108
Raphael Guidi is walking through the dining room carrying a black leather folder, which he sets down on the table and pushes toward Axel Riessen.
“Pontus Salman’s nightmare, as you perhaps already understand, was to be forced to harm his wife or his sister,” Guidi explains. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt the need to be so explicit before, but… how can I put this? Lately there have been people who thought they could escape their nightmares through suicide. Please don’t misunderstand me. Usually our plans go very well. We can all be civilized. I can be an extremely generous man to those who are loyal to me.”
“You’re threatening to hurt Beverly.”
“You can always choose someone else… perhaps choose between her and your younger brother, if you’d rather?” Raphael says nonchalantly as he sips his vitamin drink. He wipes his mouth and then turns to Peter and asks him to fetch his violin.
“Have I told you that I acquire only instruments played by Paganini?” he asks. “They are the only ones I care about. People say that Paganini hated the appearance of his face… I personally believe he sold his soul to the Devil so that others would worship him. He called himself an ape, but when he played, the women came crawling to him. It was worth the price. He would play and play so unbelievably that people said they could smell hellfire around him.”
Axel looks out the wide windows at water that now seems to barely move. He knows that if he turned and looked toward the foredeck he would see the helicopter that had brought him here. Axel’s thoughts avoid the appalling film he’s just seen and instead search for a way out of all of this.
He feels drained. He sits still and listens to Raphael, who goes on and on about violins, Stradivarius’s fixation on the clearest sound, the hardness of the wood, the slowly growing maple and spruce trees he chooses for his workshop.
Raphael stops and smiles his lifeless smile while he says, “As long as you are loyal to me, you will enjoy everything possible on one side of the scale. You will receive a healthy organ and you’ll sleep better than you ever have before. In return, I demand that you will never betray the contract we are about to sign.”
“And you just want the export form signed.”
“I shall have that no matter what. I don’t want to use force, or even kill you. That would be such a waste.” Guidi waves that away. “What I demand is-”
“My loyalty,” Axel states.
“Is that too much to ask?” Raphael asks. “Think it over for just a minute. Count all the people that you can rely on absolutely. The ones who you know would be entirely loyal to you.”
A long pause comes between them. Axel stares straight ahead.
With a sorrowful look, Raphael says, “Exactly.”
109
Axel opens the leather folder on the table. All the export documents are there. All the paperwork necessary to clear M/S Icelus from Gothenburg Harbor with its huge cargo of ammunition.
All that is missing is his signature.
Raphael Guidi’s son comes back into the room. His face is pale and withdrawn. He’s carrying a beautiful violin: a reddish brown instrument with a gently curved body. Axel recognizes an Amati immediately, and one in superb shape after so many years.
“I have already told you I demand certain music to accompany the deal we are about to make,” Raphael says softly. “This violin belonged to the boy’s mother… and much earlier, Niccolo Paganini played it.”
“It was fashioned in 1657,” Peter says. Absentmindedly he empties his pockets of his keys and cell phone as if to prepare for a great event. He discards them on the table before he puts the instrument to his shoulder.
The boy lays the bow gently on the strings, and soon he begins to play as if he is falling into a dream. Axel immediately recognizes the introduction to Paganini’s most famous piece: Caprice no. 24. It is considered the most difficult violin piece ever written. The boy plays like he’s swimming underwater; it moves much too slowly.
“Our contract would be very advantageous,” Raphael says.
It’s still light outside. The wide windows allow great light into the salon.
Axel thinks about Beverly and how she came to him and crept into his bed when he was in the psychiatric ward. She’d whispered, I saw there was light in this room. You’re giving off light.
“Are you finished thinking it over?” Raphael demands.
Axel can’t bear to look at him. He looks down instead and picks up the pen from the table in front of him. He listens to his heart race. He tries to disguise his quickened breathing.
This time he can’t draw a cartoon figure saying “Hi!” He will be forced to sign his name and then pray to God that Raphael Guidi will be content and let him return to Sweden.
Axel feels the pen shake. He steadies one hand with the other, takes a deep breath, and puts the tip of the pen to the empty line on the contract.
“Wait one moment,” Raphael Guidi says abruptly. “Before you sign, I need to know that I own you… that I own your loyalty.”
Axel looks into Guidi’s eyes.
“If you are truly prepared to possibly reap your nightmare if our contract is broken, you must show your faith. You must demonstrate it by kissing my hand.”
“What?”
“We enter into a contract, do we not?”
“We do,” Axel replies.
“Then it will be sealed by a kiss on my hand,” Raphael says in a voice so twisted he could be the idiot in an ancient play.
Raphael’s son plays more and more slowly as he tries to force his fingers to obey. He awkwardly shifts position but stumbles during the rapid runs. He mangles the passage again and then he gives up.
“Continue,” Raphael demands without a glance his way.
“It’s too difficult. It doesn’t sound good.”
“Peter, it’s wrong to give up before you’ve really tried-”
“Then play it yourself,” his son says with a pout.
Raphael’s face stiffens so that his features are as hard as a rock formation.
“Do as I say,” he says with chilling calm.
The boy doesn’t move, just looks at the ground. Raphael’s right hand goes toward the chain on his gym shorts.
“Peter, I thought it sounded fine enough to continue,” Raphael says menacingly.
“The bridge is crooked,” Axel breaks in with a voice barely above a whisper.
Peter looks at the violin and blushes.
“Can you adjust it?” he asks.
“Of course. It’s easy enough, and I can do it for you if you want me to,” Axel says.
“Will it take a long time?” asks Raphael.
“No,” Axel says.
Axel puts down the pen and takes the violin from the boy. He turns it over and feels how light it is. He’s never held an Amati before, let alone one the master Paganini had played.
Raphael’s phone rings. He looks at it and then stands straight up while he listens.
“That can’t be true!” he’s exclaiming with a savage expression.
