Fifteen thousand schillings! She turned away from the sight of him, afraid of his evil mana. At her back she heard a brittle snigger. She felt trapped, then trapped only by money. Herr Maestro von Wehlen would protect her, but staying in Salzburg was a risk. If things got any worse, it could be a life-and-death risk.
She walked off into the stillness of Schwarzstrasse. Her high heels made loud clicks on the pavement as if announcing her exact location to officials looking for foreigners. She concentrated on tomorrow’s rehearsal at the Festival House, on her picture taken this afternoon at Publicity, her costume, her signature on the contract. Her world was still in order. At Mirabell Garten the long beds of marigolds formed disturbing carpets of yellow-orange flames. She could pay the outrageous amount in cash, but it would go to the Engelmacher, who had taken babies at night to the back of a church to be baptized so their souls wouldn’t be lost, and then put them where their cries could not be heard and animals couldn’t get at them—a cave, a box with air holes? A man who did that, then played dominoes or ate dinner or read a newspaper, and checked on a baby until it died and he could bury it and collect his fee. How many babies?
On the door of the Mozarteum the cancellation notice still hung in place. She walked along the side of the conservatory, past the teaching studios and the rehearsal stage, all the way to the dense clumps of ornamental bushes at the end of the property. From there she turned to look back, expecting to see beams that jutted from the building below the eaves, or a heavy iron railing across a bricked-up balcony, or a tall old tree with branches that could bear the weight of men.
There was only a blank wall about forty feet high, the exterior of the concert hall. At the top, black and distinct against the yellowing sky, large hooks as thick as her forearm were attached to beams bolted to the roof. For hauling pianos to upper floors. Frau Metzger and her husband and everyone they knew must have come to stare. Had students continued classes as usual? Had someone practicing an aria glanced outside from time to time and accidentally glimpsed what no one wanted to admit was there? All over the city, people who had seen the bodies were still alive, still going about their business and buying fresh rolls for breakfast. With butter, please.
AT CAFÉ SCIMITAR there was no waiting line. The velvet rope drooped in a corner. A haze of tobacco smoke hung over tables crowded with people talking at each other in noisy anxiety. Maile looked around for Baron von Gref or Sophia, but doubted they were here. Across the room a man swayed to his feet and his chair banged to the floor with a crack as loud as a rifle shot. Everyone fell silent, then just as suddenly conversations flared again. The headwaiter walked up to her saying, “Frau Solistin, we regret there is no pastry.” Cigarette ash dusted his lapels. “Cognac is gratis.” He motioned at the baron’s table.
She saw Arnim standing beside it holding an empty balloon glass. He angled toward her through the smoke, his tie loose, jacket unbuttoned. “Maile, my treasure.” He bent to kiss her hand. “I can protect. . . nay, shield you from harm. Come away with me.”
No one, she realized, was forcing her to stay here. “Where?”
He glanced at the baron’s empty chair. “Uncle Baltha left for Vienna at dawn. Petrol shortages and roadblocks will be his least obstacles.”
“He’s in danger?”
Arnim shrugged. “Viennese are less hysterical. These provincials are operatic, although not in an amusing fashion.” He held up a car key. She followed him outside, not caring where he was headed.
Soon after driving off, Arnim took a detour to avoid the traffic bridge and sped away toward the rural end of the valley. Within minutes they were alone on the road, no other cars, no trucks. No one on foot or riding bicycles. The emptiness made her uneasy. Had people gone into hiding?
“Dear diva,” Arnim said, “I have been remiss. Congratulations on your audition.” Without warning he trod on the brake, jolting them in their seats. “Will you look? Imbeciles!”
At a farmhouse beside the road, men nailed plywood over windows and hammered boards across doors. Women piled bedding into a handcart. Children prodded geese across a meadow toward higher ground, a waddling flock that joined a line of people and cows and horses stretching ahead, all moving up a zigzag path that became a scratch against Untersberg in the distance. Maile imagined Karl and his family doing the same. She said, “The Soviet army is just over those mountains.”
“Cossacks, you mean.” Arnim tittered. “However, I have a plan.”
He accelerated with a squeal of tires, careened around one corner, another, then swerved off the highway onto a dirt road through a wheat field. Ripe stalks lashed the hood as the Jaguar plowed over potholes, jerking him and Maile side to side. He came to a halt, turned off the motor, and faced her. Dots of sweat fringed his upper lip. Spots of red colored his jaw. In a frantic whisper he said, “This could be our last moment on earth. Missiles. A fireball sucks the river dry.” He unbuttoned his trousers. “Half the Schloss left this morning for Rome. Now you and I are also going by private plane.”
Horses and geese, she thought. Von Gref and von Wehlen. Rehearsal tomorrow morning, concert tomorrow night. Private plane. Arnim with his trousers half open. “I’m not going anywhere!”
He leaned toward her. “For love?”
She loathed him for demanding payment to save her, and take her into a world she already belonged to, as an artist. “Not for love, definitely not for love.”
Abruptly he restarted the car. Soon the rough road gave way to pavement and the tall wheat was replaced by vegetable gardens. Farther on the Jaguar passed under a marble archway to enter a courtyard with rows of stables. Beyond it the upper story of Schloss Wasserstein was visible over the tops of trees.
As Arnim pulled in beside an antique sleigh, a sharp rapping of high heels sounded in the courtyard. “Where have you been,” a woman demanded. “Why make me come out here?” Sophia walked up to his side of the car.
Arnim motioned at Maile, saying, “She’s coming with us.”
Sophia gave him a look of disbelief, her glance going from his face, then to his lap, the loosened belt, his open fly. “Grow up,” she said. “The plane is so full, half the luggage must be sent by land. Moreover, cook died while you were out racing around, and we have to deal with the coroner before leaving, which is . . .” She looked at a tiny diamond wristwatch. “In fifty-two minutes.”
Arnim got out, buttoning up, and stood with his head bowed like a reprimanded boy. Maile got out as well, wondering how she would find her way back to Salzburg. Sophia shot her a brief, examining stare, then said in the tone of a lady dismissing a maid, “I shall see to it you have a ride into town.” She and Arnim walked off discussing family matters, mentioning names Maile didn’t recognize, people whose affairs did not concern her. She was simply a singer naive enough to have believed her gifts and personality could lead to friendship. In fact she had been merely an amusement. An entertainer.
Minutes later a truck heaped with suitcases and steamer trunks stopped at the marble archway. The driver shouted at her that he’d been told somebody needed a lift. Maile realized she had to accept this offer, and sit next to him like another piece of luggage, or spend hours walking back to the city. Soviet troops could spill over the border before the sun went down. The driver spat loudly and gunned the engine. She approached the truck, certain of being watched from the Schloss by a countess who stood looking down at her from a high window.
17
DARKNESS MADE EVERYTHING worse: the explosive flush of a toilet next door, an odd color in the night sky. Maile walked from the washstand to the music stand and picked at hardened drips of wax on the candleholders. She had run out of things to wash or mend and was too nervous to read. Doubts filled her mind and crushed her spirits. Maybe Jann had released her because he felt guilty about wanting her in bed. But if Jann still hated von Wehlen for conducting at a Festival House decorated with swastikas, such things meant a great deal more to an Austrian than to Miss Manoa. Perhaps von Wehlen h
ad accepted her only as revenge on Jann, and she hadn’t really earned a contract. She might be just another bird’s beak to put under glass.
Below in the entry hall Frau Metzger exclaimed, “Saperlot, Frau Manoa, kommen Sie sofort ’runter!” Maile went out to the landing. The landlady glared and pointed at the front door. “That miscarriage, who I once clasped to my bosom, just now made demands on me to speak to you in this very entryway. Madame Soloist or not, if you believe I will allow his foot to cross my threshold, you are vastly mistaken!”
“It’s Karl,” a voice shouted. “Come outside, then.”
“But he’s your relative,” Maile told Frau Metzger.
“Not by blood. My hope is he will yet return to the Church. I have always guarded your reputation, and you will thank me one day.”
Maile went downstairs, shocked by her vehemence, and wondered how she could continue to live in this country.
Getreidegasse was dimly lit and deserted except for Karl. He had on the dark suit he’d worn at the archbishop’s palace. His hair and beard were trimmed.
She regarded him with surprise. “Where are you going?”
He shrugged. “I just wanted to check on you.”
Not dressed like that, she thought. “You sent a note. I couldn’t come, the buses were canceled. How did you get here?”
“Walk with me.” He glanced at the door as it eased open to reveal a shadowy figure and the glint of an eye. “Salzburg is safe, at least for now. A pirate radio station reported no movement on the border.” He took Maile’s arm.
She fell in step with him, nervous about what he had in mind. They went through dark streets where low fog had left wet patches on cobblestones that shone slick and black. The few people they passed spoke in hushed voices, as if deals were being made. She looked for the marble wall with the flood line etched on it, the iron ring on the door to the wine cave, but Karl took a route with no reminders of their past.
They approached the river promenade and he said, “The university students need help from your consulate.”
That’s why the suit, she thought. “It’s closed. We were told to leave, just hours ago.”
“The consul is your friend.” Karl explained that the network had to get two Czech writers across the border, a couple in their fifties who otherwise faced certain death for defying censorship.
“It’s no use,” she interrupted. “Mr. Casey offered to get me out in his own car. I refused.”
“You’re so eager to stay?” It wasn’t quite a question and she felt that Karl knew how her life had changed since they last spoke. “If not the Americans,” he said, now seeming distracted, “the Dutch are as good. Maybe better.”
He walked on. She kept pace with him, worried that he would accuse her. Beyond Mozart Steg he stopped to study the opposite shore. Streetlamps along the promenade formed an orderly series of yellow spots, but in the villas upriver only a few lights burned. “You’re right,” he said, “the Americans are shut tight.” A moment later, “The Dutchmen are still awake.”
She sensed something pulling at him with such force that she knew he would go on, with or without her. They started across the footbridge where students had chanted and waved flags. His penciled message sent on that same day came to mind: You have my love. It seemed like a very long time ago. She hadn’t said to him, I love you, and wanted to say it now.
When they reached the end of the bridge, Karl stopped under a streetlamp and faced her with an expression of stark intent. “The entire city knows you sang for von Wehlen,” he said.
In the stillness of the summer night she could almost hear the dry, splintering sound of them breaking apart. Only a short time ago they had lived in a world dedicated to Mozart, Schubert, bound to each other by the mysteries and splendors of music. They had survived the misunderstandings that went with their crazily different backgrounds. Now the only thing they shared was truth, or nothing. He had found a higher goal than being on stage and would never perform again. She would, if the world held together for another twenty-four hours.
“Tomorrow I have a rehearsal at the Festival House,” she said, “for a special concert on the Grand Stage.”
Karl’s eyes took on a liquid sheen of anger. “I did not believe you would audition. Now you are surely under contract. What was your excuse? Music is power is beauty? Like some slogan von Wehlen borrowed from the Reich?” He bit off each word. “The first time we talked, in the wine cave, and the last . . . Just because I do not go on about his past does not mean I tolerate it. I loved you, and I wanted success for you, but not like this.”
She looked away, cut. “For you love is some perfect legend.”
“Jann loved you too.”
“You’re just making up reasons to hurt me.” Again she fastened her eyes on Karl.
Unexpectedly his expression softened, with memory, she thought, or longing, or mourning, and he leaned down to kiss her. Her wash of anger vanished at the touch of his lips. The kiss was full and strong, and she closed her eyes to make it last longer, but all at once he drew back so quickly she felt cool air on her tongue. His attitude was now hesitant, as if wanting something but unwilling to ask for it. He would go up to the border, she knew, unless she changed things for them, unless she said, I love you, don’t take that risk, think of your family, and of me. Unless she said, You’re right, I can’t work for von Wehlen, let’s go back, start over.
He turned away from her and the light cast by the streetlamp. She stepped toward him, still unable to speak. How far back did they have to go? Before the contest? Before Prague was invaded?
Indecision paralyzed her, and Karl continued walking down the empty promenade toward the one consulate with a window illuminated in yellow. Soon his black suit made him invisible except for the muted glow of his hair, the faint outlines of his hands. Farther along the riverbank he passed under another streetlamp, and another beyond that, each forming smaller and smaller circles of light until the last sign of him merged into the darkness. He was a spirit now, gone from this world, and she could not save him.
ON THE GRAND Stage, the exiled princess Aida sang of her lost homeland with passionate intensity, O patria mia, mai piu, mai piu . . . Offstage in the dark Maile listened for a gasped breath or a stretched note that could make beautiful feeling slide off pitch—the tiny slip that every singer feared, an omen of disaster for herself. The Italian text flowed easily through her mind, then it snagged on another scene that frightened her: years ago, a teacher setting a needle to a record for a classroom full of outer-island children who wanted to know why that lady was screaming.
But that was then, and now her peasant bride costume was laced tight, an embroidered bodice with a wide skirt and layers of petticoats, set off by a bridal crown of silver filigree. All she needed was double luck, triple. Behind her the blocking coach murmured that he would assist from the wings with hand signals. “Sshh!” she hissed. He backed away into the darkness.
The soprano’s final phrases expanded, pouring from her in grief for the country she would never see again, O blue skies, soft breezes, O perfumed shores . . . The last note ended with a heart-stopping sense of urgency that gripped Maile. The audience was utterly silent. Backstage technicians stood motionless as the orchestra’s closing chords spread outward in a benign wave of grandeur that bound every listener— music, the greatest expression of love.
Applause swept toward the stage with the hard sounds of a summer rainstorm pelting the river. Raucous shouts punctuated the ovation: Ja, ja! Fantastisch! The soprano exited, the curtain descended, and workers rolled hedges onstage for the duet from Don Giovanni.
Maile’s partner stepped up beside her, a tall, warm presence in silk and brocade. “This audience is coarser than usual,” he whispered. “Because of the current situation.” He pulled a small gold crucifix from the neck of his doublet, kissed it, and tucked it back next to his skin.
She coveted each motion, wanting a similar amulet, the one she dared not wear, a small woo
den locket on a velvet ribbon. But her pulse beat up and down her arms, tense with what she knew was the right kind of tension. After so many rehearsals of a safe piece, no one and nothing could steal her strength.
Applause shrank to random coughs, the faint rustle of programs as people tried to read in the dark. My name, she thought, mine mine mine.
The Bühnenmeister signaled with his flashlight. Don Giovanni led the way to the dark center stage and slipped behind a hedge. Maile positioned herself in front of it, feeling equally liable to float up from the floor in exaltation or crumple in terror, certain that she would triumph or die, or both. The curtain rose with a silent swoop. The auditorium looked as huge as a sports stadium. Lights burned down on her. Heat rolled up from the orchestra pit. The air felt horribly alive, two thousand five hundred people waiting, staring, demanding. On all sides of her gaped a silence that could only be brought to life by music.
From somewhere outside came a muffled thud, very loud—past the foyer, on the street, a large interfering sound that did not belong, like a loaded truck dropping from the sky, or a tank, or artillery. Maile didn’t trust her ears. Every stage was full of spirits and invisible lights and noises no one else heard. In the last row she saw a tiny figure get up and step into the aisle. Two people seated in the center craned their necks to look back at the foyer, then they also got to their feet. An usher hurried toward them as they bumped their way to the end of the row, but they pushed past him and headed for a side exit. Other ushers rushed out to the foyer.
Maile now saw a half dozen people struggling toward the aisles in a spreading panic.
Behind her Don Giovanni said, “It’s come.”
Von Wehlen stood with his back to the audience, his baton at waist level. In the pit the timpanist on the top riser motioned urgently to him. Herr Maestro turned around. Ushers strode back into the auditorium from the foyer and exits, gesturing palms down at the audience: Sit, sit, nothing’s wrong. Clusters of people continued shoving toward the aisles and the doors, elbowing each other, holding on to their hats, their voices rising.
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