by Shoshi
human rights. The police did what they wanted with you.
Carol ran into the Mozart bedroom where she found Constanze sitting beside him as he slept. She had not heard the commotion outside their front door. “Constanze,” she whispered so as not to wake Mozart. “They’ve come to take me away.”
“Who are you talking about, child?” said Constanze impatiently. English children, she was beginning to realize, were just different from Austrian ones. High-strung and feverish, to say the least.
“The police,” Carol said. “They probably think I took the doctor’s bag.” She knew the composer’s wife had a weakness for tears, especially those of children, but, though she felt like crying, she couldn’t make the tears come.
Constanze did not seem too concerned. “Nonsense,” she said. “There is a mistake. I will go and speak to them. Come with me, Carol.”
That didn’t sound like a good idea—Carol thought she might be better off hiding---but she had little choice but to follow Constanze to the front door. Outside was a rather natty-looking policeman in a dark blue uniform with brass buttons and gold epaulettes and a plumed helmet. They do dress well here, thought Carol.
With him was a scowling Dr. Closset. He began a loud rant the minute he saw Constanze and Carol. “She is one of the perpetrators,” he said pointing his stick at Carol. “The boy must be hiding inside.”
“Please, Dr. Closset,” said the policeman pleasantly but firmly. “I must handle this.”
“Of course, of course,” growled the doctor.
“Madame, you are Frau Mozart?”
“I am,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“This gentleman has filed a complaint about a boy in your care. He says he committed a theft involving a black bag containing all his surgical instruments.”
“There is no such boy living here,” said Constanze.
“Was there such a boy in your care recently?”
“No such boy was ever in my care,” she said emphatically. It was true, thought Carol. She and Mathew were never officially placed in her care.
At this point the doctor blustered in. “Officer, I saw the little devil with my two eyes. Do you doubt me? I was about to perform a surgical procedure on Herr Mozart when this young—” He couldn’t find a strong enough word to express the depth of his anger so he just spluttered: “---person stole my medical bag and escaped!”
Constanze eyed the black bag he was carrying. “Is that the bag?” she said with a small smile.
“There is nothing to smile at, Frau Mozart!” The doctor paused as everyone stared at the bag. “Well, yes, this is my medical bag,” he said.
“Are all your instruments intact inside it?” asked the officer.
“Indeed, they are, thank goodness.”
Constanze spoke quietly. “You say your bag was stolen. Yet you have it in your hand, and it safely holds all your instruments. You speak of a thief. Yet there is no thief here. There are also no witnesses to this crime.” She looked at Carol as if for confirmation.
“I personally saw no robbery take place, gentlemen. Neither did this young lady.”
Now a new voice was heard. Mozart had waked up from his sleep and had come to the door in his white nightgown. “I was there, too, officer, and I saw nothing.”
The policeman bowed respectfully in the presence of the composer as he was well-known in Vienna. It was also known that he was ill. “Herr Mozart, forgive us for disturbing you.”
“He must return to his bed, gentlemen,” said Constanze. “He should not be up.”
“Of course,” said the policeman. “I think it’s quite clear that—”
“---that almost nothing is clear,” said Constanze. “Except for one thing. This doctor is intent on getting you to make a false arrest.”
“Well, that was never my intention,” said the officer. He turned to Dr. Closset. “There seems to be no valid evidence of a crime, doctor. No stolen goods, no witnesses, no thief.”
“I completely disagree,” huffed the doctor.
The policeman held up his hand to silence any further discussion. “I think we should let Herr Mozart go back to bed as his wife says. Frau Mozart, Herr Mozart, please forgive this intrusion.” He bowed, and the two men left.
Constanze closed the front door—just in time to prevent the officer and the doctor hearing Mozart explode with laughter. “That was the silliest thing I ever heard,” he said, “but you were completely wonderful, Constanze. Wasn’t she, Carol?” He drew his wife to him and hugged her hard.
“You were, you were,” said Carol. She’d been blown away by Constanze’s performance, a demonstration of cool like she’d never heard before in her life.
• THIRTEEN •
Mathew was getting set to time travel to Vienna, but suddenly he began to feel a bit guilty about grabbing all those free samples.
I mean, yeah, Carol’s dad didn’t pay a nickel for any of them, he said to himself, but still they belonged to him, not Mathew. Dr. Pindler was going to discover some of them had been heisted the next time he opened that drawer. There was no way Mathew could disguise that.
He debated leaving a note in the drawer confessing everything. No good, he realized. The antibiotics would go on being missing—and he’d look like a common thief by confessing, which he hadn’t looked like up to now.
Then, he thought of something. The doctor had given them permission to borrow any of his books on music, especially on Mozart. Maybe he could grab a book now, leave it on the desk and drop a thank you note on it. That would seem like he was being very responsible—not just a jerk who would rob him of his samples as well as his books. Maybe, he hoped, he wouldn’t notice the missing samples.
So he went over to the bookcase and pulled out the old history book that the handwritten page of music had fallen out of. And that’s when he remembered the second page that had fallen out of it that had Mozart’s signature on it. He’d mention finding it in his note. Now he’d look more responsible than ever.
But wait! How could he do that? Mozart’s signature was the talisman, his key to being able to time travel. No, the book would have to be enough. He took up a pencil and wrote on a scrap of paper:
“Thanks for letting us see your Mozart book, Dr. Pindler. Really interesting. So long, Mathew.”
Now he better get going and try to return to Vienna. He debated getting in touch with his mom, but he didn’t want to worry her. Besides, he’d be coming back to America soon enough—with Carol and the Reckie in hand.
He listened to be sure the doctor wasn’t on his way back up stairs. Then, he stood in the middle of the room and pulled the Mozart talisman out of his pocket. The note was already getting a bit tattered from being in his pocket. Yellow flakes were falling off it as the edges of the paper crumbled away. He held it in front of him and slowly and deliberately traced the signature with his right forefinger---what he had seen Carol do---and waited for the whirlwind to come down on him.
But it never came. In fact, nothing at all happened. He knew it because the yellow pane of glass in the library’s window did not go away. “What am I going to do?” he whispered desperately. “I’ve got to get back to Vienna.”
“What are you doing in here?” said a familiar voice. Holy Cow. It was Carol’s mom. He hadn’t even heard her come up behind him.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Pindler,” he said trying to be as offhand as he could.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Not especially,” he said. She gave him a puzzled look. The next question he knew would be a tough one—like “are you looking for something?” I mean Carol wasn’t with him. Didn’t that make it look like he was breaking and entering, maybe trying to make off with valuable items?
Instead, she didn’t ask him that. She asked him an even tougher question, one he had no idea how to answer. “Where is she?” she asked.
�
��You mean Carol?” He was stalling for time. Any amount of time that would allow him to come up with an answer.
“Who else would I mean, Mathew?” she said. He wished to God he had taken the time to think through some shrewd answers to questions like these.
“Oh, she’s out there, I guess---at soccer practice.” He had no idea if Carol even knew how to play soccer. It was a popular sport so she might.
Mrs. Pindler hesitated. “I didn’t l know she played soccer,” she said. “She’s never mentioned it.”
“She just took it up,” he said. “There’s a game Saturday.” That part was true.
“I see,” she said slowly. “And if she’s at soccer practice---why are you here in our house?” He opened his mouth to answer her, but he couldn’t think of anything convincing to say.
After a moment she narrowed her eyes and asked the toughest question of all. “Why are you lying to me, Mathew?”
To which there was no answer he dared share with her. The trouble with lying, he thought, was lies just piled up and piled up, one on top of the other so that you couldn’t see under them to the first lie you’d told. It made remembering them very difficult. You had to tell a lie to blot out the one before, and, then you had to tell another lie to blot out that one. And on and on and on.
Suddenly, salvation came. The cheerful ring tune of a cell phone floated in from the other side of the apartment. “Have to get that. Please wait here for me, Mathew,” she said sternly.
“Yes, mam,” he said, but he
