A DIFFERENT GENUS OF SNOW from that in Prague, Nebraska, a sparse, urban snow, sootier than its prairie counterpart, filtered down from the drab skies over New York. It collected on parked cars and garbage bins, on streetlamps and bikes chained to wrought-iron fences, and on the overcoat of a man who stood in the East Village, blinking up at the tenement where Meta lived. Any passerby who didn’t know Petr Wittmann might have thought he was weeping. He was not. Rather, he was frowning, awed by the ugliness, to his snow-wet eyes, of this run-down edifice with its fire escape zigzagging up the brick facade, its paint flaking, some plastic flowerpots perched on rickety landings where dead and leafless plants were glazed by hoary slush.
Having arrived by taxi from his midtown hotel, he now climbed the worn cement steps, entered the dim foyer, and pressed the buzzer for Taverner, noting the spelling with a shrug. Given the distressed state of the building and, for that matter, the neighborhood itself, he wondered why she, or anyone else, would choose to live here. Realizing that nobody was at home, or at least that no one was inclined to speak on the intercom, he crossed to the other side of the street and scanned the top-floor windows, hoping to see her furtive face there, or some sign of life. Instead, the dirty windows dully stared back at him.
Wittmann felt a sudden twinge of pity for Meta Taverner. He now believed he understood why she was so committed to the sonata manuscript. How else would she be able to escape this slum? Her life was a dreary dead end—subsistence in this ramshackle building, living hand to mouth, a concert career shattered as Mandelbaum had explained, and little to look forward to in the rebound pursuit of musicology. The sonata was her meal ticket. Her search wasn’t the altruistic act of an idealist. It wasn’t a leap of faith into the pristine air of pure discovery and research. It was her way to get ahead.
As more snow drifted onto his face, he grimaced and looked down at his elegant brown shoes, remembering that the last time he stood staring up at a set of windows was on Jánská, before breaking into Gerrit’s apartment. He drove his hands into the pockets of his coat, shivered from both the cold and the memory, and silently walked away in a westward direction in search of a restaurant where he could have a quiet lunch, a drink or two, and think, before seeking out Meta’s mother farther west of Fifth Avenue.
For all his keen skills of observation, his talent for scrutinizing works of music and subtleties of performance, for all his past savvy in convincing others above and below him to capitulate to his ideas, his will, his wants, Wittmann had to admit to himself that he’d never been accomplished at self-scrutiny. He’d always been too busy to bother. It wasn’t as if, over the course of his notable career, he’d had a lot of time to sit down, fist to chin like that pensive Rodin, and think much beyond present exigencies. Maybe he should have. Maybe if he had, he’d be a still-married man collaborating on a once-in-a-lifetime discovery rather than thousands of miles from Prague, nursing a bowl of French onion soup and a glass of cabernet.
Reluctantly, Wittmann realized how nostalgic he was for the times when Mandelbaum and he had worked hand in glove. Heady days, those, when his books were doing well and he was manipulating a system that was itself masterfully manipulative of comrades who stepped outside politburo policies. The income from his complicated transactions never hurt either.
That Mandelbaum had gone to seed, shunning any such pursuits, was his choice. But Wittmann, now, here, for all his second thoughts, was in it deep. His return ticket was open, he mused, after a second glass. He could get a good night’s sleep at the hotel, call Charles Castell in the morning with profound regrets at having failed to procure the score, catch his flight back to Prague, and start making notes toward his next book. He had been thinking about Leonard Bernstein, a natural outgrowth of his Mahler research. The composer of West Side Story, like his forebear, was a celebrated conductor, one who championed Mahler’s once neglected, even Nazi-banned symphonies and brought them to the wider public. Bernstein was a man of his time. A political activist, he gave parties attended by Black Panthers. A married man, he also slept with men. A dashing globe-trotter, he was classical music’s world ambassador. A born showman, he was balletic on the maestro’s podium. Yes, Leonard Bernstein was a terrific subject. One his publishers would love, a project he could deliver in two years without any problem.
After a calvados, Wittmann paid his tab and left the restaurant. Snow had tapered off and the sun had come out. The city was sparkling and winking. He hadn’t settled on what he would say to Meta’s mother if he succeeded in locating her, but those drinks had dissolved his brief ambivalence. The air was bracing as he made his march up Sixth Avenue to Twenty-Third Street and took a left toward the Hudson River.
The opposite of Meta’s down-at-the-heels brownstone, London Terrace was a classic prewar apartment building that took up an entire city block between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Wittmann entered the lobby and asked to see Mrs. Taverner, telling the doorman he was a musicologist colleague of her daughter’s in from overseas. When asked for his name, he said simply, “Petr,” having no idea whether or not the girl had been in touch with her mother about him or anyone else in her travels.
“And your last name?”
“Wittmann,” he said, reluctantly.
To his surprise, Meta’s mother was in and Wittmann was invited up. Before walking to the elevator, he asked the doorman, “I’m sorry, but could you remind me what Mrs. Taverner’s first name is? Her daughter mentioned it on more than one occasion, but the old memory, you know,” and tapped two fingers on his forehead, offering an appealing grin.
“I know what you mean,” the doorman said. “Her name’s Kate.”
“That’s right—Kate, of course. Much obliged.”
During the ride up, Wittmann forged his story. He needed to contact Meta directly to let her know he was sorry things had gotten off on the wrong foot. He now understood how consequential this manuscript was, and she would need help finding the lost pages and then deciding what would be best for its proper preservation. He knew a gentleman who would be more than willing to act as a kind of patron to fund all this, and he, Wittmann, was ready to serve as intermediary on her behalf. As he rehearsed this narrative in his head, it all sounded believable because, for the most part, it wasn’t far from the truth.
When Kate Taverner opened the door, she didn’t ask him in at first, saying instead, “You’re friends with Meta?”
“We’re acquaintances, yes. She’s said many nice things about you, Kate. I hope you don’t mind my dropping in unannounced.” He identified himself as one of the musicologists her daughter came to Prague to consult, a longtime colleague of Mandelbaum, and explained he was in New York on unrelated business. “I thought I’d try to contact your daughter about something important that came up after she left the Czech Republic.”
“About the manuscript, you mean?”
“Exactly. I’ve been approached by someone who is interested in her project and, if I’m not mistaken, might be willing to help her.”
Still clearly wary but curious, she said, “Please, come in,” and led him into a sparsely decorated, light-filled living room that doubled as a design studio.
“Graphic arts, interior design?” he asked, nodding at her drafting board and large computer monitor. Despite his focus on other matters, he couldn’t help being impressed by this woman’s style, her silk blouse and loose-fitting trousers that flowed with her as she turned and offered him a seat on a club chair covered with beige cloque.
“So, tell me more about this,” taking a seat on a facing sofa and ignoring his question.
He decided to keep things vague. Describing an unnamed Castell as self-made, committed to the arts, a collector and lay scholar with whom he’d worked successfully in the past and deeply trusted, Wittmann explained he’d been asked to pass along the man’s interest in the manuscript and see if some arrangement could be made.
“He wants to buy it, in other words?”
“He certainly has the means,
if that’s what Meta would want. Do you happen to know where I can reach her about this?”
“She doesn’t have a cell phone in this country. Last time I heard she was in Texas. Or, no, maybe Oklahoma. I’m a little unclear, just that she was on the road.”
Wittmann was unable to disguise how much this threw him. He stared at Meta’s mother openmouthed before recovering his composure. “I naturally thought she would have returned to New York, or maybe gone to some other city with a research institution. I’m not even sure where Oklahoma is,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “The only reference to it I know, besides the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, is in Kafka’s The Castle. And I’m positive Kafka never visited Oklahoma.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Did she say what she was doing there?”
“She’s doing the same thing she has been doing for months, chasing down—” and here she halted, remembering too late her daughter’s warning not to discuss these things with anyone. If this man, surely the expert who gave Meta so much grief, didn’t know about her theory that Otylie might be residing in a Prague right here in America, then Kate was not about to reveal the information. Not wanting to hurt Meta’s prospects, but reading a strange blend of eagerness and discomfort in Wittmann’s face, she said, “Professor Wittmann, I have no idea exactly where she is, and since she’s on the road, I have no way to reach her.”
“Well,” he finished, deciding not to push further, “do please let me give you my hotel information, in case she gets in touch. I’d be delighted to fill her in on the details.”
On his way out, he asked, for no pointed or scheming reason, “Is this where your daughter grew up? I couldn’t help but notice the piano over there.”
“It is. That piano was her entire life. I can still see her playing it.”
His eyes swept around the room, as if its details might somehow help him figure out what he should do next. Normally when he found himself in New York with no schedule to adhere to, he would find out who was playing Carnegie or Avery Fisher or downtown at the Blue Note and go listen to music. But just now, as he found himself back on the chill and slushy streets of Chelsea, another glass of something strong seemed more in order.
All Mandelbaum could manage to say to Kate Taverner, after his wife called him to the phone, was, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m telling you, he left here five minutes ago.”
“How did he find you? What did he want?”
She gave him as close to a verbatim account of the visit as she could, then added, “I’m not sure what to do. He did sound very serious about this collector being interested.”
Mandelbaum sat on a stool at the long butcher-block counter in his kitchen and looked out the window at a family of chickadees on the bird feeder. “Like him or hate him, that’s a part of the musical universe he knows well. Fact is, there’s little about music he doesn’t know to some degree, and that’s why I proposed Meta meet with him in the first place.”
“She knows your intentions were good, Paul.”
“What’s that line about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Meta and Gerrit are on a different road, though. Did she give you any idea when she might touch base next?”
“She wasn’t specific, but it sounded like they were close. I’m so mad at myself for mentioning Oklahoma to him. At least I didn’t say anything about Nebraska.”
“What on earth’s in Nebraska besides corn and sandhill cranes?”
“With luck, Otylie Bartošová.”
“Well, Godspeed to them, wherever they find themselves,” Mandelbaum said. “Your daughter’s a force of nature.”
“What about Gerrit?” Kate couldn’t help but ask. Watching from afar Meta’s long-distance breakup and new relationship with someone Kate had yet to meet was like squinting at something important that wasn’t quite in focus. “Did you get to know him a little when you were there?”
Hearing the concern in her voice, Mandelbaum assured her, “A good man.” He rose to go tap on the window to ward off a raucous blue jay that had scattered the chickadees. “I’m no authority on romance, far from it, but from what I can see he’s madly in love with her, and vice versa.”
“Music to a mother’s ears,” said Kate Taverner.
After she gave him Wittmann’s hotel number—“Not sure what I’d say to him that I haven’t already said,” Mandelbaum told her—he returned to his study, where he lit a rare cigar and paced up and down the wide floorboards that creaked comfortingly with every step. Wittmann’s tenacity was jolting, if not entirely surprising. Mandelbaum had to admit to himself that he’d been wrong. Disappearing from Prague, tacitly recanting any deal they’d flirted with, was not enough to convince his colleague that an endgame had been reached and it was time to move on. Just as the sonata had assumed control of Meta’s life, so had it seized Petr’s. Mandelbaum wondered in passing if the moneyman Wittmann had in tow was somebody they could work with toward a favorable solution. But he knew that either Meta’s idealism or Petr’s avidity, or both, would be likely to rule it out.
For his part, Wittmann, emboldened by yet another calvados in a nondescript if noisy bar on Ninth Avenue and then, back in the tastefully oak-paneled and quiet hotel bar, a split of chardonnay, decided to proceed with the plan he’d set in place before leaving Prague. The time had come to call his newspaper contact and tell him to publish the full story. Was there risk in going public with his claim of discovering the final rondo movement of an unknown piano sonata attributable to Beethoven? Yes, but the time line was murky in his favor, he felt, and Johana Langová would stand by him if push came to shove. Was there further risk in asserting that he himself had first identified the central movement, brought to him by an American student for examination, as being by the great composer? Of course, but his scholarly reputation and popularity in various circles made it a practicable risk. Besides, unlike the girl, he was on record with several Beethoven experts as having proposed such a possibility very early in the game. He might have preferred to avoid directly accusing Meta of committing a crime by smuggling original copies of the manuscript out of the country, but the time for that was past. She herself would have to explain her actions and others could make up their minds.
As he had tried to tell Mandelbaum more than once, he’d been willing to share. Share credit, share whatever benefits might come from the salvaging of such a treasure. But he had been blocked, tricked, dismissed. And it was now clear from Kate Taverner that Meta was more lost in the woods than ever, running around Oklahoma—where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. He smirked. Enough was enough.
After breakfast, Meta asked Otylie if it would be possible to make two long-distance collect calls, to her mother and her mentor.
“Anything you need,” Otylie said.
Meta walked to the front room and sat at a small desk, which displayed framed photographs from Otylie’s life. In one that caught Meta’s eye, Otylie, in her sixties probably, was standing knee-deep in a calm river wearing waders, with a bamboo rod in one hand and holding high in the other a trout she had caught. A handsome man, surely her second husband, stood next to her mugging for the camera with both palms extended outward, shoulders hunched in jesting dismay, rod tucked under one arm but no fish to brag about. A touching image, Meta thought. Such a path Otylie had followed, and now to have this moment that wove part of her past into her present? Once in a rare while life veered—or erred—toward perfection.
Her mother accepted the reverse charges.
Without preliminaries, Meta said in as calm a voice as she could muster, “I have the best news a daughter could tell her mother—”
“What!”
“—Oh, no, it’s not that, but just as good.”
Catching her breath, Kate Taverner quickly understood. She hated to cut in on her daughter’s triumph, but she had to let Meta know about Petr Wittmann’s unexpected visit.
“If he wants to help, fine,” Meta interrup
ted. “If he wants to hinder, fine. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. The fact is, I’ve put the sonata back into the hands of its uncontested, rightful owner, Otylie Bartošová Hajek, and nobody can dispute that.”
“Meta. Listen to me. I’ve been getting calls since then from reporters looking for you to comment about a story that seems to have broken in a Prague newspaper. They’re saying you may have fled the country with a stolen score, cultural treasure, all that.”
Stomach tightening, Meta said, “That’s crazy, totally backward. If I fled from anything, it was a potential thief named Petr Wittmann. I’ve got to call Paul right away, and Gerrit has to be in touch with his editor to get her the true story, so I’m sorry but I need to sign off now.”
Mandelbaum, it turned out, had also received calls from several news organizations and had refrained from commenting. “But tell me first,” he said. “You actually found her? The manuscript’s intact? It all matches, aligns, musically fits? What does it sound like?”
When Meta, after briefly answering his yes-or-no questions, told him about the music written, she was as sure as sunrise, in Beethoven’s hand, Mandelbaum’s end of the line went quiet.
“An autograph sketch,” he finally said.
“Yes, trust me.”
“Christ almighty. Anything you recognize?”
“Paul, I found it less than twenty-four hours ago. I haven’t had time for any kind of analysis. That said, I’d be surprised if it didn’t find its way, revised probably, into the canon. You know how he worked.”
“Do I. This brings the business into a whole new realm.”
“I can say this. The sketch is definitely not a part of the sonata itself, at least this sonata. That much is indisputable. Feels later, more mature, more sui generis.”
The Prague Sonata Page 46
