? There hadn’t been any music coming from the concert hall tonight: no performance, no rehearsals. Only the occasional scurrying of a rat or a rock falling. And now suddenly these voices were reaching him down in the crypt from men who sounded as if they were deeper and closer than could be possible.

  “Let me send down a probe,” a second voice, also American, responded. “See if we can hit bottom.”

  Were these men working for Global Security? Part of Tom Paxton’s effort to look for trouble before it showed itself? How far down were they?

  David glanced over at the cage he’d brought into the cave with him tonight and the three rats he’d already beguiled into the trap.

  “Any luck with that reading? What’s going on?” the American called out.

  David pulled on the heavy gloves. If his plan worked the rat would offer an explanation for any infrared patterns that might show up on Global Security’s monitors. He knew from his interview with Paxton that their GPR system was not only generations more sophisticated than the ground-penetrating radar first used in the Viet Cong tunnels, but the most sophisticated equipment available. The basic methodology was so commonplace now everyone used it, from crime scene investigators searching for graves to construction companies investigating sites before building. Of course Paxton, a man obsessed with winning, would have the most advanced system available. In every news story David had written about the security business, in the war against terror, Global was consistently far ahead of the rest in innovation and results.

  “This shaft must go down into some sewer system,” the American called out. “I’m past twelve meters and still dropping.”

  David looked at his watch. Ten to nine. Why were those bastards still working? But he knew the answer—because that’s what Paxton demanded.

  “Can you get down any deeper and shine some light down there?”

  “The opening’s too narrow,” the first man’s voice echoed. “No way.”

  David imagined the man trying to lower himself down the shaft that ran perpendicular to where he was hiding. But he’d looked through the cracks and knew it wasn’t even large enough for a child to fit in. From what Wassong had told him and from the blueprints David had found, it was part of an archaic turn-of-the-century heating system, long ago abandoned but still in place.

  Reaching into the cage, he grabbed one of the rats and shoved the vermin through the narrow crack in the rock wall that separated his hiding space from the shaft. David could hear the rat scurrying up the wall. He waited.

  “I’m getting a reading here that I don’t like.” The American sounded alarmed.

  David imagined the Global employee noticing the activity on his monitor and checking his diagnostics. They were seeing the rat. He was sure of it. But what if the system had other sensors? Could it be detecting the Semtex he’d picked up in the Czech Republic? No, he reasoned, he was using the older type that had virtually no radioactive material they could detect.

  “You sure there’s no way you can shimmy down any farther?” one American called out to the other.

  David opened the cage and pulled out another rat: the biggest one this time, and as he did, the creature sank his teeth into David’s hand. It didn’t tear through the glove but he still felt the pressure of the sharp little fangs. He didn’t waste any breath cursing it as he released it; he owed the rat only thanks for playing its part as a diversion. He wondered if on Thursday night when the last notes of Beethoven’s symphony rang out, any of the rats would survive.

  Chapter 41

  The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others—existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no memory for spiritual things.

  —Honoré de Balzac

  Vienna, Austria

  Tuesday, April 29th—9:20 a.m.

  Across the street from the Riding School, the Hofburg’s complex of high baroque imperial court buildings dwarfed the nondescript fourteenth-century church where they were headed. The line was very short; only about ten people were waiting for the crypt to open its doors to the public at 10:00 a.m.

  Meer and Malachai, who’d walked over together from the hotel, bypassed the queue and continued toward Jeremy, who stood with Sebastian just outside the front door. It was strange that Sebastian kept showing up, even though her father had said he’d ask him to come.

  Spotting them, her father waved. He’d arranged for a private tour before the church opened and now that they were all there, ushered them inside.

  The Gothic structure’s exterior didn’t prepare Meer for the elegant interior. Light streamed down from immense brass chandeliers, illuminating the enormous hallway, naves and aisles, and a tiny monk who was slowly approaching. Jeremy introduced Brother Francis, explaining that the monk didn’t speak English.

  Following the brown-robed figure, the group crossed the church and entered the Loreto Chapel, a diminutive whitewashed space. The ceilings here were arched but lower, the altar simpler and unadorned. The light-toned pews looked more inviting than the darker ones in the main sanctuary and Meer thought that if she were someone who prayed, it would be easier to reach out to God in this intimate space.

  To the right of the miniature altar was a seven-foot skeleton painted on a darkened wall who appeared to be guarding two iron doors decorated with crowns and swans. Brother Francis waited beside this grillwork for the group to assemble. As Meer stepped up an invasion of cold air blew around her. Through the bars she saw two shelves lined with dozens of silver chalices and urns shimmering in the light flooding through the windows. The heart crypt.

  Brother Francis fit a black key into the lock, and then had to force it to turn as if the entryway was reluctant to allow anyone through. Finally, with a sweep of his arm, he gestured for them to enter as he doled out facts about what they were seeing.

  Jeremy translated: “There are fifty-four hearts here. All from the Imperial Fami
ly…”

  The urns shone brightly, glints of silver refracting off their rounded bodies, mesmerizing her. Everything else in the room was unimportant; these urns were what she had come to see. Her father had just told them all how many there were but Meer started to count them again. Not sure why.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

  The ninth urn appeared to shine more brightly than all the others, she thought, as she stared at it and stopped hearing anything her father was saying. She had to figure out how to get closer to it, even though she didn’t have any idea why or what she was looking for.

  “Do you speak any English?” she asked the monk—although her father had told her otherwise.

  “English? Not good, no,” he said in a heavy accent.

  Meer nodded. She needed to be sure. “No English?”

  Brother Francis shook his head.

  Meer walked to her father and pointed to a plaque on the far right of the top shelf while she whispered a question, low enough not to interrupt the monk’s continued recitation. When Brother Francis finished talking, so did Meer.

  Jeremy was a few seconds late in translating but somehow had managed to hear what both the monk and his daughter had said. “The first heart here belongs to King Ferdinand IV of the Romans. It was placed here on July 19th in 1654. The last heart belonged to Franz Karl of Austria, and it was placed here on the 8th of March in 1878.”

  Moving as close as she could to the shelf, Meer counted once more to be sure, from right to left, stopping again at the ninth urn and straining to read the inscription carved into a small brass plaque beneath it. In German, all she could make out were the words Marie Theresa and the date 1696.

  The diminutive silver urn sat on ball feet. Around its rim were three rows of hearts, the point of one fitting in the space where the two halves met on the one below. Hearts all around. The object was slightly lopsided and in some places there were faint dents. The ninth urn. The deck of cards she’d had time to examine from the gaming box had two nines of hearts in it. An extra nine of hearts. What did it mean? Did all the decks have double cards? Would she ever be able to find out?

  “Do you think they got the idea to do this from the Egyptians?” Meer asked her father. Her voice sounded a false note but she hoped no one noticed. Jeremy began answering and then his voice faltered. He stopped speaking. And then he fell to the stone floor.

  “Dad?” Meer dropped down to her knees next to him, grabbing his wrist to take his pulse. “He needs a doctor,” she cried.

  “Dringlichkeit, dringlichkeit,” Sebastian shouted, and the monk rushed off.

  Chapter 42

  Tuesday, April 29th—9:38 a.m.

  Meer’s terrified expression morphed into one of deep concentration as soon as the monk ran off to get help. She couldn’t waste a second explaining what was happening to Sebastian or Malachai so while they worried over Jeremy’s supine form, she got up and rushed over to the ninth silver urn on the top shelf and without any deliberation opened it and reached inside. There was no time to inspect the mummified relics that were almost four hundred years old, no time to be concerned about desecrating the remains of this royal personage.

  What was left of the human heart felt like a piece of dried fruit, shriveled and leathery, but under it, Meer’s fingers found something smooth and chilly. Tiny. She didn’t think about what it was or what she was supposed to do with it. Didn’t stop to be amazed that she’d intuited there was something waiting there for her.

  Slipping the object into her jeans pocket, she returned to her father and dropped to her knees slightly to the right of Sebastian, not sure if either he or Malachai had noticed what she’d done.

  A few minutes later the paramedics rushed into the small room and set about saving her father’s life.

  Chapter 43

  Tuesday, April 29th—9:45 a.m.

  Parked on the street, inside the small silver-and-black car, Lucian Glass and Alex Kalfus watched the sequence of events outside the church: an ambulance pulled up, a monk rushed out to greet it and paramedics hurried inside.

  Lucian ached to run inside and see for himself what was going on. Used to moving around on a case, he hated just watching but he wasn’t on home turf and this was the best he could get the Austrian authorities to agree to. As he watched, he realized he was unexpectedly and surprisingly anxious. While Kalfus stayed on the phone trying to get information about what was happening, the medics exited the church carrying someone on a stretcher. Sebastian and Malachai accompanied them.

  “Can you see who they’re carrying? Jeremy or his daughter?”

  “Not from here,” Kalfus said, still holding on his call.

  Then the church doors opened and Meer walked out, her skin pale, her auburn hair in disarray.

  Kalfus clicked his phone shut. “Jeremy Logan collapsed. Early indications suggest a heart attack.”

  Sirens screaming, the ambulance took off and a policeman helped Meer into a waiting squad car that took off almost immediately, leaving Sebastian and Malachai standing on the sidewalk beside the distraught monk. The men exchanged a few words and then walked off together.

  Lucian watched them stop at the taxi stand on the corner and get in line behind an elderly woman carrying a large bouquet of tulips. It only took a minute until she got in her taxi and another pulled up. The two men got in. As their cab pulled away Kalfus pulled out after it. “I’m going to guess we’ll be going to the hospital now.”

  “And I’d guess you’re right. What I’d really like to know is what they were looking at in there. Can you call in someone to stay on Malachai’s tail if he does go to the hospital so we can come back here and talk to that monk?”

  “Should be possible.”

  “My next two questions are, who is the man halfway up the block in the blue Mercedes who’s been watching the church along with us and will he be joining the entourage to the hospital? Correction. Three questions. And if he does, who in particular is he keeping tabs on?”

  “What man?”

  Lucian wasn’t proud that he’d noticed the man reading a newspaper in his car and Kalfus hadn’t. In fact, he’d prefer if Kalfus had spotted him first; it would give Lucian more confidence in his new partner. “He pulled up right after we did,” Lucian explained, “just parked and then stayed in his car. He made two phone calls, checked his watch and then read his newspaper. He continued checking his watch every three minutes as if he was waiting for someone but I’m pretty sure the only person he was waiting for was whichever one of the group inside the church he was following.”

  Chapter 44

  Tuesday, April 29th—9:49 a.m.

  The monk remained on the street, watching the procession of ambulance and police cars disappear. He hardly noticed the man in the ordinary gray suit, until he came right up to him. “Excuse me, Brother,” he said in German as he held out a badge and identification card.

  The monk glanced down at the silver shield that identified the man as a member of the state police, and nodded.

  “I’d like to discuss what just happened here.”

  “I’ve already talked to the police,” Brother Francis said in a bewildered tone, confused by how many officials were involved in the small emergency.

  “Yes, I know that, and I’m sorry but I’m from the Department of Antiquities and I also need to make a report since this is a national site.”

  With resignation the monk repeated what he’d seen. “A man had what seemed to be a heart attack in the chapel.”

  “What were they doing in the church before it opened?”

  “Like everyone else, they came to visit with God and to see the crypt.”

  “I’d like to look around the crypt if you don’t mind.”

  “It was a medical emergency. There was no altercation, no accident, nothing to do with the chapel.”

  “I’m sure it was. Now, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble could you show me where this happened? And please keep the tourists
out until I’m finished. I’ll be gone in a few minutes.”

  Reluctantly, but not sure he had any choice, the monk led the policeman through the main church across the nave, into the Loreto Chapel, over to the disconcerting skeleton barring the way to the entrance, and then into the inner chamber.

  Like many natives of Vienna, including members of the state police who he was impersonating, Paul Pertzler didn’t know as much as he should about the tourist destinations in his native city and didn’t know why this chapel was important.

  “Could you explain what I’m looking at? And as you do, please point out anything out of place or missing. Take your time, Brother.”

  “This vault belonged to the Imperial Family. These are their remains.” Pausing, the monk walked up to one of the shelves, focused on a specific urn, reached out, moved it slightly to the left and back a half an inch.

  “Their ashes are in those urns?”

  “No, their hearts.”

  “Hearts?” Pertzler repeated, staring at the small silver urns. “How long have they been putting their hearts here?”

  “Since the early seventeenth century.”

  “And when was the last heart buried here? Is it even buried? What do you call it?”

  “The last heart was placed here in 1878.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Fifty-four hearts.”

  Pertzler made a note. Then he remembered something. “Is Beethoven’s heart here?”

  The monk looked startled but answered confidently. “No. Only members of the Imperial Family.”

  “But something about my question struck you. What is it?”

  “It’s funny you would ask about Beethoven. One of the members of Mr. Logan’s party asked about him too.”

  “Who? Which member of the party? What did he ask?”

  “The man from America asked if there was a record of Beethoven having anything to do with this church.”