City of Lost Dreams Read Online Free PDF

changes in the girl were dramatic, but Sarah found them difficult to assess. Was her friend older looking because she was in fact heading into full teenager status, or had her illness aged her prematurely? She was not much taller, still slight, but her face had definitely lost its doll-like roundness. She was moving slowly, but then Pols always moved slowly, unless she was playing the piano or violin, when she was capable of Dervish-like agility and Titanic power.
    “I see you as a conductor,” Pols said at last, having demolished the doughnut. “When I’m done with my opera you should conduct it.”
    “Was that what you were playing when I came in?”
    “Yes. That was the theme.” Pols straightened her back. “The whole thing flows from those five notes, which are encrypted throughout the entire work. Or will be.”
    “What’s your libretto?”
    “I’m writing it myself. But I need to work fast. Mozart was twelve when he wrote
Bastien und Bastienne
and
La finta semplice
.”
    “Well, those weren’t great operas.”
But it’s good that she’s feeling competitive,
Sarah thought.
She’s a fighter.
    “No, not truly great. They showed ambition but not compassion. The music was there, but emotionally he was still immature,” said Pols. “Like you, kind of.”
     • • • 
    A t noon, Sarah slipped into the back row of Lobkowicz Palace Museum’s Music Room. The 7th Prince Lobkowicz had been a major supporter of Ludwig van Beethoven. Word had apparently gotten around that the current Lobkowicz was patron to another extraordinary genius. The place was packed.
    I’ll know how Pols really feels,
Sarah thought,
when I hear her play
.
    Harriet Hunter took the seat next to Sarah, togged out today in a green corduroy frock coat buttoned over a white silk blouse and green and black vest, with narrow black velvet pants. A sort of nineteenth-century cross-dressed look. You had to give the woman points for style.
    “How are you feeling?” Harriet whispered, searching Sarah’s face. “After your plunge last night? Max said you were into the river before anyone else had sorted out what was happening. And you think someone was shooting at you?”
    “I might have been mistaken about that,” Sarah said, hedging. “There was a lot going on.” So Max had told Harriet about the gunshots, even though Nico had counseled discretion?
    “Max said you’re working on a book?” Sarah asked Harriet, hoping to steer the conversation away from drowning madmen and mysterious plots.
    “A novel.” Harriet smiled. “Although it requires a great deal of research. My heroine is Elizabeth Weston—the poet? They called her ‘Westonia.’ No relation of yours, Max says.”
    “Weston is a common name,” Sarah said, though the name Westonia had given her a bit of a jolt.
    “In her day Elizabeth Weston was more famous than Shakespeare,” said Harriet. “I’m taking a bit of a risk, imagining her as a modern woman, looking back at her life and accomplishments here in Prague. But it’s atrocious she’s been so forgotten. I’m hoping to really make her come alive for a modern audience.”
    “Sounds great,” said Sarah.
Although in my experience,
she thought,
it’s not hard to make history come alive in Prague. The hard part is making history stay dead
.
    According to Nico, Westonia had been the name Tycho Brahe had given to one of his little alchemical experiments, the result of which had been a perception-expanding drug that both Sarah and Max had taken. Westonia allowed you to see the past, see it so clearly that it was like time traveling. Nico had said that Brahe had named the drug after Elizabeth Weston, though Sarah had no idea why. She wondered if Max had said anything to Harriet about it. Probably not. The whole thing was pretty hard to believe and anyway the ingredients for making it were all gone.
    Harriet squinted at her program. Sarah wondered if she would take an eyeglass on a velvet ribbon from her waistcoat