Serena thought she detected a storm cloud momentarily scud across his handsome countenance. What is it? she wondered. Regret, sorrow, doubt? Unhappiness?
He looked at her intently. "Are you ... are you going to be here for a while?" he ventured.
"Yes, but just another couple of days," she said. "Then it's back to New York."
"Do you mind if I call you?" His dark brown eyes were pleading with her to say yes. He didn't want to push her, but he couldn't let her go without at least trying to see her again. Not if there was any possibility, however remote, that she might be willing.
Serena gazed at him for a long moment with those large hazel eyes of hers. They were golden brown, with scintillating shards of green and blue glittering in the light, and they mesmerized him now as they always had. "I'd like that, Misha," she finally said. "Very much."
He felt a sudden excitement churning in the pit of his stomach and knew that he would be living in a state of unbearable anticipation until the next time he got to see her. "I would, too, Serena," he uttered.
She put her sunglasses back on. "I'm at the Konig von Ungarn. On Schulerstrasse," she said, more casually than she felt. "I'll be free late tonight and tomorrow afternoon." What am I doing? she asked herself. I must have lost my mind. That's the only explanation for agreeing to see this man again.
"I'll call you tonight, then. Okay?" he said.
"Yes," she said, turning on her heel to go. "I'll be there. Bye, Misha." She tossed her long hair and walked away, thinking: I'm crazy. Completely crazy. But I don't care. I want to see him again. I must see him again.
"Good-bye, Serena," he whispered to her swiftly departing back.
He stood then, watching her go, and expelled a sigh. I already miss her, he thought. After all these years, seeing her for mere minutes had left him with a great empty feeling, like a profound physical hunger, that was frightening—and inescapable.
Chapter Two
"It's all sugar coating," Emanuel Cygelman said. "The Ringstrasse was only built in the last century. Neo- Renaissance, neo-Baroque, neo-Gothic, neo-You-Name- It. It's all poured concrete. Just all mock-ups of the real thing."
"You're joking, Manny," Vera Levin said, brushing a strand of pale blond hair away from her face with perfectly manicured fingernails. Her blue eyes, a cool pale delft, gazed at him as she forked up a small bite of pike souffle.
"It's true, Vera." Manny leaned across the table. "The Parliament Building, City Hall, the Imperial Museum, the Court Opera, the Bourse—you name it. They're all like a theatrical backdrop for some monstrous operetta," he continued. "I mean, sure, Vienna is an ancient city. But the Ringstrasse? It's pure nineteenth century, all done in one fell swoop."
Vera took a sip of her wine and looked at Misha, but her husband, seated on her left and staring off toward one of the restaurant's magnificent Gobelin tapestries, was apparently in another world.
"Well, Manny," Vera said, "I, for one, am glad they built the Ringstrasse. Concrete or not, it's part of Vienna's wonderful magic."
Manny took a bite of his rich Kalbsbrilken Metternich, a justly famous veal dish, and frowned thoughtfully as he chewed. "Still it's part of the sugar coating," he finally went on with relentless determination. "Vienna has its dark side, too, Vera. Don't forget, it was home to the melancholy Dr. Freud. Not to mention its popularity with that most infamous of all Austrians, Herr Hitler, who, I might add, had a huge following here."
He took off his tortoiseshell glasses and made a production of polishing them with a crisp linen handkerchief. "And what about Herr Kurt Waldheim? Hmm?" He eyed her quizzically. "He ruled the roost not so long ago. So you see? Vienna's not only great musicians and marvelous pastry chefs—"
"Oh, Manny!" Vera snapped irritably. "Do give it a rest. Aren't you supposed to be busy at Knize being fitted for new suits? Dietrich swore by them, you know. Clotheshorses the world over think they're better than Savile Row."
Manny, who never donned anything but the finest custom-made clothing and shoes, adjusted his silk tie a fraction. "I," he pronounced, "shall never set foot anywhere but Huntsmann, no matter what they say."
"You," Vera sighed, "are a hopeless Anglophile—and snob." She smiled then. He really was a terrible snob, she thought, but there was so much more about Manny that remained a mystery to her. Even after knowing him for years, he and Sasha, his associate who had remained behind in New York, both were an enigma.
Once again she glanced at Misha, but he was still staring off into space. He hadn't heard a word of their discussion.
"Misha?" prodded Vera gently. "Are you nervous about tonight, darling?"
He drew in his gaze and turned to her. "No, no," he said with a smile. "I was just thinking about ...oh, nothing really." He shrugged.
Nothing, indeed! he thought. Talk about a U.S.D.A. prime lie. In truth—and he didn't dare divulge it—he hadn't been able to think of anything except Serena Gibbons since the moment he'd laid eyes on her. It was as if they had never parted, as if they were still the impassioned lovers they had been five long years ago.
"You've hardly touched your food," Vera admonished. "You ignored the hors d'oeuvre trolley, and I think you had two spoons of that delicious lobster soup. Your guinea fowl looks delicious. I hope—"
"You know very well I seldom eat anything much before a performance, Vera," he said mildly. "I'll have something after the concert tonight."
"Okay," Vera said resignedly. She smiled at her husband and dropped the subject.
Vera Levin was possessed of an elegant, rare—some said decidedly icy—beauty, and one might easily be forgiven for forgetting that she was also possessed of a daunting intelligence, which had served her well in her marriage to Misha.
Vera glanced surreptitiously at him. His gaze was already once again diverted from the luncheon table, his eyes apparently sweeping around the restaurant. Was it the extravagant flower arrangements that had attracted his attention? The fine antique furnishings and carpets? Or those delightful plaster mannequins of the Hungarian officers who'd founded the restaurant at the end of World War I?
No, she didn't think so. He was lost in thought again. Very curious, she thought.
She could sense that he was much more preoccupied than usual before a concert, and she wasn't satisfied with his response to her about not eating. Misha is dissimulating, she surmised. But she knew when to leave well enough alone, and was wise enough not to question him any further. She knew when she married him that music was Misha's mistress, and a more demanding, time-consuming mistress she couldn't imagine. She had reconciled herself to this fact, and thought that if he took up a mistress of flesh and bone ...well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
Besides, she told herself, the benefits of marriage to a world-renowned pianist were incalculable, both socially and financially, and Vera thrived in the monied, cosmopolitan artistic circles in which they moved.
Manny, who had been studying his most important client with interest, took a sip of his wine, then set the glass down and touched Misha's hand with one of his own. "Misha," he asked, "what did you think of the posters?"
"What?" Misha said. Then Manny's question registered in his preoccupied mind. "Oh, they're all right," he said, turning his attention back to the table. "Although, quite frankly, I don't see the point of them. They're unnecessary. The concert was sold out the day the tickets went on sale. And that was two days before the posters went up."
"They did the posters as a courtesy to you," Manny said. "And a well-deserved one, too, if you ask me. You're performing this concert at your own expense."
"Well, it's for a worthy cause," Misha replied matter-of-factly.
"And it's making tons of money for them," Manny said.
"The tickets were thousands of dollars apiece," Vera added.
"You couldn't ask for better advertising," Manny continued. "You couldn't buy this kind of advertising!"
"No," Misha said, "I don't suppose you could. Anyway, I just hope they get their
money's worth."
"I don't think there's any doubt about that," Vera said, with both certainty and loyalty in her voice. "I've never known you to disappoint your audience."
"Aha!" Manny exclaimed. "I do believe I spy the waiter approaching to take our dessert orders!" He rubbed his plump pink hands together in gleeful anticipation.
"Manny," Vera said, "your enthusiasm is sometimes de trop."
"I've heard great things about their desserts," Manny said.
The waiter graciously asked how their meals were, and they voiced their appreciation. Then he noticed Misha's plate, and his expression became one of utter consternation, as if he had somehow offended.
"Monsieur Levin," he asked anxiously, "was the guinea fowl not to your satisfaction?"
"I'm sure it was sublime," Misha replied. "Please assure the chef that everything was to our satisfaction. It's just that I don't usually eat anything at all before performing."
The waiter looked relieved. "Perhaps you can honor us by returning, then," he said. "We hope you can try our cuisine another time."
"Yes," Misha said, "I certainly plan to." He turned to Vera. "Are you having dessert, darling?"
"Hmm. Maybe just a taste," Vera said. She looked up at the waiter. "The cheese crepe, I think. With the chocolate sauce."
"Manny?" Misha asked. "Need I ask?"
Manny laughed. "No," he said. "I'll have the same as Mrs. Levin," he said to the waiter.
"And coffee all around," Misha said.
"No dessert, then, Monsieur?" the waiter asked.
"No, thank you," Misha said. And he thought: I just want to get out of here.
After their coffee and desserts came, the discussion moved to the Austrian minister of culture's recent efforts to begin returning the vast quantities of art seized from Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Austrian museums—including the Kunsthistorische and the Belvedere, both venerable institutions—were filled with treasures that had belonged to Jewish families prior to the war.
"It's outrageous," Vera said, finishing the last bite of her cheese crepe, "one of the French Rothschilds who I met at a couture show in Paris told me that the Austrian branch of the family had many priceless paintings seized." She lifted a brow significantly. "And loads of valuable furniture and other things. If Baroness de Rothschild wants to see her things, she has to go visit them at Viennese museums because they're on display."
"It's disgusting," Manny said. "It's high time something's done. The government has waited half a century to begin to make any kind of restitution. I know that the Rothschilds and a lot of other families have repeatedly tried to get satisfaction of some sort, but the Austrian government has always turned a deaf ear."
Misha put a hand over his mouth and stifled a yawn.
"Excuse me," he said. "It's not the company or the conversation."
Vera looked at him with an indulgent smile. "Would you like to get back to the hotel to have your nap before tonight's concert?"
"Yes," Misha said, returning her smile. "I think that's a very good idea." And he thought: I want to be alone. Alone to think about Serena.
"Just what you need, old sport," Manny said, neatly folding his big linen napkin and placing it beside his plate. "A good snooze before you dazzle them tonight."
Within minutes, the trio had left Zu den Drei Husaren and was ensconced in the luxurious black leather rear seat of the black Mercedes limousine that awaited them, serenely rolling toward their suites at the Palais Schwarzenberg, the grand country house-hotel owned by Prince Schwarzenberg. Vera was wrapped in an Oscar de la Renta suit and honey-colored sable, Manny in his fine English tailoring and handmade Lobb shoes, and Misha in his obsessive thoughts of the hauntingly beautiful Serena Gibbons.
Chapter Three
Coral Randolph—normally the essence of urbane sophistication and the epitome of control—dropped her fork, unaware of its clatter on the beautiful porcelain plate in front of her. She was too self-assured to notice or care that several sets of eyes had snapped in her direction from nearby tables at Steirereck, reputed to be Austria's finest restaurant. Coral's eyes, the color of Colombian emeralds, narrowed to slits, and her pencil-thin, drawn-on eyebrows arched.
"I trust" she enunciated sweetly and clearly in her best boarding school lockjaw, "that you kicked the son of a bitch in his precious family jewels, leaving him rolling in the gutter in agony?"
Serena shrugged nonchalantly. She took another bite of her delicious, calorie-rich Wildschwein—succulent wild boar—before answering her formidable agent, whose cheeks burned with adrenaline-induced war paint that no cosmetics manufacturer had yet invented.
Serena had suspected that Coral might react like a lioness trying to protect her cub, but the news of seeing Misha had been altogether too exciting to hold back.
"As a matter of fact," Serena said at long last, "I was the essence of cordiality. I mean, Jesus! It's been ages, Coral, and I decided to let bygones be bygones. You should know from all those years of your own therapy how stoking resentments can eat you alive. All that negative energy bouncing around inside you like lethal atoms is self-defeating, and I just thought—"
"You didn't think anything," Coral interrupted with biting precision. "If you had, you would have either socked him or walked off. And don't try to feed me any of your New Age psychobabble, either! I refuse to listen to it!"
She sat fuming for a moment, ignoring the salad she invariably ordered for lunch, no matter what the restaurant. In this case, she was particularly disdainful of the salad's beet root and potatoes, typical of Austrian cuisine. Those all-knowing emerald eyes of hers glared malevolently across the table at her star photographer.
Serena took a sip of her wine, admitting to herself that she was deriving a little sadistic pleasure from Coral's outrage about Misha. As much as she loved her, Serena relished torturing Coral from time to time. After all, she thought, turn about's fair play.
Her eyes swept over Coral briefly. What an unlikely mother-figure-warrior-agent the woman was, Serena thought, as she had a thousand times in the past.
This ruthless warrior was chicly thin and forty-fiveish. It was difficult to discern Coral's age beneath her elaborate maquillage and her meticulous grooming—and some would vow numerous nips and tucks here and there by famous but discreet plastic surgeons—and it was a secret she guarded as if it were the Crown Jewels of England. She was all angles with hardly an ounce of fat on her. Her obviously dyed hair was always severely cut into a shoe polish-black page boy helmet. It was one of Coral's trademarks, this hairstyle, and had not varied an iota since her days as a debutante. Serena knew that maintaining its perfection required two visits every single week to the hairdresser, one for a trim and the other for dyeing. It contrasted dramatically—"spookily" was the description proffered by many of international society's wags—with the palest ivory rice powder she brushed on her face and neck. Her nose was a prominent beak, and her rather thin mouth was a vivid slash of a mulberry-shaded lipstick, which resembled nothing so much as dried blood. Her clothes were always exquisite and severely cut, as was today's black wool Jil Sander suit. Though not extensive, her collection of jewelry was not only real but of the very finest quality. She favored vintage pieces designed by the late, great Count Fulco di Verdura, and was a fixture at the jewelry sales at Sotheby's and Christie's auction rooms.
Thus, Coral was one of Manhattan's much ballyhooed social X rays, a clothes hanger par excellence, only in her case with a major difference: behind that urbane, refined facade, was a woman with a street-fighter's guts and instincts, coupled with an acute mind for business. She may have attended the most exclusive boarding and finishing schools in both the United States and Europe, but there was nothing in the least bit demure, spoiled, or flighty about her. No, for Coral Randolph relished a battle and without exception went straight for the jugular.
When she was deciding on a career, she came to the conclusion that because of her great love for photography, coupled with her
unerring nose for spotting talent, she could become a successful—even great—photographer's representative. Over the years she had put together an extraordinary stable of photographers. If they remained with her, Coral got them top dollar and the best assignments. Nobody liked to negotiate with Coral Randolph—be it a testosterone-driven male or a female much like herself.
She was also a lesbian, known in the chicest realms of that demimonde as Randi—from her surname, of course—and had lived for years with a well-known casting director, Brandace Sargeant, known as Brandi. They were not militant or political lesbians, and their sexual orientation would never be questioned by the casual observer, so elegant were they both. And at the highest levels of international society they were not only accepted but also held with great respect.
Randi and Brandi. Hell on wheels, Serena thought. And God, am I lucky to have them on my side.
"Serena," Coral continued, after she had calmed herself down considerably, "you know I'm thinking of your own welfare, when I say do not, I repeat, do not see Misha Levin again."
Serena looked at Coral but didn't respond. Her gaze traveled to the restaurant's lovely wall murals and rustic beams and archways.
"You're not paying attention to me, as usual," Coral said. "And this is a very serious matter, Serena." She took a sip of her mineral water, her ring clicking against the crystal, then set the glass down and cleared her throat.
"Sometimes I think what we need is a good, old- fashioned war," she said. "For you to photograph. It's too bad you weren't around for Vietnam. The way you go looking for trouble, young lady, it would've been right up your alley."
Serena put down her wineglass and dabbed her lips with a corner of the napkin. "Coral, I don't want to have a battle over this. How many times do I have to tell you that Misha Levin is a thing of the past? My God, it's been five years! It's over. Finito. Kaput! she exclaimed. "There's nothing—nada! zilch!—for you to worry about"
Coral scrutinized the beautiful, obstinate young woman. Serena is so ravishing, so talented, and in many ways, so strong, she thought. But her character is also, in some ways, extremely weak, extremely needy, extremely vulnerable, and far too trusting—especially where men are concerned
Rhapsody Page 2