No girl. No iceberg. Hallucination. And yet she tried to kill him.
Kill him? By opening the window?
Save him?
The Magar has a bathrobe famous throughout Europe: a gift to his grandfather from Catherine of Russia, it is sewn entirely from the pelts of the pepper-brown coyotes of Tajikistan. Anton has never allowed himself to so much as stroke it. Now, down in the library, he tightens its sash, arranges its sumptuous collar. He tells himself that his commander owes him this much—a little comfort on a freakish night, a few hours rescued for music.
“And I don’t care if you like it, you son of a toothless bitch.”
In fact he would gladly stay here for days: the innermost chamber of the palace, the safest, the driest. The warmest place, too (except for the white umbra of the tower lamp, where he no longer wishes to be). No bust on the mantle, no frowning eyes. One tight door. One shuttered window, a mere slot really, through which for untold ages the librarian-priest dispensed scrolls, sermons, obituaries bound in scarlet wax.
He warms his hands on the valiant candles, cracks his knuckles, picks up his viola and bow. He makes a slow first draw.
There. The sound, the embrace of pure joy.
He moves without haste into his music. Playing in a trance, barely glancing at the manuscript. It swells, soft étude to deeper forte, a small boat borne with confident strokes to a deepening ocean. The other strings, the woodwinds, the brass are with him, he hears them all. Deep beneath the spell of the music, he smiles, dances, shouts. It is what he has waited for. They will come to their feet, they will pour him glasses of sherry. They will cheer him into his conservatory rooms.
For Anton knows that he has never played such a wonder of music; that it bespeaks, he will not fool himself, a destiny. For this his haste, for this his suffering—and now he leaps beyond the last scribbled bars, sails on through untroubled skies. He pauses, holding in an ocean of breath, to jot a phrase—
The candles cringe, spit a palsy of wax on his hands. Wind moans in the shuttered slot.
“God damn it! This heap of stone is drafty as a sty! What?”
For he thinks he hears a tongue click, a mouth he knows making sounds of disapproval beyond the window.
“Father?”
Silence.
He pulls his score back from the candles, takes one of them, steps from the library to the hall. “Dad! Is that you?”
There is no one at the slot.
He sighs. He has wrestled down every window, tied every curtain, closed the chimney flues. This obstinate draft, it should not be. And then he knows. The Round Hall.
Yes: the wind comes from that way. And Faraz has to have gone somewhere.
He does not want to visit that room, bearing the chalice of his unfinished sonata.
His candle dies. He swears again.
The circular performance hall is empty. Dusty candles cling to the mezzanine; brown vines rooted in cracked earthenware grip the pillars. A few chairs jumble in the corners.
As he guessed: the huge wooden doors stand open. Above them, rapine, an old wolf’s head. The jaws gape, the discolored tongue cleaves to a leathery palette. Anton imagines the Magar, young, strong, with a younger violence in him, standing below this animal with a fragile Gypsy girl, holding her hand. He lays his own upon the doors.
The smell of the farmyard, through the space between: methane, manure, rotten straw. Sounds, too: a snuffle, a porcine grunt.
Nineteen years, and he still keeps pigs. Lupescu’s tale crowds his thoughts. I hate pigs, all pigs, everywhere, Anton thinks. I hate them. He slams the doors with a boom. Beyond, a sudden hysterical squealing.
He has to relight all the candles. He flexes his arms, still uneasy, but soon the walls armored with books, the dozen sentinels over his jotted score, relax him. He plays serene and strong, writes a few notes, plays on. Deep shivers, but this time only of delight. He is Anton Cuza of Romania. There will be cheers, lovers, invitations, busts.
At the window slot, very softly, a voice coughs, “No.”
“Who is it?” shouts Anton. “Dad!”
More coughs. “Too florid, too bravo. Do you want to be known for melodrama?”
Anton fairly sprints to the window. But whoever is there has drawn to one side, so that only his breath can be seen, puffing white.
“You let me down, Anton.” The voice is soft, soft. He is almost sure it is his father’s.
“Why? How?”
“Tch, as if it needed telling. You don’t even know me any more, do you? You’ve quit your family, your friends, your home. Chasing a dream of vanity.”
“I know you—Dad.” Anton stutters, wants to reach through the slot but is afraid.
“You don’t. And your mother? And Julita? Ten months without a visit, without a letter. And have no doubt: they knew what they had been traded for. They saw them—painted women looking you over from the train windows, men in black finery in the dining car.”