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totally insane for writing
an opera about Henry VIII? From what you ve told me, it has the complexity
of the Ninth Symphony
and the impossibility of Mozart s Queen of the Night in every role.
Johan, Llysette said with a laugh, difficult it is, but not that
difficult. To baby them I am not here.
Delft s was almost empty, and we got the table by the woodstove again.
Ah, much better this is than my cold studio. She slipped off the
scarf even before sitting.
Victor s son Francois arrived and nodded at Llysette. Chocolate? Tea?
Coffee?
Chocolate.
I ll have chocolate also, and please bring a plate of the butter
cookies, Dansk style.
As Francois bowed and departed, Llysette shifted her weight in the chair,
as if soaking in the warmth
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from the stove.
Johan?
Yes.
Well did you know Professor Branston-Hay?
I can t say I knew him exceptionally well. We talked occasionally. We had
troubles with the same
students.
A tragedy that was. Llysette pursed her lips. Some, they say that it
was not an accident.
I shrugged. I have my doubts. According to the papers, a lot of Babbage
researchers are dying in
one way or another.
Is that not strange? And Miranda, was she not a friend of Professor
Branston-Hay?
I nodded.
Your country, I do not understand. Llysette s laugh was almost
bitter.
Sometimes I don t, either. Exactly what part don t you understand?
A woman is killed, and nothing happens. A man dies in an accident, and
the watch, they question
many people, and people talk. No one says the accident could be murder. But
they question. The
woman, she is forgotten.
Except I hadn t forgotten Miranda, and I didn t think vanBecton had,
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either.
Francois returned with two pots of chocolate and a heavily laden plate of
Danish butter cookies. He
filled both cups.
The chocolate tasted good, much better than the bland chicken noodle soup
that had substituted for
lunch. The cookies were even better, and I ate two in a row before taking
another small swallow of the
steaming chocolate.
Did they question you? I asked.
But of course. They asked about you.
Me? How odd? I barely knew either one I mean, not beyond being members
of the same faculty.
I told the chief watch officer that very same. Llysette shrugged. Perhaps
they think it was a
ménage a trois.
Between a broken-down federal official, a spiritualistic piano teacher,
and a difference engine
researcher with a soul written in Babbage code? They must be under a
lot of pressure. I refilled my cup
from my pot and hers from the one on her left.
She laughed for a moment, then added, Governments make strange things
happen. People must ...
make hard choices, n est-ce-pas?
Mais oui, mademoiselle, like insisting on producing Heinrich Verrückt
in New Bruges. Why
didn t you just use one of the Perkins adaptations of Vondel?
Vondel? Dutch is even more guttural than low German.
I think it s interesting. Seventeenth-century Dutch plays turned into
contemporary operas by a
Mormon composer.
Llysette made a face.
The Dutch think that Vondel was every bit as good as Shakespeare. I took
a healthy swallow of
chocolate. The second cup was cooler.
Good plays do not make good operas. Good music and good plays make good
opera.
You have a problem with Perkins?
Perkins? No. Good music he writes. The problem, it is with Vondel.
Llysette looked at her wrist.
Alas, I must go. A makeup lesson I must do, and then the rehearsals.
I swallowed the last of my chocolate, then left some bills on the table
for Francois.
Llysette replaced her scarf before stepping into the wind. A few damp brown
leaves swirled by,
late-hangers torn from the trees lining the square.
Makeup lesson?
The little dunderheads, sometimes, they have good reasons for missing
a lesson.
Few times, I would guess.
Llysette did not answer, and we proceeded in silence the door of the Music
and Theatre Building. I
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held it open and we walked to her empty studio.
Take care. I bent forward and kissed her cheek.
You also, Johan. Her lips were cold on my cheek. The note I did like
it.
I watched for a moment as she took off the scarf and coat, then blew her
a kiss before turning away.
As I walked back to my office, I had to frown. Was I getting so preoccupied
that Llysette was
finding me cold? She still seemed distracted ... but she had kissed me and
thanked me. Was I the
distracted one not that I didn t have more than enough reasons to be
distracted or was something
else going on?
I went back to my own office, where I reclaimed my folder before locking
up. The main office was
empty, although I could see the light shining from under David s closed
door. Whatever it was about me
that he d been discussing with the dean apparently was still under wraps. He
was probably plotting
something. God, I hated campus politics.
The wind continued to gust as I walked to the car park. A watch car was
pulled over to the curb on
the other side of the street outside the faculty car park. I started the
Stanley, then belted in. As my
headlamps crossed the dark gray steamer, glinting off the unlit green
lenses of the strobes, I could make
out Officer Warbeck, clearly watching me. When I got to the bottom of the
hill, he had pulled out,
following me at a distance. He followed me across the river, but not up
Deacon s Lane.
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