Chapter 43

"Eva. You may come in," Mozart said, looking up from his desk with a paternal smile.

He wore his reading glasses and was still dressed, but without his jacket and tie. He wore a lavender robe, the sash knotted around his waist, as was the old man's custom in the evening. Mozart was nearing seventy now, three years after Eva had first met him, but he looked the same to her eyes. She sometimes thought he'd always been exactly so; never young, but born old and endless as if he were a constant part of the world. Mozart frightened her that way and she forced herself to smile.

She was dressed as she'd been for dinner, wearing a simple white blouse with a black skirt and unbuttoned blazer. She wore black stockings and panties, but no bra. A pair of leather heels that clicked briefly across the marble floor until it gave way to one of the large Persian carpets that covered much of the old man's study. Her face had been carefully made up in the rather severe style that Eva preferred. Her lips were crimson and her eyes pitched deep with black. Her platinum hair was long by Eva's standards, falling straight and loose around her shoulders. She was twenty-seven and striking with her height and lean, athletic body, but the old man appeared not to notice.

Mozart took off his reading glasses and smiled, plainly enjoying Eva's presence, but that was as much as he ever did. She was not trying to encourage him, at least not specifically, and the man had never hinted at any sort of sexual desire for her. Eva wondered if that would change now that her father was dead. Edwin had been dying of tuberculosis, a condition that imprisonment had only served to aggravate. Neither she nor Wolfgang had known until very close to the end of his life, but Mozart had known, she was sure.

"Has Kurt left already?" the old man asked.

"Yes," Eva replied, walking to the liquor cabinet and opening it. "I saw him off a few moments ago. Would you like a brandy?"

"That would be nice," Mozart agreed. "We can sit by the fire."

"That man in Prague," Eva said slowly, pouring two glasses while Mozart rose from his desk. "Did you know he was Russian cipher clerk? From the embassy?"

"Yes," Mozart answered. "Of course. Why?"

"I'm just curious." Eva looked over her shoulder. "What was it that he did to deserve..."

"He was working against Germany," Mozart replied slowly, narrowing his eyes. "You've never been curious before."

"Usually the reasons are obvious," Eva said with a shrug, turning with two snifters of brandy in her hands. "I'm growing weary, I think."

"Ah." Mozart nodded, sitting in his customary chair, near the fire as he watched her. "You've been working hard, Eva. Too hard perhaps?"

"Perhaps," she said, setting the glasses together on the small table near Mozart's chair. Eva sat down in another chair beside him, waiting until the old man had chosen a glass before picking up the other and sipping it.

"I knew your mother," Mozart said after tasting his own drink. "Did you know that?"

"No."

"I remember when she was young ... So beautiful," he smiled, cupping his brandy with both hands in his lap. "She still is. Your father made good use of her for many years."

"What do you mean?" Eva asked him.

"Geli has good contacts in the government," he explained. "She always did. Edwin ... this was before, you understand ... Edwin would bug her apartments and set up video. We had these terrible cameras back then, Russian cameras, but it was good. Your mother was an important source."

"Papa was using her?" Eva stared at the man and Mozart shrugged.

"It was his job," he said. "Of course, he wasn't supposed to fall in love with the woman. That was ... unexpected. Unwelcome even. Life is like that though."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Wolfgang had sex with her," Mozart said. "Did you know that? Not really his fault, I suppose. He was looking for you at the time, but all the same, he knew what he was doing."

"He told me," Eva lied.

"Did he?" Mozart lifted his thick eyebrows. "Has he told that he's been back to see her?" He read the expression on Eva's face. "I didn't think so. He has. Many times. I think your brother ... your husband, Eva ... is very fond of your mother."

"I don't believe you," she whispered, taking a large swallow of brandy.

"I can show you the pictures, if you like." Mozart drew a heavy sigh. "I believe Kurt has video as well, but I would spare you that. It gives me no pleasure to tell you these things."

Eva stared into the fire.