City of Dark Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

promise.”
    “Actually I’ve been using a voice-activated computer for two years now.”
    Sarah was surprised. “Really?”
    “Yes. And my hands, they’re big enough to play everything now.” Sarah looked at Pollina’s hands, her long slender fingers. When had they grown longer than Sarah’s own?
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Sarah asked.
    “I didn’t want you to feel useless,” said Pols, sharply.
    Sarah was rather touched that Pols was being so sulky. It would be nice to be missed.
    “I had a dream last night,” Pollina continued. “I dreamed that you were swallowed by a dragon. And you died. You were dead, and trying to talk to me.”
    Sarah thought of Sherbatsky with a pang.
    “I’m right here. I’m not dead and don’t plan to be for a long time.”
    “I suppose God will look after you while you search for her,” said Pollina.
    “Who?”
    “Duh, the Immortal Beloved.”
    Sarah laughed. It had been one of the great musical mysteries of the last century: the identity of the woman to whom Beethoven had written three passionate letters. He had called her his
Unsterbliche Geliebte
,
or Immortal Beloved. They had even made a bad movie about it, with Gary Oldman as Beethoven.
    “I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits,”
Pollina quoted with a sigh. “It’s so romantic.”
    “Pols, I know you had Matt read you Maynard Solomon’s book,” said Sarah, referring to the great musical scholar who had presented a masterful and nearly incontrovertible case for the identity of the Immortal Beloved. “Antonie Brentano was the
Unsterbliche Geliebte
. And she was married, and had a few children, and it seems pretty clear that LVB really wasn’t interested in taking on all that.” Sarah’s shorthand name for Ludwig van Beethoven usually got a smile out of Pols.
    “It wasn’t
her
,” burst out Pollina with passionate disgust. “Antonie Brentano. She was just another one of his silly flirtations.” She started coughing, and it took a few moments for her to stop.
    “Okay, okay,” said Sarah gently.
    As much as Sarah loved Beethoven—and it seemed to her at times that no other kind of love could possibly come close to it—she wasn’t particularly interested in Beethoven’s own love life. Much had been made of Ludwig’s series of failed affairs, aborted attempts at marriage, passions for married ladies, etcetera, and the subject was exhausted. Sarah had done far more research on how Beethoven’s intestinal troubles were reflected in his work. When it came to giving bad gas a melody, nobody did it better than LVB.
    “I promise I’ll keep in touch,” Sarah said, but Pollina, deep in thought now, interrupted her.
    “In my dream, the dragon breathed flames at you and you wouldn’t ask for help. You have to ask for help. There was a dwarf there, too.”
    Sarah felt the hair on her arms rise up.
    “And a prince, and a witch.” Pols reached out to stoke the fire. “Sarah you must
promise
me that you will pray to the Infant of Prague to help you.”
    The one thing about Pollina that made Sarah uncomfortable even after all these years was her extreme religiosity. Sarah avoided all talk of God with Pols, but it wasn’t always easy to keep silent when she was talking about God’s love for everyone, and how we must all labor for the glory of God, and telling Sarah not to worry, that it was all in God’s hands. Sarah understood that Pollina, being blind and a musical genius, felt especially noticed by God, but couldn’t quite grasp why Pols wasn’t angry about some of the special attention. Still, she was glad that Pols felt there was meaning to it all, since it seemed to give her comfort.
    “Alessandro went on and on about that, too,” Sarah said, hoping to avoid making an actual promise to pray to a statue of baby Jesus. “ ‘
Il Bambino di Praga
,’ he