How is it possible to know a man for over fifteen years, to have accepted favors from him, done business with him, sat with him over beer, and not know that he was a monster.
Worse, I was part of his filthy network. But no more. I’m free of him and all the rest of it in Auerbach’s Cellar. I’d go to the police but I know they’d send me to jail along with the others. Schalk knows it too; he knows he’s safe from me. A stalemate then, that neither of us will report the other. But over the course of ten years, I’ve noted the names of his clients and their locations. Some day, maybe…
I wish I’d broken ties with him earlier. But I thought I needed him. Until I met Nikki, all on my own.
It was in a shabby little bar called the Insel that I’d heard about in Schöneberg. I wandered in, not expecting anything. Just a place to sit and listen to the sort of slow jazz they played on records A few men and women were dancing slowly, though I was sure the women were all prostitutes. Then, from nowhere, an angelic creature glided in and sat down. Long wavy black hair, beautiful soft eyes with bottomless black pupils. Graceful gestures and full sensuous lips that sent heat to my groin. A Moroccan probably, I didn’t ask. A single earring caught the light and sparkled at me. I bought the obligatory drink and we spoke a little—“What’s your name?” and “You from around here?” A meaningless exchange to give the illusion we were getting to know each other. I did not give my own name, and I am sure that doe-eyed “Nikki” was lying too, but it didn’t matter.
“They have back rooms,” Nikki said. “If you want to go where it’s quiet. You just have to order a drink, then pay for it with a fifty-mark bill and say, ‘No change, thank you.’ They’ll give you a key.”
The “quiet back room” was a filthy little closet with a bed that I’m sure we were not the first to use. But Nikki’s skin was so fragrant and so soft, the body so graceful and supple and acquiescent that I was ready in one minute. I tried not to go too fast. I tried to be tender. But I had waited so long, I was like a teenage boy, bursting. In just a few moments it was done and I lay exhausted. Nikki made some excuse and left. I knew that I had paid for the semblance of love, but it didn’t matter. I knew where to go for it now, I knew how to set it up, I knew how much it cost.
Sweet, soft, pliant Nikki. I wonder if I’ll meet him again next week.
That was it then. The single word “him” was the piece of the puzzle she had missed. Her father was homosexual.
One more shock to add while she still reeled from all the others: that he had invaded Berlin with the Red Army and had fought with them at Stalingrad. He was, as Anne said, one of the brothers, plumbers, preachers, firemen, fathers who were forced to love in secret. He was, by the law of the time, a criminal. She didn’t condemn him, but it sickened her to know about the other life, the underworld he lived in. Even in the current day, he would be relegated to a special category of socially marginal people.
What perverse vein ran through the mind of a public that condemned him, but was delighted to see a transvestite soprano sing love songs to a woman? People paid large sums of money for the pretty titillation of a stage embrace. Was it morbid curiosity? A small safe step toward Gomorrah they could shrug off?
She wondered where she stood on the spectrum of hypocrisy. When she sang with Octavian in her arms, did she too simply thrill at the small taste of Gomorrah while remaining blameless? Or was there something more?
XIX
Trio—Amoroso
Katherina sat nervously at her dressing room table waiting for the cue for her final entry on stage. Opening night was going splendidly. The Great Festspielhaus was full. Every aspect, musical and dramatic, flowed along perfectly; and Anastasia’s Octavian swept through each scene like a randy angel.
A loudspeaker broadcast the opera into her dressing room and she could hear that Act III had just begun. Octavian and the Baron were just sitting down at the table in the long tavern scene, and poor Anastasia was playing in double disguise, a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman. How she managed the complex comedy of a twice-faked voice was astonishing. Hans too proved masterfully comic as his Baron was gradually made a fool of. There had been no snags or soft spots, and all boded well for the great final trio, the tour de force that was the musical heart and climax of the opera. Half the people in the audience, she knew, attended only to hear that trio, and every opera critic in Austria would certainly scrutinize it.
She checked her costume in the mirror, the one that Anne had adapted. It fit comfortably around the chest but still allowed for the deep inhalations. Detlev’s wig was also perfect, the loose curl at her ear giving her a faint disheveled look that suited Sophie’s distress.
The clock on the makeup table told her she had ten minutes to go. Next to the clock were the contract and the open libretto to Walpurgisnacht. To pass the time, she glanced through them both.
The libretto, if one could call it that, was clever: a parade of seductions by the seven deadly sins, not onstage, but of the public itself. The medieval setting reminded her of Carmina Burana. The music itself was built more on rhythm than on melody and seemed derivative, a sort of combination of Stravinsky and Orff. But the melodies were flashy and held no excessively high notes.
It was, like Salome, a single-act opera. The soprano was on stage almost throughout and, aside from the recitatives of the drama, had several duets and a final aria. It was musically undemanding and all well within her range. There was no indication of staging, though, which worried her. For new works especially, so much depended on the visual presentation.
A brief but firm knock at the door was followed by, “Miss Marow, five minutes until call.”
“Thank you,” she called back, and opened the contract again. It was boilerplate standard, listing dates, location, rehearsal obligations, and fee. A very generous fee. The only disquieting thing was that the producer, the entity to which she would be contracted, was Gregory Raspin himself.
Katherina’s agent had assured her that morning that Raspin was a real presence on the musical scene. The engagement—a world premiere, Charlotte reminded her—would be good for her. It would generate a lot of publicity, even if the composer was anonymous, perhaps because he was anonymous. The very oddities of the engagement made it attractive, Charlotte said. Still, something about it made her uncomfortable.
Another brief knock. “Miss Marow. Two minutes until call.”
She brushed aside the contract and stood up. Humming a scale, she felt her wig to make sure it sat firmly. Pacing herself to stay calm, she wound her way quietly along the corridors to the stage rear. Then she took her place in the wings, waiting for her cue to enter the scene.
“Mein Gott, Es war nur eine Farce.” She sang her entry lines from the far right side of the darkened tavern, then slowly crept in, beginning the deliciously provocative back and forth of the three lovesick women. The opulent staging, together with the long tradition of travesty comedy, obscured the raw fact that emotionally and erotically excited women were negotiating sexual ownership, and not a man in sight. But the audience sensed the titillation, not the least because Strauss had charged every musical moment. Who had claim to the beautiful, sexually ambiguous, and permanently tumescent Octavian? The Marschallin, in full imperial splendor, a regal dominatrix in crinolines and pearls, who had held the cavalier between her legs two hours earlier? Or the appetizing Sophie in the bloom of youth, who offered her first passion and maidenhead? The whole stage was electric with sex.
Yet the competing lovers did not fight, but were generous in their love, each one recognizing the worth of the other. The Marschallin told Octavian, “Go, make love to her.” Sophie sent him back, sighing, “Her Highness calls. Go to her.” Octavian, befuddled, pledged obedience to the one, passion to the other. Then the two rivals faced one another. Sophie curtsied, pliant to the powerful Marschallin, who bore no rancor, only tenderness. “Your cheek so pale…you’re pretty enough.” And Sophie, sweetly responsive, “Your highness is graciousness itse
lf…”
As the tender scene unfolded, the three of them moved gradually into place for the climactic trio, Sophie at stage right, Octavian in the center, the Marschallin stage left, a step above the others.
The transition chord, the diminished B, floated up from the strings, drawing away from the E major and coming to rest in E-flat major. For three full seconds, the house was completely still; every person in the theater had waited for this moment and the audience seemed to hold its collective breath.
Then the Marschallin began, seraphic, in E flat, with her warm golden thread: “Hab mir’s gelobt…” Ten measures later Octavian entered, “Es ist was ’kommen,” and a moment after, Sophie added the brightest thread, “Mir ist wie in der Kirche…” Unrelated soliloquies that streamed around each other so that the melodies hooked and snagged as they passed. The lines wove in and out in a spiral of musical phrases, polyphony as ingenious as a Gregorian chant, and yet profane, perverse. Three women sang of love, fidelity, reverence, mixing silver and gold, meandering in and out of keys. Pieces of melody tantalized like kisses and forbidden touches as the vocal lines merged and separated and then joined again until the tension was unbearable.
Then the orchestra modulated upward from D flat to E major, bright, thrilling. The Marschallin held herself vocally aloof, sustaining her long high C while the two young lovers carried the exchange, shimmering vocally against each other.
Octavian had crossed the stage now to stand next to Sophie, and their three voices flowed upward like a column of water catching sunlight. Katherina swam together with conductor, orchestra, Octavian, Marschallin, all moving perfectly in the ecstatic culmination of the ensemble.
The three women faced outward toward the audience throughout the trio, keeping tempo with the orchestra, but on the final three measures, as the dazzling fountain of sound fell and the voices united in a harmonic chord, Octavian moved. The Marschallin sang her final word of renunciation, “understanding,” gazing upward, while the two young lovers joined together on the word “love.”
Then, unrehearsed, Anastasia turned and gazed at Katherina. Held captive by mist-gray eyes, Katherina held her note, ending with the others, but electricity went through her and warmth spread outward like a fluid from the center of her body.
After the final stage business, when all but the two young lovers had exited the scene, she sang the final duet as if in a dream.
A simple melody in thirds told of the simplicity of their love. Katherina’s final pianissimo note was close to the top of her range, but she sustained it effortlessly for eight beats, drawing out the last glimmering filament of sound. Then, silence, and Anastasia kissed her delicately on the side of the mouth. The kiss had been carefully rehearsed, but it seemed personal this time. For two beats, Katherina heard or felt Anastasia’s breath on her cheek, and then it was over. The rose cavalier offered her arm and they exited together through the door at stage center.
The applause began the moment the orchestra stopped and increased in volume as the large spotlight illuminated the curtain. Two stagehands took position and, at a nod from the stage director, drew the curtain back to form a corridor for the singers to take their curtain calls.
The secondary singers went out, first as a group and then each alone, from the smallest role to the largest. Then the three women, Marschallin, Octavian, Sophie, swept out onto the stage together. The audience roared. The two in dresses curtsied deeply, and Anastasia, in breeches and riding boots, bowed from the waist.
Breathless, moving in front of the curtain and into the waves of ovation and then back again, Katherina was close to tears. It was not the joy and relief she usually felt after a performance. Something extraordinary had happened, something attached to the music but outside of it as well. Though drenched in perspiration, she swam in a golden euphoria. It was an afterglow she recognized, but not from the stage.
XX
Cadenza
The house lights came up. While the audience streamed out of the Festspielhaus into the plaza, the orchestra members packed up their instruments and sheet music, stagehands broke down the set, and singers removed costumes, wigs, makeup. Faithful admirers, dignitaries, colleagues, and patrons hurried backstage for the congratulatory visits, kisses, compliments.
Gregory Raspin was at the end of Katherina’s line. “You have surpassed yourself, Madame Marow. What I saw tonight was amazing and I am sure the reviews will reflect that. I will only say ‘brava’ and leave you to your evening.” Then he stepped away to join the stage manager in some banter or other. He had not even brought up the contract.
Finally free of obligation, Katherina knocked on Anastasia’s dressing-room door. No one answered. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Good work tonight. Best Sophie I’ve heard in years.” Joachim von Hausen placed a paternal kiss somewhere near her right ear and moved on to Hans Stintzing’s dressing room.
She called after him. “Have you seen Anastasia?”
“Yes, she left right after the curtain. Exhausted, I’m sure. She’s in every scene, after all,” he said over his shoulder.
Detlev passed him, looking like a ventriloquist, with wigs on both hands. A Marschallin puppet on his left, an Octavian puppet on his right.
“Bravissima, bella!” he sang, and pecked at her cheek, birdlike. “You remember our Queen of the Night discussion? When we agreed that you should go home with the one with the sparkliest costume?”
“Yes, of course.”
He shot a conspiratorial glance toward Anastasia’s door. “Well, if you ask me, I think that one sparkled like a demon.” Then, with swaying hips, he elbowed past her into the empty dressing room to collect the last wig.
Still excited, Katherina mounted the slippery Steingasse steps, stopping midway to gaze back down at the cobblestone street. The wind had dropped and clouds obscured the night sky. There was no traffic at the late hour and the silent air seemed expectant. She let herself into the warm hotel, greeted the night porter at the front desk, and climbed up the last staircase to her room. Sparkliest costume. Detlev’s words buzzed through her mind and, quickly, before she lost her nerve, she knocked on Anastasia’s door.
The door opened to Anastasia in blue jeans and plaid flannel shirt. She seemed surprised but not displeased as she stepped back to let Katherina enter. She held a glass of port wine in one hand.
“I hope I’m not intruding. Were you getting ready for bed?” Katherina pointed to the plaid flannel shirt. “Or to cut lumber?”
Anastasia smiled softly. “Come have a glass of wine. I was just unwinding. It was a good performance, don’t you think?”
Katherina stood awkwardly in the center of the room, noting that the blanket on the bed had been drawn back. It was clear she couldn’t stay long, yet Anastasia was already pulling out a chair for her. Katherina loosened her cape, but did not remove it, and sat down.
“I’m sorry. It looks like you were about to go to bed. I won’t stay long.”
“Oh, no. Please stay. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, too. But I’ve been busy with…well, things.” Anastasia held up the port wine bottle and an empty glass, a questioning expression on her face.
“Oh, no thank you. Not tonight. I’d fall asleep on your floor, and that would be embarrassing.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t spend more time together. There were so many things we just got started on. Are you still working your way through your father’s journal?” They sat down, knees to knees on the hotel chairs.
“Yes, and every page is a new shock. I don’t think people should know their parents’ secrets. I don’t want to know them.”
“Yes, but it’s not just secrets. You’re reading a historical document. You can stay detached about the errors of a young man, can’t you? It was a different time.”
“Detached? I don’t know. The journal tells of more than just a few indiscretions. It reveals a whole other life. My father’s family emigrated to Germany from Russia when he was a child, and he became a Ger
man citizen, yet somehow he ended up being a medic in the Red Army. He constantly writes about being guilty of something. I have no idea of what. I’m afraid I’ll find out he was a war criminal of some sort.”
“Even if you do, you shouldn’t be quick to judge him. He lived through horrors you’ll never experience, so whatever he was, whatever demons he had, none of it affects who you are.”
“That’s just it. His demons do affect me. We shared a vague guilt after my mother died, and it was a darkness in the air through all my adolescence. But now I find out something was haunting him even earlier, something apparently worse. I feel connected with him in this dreadful way and won’t be free until I find out what it was.”
“And you think the journal will have the answer to that.”
“Yes, I’m sure it does, but part of it, unfortunately, is in Russian. I think it’s about something that happened at Stalingrad. I speak a little Russian and can make out the printed letters, but not Cyrillic handwriting.”
“I can take a look, if you like.”
“Would you? It’s only half a dozen pages. I’d be grateful if you could read them. I’ll have a copy made for you.”
“It will have to be after Rosenkavalier, I’m afraid. I can work on it while I’m in Hanover and mail you the translation. Will that be all right? And don’t worry. I promise you complete discretion. You can trust me, I hope you believe that.”
“I do. I feel like I’ve known you a long time, that we understand each other. It’s too bad, you know. We both come and go this way from one engagement to the next. Opera gypsies. Keeping a friendship warm is a little like keeping a marriage warm, isn’t it?”
Anastasia’s eyes twinkled. “Without the sex.”
Katherina thought of Hans and Detlev. “Or, sometimes with.”
Anastasia looked puzzled and Katherina realized she hadn’t spoken the Detlev-Hans part out loud. “I mean that some of the team have paired up. Haven’t you noticed? Hans, for example.”
“With Detlev? Yes. Who would have thought? And they’re obviously having a lot of fun. I envy them, don’t you? Their courage to live and love as they want to. The rest of us just put up with the loneliness.”
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