The Prague Sonata

by Bradford Morrow

  “Poor Beneš,” Gerrit commented. “Lost his presidency twice, first in ’38 when the Germans annexed the Sudetenland and forced him to resign, then again a decade later, after returning triumphant to Prague, when the Communists pulled a coup on his three-year-old government. Talk about not catching a break. And look here. Man doesn’t even get the courtesy of a haček over the s in his name on this plaque.”

  “He didn’t live very long,” Meta noticed.

  “Well, sixty-four isn’t exactly a short life. He did manage to oversee arrangements for assassinating Heydrich. That alone is a life well lived. And given how many enemies he faced, it’s sort of amazing he made it as long as he did.”

  Having located a copy of a document called the “Czechoslovak List,” which had been published by the ministry of foreign affairs during the war and which noted addresses in London where the exile government operated, Meta and Gerrit found themselves canvassing Grosvenor Place and Wilton Crescent, Princes Gate and Keswick Road. They were met with a wide variety of responses, from the usual “I’m terribly sorry I can’t help you, but good luck” to the rare if always deflating “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Why don’t you go to the Czech embassy and ask if there are records there?” one man suggested. It was an obvious question, but they couldn’t admit that their uneasiness about Wittmann kept them away, so thanked him and moved on.

  Near the hotel they found a kiosk that sold an array of international newspapers, many of which Gerrit knew well and several for which he wrote now and again. As Gerrit—who was more multilingual than Meta had realized—pored over the pages from front to back, she found herself most worried that Mandelbaum’s name would turn up. Arrested, she feared. Or else deported. Discredited, either way. But his name never appeared in the British, German, French, or even Czech papers, nor did anything having to do with them or the manuscript.

  The most heartening response they got was from an elderly woman who lived near Fursecroft. Standing hesitantly at her front door, she knitted her brow and said, “Bartoš?”

  “Yes, Otylie Bartošová—her husband’s name was Bartoš.”

  Meta’s pulse doubled when the woman turned to face inside, still holding the heavy oak door half-open, and called to someone unseen, “Wasn’t there an Alfréd Bartoš who lived around here somewhere during the war?”

  There was, yes. When Meta and Gerrit were invited in, they were introduced to a man in his late seventies seated sleepily in a wheelchair. He wore a cardigan sweater and dark green corduroy pants. A display of medals, citations, and period photographs of an aviator, surely this very gentleman, was proudly laid out on a mahogany secretary in the corner. At the far end of the room a television was tuned to a cricket match with the sound so low as to be inaudible. Despite his being elderly, the man’s memory was unimpaired, and he briefly told these strangers the story of a First Lieutenant Alfréd Bartoš, a war hero, as it happened, who had been in London but was dispatched to operate undercover in the Czech homeland, helping covert paratroopers infiltrate Prague and its suburbs.

  “Nice man, quite handsome, tall forehead, strong noble nose,” he related, as if he’d seen Bartoš just yesterday. “I heard he shot himself in the head before the Gestapo could catch him. That was back in June of 1942. True hero, and like so many he didn’t live to see he’d won the war.”

  Having finished his story, the man turned, somewhat wistful, to Meta and apologized that, alas, he was afraid he had no knowledge of any Otylie Bartoš.

  For a moment, silence hung like a clapperless bell in the room. Only the tinny cheers of the stadium crowd were heard. Gerrit couldn’t help thinking of what Jiří would assert, that the Czechs, unlike the Brits, had only temporarily won their war.

  Meta finally said, “Thanks so much for your time. You’ve been very kind.”

  “I’m sorry. I think we’re keeping you from your match,” Gerrit added, but as he and Meta were about to leave, the man’s wife spoke up.

  “Henry, wasn’t there a lovely Czech girl who roomed for a time near here who went by the name of Tilly? Didn’t she work for the Czech government during the war?”

  “The one who had that American friend who worked at the hospital?”

  “They might both have done. But yes, that’s her. I wonder if she might possibly be your Otylie.”

  “Tilly, Otylie,” Meta said. She could hear it.

  “Those two young ladies were inseparable,” the woman told Meta and Gerrit, who stood waiting for more, doubtful yet dumbfounded by the possibility.

  “I don’t recollect the American’s name, do you?” the man went on.

  His wife couldn’t, she admitted, but a friend who used to go out with them during the war, a woman with the memorable name of Max, might. “Let me see if I can ring her up. Lives not far from here, with her son and daughter-in-law. She’s not young, mind you—”

  “None of us are,” her husband said.

  “—but who knows?”

  Max was asleep, it turned out, not feeling well, and couldn’t come to the phone. But after hearing the reason for the call, her daughter-in-law said that she would get back to them if Max happened to remember anything about this Tilly and her American friend. Did they have a hotel exchange they could pass along? Meta and Gerrit thanked the couple, leaving their phone and room numbers.

  “I’m sorry Henry and I weren’t able to be of more help,” the woman told her visitors as she showed them out.

  “Sorry?” said Meta, shaking her fragile extended hand. “You’ve given us more than we could’ve hoped for.”

  A trip out to visit Aylesbury Vale the following crisp autumn day, to see where the exiled president and those closest to him lived and worked, turned up another couple of Bartošes, men who served in the presidential guard. But again, no one recalled an Otylie Bartošová. Bartošes had been everywhere, it seemed, but not the one they sought. A woman they met at a local pub, the Royal Oak, a place that had been serving stout and fare for centuries, did know a bit about the exile government days, having been born in nearby Cublington and grown up here during the war. She insisted that when they finished lunch they had best return to the city to look further into the Fursecroft offices. “Unless your Otylie worked for the president or his closest advisers, she most likely worked there. Many of the Czech refugee secretaries at the time did.”

  “If she was right, then it’s not like we’ve been so wrong,” said Meta on the train from Aylesbury back to London.

  “True,” Gerrit agreed. “Problem is, we’ve already asked around the Fursecroft block. We can do it again, but I think we have to admit that this is a way bigger haystack than what we were dealing with in my little neighborhood in Prague. Twenty thousand Czechs, give or take, fled here during the war. Trying to find a specific one of twenty thousand needles, especially half a century later—well, I think we may want to take a different approach.”

  Meta remembered worrying over the same problem in the middle of the night not so long ago, after paying respects to Tomáš at Marta’s place. “But what would that be?” She tucked her hair, which had grown longer than she usually wore it, behind her ear.

  “When we were crossing the Channel, I gave this some thought.”

  “When we were crossing the Channel you were mostly asleep, babe,” she reminded him with a grin.

  “Dozing, daydreaming. But weighing options too. I’m more convinced than ever that the only way to do this right is for me to go to my paper’s bureau here and contact Margery in New York,” he said. “She’ll have resources that can potentially help move things along.”

  Meta’s smile flattened. “Aren’t you afraid of drawing attention? I mean, I don’t know whether Mandelbaum was being paranoid or not, but he was flat-out explicit in telling us to stay under the radar. You really think it’s a good idea to risk exposing ourselves to a major newspaper editor?”

  “I hear you,” Gerrit said. “But Margery’s never sold me down so much as a stream, le
t alone a river.”

  “And I hear you, but there’s so much at stake. We fled Prague in the middle of the night. I’m being accused of things that aren’t true. I’m a trusting person. But right now, other than you, I hardly trust a soul.”

  “If you trust me, then let me trust Margery.”

  “She’s going to ask you what you’re doing, right?”

  “Point-blank. She hasn’t heard from me in a while and I imagine I’ll get it in the neck for being so off the grid.”

  Meta gazed past Gerrit at the Chiltern Hills countryside flying by outside the train’s windows. She caught a flickering image of herself reflected in the glass, backgrounded by the wintry blur of Chorleywood. What was her hesitation? and wondered, What was there to lose? Look at how many people had risked so much when this manuscript had come into their lives. Her eyes refocused on the man looking at her.

  “I’m the one being paranoid, probably. You should follow your instinct, go to the bureau, make the call.”

  Gerrit kissed her and said, “No guarantee she’ll be able or willing to help, but you never know unless you ask.”

  “While you’re doing that, I want to follow up on an instinct of my own.”

  “Something you’ve told me about?”

  “I’m heading to the library. Like you said, there’s a whole lot of haystack here. I want to try approaching this from a different angle. You’ll be the first to know if I come up with anything.”

  “All right, deal. Tomorrow morning we part company.”

  “Just for a little while.”

  “For a very little while,” he said.

  MANDELBAUM AGREED TO MEET WITTMANN for what he knew would be their final meal in the hotel restaurant where they’d shared their reunion breakfast. From Wittmann’s perspective, all might yet be well if he could persuade his old colleague not to squander this opportunity. From Mandelbaum’s, it was a matter of subtly forcing a delay, biding and buying time. He had to play a bit of the fool to do this, but pride was a luxury at the moment. Perhaps he could be proud later, if Meta succeeded in finding what she was looking for rather than becoming the center of an international scandal in the rarefied classical music world.

  Caviar pie, asparagus with hollandaise, and, bien sûr, champagne, Wittmann told the waiter, after Mandelbaum settled a napkin on his lap and insisted his friend order a king’s meal, his treat. Rather than appearing distressed this morning, Wittmann was upbeat.

  Mandelbaum felt upbeat too, having heard from Sam that Meta and Gerrit were in England. Clearly, his colleague didn’t realize the two had eluded him. Had he known they’d left the country, a gourmet breakfast would be the last thing he would want.

  “Caviar pie. You’d think we were celebrating,” Mandelbaum said.

  “Maybe we are, who knows? Now tell me what your acolyte thinks about the proposals we discussed day before yesterday.”

  “I will. But first,” taking a sip from the sparkling flute, “tell me if what we talked about has remained between us. Your ‘friends in high places’ made me uncomfortable.”

  “Well, they were meant to, I admit.” Wittmann went on to report that he had phoned a close contact inside the culture ministry. “Kept everything obscure, no names, just inquired whether certain authorities would be interested if I was unable to resolve the matter myself.”

  Cloaking his anger behind as cool an image of nonchalance as he could muster, Mandelbaum asked, “And what did this culture vulture say, may I ask?”

  Wittmann hesitated for several beats. “He told me, in essence, that if I required any help from the ministry, for me to call him—right away.”

  That sounded off. Mandelbaum had a good ear for the operatic, and interpreted the pause and inflected right to mean that Wittmann may have encountered problems with his upper-echelon connection. Assuming he’d even had such a conversation.

  “Good of you not to unleash the dogs, Petr.”

  “Am I detecting some cynicism? You think the dogs don’t exist?”

  “I said nothing of the kind.”

  What Mandelbaum didn’t know was that Wittmann had placed not one but several calls to officials he had worked with over the years. With some he had encountered frustrating apathy, even mild antagonism—this was a matter for the justice department, not for culture. But others were not so dismissive, and suggested he stay in touch if he needed advice about potential recourse.

  “You never answered my question, Paul. How did your Meta respond to our idea?”

  No choice but to lie. “She wasn’t closed to it.”

  “That’s all?” Wittmann said, coloring. “She wasn’t closed to it?”

  “I don’t think you understand how central this is to her life, Petr. For you, for me, even for the Lang family the manuscript has a certain significance. And, fine, maybe for the Ministry of Culture. But it’s more than a project to Meta. It’s practically become her reason for living. Give her a couple of days to think things through.”

  “This sentimentality is really awful, Paul. Wax sentimental about our divine beluga, not eighteenth-century manuscript material, and a hopeful girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing or whom she’s dealing with. Please.”

  Mandelbaum just said, “You’re not mistaken about this caviar pie. It’s delicious.”

  “Delighted you like it. So, where is the manuscript now?”

  “In a safe place, trust me.”

  “I want to trust you, Paul, but I’d rather see the score for myself. Also, I think it would be best if it was kept here in the hotel safe, where both of us know its location.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Mandelbaum responded.

  His face abruptly brightening, Wittmann changed the subject. “I made another call that’s worth discussing. Again, no need to give you names, but I spoke with a gentleman of considerable means with homes in Manhattan, Paris, Geneva, as well as here in Prague.”

  “He collects more than houses, I gather.”

  “Indeed, he does.”

  “And he’s willing to pay a small fortune for the sonata?”

  “Let us say his interest is piqued. Especially when I mentioned Beethoven as a strong probability.”

  “Probability?” Mandelbaum chuckled. “I’d say possibility at best. There’s a great deal of work to do before any such claim can openly be made. Hell, you know that.”

  “I do know that. But this collector is vastly wealthy for a reason. He’s a speculator. We would not, mind you, price the manuscript at what one might estimate its full retail value would be were it definitively attributed to Beethoven. Instead, give it a valuation somewhere between that of a lesser composer and the master himself. I didn’t even discuss price with him anyway. Just his interest.”

  “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Petr?” Mandelbaum asked, hardly knowing what else to say.

  Ignoring the interruption, Wittmann finished, “The best part about this, should it come to pass, is that even though he’s not Czech, he’ll be willing to loan it indefinitely to the proper institute here in Prague for limited-access study.”

  “You mean for yourself to study.”

  “Yes, of course. And,” as if waking up, “your Meta Tavener, as well.”

  “She’s not my Meta, Petr. She’s her own Meta Taverner, not mine.” How sorely Mandelbaum wanted to tell him that not only was Meta not his ward, she was no longer even in the Czech Republic, and might soon leave Europe, for all he knew. But he held his tongue. The farther away Meta could get from this man who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, get her name right, the better. Petr would find out eventually that she and Gerrit had left. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe later that afternoon. When that did happen, Paul thought, he might want to be out of the Czech Republic himself.

  Wittmann was speaking. “—never meant that as derogatory. The opposite, my friend. Anyone can plainly see how fond she is of you and vice versa.”

  “On that point I have no argument.”
<
br />   “Well. This collector is in Barcelona on business but will be here in Prague at the top of next week and would like to examine the score.”

  Four and a half, five days, thought Mandelbaum. At least there was a timetable now.

  “That sounds fine,” he said, in as placating a voice as he could manage. “Now, old boy, shall we set all this business aside for a moment and enjoy our breakfast? What do you say we order more of this excellent Louis Roederer and talk about fine champagne, the price of eggs—hen’s or sturgeon’s, I don’t care—anything other than that damned manuscript.”

  THE PHONE WOKE THEM BOTH. Its ring was loud, an insistent, atonal double pulse. Coming fully awake, they blinked at the late morning light that streamed in a chalky column through the sheer window curtains. Meta glanced at the bedside clock and realized that, exhausted from all the travel and turmoil, they had overslept. Her first jolting thought was that Wittmann had found them.

  She cleared her throat, picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Is this Meta Taverner?” a woman asked.

  “Yes?” she said, wondering why she’d pronounced the word as a question.

  “You were the one inquiring about Tilly Bartošová?” The surname was pronounced as an English speaker would say it, with the stress on the third rather than the first syllable.

  “Yes,” she said, this time with no hint of a question.

  “My mother-in-law, Maxine Kendrick, isn’t feeling up to speaking with you directly, but she did want me to convey that she knew your relative or friend.”

  By now Meta considered Otylie, or Tilly, both relative and friend, so she didn’t contradict the caller. “Oh!” was all she could manage.

  “And Tilly’s friend Jane too.”

  “Jane?”

  “Yes, I gather from Mum that Jane was Tilly’s closest friend here during the war.”