Fatal Lies

ON LEAVING THE HOSPITAL, Liebermann walked to Cafe Landtmann, where he ordered a large plate of Wiener schnitzel followed by two slices of topfenstollen. His appetite, which had been notably absent, had suddenly returned. As his fork sliced through the crumbly pastry, the fragrance of lemon zest, cinnamon, and rum intensified. He relished the sharp flavors, which seemed to revive all his senses: the world became more vivid.

By seven o'clock he was on a tram, which took him to the nearby seventh district. He soon found the small concert venue where Trezska was playing. Examining the billboard, he discovered that she was sharing the platform with two other musicians: a pianist, Jozsef Kal-man, and a cellist called Bertalan Szep. The concert seemed to be part of a cultural initiative and was sponsored by Arpad Arts, a charitable foundation promoting young musicians from Hungary.

Liebermann entered the building, deposited his coat in the cloakroom, and purchased a program. He loitered in the foyer for a few minutes and studied the audience. They were entirely unremarkable, although there were more Hungarians present than might ordinarily have been expected. Capturing an usher's attention, he was guided to a central seat in the fourth row. The auditorium was already quite full, and an obese woman, wearing a feather boa and a floral hat, scowled at him when she had to stand up to let him pass.

As he settled down, Liebermann noticed a group of men advancing up the side aisle. They were dressed in elegant black suits and looked, so Liebermann thought, like representatives of the charitable foundation. One of them sported an award of civil merit: a large cross, hanging from a violet and green ribbon—the Royal Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen. Among their number, Liebermann was surprised to glimpse the white tunic and gold sash of an Austrian general. He did not get a very clear view of the man, but he saw that he was carrying a bouquet of flowers. The dignitaries took their seats— all in the front row—and almost immediately the lights dimmed.

A door at the back of the stage opened, and Jozsef Kalman—a thin, sallow man with sunken eyes—marched to the piano. He played some fanciful pieces by Karl Goldmark and a selection of mazurkas, nocturnes, and ballades by Stephen Heller. Liebermann judged Kalman to be technically proficient, but his interpretations were far too literal. Be that as it may, the audience was determined to praise the young artist, and responded with vigorous applause and hearty cries of “Bravo! Bravo!”

The cellist, Bertalan Szep—a stout fellow with comically horripi-lated hair—was an altogether more accomplished performer. He produced an excellent account of Bach's Suite Number Six in D major, managing to make the melancholy voice of his instrument sing with joy. He continued his recital with an amusing transcription of an orchestral interlude by a Russian composer, titled The Flight of the Bumblebee—the conceit of the piece being that its curious chromatic melody emulated precisely the frantic buzzing of the busy insect. When Szep took his bow, Liebermann was pleased to bring his hands together with genuine enthusiasm.

Contemplating the vacant platform, Liebermann found that he was peculiarly excited by the prospect of seeing Trezska Novak again. He began to wonder if his recollection of her was accurate: the full mouth, the strong nose, and those striking eyebrows. She had seemed very beautiful—at the time—but they had met under exceptional circumstances. Perhaps his heightened state of emotion had affected his perception of her. He was hoping—rather anxiously— that his memory had not deceived him, and that the woman who was about to occupy the stage would prove to be an exact copy of the woman he had rescued in Landstrasse.

The door at the rear of the stage opened and Trezska Novak materialized out of the shadows. Liebermann was not disappointed. Indeed, so arresting was her appearance that the audience produced an appreciative soughing that preceded their applause. She was wearing a black satin dress, and her hair fell in thick lustrous locks around her shoulders. Above her heart, she had pinned a brooch—shaped like a horned moon—which burned with a fiery white adamantine light. Her expression was serious and purposeful. She curtsied, gripped the violin beneath her chin, and waited for the clapping to subside. Then, closing her eyes, she drew her bow across the strings.

A strange, improvisatory scraping filled the hall: the opening bars of Tartini's G-minor sonata, more popularly known as The Devil's Trill (on account of the composer's insistence that it was revealed to him by Satan in a dream). The melody was serpentine, sinister, and creeping, occasionally finding a major key and offering the listener hope, only to dash it again by twisting back into a tonal wasteland of eerie ambiguities.

Liebermann had heard The Devil's Trill performed once before, at the Saal Ehrbar, but it had not affected him so deeply. In that concert, the work had been performed with a piano accompaniment, which had only diminished the music's power. The lone voice of the violin was more haunting, more mysterious— imbued with a raw, chilling urgency.

Of course, thought Liebermann. When the devil played to Tartini, he played alone!

Trezska did not open her eyes, but communed with her violin, swaying and rolling from side to side. The demonic obliquity of her eyebrows and the rapture of her playing stirred in Liebermann memories of Faust: a capricious notion that this woman might once have gambled with her soul in exchange for greater mastery of her instrument. The sheer spectacle of her performance charmed the audience into forgiving any technical deficiencies. She was like a magician, artfully misleading by means of a carefully choreographed danse macabre.

The conservative second movement was followed by the opening bars of the third, a fortissimo howl that might have escaped from the mouth of a doomed Florentine in Dante's hell. Jerking rhythms led to fluid accelerandi and savage down-bowed chords. Then the famous trills: frenzied, dizzying, convulsive, becoming louder and louder— climbing in pitch and volume. Trezska leaned backward, and her tresses tumbled off her shoulders. Her eyes opened. In the sulfurous gaslight they appeared incandescent with infernal rage. When the music finally reached its arpeggiated dissolution into nothingness, almost everyone listening had been persuaded that this extraordinary composition was, indeed, the devil's handiwork.

Trezska completed her recital with a less dramatic piece: Tartini's Pastorale for violin in scordatura. Gradually, its gentle rusticity and bucolic breeziness dispelled the stench of brimstone, and visions of eternal torment were replaced by idyllic vales, drones, pipes, and slumbering shepherds.

When the final notes had faded and Trezska had removed the violin from beneath her chin, the audience responded with noisy delight. Several of the dignitaries in the front row jumped to their feet—and others seated behind copied them, clapping and cheering. Through the mass of bodies, Liebermann caught a glimpse of white and gold— and saw Trezska bend to take the bunch of flowers from the Austrian general.

After collecting his coat from the cloakroom, Liebermann left the hall and set off toward the Ringstrasse. He passed a Bosnian hawker, in crimson fez and pointed slippers, who attempted to sell him a kettle and an inlaid snuffbox. The sound of Tartini's diabolical trills still persisted in the young doctor's mind. They had acquired a siren- like quality, exerting a subtle tractive power that slowed his step. Moreover, he had begun to question the propriety of his precipitate departure. Trezska Novak had sent him a personal invitation. Surely it was discourteous to leave without congratulating her. This simple point of etiquette was frequently observed in musical circles, was it not? Such were his justifications.

Liebermann stopped, turned around, and made his way back to the concert hall, slipping down a side alley that led to the artists’ entrance. He rapped on the door, which was opened by a porter. Jangling some loose change in his pocket, he asked the functionary to convey his compliments to Fraulein Novak. Some silver coins changed hands and the porter disappeared. A few minutes later the door reopened and Liebermann was admitted into a narrow corridor. A few gentlemen were standing at the far end: one of them was Bertalan Szep. He was smoking a cigar, and his arm was casually slung around the shoulders of his cello case. The porter indicated Trezska's dressing room.

A gentle tap on the paneling produced an invitation to enter.

Trezska was seated in front of a large mirror.

“How good of you to come.”

“It was my pleasure.”

She did not stand to greet her visitor but remained perfectly still, conversing with Liebermann's reflection.