Gabriel and Eli Lavon watched asThe Lute Playerwas conveyed from the stage and Martin introduced the evening’s featured entertainment. The mere mention of her name brought the audience to its feet, including the oil trader and oligarch Arkady Akimov. Her acknowledgment of the adulation was perfunctory, automatic. Like Gabriel, she possessed the ability to block out all distraction, to enclose herself in an impenetrable cocoon of silence, to transport herself to another time and place. For the moment, at least, the two hundred and fifty invited guests did not exist.
There was only her accompanist and her beloved Guarneri. Her fiddle, as she liked to call it. Her graceful lady. She placed the instrument against her neck and laid the bow upon the A string. The silence seemed to last an eternity. Too anxious to watch, Gabriel closed his eyes. A villa by the sea. The sienna light of sunset. The liquid music of a violin.
The sonatas were both four movements in structure and nearly identical in duration—twenty minutes for the Brahms, twenty-two for the Beethoven. Isabel watched the final moments of Anna’s performance from the open doorway next to the stage. Anna was ablaze, the audience spellbound. And to think Isabel would soon take her place. Surely, she thoughtsuddenly, it was not possible. She was experiencing one of her frequent anxiety dreams, that was all. Or perhaps there had been an oversight of some sort, a scheduling error. It was Alisa Weilerstein who would perform next. Not Isabel Brenner, a former compliance officer from the world’s dirtiest bank who had once earned a third prize at the ARD International Music Competition.
Lost in thought, she gave an involuntary start when the event hall erupted with thunderous applause. Martin Landesmann was the first to rise, followed instantly by a silver-haired man a few meters to his right. Isabel, try as she might, could not seem to recall his name. He was no one, a nothing man.
Microphone in hand, Anna requested silence, and the two hundred and fifty luminaries arrayed before her obeyed. She thanked the audience for their support of the museum and the cause of democracy, and for giving her an opportunity to play in public again after so long an absence. Wealthy and privileged, she had managed to hide from the lethal virus. But nearly two million people worldwide—the aged, the sick, the indigent, those who were crammed into substandard housing or who toiled for hourly wages in essential industries—had not been so fortunate. She asked the audience to keep the dead in their hearts and to remember those who lacked the basic resources most of them took for granted.
“The pandemic,” she continued, “is taking a terrible toll on the performing arts, especially classical music. My career will resume when the concert halls finally reopen. At least I hope so,” she added modestly. “But unfortunately, many talented young musicians will have no choice but to start over. With that in mind, I would like to introduce you to a dear friend ofmine who will perform a final piece for us this evening, a lovely composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff called ‘Vocalise.’”
Isabel heard her name reverberate through the hall, and somehow her legs managed to carry her to the stage. The audience disappeared the instant she began to play. Even so, she could feel the weight of his steady gaze upon her. Try as she might, she could not seem to recall his name. He was no one. He was a nothing man.
34
Kunsthaus, Zurich
It had been Anna Rolfe’s intention to make only a brief final appearance on the stage, but the audience would not permit her to leave. Admittedly, much of the adulation was directed toward Isabel. Her performance of Rachmaninoff’s haunting six-minute composition had been incendiary.
At last, Anna took Isabel’s hand, and together they departed the event hall. It seemed a sudden onset of headache—it was common knowledge Anna suffered from crippling migraines—would not allow her to mingle with the invited guests at the post-recital reception as planned. Dazzling young Isabel had consented to take her place. For reasons having to do with operational security, Gabriel had not told Anna all the reasons he had concocted tonight’s elaborate charade. She knew only that it had something to do with the Slavic-looking man who hadbeen feeding on Isabel with his eyes from his place in the front row.
Anna bade farewell to Isabel with stilted formality in the corridor, and they retreated to their separate green rooms. A museum security guard stood watch outside Anna’s. Her violin case lay on the dressing table, next to her packet of Gitanes. She lit one in violation of the museum’s strict no-smoking regulations and instantly thought of Gabriel, brush in hand, shaking his head at her with reproach.
I suppose we’re lucky it ended before someone got hurt...
The sound of feminine footfalls in the corridor intruded on Anna’s thoughts. It was Isabel leaving her dressing room for her star turn at the reception. Anna was relieved that her attendance was not required, as she found nothing quite so terrifying as a room filled with strangers. She much preferred the company of her Guarneri.
She pressed her lips gently to the scroll. “Time for bed, graceful lady.”
She dropped the Gitane into a half-drunk bottle of Eptinger and opened the violin case. Nestled among her things—a spare bow, extra strings, rosin, mutes, peg compound, cleaning cloths, nail clippers, emery boards, a lock of her mother’s hair—was an envelope with her name written in longhand across the front. It had not been there when she went onstage, and she had left strict instructions with the security guard not to allow anyone to enter her room in her absence. So, too, had the dishy Englishman with the lovely suntan. He had done so in quite possibly the least convincing French accent Anna had ever heard.
She hesitated a moment, then reached for the envelope. It wasof high quality, as was the bordered correspondence card inside.
Anna recognized the handwriting.
Rising, she wrenched open the door and rushed into the corridor. The security guard looked at her as though she were a madwoman. Obviously, her reputation preceded her.
“I thought I told you not to let anyone in my room while I was onstage.”
“I didn’t, Frau Rolfe.”
She waved the envelope in his face. “Then how on earth did this get in my violin case?”
“It must have been Monsieur Carnot.”
“Who?”
“The Frenchman who delivered the painting to the museum this afternoon.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s right here,” came a distant reply.
Anna wheeled round. He was standing next to the half-lit stage, an ironic half-smile on his face.
“You?”
He raised a forefinger to his lips, then disappeared from Anna’s view.
