archives.
"It's a surprise for her," I said. "I want to trace Tess’s family tree, and the missing link is her
grandfather, Gustav Ungerland. If I could just find his birth-day or any information about him, I will make
up a family history for her."
"That sounds like a wonderful thing to do. Come back tomorrow. I'll dig through the archives, and
you can play the music for me."
"But you can't tell my wife."
He winked, and we were co-conspirators.
Over dinner, I told Tess about the musical half of Father Hlinka's offer, and she was happy for me
to have the chance to go back to the organ loft. On Monday afternoon, she sat below in the middle pew,
listening for the first hour or so, but then went off on her own. After she left, Father Hlinka whis-pered, "I
have something for you." He crooked his finger, beckoning me to follow him into a small alcove off the
loft. I suspected that he had found some record of the Ungerlands, and my anticipation grew when the
priest lifted a wooden chest to the top of a rickety desk. He blew dust off the lid and, grin-ning like an
elf, opened the box.
Instead of the church documents I had expected, I saw music. Score after score of music for the
organ, and not just common hymns, but symphonic masterworks that gave life and presence to the
instrument—a raft of Handel, Mahler's Resurrection, Liszt's Battle of the Huns, the Fantasie
Symphonique by Francois-Joseph Fétis, and a pair of organ-only solos by Guilmant. There were pieces
by Gigout, Langlais, Chaynes, and Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani. Record
albums of Aaron Copland's First Symphony, Barber's Toc-cata Festiva, Rheinberger, Franck, and a
baker's dozen of Bach. I was stunned and inspired. To simply listen to it all—not to mention trying my
hand at the grand keyboard—would take months or even years, and we had but a few hours. I wanted
to stuff my pockets with loot, fill my head with song.
"My only vice and passion," Hlinka said to me. "Enjoy. We are not so different, you and I. Strange
creatures with rare loves. Only you, my friend, you can play, and I can but listen."
I played all day for Father Hlinka, who inspected old parish ledgers of baptisms, weddings, and
funerals. I dazzled him with incandescence and ex-travagance, leaning into the extra octave of bass, and
hammered out the mad finale from Joseph Jongen's Symphonie Concertante. A change came over me
at that keyboard, and I began to hear compositions of my own in the interludes. The music stirred
memories that existed beyond the town, and on that glorious afternoon I experimented with variations
and was so carried away that I forgot about Father Hlinka until he returned empty-handed at five
o'clock. Frustrated by his own failure to find any records of the Ungerlands, he called his peers at St.
Wenceslas, and they got in touch with the archivists of the abandoned St. Bartholomew and St. Klara
churches to help scour through the records.
I was running out of time. Despite the relative freedom, we were still in danger of being asked for
our papers, and we had no visa for Czechoslovakia. Tess had complained over breakfast that the police
were spying on her when she visited the Black Tower, following her at the art center on the Ružový
kopeèek. Schoolchildren pointed at her on the streets. I saw them, too, run-ning in the shadows, hiding
in dark corners. On Wednesday morning, she groused about spending so much of our honeymoon
alone.
"Just one more day," I pleaded. "There's nothing quite like the sound in that church."
"Okay, but I'm staying in today. Wouldn't you rather go back to bed?"
When I arrived at the loft late that afternoon, I was surprised to find the priest waiting for me at the
pipe organ. "You must let me tell your wife." He grinned. "We have found him. Or at least I think this
must be her grandfather. The dates are somewhat off, but how many Gustav Ungerlands can there be?"
He handed me a grainy photocopy of the passenger list from the Ger-man ship Albert, departing
20 May 1851 from Bremen to Baltimore, Mary-land. The names and ages were written in a fine hand:
212 Abram Ungerland
42
Musikant Eger Boheme
213 Clara Ungerland
40
"
"
214 Friedrich "
14
"
"
215 Josef "
6
"
"
216 Gustav "
½
"
"
217 Anna "
9
"
"
"Won't she be delighted? What a fine wedding gift."
I could not begin to answer his questions. The names evoked a rush of memory. Josef, my
brother— Wo in der Welt bist du? Anna, the one who died in the crossing, the absent child who broke
my mother's heart. My mother, Clara. My father, Abram, the musician. Names to go along with my