Beethoven and Me

By Becky Askin

What if Beethoven suddenly appeared in the passenger seat of your car? The smell of body odor is overpowering, and you nearly swerve off the road. This unbelievable experience is described in the first person by a teacher in present time who, the next day, is just as suddenly thrust back into Beethoven’s time. Her mind and psyche doesn’t have the wherewithal to assimilate the juxtaposition of suddenly appearing in another time with an incredibly famous person, much less he in hers. Have your CD player ready to play the exquisite music described in the book while you read the description of Beethoven writing it! Anyone who loves Beethoven as much as the author will love this time travel romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796014457

Book preview

Chapter One

Beethoven Appears

It was 107 degrees when Beethoven first appeared in the passenger seat of my old Volvo. I had just switched on the CD and the Fifth Symphony was blaring out of the specially-installed extra speakers. I was on a ramp to the 118 and thus negotiating a curve. An overpowering nauseous smell hit me at the same time that a huge figure materialized not a foot away in the passenger seat.

Shit! I screamed and slammed on the brakes which caused this figure to topple left smack into me, proving immediately that this was no ghost.

Christ! he swore in German. I understood him, not because I had studied German in high school and college, but because we seemed to immediately understand one another despite speaking different tongues.

Who…? I began, although I knew who it was. What…?

I could do nothing but try to control the car, which was still swerving from side to side as I entered the rush hour traffic heading home on a late September afternoon in, what was this, 2010?!

A fleeting thought entered my brain – pull over! But by now, he was cursing at the music on the radio and saying, Zu langam! Zu langsam! (Too slowly! Too slowly!) Which was my thought exactly about how the Cleveland Symphony was mulling through of the Fifth Symphony.

I was still trying to pull over to the right shoulder, when he stuck his arm out the window. It was immediately jerked back and slammed against the window frame. I yelled, Whatever you stick out that window you will lose! And then he watched as the window magically closed, nearly catching the sleeve of his fancy, and may I add, filthy shirt.

His fierce eyes were glued to the cars ahead of and behind me, and you could tell he knew he was way out of his element! Another guttural exclamation of disgust burst from him at the stupid rendering of his Symphony.

Then he began trying to find out where the sound was coming from, pounding on the dashboard and wrenching open the glove compartment. Halt! he kept saying. Stop! And so I turned down the radio.

For the first time, he relaxed slightly and glared at me as though I was the source of all his problems. I, meanwhile, was desperately trying to think, what did I have to drink last night? What did I have for dinner? I knew he was real, though, because I felt him when he crashed into me around the curve. And then there was the smell! But this whole situation was not real and so it must be me! What on earth is wrong with me?!

By now I had passed Madera Avenue and was half way home. I decided the best thing to do was keep driving home and hope he didn’t do anything to cause an accident.

He indicated that he wanted me to turn the music back up and when I did I realized we had reached the oboe solo in the middle of the first movement. Gut! he exclaimed; high praise for the oboist, coming from none other than Beethoven himself.

I noticed that his clothes were all wrinkled and his boots filthy. He was scratching his hair which looked like it hadn’t been washed in a decade. Was that the smell? Then I thought, he’s probably causing lice to fly all over the inside of my car. Jesus. What am I going to do with him?

This isn’t real, I told myself. No one simply appears anywhere, least of all someone as incredibly brilliant as Beethoven. But by now, we were on my street, and with closed eyes he was conducting in front of an 1806 orchestra in Vienna. I saw it as clearly as if I were there in the orchestra watching him. The sound was tinnier and less alive than the CD I had been playing, but the music was definitely more passionate. Well, of course. This was Beethoven conducting his own Fifth Symphony for the first time, and, in front of the Duke!

I pulled into my driveway and shut off the engine. Beethoven vanished. The sound and the apparition had disappeared, but the smell lingered. I could no longer see him, or hear him think, or talk to him. All that was left was the music,