Chapter 28: The Morning After the Storm
The morning after the Golden Lyre tournament broke over the river with an uncharacteristic, crystalline clarity. The late-winter fog that had choked the limestone bridges had blown out to sea, leaving the air brittle, cold, and tasting of melted snow.
Outside Number 14 Belvedere Terrace, the pea gravel was littered with cigarette butts and discarded coffee cups left behind by the international press corps. By eight o’clock, however, the driveway was entirely deserted. Lev Richter had instructed four private security guards to clear the block; anyone carrying a telephoto lens or a portable recorder was escorted beyond the municipal park boundaries under threat of criminal trespass.
Inside the great Victorian salon, the stillness was reverent and absolute.
A roaring fire of dried applewood crackled in the hearth, sending waves of fragrant, resinous warmth across the parquetry floor. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn wide, letting the pale northern light wash over the satin-black curves of the Hamburg Steinway.
Maya Chen sat at the small round mahogany breakfast table near the bay windows. She was not wearing the midnight-blue wool dress; it had been brushed, folded, and wrapped in clean tissue paper by Olga early that morning. Instead, Maya wore a soft, oversized gray knitted sweater that belonged to Sam and a pair of worn corduroy trousers.
Across from her sat Lev Richter, wrapped in his dark wool dressing gown, reading a leather-bound edition of Goethe. Beside his elbow lay a thick stack of telegrams—cables from Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Salzburg Festival, offering sums of money that could have bought the entire block of Elm Street three times over.
Maya had not touched them.
"The Vienna State Opera wants four concerts in November," Richter remarked casually, turning a yellowed page without looking up. "They are offering thirty-five thousand euros per evening, plus luxury travel accommodations for three companions. Sam could retire from turning wrenches and spend the rest of his life drinking hot chocolate in Austrian coffeehouses."
Maya smiled faintly, cradling her cup of black tea with both hands to warm her palms. "Sam would get bored in three days, Maestro. He would start taking apart the hotel's espresso machine just to see how the brass valves work."
"Undoubtedly," Richter grunted, a flicker of genuine affection softening the lines of his craggy face. He lowered the book, looking over his tortoiseshell spectacles at his young student. "And what about you, Miss Chen? The world has placed its crown upon your head. The critics are calling you the second coming of Clara Schumann. Do you intend to spend your eighteenth year living like a nomadic empress between hotel suites and airport lounges?"
Maya shook her head gently.
"I am not Clara Schumann, Maestro. And I am not an empress. Last night, when the people were screaming in the hall, I realized something terrifying."
"Tell me."
"They were listening with their eyes," Maya said softly, her blind gaze fixed upon the floorboards where the sunbeam warmed the wood. "They saw the white cane. They saw the faded dress. They saw the drama of a poor girl defeating the proud academic. And because of that drama, they were ready to forgive any flaw, any smudge in the counterpoint. That is dangerous, Maestro. That is how an artist dies."
Richter sat in silence for a long moment, his chest rising and falling in deep, measured breaths. He reached out with his ancient, scarred right hand and laid it over hers on the table.
"You have more wisdom at seventeen than Julian Vance acquired in a half-century of breathing, child," the old man said, his voice dropping into a tender, gravelly hush. "The world loves a spectacle. It feeds on novelty, and when the novelty runs thin, it discards its idols on the ash heap without a second thought. If you surrender to their applause now, you will become a museum exhibit. A touring miracle."
"I don't want to be a miracle," Maya whispered. "I only want to play the truth."
"Then we have work to do," Richter said, pushing his chair back with a sharp scrape. He grabbed his rosewood cane and stood up, towering over the table with his familiar, uncompromising ferocity. "Finish your tea, Miss Chen. The Brahms Handel Variations require twenty-five variations of contrapuntal architecture that you still play with the romantic looseness of a parlor amateur. Your fourth finger on the left hand remains half an ounce lighter than the third. To the keyboard!"