“Herr Gabrilowitsch,” Alma said. “What a surprise! Won’t you come in? Gustav is out for a walk, but he should be back soon. He’ll be delighted to see you.”
Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Russian-born pianist and composer, was a fervent admirer of Gustav and had been a dinner guest at their Vienna apartment in seasons past. His very presence brought back memories of more fortunate days, before her life had seemed so saturated in tragedy. Warmth blossomed inside her breast. She heard herself laugh in pleasure, as she hadn’t in months, as she showed her guest in and then telephoned reception to order up tea and cakes for three.
Bowing his head, the young man handed her his gift.
“Should I wait until Gustav comes before I open it?” she asked.
“If you wish, but I chose it especially for you, Frau Direktor, since we seem to share the same taste in literature. Something for you to read on the ship.”
Intrigued, Alma peeled off the wrapping paper patterned in sinuous lilies, roses, and vines to find a volume of Rilke’s poetry.
“How very thoughtful! I adore Rilke.” Her voice rose in glee.
“I’m so pleased.”
Ossip Gabrilowitsch was handsome in a wildly bohemian sort of way, with his tousled hair and his crooked cravat that Alma longed to retie for him. Just the sort of dreamy genius she would have flirted with when she was an unmarried girl. While they discussed Rilke, she felt like her old self again, vivacious Alma Schindler with one hand on her hip.
“We’ve known each other for years, Ossip,” she said the next time he addressed her as Frau Direktor. “Shall we dispense with the formalities? Just call me Alma.” She used the familiar Du, which made the color rise in his face.
Ducking his head, he picked up her copy of Hedda Gabler from the side table.
“You’re reading Ibsen,” he said, with undisguised admiration. “So radical and modern! But I would expect no less from Gustav Mahler’s wife.”
Now it was Alma’s turn to blush. When she had first met Ossip, she had been pregnant with Gucki. But now she was as slim and sleek as an arrow. At least the sanatorium diet had been good for something.
“I, too, am considering immigrating to America,” he told her, with an air of quiet confidence while the chambermaid tiptoed in with the silver tray of tea and gateaux. “Europe is in decline, crushed by the weight of its own importance. America is the future.”
Alma smiled as she poured fragrant Darjeeling into two impossibly delicate porcelain cups. “So is it true you’re going to marry Clara Clemens?” she asked him teasingly, referring to the daughter of the great Mark Twain. Miss Clemens had gained international fame as a concert contralto.
Ossip looked so miserable that Alma regretted her indiscretion. Perhaps he and Miss Clemens had broken off their engagement.
“Ossip, why don’t you play one of your compositions while we wait for Gustav,” Alma said, swiftly changing the subject. “I adore your piano music.”
With a shy smile, he sat at the piano and played his Gavotte in D Minor while Alma sipped her tea and listened, utterly entranced. When Gustav still did not materialize, she and Ossip moved on to four-hand piano playing, reeling off Schubert’s “Die Forelle” and then Beethoven’s slow, meditative Moonlight Sonata. This music always rendered Alma pensive. She prayed her sadness wouldn’t spill out and betray her deep unhappiness. Of course, Ossip knew that she and Gustav were mourning their firstborn daughter, but she would rather cut off her head than give this young man any inkling of her terror that Gustav no longer loved her. That she had grown too old and ugly for any man to love. But surely Ossip would deduce for himself that all was not right between her and Gustav. What kind of husband left his wife alone in a hotel room to walk by himself in the rain-soaked streets?
“What an accomplished pianist you are, Alma,” the young man said. “You play with a composer’s sensitivity.”
A tingle ran up her nape. “Before I married, I dreamed of being a composer myself.”
Had she truly said that? What had come over her?
“Nothing would please me more than hearing your work,” Ossip said.
Alma swiveled on the piano bench to meet his dark eyes, so wide and earnest. “I’m not a genius like my husband.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Her head ringing, she darted off to dig her music folder out of her steamer trunk before she lost her courage. If Gustav walked in while she was playing, she would make some excuse and laugh it off. Where was Gustav anyway? This was an exaggeratedly long walk even by his standards. She hoped he wasn’t lost. Or worse—what if it was his weak heart? Was this her fault for letting him walk out alone? Forcing these thoughts from her mind, Alma joined Ossip at the piano once more. Far less assured at performing her own music, she nonetheless played and sang three of her songs, including her setting of Rilke’s “Bei dir ist es traut.” It was difficult to keep her emotions in check. This is what I lost. My talent might be minor, but this is my voice.
She arranged her face into a social smile and waited for Ossip to make some diplomatic remark for courtesy’s sake. Instead, he smiled at her warmly. “You have a true gift, Alma. A fine feeling for melody.”
She shook her head, glancing away. Moisture gathered in the corners of her eyes. Dear God, please don’t let me cry.
“Play some more for me,” he said, as though to save her from her own embarrassment. “Please, Alma.” He looked into her eyes until she understood. He was being sincere, not merely polite. He had genuine respect for her as a fellow composer.
Flustered, Alma reached for another one of her songs.
“Ich wandle unter Blumen und blühe selber mit,” Alma sang. She wandered among flowers and blossomed with them, unfolding in pure joy.
When she had finished her song, Ossip gazed at her, his eyes soft and shining, reminding her of the way Alex used to look at her when they were lovers. Dusk was falling. It had grown too dark to read her own music. She and Ossip sat side by side on the piano bench, neither of them making a move to switch on the electric lights.
“Alma, I’m afraid I’m falling in love with you.” Ossip sounded at once stricken, confused, solemn, and enthralled. “Only my devotion to your husband prevents me from falling at your feet. You are so beautiful.” His voice broke.
Still beautiful after all. Still capable of arousing a man’s desire. Her tears fell like the raindrops running down the windows. His hand found hers. They leaned toward each other, their lips about to touch, when the door sprang open. The electric lights blinded Alma. Ossip released her hand and leapt to his feet.
“Herr Direktor Mahler!” he cried. “How good to see you.”
Still hunched on the piano bench, her sheet music on display like evidence of adultery, Alma forced herself to look at her husband. Gustav stood in the doorway, the rain dripping off his overcoat and the black felt fedora he held in his hand. He peered at her and Ossip through his wet, foggy spectacles before taking them off and wiping them with his handkerchief. Her heart pounded sickly. Until Gustav laughed.
No jealous scene followed. No theatrics. Just Gustav disappearing into the bedroom to change into dry clothes and then joining them for the fresh pot of tea Alma ordered. After hurriedly gathering up her music and hiding it away, she busied herself pouring tea and serving cake while Gustav and Ossip discussed shared memories and future prospects.
“I would be lost without my wife,” she heard Gustav say.
Her back to the men, Alma drew the curtains on the rain that was turning to sleet.
“Alma sacrificed her youth to me,” her husband told Ossip. “No one will ever know how selflessly she offered up her life for me and my work. When I board that ship tomorrow, I’m not leaving home. I’m taking my home with me. My Alma.”
She sank into a chair and struggled not to weep. To hear her husband’s praise, which she hadn’t heard in so long. So Gustav acknowledged her sacrifice after all. Why hadn’t he told her so when they were alone tog
ether? Why was he instead revealing his naked heart to the young man she had nearly kissed?
“Won’t you join us for dinner?” Gustav asked Ossip.
Ossip, red in the face, made his excuses, obsequiously shook Gustav’s hand, and shrank out the door.
Did what happened—what almost happened—with Ossip count as adultery? Alma asked herself, as she and Gustav descended in the elevator to the restaurant below. What would have happened if Gustav hadn’t walked in the door when he had? Would she and Ossip have been able to stop at just a kiss? She terrified herself. Worst of all was the ecstasy that had coursed through her when Ossip told her she was beautiful. I have become a stranger to myself.
After they returned from dinner, Gustav took Alma’s hand and led her to bed, as though Ossip’s desire for her had reawakened his own. So much bewilderment swirled through her head. Was it wrong to revel in this sense of vindication, of triumph, to see the tenderness in his eyes, as though he were stroking her naked body for the very first time? You gave up your music for him and this is the boon you get in return, for a gift demands a gift. Four words, as irrevocable as cannon fire, reverberated inside Alma’s arching body. Sex is my power.
I may not be a genius, but this is my towering strength. Her allure as she held him in her thrall. As she made him see her. See her! Far from being the selfless madonna Gustav had described for Ossip, she had become an insatiable goddess from a savage past. In all other ways, Gustav might dominate her, but in this she was supreme, his queen, her cries rising phoenixlike in the cold night.
32
The next morning, Alma and Gustav took the train to Cherbourg, where they boarded their ship, the Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria. On the deck, a brass band played “La Marseillaise.” Gustav was in high spirits, a healthy color in his face, she noted with satisfaction. Entering their stateroom with its mahogany furnishings thoughtfully nailed to the floor, they clasped hands and danced, exclaiming at the luxury, the elegance.
“Let us journey forward as victors,” she murmured to Gustav, her cheek pressed to his.
Let his appointment at the New York Metropolitan Opera prove the pinnacle of his career, she prayed. The time had come to banish her sadness and play her part as the glamorous young wife of the great conductor and composer who stood on the threshold of international celebrity.
Arm in arm, they explored the ship with its ballroom and library, its salon full of silk-upholstered divans, its smoking room and dining rooms with banquet tables decked in linen and fresh lilies. They joined the other first-class passengers to drink champagne on deck while the sailors ceremoniously lifted anchor and the ship set off through the foamy green waves. Handkerchief in hand, Alma waved good-bye to Europe.
Alas, their eight-day passage was stormy and Gustav was very seasick. Alma fetched him seltzer water and dry toast while he lay rigid in bed, refusing to eat or drink until his queasy spell passed.
“Don’t play nursemaid,” he admonished her. “Go and enjoy yourself.”
With his blessing, Alma danced in the ballroom night after night, floating above the gales in a buzz of cocktails and spirited conversation with the many artists, writers, and musicians from across Europe, all headed for a new life in America. There were so many German and French speakers that her halting English hardly seemed to matter.
“The thing you must understand about New York is that it’s swimming in new money,” a young socialite told her, the wife of a Frankfurt art dealer. This lady was the picture of sophistication with her silk turban and long amber cigarette holder. “Those plutocrats collect Italian paintings. They import French antiques, marry English nobility. They want to be seen at the opera listening to the most renowned European sopranos. They’ll pay anything for that Old World touch to give them legitimacy. That’s why they’re bringing your husband over!”
On the morning of December 20, Gustav was well enough to join Alma on deck as they sailed into New York Bay. The Statue of Liberty, rising from her island and lifting her torch, left Alma breathless with wonder. Yet even this was eclipsed by the Manhattan skyline. Countless buildings reached higher than the tallest cathedral spires of Old Europe. The New World glimmered like a miracle.
After passing the southern tip of the island of Manhattan, the Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria docked at the East River Pier, within view of the Brooklyn Bridge, the largest and most magnificent structure Alma had ever seen.
As first-class passengers, she and Gustav were spared the ordeal of being herded onto the ferry bound for Ellis Island, the fate of those poor immigrants in steerage. Instead, officials gave their papers a cursory inspection before they disembarked. Alma lowered her head and stared at her shoes while Gustav vehemently declared himself German, not Austrian or Bohemian. Her husband, she reflected, was attempting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the perfidious Viennese.
After leaving the ship and passing through the Customs House, a sparkling beaux arts confection resembling a palace, they were free to enter the United States.
“Everything is new here,” Alma whispered to Gustav. “And so splendid!”
Outside the Customs House, they were hailed by a fifty-year-old man in a top hat and sable-trimmed greatcoat. His gloved hands twirled an ebony walking cane, his spats were immaculate, and he sported a debonair gray moustache. To Alma, he seemed the very picture of an American millionaire. She imagined him flinging open his coat to reveal a flurry of greenbacks falling like confetti. Waving to them, he seemed to exude a uniquely American confidence and openhearted conviviality free from European reserve or snobbery. But nothing prepared Alma for her shock when he greeted them in his native German.
“Herr Direktor Mahler! You look just like your photograph! I’d recognize you anywhere!” He shook Gustav’s hand before kissing Alma’s cheeks. “Ah, the lovely Frau Direktor Mahler!” He introduced himself as Otto Kahn, the Metropolitan Opera’s president and financier. Switching to English, he turned to the tall, slender woman standing slightly behind him. “And this is my beautiful wife, Adelaide!”
“Welcome to New York, Mrs. Mahler,” Adelaide said, as soft-spoken as her husband was hearty.
“How do you do,” Alma managed, trying not to gape. She had never seen so much mink on one person.
The Kahns ushered Alma and Gustav into their gleaming green Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost limousine while a porter arranged to send their steamer trunks on by a humbler horse-drawn conveyance. Sinking into the green leather seat, Alma could scarcely believe the opulence.
“He’s an investment banker,” Gustav whispered in her ear.
While the chauffeur drove them up Broadway, Mr. Kahn regaled them with a steady stream of conversation. He was born in Mannheim, he told them, the son of a revolutionary.
“And here I am, the biggest capitalist in New York! But if I earn it, I spend it. I give it away. It’s a sin to keep money idle. You know, I’d like to buy a piano for every family in New York. A piano in every apartment would do far more to fight crime than a policeman on every corner.
“Addie and I have donated millions to the Met Opera, and they were still reluctant to let us buy our own box—because we’re Jews. At least they don’t have pogroms here, eh? I heard the papers gave you a terrible time in Vienna, Herr Direktor—a crying shame. You won’t experience that here, this I can promise.
“In fact, I’d like to offer you an even bigger contract than the one you signed. To be precise, I’m offering you Heinrich Conried’s job—general director of the Metropolitan Opera. Poor Conried is very ill, you understand. He needs to step down for health reasons. Of course, the salary would be very lucrative.”
Alma looked at Gustav, whose eyes seemed to bulge out of his head. They had barely set foot in New York, and he was already being asked to replace the man whose largess had brought them here in the first place. Heinrich Conried, Alma understood, shared a background very similar to Gustav’s, born in Silesia to a poor Jewish weaver.
“I’m afraid I can’t
accept that post,” Gustav replied, sounding both shaken and nervous.
Kahn shrugged with equanimity. “My second choice is Giulio Gatti-Casazza from La Scala. He might want to make his own creative changes. But don’t worry. As principal conductor, you’ll still be in charge of the German repertoire while he’ll see to the Italian repertoire. German and Italian opera, that’s what our patrons pay for. The Vanderbilts, Astors, Carnegies, and Rockefellers. You’ll meet them all!”
They drove past the Metropolitan Opera on Thirty-Ninth and Broadway, an imposing structure if not as grand and gorgeous as the Court Opera in Vienna. Gustav looked tempted to leap out of the automobile straight into his new workplace, but the Rolls-Royce kept moving.
As they progressed through Midtown, Alma looked out at the people crowding the sidewalks, who appeared considerably more down-at-the-heels than the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. Even through the closed windows, she could hear the babel of languages. Yiddish and Italian. She saw women in heavy boots with thick woolen kerchiefs tied to their heads as if they had just tramped down from the Russian steppes. She lost count of all the black and Oriental faces she saw. New York literally heaved with immigrants, as if all the world had been squeezed into one noisy, hectic city. All these dislocated people, driven from their homes, desperate for a better life. Her stomach flipped to think that she and Gustav were just two more of them, albeit much more comfortably provided for.
Mrs. Kahn, meanwhile, attempted to converse with Alma in English, speaking so softly and swiftly that she could understand only the odd word. Charity. Museum. Art. Children. A pang rose inside Alma to think how little Gucki would have craned her head to peer up at those buildings rising like canyon walls to dwarf the bustling streets. How Gucki would have delighted in the Christmas decorations on the shop fronts, the strings of bunting and colored lights. New York made Vienna seem so small, so provincial and quaint. Vienna was history. This was the modern world in all its glory.
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