Three

by Shoshi

bank officer. He was almost speechless. No one had ever given him such a generous present in his whole life.

  Mozart plunked two of his ducats down on the desk. The officer’s hands were trembling as he counted out a thousand dollars in fifties and twenties plus a few tens and fives and handed them over. Mozart stuffed them into his shirt and fled out of the bank. Joe, the cab driver, was still waiting at the curb. “Upper West Side please,” said Mozart as he flung himself into the back seat.

  “33 West 95?” said Joe.

  “That’s it, and thank you,” said Mozart. After a moment, he added: “This is a weird city, Joe. Very weird indeed.”

  “Lots of customers say that,” said Joe, “especially the out-of-towners.” He whooshed away from the curb, headed for Central Park West.

  Mozart began to doze. He was almost asleep when he heard music in the distance. “What’s that?” he asked, never expecting to hear live music in a city full of skyscrapers.

  “Bunch of kids,” said Joe.

  “Let’s stop and listen,” said Mozart.

  “Hey, I’ve got to get back to work, fellah.”

  Mozart reached into his shirt and pulled out a couple of hundred-dollar bills and pushed them through the sliding window. “Yeah, good idea, let’s stop and listen,” said Joe happily. “In fact, you’ve got me till dinner time. Then, I got to give these wheels to somebody else.”

  Mozart opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. He gazed around him in awe at the soaring trees of Central Park. “Look!” he cried in amazement. “A beautiful forest right in the middle of the city! Americans do love nature.”

  “Do you think he really will visit us?” asked Carol.

  “I sure hope so,” said Mathew, “but you know something? This guy’s no Medal of Honor hero. He scares easily. I wonder if he’ll get up the nerve to zoom through two centuries to bring us the Reckie—and your cell.”

  “I’d love to see him again,” she said. “He’s kind of cute in spite of that garbage dump breath of his.”

  “We need to buy him a toothbrush,” said Mathew, “and a tube of mint gel.”

  They were walking across Central Park on the way to Carol’s house. A bevy of young kids were dancing together on a green lawn. One of their parents had the radio on to a rock station that was playing a Taylor Swift song. “I bet he would have liked her,” said Carol. “It’s his kind of music. He told me he loves Vienna ‘street music.’”

  They stopped to watch the kids dancing and, then, walked on. “Wait a minute, Mat. Wait a minute.” An incredulous look crossed her face. “It can’t be---”

  “What are you jabbering about, Carol? Let’s get there. We’ve still got a ways to walk.”

  “Who was that dancing with those kids back there?”

  “I don’t know, the short guy you mean? Probably somebody’s little brother.”

  Carol stared at him long and hard. “It was Mozart,” she whispered.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I know it was him! Come on!”

  They both began running back to the grassy meadow where the kids were dancing. They were still at it—but the guy was gone. Carol grabbed one of the girls by the arm. “Who was that you were dancing with just now?”

  “I don’t know. Some freaky little guy. He stopped by and started to dance.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  She shrugged. “I guess he just went.”

  “We’ve got to go home right now, Mathew!” Carol shouted it over her shoulder as she started running. “He must be going straight there to give Dad the manuscript.”

  • TWENTY-ONE •

  “You looked good out there,” said Joe, after Mozart got back in his taxi. “I used to dance. Got too heavy.”

  “I liked that tune,” said Mozart. “I wonder what it was.”

  “Taylor Swift song,” said Joe. “I could hear it from here.”

  “Who is she? A street singer?”

  “Kind of,” said Joe.

  “I’ve written some songs like that,” said one of the 18th century’s greatest composers. “I wish I could stay here longer, hear some more of your music.”

  “Stick around,” said Joe. “We’ve got lots of songs in America. Just turn on a radio.”

  “Radio?” Mozart had never heard the word before.

  “It brings music to you right through the air,” said Joe. “You got no radios in Vienna? I’d die without a radio out here all day.”

  “You mean there’s music all around me inside the air?” asked Mozart. He was astonished. “What a magical place this country is.”

  “Here I’ll show you.” Joe flipped on his taxi radio. Before long his passenger was tapping his foot to a rock tune.

  “I never thought of using drums that way,” said Mozart. “How do they do this radio?”

  Joe laughed. “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m not a techie. They just do it.”

  They arrived at last at 33 West 95 Street. Mozart grasped his arm through the sliding window. “I like you, Joe. Can I take you back with me to Vienna? And can you bring your radio?”

  Joe guffawed loudly. “Not a chance, man. I got a wife and my mom at home. They’d never let go of me. Anyway, I need the bucks I get from this. Tell you what, here’s my phone number.” He gave Mozart a calling card. “Call me any time. See, that’s our name: ‘Always Ready.’ I’ll take you to California if that’s where you want to go---a good payer like you.” He shook his passenger’s hand. “What’d you say your name was?”

  “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”

  “That’s some mouthful, Wolfie. I’d have to say that a bunch of times to get it right.”

  Mozart got out of the taxi with the manuscript envelope held tight against him. He looked at the taxi driver a long moment. “I like your America, too. Goodbye, Joe.” He knew he would probably never see him again.

  This part of West 95th Street was a block full of four-story houses with stoops that allowed you to walk up and enter at the second floor directly. None of it looked familiar to Mozart. Vienna houses were so different. These were all built out of a strange chocolatey stone that did not exist in Austria, and each one looked like all the others.

  Mozart walked up the stoop and pushed on a small white button that said Dr. George Pindler under it. It had to be Carol’s dad, the doctor who loved music. It rang a bell deep inside the house. Carol’s father also had his name engraved on a shiny brass plate attached to the front door.

  “Are Carol and Mathew there?” asked Mozart when someone opened the door. It was a young girl who kept smiling and smiling. All the girls in this land smile a lot, he said to himself.

  “They’re not here right now.” she said.

  He hesitated. “Can I wait for them?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said. She led Mozart into the reception area and told him to take a seat. After a moment, he got up to go to the front desk. “I need to go to the---” He paused because he didn’t know what word they used for it in America---but the girl at the desk immediately understood.

  “You want the men’s room,” she said smiling. “It’s just over there.” She pointed to the other end of the reception area. He nodded. There were several doors, but he couldn’t tell which one hid the place to take a pee. One was partially open so he chose that.

  It seemed oddly enough to be part of the wall paneling, but there was no question it was a door, almost a secret door. Pushing it open he found himself climbing a stairway. Now he was in what seemed to be a library. There were books everywhere on shelves that lined the walls. He was rather surprised to find a sign on one of the shelves that said “Mozart.”

  “So many books,” he murmured to himself. “Are they all about me?”

  There was also a shelf that held only opera librettos. He grinned when he saw that they had already put his Clemenza di Tito
libretto in the bookcase. Well, now Carol’s father will have the Requiem as well, he thought.

  Suddenly, he heard a door close in the distance and footsteps approaching. Something told him this was not Carol or Mathew, and he needed to hide the Requiem manuscript. Moving quickly to the doctor’s desk, he opened an empty bottom drawer, dropped it in and closed it.

  A woman appeared through a doorway. She seemed as startled as he was. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I think I am lost,” he said, trying to smile.

  “You certainly are,” she said. She looked at him strangely as if she half-recognized him but also half-thought he was an oddly dressed, under-sized intruder with a foreign accent---perhaps, a thief. “Why were you rummaging through the doctor’s desk?” she said.

  “Believe me, madame, I was not.”

  “You are in Dr. Pindler’s private apartment.”

  “Forgive me, I had no idea—”

  “Well, do you have an appointment with him?”

  He quickly realized he’d better bend the truth a little and say yes.

  “I will take you downstairs,” said Mrs. Pindler. She was thinking two things at once: wondering who this peculiar person was whom she almost remembered but couldn’t quite and scolding her husband in her head for still not having put a lock on the door that led into their apartment. Once in the office, Mrs. Pindler moved quickly to the front desk.

  “What is your name?” she asked, opening the doctor’s appointment book.

  “Pelligrino,” he said quietly. He knew that name was not in the appointment book, but maybe Carol and Mathew would arrive while she