Mephisto Aria (7 page)

“Not for me.” I thought of Stalingrad.

“You seem like an intelligent man, an ambitious man,” he said. “I collect things and have things people usually want. Try me.” He offered his hand. “Peter Schalk. Businessman.”

“I’m just a Russian soldier,” I said. “With no money.”

“A Russian soldier who speaks perfect German. As for payment, there are many ways to pay. Pledges, goods in kind, counter-favors. I prefer long-term clients. Loyalty has its own value, don’t you think?”

“How could I find you? If I did want something?”

“Around here,” he said, sweeping his hand across the ruins. “If you don’t see me right away, just come back later. This is my terrain.”

I walked away from the opera house and it struck me. There was something I wanted. I needed to kill Sergei Marovsky.

IX
Minaccioso

A dog blocked Katherina’s path to the stage entrance to the concert hall. Plump and sleek, his coat long and black, he hardly seemed like a stray. But he had no collar and there was no one in sight who could claim him. He was neither hostile nor friendly, did not bark or wag. She took a tentative step forward, and still the beast did not move. He simply glared at her through orange-brown eyes, panting softly. Then, finally, he turned and trotted away.

A bad omen for a performer, she thought, then scoffed at the superstition.

Joachim von Hausen was nothing if not a man of the theater. To dramatize the opening sound of the great choral work, he had all house lights turned off, even the emergency-exit signs. For one long moment, the audience sat in chilling darkness. Then, as if some transcendent being had opened its eye, a single needle of white light shot down from the rafter onto his upraised baton. Another thirty seconds passed and the tension in the hall was palpable. The baton sliced suddenly downward like a whip and BOOM! The timpani thundered its opening crash.

“Ooooooo Fortuna, veeeelut luna” the chorus sang, full-throated, ominous and ecstatic at once.

The emotional level set, the work took off at full throttle. Pastoral maidens, randy suitors, roasted swans, drunken monks, all sang of lust and power and inebriation and doom, their chants sending wave after rhythmic wave of sound over the audience. Finally, Orff’s thundering great wheel came full circle. The opening chorus became the last, culminating in the shattering, orgiastic, nine-measure-long fortissimo chord of lament, “Plangiteeeee.” Hardly had the cry ended when the audience rose to its feet in ovation.

Now Katherina stood in the post-concert reception line in the green room. In a few moments the well-wishers would flutter in like a flock of doves into a dovecote. Friends, fans, and regular—mostly elderly—concertgoers who viewed the reception as part of the evening’s performance. Usually they settled for a handshake, a few moments of small talk, an autographed program.

Someone said, “What a lovely concert,” and another, “Such a beautiful voice.” She smiled and nodded toward the line of faces, familiar with every compliment. Sometimes they admired her concert dress or the way she interpreted the music. Katherina had struggled to craft a different response each time until she realized it was unnecessary. The hand-shakers did not really want to exchange ideas; they simply wanted to connect in some way with the musician, to prolong the evening.

She replied to each remark and tried not to glance over at Sabine, who was in animated conversation with her own admirers. Katherina had not spoken to her since the evening before and Sabine showed no interest in her.

Seduced and abandoned, Katherina thought to herself with bitter humor.

The crowd of admirers had shifted again, and she focused on the next person. White-haired, probably in his seventies, he was elegantly dressed. Sleek, she might have said, except that sleek implied softness and he had nothing soft about him. He was trim, his haircut professional, as perfect as his charcoal suit. He offered his hand and she took it, found it cool and soft.

“I trust you received my letter,” he said.

She was confused for a moment.

“Forgive me. I suppose it would be helpful if I told you my name.” He chuckled softly. “Raspin. Gregory Raspin. I sent the letter right after your splendid Tosca last month.”

“Oh, yes. I did get it. Thank you. So much has happened recently, I haven’t had time to reply.”

“That’s quite all right. It pleases me just to be sure it arrived so that you know how much you are appreciated. I am familiar with every nuance of the great women’s voices, and you should know I count yours among them.”

“You are very kind,” she replied, as she always did to excessive flattery. In most cases, she knew, the fan said it to every singer they got the chance to meet.

“I am also fortunate to be able to support great vocal music—in my way,” he added cryptically.

The public had begun to filter out of the green room. “I believe your conductor wishes to speak with you.” Gregory Raspin touched her elbow delicately with a fingertip, causing her to turn. Then he stepped away and joined the mass of departing well-wishers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to talk to you earlier today.” Joachim von Hausen was already at her side. He guided her back to the rear door of the green room. “Too many last-minute preparations for the concert.” His eyes sparkled and he paused, like a person about to bestow a gift. “As you might know, I’ve been rehearsing Rosenkavalier in Salzburg. Agnes Schongauer, who is singing the role of Sophie, has had a car accident.”

“An accident? I’m so sorry to hear it. Not serious, I hope.” Katherina wondered why he was telling her that. She did not know Agnes Schongauer.

“She’ll be all right—just a few broken ribs—but she has had to cancel, obviously. Salzburg does the casting, you know, but I have recommended they offer the part to you. Assuming your agent likes the contract, Salzburg’s approval will largely be a formality. They’ve never said no to me before. So the question is, can you learn the part of Sophie in two weeks?”

Katherina felt her jaw drop and she closed it again. She was being offered the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Yes, of course I can. I am already familiar with it,” she lied. No matter. She could learn it. She felt something tugging her arm and realized von Hausen was shaking her hand.

“Excellent. It’s settled then. I’ll have Salzburg contact your agent tomorrow. It would be lovely if you could manage to fly to Salzburg on Tuesday.”

Katherina nodded energetically, prepared to agree to anything. Tuesday, Monday, in fifteen minutes, if necessary.

Something moved in the distance and she glanced past von Hausen’s face back into the green room. Sabine was gone, but on the far side of the room, Gregory Raspin was smiling in her direction.

X
Affrettando

“You were right after all, Charlotte,” Katherina said into the phone. “Things are really beginning to fall into place. Just imagine. Three engagements in three months: Tosca, Carmina Burana, and now Rosenkavalier. Does this mean I’m ‘arriving’?”

Charlotte’s voice seemed even chirpier than usual. “I told you this would happen. You’re a great soprano and I’m a great agent. It was only a matter of time. Salzburg is a major step. If the right people hear you, and they probably will, a recording could be next. I’ll put out feelers with Deutsche Grammophon. Then, if we could just get you a broadcast, your career would take off like a rocket.”

“It’s all happening so suddenly. I keep looking over my shoulder to see if I’m going to be hit by a bus or something.”

Charlotte’s high voice made her chuckle sound almost like a giggle. “Oh, Katherina. You’re always making deals with the universe, as if every bit of good fortune had to be offset by a disaster. Just relax and enjoy it. You’re doing everything right. Just learn your role, be nice to everyone in Salzburg, and let me take care of all the rest, okay?”

“I’ll do all those things. It’s good to have you on my side. If I need anything in Salzburg, I’ll give you a call.” Katherina hung up, then sat for a few minutes savoring the sense of accomplishment. She had worked hard, done everything she was supposed to, and success was the result. Charlotte was right, it was silly superstition to think that good fortune and bad fortune had to balance out. That attitude had come from her father, she knew. His cynicism was natural, she supposed, seeing that he had lived through so much horror and difficulty, but she wished now that he were still alive so she could both prove him wrong and make him proud.

Well, if she could not talk to him, she could at least “listen” to him for an hour—and pay him a symbolic visit. She had finished reading all the war entries, things could only get better, and now she was curious again. The journal was where she had left it, on the table next to the sofa, so she settled in again and opened it. She had left off where he had decided to change his identity. Did he describe meeting his wife—her mother? The birth of their daughter? It occurred to Katherina there might be descriptions of her. It was time for another descent into the past.

Berlin, October 7, 1945

Schalk was as good as his word. I met him at the opera house and we made the deal. Ten days later he had new papers for me. Zeugnis, medical certification, Soldbuch identifying me as a field doctor with the Wehrmacht. An exact duplicate of my original German papers, but under the new name.

I’ve nothing material to go back to anyhow. Family and house destroyed. Nothing left to claim, and under German law, Sergei Marovsky was a criminal. He’s one of the war dead now, and Sergei Marow, who suddenly exists, is a civilian registered in the British sector.

I gave Schalk all the money I had, but he said he was more interested in my future services. Loyalty during the hard times, he explained. It’s a deal I’m willing to make.

Berlin, October 17, 1945

I’ve found a room with Herr and Frau Wengler, in exchange for work. Frau Wengler, who is old and weak, stands in the food lines while Herr Wengler and I forage. We scavenge for coal near the railroad lines, but it often isn’t enough. We have better luck with a handsaw in the bombed-out houses. We dig down under the brick and usually find wood left from the interior walls.

I’ve begun to forage in the countryside on the Wenglers’ bicycle. I pedaled to the Autobahn and found I could grab hold of one of the wood-burning trucks. They don’t go very fast, so I can hang on to the rear and be dragged along for kilometers. The farms and villages outside Berlin are reachable now and have food to sell or exchange. I brought back potatoes and carrots.

November 1, 1945

It was inevitable, I suppose. The victors have set up a military tribunal in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. They’re trying the leadership of the Nazi party, the SS, the SD, the Gestapo, the SA, and the High Command of the German Armed Forces. The charges are crimes against peace (I wonder what that means), wars of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Victor’s justice. Plenty of loathsome Germans in the dock, to be sure. Mass murderers and accomplices of mass murderers. They are drenched, up to their filthy necks, in blood. Not only for the industrial-scale slaughters of Jews and Gypsies, Slavs, and dissidents and homosexuals, but for ripping away civilization altogether, making us all savages for five years.

But who will try the victors for their savagery? The British and Americans who roasted 200,000 civilians in Dresden? The Americans who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Who will—some day—try Stalin and Churchill and Truman for their blood thirst? Probably no one. Their history books will change the whole story to a tale of good and evil, removing the nuances. No army or nation ever says, “We were monsters, but we won.”

January 1, 1946

Everyone lives from day to day. Last night Wengler exchanged a load of firewood with the neighbor for some schnapps. A foul homemade brew bartered from some farmer. It didn’t take much to make us all drunk. I went outside to clear my head and it was snowing again, a bad sign for the New Year. I can’t see a snow-covered field without remembering snow drifting down on the frozen Volga, blowing over lines of men as far as the eye could see, marching into captivity. Soldiers, wounded boys falling by the roadside, covered by snow while they’re still alive.

The flakes dissolved on my arm, all around me countless snowflakes falling. Like the millions lost. All of them loved by someone. Snow is my shame and accusation. I spent the first hour of the New Year in mourning.

March 30 1946

I’ve found work at the Johannes hospital. Doctors of any sort are scarce and they’re glad to have me. Very different from war hospitals; no battle wounds or trauma to treat. Patients arrive with pneumonia, typhoid, diphtheria, but we have no medicine. And they are so undernourished they can’t recover. Children and the old die quickly of dysentery, tuberculosis, jaundice, and even the young women look old and haggard.

Wards crowded and dirty. Hygiene impossible with dust and dirt everywhere, on everyone’s clothing. So little plumbing in the city; people bring their filth with them into the hospital. No soap to launder the bedding, no bleach to wash the floors.

Schalk has begun calling in his payments. Private appointments for his “clients,” men with political ambitions in the new regime, and their women. I do the occasional abortion for their girlfriends, or treat their syphilis, and they supply the penicillin themselves. God knows where Schalk gets it for them; we have none in the hospital. He’s a master of exchange and he uses some war-proof currency.

I wonder if I dare ask him… No, not yet.

April 2, 1946

Berlin has no food but concerts everywhere. In schools, garages, sport halls, living rooms, any place with a roof. During daylight hours when the streets can still be traveled. People arrive by the odd streetcar—a few are still in service—or by bicycle, by foot, sometimes from far away. Germans, Russians, refugees. It distracts from the hunger, and the misery.