“Welcome,” he added with a deep nod. She recognized the assistant who had brought her coffee this morning. “Excuse my haste,” he said, “but I must get back for tonight’s performance.” He stepped away out of sight.
Frau Metzger came from behind with a flashlight, and reached past Maile to yank the door shut and slam the bolt in place. “Sag’,” she hissed, “wer war’s?”
The roll of paper was thick and soft, like a large sheet of handmade stationery. Inside lay a single rose of a strangely dark color, a deep crimson more intense than any variety of red wine, with rich undertones of purple and black. Maile stroked it with a fingertip. Tied to the stem was a small white card engraved in black letters: Werner von Wehlen. Under his name, written in stark black script: “Grūsse,” and his signature.
Frau Metzger aimed the flashlight at the card. “Him?” she sputtered. “On the street, in person?”
Maile took the rose upstairs to savor it alone. One flower and the briefest message felt like a bridge of hope into tomorrow, something solid to counter the relentless news of the world falling apart. Minutes later Frau Metzger knocked and asked to see the signature again. Maile showed her the card, and the landlady admired the handwritten name at length, then left. No sooner had Frau Metzger reached the entrance hall than she toiled back up the stairs and blurted that bombers were droning over the city, just like years ago, the same sound. Together they listened hard until it was clear that the low hum was a washing machine in the building next door.
The landlady returned to her kitchen. A quarter of an hour later she climbed the steps once more to call out the latest local bulletin: The Festival will proceed. Herr Maestro von Wehlen emphasizes there is to be no interruption . . . She had put on a fresh dirndl, arranged her braids, and insisted her tenant join her for supper. Famished, Maile obliged and went downstairs. The moment they faced each across the kitchen table, Frau Metzger recited the cost of bread, sausage, fresh pork, sugar, all the things Maile hadn’t bought and were now gone from the stores, or twice as expensive as this afternoon and sure to be three times more tomorrow.
They ate carelessly, greedily, and drank a bottle of wine without getting tipsy. The landlady described fleeing the city with her husband and son when Hungary was invaded twelve years ago, the three of them pedaling toward the Swiss border with a ham and cooking pots and goose-down quilts tied onto their bicycles. News so scant in those days that they didn’t find out for weeks if Austria had fallen or not.
A memory nagged Maile, of von Wehlen’s bodyguards coming for him after her late-night audition. She realized that his organization must have received advance notice that Soviet troops were no longer playing war games. His connections were as good as the prime minister’s. No matter what happened, she would be safe with Herr Maestro. The rose meant she belonged to his charmed circle. The Festival would continue. Or maybe that announcement had been a ruse. The staff might be gone by morning.
At eleven o’clock when performances ended, Frau Metzger refused to budge from her kitchen. Maile walked over to the Festival House, eager to reassure herself that the schedule would not be interrupted but equally afraid of seeing one more notice: DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES WE REGRET . . .
The elegantly dressed audience streamed outside, fewer now. No onlookers stood opposite the theater, no open carriages or luxury cars were lined up at the entrance. An idle valet told her that the horses had been taken to the countryside and gasoline would be rationed starting tomorrow. Everyone smoked cigarettes, although just yesterday a woman who lit up on the street was signaling her profession. A man complained loudly that two soloists listed as “indisposed” had actually fled to France. They were cowards. Traitors, in fact.
Maile heard the same complaint twice more: singers leaving, breaking their contracts. This morning, she remembered, von Wehlen’s staff had been frantically rescheduling soloists. An ecstatic thought came to her: She would be asked to perform! She knew forty-one arias by heart, and thirty-seven duets, trios, and quartets. The possibility of being on stage boiled over in her mind until she had to admit that a role was not made up of bits and scraps. She could not have sung the part of a single opera character from beginning to end without a score in hand.
At the Silver Fawn she saw ladies and gentlemen clustered outside, exclaiming that other fine restaurants were closed. Such a thing had never happened. They crowded forward, noisily calling out their titles to the maître d’, who stood with teeth clenched in a rigid smile, the tables behind him full. She went on to a wine bar so packed that customers were drinking on the street and telling anyone who would listen, It’s artillery first, then tanks. Civilians will mount machine guns on rooftops, plant mines in window boxes.
“Das Licht,” one man said. He pointed toward the Fortress. Conversations stopped.
Maile looked up in time to see the remaining Festival pennants on the guard towers disappear from sight, not illuminated as usual through the night. Hohensalzburg still loomed grandly, its walls awash in pale blue floodlights. She felt a burst of love for the city, which had endured for centuries despite armies bent on destroying it, then one after another, swaths of light dissolved into darkness, taking with them the towers, the high stone gates, the vast walls, and the sky was lowered like a curtain.
EVERY ESTABLISHMENT THAT sold liquor stayed open all night. The street below Maile’s room echoed with drunken yells. Someone wept uncontrollably. She slept in snatches, alert for news from the radios playing nearby. Shortly after dawn the first bulletins came: the Soviet embassy in Vienna had been fire-bombed by Austrian students; Russian tanks lined the border north of the capital and thrill seekers were swarming out to get a look; thousands of citizens had fled westward. Troops were coming, she decided. No, they weren’t. Yes, they were on the way. The broadcast was interrupted by loud static. She heard no more for three hours, then: All communications are now under government control. Citizens are advised that our country’s constitutional pacifism will be respected. Daily routines should not be interrupted. Nothing about the Salzburg Festival.
At a quarter to nine, Maile tucked her fountain pen in her purse and went out into crowds once again shopping furiously. A gray sky hung over the city with a promise of drizzling rain or summer humidity. In the now empty marketplace, boys played at shooting imaginary rifles—ack-ack—clutching their chests and falling. At the Festival House, men strung a long banner across the front: SONDERKONZERT, ACHT UHR. She stared at the banner as she showed her soloist’s pass to a guard. A special concert, eight tomorrow evening.
Inside, a man introduced himself as a conducting assistant and said that Fräulein Manoa was scheduled immediately on the Grand Stage.
“I just came to sign a contract,” she said, “not to sing.”
“A warm-up will suffice,” he replied.
No one sat in the huge auditorium. The chairs in the orchestra pit were empty. In frightened docility she went up side stairs and stepped out onto the wide, swallowing stage. Workers behind her continued adjusting scenery. She started with a vocal exercise, a low “nuuuu.” She felt the sound project, and continued, but struggled against the oddness of what she was doing. The assistant walked from left to right among the hundreds of seats fanning out below her. She made her tones strong and even, going down from midrange and up to fuller strength, calculating the reach of her voice in a space larger than she had ever attempted.
“Step down, if you please,” he interrupted. “This way.”
She followed him, fingering the pen in her purse, agonizing over what a warm-up might mean. Or not. For the next hour she worked in a studio with Egon Janowitz, who replied to her surprised greeting with a businesslike nod. He took her through nine standard duets she knew by heart, tediously redefining the dynamics of each phrase. Twice he left. The second time he returned to say they would concentrate on the Don Giovanni duettino, a safe piece because it was short, a midrange soprano role with only one tempo change.
“Is this for the
special concert?” she asked.
Egon moved closer, although no one else was present. “Two soloists left by private plane after commercial flights from Salzburg ceased. This bit of news will appear in tomorrow’s Nachrichten. You are to replace the soprano. Do not discuss so-called missing singers with anybody.”
She nodded and felt a rush of dizziness; her dream was coming true minute by minute but nothing was as she’d imagined. A blocking coach arrived to take her through the duet step by step. After fifteen repetitions she stopped counting. La ci darem la mano, the lovely peasant and the irresistible rake, two and a half minutes of music repeated until every note and gesture was imprinted. At noon she went back to the Grand Stage, where a dozen prominent singers conversed with a quiet sense of shared anxiety. None introduced themselves. A stage director sent her to wait in the wings. On the opposite side she saw a man with a Vandyke beard: her seducer. Step forward, she thought. Wait two beats.
Othello and the other stars mimed arias to recordings of their voices that played offstage. Instead of singing they concentrated on entering and exiting smoothly. Technicians above them on the racks labored with silent intensity to adjust lights and abbreviated scenery. At last Don Giovanni pretended to sing while his voice and that of his missing partner poured from speakers. Maile mouthed her text and traded glances with him. He whispered as he moved and gestured: watch here for Herr Maestro’s upbeat, turn to me slowly, lean back now, not one note sooner.
At two o’clock everyone was dismissed with an announcement of more rehearsals tomorrow. Maile went to Publicity for head shots, to Solo Costumes on the third floor, then back down to the administration offices. Von Wehlen’s secretary was still besieged by staff with questions about unions, no-show clauses, canceled block tickets. On a cluttered table Maile signed her contract. The secretary thanked her for contributing to the special concert and gave her a free ticket.
“The eyes of the world are upon us,” he said.
“I understand,” she told him.
She hadn’t read the two pages of tiny print, or seen von Wehlen since her audition, but he would be in the pit tomorrow night, conducting her and Don Giovanni in a performance meant to defy the tanks poised to crush Austria.
IN THE OLD City, news continued to blare from radios at open windows, in shops, on courtyard balconies. Maile was brought to a halt behind a couple who stopped suddenly in the middle of a throng to listen to a bulletin: . . . hundreds of Viennese eyewitnesses sighted Soviet aircraft, although a swift denial . . . The man and woman stared up at the afternoon sky. Maile also strained to see death approaching. Only a few scattered clouds hung motionless under the late-summer sun, and soon the pair tittered in embarrassment and walked on.
Mindlessly she followed them, needing the crowd, at the same time infuriated by the bumping and shoving. Marlise Stäbler eased out of a greengrocer’s shop, carrying a box heaped with vegetables. Their eyes met in sudden recognition, but Marlise hurried off, swallowed by a wave of people before Maile could shout a greeting.
From inside the shop came a chatter of sound: This order takes effect immediately. All foreign residents of Austria, without fail, must report to their consulates.
Maile felt the dull movement of things beyond her control. She came to a newsstand that displayed a copy of Figaro and attracted the attention of passersby. The front page photo showed a young Czech inserting a carnation into the muzzle of a rifle pointed at his chest. Three more guns were aimed at him. He was smiling, the soldiers were not. She glanced around, wanting to hear someone say the picture was insane, brave, ridiculous.
“Beg pardon,” a man said and leaned past her. He snatched up the London Times, excusing himself; he had to get to his consulate. Others buying French and Italian papers excused themselves to Maile in the same way and for the same reason. More obvious foreigners walked toward the river.
She followed them, feeling dutiful but ready to argue with Mr. Casey over her rights as an American if he insisted she go anywhere except back to her room. So far nothing had happened! No planes with red stars flying over the city. No explosions, no tanks.
The upriver footbridge was blocked by protestors waving Austrian and Czech flags and chanting in English, “Freedom NOW, Free-dom!” A policeman shouted at them to move on or be arrested. Half the group clambered up onto the railings, slashing their flags through the air, chanting louder. Students, Maile realized. She looked for Karl, afraid to see him among them. He wasn’t there. Other foreigners clustered behind her speaking a mixture of languages.
“Fussgänger, weiter!” The policeman ordered pedestrians to use the traffic bridge a quarter mile away.
She joined a crowd that increased at each side street leading out of the Old City, everybody moving faster and faster. At the main bridge more police blew whistles and directed vehicles clogging the lanes in both directions. Truck drivers honked and cursed, headed north with Tuscan oil and olives, and south with German steel bars. Small private cars were crammed full of passengers, luggage and cardboard boxes strapped onto the roofs. A man on a loaded bicycle wove past the pedestrians surging across the bridge. At the far end, the crowd dispersed to the Italian Viceconsulate, the Royal Swedish, Danish, Belgian and Greek consulates, the Swiss Consular Agency.
A man in military uniform waved at Maile. She couldn’t remember his name, her escort on a lost evening that no longer mattered. “Mr. Casey sent me,” Major Wainwright called out. Quickly he walked her toward the villa with the American flag. “You’re going home, Miss Manoa,” he said. “Hawaii, you’re real lucky.”
She turned on him. “You have no idea! I can’t go home!”
He urged her up the stairs into the consulate. The rooms were packed with gray-haired couples speaking American English, and dressed in pastel skirts and blouses, plaid slacks, short-sleeved shirts, sport shoes. She had never seen them in Salzburg.
“Who are these people?”
“Army retirees from the lake area.” He edged her to the front of the crowd. “They got notice to leave, and they’re going.”
Edwin Casey came out of his office, flipped a pink tablet into his mouth, and tugged at his tie. Everybody fell silent. His short hair was twisted into odd tufts, his eyes like holes burned in an old gray towel. He held up a sheet of paper. “I have here a directive that originated in Washington and came through our embassy in Vienna. This consulate will close as of five p.m. All U.S. residents within the district of Salzburg are strongly advised by the State Department to leave the country at once.” The page fluttered. “This is not an order, but it is in your best interests. When leaving, do not aggravate local police. Stay calm and get moving. I’ll answer questions in my office until three o’clock.”
He caught sight of Maile and said gruffly, “C’mere a minute.” She stepped up to him, and he went on in a low monotone, “Soon as we close, my sec’s taking the BMW to Berchtesgaden, so pack some stuff and come back here. We’ll get you on a stateside flight from the base.”
She pictured the route as a dotted line on a map: crossing the Austrian-German border with a small suitcase, getting on a plane, landing back in New York. Then what, call Madame Renska from the airport?
“I have a contract with Maestro von Wehlen! There’s a special concert! The Russians won’t—”
“Get. Out. Now.” Casey aimed a thumb over his shoulder. “The BMW’s making one trip.” He waved a couple into his office.
Maile went outside, then wanted to go back in and tell Casey thanks, thanks anyway, so she wasn’t cut off from him, but sections of her life were falling away faster than she could follow. As if to prove a point, Brenda rushed out of the consulate onto the promenade and yelled, “Over here, J-P!”
Jean-Paul ran to her from a neighboring villa, and they embraced and spun around. “Hey, Maile,” Brenda shouted, “we’re hitching to his mom’s house, but we gotta go through Switzerland! Wanna come?” She stuck out a thumb. Jean-Paul grabbed her hand, and they raced toward the traffic brid
ge, dodging long lines of people outside other villas.
Maile walked off in the opposite direction, past the bus stop, the Mozarteum, the entrance to Mirabell Garten. The remainder of Schwarzstrasse was empty. She continued along a side street leading to the train station, then realized that she had nowhere to go except back to her room.
In the middle of the street stood a marble fountain with life-sized figures in robes, below them a date, ANNO 1702. She remembered arriving in the city by taxi and being thrilled by the statue, so old, so European. Three people sat at its base, their heads together. Two of them got to their feet and left, tucking loose cigarettes into their pockets. The Rosenkavalier bent to close a canvas bag at his feet, sat up, and tapped the vacated space beside him.
“Frau Solistin,” he said, “setzen Sie sich.”
Her new title, she thought, Soloist, was less than a day old but it came effortlessly from his lips. Posters for the music contest had announced the first place award of thirty thousand schillings. She had auditioned at the Festival House and signed a contract. But she would not sit down with him.
He pulled a cluster of strings from his jacket and looked up at her. “How long,” he asked, “do you think foreigners will be allowed to remain in Austria? Such a small country, you see, where Americans can be found within days and put in camps not run by the International Red Cross. Soviet camps.” He smiled with polite insinuation and fingered the knots. “Every last foreigner will be loaded onto trains bound for Novgorod, because Russians never throw anything away. Thriftiest people on earth. However, a soprano from Honolulu is now under the protection of Herr Maestro. His soloists have no reason to fear. For that you have me to thank.”
Smooth as cream, she thought. He should be on stage. “You had nothing to do with my audition. That was my success, mine alone!”
He got to his feet and tipped his head back with the confidence of a loan shark reminding a customer of a debt that was dangerously overdue. “I do not expect a lady to walk about with fifteen thousand schillings in her purse. Tomorrow evening, after the special concert, I will find you.”
Aloha, Mozart Page 29