A Rather Curious Engagement

by C. A. Belmond

  “Who told you that ‘old legend’?” Jeremy asked tenderly.

  “Nobody,” I said. “The wind just told me herself.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  I can’t say how long it was that we sat in the Count’s enchanted garden. I can only tell you that the sun descended beyond the darkening Alps, and the stars woke up and rubbed their eyes and peered down at the twinkling gems on my finger.

  Then we heard a distinct Boom! coming from the window of the Count’s study in the castle. Jeremy and I just looked at each other.

  “Cocktail hour!” said Jeremy.

  A few moments later, Kurt came walking toward us, smiling knowingly and a trifle apologetically. “Pardon me,” he said, “Father was hoping to have your professional opinion on these X-rays. It is all really quite astonishing, and we are not sure what to think.”

  The entire household was waiting for us in the Count’s study. And, spread out on a light-table before him, was the X-ray of the Lion.

  “We can have an expert try to authenticate it,” Kurt was telling us. “But Father is fairly certain that this is, indeed, the Lion he’s been looking for. He thinks there is something very surprising inside it. Take a look.”

  My first impression was that the X-ray of the Lion made it look like an elaborate, very elegant piggy-bank.

  “You can see various plugs and marks visible in the X-ray, and not to the naked eye when gazing upon the finished figure,” Kurt said. “All this is perfectly normal.”

  “But,” interjected the Count, sounding excited, “it appears to contain an unusual cylindrical something. That is not a joint or a supporting rod. I cannot say what it is. And, believe me, I have looked at so many of these. I have never seen anything like it.” His words were understated, compared to his tone.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked. The Count looked up at me, his blue eyes sparkling.

  “I don’t know, exactly, but it may be a tube with something in it,” he said excitedly.

  “Ohmigosh,” I said, catching my breath. “It can’t be . . . can it?”

  “The fragment of the missing autograph?” Jeremy had to say it aloud to even consider it. “The long-lost ‘Eroica’ original?”

  But the Lion didn’t yield its secrets right away. It took weeks for Jeremy to get those experts from Frankfurt—the ones who actually knew how to do the complicated process of making aquamanilia—to come to Lake Como. They were eager to try to “operate” on the Lion, but Jeremy had to do some convincing to make them bring their tools and do the deed at the Count’s castle, because the Count emphatically was not going to let the Lion out of his sight.

  Meanwhile, I had to get hold of Diamanta so that she could come and witness the event. At this point, all the legal stuff kicked in, about who owned it, and where it would be kept. That took more time and wrangling, but we finally got both sides of this remarkable family to agree that the Lion would spend six months each year at a museum in Lake Como, and six months at a museum in Corsica. Donaldson’s little museum in London would conduct the sale of it, so that various cultural institutions in Corsica and Como could put in their bids. Donaldson would therefore get a one-time, one-month premiere exhibition. The money from its sale would be split up between the two families, after the payment of legal fees . . . plus a fee for the firm of Nichols & Laidley (which meant Rollo would get his finder’s fee from us.) But first, of course, the Lion must be opened, and its value established.

  Finally, the Big Day dawned. Word got out about the Lion, so select members of the press were invited to attend. Including our photographer-friend Clive, whom we didn’t tell until the last minute for fear he’d spill the beans again. And a famous Beethoven scholar attended, accompanied by a world-renowned concert pianist who parked himself on stand-by in the Count’s castle at his grand piano, ready to play whatever music might be on any fragment discovered inside.

  It turned into such a big deal that we all agreed to televise the event. Out of all the news organizations vying for the assignment, one production company who submitted a proposal was selected to do this great big-budget TV special.

  That’s right. You guessed it. Pentathlon Productions.

  “This could really put us back on the documentary map,” Bruce said to me ecstatically, as we all assembled at the Count’s castle. Bruce went off to check in with the sound-man.

  Erik rolled his eyes and said, “Now you’ve done it! You’ll drive us all into the poorhouse if Bruce makes the changeover from drama to doc. No sets to design! Are you crazy?”

  “Why should she care?” Tim asked. “She’s stinking rich.”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “Bruce’s wife told me that the world will always want those bio-pics, so she’ll keep writing them and she’ll make sure that Pentathlon keeps shooting them.”

  I must have been gesturing, because Tim seized my left hand.

  “What is THAT?” he cried. I hadn’t told anybody yet. I’d wanted to keep it to myself a little bit. But Erik whooped so loudly that the whole crew heard him. Then he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder and carried me around and wouldn’t put me down until I promised to let him help me plan the wedding.

  “Okay, okay!” I cried.

  "Excuse me,” Bruce said in a strained tone. “Might I interrupt to say, ROLL ’EM??”

  Chapter Forty-six

  The opening of the Beethoven Lion took place in a garage on the castle grounds, just beyond the stables. "Garage” was hardly the word for such a grand structure; it was a carriage house, built in the days when the transition from horse to auto meant that the car simply went where the carriage had been parked. It was a big stone and stucco affair, with a mechanic’s windowed office, and an upstairs apartment with a potbellied stove. Bruce converted the mechanic’s office into a control room. The aquamanilia artisans from Frankfurt used the rest of the entire first floor to set up their metalworking shop, and they even made use of a stone oven/barbecue area in the nearby side garden. Amid much clanging and banging, the highly delicate operation on the Beethoven Lion was now about to begin.

  “Poor guy,” I muttered about the Lion, “I hope he comes through all right.”

  They planned to cut a hole on the Lion’s head by following the circle around the plugged-up filling-spout. The pianist was stationed inside the castle, in the music room, which I’d seen for the first time—a beautiful rococo blue, white and gold salon with marble floors and great acoustics. Bruce’s crew had rigged an elaborate network of lighting, camera and sound, set up in the castle, and in the carriage house, and outdoors, all strung together by a complicated system of cables and computers. The Count’s household was terrified that one yank on a cable could bring a priceless urn crashing to the floor, so there was more than the usual flurry amid that slight boredom that sets in while waiting for the lighting and sound guys to do their maddening checks.

  At Bruce’s signal, the intro was taped outside, establishing where we were and why it mattered. The Beethoven expert was a bemused-looking German in his sixties, with a fastidious little beard, who spoke English tinged with a Bonn accent. He was interviewed by a garrulous English TV personality who usually did travel specials that aired on both sides of the Atlantic.

  Then, a hush fell over the crowd. The excitement in the air was suddenly quite palpable. I gazed at all the expectant faces—from Kurt and his sister (who made the pilgrimage from Frankfurt, and did indeed look as if she could be his twin, although she was older than him)—to Diamanta, and her moody brother, who now looked like an excited, and slightly abashed, teenage boy fascinated with the mechanics of the show. Rollo was there, surreptitiously taking an occasional swig from a flat little antique silver-plated thermos, and Clive was watching him, until Rollo offered him a swig. Mr. Donaldson was accompanied by a middle-aged female museum worker who handled delicate restoration. Erik and Tim had spiffed up the carriage house, placing anything interesting they’d found as background props—an old carriage wheel, a pitchfor
k, horseshoes, lanterns. It looked great. The Count was waiting in his castle, playing chess with the pianist, because both were so nervous that they couldn’t bear to watch.

  The aquamanilia artisans adjusted their metal headgear, which looked like a cross between a mask and a helmet, with a light on the forehead like a coal miner. They bent over the Lion, then one of them gave a thumbs-up of readiness.

  “And—ACTION!” Bruce cried.

  Zzz-zzz. Zzz-zz—whirrr—whee-whish. . . .

  The delicate operation had begun. This took a long time, and was very dramatic, with sparks flying all the while.

  “You do realize,” Jeremy murmured to me as we watched, “that there could be anything in there—a certificate from the workshop, or, hell, even just a bill for services rendered. Or a grocery list belonging to an ordinary nineteenth-century metalworking guy. Something his wife gave him. ‘Bring home bread, eggs, milk ...’”

  “Shush,” I hissed. We were standing in the back of the control booth. I listened to Bruce’s commands to cut from one camera to another. I found it oddly comforting, being back on a set again.

  Finally, the artisans laid down their cutting tools. One of them began working with his hands, and then I heard a small metallic clink. The brass plug had been pulled out of the Lion’s head. It meant the Lion was finally opened up . . . after all these centuries.

  A spontaneous “Ahhhhh!” came from the crowd of invited onlookers, all grouped reverently in one corner of the garage, because they were part of the show and were allowed to react. One of the workmen took off his headgear, picked up a pair of long metal tweezers, and reached in. This took a number of attempts, until he determined that he couldn’t get the cylinder out that way. After a momentary murmuring among the artisans, they decided that they would have to cut into the Lion’s belly if they had any hope of dragging the cylinder out.

  Everyone took a break as the lighting crew swooped in to adjust the lights. The caterers had laid out a food spread in the upstairs apartment over the garage, and the smell of coffee revived everyone.

  I hung around the operating table, glancing apprehensively at the Lion.

  “He’ll be all right,” one of the metalworkers assured me. “He’ll always have some stitches on his head and belly,” he said, perfectly seriously. “But I think we might actually manage to get Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

  Then we were all called back to watch the next phase. More sparks flying. But this time, the artisans were able to pry the cylinder, ever so gently, out of the Lion. Jeremy, who couldn’t stand it anymore and had gone outside for air, came racing back into the garage, just in time to see them gently lay the cylinder on a piece of chamois cloth.

  Now the remaining task was to open up the cylinder without destroying its contents. After some discussion, it was agreed that they should slit it down the side. They did this carefully. One of the metalworkers peered in as we all held our breath.

  “There’s something inside!” he announced. “Looks like paper to me.”

  “Oooh,” cried the crowd.

  Bruce called out, “Okay, let’s have the museum guys now.”

  I heard Mr. Donaldson snort at that, as he stepped forward with the female restoration expert, who was all ready with gauze gloves and another pair of even more slender tweezers to gently pull out the old, delicate document. Once again we had to wait for the lights to be adjusted, very carefully, so as not to hurt the paper when it came out.

  Because there definitely was paper inside, all curled up. I watched, wide-eyed, as the tweezer-lady pulled it out—softly, softly, softly. Then, very reverently, she laid it on a special pad on the table.

  “Just like a message in a bottle from a castaway on a desert island! ” I whispered to Jeremy. A second later, the TV host said the same thing on-camera. Gently, gently, it was unrolled, and lightly flattened, just enough to see it. Mr. Donaldson and his worker bent over it. From Bruce’s video monitor, I could see a close-up of handwritten scripting in faded black ink.

  “It appears to be written in old French,” Donaldson announced.

  “Can anyone translate?”

  Diamanta stepped forward. Haltingly at first, she began to translate, picking up speed as she went. Clive wrote it down, helping her adjust the English:Beloved,

  This is my promise which I do send,

  I will be yours until time should end,

  I will be yours till the stars all die,

  I will be yours till the oceans run dry.

  And if, by chance, these should come to be,

  Bury my ashes along with thee.

  Bury our hearts beneath a tree,

  Cast our bones into the sea.

  And you and I shall wash the shore,

  And flowers spring up where there were no more.

  And when the new world these flowers see,

  They’ll know what became of you and me.

  “It is addressed To Paolo,” Diamanta said. “Signed by Greta.”

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Even the cameraman sniffed.

  But one unsentimental person was blatantly disappointed. “Well, that’s it, then,” said the Beethoven expert.

  The TV host took this as his cue, and turned to the camera and said, “At long last, the secret of the so-called Beethoven Lion has been revealed. It does not appear to be a musical fragment at all, but a love poem. Written many, many years ago, to a metalworking artisan from his beloved girlfriend, who was once a student of the great Maestro, Ludwig von Beethoven . . .”

  Meanwhile, Bruce spoke in a low voice to a member of the documentary crew, who in turn spoke via walkie-talkie to the music crew and pianist that were on stand-by inside the castle, giving them the message that it was a poem, not a musical fragment. We knew exactly when this message reached them, because we could hear them all groan at the same time, “Awwwhoa. . . .”

  Only Jeremy wasn’t listening. He had been peering intently at the fragment the whole time. Now he asked the museum woman with the cotton gloves and tweezer to turn the paper over, so he could examine the underside of the curl.

  “Look,” Jeremy said. “There’s something written on the reverse. See . . . here . . . doesn’t that look like . . . musical notes and . . . maybe, numbers?”

  “Yes!” cried the woman. I crept closer, and peered over Jeremy’s shoulder. He stepped aside so I could draw nearer. The paper was beige-colored, with brown music composition lines, on which the composer had written, in a strong, confident hand, black musical notes, faded now, but which looked as if they had been powerfully jotted down in a tearing hurry. Some were hastily crossed-out, smudged and redone. Above the notes were numbers: 4, 2, 4, 1, 7 . . .

  “What does it mean?” I asked in hushed awe.

  Bruce ordered the cameras back on, and the Beethoven expert came running over to examine it under a magnifier. For what seemed like an interminable pause, we all waited. Finally, he stepped back and looked up triumphantly.

  “It’s a fragment,” he declared, and the ruckus started all over again.

  “Push in closer!” Bruce commanded his cameraman. “Closer, damn it!”

  “But what are the numbers?” Jeremy demanded.

  The Beethoven expert was nearly dancing with glee. “It looks to me like an autograph fragment in Beethoven’s hand, written as a fingering exercise!” he cried, ecstatic. He glanced up at the crowd, expecting a response, but when he saw the baffled looks on all the faces, he realized he’d have to explain it.

  “Don’t you see,” he began, stumbling with excitement, “fingering. Fingering!”

  A clear, firm voice rang out from the crowd. “Not only did Beethoven write the notes, but he added numbering above them to indicate which fingers should play them.” The Count, sitting in his wheelchair, had been quietly brought into the room by his valet, who wheeled him closer now. I noticed that the Count had formally dressed for this important occasion in his life. He wore a navy suit, was well-shaved, and I think he’d even
gotten a haircut.

  “Stay on that guy,” Bruce instructed his cameraman.

  The Beethoven expert, far from feeling usurped, seemed glad to at last find someone who spoke the language of music. “Precisely, ” he beamed. “Most likely, he did this for a student,” he continued. “Beethoven was a great believer in the value of learning impeccable finger-work. He was a stern taskmaster, but generous enough to do this for his students.”

  “You mean, these are music scales that he wanted his students to memorize?” the program host asked, confused.

  “No, no,” said the Beethoven expert excitedly, studying the notes. “This is no mere exercise scale. I believe it is an original piano variation. The theme is quite recognizable as the Master’s. But this particular variation . . . I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it before. ”

  He wanted to dash into the castle with the fragment, and have the pianist play it, but Donaldson got all upset and said adamantly that the paper was too fragile to be taken anywhere. So the Beethoven expert got out his lined paper, copied the notes, and handed it to a member of the crew, who rushed into the castle to give it to the pianist.

  “Stand by,” said Bruce.

  And it seemed to me that everybody—the crew, the experts, the mountains, the birds, the fish in Lake Como, and the whole universe, in fact—held its breath and waited to hear the first of those notes come floating out on the air from the open windows in the castle.Da . . . DA . . . da . . . Da. . . .

  Da-da-da, da deedle-deedle Da . . .

  As soon as it reached my ears, I felt a physical sense of what I can only describe as “uplift.” It was a charming, playful, sweet melody, from far away and long ago. I imagined the great Beethoven, with his wild hair and unkempt clothes, painstakingly jotting down the numbers; and then standing watchfully over his student at the piano—Greta, who, sitting very upright and proper, earnestly plinked out the memorable, contagious little tune.Da . . . DA . . . da . . . Da. . . . .