His face tightened all the way up to his hairline. “I spent a year in the ruins of a death camp. Survivors were replaced by Austrian prisoners of war. All former soldiers. They knew I had evaded military service, and tried to kill me so often I was put in an isolation pit for my own safety. A priest discovered I was a musician. The only daylight I saw was on Sunday when guards took me to a makeshift chapel to sing first for my captors, then for my countrymen. An hour later I was returned to the hole. A ghastly farce. Worse and stranger, I was dead to everyone until I came above ground and sang. Guards and prisoners alike were full of hate, forgiveness, indifference, pride, desire—the most terrifying audience I ever faced. Some in uniform, others starving. I came home weighing as much as you. I couldn’t sing for three years, until my health returned. And I finally lost a bitterness and confusion that nearly drove me mad.”
He put his hands on his knees and looked out across the room. Maile felt small enough to be flicked away like a crumb. No experience in her entire life came close to his. She hadn’t even had the courage to tell him about singing for tourists in Waikiki. Had given him nothing more than the hard work a master teacher could expect from a graduate student.
“All right, now.” Jann slapped his knees. “Let’s have an answer from you.”
Answer, she thought in fright. He’d spoken to her with spiritual resonance that required an honest response. When had she been similarly self-centered and been made to pay for it?
In a small voice she said, “Once I hid money from my family. Our roof leaked and there were medical bills, but I had this idea of saving to be a famous singer. They found out. In the end they gave it all back to me, and more.”
Jann nodded as though mulling over an unexpected reply.
She sloughed off humiliating memories. Her visa was safe, her reputation unmarred. “All I did was ask how to get into the Festival House because I was wild to go, but I can see what you mean and I’ll stay out of trouble.”
In a decisive move Jann got to his feet and showed her his back. “I should think so, because if police are involved in some future incident, I will not come to your rescue.” He let his words settle for the length of a heartbeat, turned around, and spoke with the full force of his personality. “Restraint! For God’s sake, learn it!”
He stared her down and made her repeat the word “restraint” in German, English, Hawaiian. She struggled to recall kāohi—hold back, e kāohi ‘oe, control yourself. He listened without a trace of sympathy and dismissed her, saying he expected the contest aria to be memorized at her next lesson.
In the hallway Maile leaned against a wall to feel something solid, her relief at escaping Jann’s presence overshadowed by shame at having disappointed him. Yet she felt he must trust her deeply to reveal such personal details about himself: wartime cowardice, cognac, a fourth wife. And he understood that singing was work, work, work, as boring and solitary as punishment, a reminder of how far you had to go with a single aria, a role, a career. Every day the same routine for beginner and master alike: practice to the breaking point, then get up the next morning and do it all over again. Such drudgery tolerated because their souls were filled with visions of creating perfect music and failure was a form of death.
No matter what anyone thought of von Wehlen’s past . . .
Did Jann mean affairs? Heroin? A Nazi scandal? More secrets. If Jann had fought neither for nor against Hitler, just tried to save his own skin, how many people knew about that? Buried alive, forced to sing, finding the will to survive. Then becoming an artist of such superiority that he received a knighthood.
Her own life seemed petty. Unlike Karl, she ignored the political struggles of others. She no longer contributed to her family, as he did. Beyond music, what did she value? The huge ego necessary for achievement as a singer seemed uncomfortably close to greed: me first and everybody else last.
AT MOZART STEG, Karl noticed a policeman watching pedestrians cross the river. Pickpockets were unknown in Salzburg. Local residents and wealthy visitors alike obeyed such strict codes of manners that all behaved unusually well in public. He headed for Getreidegasse to buy a block of preserving wax for his mother. More officers stood outside public buildings and in the marketplace. Two paced under the arch leading to the university.
This seemed more than just odd, and Karl spent his bus fare on a Salzburger Nachrichten. Another officer was posted next to the newspaper kiosk. A front-page photo showed books being burned in Prague, a bonfire on the main square. All stage productions and films from the West had been banned. Most theaters were closed.
Disturbing news, Karl thought, but it didn’t explain the numbers of police stationed here in public. On the third page he found a small article: “Festival Protest: Importierte Kulturrevolution.” Three Communist students had been arrested at last night’s Othello premiere. They claimed to be planning more demonstrations funded by the Party in Vienna. Protesters had also disrupted the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, chanting, “Execute the financial beast of music!”
Quickly he scanned the rest of the paper for any mention of his Czech refugee group, which he sensed might have taken part in a protest without telling him. NATO leaders were holding a summit to discuss war games. Mao’s Little Red Book had sold millions of copies worldwide. At Edelweiss-Kino, the Jewish comedienne Barbra Streisand in a new color film, Funny Girl.
Yet revolution, if only on a tiny scale, had at last arrived in Salzburg. He felt a mixture of pride and uneasiness: how deeply could he involve himself in what would surely become a dangerous situation? The Soviets were bent on extinguishing Prague Spring. Local police jailed local political activists for violating the country’s neutrality. With daily protests in Prague, the refugee rescue network here was no doubt in full operation, but the group deemed Karl Holzer merely a musician. The others in the Action Plan for the Future were “border technicians,” traveling back and forth to monitor obscure crossing points with binoculars.
He hated being shunted to the sidelines. Although an arrest for violating internal security would kill his career as a pianist. He was an amateur in politics with little hope of advancing beyond that. Until the contest was over, he had to put away Maile and moonlight and a shimmering pond so that nothing distracted him.
MAILE SLID HER hands into her silk gown so it glided down to settle on her shoulders with a shivery thrill. Black on black, the sleek fabric was covered with tiny beads in a geometric pattern that clung subtly to her breasts and hips and shifted gently as she moved; sleeveless, plain neck, the only point of style one long slit from knee to hem. She fluffed her hair into a ballerina chignon and left a teasing wisp at the nape of her neck. In the mirror she applied stealthy strokes of mascara, separated each lash with flicks of a toothpick, then put on deep red lipstick, and stood back.
Ha. People at home would look twice before recognizing her. “Makua’s girl used to sing down Waikiki, teach school? E, Auntie Lani, you know her?” They would crowd around, pretend she was a stranger, a moo-vee star, ask the smallest children, “Who’s ‘at leddy, our Maile? Neva, not.”
Tonight there were no Festival performances, a tradition that allowed Salzburg’s consulates to host receptions, and Frau Metzger was on full alert. “Fräulein Manoa, bitte sehr!” she called out from below. Irked by the bossy tone, Maile went on assembling the contents of a little evening purse. No need to be reminded of the time, or how to get to her destination.
She descended the stairs into the wide-eyed gaze of the landlady and the grin of a United States Army officer so tall his medals were at Frau Metzger’s eye level.
“Evening, ma’am,” he said. “Mr. Casey sent me over.”
Maile beamed in surprise: an escort, a gladiator, the kind of blond blue-eyed tourist who took surfing lessons at Waikiki and attracted a crowd of women onshore. She wanted to show him off to Brenda and Marlise.
Major Derek Wainwright excused himself for speaking no German, and Frau Metzger spoke no English, but she talked at
him anyway: “It has been too, too long, ach, how many years since I had a man in uniform at my door!”
He offered Maile an arm.
Quickly she slipped outside with him to avoid doing the courteous thing and translating what the landlady had said. On the river promenade a scrim of dusk had already come down over the grassy banks. Formally dressed couples strolled under the dark trees like guests at a garden party on an estate, passing through circles of light from street-lamps outside the brightly lit villas with their identifying flags.
At the Amerikanishes Konsulat a jazzy piano riff reached down the front stairs and drew Maile inside. She and Major Wainwright stepped into the foyer, filled with men in tuxedoes and women in gowns, the same people, she knew, who entered the Festival House every night. The same delicate scents filled the air. Everybody spoke Italian or French, switching easily to German or English. And roses in deep yellow, stark white, and lush pink the color of flesh, were displayed in grand bouquets and woven into garlands of ferns.
The Honorable Edwin Casey came forward to greet Maile and take her arm. “Ach, sie ist’s,” a nearby guest remarked, “jene Sängerin aus Hawaii.” Casey introduced him to Miss Manoa, “A fellow citizen from the prettiest state in the Union.” She felt pili leaping from throat to diaphragm, heart to liver.
Through more introductions they progressed outside to a lawn enclosed by a high hedge. Guests chatted around beds of pink tulips, in a white gazebo, and dallied on gravel paths. Others flocked to an out-door bar, excited by the novelty of jiggers, shakers, glasses in various shapes and sizes, trays of garnishes. Men in crew cuts and steward’s jackets waited on them, speaking American—“Yessir, yes’m,”—and rattled off drink suggestions: “Stinger, Spymaster, Moscow Mule.”
Maile’s giddiness settled into the familiar tension of being on stage. She circulated with Casey, translated for him, and pointed out prominent musicians. When full darkness had come and the garden lights flashed on, he asked, “How about a tune?” She smiled at the thought of the one piece she’d always been able to perform without a warm-up. Why of course, she told him, and went over to speak to the jazz pianist.
The bristle-headed lieutenant from Georgia by way of Berchtesgaden segued into Gershwin’s chiming octaves. She leaned against the black grand like a club singer, one hip angled so her body formed a languid S curve. Focusing on the middle of the crowd in the garden, she let loose, high and wide: “Sum-mer—time . . .”
All heads turned her way with the sudden stillness of attraction, the net of her voice descending over a school of reef shrimp. Edwin Casey stood with guests fanned out behind him, his eyes narrowed in dreamy concentration. The melody slid from her throat in flowing phrases that rose into the evening air. She felt her voice holding the audience, directing their hopes and memories. At the end she took a deep swimmer’s breath and her accompanist hesitated, alert for a final improvisation. Casey leaned forward. The heightened attention of both men made her want to reach for an invisible thread of music, a singer’s risk. She looked up into the star-pierced sky and barely touched on a high B, an ecstatic sigh that held and floated out beyond the hedge enclosing the garden, then she let go of its bewitching sweetness and silence stretched on all sides, as if the entire city had paused and thousands had heard.
Applause rushed over her, calls of “Encore, encore!”
She was tempted to give them more, but years ago Danny O’Doyle had said, “Always leave them a little hungry,” and he’d never been wrong about that.
With a bow, she rejoined Casey to make a round through the garden. Congratulations poured from guests delighted by such an American evening, Das Jazz, Der Gershwin, Die Cocktails. She sipped a glass of champagne, ate a tiny meatball on a toothpick, charmed people with a few phrases in her fledgling Italian.
Finally Casey asked, “One more favor? There’s a fellow interested in Polynesian navigation, of all things.” He led her over for an introduction to Baron Balthazar von Gref, the only man wearing a dark daytime suit.
“It is entirely my pleasure,” the baron said, bending over Maile’s hand. “Please excuse my fragile English.”
A smile stalled on her lips. She had never met a titled person. His gold-rimmed glasses, bald head, and paunch made him resemble a retired professor. But according to local etiquette, after being properly introduced to a nobleman, she could greet him in public. At a place like Cafe Scimitar, which she’d never considered going into, with its customers who never looked at prices on a menu.
He exchanged a few words with Herr Konsul, and when their host went off to greet other guests, Baron von Gref adjusted his glasses and said in German, “I have heard only praise from Herr Kammersänger Jann for his new soprano. Tonight that was fully verified.”
She nodded in thanks, delighted that he knew Professor Jann, although now the baron seemed be flirting, something a man of seventy or so could do very sweetly. “Have you traveled in the Pacific?” she asked.
“Ach.” A little laugh of regret. “Only in my imagination. Knowing that you study here creates a link between Hawaii and Salzburg, as marvelous as the magic carpet tales I loved as a child.” He described his research on Polynesian navigators who covered vast distances in open canoes, their methods a mystery to modern scholars. “My particular misfortune,” he added, “is being rather ignorant of music. May I introduce you to my nephew? He is quite knowledgeable about opera.” The baron suppressed a smile. “However, his attempts to sing have thus far doomed him to disappointment.”
They approached a young couple whom the baron introduced as Count Arnim von und zu Zala, and his fiancée, Sophia von Schönweilershof; both brunette and wolfhound slim, with blue eyes, dark lashes and eyebrows, refined noses, and small, neat mouths. Arnim’s thin hair trailed over his tuxedo collar. Sophia’s straight bob was pinned back by a diamond-encrusted butterfly. Her long dirndl of forest green brocade had sleeves with rows of jet buttons from elbow to wrist, set off by black lace gloves and a beaded purse on a chain.
Baron von Gref excused himself and the two stepped closer to Maile. “We have been aching to meet you,” Armin said in a confidential tone. His eyes glittered with mischief. “You sang that aria magnificently, quite like a Negress.”
Sophia gave her a softer look and whispered, “My mother is upset that Professor Jann’s new soprano is American. Is that not outrageous?”
Maile mumbled a meaningless reply that went unnoticed as they traded rapid remarks in German, then Arnim remarked, his tone cozy with teasing, “There is a whiff of gossip that you attempted to tweak von Wehlen’s Festival House security force and sneak into the Othello premiere. I hope it’s true.”
“Repeating a rumor is rude,” Sophia told him. She nodded in the direction of the bar. “I want to try a cocktail, although have been warned that ice chips produce condensation on the glass.” She pulled off her gloves and tucked them into her purse. Maile stared at a large pear-shaped diamond ring with a cluster of emerald leaves. Sophia fluttered her fingers playfully. “Yes, Arnim and I are engaged. Our families arranged it ten years ago when we were barely out of the nursery. However, we are emphatically not getting married.”
“Quite right.” Arnim straightened his back and clicked his heels with a sharp pok! “I do not intend to live with your collection of Hittite potsherds.”
“Or I with your voice lessons. Verdi weeps.” Sophia put a wrist to her forehead with an anguished look.
“Touché. But keep your guard up.” They crossed forefingers like fencers, then turned to Maile, competing to tell her that since child-hood they had bored each other to dust with their opposing tastes in everything from cars to books, from sports to rocky beaches versus sandy ones. “However,” Arnim interjected, “we cannot survive a social season without escorts, so we go everywhere together under mutual agreement to act as advance scouts for ideal mates.”
“I shall marry an archaeologist,” Sophia said. “We have located four so far, all over the age of sixty. Arnim claims
he has done his part, although to my mind, hardly.” She gave him a severe look.
“Carbon-dating,” he complained. “If archaeology meant unearthing gold cups rather than sifting layers of clay, it might do. I, on the other hand, seek a woman of fantasy who will demand I throw a leopard skin over my bare back and sing Radames.”
His facetious tone didn’t match the expression in his eyes, and Maile sensed a passionate music lover who would never get what he wanted.
“Our common problem,” Sophia said, “is we must each find an appropriate spouse or neither of us will inherit a thing. We will end up beggars.” She glanced past Arnim as though startled and said, “Over there on the stairs.” She moved behind the slatted wall of the gazebo. He looked in the same direction, then quickly joined her. Maile regarded them with confusion.
“Your mother loathes Americans,” he said to Sophia. “She only came to find us and go on about Rienzi.”
“You are right for once.” Sophia leaned across him to speak to Maile. “At luncheon Mother insisted for an entire hour that when Wagner composed Rienzi, Meyerbeer had no influence on him. Spontini, yes. The details were paralyzing.”
Maile could barely recall the opera, a youthful work with thumping martial choruses, a footnote to music history, a bore.
Arnim took Sophia’s arm and announced, “We are immediately off to the Dutch reception, because of that tomb specialist you are straining to meet.” He proposed escaping through the high hedge.
“Liberum veto,” Sophia said. “Have the Jaguar brought round back.” She turned to Maile. “Do come with us, a trio is far more amusing than a duet.”
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