Ariana

by Edward Stewart

  Vanessa Billings stood erect and slender in a pool of light, graceful and smiling in a plain white gown that showed strong shoulders and a good throat. She bowed twice and then turned and nodded to her accompanist.

  The concert opened with three Schubert lieder.

  Fran knew nothing about voice, but she had spent eight years studying the flute, and halfway through the first song, “An die Musik,” she knew that this voice had all the qualities of a fine instrument: security and timbre and the indefinable something that separated the great from the good.

  At the end of the set, applause ripped through the hall. Fran was surprised at its intensity, but she joined in and clapped.

  Ames didn’t clap.

  She looked at him. Suddenly there was nothing connecting her to him. Something was happening in the air. She felt a presence, like a shadow. A prickling current ran along her skin.

  She realized that he was staring at the singer.

  And the singer was staring straight back at him.

  At that moment Vanessa Billings’s voice rose like a fountain of sound in the opening measures of Schumann’s “Frauenliebe und Leben.”

  The last applause was slowly dying when Vanessa hurried into the green room. She dumped herself into a chair and mouthed a silent groan. Richard Schiller embraced her and was surprised how limp she felt in his arms.

  “Hey, pull yourself together. You’re going to have visitors.”

  “Do I have to meet them? Now?”

  “Glory has its tiring side.”

  She sighed and pulled herself into the bathroom. He heard a long, drumming splash of water in the sink. She looked a little better when she came back.

  He gave her a hug. “And remember—be nice to the critics.”

  “How do I know who’s a critic?”

  “I’m going to have to teach you everything, aren’t I.”

  “You’re going to have to hold me up.”

  He opened the doors. People were lined up into the hallway and down the stairs. He let them in ten at a time.

  He could see it was difficult for her to meet strangers. At least thirty people asked her to autograph their programs, and six or seven even gave her little gifts: flowers, candy, sheet music. When she made a nervous and mildly humorous remark they all laughed. That seemed to confuse her. He had a sense this was her first taste of being a big deal.

  Alan Cupson of the Times made an elaborate show of kissing her hand. He had grown a gray goatee since Richard had last seen him. “I’m not reviewing you, Miss Billings. Just here for pleasure. And what a pleasure it was. What about that high F in ‘Der Gärtner’? I never heard anyone but Kavalaris interpolate it. Were you by any chance imitating her?”

  “High F?” She seemed confused.

  “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not criticizing. Certain liberties are entirely appropriate. Particularly with a middling composer like Wolf. He often needs a little—enhancement.” The critic caught her hand and his eyes held hers a moment. “I thank you for a lovely evening.”

  Richard was about to open the door to another ten visitors when Vanessa stopped him. “I feel doped with all these people around me. I really have to lie down. Richard—please?”

  She looked much too pale and he could believe she was about to faint.

  “Okay. Take five.”

  In thirty-five years he had never waited more than two minutes for anyone. But Nikos Stratiotis stood almost a half-hour in the corridor. It was a little past eleven. He was the last admirer still waiting when the door of the green room finally opened.

  “Sorry to keep you,” Richard said.

  A small light was burning on a table. Vanessa Billings was sitting up on a chaise longue. Richard made the introductions.

  Nikos bent to kiss her hand. “Thank you for the concert. I admire your music very much.”

  She raised her eyes to him and there was an instant of contact. “Thank you.”

  “Are you hungry? Could I offer you dinner?”

  “That’s very kind of you, but…”

  “Or, if you’re tired, I could drive you home.”

  She hesitated, and Richard quickly cleared his throat.

  “That’s all right, Nikos. I was planning to take Vanessa home myself.”

  “Of course.” Nikos took her hand once again and kissed it. “In that case, goodnight.”

  He was at the door when her voice stopped him.

  “Mr. Stratiotis—I’d like to drive with you. But could we walk just a little first?”

  They walked south along Broadway, and the limousine crawled alongside them. It was a warm night, and the streetlights glowed like peacock’s spots in the hovering mist. For three blocks they were silent.

  She looked at him, and he saw the eyes of someone else questioning him. “It’s you, isn’t it?” she said. “You paid for the hall and the ads. It was your money that got the critics there and filled the house and bought the applause.”

  “You’re wrong. No one bought that applause. I’ve been giving you $800 a month. I rented the hall and paid $5,000 for publicity. Your agent says that’s standard.”

  She stopped. “Why are you helping me?”

  “It’s a debt.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I owe it to someone else.”

  They reached Fifty-ninth Street. A horse-drawn carriage was waiting at the curb, the driver and animal both dozing. “Would you like to ride in that?” he said.

  She smiled, and Nikos woke the driver.

  The clipclopping horse took them on a leisurely tour of the park and the avenues around it. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes they lapsed into long silences. There was a strange lack of tension between them. It was as though they were old friends reunited after a long separation, sifting through separate memories of the same events.

  They rode for well over an hour. It was close to one in the morning when Nikos pointed and said, “Look, there’s a newsstand. Let’s see if your reviews are out.”

  He stepped down from the cab and bought the papers. He read her reviews to her. They were good. The Times predicted that Vanessa Billings would be moving to the front ranks of America’s young vocalists. The News said she was Kavalaris without the flaws.

  “You’re going to be very busy now,” he said. “But some evening—when you have time—may I see you again, Miss Billings?”

  Richard Schiller’s desk was an island of inefficiency. He had to dig through notes on five contracts to find the letter that had come for Vanessa that morning.

  She stood at the window. She read it and then she reread it. The words had a counterfeit ring. Like the sender.

  “I’m gratified,” she said. “I’m very flattered Boyd Kinsolving liked my reviews. But…when I think of that man and what he’s put me through…”

  She tore the letter up. She came around the desk and opened her fist and let the confetti rain down into the wastebasket.

  Richard watched her. “There isn’t room in your career right now for a grudge. You’re going to sit right down and write him a sweet little thank-you note.”

  “I’m not going to write him a sweet little anything.”

  “Then I’ll forge it myself, because he’s the best game in town and I want you working for him.”

  “I’ll never work for that man again.”

  “Hey, I make the deals, you stick to making the music, okay? I don’t care who you hate or who hates you, you’ll be singing for him on the Metropolitan stage in three months.”

  Fran walked in from the kitchen carrying a tray of yogurt and fresh strawberries. She saw Ames ripping something out of the Times.

  “What’s that you’re tearing out?” she said.

  He threw her an almost startled glance. “Nothing,” he said, folding the piece of paper. “Just an ad for Dill’s book.”

  “Didn’t know he’d published it yet.”

  “Sure. Last week.”

  Ames took the article into his study and rere
ad it for the twelfth time. Vanessa Billings had sung a recital at a veterans’ hospital. There was a photograph of her and he spent a long time looking at it.

  He closed the study door and then he opened the metal cabinet. From behind the IRS forms he withdrew a folder that was beginning to bulge with clippings on Vanessa Billings.

  He added the article to the file.

  36

  THE FIRST TUESDAY OF EVERY month Richard Schiller and Meyer Colby, a fellow agent, met for lunch in the grill room at the Four Seasons. They always sat at the same little round table just behind the boxwood screen, always drank one martini each, and always ate whatever Julian, the maître d’, recommended.

  This Tuesday Julian recommended the gravlax. Meyer looked unhappy and Richard had a hunch it was not just because he hated fish.

  “That bitch is driving me crazy.”

  “Come on, Meyer, no one drives you crazy.”

  “You don’t know Clara Rodrigo. Why the hell did I ever want to represent her? She canceled a recital at Bloomington, Indiana, last week. In fact she’s canceling all her Great Artists dates.”

  The Great Artists University series was one of Meyer Colby’s biggest moneymakers. College kids bought series tickets to umpteen flutists, recorder consorts, fledgling pianists and lutenists, and as a reward they got one or two artists they really wanted to hear, or thought they did: like Clara Rodrigo belting “Vissi d’arte.” Meyer Colby had sold a lot of zitherists that way.

  “Is she allowed to do that?”

  “If it’s medical she’s allowed.”

  “Is it medical?”

  Colby’s lips were narrow and taut below the small brown mustache. “You tell me. Thursday she’s due to sing in Peoria and she comes down with strep throat and a roaring fever. Saturday she’s due to sing at the Chicago Lyric and she’s fine.”

  “Who’s her doctor?” Richard asked.

  On rare occasions, it pays to have a sister-in-law. Richard phoned his brother’s wife Frieda. “Aren’t you a friend of that Abscheid woman, the doctor’s wife?”

  “Henrietta? I took care of her cat when they went to Nice.”

  “I need to meet her husband.”

  “I’ll expect two grand tier passes at the Met opening this fall.”

  “How do you know it’s worth two grand tier passes?”

  “If you’re asking, I know.”

  Three evenings later, on his agency charge card, Richard took his sister-in-law and Dr. and Mrs. Gunter Abscheid to dinner at Le Lavandou. For three courses the women gossiped about old friends and cats, and Richard watched Dr. Abscheid stare somberly at his filet of flounder. Promptly after dessert (they all ordered raspberry mousse) Frieda had a dizzy attack and asked Henrietta to walk her around the block.

  Richard emptied two envelopes of Sweet ’n Low into his café exprès. “Why’s Clara Rodrigo canceling so many dates?”

  The doctor looked at the ceiling. “The question is, why’s she singing so many?” He shook his head. “It’s a crime.”

  “Is that a musical opinion?”

  “God, no, it’s a medical opinion pure and simple.”

  Richard leaned across the table. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Dr. Abscheid scratched nervously under his chin. And then it came spilling out. “Her throat is a mess. It’s a miracle she can swallow, let alone get a note out of it.” He described the condition. Richard listened and understood and not for a moment was he tempted to feel pity for Clara Rodrigo. She had hurt far too many people with far too little thought.

  “What’s keeping her going?”

  “Cortisone. I shouldn’t be giving it to her, but she’s such a…” The doctor’s fingers were tapping on his pony of Armagnac. “I’ve never been so manipulated by a patient ever in my career.”

  Richard made a sympathetic face. “She’s good at that.”

  “I give her shots before the big dates. She doesn’t bother with the little dates anymore. The shots mask the symptoms for a few hours. She’s wrecking her throat. Already I’ve seen irreversible damage. But she won’t give up the big dates.”

  “How long can she last?”

  “She can’t last. Listen to her. Call that singing?”

  Richard sensed that Dr. Abscheid had had it with Madame Rodrigo, which meant he was ready to deal. “She’s singing a Hoffmann next week. The role’s a killer, even for a healthy voice. Don’t give her the shot. Make her cancel.”

  “She’ll never accept that. She’s terrified of letting her understudy go on. The girl’s twenty-one and sings like a pro.”

  “Who’s the understudy?”

  “Camilla someone—Seaton. Great voice. She’ll go places.”

  “I can help,” Richard said. “Give Clara a placebo shot. I’ll arrange it so Seaton doesn’t go on. I’ll get a newcomer into the role, someone who’s never sung at the Met before.”

  “A newcomer who happens to be a client of yours?”

  “As it happens, yes.”

  “And we’d be even?”

  “Almost. Could you arrange two grand tier passes for my sister-in-law to the Met opening next fall?”

  Dr. Abscheid phoned Wednesday. “I gave her a placebo shot this morning. She won’t be able to sing tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll take care of the rest. And remember, two passes?”

  They met at Adolf Erdlich’s favorite wheeling and dealing spot, a sidewalk cafe on West Sixty-seventh Street that served what Erdlich said was the only truly Viennese coffee in New York.

  The deal: “How are you, Adolf?”

  “What do you want, Richard?”

  “And your wife?”

  “Please get to the point.”

  A chubby-cheeked waitress set two cups of steaming Wiener schlag before them. The director of the Metropolitan Opera smiled at her. Quite possibly his only smile that week. He measured exactly one level teaspoon of sugar and let it rain down onto the whipped cream.

  “Off the record, Adolf, Clara will be canceling tomorrow.”

  Adolf Erdlich stared at pedestrians. With a lifting of his chin he managed to give the impression that in the old Viennese days Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler had strolled past his sidewalk table. Now it was punks on skate boards and flashy black hookers. “In the first place, Clara never cancels at the Met. In the second place, we have a standby.”

  “And in the third place I have someone better. Vanessa Billings. You heard her at Ariana’s funeral. You read her Tully Hall reviews.”

  Erdlich’s cup touched his lips and left a tiny bloom of whipped cream on his neat white pencil-line mustache.

  “We’re talking a handshake deal. No contract, no guarantees. You’re not obligated in any way. Vanessa will be at the house tomorrow night at six-thirty, ready to go on. Don’t tell anyone. Just make an announcement three minutes before the curtain goes up.”

  Erdlich sat stiffly, his head erect in its starched collar, his gray hair slicked to his skull as though it had been laid there with a paintbrush. When he finally spoke, it was with elegant world-weariness. “In the first place, we can’t throw neophytes onto the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. In the second place, she hasn’t rehearsed our production.”

  Richard commenced to embroider. “She’s seen it three times.”

  “She doesn’t know the blocking.”

  “She’ll go through it tomorrow afternoon.”

  “One walk-through? You’re joking.”

  Richard decided to lie outright. “It’s the Spoleto blocking. She covered it last summer. She can get through it in her sleep.”

  Erdlich’s dark eyes narrowed and there was a quivering at the edges of his well-veined nostrils. “Bring her to rehearsal room three tomorrow afternoon at two.”

  It took Richard two hours to track Vanessa down to a Greek laundromat on the corner of Twenty-second Street. “How’d you like to sing Tales of Hoffmann? All three heroines?”

  She was sitting with a vocal score of “Amore dei tre re,” wai
ting for a dryer, and she almost dropped the score. “All three?”

  It was a killer assignment: a singing doll; a Venetian courtesan; a doomed, tubercular beauty. They were all sopranos, but each so different vocally and psychologically from the others that very few singers ever attempted all three.

  “At the Met,” Richard said. “Tomorrow night.”

  Something wilder than panic was written into her white face. Disbelief. “You know I can’t.”

  “I know you can. You’re blocking at two, you’re reporting for makeup at six-thirty, you go on at eight.”

  “Richard, I don’t—know the roles.”

  He touched a finger to her neck chain and drew it out. Ariana’s locket swung free from the collar of her blouse.

  “The hell you don’t know the roles.”

  At three the next afternoon Boyd took Clara’s call on the terrace of his penthouse. “Boyd darling, I have a bit of a cold. I could sing Olympia tonight, but I think it would be wiser to save my strength for Giulietta and Antonia. After all, they’re the audience’s favorite roles.”

  And the easiest of the three, Boyd thought. “Of course. We’ll alert your understudy.”

  She phoned again two hours later. Boyd took the call in the sauna.

  “Boyd darling.” Every syllable seemed to be hacking its way through layers of stratified phlegm. “You couldn’t by any chance take Giulietta’s aria down a tone? I really think I should save my high C-sharp for Antonia.”

  “We’d have to copy the parts, and there isn’t time. We’d better let your understudy handle it.”

  “Poor girl, she has no experience. I hope the audience won’t be too disappointed.”

  “Not when they have your Antonia to look forward to.”

  An hour later, in a voice that seemed to be croaking its way from inside a coffin, Clara phoned to cancel her Antonia.

  By five after eight the crowds had swarmed down the aisles to their seats. At seven after, the chandeliers of the Metropolitan Opera House dimmed and slowly rose to the ceiling. A tall man in evening clothes stepped onto the stage and announced a cast change.