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Yes, she thought, as she left her car and walked the last several blocks to the concert entrance to Sainte-Chapelle, she had chosen wisely. Joining the line, she inched along the sidewalk. She spotted him as he turned into the doorway and came into view. She was pleased: She was only six people behind him. She had chosen an Alexander McQueen outfit, one of her favorites: a belted, navy Vneck military pencil dress, which she had paired with black anklehigh boots with a wedge heel. She wanted to stand out, but not too much.
Inside, the rows of folding chairs were neat and precise, and people took their seats silently, almost reverently, as if they were coming to Mass, not to a concert played by a string quartet. Perhaps, Martha thought, because it was Bach the two might not be so different. She had read that those who loved Bach’s music above all others often felt that when the music rose around them, they were as close to God as they would get in this life.
Her seat was three rows behind Hererra, which was good; she could keep him in sight. He sat between a man more elderly than he and a woman who Martha judged to be on the good side of forty. It was unclear if he knew either of these people, and shortly it didn’t matter, at least not while the quartet was playing Bach. This almost mystical composer elicited many different reactions in his listeners. For Martha Christiana, the music brought up memories of her past: the fogbound lighthouse off the coast of Gibraltar in which she had been born, her father, gruff and weather-beaten, tinkering constantly with the ever-revolving light, her mother, pale and fragile, so agoraphobic that she never left the lighthouse. When her mother looked up at the stars at night, she was overcome with vertigo.
The musicians played, the music unfurled, precise and rigorous in its progression of notes, and Martha Christiana saw herself escaping the lighthouse, leaving her dysfunctional parents behind, stealing aboard a freighter, steaming out of Gibraltar harbor for North Africa, where for nineteen months, she roamed the streets of Marrakech, selling herself to stupid tourists as a virgin, over and over, after the first time using fresh goat’s blood she bought from a butcher, before she was taken in by an enormously wealthy Moroccan, who made her his unwilling concubine. He kept her prisoner inside his house, took her roughly, often brutally, whenever the spirit moved him, which was often.
He furthered her education in literature, mathematics, philosophy, and history. He also taught her how to look inward, to meditate, to empty herself of all thought, all desire, and while she was in that transcendental state, to see God. He gave her the world, many worlds, in fact. Eventually, inevitably, the knowledge with which he endowed her opened her eyes to the terrible price he was exacting from her. Three times she tried to escape from her perfumed prison and three times he caught her. Each time, her punishment was more grievous, more monstrous, but she steeled herself, she would not be cowed. Instead, one night, while they made love, she rose up, intending to slit his throat with a shard of glass she had hoarded in secret. His eyes turned opaque as if he could see his death reflected in her face. He emitted a sound like the ticking of a massive grandfather clock. She spread her arms wide, as if summoning God to do her bidding. His clawed fingers dug in, scratched down her upper arms as if he wished to take her with him as he died of a massive heart attack. Gathering up what money she could find, leaving untouched anything that could be traced back to him, she had fled Marrakech, never to return.
These were not altogether pleasant memories, but they were hers, and after years of trying to deny them, she now accepted them as part of her, albeit a part known only to herself. Every once in a while, when she was alone in the dark, she played Bach on her iPod, reevoking these memories to remind herself of who she was and where she had come from. Then she meditated, emptying herself in order for God to fill her up. It had taken her a long time, absorbing pain of all kinds, to reach this state of being. Always, she emerged from these introspective sessions feeling renewed and ready for the task at hand.
The concert over, the audience applauded, then stood and applauded some more, calling for an encore. The quartet re-emerged from the wings, where they had been absorbing the well-deserved accolades, took up their instruments, and played a short, thrumming piece. More applause, as the concert ended, for good this time.
Martha observed the woman on Hererra’s left turn to him, tilting her head while she spoke and he responded. She was more stately than pretty, very well dressed. A native Parisian, no doubt.
The audience was breaking up, shuffling along the rows, filing slowly up the aisles, talk of the concert persistent and ongoing. Martha Christiana moved along with the people in her row, then hung back a bit at the end so that when she entered the aisle she was alongside the woman with Hererra.
“Le concert vous a-t-il plu?”she said to the woman. Did you enjoy the concert? “J’aime Bach, et vous?” I love Bach, don’t you?
“En fait, non,”the woman replied. In fact, no. “Je préfère Satie.”
Martha, thanking God for the opening, finally addressed Hererra. “Et vous, monsieur, préférez-vous aussi Satie?”
“Non,”Hererra said, with an indulgent smile toward his companion, “I favor Bach above all other composers—apart, of course, from Stephen Sondheim.”
Martha emitted a silvery laugh as she threw back her head, revealing her long neck and velvety throat.
“Yes,” she said. “ Folliesis my favorite show.”
For the first time, Hererra looked past his companion, sizing Martha up. By this time they had reached the echoing marble hallway that led to the street. That was the moment for her to nod in friendly fashion and move ahead of the couple.
Outside, a drizzle was making the streets shiny. Martha paused to turn up the collar of her coat, take out a cigarette, and fumble for her lighter. Before she could find it, a flame appeared before her, and she leaned in, drawing smoke deeply into her lungs. As she let it out, she looked up to see Hererra standing in front of her. He was alone.
“Where is your companion?”
“She had a previous engagement.”
Martha raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
She liked his laugh. It was deep and rich and came from his lower belly.
“No. I dismissed her.”
“An employee, then.”
“Just an acquaintance, nothing more.”
Martha liked the way he said “nothing more,” not dismissively, just matter-of-factly, indicating that circumstances had changed, that he was quick to adapt to the changes.
Hererra took out a cigar, held it up for her to see. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Martha said. “I enjoy the smell of a good cigar.”
They introduced themselves.
As Hererra went through the ritual of cutting and lighting the cigar, precise as a Bach toccata, she said, “Tell me, Don Fernando, have you ever been to Eisenach?” Eisenach was the birthplace of Joha
“I confess I haven’t.” He had the cigar going now. “Have you?”
She nodded. “As a graduate student, I went to the Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German.”
“Your thesis was on Luther?”
She laughed that silvery laugh again. “I never finished it. Too much of a rebel.” He had been a rebel, too, in his youth. She thought a kindred spirit would appeal to him. She was right.
“Mademoiselle Christiana.”
“Martha, please.”
“All right, then. Martha. Would you be free for di
“Monsieur, I hardly know you.”
He smiled. “Easiest thing in the world to remedy, don’t you think?”