Aloha, Mozart

by Williams, Waimea

  “Music,” he whispered. “It saves me every time.”

  His breath had the sweetness of freshly cut grass. He reached back for the door latch and stepped into the hall before she could tell him that he was wrong about coral reefs. Their bright beauty hid poisonous moray eels. Sea urchin spines could paralyze a hand or a foot. Even touching certain shells could be fatal. In her true world, innocence and death lived side by side and fed off each other.

  FRAU METZGER SPREAD the kitchen table with her second-best cloth, starched and ironed this morning, and hid the darned spot under a vase filled with daisies picked at the cemetery. The coffee pot was in place. Lotte and Gerda arrived with their haul of final-opportunity vegetables from the open market. When they sat down, Josephina cut her fresh Guglhopf in anticipation of a comfortable chat about things more meaningful than church or politics.

  After the coffee was poured and the cups were passed, Lotte ignored hers to stare at Gerda with blatant concern. Josephina handed out the plates of cake and then she eyed her guests; a hostess deserving an explanation.

  Gerda’s eyes were filled with tears. She whispered that she was worried, terribly worried. About a relative in Prague, a close relative. Josephina and Lotte traded looks of surprise, not ever having heard of a Czech family member in the fifty-five years the three women had known each other. With careless anguish Gerda admitted to having a grown son in Prague, a child never acknowledged, who to this day was a secret from her husband and her other children. For years she’d sent packages to the boy, and now feared the worst because he worked at a publishing house, and the government there was burning books.

  Their coffee remained untouched, as did the cake so perfectly marbled with swirls of chocolate. The three of them had been best friends since a school trip to Vienna in 1914 where they saw Emperor Franz Josef pass by in a gilded coach on his way to review troops bound for the war in Italy. Over the following decades Josephina, Lotte, and Gerda had shared a treasury of emotion and suffering brought out from time to time and examined from every angle: weddings that should not have taken place, fatal tumors, disappointing children, the general beastliness of men. Each week’s gossip was reviewed for potential scandal. Frau Metzger could hardly imagine they had any secrets left. But a child out of wedlock. Worse—a Czech! Certainly not as bad as a Jew or a Gypsy, still frightfully shaming.

  Lotte finally picked up her fork and attacked her cake, muttering that the Rosenkavalier could have solved Gerda’s problem years ago when he still did that kind of work. Gerda burst into sobs. Frau Metzger knew that Lotte was right, yet her heart went out to Gerda. She smacked the tabletop and invoked the Infant of Prague to curse all Communists for murdering Holy Russia, bloody Cossacks who would bomb our churches and Mozart’s birth house with his sweet little violin.

  Gerda accepted the comforting gift of a lace-trimmed handkerchief. At this Lotte put down her fork, her cake demolished but uneaten. An insult of such magnitude left Josephina speechless. When a telegram boy came to the door, her guests departed without asking to whom the message was addressed.

  Frau Metzger set it against a toothpick holder. Their lack of interest in such a fertile seed for gossip seemed like a bitter omen signaling the end of their sisterly trio. She doubted they would ever sit down together again. It was all the fault of the Soviet swine across the border. Filthy miscarriages, every one of them. In a fit of impatience she waited for her tenant, then gave up and trudged upstairs, left the telegram for Maile, and went out to shop.

  MANY MANY THANKS STOP, the message read, YOU WERE TERRIFIC STOP MADE MY EVENING STOP CASEY. Maile set the telegram on the music stand, hoping that he had another event in mind, perhaps a formal dinner. Although she had to admit that Casey was connected through twists and turns to people who talked casually about the SS, which led directly—no getting around it—to loko ‘ino. The conversation with Karl came back to her, and she thought what a child she was. What a fool! Evil would follow her until she faced it, an ageless force that would always exist to balance good.

  She opened the piano and rippled off Hilo-style hula chords, crish-crash all over the keyboard. Garantee hunnerd percent, Auntie Lani was still performing comic routines at third-rate hotels, driving the surplus Army jeep Maile had bought for her, painted purple with Voices from the Reef on the hood. Before and after work Auntie cooked, sat with the sick, and organized the clan to pick flowers in the mountains for a wedding luau. Got drunk once a month on the front lanai with her old lady friends.

  Impatiently Maile unwrapped a packet of cold cuts: sausage speckled with large bits of fat and chunks of gristle; a soft slice of cheese concealing a heap of leathery end pieces substituted behind the counter if a customer wasn’t looking. She threw out half and arranged the rest on a plate like a Jauseplatte she had seen served on the terrace of Cafe Scimitar. Hers was a poor imitation. She imagined hot food on a real plate, not her snack-size saucer bought at the market along with a pretty wineglass gathering dust on a shelf. In frustration she went downstairs for a walk.

  At the river promenade a workman slathered a kiosk with glue. He smoothed on new performance schedules, one reading, MOZARTEUM PREIS-KONZERT, 21.AUGUST.1968. The sight of it gave Maile a violent desire to win. Unlike the contest, a closed event for judges and teachers, the winner’s concert four days later was a student’s only chance to perform with full orchestra for fellow students, agents, the press. A Hawaiian soprano who triumphed in Europe would get her picture on the front page of the Honolulu Morning Bulletin, Maile Manoa in the lower right-hand corner reserved for beauty queens, sports stars, marlin fishermen. No local singer had ever made it to the Top Forty on the mainland pop charts, and she would beat them all by way of opera rather than a cute tune about making eyes at a girl. News worth a long-distance call: register at the Postundtelegraphenamt, wait hours for an open phone line to Munich-Paris-London-NewYork-Chicago-LosAngeles-Honolulu, a terrible expense but worth every cent to hear Makua’s voice. He would shout her name and be engulfed by aunties, brothers, little ones, everybody grabbing for the phone as if the lost daughter had returned from the dead.

  But each would ask the same question: So, now you come home arready?

  All she had yet to attain pressed down on her like stagnant clouds that would not release the rain they held, and would not lift. She longed to be elsewhere, doing something easy and familiar that didn’t require a grand personality. Her old routine, chores at home in Papakōlea. Changing the strings on a guitar, washing sand from a pile of seaweed, picking mangoes. Ironing in the living room before anyone else was awake. Open the wooden board that always gave off the same one-note creak, run a hand over the sheet nailed to the top as tightly as skin, let the iron warm up, sprinkle cool water on starched clothes fresh from the line in the yard. Lick one finger to test the hot metal for just the right sizzle, then swing the heavy iron over a rumpled mu‘umu‘u and breathe in steam that smelled like Auntie Lani’s ginger lei from the day before.

  I’m not coming home, she thought. ‘A‘ole. Nein. No language could disguise the truth of her reply to her family. She had made a choice to trade the ancient values—what few were left—for a new soul of music, but so far that didn’t exist except as a goal, with no more substance than a handful of air.

  Feeling empty and useless, Maile wandered into the Old City and came to Skolaren Kirche. A small group of men and women stood outside. They wore traditional suits and dirndls in conservative greens and browns, ordinary citizens dressed for a special occasion. Once a week, she knew, the cast of Rappresentazione had a day off and the church was used for local events.

  The people held candles, short and thin, with small flames. Several women fingered rosaries. A priest in a long black robe came out and motioned to them. As they entered the church, Maile had a powerful desire to relive the spectacular performance she had seen. She waited briefly so she wouldn’t interrupt whatever service was about to take place, then followed them inside.

  The only light ca
me from the candles as the group slowly moved toward the altar. Far ahead, someone lit two more candles, spots of flame that made tiny white circles. The dark rows of statues looming beside the pews resembled twisted tree trunks. The walls were chilly sheets of black. No lovely angels cascaded from heaven with messages of joy. Maile stumbled against a prayer bench and held on to its railing.

  From somewhere behind her came a harsh musical sound, like pebbles pinging into a brass bowl. She turned to see an altar boy at the entrance with a lighted taper that illuminated only his face. He led a small procession, more people holding candles no bigger than sticks of chalk. In the vast darkness they appeared disembodied, like heads gliding forward on an invisible raft borne along by an unseen river. She stepped aside for them. A young couple passed, weeping quietly, followed by four somber children and a gray-haired woman carrying a small painted casket the length of her forearm. On top of the casket, a cluster of baby’s breath tied with a white ribbon. Everyone filed down to the altar. Above them, in the accumulating light of candles, the bottom of a huge crucifix slowly emerged from the shadows, revealing the feet of Christ pierced by a large nail.

  The priest blessed the casket and the mourners. He chanted in a rapid undertone, the chimes sounded again, the people knelt and rose and murmured responses, and then the candles on the altar were extinguished. The priest and the boy left through a side door. The procession re-formed and passed Maile again with a dry clicking of heels and the dull shuffling of children’s feet. The girls’ braids ended in knots of string rather than ribbons. Sweat stains ringed the men’s hats. A poor family, she realized. For them no staged fantasy about the journey of Body and Soul, no splendid singing to open the gates to paradise. They lived outside of Salzburg’s wealth. In their suffering they seemed close enough to touch, but they gave off a stark sense of privacy, refusing even a glance from a stranger.

  The mourners filed outside, taking all light with them. The glory Maile had seen here dissolved into the surrounding blackness.

  THE CONTEST WAS just five days away. Intermediate students at the conservatory were asked to give up their lesson times so that participants could have extra instruction. The recital hall was in constant use for rehearsing. Occasional arguments and bursts of crying were heard behind the doors of teaching studios.

  In her room Maile struggled to capture the feeling of love betrayed that was at the heart of her aria. She had completed the technical work: breaths for each phrase, tone placement, quality, volume. All that, she knew, only amounted to Step One. A superior singer, particularly in competition, had to also show sincerity and nuanced expression.

  Silently she repeated the recitative: three tempi, three different emotions. Her thoughts wandered to an old woman carrying a coffin small enough for a baby just a few days old. None of her sisters or aunts had lost a child. She reminded herself that only rich opera singers could afford the luxury of creating their own families.

  At the garderobe mirror she practiced casting her eyes down, and slumped her shoulders, but just a little, because a countess did not slouch. “Einst—ge-liebt...,” she sang, Once loved... and she stretched the tones into a cry of pain.

  Her expressions looked snooty, she decided, or overly dramatic: cramped forehead, a groan of agony calculated to occur exactly at the quarter rest.

  With every repetition her face grew tenser, her jaw stiffer. Too much e nei, she imagined Auntie Lani saying, her standard phrase when they’d been working hard on a new show. Pau for now. Go beach. You head too full.

  On impulse Maile slipped into a blue linen dress with a tight waist and narrow skirt that made her feel sleek. A single idea occurred to her: frivolity. I want to be waited on, to enjoy myself without worrying about the cost. She tucked twenty schillings into her purse.

  Downstairs she stepped outside into a refreshing breeze. The coolness made her hungry for a delicacy she had never tasted, like Doboschtorte laced with West Indian rum, in a place she had never been to, like Café Scimitar. The former home of a noble family had a reputation for excellent service, steep prices, small portions, and pastries no chef in Austria could match.

  She took a shortcut to the river. On the opposite shore stood the café with its white marble terrace. As she crossed the footbridge, there was a flicker of lightning, a blast of thunder, the sharp scent of ozone. A downpour swept toward her.

  Thrilled, she dashed into Café Scimitar. Dozens of people at little Art Deco tables sat in chairs with water lilies curving up the backs. Waiters in black suits moved neatly past each other to a counter filled with pastries on porcelain stands. They offered magazines to ladies and gentlemen.

  Maile joined hopeful customers behind a velvet rope. At the front of the line the headwaiter surveyed the room, a man as coldly handsome as a model for Parisian formal wear, except for a hairy mole on his neck. The waiting people watched him with pretended indifference but she sensed their suppressed tension. According to Frau Metzger, being seated at the Scimitar was never a matter of arriving first. Status, fame, past tips, and favors owed were all equally important. One could wait an hour and be told with a little smile to try again tomorrow.

  Minutes passed as rain streaked the tall French windows. People in line glanced at wristwatches. No one got up to leave even after empty plates were cleared away. Then the headwaiter’s gaze skimmed over those waiting as politely as petitioners at the archbishop’s palace. He unlatched the rope and said, “Frau Manoa aus Honolulu.”

  A man in front of Maile whispered to another, “Wer, denn?” Who’s that?

  She stepped forward to follow the headwaiter, concealing jittery curiosity. The room seemed huge, the path between the tables long and winding. “Sopranistin,” she heard as she passed seated customers, “Gershwin.”

  At a broad table with a crest, Baron von Gref rose from an upholstered chair. Sophia sat beside him with a welcoming smile. “Gnädige Frau,” he said to Maile, gracious lady, making the old-fashioned greeting sound natural. She felt at the center of the city, under its spotlight, guided here by her three souls.

  “What may I order for you?” the baron asked as she sat down.

  Food had lost all importance. “Just coffee,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

  He expressed pleasure at unexpectedly seeing her again. The beauty of her singing at the consulate was still with him. Sophia looked alert, as if eager to chat but politely deferring to Arnim’s uncle because of his age. She wore a navy cloche that curved over one ear and ended in a slim feather accenting the graceful line of her chin.

  “I have never lost a boyish delight in people from faraway places,” the baron said. “A vanity, I admit.” He paused as Maile’s coffee was set down. She picked up tongs to ease a cube of sugar over the edge of the cup, missed his next remarks, then heard him say, “You have my best wishes for the music competition. A shame that the judging is not a public event. However, I always attend the prizewinner’s concert.”

  “Competition?” Sophia asked.

  The baron explained and turned again to Maile. “If you will allow,” he said, “I would like to ground our acquaintance with a small gift.” He smiled. “Another vanity of mine. My nephew has pointed out that singers must of necessity travel a good deal, and cannot be burdened with large or overly delicate possessions.” His librarian’s glasses slid down his nose. “Do visit me at Am Waldsee and choose a memento which will travel well.”

  Maile envisioned another Schloss Wasserstein. She could have thrown her arms around him. “You’re very kind.”

  “Artists deserve kindness. Their lives are often difficult.” He slipped a watch from his vest pocket and sighed. “Ach wohl, how unfortunate.” His face took on a sweet look of apology. “I am in the old commedia dell’arte position of having to excuse myself for excusing myself, although cocktails with your consul will be a pleasure. I leave you a lovely partner for conversation.” He kissed Sophia on both cheeks and shook Maile’s hand.

  The headwaiter led the way to
the entrance, opened the door, and unfurled an umbrella. Baron von Gref angled it like a lance and marched straight into the downpour. Maile felt like applauding.

  “Gifts,” Sophia remarked. “Arnim is giving me gifts again. He does that when seriously attracted to another woman.”

  “How nice for you,” Maile joked, but felt on uncertain ground.

  Sophia opened a tortoiseshell case and took out a long brown cigarette. For a moment their eyes locked dangerously. “I hope as a singer you do not mind the odor of tobacco.”

  Maile did. “Oh, no, not at all.”

  “Arnim loves to play the romantic adventurer, although it never works.” A hand with a lighted match descended between them. Sophia tilted her cigarette at it, inhaled, gave the headwaiter a nod, and once more eyed Maile. “You and Arnim would make a fabulous couple. Physically, of course. Also because of your mutual devotion to music. But he is like a nineteenth-century suitor who adores the pain of infatuation with types he cannot possibly marry.”

  Her tone had no bitchiness. Maile still waited for the ax to fall.

  Sophia leaned forward, her expression lively and confiding. “His most recent disaster was von Wehlen’s laundress, a Turkish girl as beautiful as a prize harem slave.” She sipped on her cigarette. “One night Arnim arranged for horses so they could flee. He had costumes, a turban for himself, but he’s a terrible rider, much too high-strung. He was thrown into a pond of sleeping swans. The birds attacked him. Bottles of wine trampled, saddles drenched. The most terrible racket. His mother and I had everything hushed up.”

  They put their heads together to share a delicious little laugh at Arnim’s expense. Maile loved the idea of a real-life philandering Count Almaviva, straight out of Figaro, racing off at night on horseback, never mind if it was a spectacular flop.