Dark Rhapsody Read online

  “He wrote her love letters all the time, too, she told me once.”

  Maggie’s gaze flew to Gigi’s face. “I had no idea! Do you know what happened to them?”

  Gigi shook her head. “One more of your mother’s secrets,” she said softly.

  An attractive young Latina woman dressed in soft colors entered the room carrying a silver tray. “Ah, Graciela.” Gigi smiled. “This is my friend, the pianist Magdalena O’Shea. I think Madame O’Shea would much prefer to try out our Bösendorfer now, before we have our tea.” She turned sparkling eyes, filled with humor, on Maggie. “Yes?”

  “Absolutely, yes.” Maggie settled herself on the piano bench and drew the Rachmaninoff score from the large shoulder purse she carried. Dropping it to the parquet floor, she set her music on the piano and tried to calm her racing heart. “I’ve never played a Bösendorfer.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody.”

  “Oh ho, my girl, you do surprise me. His Theme of Paganini … Your mother’s first performance at Carnegie, yes? A bold choice. Graciela, in honor of Rachmaninoff, we shall need a bottle of crème de menthe and two glasses.” She planted her cane, then set her hip on a low stool just to the right of the keyboard. “Ah, Sergei Rachmaninoff. One of the finest pianists and composers of all time. He composed this rhapsody in the 1930s, at an estate he built near Lake Lucerne called Villa Senar. The ‘se’ and the ‘na’ combined his name, Sergei, and his wife, Natalia. Another great romance.” She shook her head. “I hear that fool Putin wants to buy Senar now. I hope the heirs tell him to take a hike!”

  She frowned, then stamped her cane hard on the parquet floor as if to banish her angry thoughts.

  “So. We will begin by giving you a chance to warm up with the Allegro Vivace, then Variation 1 and the Tema, yes? Rachmaninoff had the temerity to take the theme from the very last of Paganini’s twenty-four caprices—even though the eighteenth is by far the most beautiful, as you well know.” A graceful wave of slender, gnarled fingers. “Begin.”

  One more stamp of the cane on the parquet floor, softer this time but no less commanding.

  Maggie heard the shimmer of laughter in the lovely pianist’s voice. Just shoot me now, she thought. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hands above the keys and began to play.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WASHINGTON, DC

  MONDAY

  BECKETT PULLED UP to a high iron gate and flashed his badge at the soldier on guard. The gate swung open and gravel crunched beneath the tires as he eased his rented jeep into a parking space under the trees. It was raining hard, and the parking lot, lit by lamps casting deep black shadows across glistening puddles, was almost empty.

  “I come here whenever I’m in DC,” he said to the Golden, who sat very still on the passenger seat staring out at the rain. “It’s not easy, just something I’ve got to do.” He touched the dog gently. “I’m glad you’re with me.”

  Gripping his cane, he eased from the car, brushed off the stiff shoulders of his dress uniform, and flipped open a large black umbrella. “I know you don’t like the rain,” he said to the dog. “You can stay in the car if you want to.”

  The Golden eyed him for a moment, then looked at the slashing rain. Very slowly, he rose from the seat and lumbered out of the car.

  Beckett moved the umbrella over the dog. “Thanks, fella,” he whispered.

  Together they made their way down the winding path of Arlington National Cemetery to Section 60. This was the section, Beckett knew only too well, where over seven hundred veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were buried.

  At the end of a row of simple white headstones, Beckett stopped and stood at attention in the hard rain as he gazed down at the soaked earth.

  “Hey, E-Z, it’s me. Beckett. And this is my friend Shiloh.”

  The words were carved into the pure white stone. Ezra Berger. But everyone had called him E-Z. Easy.

  His gaze took in the rows upon rows of perfectly aligned white headstones, now silvered by tears of rain, as far as he could see. How many men and women had he known? Too damned many. Christ. In just two months, some 40,000 volunteers would descend on the cemetery, to lay Christmas wreathes on more than 240,000 graves. He’d done it himself, last year. It was a heartbreaking, soul-rending sight.

  In Kabul, just last spring, E-Z had told him that he had a Christmas birthday. He was going to be twenty-two on December 25. I’ll come back at Christmas, E-Z. I’ll come back with a wreath for you.

  No, there was no solace here today. What he needed was a double Jack Daniel’s—but he wasn’t sure that would help, either.

  Beckett sat down on the cold wet grass, ran a hand over the grave. “Damn it, E-Z, why? I carried you into that medic’s tent. You told me you wanted to go home. You could’ve come home, dammit. Alive. Why’d you go back?”

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. He knew why. The same reasons he’d returned to Afghanistan for three tours. But he’d done it to protect all those young lives. Every man has to make his own choices, he thought.

  He looked down at the new grave. “You weren’t supposed to come home this way.”

  Shiloh whined mournfully beside him, brushing his single front paw against Beckett’s leg.

  “You know, don’t you, boy? What it’s like to suffer loss? What it’s like to be the only survivor?” His hand found the warm damp fur, stroked the long, jagged lightning scars crossing the dog’s shoulder. “To be caught in the darkness that seeps into your soul.”

  The Golden edged closer, somehow feeling his pain. Did Shiloh, too, remember running across that dusty Afghani square after his young friend Farzad? Did he remember the whine of automatic weapons, the crush of pain as the bullets slammed into his beautiful golden body to turn it into a mangled mess of red?

  Afghanistan.

  Just an ocean full of memories and pain. And loss. All those green kids. All those innocent lives, just beginning. His own son, if he had lived, would have been just about E-Z’s age …

  Beckett leaned back against the cold hard stone where his young friend was buried.

  So many young ones lost. Beckett’s breath came out in a long sigh. “I’m sorry, man,” he whispered. “I feel as if I let you down.”

  Too many ways to lose the war after the guns go silent. Black pain engulfed him. Shiloh circled, then settled with his head and front paw on Beckett’s thigh with a mournful, knowing expression.

  After a long time, Beckett touched the Golden’s head, rose stiffly to his feet. Because E-Z was Jewish, he found a small stone and left it on top of the memorial. Standing at attention, he gave his friend a final soldier’s salute.

  “That even in our sleep,” he quoted softly, “pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart.” He looked down at his dog. “I wonder if maybe I left the best part of myself back there in Afghanistan,” he said into the rain.

  Then he and the Golden limped slowly down the dark path, away from the silent headstones.

  * * *

  Maggie’s fingers raced over the keyboard in a final crescendo of chords. One last, sustained chord, and then her hands stilled. The notes echoed in the sun-filled room. Afraid to look at Madame Donati, she bent her head, closed her eyes, and tried to catch her breath.

  “Almost as good as your mother. Almost.”

  Again, humor shimmered in the gentle voice. Maggie opened her eyes and smiled with relief. “Thank God.”

  “Don’t thank him yet! You haven’t touched the keys for almost a year, my girl, and it shows. Technically, well, you have work to do, of course. You want to be better than your mother, yes? You will come tomorrow at the same time. And this time we will really work. Tonight you must concentrate on the first movement, Variations two through ten. Four hours at least. I want … well, molto badass.”

  Maggie laughed. “A challenge I’ve never been given before.”

  “And I have no doubt you will rise to the occasion.”

 
; “I have so much to learn from you, Gigi. You have so much energy and spirit. What is your secret?”

  “Keep busy, and you won’t have time to die.”

  They exchanged an understanding smile. “All I can say,” said Maggie, “is thank you.”

  “Bosh! All I can teach you is what tempo might work better, how to finger a difficult passage, what to leave out. Let me worry about those ambiguous accent marks. You will do all the real work, my girl. Your father always said a score should not be the endpoint, but a departure. Your job is to go beyond the score and create something new. So. Now we have earned our tea and our crème de menthe. And perhaps two stiff brandies as well? Graciela! We are ready, if you please.”

  The two women moved to the peacock-blue sofa and settled into the down cushions. Once again Madame Donati took both of Maggie’s hands in her own and gazed down at them. “Your hands are made for the piano, Maggie. You don’t have the hand span of men like Horowitz or Van Cliburn, but you have the touch. The technique will come back, my dear. But artistically—it is the heart of the piece, the magic, that counts. You have the feeling, Maggie, that rare ability to transport the listener. You are, quite simply …” She smiled. “Transcendent.”

  Gigi looked down at the thick, misshapen knobs on the spotted knuckles of her own hands. “Arthritis and age may have claimed my talent,” she whispered, “but it cannot take away the music that still lives inside me. Or the way it makes me feel.”

  She leaned closer. “Your godfather, Zander, told me about the death of your husband,” she said in a quiet, gentle voice. “I am so sorry. He was much too young to die.” She looked away. “I lost my husband, Emmanuel, just a few months ago. We were married for almost fifty years.”

  “Gigi …” Maggie reached out to express her sorrow, but Madame Donati stopped her. “It was his time, Maggie. A person does not get to be my age without experiencing loss. Suffering grief.”

  “It’s been a year since I lost Johnny,” said Maggie softly. “But sometimes it seems like yesterday. I still love my husband, still miss him.” She gazed into the sympathetic eyes of Gigi Donati. “Sometimes I can’t breathe with the hurt.”

  Maggie rose from the sofa and moved to stand before a large, dark oil painting of a woman in a long blue gown, staring out at a ship foundering in a turbulent sea. “I feel like the woman in this painting. My husband drowned in a storm at sea.”

  “This is called Miranda in The Tempest,” said Gigi. She waved a hand toward the painting. “A dear friend of mine compares grief to a shipwreck. He says at first it comes in waves one hundred feet high, crashing over you without mercy or warning. All you can do is hang on to the wreckage and try to stay alive.”

  “Yes,” whispered Maggie. “That’s exactly what it’s felt like. Waves of grief. I’ve been drowning, too, for months … just like my husband …”

  “But after a time, the waves come farther apart, yes? Not quite so high. And between the waves, there is life.” Madame Donati touched Maggie’s shoulder gently. “There is no closure when you lose someone you love. The waves never stop coming, I’m afraid. But then, I’m not sure we want them to. Memory is both the curse and solace of grief.”

  Maggie raised her eyes to the older woman. “You’re right, I don’t want to lose the good memories. I can move on when I’m between waves.”

  “I look at life like that beautiful instrument,” said Gigi, waving her hand at the piano by the window. “The white keys represent happiness, the black—sadness. But the black keys also make music, Maggie. That is what matters. Music gives us something to cling to when we are lost. And after the music I heard you make today, I know you are coming back to life.”

  “Yes. I’m finding my music again. And—there is another man in my life now, someone noble and fierce, who is helping me to move on.” Maggie pictured the colonel and smiled. “He makes me feel alive again.”

  “Noble and fierce.” Light stirred in Gigi’s old eyes. “Feeling alive. It sounds like the beginning of a grand romance.”

  “In opera and Shakespeare,” muttered Maggie, “all the great romances end in tragedy.”

  Gigi chuckled. “Nonsense. I’m sure that being loved again is what your husband would have wanted for you. Just remember, Maggie. It’s not the note you play. It’s the note you play next.”

  “I keep asking myself, who am I now, after he is gone? What is my new identity without him?”

  “You may not have all the answers, but you are asking the important questions. Terrible things happen to all of us, Maggie. The only control we have is how to survive—hopefully with humor and courage. You have learned how to behave with grace in the face of death.” Gigi gazed at Maggie thoughtfully. “I think perhaps you might be the one to help me move on as well, my dear.”

  Maggie looked at her in surprise. “You? I cannot imagine how, Gigi, but I will do whatever I can.”

  “Come, then.” Gigi took Maggie’s hand, drawing her slowly across the salon and turning a corner to reveal a hidden alcove. A five-foot-high impressionist oil hung alone on the wall. It was a painting of a woman in shadows, seated by a window filled with a night sky, playing a cello.

  “I am going to trust you with a huge and terrible secret, Maggie. Come closer. What do you think of this work?”

  A huge and terrible secret … A dark sense of foreboding whispered against Maggie’s skin as she moved to stand beside Gigi. Gazing at the beautiful cellist in the painting, she felt something stir in her chest. The tiniest spark of memory. What was it?

  The swirling brushstrokes on the woman’s sapphire dress, the shimmering richness of the scarlet draperies behind her. The night sky beyond the tall window pulsing with deep blue, the light streaming from a candle on the table touching the woman’s face with flickering gold and shadow.

  “It’s”—Maggie searched for the perfect word—“saturated with color. Lit from within. This painting looks as if it belongs at the Met. I know very little about art, but the colors and brushstrokes are so deep and beautiful. The cello is glowing, vibrating, as if you can hear the music. And the expression on the woman’s face as she strokes the bow … I feel something when I look at her, Gigi. I’d swear it is an original.”

  Madame Donati turned to her. “And you would be right—you have a good eye. It is an original Matisse. He called it Dark Rhapsody.”

  “Dark Rhapsody …” Again Maggie felt the thrum of a memory wash over her skin, like the haunting melody in her dream.

  “This glorious Matisse is beautiful,” said Gigi softly, “but it has a dark history. And it is not mine.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Maggie. “Did someone give it to you?”

  “The truth is, my dear, I am a liar and a thief.” Tears glittered in the old pianist’s eyes as she waved her hands toward the Matisse. “You do not remember it? I gave this piece to your parents soon after I met them. This Dark Rhapsody hung above your mother’s grand piano when you were a child.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  NEW YORK CITY

  MONDAY

  “I WAS BORN in a small Austrian mountain village near an Alpine lake,” said Gigi Donati. “I was only ten years old in 1945, when the war ended. The Nazis were hiding their looted treasures all over Europe, including deep beneath Austria’s lakes. Late one night, they came to my village, and I stole a small chest from a Nazi truck. I was hoping to find gold, of course, but the chest held only a violin, some candlesticks, some musical scores, and three rolled canvases of art from a gallery in Florence. I hid it all in my aunt’s barn.”

  Gigi’s words fell like stones into the quiet room. Afternoon sun flowed through the tall windows, suffusing her face with radiance. She stood by the grand piano, lost in memory, like a woman standing alone on a stage in a cone of light.

  Listening with her whole body, Maggie could barely breathe.

  “My best friend, Johann, found me. The next morning, when we went back to retrieve the chest, my aunt and cousin were just—gone. T
hey had run away, I found out later. I was terrified, of course, for my family. I swore Johann to secrecy. He helped me hide the chest and kept my secret all these years.”

  Maggie stepped closer, laid a gentle hand on Gigi’s arm. “This Matisse—this Dark Rhapsody—is one of the paintings you found?”

  Gigi Donati nodded, unable to speak.

  “I don’t understand. How did it end up in my parents’ home?”

  Gigi drew a deep, shuddering breath. “The trunk was hidden in Johann’s attic for many years. There were many Nazis, German sympathizers, and collaborators in our village, of course. We did not know whom we could trust, even after the war was over.”

  Gigi turned away to gaze blindly out the window over the tree-tops of Central Park. “It is so difficult to understand now—the fear, the hiding, who were the sympathizers? My mother had hidden a Jewish family for almost a year in our cellar. If I called attention to my family … Well, who knows? Fear is no excuse, of course, but that part, at least, is the truth.”

  “I believe you.” Very gently Maggie took the old pianist’s arm, brittle and shaking beneath her fingers, and led her to a chair. “Sit down, Gigi. May I get you some water? I’m not judging you, I only want to help.”

  “No water, I just need to say all the words …”

  “I’m listening.”

  “We kept the art hidden for four years. Then, the day Johann turned sixteen, he went to Florence and searched for the art gallery stamped on the back of the canvases—the Felix Hoffman Gallery—so we could return his property. But there was nothing left, only a destroyed shell of a building. Shattered windows, bare walls, garbage, rats … Oh, God.”

  Maggie realized with sickening clarity what had happened. “The family was Jewish,” she whispered. “They were taken by the Nazis?”

  “Yes. The neighbors told Johann that Hitler’s thugs had come for them in the dead of night. They looted everything from the gallery and took Hoffman and his wife, and their little girl and boy, with them. The family never returned.”