Over dinner, I told Tess about the musical half of Father Hlinka’s offer, and she was happy for me to have the chance to go back to the organ loft. On Monday afternoon, she sat below in the middle pew, listening for the first hour or so, but then went off on her own. After she left, Father Hlinka whispered, “I have something for you.” He crooked his finger, beckoning me to follow him into a small alcove off the loft. I suspected that he had found some record of the Ungerlands, and my anticipation grew when the priest lifted a wooden chest to the top of a rickety desk. He blew dust off the lid and, grinning like an elf, opened the box.
Instead of the church documents I had expected, I saw music. Score after score of music for the organ, and not just common hymns, but symphonic masterworks that gave life and presence to the instrument—a raft of Handel, Mahler’s Resurrection, Liszt’s Battle of the Huns, the Fantasie Symphonique by Fran?ois-Joseph Fétis, and a pair of organ-only solos by Guilmant. There were pieces by Gigout, Langlais, Chaynes, and Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani. Record albums of Aaron Copland’s First Symphony, Barber’s Toccata Festiva, Rheinberger, Franck, and a baker’s dozen of Bach. I was stunned and inspired. To simply listen to it all—not to mention trying my hand at the grand keyboard—would take months or even years, and we had but a few hours. I wanted to stuff my pockets with loot, fill my head with song.
“My only vice and passion,” Hlinka said to me. “Enjoy. We are not so different, you and I. Strange creatures with rare loves. Only you, my friend, you can play, and I can but listen.”
I played all day for Father Hlinka, who inspected old parish ledgers of baptisms, weddings, and funerals. I dazzled him with incandescence and extravagance, leaning into the extra octave of bass, and hammered out the mad finale from Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie Concertante. A change came over me at that keyboard, and I began to hear compositions of my own in the interludes. The music stirred memories that existed beyond the town, and on that glorious afternoon I experimented with variations and was so carried away that I forgot about Father Hlinka until he returned empty-handed at five o’clock. Frustrated by his own failure to find any records of the Ungerlands, he called his peers at St. Wenceslas, and they got in touch with the archivists of the abandoned St. Bartholomew and St. Klara churches to help scour through the records.
I was running out of time. Despite the relative freedom, we were still in danger of being asked for our papers, and we had no visa for Czechoslovakia. Tess had complained over breakfast that the police were spying on her when she visited the Black Tower, following her at the art center on the Ru?ovy kope?ek. Schoolchildren pointed at her on the streets. I saw them, too, running in the shadows, hiding in dark corners. On Wednesday morning, she groused about spending so much of our honeymoon alone.
“Just one more day,” I pleaded. “There’s nothing quite like the sound in that church.”
“Okay, but I’m staying in today. Wouldn’t you rather go back to bed?”
When I arrived at the loft late that afternoon, I was surprised to find the priest waiting for me at the pipe organ. “You must let me tell your wife.” He grinned. “We have found him. Or at least I think this must be her grandfather. The dates are somewhat off, but how many Gustav Ungerlands can there be?”
He handed me a grainy photocopy of the passenger list from the German ship Albert, departing 20 May 1851 from Bremen to Baltimore, Maryland. The names and ages were written in a fine hand:
“Won’t she be delighted? What a fine wedding gift.”
I could not begin to answer his questions. The names evoked a rush of memory. Josef, my brother—Wo in der Welt bist du? Anna, the one who died in the crossing, the absent child who broke my mother’s heart. My mother, Clara. My father, Abram, the musician. Names to go along with my dreams.
“I know you said he was here in 1859, but sometimes the past is a mystery. But I think 1851 is right for Herr Ungerland, not 1859,” said Father Hlinka. “History fades over time.”
For a moment, the six came alive. Of course I did not remember Eger or Cheb. I was a baby, not yet one year old, when we came to America. There was a house, a parlor, a piano. I was taken from there and not from this place.
“No records in the churches, but I thought we should try emigration archives, no? Won’t Mrs. Day be thrilled? I cannot wait to see her face.”
I folded the paper and stuck it in my pocket. “Of course, Father, yes, you should be the one to tell her. We should celebrate . . . tonight if you like.”
The pleasure of his smile almost made me regret lying to him, and I was equally heartbroken to leave the magnificent organ behind. But I hurried from St. Nicholas’s, the history in my pocket against my heart. When I found Tess, I made up a story about the police sniffing around the church for two Americans, and we slipped away, retracing our steps to the border.
When we reached the forest near the river crossing, I was shocked to see a young boy, perhaps as old as seven, standing by himself beside a large tree. He did not take notice of us, but remained quite still, as if hiding from someone. I could only imagine what might be in pursuit, and part of me wanted to rescue him. We were nearly upon him before he flinched, and putting a finger to his lips, the child begged us to be quiet.
“Do you speak German?” Tess whispered in that language.