“It’s not that easy,” Max said. “The upper registry is a silent void to me.”
“It’s not to me,” Anna said. “Or an audience.”
Max took a deep breath, attempting to dispel the tightness growing in his chest.
Anna gently placed a hand on his arm.
His tension eased.
“You told me that you gained immense satisfaction by giving others the joy of music,” she said. “It’s why you became a pianist.”
He nodded.
“Please,” she said softly.
Nia padded to Max’s side and brushed against his leg.
“Are you in this, too?” he asked.
The dog wagged her tail.
He turned toward Anna. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”
She slipped her hand from his arm. “Nein.”
“All right,” he breathed.
Max moved closer to Anna to center himself over the keyboard. He sifted through his memories, visions of recitals flashing in his head. He considered several adagio tempo pieces that would venture to, but not focus on, the high octave keys. After a bit of thought, he decided on Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Movement II by Johann Sebastian Bach. He positioned his hands over the keyboard, took a deep breath, and played a solitary D key slowly in repetition, like a slow heartbeat. The solitary notes progressed to a dyad—a two-note chord—and on to a minor chord. As the pulse of chords continued, he played, using his right hand, a delicate melancholy melody. Images of his parents in the front row of a Leipzig concert hall surged through his brain. He imagined himself as he was before the war, a robust man with hope and aspiration. As the theme ascended to tones that his damaged eardrums could not detect, he fought back the urge to stop. His pulse quickened as he struggled to conjure the missing sounds. But gradually, he began to fabricate absent pitches within his head. The concerto grew to a crescendo, the vibration of the piano reverberating through his hands, blood, and bone. Minutes later, the piece drew toward the end, growing slower and softer. He finished, his fingers holding down on the keys, as the tones faded, and then disappeared.
The sound of Norbie’s clapping hands pierced the air. “Bravo!”
Max slipped his hands from the piano.
“Magnificent, my boy,” Norbie said. “I heard your music in my workshop and I came upstairs. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Max said. He turned to Anna. “How was it?”
Anna, her eyes pooled with tears, leaned to him. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
CHAPTER20
LILLE, FRANCE—DECEMBER12, 1916
In his room at the officers’ boardinghouse, Bruno put on his uniform, which Celeste had cleaned and pressed. Using a military-issued grooming kit, he shaved, trimmed his thick mustache, and combed his hair. He placed his personal items into a leather case and left his room. As he descended the grand staircase of the bourgeois home, a sense of disquietude encompassed him. Instead of going off to the ammunition warehouse—where, for the past several days, he had supervised the procurement and shipment of phosgene gas shells—he was returning to the fight. He’d received orders from Haber to escalate the rate of gas shells along the front, while they waited for the new chemical weapon—derived from sulfur mustard—that Haber predicted would change the tide of the war.
“I packed you some food,” Celeste said, peering up at him from the foyer.
A twinge of guilt pricked at his stomach. He descended the remaining stairs, his jackboots clacking on French oak flooring, and approached her.
“It’s sausage and dried fruit,” she said, extending a paper-wrapped package.
“Danke.” Bruno took the food and placed it into his bag. He paused, looking into her emerald-green eyes. Flashes of their intimacy flared in his head. “I wish there was a better way to leave things between us.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “What we had was comfort. Nothing more.”
It was more than that. You gave me affection and soothed my pain.“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Until we meet again, I will hold you in my prayers.” Celeste gently placed a hand to his cheek.
