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     I continue with my synopsis.

     Susanna needed first of all to decide which instrument
she wished to play on her concert tour.  That was, in fact,
not a difficult choice.  Of course, she preferred the
pianoforte for playing Beethoven or Schubert.  However, a
piano was heavy, bulky to transport.  A piano recital would
unavoidably be limited to two or at most three locations, if
only because of the expense of moving the instrument.  In
this respect, the light weight of the harpsichord was an
advantage.  It could easily be disassembled.  (Its legs could
be easily removed.)  Two men could carry it with ease, and it
could be safely transported in a minivan.  As a matter of
fact, Susanna preferred the harpsichord over the piano for
other reasons.  She considered it more expressive for music
such as that of Scarlatti, Haendel and especially Bach.  With
respect to the instrument, there was really nothing to
decide.  As to the music that she would play, Susanna
meditated and experimented: She tried Couperin, Rameau, and
Scarlatti sonatas, only to come back to the Italian Concerto,
the Goldberg Variations, the French and English Suites and
the Harpsichord Partitas.  She was proficient in playing them
all; indeed knew many of them by heart and would consider
performing them without a score.  And once she started to
play these, to hear them, so to speak, once more, there
remained in her mind no question concerning what she would
perform on her tour.

     The next question then concerned the itinerary, and this
indeed seemed initially to come down to the question, where
could one rent a concert hall, how much it would cost, and
not least important, would any one come?  Would there be
revenue enough to defray the costs?  It was Joachim who made
the crucial suggestion: the Romanesque churches, there were a
whole string of them they were located in a region of
northern Germany in which Joachim had long been interested.
His foster father Daniel Klutz had kept on the magazine table
in his living room a picture book with an array of such
churches. Joachim vaguely remembered the name.  He went to
the library and found the book, brought it home and showed it
to Susanna.  She was more than pleased; never inclined to
enthusiasm, she did not become enthusiastic on this occasion
either.  But she thought the churches of which Joachim showed
her pictures, very satisfactory.  She had heard that their
vaults functioned as concave mirrors that diffused the music
that was directed at them.

     Susanna's planned concert tour did not have a sound
economic basis, in fact it had no business basis at all.  She
discussed it with Jonathan and Joachim, and they all
concluded that the plan was feasible if at all only if
implemented as frugally as possible. That in itself was a
reason her to choose the harpsichord over the piano.
Jonathan and Joachim would be able to move it themselves, and
a small rented van would suffice to transport it from place
to place. Indeed the mobility would make it practical for
Susanna to perform in many locations, and a larger number of
concerts would compensate for possibly small audiences at
each one. Rental costs might be kept low, as Joachim had
suggested, by selecting churches as concert halls.  Declining
church membership all over Europe should make for a favorable
rental market.  But what churches and where?  Joachim
suggested given that the music was baroque, the many 17th and
18th century churches in the center or the south of the
country might be appropriate. But Susanna was especially
enamored of the small massive Romanesque churches, and they
decided that it was there that Susanna would give her
recitals.

     The tour started out seemingly successful. But as the
days passed, Susanna seemed to be getting tired. She began
making mistakes in her playing, but they were not serious and
no one seemed to notice.  Until the last scheduled concert,
in St Catherine's church fronting the marketplace in
Braunschweig, Susanna, in essaying one of the very rapid
variations of BWV xxx, she found that she could not play,
that her fingers no longer obeyed the dictates of her mind.
She slumped over the keyboard before sliding onto the floor.
Not only her concert tour, but her musical career is
finished.

     For the flight home, I have invented a fantasy of whose
quality I am not convinced, which will require more
reflection and meditation.  The three are unable to obtain
three seats abreast. Therefore Jonathan and Joachim sit
together, while Susanna's seat is in a different section of
the plane. When Joachim goes off to check on Susanna's well-
being, his seat is taken by a young man who turns out to be a
musician, a singer, who is returning from concerts where he
has sung the role of the evangelist in the St. John Passion.
His name is Sigurd. Sigurd discourses volubly and loudly
about his interpretation of those chapters of the Gospel,
which he explains demonstrate very clearly that Jesus was
crucified because the politicians needed a scape goat. That
because Jesus' teachings in fact undermined the social order,
Jesus was persecuted for being a terrorist. A member of the
audience shouts: "Did he have a bomb?" Sigurd is so taken
with his own rhetoric that he begins to sing the recitatives
with which he is so intimately conversant. His song irritates
fellow passengers who shout at him to "shut up". Sigurd
trained to be a performer has been immunized against the
unruliness of audiences and continues his song. At the same
time he grabs a straw from the ginger-ale can and uses it
like a conductor's baton to direct his impromptu chorus,
which, where the original text is "Kreuzige, kreuzige"
(crucify, crucify) the assorted objectors shout "shut up,
support our troops, support our troops."  Not only the tenor,
but the chorus as well seems to be enjoying the performance,
when the security police step in, wanting to know what's
going on. "Somebody said he had a bomb," pointing to Sigurd.
The police clear the aisles. When Jonathan protests to the
police that his neighbor said nothing about a bomb, he too is
arrested. So are Joachim and Susanna when they appear to
protest Jonathan's detention. The four of them, Sigurd,
Jonathan, Susanna and Joachim are handcuffed and seated in a
pair of facing benches that had been inconspicuously occupied
by the security police.  Jonathan searches his memory in vain
for literary precedents or philosophical interpretations; Er
blickt auf Susanna und Joachim, die beiden Menschen die er
liebt, die ihm am naechsten sind, die er liebt, recht
eigentlich, die einzigen die er liebt.  Er ueberlegt wie er
es bewerkstelligen koennte sich fuer die beiden zu opfern.
Was kaeme es denn jetzt noch auf ihn an.  Er ahnte dunkel,
dass Susanna sehr krank war, dass es mit ihr abwaerts ging.
Wie schnell, wer haette das sagen moegen.  aber das die
Krankheit und vor allem der Tod den Menschen von seinen
Mitmenschen befreit, wusste er auch.  Das Schicksal, waehnte
er, hatte Susanna gesichert, sicher gestellt.  Aber Joachim,
der doch sein ganzes Leben vor sich hatte, er sah es alles in
Truemmern und Scherben vor sich.  Wie viel besser wenn
Joachim am mixer gescheitert waere.  Dann jedenfalls haette
dieser Mensch noch ein Leben vor sich gehabt.  Der Staat war
eine Bestie; die Menschen fressen einander auf, wie die
Fische: es war eklig, es war zum kotzen, und er fuehlte dass
er erbrechen muesste, und fing an zu wuergen. Die Polizisten
sahen unbewegt zu, es kuemmerte sie nicht. Und da
tatsaechlich erbrach er; da ihm die Haende gefesselt waren,
konnte er nach keinem Taschentuch, nach keinem Handtuch, nach
keinem eimer ueber den er sich haette beugen koennen greifen.
Alles ueber Susannas Kleid ueber Joachim's Hose.

     Sigurd aber sass neben ihm unbefleckt. Was Sigurd wohl
dachte.  Ob er sich schuldig fuehlte? Aber warum? Sigurd
hatte doch nichts verbrochen. Nur er, Jonathan koennte Sigurd
beschuldigen; und wenn er das taete, und dadurch koennte er
Joachim und Susanna und sich selbst retten. Dass hatte einer
der Polizisten ihm ins Ohr gefluestert.  Und waren standen
tatsaechlich Susanna und Joachim ihm nicht unendlich naeher
als Sigurd, und hatte er nicht deshalb denen gegenueber eine
buendigere Verpflichtung, zu Sigurd aber garkeine. Aber
wuerde er hinterer, wenn er Sigurd verraten haette noch vor
sich bestehen koennen?  Und wenn er bereit war, sich selbst
fuer Sigurd zu opfern, sollte er dann nicht auch bereit sein
Susanna und besonders Joachim in gleicher weise gleichfalls
zu opfern? Ach es war zu entsetzlich; und er wusste, dass
obgleich er gebunden war, die Entscheidung jetzt auf ihm lag.
Es war entsetzlich, und er fing jetzt aufs neue an zu wuergen
und zu erbrechen.

     Aber alles kam anders. Sigurd muss wohl auch entsetzt
gewesen sein, und veraengstigt (terrified), aber er reagierte
darauf in seiner eigenen Art, denn er war ja Schauspieler
sowohl als auch Saenger.  for Susanna, the experience is a
corollary and extension of her illness; Joachim is
distraught, disconsolate and starts to sob, not because of
his own predicament but because it is so evident that
Jonathan is helpless to help him.  Because there is no help.
But Sigurd receives it differently. He is not only a singer;
he is an actor with broad experience in opera. Suddenly he is
Florestan, the Spanish nobelman, he raises his hand-cuffed
arms, and he begins to sing in his loud, clear stage voice:
"Gott, welch dunkel hier, O grauenvolle Stille, oed ist es um
mich her, nichts lebet ausser mir."  none of this strictly
true, since the cabin was well lit, the roar of the jets and
the conversation of the passengers, his three fellow
detainees and their four jailers were all very much in
evidence.  But the music prevailed, and by the time Sigurd's
recitative ended, and he launched into the great aria: "In
des Lebens Fruehlingstagen ist das Glueck von mir entflohn,"
the security police became uncertain and began to doubnt
their judgment. One of them, without consulting the others,
moved quickly to the cockpit door and inside. A few moments
later he emerged followed by a tall, blonde woman who was
dressed in an airline uniform decked out which such insignia
that Joachim, who had stopped sobbing and had from his seat a
clear view of the aisle concluded that this must be the
captain of the plane. She moved closer to where Sigurd was
continuing his song. Her jaw dropped in amazement and
disbelief. She seized the security man who had summoned her
by the shoulder and motioned him to follow her into the
cockpit. When the cockpit door opened again, the policeman
emerged by himself, spoke briefly with his colleagues, then
started to unlock the handcuffs, Susanna's first, then
Joachim, Jonathan in that order, and last, Sigurd, who since
the music had done its work, stopped singing and sat as he
had before, in silence. The security officers made no comment
on their work. Only to Sigurd they said: "It is better not to
sing in the cabin." Then they disappeared. Joachim could not
tell where they had gone.

     Normally when one returns from a journey, one expects to
some degree or other to resume ones previous existence. Sos,
initially, did our three travelers, but none of them could
maintain the illusion.  Susanna knew, as soon as she sat down
at her grand piano, that her playing was impaired, perhaps
irremediably, and more so even than that difficult evening in
St. Catherine's church. Jonathan tried to keep an open mind,
until the reports and the advice from the doctors came in,
but it would have been difficult for him to be optimistic
even under a much more favorable situation. But Joachim was
perplexed and anxious in a way he had not been since first
weeks of his arrival in the university.

     Susanna did not improve. It became clear within a few
weeks that she would not even be able to continue to give
keyboard lessons. The doctors said that her disease was a
variant of multiple sclerosis; they intimated that there was
no cure, and that the outcome, sooner or later was invariably
fatal.

     To one after the other of her students, Susanna bid
farewell, and invariably tried to make arrangements for
continuing instruction from one of her colleagues. It was
invariably distressing for her, and sometimes also for the
pupil. The last of the students so to be dismissed was a
young woman named Charlotte, who some years previously had
also been one of Jonathan's students without making much of
an impression. So far as her piano instruction was concerned,
Susanna thought that she worked hard at it, but was not
particularly talented. Not unexpectedly, Charlotte declined
the referral to another teacher. Instead at the hour when her
lesson would have taken place Charlotte, appeared
nonetheless, and rang the door bell, with the simple
explanation that she understood well enough that there was to
be no lesson, but that she had come because she was needed.
She stayed for about an hour.  And in this manner she
returned week after week, on occasion offering to do some
cleaning or to wash the dishes, but just as often simply
finding a place on a chair or on the sofa, or reading a book
that she took from the shelf, or a newspaper that happened to
by lying on the table, or engaging in affable conversation
with whoever happened to be in the room.

     As Susanna's condition deteriorates, Charlotte sometimes
helps care for her but in a desultory and unpredictable way.
When Susanna dies, Charlotte moves into her room, although
neither Mengs nor Joachim have invited her to do so.
Initially Charlotte presumes to fill Susanna's role in
Jonathan's life, but when at length she realizes that so far
as Jonathan is concerned, there is no hope for her, she turns
her attention to Joachim whom she has hitherto ignored, She
is persuaded that the closeness between Jonathan and Joachim
is "unnatural", and she considers it her mission to assist
Joachim, whom she ultimately succeeds in marrying, to free
himself from his emotional and spiritual dependence on
Jonathan,s while continuing to accept his generosity.
Jonathan in consequence becomes more and more isolated and
lonely.  The end is so dismal that I haven't contemplated it
yet.

     Beyond this point, I haven't planned. Obviously, Joachim
and Charlotte may have children, whose relationships to each
other, to their parents and to Mengs might provide further
topics for fantasy; with whose advent the novel, like life
itself can begin anew. At some point, however, it will become
necessary for me to identify the place where this novel
should end. As yet I haven't done so.

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
