episode 7, part 2.
The ceremony continued within the strict protocols of the Roman Catholic Church. The choristers sang hymns from the Psalms in the style of Gregorian chants. "It's so very different from my school church," whispered the Guest, where she attended Mass every Sunday, being the only girl in school who was able to play the church organ. The Guest had attended a Syrian Protestant Church school called Cathedral, and had played the organ there since she was a young child in pigtails, at the age of 7! The Syrian Protestants from Kerala were a unique bunch, bearing the proud torch of having being converted by the apostle St. Thomas himself when he came to India in 60 AD, and followed very peculiar trends within the Christian faith. They were rigid in their faith and excercises an absolute intolerance to other forms of Christianity, especially Catholicism!
At the end of the ceremony, the trio was ushered into a ball room, for the official ball. It was there that Mata Hari slipped off into the crowd, lost to PPD and the Guest. "Follow me," said the Guest excitedly, making a bee-line for Mr. Ludvig van Beethoven.
"Maestro Beethoven," she gushed, sinking low onto one knee. PPD looked around, embarassed. "Aai,you are making a spectacle of yourself!" he admonished.
The Guest ignored him and kissed the dorsum of Beethoven's hand.
"It is an honour of my life time, and many lives after this, to make your acquaintance," she fawned over him.
"Guten Morgen," bellowed the composer, looking a bit appalled at the grovelling woman. "Hoo are you?"
"I am Aai," stammered the Guest, star struck.
"I? Vot is I?" boomed Beethoven.
PPD swooped in to save the blubbering star struck girl, and horrified musician from an altercation. It appeared that any minute the musician would swing his leg and kick off the tiny figure cowering at his heels, holding onto his leg like a daschund humping a chair.
"We are from a far off land," explained PPD. "And we are huge admirers of your work."
"Aha!" said the Maestro, cocking his ear trumpet in the direction of the Guest. "And vot it is that you like most?"
"I worship the Piano concerto no 5, especially the second movement," said the Guest loudly into his ear trumpet.
"You know, yung lady, I had initially dedicated that to the Generale Napoleon," remarked the composer. "But ven he did ...he did the unthinkable!!!" the composer began to twitch in agitation. "He...he...did everything he shoood not have. All liberty, egalite, fraternity, all thrown to the gutter. He made himself king! How? How?"
PPD put a gentle hand on the composer's shoulder.
"And dat is vy I am here. I hope General Bernadotte who has been offered a role, and not stolen a crown unlike his compatriot, might verk for the unity of Europe....."
The composer trailed off, escaping quickly and surely into his mental palace. The Guest could almost here the next Symphony churning in his brain.... "It makes my heart pain," she whispered to PPD. "I know Ode to Joy is taking shape right now in his mind! I wish I could just tell him it's there inside him."
"That is the cross we have to bear, dear Aai," said PPD gently. "Even if we are privy to what happens in the future, we can't let in on it."
Just then the Queen came up to them. "Bonjour," she said in perfect French.
"Your Highness," Beethoven, PPD and the Guest bowed low, their clothes swishing against the floor.
"It is an honour to have you here Monsieur Beethoven," said the Queen to the composer.
"I have been following your family's journey since the General was an ambassador in Vienna," replied Beethoven.
"Yes, ofcourse, I remember hosting a ball for you, there," smiled the Queen.
"Did you continue your piano lessons?" boomed the composer.
"Alas, I have no talent Monsieur," she lamented. She looked around at the room with obvious trepidation. They could feel the judging eyes of the Hapsburgs on her, watching her every move.
"They are waiting for me to falter," she confided in them.
The Guest smiled inwardly. This was called the PPD Effect, where random strangers were willing to open up and share their deepest fears, because of his secret power of The Kind Eyes. "I am only a middle class silk merchant's daughter, from Marseilles, who got caught up in history, Monsieur," she continued. "My first love, and fiance was Napoleon himself. Alas he left me for the more beautiful and well connected Josephine, and then I fell into the arms of another Generale, my beloved husband Jean Baptiste. I never wanted to be a Queen. What do you call the unsuitable wife of an adopted son? Un-adopted?" Her eyes glistened with tears, and the Guest pressed her hand in comfort. Royal protocol forbade her from giving her a hug. The Hapsburgs were sticklers for protocol, and thrived on ancient rules of conduct of centuries of court etiquette.
All of a sudden Mata Hari appeared next to them, tugging at PPD's epulettes.
"Ve need to go," she said in a frantically voice.
The Guest tried to ignore her, entranced by the moment with the composer and the petite Queen.
"Ve need to go, urgently," said Mata Hari. "I vas in toilet vith Colonel Villate, the Queen's French Adjutant. Ve ver getting....um.. vot you say....intimate. He professed undying love for me, and said he vood hate to see me harmed. Sum craze person has tried to stab the old King before, so better ve leave."
"Nothing happened at the coronation, Mata," consoled the Guest. "I have studied this event in great detail."
"I trust Vilatte more dan you," said Mata curtly.
The trio slunk out quietly....
----------to be continued