A Rather Curious Engagement (39 page)

“Poor guy,” I muttered about the Lion, “I hope he comes through all right.”

They planned to cut a hole on the Lion’s head by following the circle around the plugged-up filling-spout. The pianist was stationed inside the castle, in the music room, which I’d seen for the first time—a beautiful rococo blue, white and gold salon with marble floors and great acoustics. Bruce’s crew had rigged an elaborate network of lighting, camera and sound, set up in the castle, and in the carriage house, and outdoors, all strung together by a complicated system of cables and computers. The Count’s household was terrified that one yank on a cable could bring a priceless urn crashing to the floor, so there was more than the usual flurry amid that slight boredom that sets in while waiting for the lighting and sound guys to do their maddening checks.

At Bruce’s signal, the intro was taped outside, establishing where we were and why it mattered. The Beethoven expert was a bemused-looking German in his sixties, with a fastidious little beard, who spoke English tinged with a Bonn accent. He was interviewed by a garrulous English TV personality who usually did travel specials that aired on both sides of the Atlantic.

Then, a hush fell over the crowd. The excitement in the air was suddenly quite palpable. I gazed at all the expectant faces—from Kurt and his sister (who made the pilgrimage from Frankfurt, and did indeed look as if she could be his twin, although she was older than him)—to Diamanta, and her moody brother, who now looked like an excited, and slightly abashed, teenage boy fascinated with the mechanics of the show. Rollo was there, surreptitiously taking an occasional swig from a flat little antique silver-plated thermos, and Clive was watching him, until Rollo offered him a swig. Mr. Donaldson was accompanied by a middle-aged female museum worker who handled delicate restoration. Erik and Tim had spiffed up the carriage house, placing anything interesting they’d found as background props—an old carriage wheel, a pitchfork, horseshoes, lanterns. It looked great. The Count was waiting in his castle, playing chess with the pianist, because both were so nervous that they couldn’t bear to watch.

The aquamanilia artisans adjusted their metal headgear, which looked like a cross between a mask and a helmet, with a light on the forehead like a coal miner. They bent over the Lion, then one of them gave a thumbs-up of readiness.

“And—ACTION!” Bruce cried.

Zzz-zzz. Zzz-zz
—
whirrr
—
whee-whish. . . .

The delicate operation had begun. This took a long time, and was very dramatic, with sparks flying all the while.

“You do realize,” Jeremy murmured to me as we watched, “that there could be anything in there—a certificate from the workshop, or, hell, even just a bill for services rendered. Or a grocery list belonging to an ordinary nineteenth-century metalworking guy. Something his wife gave him. ‘Bring home bread, eggs, milk ...’”

“Shush,” I hissed. We were standing in the back of the control booth. I listened to Bruce’s commands to cut from one camera to another. I found it oddly comforting, being back on a set again.

Finally, the artisans laid down their cutting tools. One of them began working with his hands, and then I heard a small metallic clink. The brass plug had been pulled out of the Lion’s head. It meant the Lion was finally opened up . . . after all these centuries.

A spontaneous “Ahhhhh!” came from the crowd of invited onlookers, all grouped reverently in one corner of the garage, because they were part of the show and were allowed to react. One of the workmen took off his headgear, picked up a pair of long metal tweezers, and reached in. This took a number of attempts, until he determined that he couldn’t get the cylinder out that way. After a momentary murmuring among the artisans, they decided that they would have to cut into the Lion’s belly if they had any hope of dragging the cylinder out.

Everyone took a break as the lighting crew swooped in to adjust the lights. The caterers had laid out a food spread in the upstairs apartment over the garage, and the smell of coffee revived everyone.

I hung around the operating table, glancing apprehensively at the Lion.

“He’ll be all right,” one of the metalworkers assured me. “He’ll always have some stitches on his head and belly,” he said, perfectly seriously. “But I think we might actually manage to get Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

Then we were all called back to watch the next phase. More sparks flying. But this time, the artisans were able to pry the cylinder, ever so gently, out of the Lion. Jeremy, who couldn’t stand it anymore and had gone outside for air, came racing back into the garage, just in time to see them gently lay the cylinder on a piece of chamois cloth.

Now the remaining task was to open up the cylinder without destroying its contents. After some discussion, it was agreed that they should slit it down the side. They did this carefully. One of the metalworkers peered in as we all held our breath.

“There’s something inside!” he announced. “Looks like paper to me.”

“Oooh,” cried the crowd.

Bruce called out, “Okay, let’s have the museum guys now.”

I heard Mr. Donaldson snort at that, as he stepped forward with the female restoration expert, who was all ready with gauze gloves and another pair of even more slender tweezers to gently pull out the old, delicate document. Once again we had to wait for the lights to be adjusted, very carefully, so as not to hurt the paper when it came out.

Because there definitely was paper inside, all curled up. I watched, wide-eyed, as the tweezer-lady pulled it out—softly, softly, softly. Then, very reverently, she laid it on a special pad on the table.

“Just like a message in a bottle from a castaway on a desert island! ” I whispered to Jeremy. A second later, the TV host said the same thing on-camera. Gently, gently, it was unrolled, and lightly flattened, just enough to see it. Mr. Donaldson and his worker bent over it. From Bruce’s video monitor, I could see a close-up of handwritten scripting in faded black ink.

“It appears to be written in old French,” Donaldson announced.

“Can anyone translate?”

Diamanta stepped forward. Haltingly at first, she began to translate, picking up speed as she went. Clive wrote it down, helping her adjust the English:

“It is addressed
To Paolo,”
Diamanta said. “Signed by
Greta.
”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Even the cameraman sniffed.

But one unsentimental person was blatantly disappointed. “Well, that’s it, then,” said the Beethoven expert.

The TV host took this as his cue, and turned to the camera and said, “At long last, the secret of the so-called Beethoven Lion has been revealed. It does not appear to be a musical fragment at all, but a love poem. Written many, many years ago, to a metalworking artisan from his beloved girlfriend, who was once a student of the great Maestro, Ludwig von Beethoven . . .”

Meanwhile, Bruce spoke in a low voice to a member of the documentary crew, who in turn spoke via walkie-talkie to the music crew and pianist that were on stand-by inside the castle, giving them the message that it was a poem, not a musical fragment. We knew exactly when this message reached them, because we could hear them all groan at the same time,
“Awwwhoa. . . .”

Only Jeremy wasn’t listening. He had been peering intently at the fragment the whole time. Now he asked the museum woman with the cotton gloves and tweezer to turn the paper over, so he could examine the underside of the curl.

“Look,” Jeremy said. “There’s something written on the reverse. See . . . here . . . doesn’t that look like . . . musical notes and . . . maybe, numbers?”

“Yes!” cried the woman. I crept closer, and peered over Jeremy’s shoulder. He stepped aside so I could draw nearer. The paper was beige-colored, with brown music composition lines, on which the composer had written, in a strong, confident hand, black musical notes, faded now, but which looked as if they had been powerfully jotted down in a tearing hurry. Some were hastily crossed-out, smudged and redone. Above the notes were numbers: 4, 2, 4, 1, 7 . . .

“What does it mean?” I asked in hushed awe.

Bruce ordered the cameras back on, and the Beethoven expert came running over to examine it under a magnifier. For what seemed like an interminable pause, we all waited. Finally, he stepped back and looked up triumphantly.

“It’s a fragment,” he declared, and the ruckus started all over again.

“Push in closer!” Bruce commanded his cameraman. “Closer, damn it!”

“But what are the numbers?” Jeremy demanded.

The Beethoven expert was nearly dancing with glee. “It looks to me like an autograph fragment in Beethoven’s hand, written as a fingering exercise!” he cried, ecstatic. He glanced up at the crowd, expecting a response, but when he saw the baffled looks on all the faces, he realized he’d have to explain it.

“Don’t you see,” he began, stumbling with excitement, “fingering. Fingering!”

A clear, firm voice rang out from the crowd. “Not only did Beethoven write the notes, but he added numbering above them to indicate which fingers should play them.” The Count, sitting in his wheelchair, had been quietly brought into the room by his valet, who wheeled him closer now. I noticed that the Count had formally dressed for this important occasion in his life. He wore a navy suit, was well-shaved, and I think he’d even gotten a haircut.

“Stay on that guy,” Bruce instructed his cameraman.

The Beethoven expert, far from feeling usurped, seemed glad to at last find someone who spoke the language of music. “Precisely, ” he beamed. “Most likely, he did this for a student,” he continued. “Beethoven was a great believer in the value of learning impeccable finger-work. He was a stern taskmaster, but generous enough to do this for his students.”

“You mean, these are music scales that he wanted his students to memorize?” the program host asked, confused.

“No, no,” said the Beethoven expert excitedly, studying the notes. “This is no mere exercise scale. I believe it is an original piano variation. The theme is quite recognizable as the Master’s. But this particular variation . . . I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it before. ”

He wanted to dash into the castle with the fragment, and have the pianist play it, but Donaldson got all upset and said adamantly that the paper was too fragile to be taken anywhere. So the Beethoven expert got out his lined paper, copied the notes, and handed it to a member of the crew, who rushed into the castle to give it to the pianist.

“Stand by,” said Bruce.

And it seemed to me that everybody—the crew, the experts, the mountains, the birds, the fish in Lake Como, and the whole universe, in fact—held its breath and waited to hear the first of those notes come floating out on the air from the open windows in the castle.

As soon as it reached my ears, I felt a physical sense of what I can only describe as “uplift.” It was a charming, playful, sweet melody, from far away and long ago. I imagined the great Beethoven, with his wild hair and unkempt clothes, painstakingly jotting down the numbers; and then standing watchfully over his student at the piano—Greta, who, sitting very upright and proper, earnestly plinked out the memorable, contagious little tune.

But then there was a pause in the music. I looked at the video monitor, and saw that the pianist had leaned forward, scrutinizing the notes.

“Isn’t that the theme from the last movement of the ‘Eroica’ symphony?” Jeremy asked. “The finale, right?”

We all turned to the Beethoven expert, who had been sitting in a chair with his head cocked, eyes shut, listening so attentively that he swayed slightly with each shift of sound. When the lull occurred, he opened his eyes and smiled at us.

“It is a variation on that theme, young man,” said the expert. “Beethoven wrote over a dozen such variations. They are known as the ‘Eroica Variations, Opus 35’, although actually, the theme originated earlier in his ballet called ‘The Creatures of Prometheus.’ ”

“That’s right, that’s right,” Jeremy said excitedly. “Some of those variations make you laugh out loud, because they are like musical jokes, playing around with all the possibilities.”

“However,” said the expert, “this particular variation is quite new to me. And, apparently, to our pianist . . .”

Which explained the pause. But now the pianist resumed playing, this time something more developed and complicated. Yet there was still that persistent melody, underneath all the trills and thrills, which even my untrained ears could pick out, as the earlier tune in the exercise:

Everyone fell silent, listening, enthralled, as it went on. But then, as it was building to something very beautiful indeed, suddenly, it all came to an abrupt end. I saw on the monitor that the pianist had sat back, his hands in his lap.