Chapter 62
It is four in the morning and Callahan can't sleep. Everything he tries to think about, every distraction he comes upon always takes him back to the same point in time -- to what caused his mother to die -- because she had -- obviously -- chosen death over the alternative. And now that Liz and Deborah Eisenstadt were here -- and picking at all the old scabs covering this wound -- he was beginning to feel very uneasy about all the unknown events surrounding her passing.
His mother had been fighting what he'd always regarded a rearguard action against encroaching dementia, but what if he'd been wrong about that all along? 'And not just me,' he thought, 'all of us. But for me and Dad most of all.'
The single most important manifestation of her dementia, of her ongoing psychosis, had been the repeated appearance of the "Old Man," only now he knew the Old Man was real. And not just real, but more than likely a time traveler. And if that was the case just what had the Old Man been doing to her? What outcome had he been trying to shape?
So...she hadn't been some kind of garden variety schizophrenic after all, had she? Maybe the Old Man had become more like her own personal tormenter, and maybe as his appearances became more and more frequent she'd grown depressed and felt undermined by his constant, unwanted intrusions? 'I mean...who wouldn't,' he sighed as he sat at the piano, his fingers playing random notes. "I know I wouldn't be able to handle something so insidious," he grumbled.
"What couldn't you handle," Eisenstadt said, padding into the living room in her bathrobe and slippers.
"The things my mother had to put up with," he replied, his hands never leaving the keyboard.
"What are you playing? It's beautiful."
"Playing? I wasn't...I'm not -- playing anything."
"You could have fooled me. There is structure and melody, and a most melancholic longing in these notes."
He closed his eyes and started playing again, only now he was very much aware that specific notes were coming to him. He straightened up and addressed the keyboard and opened his mind and time seemed to dissolve as he played now, and he could just hear the crashing surf below and then a cool breeze flowing through the room...
"Mom? Is that you?"
Another passing breeze and then faint laughter, like children on a distant playground.
"What are you trying to tell me?"
His eyes closed, and he reached out through the music, the notes pulling them together through space and time.
"I can...I think I can hear you now..."
He could hear the grand old Bösendorfer now, hear her playing and he knew he was hearing her in the compound, at Avi's house.
He opened his eyes and it was like he was flying through clouds, his eyes watering as he crossed gulfs of cold hard time...
...and then... she was there...and she was...
...playing the Fourth. And yes, there was von Karajan, staring in disbelief as she played, and von Karajan wept in astonished understanding as her music was carried along on the breeze...
Callahan was behind his mother now, looking at the notes she had scored to paper, at the music he know so well, and now he watched as she made her way into the final passage.
But no, this was different. She...no...this wasn't the music von Karajan had given him.
He moved closer, looked at her penciled notes on the sheet music and he could see the harmonic interplay take shape in the air above the piano.
He moved closer still and she turned and looked into his eyes. "Do you understand now, Harald?" she said to him. "Do you see where I am taking this?"
"I think so, Mom."
"We can never do this again, so you must understand, now, before you leave me..."
He pointed to a section of notes. "I've never seen anything like this, Mom. What is it?"
"This is the key, Harald. This is the gateway, and you must become the keeper. Sit beside me now and play the notes, form the chord in your mind. Do you see it now?"
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"Then go now. Go, but Harald, you must never come back here. Promise me, now, that you will never...!"
"But Mom, I..."
"I know, I know. But Harald, you must guard what you have learned here because this will become very dangerous for you. Now...promise me...!"
"Alright Mom, I promise," he cried as he reached out for her...
...but she was receding now, disappearing inside the cold embrace of the same dense white clouds, yet even now she was reaching out for him and he saw her calling out a name. He strained to hear what she was saying then he recoiled in disbelief as he found himself tumbling through a black void, surrounded by shimmering blue fingers of dancing electricity...
And when he landed in a dazed heap he looked around he felt a damp wooden floor underhand and this place was very cold. Very, very cold. And when he raised his head and looked around it looked like he was laying inside a wooden bucket of some sort, and he felt ice cold condensation rolling down the inner walls of the bucket...
Then he felt a small hand on his shoulder, and he heard a little girl's voice whispering close to his ear.
"You'd better stand up now," the ticklish little voice said. "This is the bad part."
He looked up, saw a little girl standing beside him and he took her offered hand and tried to stand -- and he realized he was standing on two legs now.
But there were two men standing in the bucket too, and one of them was rubbing his hands as if to ward off the cold...
Then the little girl tugged at his shirtsleeve. "Could you pick me up, please? I want to watch."
"Watch? Watch what?" he said as he lifted her up to his waist, and she pointed out into the mist.
"There. If you look real hard you can just about see it now."
He turned and realized he was high above the foredeck of a large ship steaming through the night, but just then one of the men by his side crossed himself...
"Sweet Jesus," the man said as he picked up the cold brass growler.
Harry turned and looked at the little girl as sudden understanding turned to panic. "Where are we?" he muttered.
"Iceberg!" the lookout cried into the growler. "Iceberg, dead ahead!"
"Don't worry," the little girl sighed, "it only hurts for just a little bit, but it'll be over soon."
Callahan watched as the iceberg came out of the mist and he knew there wasn't anything he could do so he simply gave way to the moment and held on. The Titanic grazed the spur just beneath the waterline and shattered fragments of ice rained down on the deck, and he turned in time to see officers running into the wheelhouse to close the watertight bulkheads and now everything felt just like a nightmare.
"But it's not," the little girl said.
"It's not what?"
"A nightmare. But don't worry. No one will believe you, but that doesn't matter."
He swallowed hard but in the next instant he started falling again, and a billion years later -- or was it just a second? -- he was on the floor in the living room of his house and he felt like he was drowning in freezing water.
He heard screaming and when he looked up he saw a blinking owl, then the owl was by his side, helping him into his wheelchair and that's when he realized his house was awash in seawater, and that the floor of his living room was covered in shattered fragments of ice...
"My God, Harry!" Eisenstadt cried. "What has happened? Where were you?"
"What do you mean...where was I? I was right here!"
"No! No, you've been gone for several minutes?"
"Gone?"
"Oh God! Harry! Do you know what this means?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Harry! You left this time! You...traveled in time -- just like the Old Man!"
"No...no way..."
"The music, Harry! This music! The Fourth is the key!"
