And Willie-dear, blunt Wilhelmina. She’d make him tell Catharina and then she’d make him tell Juliana everything, not just what he’d wanted to tell her. What you are holding, my Juliana, only Peperkamps have seen for four hundred years. No one else can prove it exists. They were the words his father had told Johannes when he’d first seen the Minstrel as a boy.
Now they were a lie.
Yet what did it matter? The past was done.
Juliana returned to the makeshift stage and smiled radiantly at her audience, and Johannes felt a surge of pride and admiration. After the shock he’d given her, she’d composed herself and began the second half of her concert with the same blazing energy, the same flawless virtuosity, as she had the first half.
Within minutes Catharina elbowed her older sister in the ribs. “Willie-Willie, wake up!”
Wilhelmina sniffed. “I am awake.”
“Now you are. But a minute ago your eyes were closed.”
“Bah.”
“No more snoring. Juliana’ll hear you.”
“All right.” Wilhelmina sat up straight in the uncomfortable pew, for her a major concession. “But all these sonatas sound the same to me.”
“You’re hopeless,” Catharina said, but Johannes, at least, could hear the affection in her voice.
If the past had not been what it was, thought the old diamond cutter, feeling better, Juliana never would have been born. She’s our consolation-Catharina’s, mine, even Willie’s. And now, through her, not just the Peperkamp tradition but the Peperkamps themselves would continue.
One
L en Wetherall settled back against the delicate wrought-iron rail in front of the Club Aquarian, enjoying the sunny, cold mid-December afternoon. He was a people watcher, and there was no place better to watch people than New York. Here, for a change, he could do the watching; he wasn’t always the one who was watched. He was three inches shy of seven feet tall, an ex-NBA superstar, black, rich, and a man of exquisite taste and enormous responsibilities. He knew he didn’t blend in on the streets of SoHo any more than he did anywhere else. But here no one gave a damn.