WHEN THE BLACKNESS released me at last, it was early summer.
I found myself seated in the music room of the castle. My arms had healed such that they were bare of their splints, but my wrists now were bound to the armrests of a sturdy wheelchair. I wore a simple dress of a light gabardine I didn’t recognize and slippers on my feet. My hair, I could feel, was tied up behind my head, tucked into a cap.
I pushed at my feet to see if I could move them, but found they, too, were bound. Wrists, hair, legs, all bound. What of my mouth? I opened it, licked my lips. That, at least, was free.
Across the room, three men and a piano beneath some enormous glittering chandelier that blazed blue in the summer light. These men were the tenor and the Prince, who conferred with a young man seated there whom I didn’t recognize, playing scales in preparation for some rehearsal. They were deeply engaged with one another, and did not see me.
I recalled the Prince considered himself something of a composer. It may even be the memory of his compositions, played to me so long ago, that called me back, or it could just have been as simple as the sound of a piano in the German summer air—and with that, something like the call of my lost paradise in Baden-Baden.
I watched them for some time, silent. Given my state, it seemed I had most likely tried to escape. I wasn’t yet sure if I wanted them to know my senses had returned. It seemed better to play dumb a little longer. I felt relief knowing that at least, even insensible, I had still clearly tried to escape.
That I was myself even when I was not myself.
I knew this music as the rehearsal began. The song was about roses. The Prince had me sing it for him a long time ago. He likely meant for me to sing it again with the two of us as stars in his own private music box.
She is awake, the tenor said urgently. I knew music would bring her back! And with that, he ran to my side, kissing me and then sinking down to his knees to praise God for my return, kissing my knees, pressing himself into my lap like a boy all while I hated him for knowing how to bring me back.
§
The next morning I woke to singing. The tenor was making his way through something unfamiliar to me; he was accompanying himself, too, on the piano, elegantly, and I was struck to think I had never heard him play this way for pleasure.
I rose, unsteady, and slowly followed the sound down the stairs from my room, waiting outside the music room in the hall, anxious not to disturb him. I was sure if he knew I was listening, he would stop; and to listen now was like listening to a secret.
How does a monster sing? I wondered.
When he sang, all his monstrousness vanished. Yet this was sinister, too.
I looked across and started to see the Prince listening much as I was, leaning against the opposite wall.
He’s incredible, isn’t he?
I nodded.
Do you know this music? It’s the Winterreise. Schubert. He set the poems of the poet Wilhelm Müller to music. It was one of the last things Schubert wrote music for before he died, and Müller died before it was done. This one is “Die Kr?he.” “The Crow.” You don’t speak any German, no? A little? The crow is following the poet, and he is wondering if it is waiting for him to die. He decides he will let the crow wait for him.
We stood together silently as the song passed around us.
He is the perfect singer for these—listen carefully and remember, you may never hear a better rendition.
We listened together, silent as the tenor finished, and then he began another song.
Our mutual friend will be very sad to lose you, he said.
I looked at him questioningly.
It is clear to me you cannot stay, he said, as much as he might like it to be different. You will die here, I think, if you stay. Yes? Or did you decide to let the crow wait for you?
We paused, listening again. I was careful to neither agree and offend him nor disagree and offend him.
Where would you be, if you could choose? he asked.
Paris, I said.
Even now, he said, and smiled. If you think you are sad here, what would you be in Paris, where they are still cleaning the streets of the dead?
I closed my eyes then willed them open again. The Prince still smiled.
Is it still your wish to be a singer? I could make arrangements at any conservatory in Germany. You could go to Leipzig. Or I could return you to Baden-Baden easily if you so liked, he said.
After another silence, he said, Ah. I understand. Of course, Pauline has left, unlikely to return. You cannot be in Germany at all? Or is it something else? He loves you, you know. Do you not harbor any feelings for him at all?
I think, perhaps, I can only love him like this, I said. Only here, listening to him sing.