by Rex Baron
She stood on the doorstep at Fifth Avenue, in late afternoon, and was met by Mrs. Mullridge herself, inexplicably dressed in a Japanese kimono. The stout little woman embraced Lucy warmly and ushered her in to a high tea, set out in honor of her arrival. The menagerie of guests, who ebbed and flowed through the house with the regularity of the tides, had subsided into what the hostess referred to as a dry spell. She explained the whereabouts of each of them as Lucy freshened up, and although Lucy had not made the acquaintance of any of them, Mrs. Mullridge subscribed to the principle that introductions amongst people of a certain social standing were useless and presuming. To her way of thinking, each of her guests had fame enough to defy personal description, and if, on the odd chance, someone from the outside was ignorant of their personage and accomplishments, far be it from her to point out their shortcoming of not knowing, and humiliate them further.
They sat in a charming alcove of what the hostess had referred to as the Victorian drawing room, which, by all accounts, was simply a catch-all for the old furniture and bric-a-brac that her mother had willed to her and left behind. A streak of sentimentality plagued her and prevented her from disposing of any of it, along with the unspoken fear that her mother might pierce the veil from the other side and wreak havoc, if so much as a candlestick was removed. Nonetheless, it was a lavish room, appointed with Austrian crystal, Persian carpets and Queen Anne chairs. But, in amongst the splendid things were evidences of Mrs. Mullridge's current fascinations, a poster of Harry Houdini, cellophaned to the lustrous oak wall paneling, and a half-finished wax head of president Harding with two cavernous holes where the eyes should be, waiting, like a long suffering Oedipus Rex, for the glass eyes she intended to slip into place the moment they arrived from London in the post.
Lucy sipped the strong smelling afternoon tea while Mrs. Mullridge explained how she had spent one afternoon having a life mask molded of her face. She had lain on the sofa breathing through a straw held between her lips, waiting for the plaster cast to dry. She handed Lucy a large chunk of white plaster with the concave likeness of her face, coated in Vaseline pressed inside, and instructed her on a method of pouring hot wax into the mold to achieve a positive image.
“I was inspired by a book I read about Madame Tussaud,” she said. “Of course, she took casts from the severed heads of the aristocrats after they were guillotined, but all the same, I think it's amazing what clever things can be done with wax.”
“We really should do you in wax,” Mrs. Mullridge said, feeling Lucy's cheekbone with her fingertips, as if she were a work already in progress.
“I've been captured on celluloid, remember,” Lucy said with a half smile. “I think that will do just fine for a while.”
Mrs. Mullridge's face dropped for a fleeting instant into a parody of disappointment. The flesh around her eyes saddened and her mouth pushed itself forward in a pout.
“Oh dear, things didn't go so well out there for you, did they?” she said with a sigh that lifted her great bosom. “I have very little use for those film people. I get laughed at when I say it, but I'd sooner have a snake charmer from the circus under my roof than one of those picture actors, with their grand airs and filthy mouths. Go ahead and laugh if you want, but I'm a pretty good judge of character.”
Lucy did not laugh. She was content to sit drinking tea in the comfort of the old woman's down-to-earth logic. She felt safe with Mrs. Mullridge, who, for all her talk of spirits and an ethereal world, was perhaps more solidly rooted in this world than anyone Lucy had ever known.
A painting over the sideboard detailed the interior of a charming cottage. In it, a blazing fire made golden the sparse furnishings, warming them in reflected light. A shaft of light poured in through a window of leaded glass, illuminating a small girl, lost in a game of motherhood, holding a doll by its arms. Over the mantle, a portrait of a woman, angel-like, looked down on her with motherly kindness.
It was a Victorian painting, meant to elicit an easy sentimentality, and yet, Lucy could not take her eyes from it. Of all the things beautiful and bizarre in Mrs. Mullridge's sitting room, it was the one thing that continually drew her attention.
Perhaps it was because she was alone, like the child in the painting, feeling a wave of sickening sentiment and self-indulgence at the idea of her solitude. It had always been that way, and had sadly, but comfortably, become her way. Her mother and grandmother had loved her but never accepted her as one of their own.
Such sentimentality is a weakness, a perversity, she sighed to herself. It filled her with emotions, which her grandmother would not approve of. She believed emotions were a power to be directed, not wallowed in like a wading pool for one's own enjoyment. She had been warned often enough about the misuse of feelings. They were the coin of the realm of the Kraft, spent in a frugal way to achieve the best results for the smallest expenditure. This much Lucy had learned. But there had been no schooling or even much tolerance for the notion of romantic love. There was no place for it in the lives of the women who truly devoted themselves to the Coven.
She had been raised in the presence of her grandmother, the High Priestess, and yet, she had never been acknowledged as a faithful subject. She had chosen her singing over the Kraft, and as a result, was kept always at an arm's length from their intimacy and affection. She had been an orphan, in a way, long before her mother died, even before the fire had taken her father, and yet, in tales of ancient mythologies, a hero's life only begins when they are orphaned.
Perhaps it could be the same for her. Without the dangerous, sentimental and romantic love for Paulo, she could begin again as the true heroine of her own life.
•••
The Theater, New York
Lucy held a high note for a thrilling and inexhaustible time. All eyes in the theater were upon her. She stood at center stage, wrapped in a swath of flimsy fabric that was meant to approximate the costume she would wear during the performance. Behind her, on a multi-tiered interpretation of a pyramid, fifty members of the company and chorus stood frozen in dramatic and symmetrical tableau vivant.
Helen stepped out of place at stage right and let the chain she was holding as a prop slip to the floor with a deafening clatter. Lucy dropped her hands to her sides and stopped singing.
“She's done it again,” Lucy shouted. “How many times must I plead that she be told to remain still? This is a critical moment. David I appeal to you once again.”
David left his seat in the second row and crossed the catwalk over the orchestra pit to the stage, waving his arms for the piano accompanist to stop.
“I'm well aware of the critical moments in this opera,” he shouted. “Miss Liluth, you are either very clumsy or you tire too easily. Please try to maintain your place for the duration of the Aria.”
David's voice was cool and patronizing.
“It's only a rehearsal, after all,” Helen defended herself. “It goes without saying that during a performance I wouldn't dream of moving. But until then, I don't see why we should all throw our backs out playing wooden soldier just so Miss von Dorfen can have a captive audience.” Suddenly, her voice softened to the ingratiating tone she had used when she first met Lucy on the set of Faust. “I would be the last one to want to upset anyone,” she said, stepping fully into the spotlight. “It does nothing but slow up the production. I assure you Mister Montague, I'm not in the least clumsy. I'm simply saving myself for the show.”
David stood firm, the implacable figure of parental authority.
“It's not a show we're putting on, as you call it Miss Liluth,” he reminded her. “That is a word that applies to carnival attractions and nightclub speakeasies. I trust you belong in neither arena. We are here to practice an opera, and I will thank you to refrain from giving us your opinions in the middle of it.”
Helen sauntered back to her place and dutifully struck her pose, apparently unruffled by his sharpness.
“Lucy,” David turned his attentions to the young singer
, “that was splendid. It is a great pity you interrupted an otherwise faultless theatrical presentation with a petty annoyance. You have deprived all present of the completeness of a moment. You have exchanged your ability to rise above the commonplace and display true brilliance, for a mundane interest in supremacy. I think you owe everyone in the company an apology.”
Lucy's face reddened with humiliation. She withered under the stares of the stagehands and the old man rigging the lamps overhead.
“You will excuse me.” She choked out the words, and hurried into the wings, bumping her side on the practice piano in her flight. She collapsed in a chair behind the curtain and buried her face in her hands.
The first week of rehearsal had taken its toll on Lucy's nerves. Helen seemed to be everywhere, watching her with the certainty of a predatory animal stalking its victim. She did nothing tangibly threatening, nothing that one could call upon as evidence of her dark intention, and yet, Lucy felt as if she were being acted upon in some other plane of existence, some hideous realm, where Helen tormented her with every passing hour, draining the very life from her body.
She felt a presence and knew David was beside her.
“That was horrible of you,” she said. “How could you speak that way to me in the presence of the entire company?”
David held her gently by the shoulders.
“I am sorry. I didn't realize you would collapse so completely under a little criticism. It's so unlike you. It's not the Lucy I know. That girl would have told me to go straight to Hell if I offended her. That girl was like a goddess, radiant and brilliant. She could not have been offended. She would not allow it, and no one would have dared. Perhaps you are tired?”
Lucy pulled her shoulders away. In doing so, she caught a glimpse of the tiny strip of ribbon that she knew supported the witch's amulet under his starched shirtfront.
“No,” she said. “It's that woman, Helen. She unnerves me. I can't concentrate when she's around. She is always there, everywhere I turn, watching me. She is evil David. Even the medallion she gave you is evil. It's dangerous to wear. She destroyed Paulo with one like it.”
David stood up and hovered over her imposingly. “We won't go into that foolishness again.”
Lucy's hands fluttered frantically in front of her like two wounded birds.
“But she can't even sing well,” she reasoned with him. “Almost anyone can do as well as she can. Don't you see, David, you don't really need her. You could get someone else, someone better.”
David thrust his hands in his pockets and nervously rattled an unseen collection of coins. He turned his face in the direction of the company assembled on stage that was awaiting his command.
Lucy drew herself up on two trembling arms.
“You'll get rid of her then?” she pleaded.
“I'll speak to her and see that she does not annoy you,” he said, without turning his face from the stage. “You must try to relax and maintain a perspective on who you are. You have, after all, a great responsibility to the company.”
Lucy's entreaties fell on deaf ears. He was right. She had lost all perspective of the situation. She had allowed herself to fall from an irrefutable position of esteem and been reduced to petty bickering with an inferior. She was more than tired.
She accepted his offer to have a car sent around to drive her home. He told her that they could work around her for the afternoon, on the condition that she have herself pulled together by the following day. He offered his cheek for her to kiss, but she could not kiss him. She could not bear to come within so intimate a distance, knowing that the amulet, against his chest, was growing stronger every day.
David stood in the shadow of the great velvet curtain sadly watching Lucy close the door of her dressing room behind her. He dug in his pocket for his pipe and drew heavily on the unlit mouthpiece between his lips.
“I'm sorry if I was bad,” a woman's whisper came from directly behind him.
Without surprise, he felt her hands reach up around him, stroking the front of his coat. Helen stepped forward and leaned against him, insinuating her mouth for a kiss.
“It's inconceivable that you be bad,” he said.
“You scolded me in front of all the faithful. I hope you're not seriously cross at me for scaring your little Lucy away,” she whispered.
She twined her arm around his neck and drew him still closer.
“Sometimes, I think you like that German girl better than me,” she pretended to pout.
“That's impossible,” he said, drawing her near for a kiss.
“You really are sweet,” Helen whispered close to his ear. “You won't regret letting me understudy for Lucy… I promise.”
•••
Mrs. Mullridge’s residence, Fifth Avenue, New York
A blue linen envelope awaited Lucy on the dressing table in her room. She had come through the foyer of the townhouse, thankful that Mrs. Mullridge was immersed in hot wax, trying to pour the steaming brown concoction into a newly made mold of some deceased animal of one kind or another. She was relieved to not have to speak, to explain why her hands were shaking and her face was drawn and pale.
As she mounted the stairs, she sensed a sharp pain in her head. Helen was, once again attacking her with hatred. She was nowhere near her, not physically harming her in any way, but Lucy was aware of her presence. She tried to be rational and remind herself that there was no real harm being done, but she knew there existed other levels, planes of existence in the mind, above the physical, where the fragments of any reality were thought into being. Natives from countless pagan cultures had been aware of this for centuries, and had fashioned elaborate systems of mental murder, projecting hatred over great distances, to destroy their enemies without ever seeing them.
She tried to clear her head of the idea. Slowly, she made her way to the top of the stairs and sought refuge in her bedroom.
She had just slumped wearily across the bed, when, on the dressing table, the blue envelope with the stamped seal caught her attention. It was the color of the sky in California, that color named for Germany, a small rectangular window of escape amidst the opulent scarlet frills and tassels of Mrs. Mullridge's Venetian guest room.
She opened it hastily, as if it had come from a lover, and read. She scanned the contents, her heart filling with the generosity and kindness of her friend.
She was ashamed that she had neglected her correspondence in the last months. The Prince had written regularly, every few days, and she, in return, had answered only twice. He wrote cheerfully, more like a school friend than a man who patiently waited for love to blossom in her heart.
The last paragraph touched her with his loneliness, reflecting some of what she had come to know in the last few weeks. She reread it aloud to be certain it contained the avenue of escape for which she had hoped.
These are difficult times and I fear my health is not what it was. I suffer under the weight of great and ponderous decisions. I do hope that I might see you soon. It has been some weeks since I have had word of you, and I trust the excitement of your new, young world has you pleasantly occupied. I can only hope to fashion an inducement for your return, if only for a little while, so that I might have the pleasure of seeing you.
I have arranged with the Berlin Opera to perform three new operas this next season, in the divine hope that you might be interested in attending or could possibly be enticed to perform. I recall what a songbird you are when happily engaged in work. What a joy it must be to be so gifted by God, so touched by the divine that your very presence brings life. I beg you, dear friend, to come to me, so that I might know that sweetness of life, if only for a fleeting last time…
Lucy held the letter to her chest and wept. When the inevitable decision came to her, it was well past ten. She telephoned David to tell him that she was leaving, but found only Celia at home, who explained that David had a technical rehearsal of some sort with the lighting and scenery designers at the theater.
/> She decided to take a taxi to the theater and tell him in person. After all, it was not a message one delivered over the telephone, and it did involve breaking an agreement to sing with his company. The prospect of a confrontation with David and a possible argument seemed a small price to pay for deliverance from the madness, which seemed to have come over her in the last days since leaving California.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Theater, New York
The front doors of the theater were locked when she arrived, but the stage doorman was on duty, signifying that David was inside.
The stage was empty and the small office above the balcony at the back of the theater, which David used to plot the lighting and observe a rehearsal or performance in progress, was dark and locked.
Perhaps Celia had made a mistake, or perhaps they had finished early and David had taken the opportunity to go off for a much-needed drink at Luchow’s, as was his custom after a rehearsal.
The adrenaline, expectant of a clash of wills, a scene played out between two temperaments, seemed wasted, and Lucy rubbed her arms to warm them as her nervous excitement gave way to fatigue.
To redeem the excursion of the evening from being a total waste, she determined to retrieve any personal belongings from her dressing room and save herself the messy circumstance of having to return after the news of her departure had been broken. It would surely be an anti-climatic moment, with all eyes upon her, and one that she was more than anxious to forego.
The switch that operated the lights to the back corridor eluded her, and rather than explain to the night watchman the reason for her visit, she crept along the dark passage, guiding herself with one hand, touching the wall as she went. She removed her high-heeled shoes, to keep from turning her ankle in the dark, and counted the doorways as she passed, moving carefully along the wall until she saw, in the near darkness, the door with her name on it.