Forgotten Songs...Inclusive

So she went to Berkeley and she studied biology and chemistry and she proved to be an excellent student, if a little on the older side of such an unbalanced equation. Yet Tilly did not let even that dissuade her. Inspired by the women in the apartment on the third floor of their "little Dutch house", she began to follow in the footsteps of these girls, and so no one was at all surprised, least of all her husband, when she was accepted at the medical school just down the peninsula in Palo Alto, at Stanford University.

Soon enough her routine was more than complicated. Tilly was up before dawn to make breakfast with their medical student-tenant, then she was off to the little Southern Pacific depot to catch the morning commuter down to Palo Alto, and after school she did the reverse: catch the train then a bus to the hospital, then walk home and prepare dinner. Maybe there was time to decompress before a couple of hours spent studying, then she went to bed for a few hours of desperately needed sleep.

Yet she graduated near the top of her class and began her internship at UCSF, and there the contours of her life took on the more urgent challenges and responsibilities of working inside a major teaching hospital, only now she could walk to work -- with her husband. She matriculated into the residency program there, in psychiatry, and her life might have stabilized somewhat had not two people returned to her life.

Imogen Callahan went to Berkeley to teach once again, and Avi Rosenthal turned up at Stanford.

And then, a few years later and against all odds, she found one morning that she was with child.Chapter 3

Copenhagen, Denmark 13 August 1955

Saul Rosenthal looked up from his morning newspaper, then he looked out his office window -- lost in thoughts about The Magic Mountain. Thomas Mann had died the day before and he was surprised he'd found the news, well, more than a little upsetting. While Mann's work hadn't really exerted a tremendous influence on his own life, his books, especially his Zauberberg and Faustus, had defined the twentieth century and put the calamitous events of the 1920s and 30s into a context that still eluded most observers. More importantly, Mann had been a willing participant in a long running scheme during the war to broadcast news of importance to those caught inside Nazi Germany, and Rosenthal had long been funneling information to Mann for use in those broadcasts, and in this way their indirect relationship lasted from early 1942 until the war's end. They'd even met, though only briefly, after the war, when the author still lived in Southern California. Now Mann was gone and it felt like a great voice had grown still. And somehow, in the moment Rosenthal read of Mann's passing, he'd felt more than empty again, more like the world had suddenly proven itself hollow after all -- then in a flash he remembered the same feeling had crushed him once before, for this was exactly how he'd felt just after he'd learned of FDRs passing.

But there were other pressing matters laid out on his desk that morning, as well.

There was a new letter from Lloyd Callahan to consider; he'd had written that Imogen was hallucinating more frequently, and now Lloyd was openly wondering if Tilda Sorensen, because of her long friendship with Aaron Schwarzwald and family, that she might be the best physician to treat her -- given the circumstances. Saul sat back and considered the question, in the end deciding that in order to make the best decision he needed to see Imogen in the flesh. He sighed, considered that perhaps it was time for a return trip to San Francisco. There were simply too many other matters that needed his direct intervention there now, and after hesitating he decided he could no longer avoid making the journey.

Because most troubling of all, his brother Avi had just shown up at UC Berkeley -- after a brief stint at a research facility in Israel, and that could only mean one thing. Sooner or later Avi would make his play for Imogen, and that when it was time Avi would remind all concerned that he had, after all, been married to Imogen before the war. With that trap sprung and his undermining the Callahan marriage accomplished, there was little doubt that Avi would force a return to Israel with Imogen in tow, so the question facing Saul now was how best to intervene. Could he simply expose his brother as the fraudster he'd always been and hope to expose him through subterfuge, or would he have to take more direct action?

Which was a course of action he really dared not take. Not now. Because of his brother's political ambitions, Avi had developed contacts within the Mossad, so any action he took against his brother might lead to direct intervention, and he simply could not risk exposing his own network.

But he kept asking one question over and over: why had Avi left Israel -- now. He'd heard rumors of some sort of sexual impropriety, yet that kind of nonsense was very unlike his brother. Avi had made enemies, of course, both in Denmark and in Israel, but that only meant he'd have to devote precious resources to finding out what his brother had been up to. He was, after all, a brilliant physicist, and useful enough to the state for certain laws to be...bent, if not quite broken.

Then again, maybe it was time to take Imogen over to Berkeley, and perhaps up to the Livermore labs, use his contacts within that community and see if she might not be welcome as a professor there. It was worth a try, especially if she was losing focus again and falling into her peculiar hallucinations. The same blasted Old Man in his loden cape, and with some sort of magic cane he used to control the weather! Really? But...what if he, Saul, could strengthen her grip on reality again? What was the best way to do that?

Then he considered that it was time to finally open the new store in San Francisco. He would need such a venture to justify his comings and goings there, and if he was indeed going to start meddling in Imogen's life again he would need the cover such a going concern might offer.

"Ah, well," he said as he brightened to the chorus of phantoms dancing in his mind's eye, "perhaps it is time to visit young Harald again." He liked the boy and thought he might still turn into a decent pianist -- with a little more timely encouragement, anyway, so he thought about his options then called SAS and booked a one way ticket on their new trans-polar route to Los Angeles. Then he sent along a telegram to Anders Sorensen advising when to expect him.

Saul Rosenthal had worked behind German lines during the war and had inadvertently crossed paths with intelligence services since the war's end, so he wasn't completely unsurprised when he picked up a tail on his way to the airport in Copenhagen early the next day. Was it, he wondered, the Mossad? Or had he pissed off the CIA one time too many?

But then at one point he thought he saw an old man in a loden cape watching him, and yes, this old man had a curious looking cane in hand, too -- yet the next time he tried to catch a glimpse of him the old man had simply disappeared. Rosenthal took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves; he wasn't typically given over to hysterical flights of fancy -- but he'd seen what he'd seen. The question lingering now, and that bothered him all the way across the Atlantic, was simply this: What would it mean to discover that Imogen's 'Old Man' was real? And what on earth could he possibly want from me?

So, now, he had another issue he needed to talk to Imogen about...let alone one more reason to keep his guard up. As the shiny new DC-4 taxied to the runway and took off over the Baltic Sea, he pondered the voyage ahead. Denmark to Greenland to Nova Scotia, then on to Chicago and Los Angeles -- just a day in the air compared to a week at sea to New York, then another five or more days by train to San Francisco. And no U-boats to worry about on this crossing!

He was lost in thought soon after takeoff, thinking about how he might go about opening his first real outpost of the music company, when the idea hit him. Imogen always seemed to best respond to life when she was writing music, but she had -- according to Lloyd, anyway -- lost all interest in composing.

But...why?

Yet even more importantly, what could he do to spark a renewed interest in music?

A new piano, perhaps? But no, there was no real lasting purpose there, was there?

No, he had to...

...but wait. No, this is too simple, but what if...

...what if he could convince her to teach young Harald? Maybe that would give her a renewed since of purpose, and what if I could get her involved teaching physics again? Is that how I counter Avi? What else could I do to stop him?

The Sonata?

Could I get her to finish it?

But...what about the earlier concertos? Could we not sit together and score them? I could publish them, too, couldn't I? That might earn her some serious money, so why not give it a try?

The stewardess served him smoked salmon and a cucumber salad and he sat back in his seat, rather pleased with himself. This was the first time he'd crossed the Atlantic by air and all in all it wasn't as bad as he'd expected. He pulled out his copy of Death in Venice and started in on the novella again, smiling as he thought about Mann's well developed sense of irony, then he felt the urge and decided to try out the facilities. He unfastened his seatbelt and walked aft to the WC -- and there on the last row he saw the old man in the loden cape -- and curiously enough the son of a bitch was staring at Saul Rosenthal with a wide grin spreading across his face.Chapter 4

Los Angeles, California 15 August 1955

And perhaps not surprisingly, the Old Man remained on Saul Rosenthal's trans-polar flight -- and he'd not, apparently, deplaned at any of the intermediate stops even once -- yet he was nowhere to be seen by the time the SAS DC-4 landed and taxied up to the Intermediate Terminal at Los Angeles International. And yet not one of the crew seemed to notice or, more precisely, to even care that the old fellow had simply disappeared. An exasperated Rosenthal collected his luggage inside the terminal then, still looking over his shoulder, he took a cab to Union Station to wait for his train, the usual early morning northbound Coast Daylight to San Francisco. Then, a few minutes after Rosenthal checked-in at the Southern Pacific counter, the Old Man reappeared once again -- though he remained out of sight -- both making the long walk out to the platform with the Old Man lost in the shuffling crowd while keeping a few meters behind Rosenthal. After Saul made it out to his car he then noticed the Old Man was now behind him again and -- now both surprised and angry -- he turned to confront him -- yet before he could utter one word the Old Man simply vanished into thin air.

"What the Hell!" a startled Southern Pacific porter cried loudly -- as he too had observed the disappearance.

"You saw that too?" Rosenthal said, turning to face the porter.

"Of course I saw him, Mister. I ain't blind, ya know! It was like poof!" the porter said, making a little explosion with his hands, " -- and then he was gone!"

"He's been following me for days!"

"Then I s'pose I feels right sorry for you, Mista."

Rosenthal boarded the car and found his seat; he tried to regain his composure but as soon as the train began to slowly pull out of the station the Old Man appeared just outside his window, down on the platform again -- only now he was waving up at Rosenthal -- now, in effect, taunting him, and more troubling still, making no pretense to hide. Rosenthal glared at the Old Man as the train gathered steam, sure of only one thing now. This Old Man existed. He wasn't some kind of shared delusion, if only because the porter having verified the sighting confirmed his sanity. And if he existed, well then, the Old Man had to be vulnerable, didn't he? All Rosenthal had to do was be prepared for the Old Man's next visit -- and then it would be time to turn the tables.

+++++

Anders and Tilly met Saul at the Southern Pacific's Third and Townsend Street Depot near downtown San Francisco, and once Saul had collected his luggage they took the westbound cable car out towards the sea, all the way out to the Sutro stop a block from the hospital. The sun was shining bright in the late afternoon and a freshening sea breeze was coming ashore, so they walked the last little bit to the Sorensen's 'Little Dutch House' -- as it was now affectionately known by all who came by for a visit -- and while Anders wanted to talk about conditions 'back home' no one had the slightest problem seeing that Rosenthal was, after days of constant travel and constantly shifting time zones, now utterly exhausted. With that decision made for them, Anders took Saul to the guest bedroom and left him to find sleep, then he and Tilly went to the kitchen to make their supper.

"Perhaps it is just me," Anders said as he prepared a triangle tip roast for the oven, "but Saul looked almost unnerved, as if something or someone has been chasing him. Perhaps on his journey...?"

Tilly smiled, her trained psychiatrists eye taking charge of the moment. "I'd say it is not just you, Husband. Did you see his hands?"

"No? Fidgeting, was he?"

"Yes," Tilly said as she prepared the baby's bottle, adding: "and he kept looking over his shoulder, as if he was expecting to find that someone was following him."

"You know his history as well as I. Do you think the Germans might still be after him?"

"I would not be surprised," she replied. "The question that comes to mind, however, is simpler still. If he is in danger, does that not put us in danger, as well?"

Anders sighed. "So what if it does? He is our friend and we will see to his needs."

"You will need to talk to him tomorrow -- see what this is all about."

"And what if he is in danger? Then what?"

"I'd not care so much if we were talking about just the two of us, but Anders, that is no longer the case. We have Theodore to think of now, and we have a new student arriving next week..."

"Dear God, is summer over already?"

Tilly shook her head as she checked the temperature of the formula on her wrist. "You would know that if you stopped working twenty hour days six days a week."

"It has to be the Germans, you do know? They will hound us to the ends of the earth. They will never rest until we are all dead and gone, shoved into their crematories..."

Tilly turned and looked at her husband, only now she almost imperceptibly shook her head. He was getting worked up again, growing increasingly irrational as dark hatred burned away at the edges of his sanity. "Are you going to services in the morning?" she asked, trying to divert his attention away from the immersive paranoia crowding out his thoughts.

Anders sighed, opened the oven door and put the roast in. "Yes, yes. I somehow feel, well, that I need to. Especially now."

"Oh? Why now?"

"Because of Theodore. I must...we m-must work to instill in him the values we left behind, when we left our home. Our past." He was unfocused now, drifting in a fog as guilt washed over the moment.

Despite her discomfort Tilly nodded. "Well, I'm off to feed the little monster. Could you wash the lettuce, please? Perhaps make that nice dressing of yours?"

"Oh yes, of course..."

She smiled as she left the kitchen but as soon as he assumed she was out of earshot the talking began again. He was speaking in Danish now, his thinking consumed by images of gas chambers and gestapo agents chasing them through endless night, and she leaned up against the wall, trying in vain to hold back the tears that always came for her at times like this.

She had to find a way to help him through this madness, but now that his outbursts were growing more vocally troublesome she understood that she was running out of time. What would happen, she wondered, if such an outburst came during a procedure? And when would the hallucinations begin, as they almost inevitably would? And when they did, then what would she be able to do? Such madness, if left unchecked, would soon grow to ruinous proportions, a conflagration of the soul that might take all of them down.

She could, she realized, talk to him about these things and then watch his reaction. Promethazine might be warranted if he became combative -- but the side effects of this drug would put an end to his surgical career. There were other drugs in development and many researchers both here and at Stanford were focusing-in on this field, yet if Anders was indeed drifting into schizophrenia any prognosis with a good outcome was hard to imagine. Then she recalled the work being done at Cal Tech under Linus Pauling. Perhaps those efforts would come to something...

She thought of little else as she fed Theodore, though at one point she had wanted to reach out to their rabbi -- but instantly thinking the man under the robes probably had little patience for wives intervening in the affairs of their husbands. Was he simply another man caught up inside yet another paternalist cult, a misogynist hiding behind yet another musty old religion? Why did such men turn to the past to justify a stale worldview? "We have to move forward!" she whispered to little Ted. "Always forward!"

She caught herself just then, caught herself falling into what she now considered her own variety of Old World thinking. 'This is California!' she told herself. 'People don't suffocate in their past! Not here!'

'And Saul isn't exactly a moron,' she thought, grinning at her own foolishness. 'I can talk to him, see what he thinks about Anders. We have -- all of us -- trusted him with our lives, so who better to talk to about these matters...?'

+++++

Saul realized the instant he saw her that you didn't need to be a psychiatrist to know there was something terribly wrong with Imogen. She'd always been an impeccably dressed woman and had taken great care with her personal hygiene -- but not now. Now she was a model of self-neglect. Her hair was a frightful mess and she smelled, badly. Her clothes were dirty, bordering on filthy, and there was dirt seemingly caked into the pores of her skin, even under her fingernails. When he leaned close to give her a hug he found that her breath was tinged with a deep foulness, that even her gums might be infected. Even Tilda seemed shocked, but then again he'd just learned that neither Anders nor Tilda paid the Callahans very much attention these days, not since Lloyd had bought his accursed little green house down amongst the artichoke groves between Monterrey and Carmel. Even the green color of the house was foul! It was a putrid green, almost the color of pea soup -- but with a dreadful white asphalt shingle roof, and there were quite literally flies everywhere! Huge black things with ferocious appetites!

Yet in a very curious way Imogen seemed rather happy here. Happy to tend her artichokes and her lemon trees, and she was growing avocados too, whatever the hell those were. And she was happy to be alone with her son -- at least most of the time. Happy to be tending the almost endless blackberry brambles that encircled the property. She even had a piano again, a dreadful little upright affair that sounded a little like braying donkeys, but it was in-tune and at least she was playing again. She had even, wonder of wonders, begun teaching young Harald the basics and with his monstrously long fingers he was showing an unexpected talent. In fact, he was showing real enthusiasm for music, at least that was Saul's initial impression after listening to the boy play for a half hour. But why Gershwin, for heaven's sake! Chopin, of course. Debussy -- if you must. But Gershwin? What would follow? This Elvis, perhaps?

But just now Lloyd was away -- again -- and as it happened he was off to Japan and Hong Kong on one of his longer trips, so he'd not return for more than a month and that put the seed of an idea to work. 'I'll buy a house up in the city, maybe put the new house in the boy's name. Entice Imogen back to civilization that way, perhaps? And they can keep this wretched hovel, come down and play in the dirt when the mood strikes, all while still enjoying the fruits of civilization, only on a daily basis that I can control...'