City of Lost Dreams (22 page)

“Help me, Nico,” Sarah whispered. “Touch me. Sing something. Anything.” Sarah turned and realized that she was looking at two versions of the little man. They were not entirely identical. Nico I looked a little older—more weathered maybe—and was wearing a camel hair coat. Nico II was wearing a thick cloak.

“Sarah, what are you seeing?” She could feel his hand in hers.

“Two of you. Nicos. Nicii. What are you doing? Why are you so anxious?”

“Probably because I was depressed. The Age of Enlightenment was very groovy, darling, but mostly I just wanted to die. Where is Bettina now?”

Sarah’s mind shifted. There was that. Both of the little men standing in front of her wanted the same thing, wanted it passionately, desperately. She was almost knocked off her feet by their collective yearning. They wanted to die. They wanted to die so very badly.

Nico had not been honest with her. He wanted to help Pollina, yes. But he wanted something more than that. Quid pro quo. Life for Pollina. Death for Nico.

 • • • 

S
he could see Bettina now, walking ahead of her with the pet carrier, and Sarah followed but she could feel Westonia loosening its fingers on her brain. It was like she was wearing bifocals. Look one way and she was passing a Starbucks. Look another and she jerked to avoid being stepped on by Franz Joseph’s processional. She caught sight of a wan Sissi in a carriage, then streets filled with smoke and fire and the heavy sounds of bombing and explosions. Vienna was smoldering, dying, paying the price for its splendor and its poison. In one moment she was walking on the Ringstrasse, then seeing the Ring being built, then seeing it bombed, then seeing it built again. “It shouldn’t look the same, but it does,” she muttered. Nico II pulled the hood of his cloak up around his face and retreated into a crowd.

“History repeats,” Nico said, pulling her by the hand. “Vienna may burn again. Mozart may live again. I can’t go through it all, over and over. Sarah, please. You have to keep going.”

Pollina. Pollina could be Mozart if she was given the time. Ashes to ashes, gold to gold.

Bettina was getting on a tram. Sarah felt her triumph, her purpose, and her intensity. She was glowing with it.

“A tram.” She pointed.

“Yes. There’s a tram coming.”

The ride was a nightmare, since the two trams were not in sync. Bettina’s tram was about ten seconds’ worth of distance ahead of the one Sarah and Nico were on, and Sarah kept lurching forward and being dragged back by Nico. She watched a little girl sitting next to Bettina peer inside the carrier and say loudly,
“Oh! Es ist eine Ratte!”

Bettina smiled beautifully at the little girl.

“Isn’t he handsome?” she said. She stood up. They were at the Karlsplatz station.

“I’m exhausted,” Sarah said to Nico. “I want to sit down. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Magnify that times four hundred years,” Nico said, “and you’ll get a glimpse of what I feel. Keep moving.”

Sarah trudged alongside Nico, bumping into people. The Westonia was definitely fading now, possibly because she was just too tired to see anymore. When they turned onto Paniglgasse, Bettina vanished entirely.

“She must have taken it home,” Sarah said.

“Taken what home?”

Sarah looked down at the little man.

“An immortal rat.”

TWENTY-FIVE

P
ollina woke up coughing.

She could hear Boris by the side of the bed. At her own apartment in Paris Street, she had instructed Jose to move her mattress to the floor, because her bed was too high for Boris to get on and off easily. And Boris was too heavy for her to lift. She would have joined him on the floor here in one of the palace’s guest bedrooms, but in strange places Boris liked to sleep separately from her, in order to guard the door.

Her coughing worried him. He whined and paced if it went on too long.

Sometimes the coughing went on for a very long time. This bout was not bad, although her chest hurt. Her chest hurt all the time now, even when she wasn’t coughing, and she was tired all the time. She was not sleeping well, because of her dreams, and so she was always tired. Her dreams were very bad.

Moving to the palace was a relief. Here, she could just walk thirty-five paces down the hall and then down a flight of ten stairs, step-step-step, half-turn, twelve stairs, step-step, right turn, then forty-four paces to the music room. She could do all that and still have energy to play. To compose. Max was helping her with the libretto for her opera about the Golden Fleece, reading her things he’d found about Ferdinand and Philippine. It made a perfect story for the opera. Ferdinand was curious and intelligent and in love, and Pols thought he sounded a lot like Max.

Pollina felt for her Braille clock, although she knew that it was evening. Time to get up for a little while, play a bit before going back to bed. Her brain registered the difference between day and night nonvisually; her body operated on the same circadian entrainment as sighted people. Her retinohypothalamic tract functioned. The same was true, Sarah had told her, for mole rats, who were also blind, and whose bodies also followed circadian entrainment. Blind rats had body clocks, too.

Sarah knew interesting things like that.

There had been a rat again, in her dream. And clocks. She had been dreaming of the rat for several days. She had read once that Helen Keller had described the dreams she’d had before acquiring language as being pure sensation, and the sensation was only fear. Later on, the dreams had shifted into narratives. Helen had described a recurring dream of a wolf biting her, an image Helen believed she had learned and adapted from the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

“When you dream,” Jose had asked Pollina once, “how does it . . . what do you . . .”

“Are you asking if I see in my dreams?” she had snapped. “I don’t see when I’m awake. How could I see in my dreams?”

“So what you dream?” Jose had asked. “Answer with not so much of the bitchiness, please.”

“Sound,” Pollina had explained. “It’s sound and sensation, but mostly sound.”

But this dream had been totally silent. And Sarah was in it.

Yes, she would get up and practice a little. She had not been able to practice very much earlier, because she had been so tired, and her chest hurt so much, and also she had had to go with Oksana to the hospital for more tests.

There was something wrong with chromosome 20 in her DNA. It should have been coding for a certain kind of protein that would cause bacteria to adhere to it and therefore be flushed out of her bloodstream. It was not doing this. And so the bacteria were proliferating, and that was why she kept getting infections, like pneumonia. They were going to start her on a new drug the next day. Oksana seemed hopeful about it.

But what if the defect in chromosome 20 had something to do with her blindness? There was a certain rare form of blindness that was being cured through gene therapy. Pols did not have this form, but more than 160 genes were linked to blindness. So really anything could happen with these drugs. And if the two symptoms
were
linked, then along with taking away the infections and the pain, they would take away the blindness.

And she knew she would lose the music if that happened. It was a greater fear than death.

If she was dying, she would accept it.

“If she doesn’t improve, then we could be heading toward organ failure,” she had heard. “We will have to watch how she reacts to this new treatment very closely. It is a risk, but we’re really running out of options. If we don’t try, then realistically she has maybe two months. Maybe.”

They had not told her. But she had heard.

Different types of listening employed different parts of your brain. Sarah had explained this. The most complicated process was one neuroscientists called a “top-down” response. This was when you were actively listening to something. When you really concentrated on sound, signals were sent a special way in the brain. They moved through the dorsal pathway in the cortex, and the brain suppressed other sounds, like a set of headphones, so that you could concentrate.

She had heard Oksana. She had heard her doctors.

She was going to die very soon.

The treatment was not going to work.

She hoped that she didn’t die before Boris did. She wouldn’t want him to think it was his fault.

She should work. She was composing an aria for Philippine, in which she warns Ferdinand about the power of the Fleece. It would be horrible, though, to try to play and not be able to, because she could not lift her arms and because her chest hurt too much. She should not be afraid. If God wanted her to play, He would give her the strength. She would ask for His help.

Slippers. Robe. Cane.

Boris got stiffly to his feet. He did not really want to walk anywhere, but he would walk with her wherever she went. He would drag himself, if he had to.

When she turned right, outside her door, she could feel Boris understanding where they were going. His pace picked up a little, in the hallway leading to the music room. Pols could hear Moritz, Max’s dog. Max must be near, then. She heard a series of notes on the piano. C2. E3. D4. The lid was down. Max was playing her piano.

Pollina entered the room and greeted Moritz. She had been told that Moritz “looked” like a wolf. It was funny how some people forgot and told her how things looked. Moritz had triangle ears that stood up, and forefeet that turned out slightly. He had a flat chest, and his back was a little sloped, so his hind legs were very slightly crouching. He had a long tail, and his coat was thick.

He felt very different from Boris. He was much less beautiful. Pollina was sure that Boris was very beautiful because he had a smooth coat, and in her world beautiful things were smooth things.

“I’m thinking about why Ferdinand wants the Fleece,” said Pols.

“What are you up to?” Max asked. “Are you hungry? I can heat something up.” She heard him set down a glass upon her piano.

“That is not a table,” said Pollina, moving toward the instrument.

“Hold up,” Max said. “There is a bottle on the floor, right in front of your left foot. Okay, got it.” He slid over and made room for her on the bench.

“What is in the bottle?” Pols asked. “I would like a small glass, please.”

“You won’t like the taste,” Max laughed. “It’s brandy.”

Max was worried. He was worried about her.

“When someone is ill in old books,” Pols said, “they give them brandy. They say, ‘Get a little of this brandy down,’ or ‘Someone get him a brandy.’”

“I’m not sure you’re sick enough for me to justify giving you brandy,” Max said.

Pollina let that sit in the air for several seconds. Long enough for Max to replay it in his head two or three times. Max knew how sick she was.

“I think Ferdinand wants to protect the Fleece from falling into the hands of people who will misuse it,” said Max. “But I also think he’s curious about its power.”

“But will he use it for good?”

It would not be right to pray to God to spare her life. She could ask for strength, for forgiveness, for courage. She could not ask for His will to be altered. It did seem that He intended her to die very soon. She wondered if in Heaven, she would be blind. But God would not take her music away—surely? No. She would be able to play. And finally see the stars.

She held up her hand and Max put a glass in it, moving her fingers and palm so that she cupped the bowl of the glass.

“Some people say it’s better at room temperature, and some say you should warm the glass first. Like this.” Max moved her hand in small circles. “This is how they do it in old movies. There’s a scene in
Rear Window
where everyone stands around just waving their brandy glasses. I don’t think anyone ever takes a sip, but it looks cool. Don’t do it too much, or it’ll slop over the sides. Yes, Ferdinand wants to use the Fleece for good. Very much.”

Pollina moved her glass in small circles, and then brought it to her nose.

“It smells nice,” she said. “I like it.” She took a small sip. It burned a little. She tried to imagine the liquid burning through the bacteria that had invaded her lungs. She hoped it was not also burning the tissue around her heart. The bacteria were eating that. They were nibbling at it, like rats.

“If Ferdinand had to choose between the Fleece and Philippine, which would he choose?”

“He would choose Philippine, in a heartbeat,” Max said. “Back to bed for you, Luigi. I’ll bring you a snack.”

She heard Boris and Moritz get to their feet.

She did not want to die. She did not want to die. Please God, don’t let me die.
Almighty Father, grant me mercy. Almighty Father, can I not serve you better on this Earth?

She must finish the opera.

TWENTY-SIX

S
arah pulled Nico over to the side of a building, so she could rest, and described to him everything she had seen. By the time she finished, some of her energy had returned. Her mind was moving rapidly. This couldn’t be the end. There had to be something they could do.

“The cat!” Sarah straightened up.

Nico, looking a little dazed, raised an eyebrow in query.

“When I took the galleon from Bettina’s apartment,” Sarah said in a rush, “I opened a window and a cat got in. I wasn’t supposed to do that, Bettina specifically said so. But I forgot and the cat got in and went straight for a closet.” They both began walking fast to Bettina’s building. “The rat might still be there. You’ll have to distract Herr Dorfmeister or something while I look for it.”

But when Sarah and Nico got to Paniglgasse 18, instead of Herr Dorfmeister they were greeted by a teary-eyed, freckle-faced, red-haired crowd—men in
Tracht
, mothers with babies in arms, young children running about, and older people stooped with age, all bearing the same clear genetic imprint. Candy the golden retriever lay on the floor in the middle of the group, despondent. Apparently Herr Dorfmeister had passed away in his bed that afternoon, and his entire clan had gathered to discuss his arrangements.

“It is quite sad,” said a young woman who introduced herself as Eva, his granddaughter. “But I suppose we should be grateful. He was an old man and he played tennis this very morning, then came home, lay down, and died peacefully in his own bed, with no illness. We should all be so lucky. Come in and have a glass with us. We are toasting Opa’s memory.”

“He was a lovely man and a very good chess player,” said Nico, looking over the chessboard as Eva handed them both large dripping steins of dark beer. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to finish our game. Dr. Müller”—he indicated Sarah—“and I will miss him very much.” Sarah felt something being slid into her pocket.

“Please excuse me for a moment,” Sarah murmured, and, handing her glass to Nico, she raced toward the elevator, pulling Bettina’s key out of her pocket.

 • • • 

B
ettina’s heavy perfume had covered the scent before, but now that Sarah was focusing on it, she knew she could smell a rat. It had taken some doing to get to him, since Bettina had sealed up the wall of the closet very well, but after some vigorous demolition work, Sarah was able to find Hermes, looking a little drawn, inside a small cage with an automated feed and watering system.

She hauled this out and set the cage in the living room. They were both still sitting there, contemplating each other, when Nico entered. He joined them on the floor. Hermes perked up a little and moved to the edge of his cage, his tail wagging. He squeaked. Nico put a finger through the bars of the cage and Hermes put both his front paws on it.

“Hello, Hermes,” Nico said gravely. “I am Nicolas Pertusato.” With his other hand he pulled something out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Sarah. It was a chess piece.

“I am not so sure,” said the little man, “that the old man went so peacefully as his
Sippe
think.”

“What do you mean?”

“The game we started yesterday. It should have been my move. But someone made it for me. We should let him out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He wants to stretch his legs. He won’t run away.”

“No, about the chess game.”

“Herr Dorfmeister made a move. We agreed to pause the game there.”

“So he made a move for you.”

“The man was nothing if not correct. Someone moved my queen. A very particular type of move, actually, most boldly done in Levitsky versus Marshall, 1912. It’s called the ‘shower of gold,’ in which you appear to sacrifice your queen but instead trap your opponent.”

Nico lifted up the door of the cage and they watched Hermes run joyfully around the apartment, up and down all the furniture, up the curtains, and over the clocks before he returned to drink some water, after which he took up a position on Nico’s shoulder.

“He’s not afraid of me.” Nico smiled. “I haven’t met an animal in over four hundred years that wasn’t. But it makes sense. We are two of a kind.”

“Okay, let me get this straight. You think someone murdered Bettina’s concierge.”

Nico shrugged.

“Bettina may be brilliant,” said Sarah after a pause, “but I don’t want her coming anywhere near Pols.”

“Agreed,” said Nico. “But I’m not leaving Hermes here.” The rat sniffed around the edges of Nico’s ears.

“When she realizes he’s gone, she’ll come looking for him,” said Sarah, standing up.

“And I’ll be waiting.” Nico stood up also. “We leave for Prague immediately, I think.”

“You’re leaving for Prague immediately,” said Sarah. “I’ve got one last piece of business.”