There was a small pad of writing paper in their luggage, and Janice went to the room and began lining it off into bars and writing a score. She used up the pad and began searching frantically for paper, using paper bags, the back of a couple of letters, and everything else she could find. Lisa got the innkeeper out of bed, and he found a couple of writing pads and a box of stationery in a closet. By sunrise Janice had used it up and was hysterically searching for more. They returned to Budapest, and after Janice had worked on the composition for three days without leaving the hotel room, Lisa began to get their things ready to leave. They had a private compartment on the train. Lisa sat on one side of the compartment, her face drawn with concern, strain, and lack of sleep. Janice sat on the other side of the compartment, red-eyed, deathly pale, and on the point of exhaustion as she feverishly worked over the growing mound of core sheets. When they arrived in Vienna she had completed the prelude and first movement of a symphony.
There was the solid, uncompromising base of scholarship, the granite foundation of pedantry beloved to Teutonic ears. It was accompanied by an overlay of surrealism, a rumble of violence and darkness, a dipping plunge into the nightmare of the subconscious. Variations sailed off into hints of wild, wailing cries of Gypsy origins and the Hungarian countryside where it had been born; the fecund sensuality of the earth and the ethereal beauty of sunset was grasped by a sensitive soul and translated into rippling cascades of notes. The themes were those of the pantheon of masters but somehow spoke of modernity; the staid, somber voice of an academic speaking of the pressures of a neurotic time. The timelessness was tempered with vitality, youth gamboling in the joyous stride of life, and at the same time there were delicate hints of melancholy and sadness, of youth consuming itself in the act of soaring in the triumphant flight of unlimited strength and endurance. And over all there was a gripping, penetrating intensity which lured, then seized and held.
Janice played the piano score for Lisa, and when she finished Lisa was sitting on the couch with her hands over her face, tears running between her fingers. It had wormed its way into her soul, twisting and turning, and she was torn between pleasure over the towering magnificence of the work and reaction to the deep, searching look into the soul of her lover. She stumbled to the piano and knelt by the bench, burying her face in Janice's lap and kissing her hand humbly. "I respected my lover as a musician," she sobbed, her voice muffled against Janice's hand, "and now I reverence her as a master."
Janice licked her dry, cracked lips and blinked her red, stinging eyes as she stroked Lisa's head absently and looked at the sheets of music. The second movement was beginning to stir to life within her mind.
Abendleid Magyar was presented in a concert by the conservatory orchestra later in the year, and the following summer it was presented in a matinee performance of the junior symphony orchestra conducted at the Slaatsoper by Lisa. Later that year it was presented in an evening performance. The critics were cautious and ambivalent, bothered by the dark turbulence and the alien chill of some of the passages, but it was generally accepted as a substantial contribution to modern classical music and a credit to the university. Janice was a part time lecturer at the university, a post reserved for resident conductors, and she was producing a steady flow of sonatas, fugues, and signatures which were featured items presented by the conservatory orchestra. The year Janice reached her thirtieth birthday, Lisa conducted an evening performance of Wycliffe at the Staatsoper, which culminated in a powerful performance of Abendleid Magyar. The adulation of the enthusiastic audience was divided between the conductress and the beautiful, young composer as they smiled at each other, one in a box seat and the other on the stage.
The following summer Janice returned to the United States once again to renew her passport and to see the trustee of her estate, and she was surprised to find that she had a substantial international reputation as a musician and composer. The triumphant arrival of the returning American composer who had gained success in Europe was somewhat marred by the fact that she had difficulty in understanding English and spoke with a strong German accent. She found herself alienated by the brash, impertinent questions and brusque mannerisms of the reporters and on-lookers, and she quickly finished her business and returned to Vienna.
Lisa had been killed two days previously by a drunken driver who ran his car onto the sidewalk and struck her. After the funeral Janice returned to their home. A professor at the university became concerned when she wasn't seen for a week. He forced his way into the house and found her sitting in the bedroom with Lisa's slippers on her lap, where she had been since the day of the funeral.
At Berne they brought her out of withdrawal with electro-therapy, and her third attempt at suicide was perilously close to being successful. The university at Vienna learned of it and brought the heavy weight of the European academic community to bear on the hospital, and a battery of famous psychotherapists was called in. It took a year of therapy to regenerate her memory and convince her that she was not Fraulein Doktor Comtesse Annalisa van Grevenburg. A year after that she was discharged from the hospital, and the only visible evidence of her experience was her twelve kilos underweight.
The university at Vienna hired her as a piano and violin tutor, and her friends arranged a gala performance of her compositions which she refused to attend. After six months she terminated her employment and moved to Traben Trarbach on the Mosel, where she worked as a music teacher and wrote. Her later compositions were less successful because they inspired only melancholy and a remote terror in both the orchestra and the audience. Later she lectured at the university at Trier, traveled in Europe for a time, then finally became dissatisfied again and returned to the United States. She was gratified to find that she had been forgotten, and reporters and on-lookers didn't bother her.
Celia was weeping, her tears running down Janice's cheek. "Oh, God, Janice, how does someone get over something like that?" she sobbed brokenly.
Janice looked up at the ceiling, her eyes dry and stinging, and she absently patted Celia's head, sighing. "I don't know, darling," she murmured. "I don't know, because I haven't."
"God, if there's anything I can do…"
Janice turned her head and looked down at Celia, smiling sadly. "You can go to sleep, darling, that's what you can do. You have class tomorrow, and you need to sleep if it's going to do you and good."
"God, I can't sleep. How can I sleep when…"
"You can sleep, because you're a young, healthy woman. Here, turn over and let me put my arms that's right. Now go to sleep, and we'll have breakfast when we wake up. Then I'll give you a ride home to get dressed for class. Goodnight, darling."
Celia sighed and nodded, settling herself against Janice. "Night," she murmured, her voice muffled against Janice's breasts.
Janice sighed again as she looked up at the ceiling, thinking. Presently she began quietly crying as Celia breathed with a slow, deep rhythm.