Getreidegasse, however, was a straight street with facing rows of four-story stone houses and cobblestone paving laid down before the Crusades. At Number Twenty-five, she tucked up a loose strand of hair and pushed a brass button at the entrance. Inside, a harsh jangling announced her, as if someone had dropped a drawer full of kitchen utensils. Then footsteps, and a woman opened the door. Her hair was arranged in a coronet of gray braids, her broad bosom cinched into a white blouse and navy blue dirndl, set off by a pleated white apron. Her gaze was neutral: light brown eyes surrounded by velvety white skin. She had a small nose, thin lips, no makeup.
“Das Zimmer?” she asked.
“Ja, die Reklame im Mozarteum,” Maile replied. She let herself be examined from head to foot, resisting a rude urge to respond in kind.
They traded names, and Josephina Metzger snapped on a staircase light against the interior gloom, then led the way up a steep staircase to the second floor. As they climbed, Maile got an unexpected view of petticoats hemmed in cabbage-leaf embroidery, thick stockings knotted at the knee, low-heeled shoes with silver buckles.
“I hear,” Frau Metzger remarked in a thick Austrian accent, “that Professor Jann’s new student is a Hawaii-Mädchen. A great honor for you. He is our best.”
Maile murmured agreement, startled that a total stranger knew who she was. Could this woman have some connection to the Mozarteum? To Sir Jann?
Swaying and huffing, Frau Metzger reached a small wooden landing and said in a melancholy tone, “I myself am a widow. My son and his wife emigrated to South Africa six years ago. They are quite happy there.” She unlocked a door and gave Maile an awkward glance. “I must confess, a salamander once lived here in a damp window frame.” Her shoulders shook, as if a chilly draft had blown across her back. “One tenant was a nun who had broken her vows.” She opened the door with a sigh of resignation. “There is no central heating in winter. Tenants these days want modern.”
Maile stepped into a large room with walls that had the mellow tint of parchment. Ribs of green Salzburg marble supported the vaulted ceiling and met in the center to form a star. A leaded-glass window let in muted patches of light from the street. Wooden furniture of a rich earth brown was carved with ornate scrolls: a desk, a wardrobe, a Baroque music stand with brass candleholders. An upright piano stood across from a bed. The rent was seven hundred schillings a month, thirty-five dollars.
Pili quivered, greedily alert. Maile murmured that she didn’t mind salamanders—never having seen one—and poked at the piano, remarked that it needed tuning, and opened and shut the wardrobe. “I’ll take it.” She reached for her purse.
“We will talk,” Frau Metzger replied. Maile followed her out, eyeing the music stand in the hope that she would get to use it.
Downstairs they sat in a narrow kitchen that faced the entry door. On the table were little bowls of chocolates, hazelnuts, tiny fish-shaped crackers. Frau Metzger glanced at them without invitation, and said, “So then.” She asked about Maile’s family, her education. Truthfully Maile said that her father worked for the government, but not that he drove a city bus in Honolulu. That her mother had died years ago, but not that she had cleaned houses on a military base and given birth to nine children by the age of thirty. She mentioned her German grandfather, her university degree, and her studies in New York, particularly the works of Mozart and Richard Strauss.
Frau Metzger’s face softened and she abandoned her inquisitorial manner. “So, you are a Hawaii-Mädchen but have only part of the brown race. At our summer Festival we also have mixed-race divas, with Gypsy blood, not too much. A little mixture, like yours, is best.” She continued in a lighter tone. “Also, you have lived in a very large city, and you dress with style. I appreciate this in foreigners.”
Maile was struggling to follow Frau Metzger’s German and maintain an interested expression when the words “brown race” jumped out at her. Said with approval, she thought, but Salzburg was one hundred percent haole, unlike Manhattan’s cosmopolitan population. Here she was in what Madame had described as “a medieval village.”
“Clothes I would never wear!” Frau Metzger’s eyes lit with an observer’s enthusiasm. “People reveal themselves. In the past, you see, we could always spot the Jews because they heaped elegance upon elegance.”
Maile recalled the Frenchman on the ship who’d accused her of being a secret Jewess, and she felt ignorant of things that mattered to Europeans.
Frau Metzger named Parisian perfumes, Italian shoemakers, and insisted that because of the summer Festival—which Maile had unfortunately missed—Salzburg was not at all provincial, as too many people claimed. Finally she said with dramatic abruptness, “You may have the room. Do not be concerned about my interrupting your work. I understand artists. They are the pride of Austria.”
There was one stipulation. Maile could not move in until her remaining luggage arrived. Otherwise, she might have to borrow little items and forget to return them. Frau Metzger showed her a foreigner’s registration form, which would make Maile an official resident in a private home. Later, duly signed and dated, the form must be turned in to the authorities within twenty-four hours. “Oh,” Frau Metzger added, “and what precisely is your source of income?”
Maile quashed memories of hoarding rolled-up bills and the clan raising funds for her. “Savings,” she replied, and sat back firmly.
Frau Metzger gave her a look of mild surprise that bordered on respect, as if acknowledging a cleverly evasive answer. She smiled and extended her hand.
AFTER MAILE’S FIRST regularly scheduled voice lesson, Professor Jann walked home along the river. Hearing his new student a second time had convinced him that her voice had a thrilling quality, like wonderful raw material. He now understood Leah Renska’s recommendation— the kind of pupil who appeared unannounced once in a decade. The lack of a long education in music didn’t bother him. So far this odd Miss Manoa had demonstrated a remarkable willingness to leap, to experiment, to question his judgment.
He smiled at the memory of her audition: what a fighter she was! Not trading on her beauty, or playing the coy exotic because of technical failings, or pouting over his unrelenting criticism. Yet her personality seemed to be based solely on a drive to succeed—although not, he felt, because of an overblown ego. She made no mention of her past, her family, who must be supporting her studies. What was the key to her inner self? He was tempted to loan his student fine books, to invite her for tea and listen to records.
Nun wohl. It was still very early in their relationship. And Miss Maile might only seem extraordinary. Too much attention from a teacher at the beginning invariably went wrong. He had never unraveled the mystery of why talent and intelligence and beauty and personality and stamina were so rarely found in any one singer. Nobody outside music understood how easy it was to fail: a lack of nerve and an overweening ego were equally crippling. Some singers with excellent volume and tone could not be trained to sense pitch, or never developed the necessary range for their voice category. Ninety percent of them fell by the wayside. Or simply gave up because they couldn’t bear living without a spouse, children, a regular salary and a little garden out back. Simple human needs. He wanted to believe his new soprano was an exception because she came from such a distance, and had conquered obstacles he couldn’t imagine. Still, there were no guarantees.
As Jann neared his house, he felt eyes upon him. He looked toward the river in time to see a little old man touch his cap in greeting. The two of them had a history of sorts that went back years, although Jann’s status allowed him to ignore the flower seller in a ridiculous green uniform, its silver frogged fastenings and swirls of braid like an old-fashioned theater usher’s outfit. A man who in fact lived off gossip he could turn to advantage.
Jann walked on, aware of being under observation because he was teaching at the Mozarteum again. The significance of that would be apparent even to someone far outside the formal realm of music. He felt no cause for imm
ediate concern, but resolved to keep the old man in mind.
IN THE MOZARTEUM’S basement Karl Holzer rehearsed low Ds on his French horn. Above, in the auditorium, he heard the smack of seats folding up and the muffled thump of shoes. He emptied his instrument’s spit valve onto the floor and slipped the horn into its case. After his first year at the conservatory, he always skipped the opening ceremony for the fall session. A bureaucrat invariably gave a speech about “Salzburg’s greatest son,” but never mentioned that the city had in fact treated Mozart with vicious disregard. Or that the school named in his honor had not been founded until fifty years after his death, another hypocrisy as far as Karl was concerned. Peasants like himself were not admitted until 1960. Before that it was talent be damned if you wore hay farmer’s clothes and spoke Gaisbergische dialect—the invisible policy established by the middle-class snobs who claimed Wölfi for themselves.
Outside, Karl headed to an annual party. An illegal meeting of university students about Prague dissidents had been rescheduled for later tonight. He considered the group poorly organized, but never missed a chance to be part of their Action Plan for the Future. From the river he walked toward an ancient monastery on a hillside ringed by a high wall, beneath it Frauenstrasse and Salzburg’s two legal houses of prostitution. At the low end lived a wealthy Canadian or South American assumed to be a spy, political or industrial, posing as an art patron, an almost ordinary combination in postwar Austria. Each fall the man opened his house to music students for an evening. Sometimes he attended in full theater costume; more often he didn’t show up at all.
For Karl the party was a yearly chance to eat rich man’s food and look over recently arrived foreigners. Fewer than usual had attended the conservatory’s summer session—because of student unrest across Europe, he felt—and he looked forward to seeing Jean-Paul Gardes, and the American mezzo, as loud and lusty as a vaudeville singer. Most of all he was intrigued by the new woman from Hawaii. Nobody believed she came from such a mythical place; singers could be tremendous liars, worse than pianists.
At the door to the party house he unpacked his horn, clamped it to his lips and played a gorgeous, spilling phrase from Beethoven’s Seventh: Dah—da, di-di-di-di, da-da-da-da DAH! Windows flew open in other buildings and people leaned out to yell, “Polizei!”
Karl leaped inside the house, where the heat and noise of the crowd closed around him like a goose-down comforter. The main room was lit by flashlights tied to candleholders. Several dozen students attacked the buffet table, or gathered around a low pedestal where a naked couple posed back to back with dueling pistols. “Onegin and Euridice,” an onlooker called out. “Too easy!” A young man lay on Arabian carpets, watching his host make an elaborate cat’s cradle with gold thread. Foreigners clustered together even if they didn’t share a common language. Karl spotted Jean-Paul handing the woman from Hawaii a glass of red as two American choir-directing students joined them. Karl’s English was limited to a few phrases from cowboy films: Saddle up, ride on out, and he hung back, envying the Frenchman, as skinny as a weasel and possessed of a twitchy energy that Karl associated with jazzmen.
“Newspapers’re lousy here,” one choir director said to Maile, “We’re days behind New York.”
“New York.” Jean-Paul raised his glass in salute. “Prro-test!”
The choir director glared. “Shut up, let her speak.”
The Frenchman flung an arm around the blond mezzo as she passed him, and he purred into her hair, “Brrrenda.” She shrugged him off with a shrill giggle. He leaned toward Maile with a somber expression, stroking his black goatee, and said, “The Red Army is back. A million soldiers just over the Czech border.”
“The Red Army what?” she asked.
She sounded alarmed, Karl thought, or perhaps had not understood. He’d heard her speak good enough German for someone not long in the country, although how had she learned his language? Maybe in Munich or Berlin. He gave her a hypnotic stare of invitation— come talk to me, lovely creature.
“The Russkis will never dare come here,” one choir director said.
“Ahhh,” Jean-Paul scoffed, “you naivlings think diplomacy will stop les Soviètes. Every summer they have les manoeuvres. Prague Spring continues!”
Across the room a cello cut in with O Iris und Osiris, the grand hymn to wisdom played allegro molto, and people grabbed partners to careen around shouting, “Walzer, Walzer!” They bumped into tables, tripped over floor cushions, sloshed wine on each other. The choir directors stamped their feet like square dancers. Karl lost sight of Maile in the twisting mass of bodies as a screaming flute took over with “Tambourine Man,” then switched to a Mozart minuet, abandoned after three measures because only the naked couple knew the steps.
Maile ate two portions of roast goose with mushrooms and tiny potatoes in a rich, dark sauce. She met Brenda and a local student whose name seemed to be Mah-leez, and saw a tall blond man raising a French horn to his lips, then lowering it without playing, and knew that she had seen him before. A Japanese man introduced himself to her as Kazuo Hitachi. A blast of amplified guitar music from a phonograph swept over them, and instantly everyone was swaying and jerking to the Stones, the few Americans looking sassy and confident, the Europeans stiff-necked and groaning, “Mahn oh mahn.” Maile kicked off her high heels to laugh and strut, feeling dizzier and dizzier, until she bumped hips with someone and spun down onto a heap of cushions.
She landed harmlessly on her back. The party’s Canadian South American spy art patron host leaned over her, giving off alcohol fumes. Stubble rose like burnt grass through a layer of pancake makeup on his face and neck. Dimly she realized that she was drunk. She rolled away from him, got to her feet, and felt a wild sense of happiness rushing to the top of her head. At an open window she gulped fresh air. On the street she noticed a small old man walk past, wearing a green uniform and carrying a large bouquet of red roses like a character in a play. He disappeared into the blackness farther on. The brief sight of him left her feeling that she’d chosen the right place to come.
MAILE’S TRUNK ARRIVED from Rotterdam and a railroad porter wheeled it into town on a handcart, along with her luggage from the hotel. Frau Metzger made her wait in the little entry hall. Men are not allowed inside the house, the landlady explained, except for the transport of heavy objects. Afterwards, Maile could enter her room.
The porter’s blue work shirt was darkened by sweat. He rolled up his sleeves, climbed the stairs with two suitcases, then returned to wrestle the steamer trunk onto his back. Soon they heard a thud upstairs. “Nun also,” he called out, “fertig.” He came down panting and holding out a slip of paper.
As Maile took it, a tattoo on the inside of his right arm caught her eye: a small letter A like an arrowhead, in elaborate Gothic script with tiny decorative barbs. The porter noticed her looking at it, and he shot a glance at Frau Metzger, whose stare went from him to Maile to the tattoo, and for an instant all three of them were focused on the dark blue mark.
Frau Metzger scowled at the porter. “Ja, ja,” he murmured irritably, and jerked down both sleeves.
Maile sensed something forbidden, an open secret shared by the landlady and an anonymous laborer. A tattoo was as personal as a mole. It was also none of her business. She signed the delivery form and paid.
The handcart rattled away and Frau Metzger recited the house rules: no male visitors, ever, and practicing only between the hours of ten and noon, and two to six. With the window closed, please, as specified by law. And pardon me for even mentioning this, but do not hang undergarments to dry in view of the neighbors. “Regis-tra-tion,” she said, making a little melody of the word. “Do not forget. Twenty-four hours.” She handed over the signed and dated form, and went off to her kitchen.
Maile hurried upstairs. The wooden floorboards under her bare feet were as smooth and soft as old cloth, and made quiet creaking sounds when she moved about. She was curious about the salamander—a curse, a lizard-snak
e mentioned in a Schubert lied—and she examined the window frame to see if it had left any traces. Not even dust. Was the spirit of the former nun still in the ceiling cracks?
She opened the leaded-glass window and fresh air and bright sunlight poured in. Across the street the canted slate rooftops of the city’s houses and churches formed a pathway to the center of Salzburg. There a wall of pale gray-blue marble rose high above all other buildings to the castle of Hohensalzburg. Two thousand feet high and a thousand feet wide. White pennants flew from six towers, fluttering like tiny angel wings. She lived almost in its shadow.
With sudden energy Maile flipped open the suitcases, the trunk, and unpacked dresses, suits, blouses, scarves. Cassell’s dictionary went on the desk, music scores on the piano, shoes in the garderobe, a sheaf of concert programs on the bed, a teakettle, a cast-iron pan, a sewing box. Pili spread out in the room, taking fond possession of it.
More slowly Maile unfolded her finest gown, black beads on black silk. She was eager to wear it for the right occasion, clothing and costumes being part of an opera singer’s grand game of disguise. Like her best suits and dresses, the gown had been rescued from a fancy Manhattan thrift shop. Once, she’d described to Madame making the fitted satin holoku her aunts wore to Waikiki for special occasions, a difficult task. “Do not reveal such details about yourself,” Madame had said. “Only a servant takes pride in the skills of a seamstress.”
At the time it had seemed like snooty advice—typical high make-make haole—yet Maile already sensed that in Salzburg a porter was not in the same social class as Frau Metzger, and neither was anywhere near Professor Jann. A soprano was not supposed to mend her own evening wear. What would the gentlemanly Japanese violinist think? No one had to know the origin of her fox toque, her cashmere scarves.
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