Unfinished Sympathy

by Andy Conway

  A love rival, Mitch thought. Another suspect to write in his notebook when he got the chance: the jealous soprano who would stop at nothing to destroy Alma’s reputation and tear the Mahlers’ marriage asunder.

  “The other you should know, you fool. She’s from England. Madame Louise Kirkby-Lunn. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of a famous English contralto. Shame on you.”

  A flash of alarm in his breast. Would an English native expose him?

  The butler announced that dinner was served and they filed into an adjoining dining room where a banquet table was laid out with blinding silver cutlery.

  Mitch found his name card, Mr, R. Mitchell, written in elegant pen, sitting next to the hostess, Addie, and opposite Alma. Gustav was further up the table at Otto Kahn’s right hand, which presumably made him the guest of honour.

  The tenor, Alois Burgstaller, was across the table, next to Alma, and Mitch stifled a sigh of relief at Heinrich Conried taking a place two seats further up, glaring down the table, like Mitch had just spat on his plate.

  An empty place between them. The card read Miss Natalie Curtis.

  Addie saw Mitch’s confusion and leaned across. “Miss Curtis is always late. She’s the only person in Manhattan, I believe, who has the privilege.”

  He wondered who this prima donna might be, if even the real prima donnas were expected to be punctual.

  Alma leaned forward. “Miss Curtis is so wonderful, Mitch. I can’t wait for you to meet her. She will be dressed like a common working girl but I assure you she is very rich. Her rags are those of a genius, not a pauper. Gustav would dress the same if I didn’t buy him the best suits from England.”

  More champagne was brought to the table and each guest was asked if they wanted the Brut Imperial or the White Seal. Mitch wasn’t sure which was which, and it didn’t seem that one was for men and the other for ladies, so he just stammered that he’d like the Brut. It was fragrant and floral but awfully dry.

  He’d always thought himself a young fogey, a hangover from a bygone age, a man for whom the song I’m Old-Fashioned was written, but now he realized he was totally out of his depth. The thought of ordering a bottle of Rioja with dinner, as he usually did, would mark him out as a peasant.

  He scanned the printed menu card at his place setting and counted the courses. There seemed to be nine of them, all in French.

  I am a peasant, he thought.

  The servants filed in, armed with plates, and proceeded to place them around the table. The first course was Huitres en Coquilles et Cocktail. Not an actual cocktail aperitif. It appeared to be oysters baked in their shells with a delicate gratin sauce. He thanked the ceiling that he hadn’t refused the champagne because he was about to have a cocktail.

  He surveyed the array of silver cutlery. Work from the outside in; he knew that, but he waited for Alma to choose first and followed her lead.

  She noticed and nodded. A secret smile.

  Something kicked against his foot and he felt Alma’s toe run up his calf.

  Another smile. She bowed her head and turned to listen to what Addie was saying.

  Mitch examined the back of his hand on the table. Alma had kissed him there, two hours ago.

  He realized with sickening certainty that she meant to seduce him.

  He wasn’t sure that he had the strength to resist.

  He was going to have an affair with Alma Mahler.

  — 15 —

  MITCH EXCUSED HIMSELF to the bathroom, a cold sweat prickling all over his body, his feet melting under him.

  A servant showed him to a water closet down a corridor just off the main hall. He locked himself in the mahogany cupboard and retched, but nothing came.

  I am here to help the Mahlers, he recited under his breath. I will not be the man that tears them apart.

  He washed his face in cold water and examined himself in the mirror.

  “Oh Eleanor,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  He was about to walk out when he remembered his notebook. He fished it out and scribbled down the names of the suspects. There were eight now:

  Gatti-Casazza — Italian boss.

  Toscanini — Italian rival.

  Gilhooly — embittered lout.

  Dr Fraenkel — in love with Alma?

  Mary Seney Shelden — rival company (Philharmonic).

  Otto Kahn — surely not?

  Olive Fremstad — soprano and love rival.

  Heinrich Conried — corrupt boss (money troubles?).

  When he returned to the table, Alma glanced up, peeved. Her foot did not find his leg again.

  They had served Consommes Andalouse, a clear cold broth with diced tomato, some sort of small dumplings, slivers of ham, vermicelli and, Addie informed him, “Threads of egg.”

  He dipped his spoon facing away from him and didn’t slurp, leaving a modest amount in the bowl, as everyone else did.

  Celeri, radis, amandes, olives was a pleasant palate cleanser. He took a few olives and almonds and left the celery and radish, not wanting to crunch too loudly.

  Aiguilettes de Sole, Marguery was a fish and seafood course. Strips of sole rolled up with shallots and parsley, served in a cream sauce, with quivering clams, mussels and shrimps.

  Everyone turned as Heinrich Conried thumped the table. “I say he would get rid of us all if he could!”

  Otto smiled, as if Conried had told an amusing anecdote. His smile calmed the table. It was not a scene.

  That was the one thing that could not be tolerated, Mitch knew. These people abhorred a ‘scene’ more than murder, or blackmail.

  “What is it?” Addie called up the table, laughing. “Are you talking about the anarchists?”

  A peal of appreciative laughter fluttered around the table for their hostess’s wit.

  Only Conried did not smile. “Forgive my passion,” he said. “I was talking about Mr Hammerstein.”

  “The anarchist of the opera,” said Otto.

  Applause and laughter.

  “Mark my words,” said Conried, “he is bringing opera to the masses. Excellent productions at affordable ticket prices.”

  “I think the Metropolitan,” said Otto, “has nothing to fear from Hammerstein’s vaudeville house.” He looked to Mary Seney Shelden. “And neither the Philharmonic.”

  “I think there’s room for us all, Mr Conried,’ Mary Seney Shelden said, smiling sweetly.

  “Hear, hear,” said Otto. “Let New York have a concert hall on every street. Let Manhattan be an island of music.”

  His guests raised their glasses and cried out, “Hear, hear!”

  And was there a hint of deceit in Mary Seney Shelden’s smile? Mitch wondered. It was easy to see, if you looked through Alma’s eyes. But if you looked through Alma’s eyes, everyone was a threat. Everyone at the table had a reason for bringing the Mahlers down.

  Even Alma herself, with her roving foot.

  He wondered if he should add this Hammerstein to the list of suspects. It was becoming a roll call of Manhattan high society. Everyone who saw the Met as competition would want rid of Mahler because he was the new conductor all of New York was raving about. If you wanted the Met to fall, you could take a shot at Mahler and get your wish.

  And there were people who wanted the Met to thrive who also had reasons for wanting Mahler out. Even the gracious host, Otto Kahn, who perhaps wanted to ingratiate himself so much that he would throw another Jew under the bus, and had gone to Italy personally to hire Gatti-Casazza and Toscanini. Had that been his first move against Mahler? But surely blackmail was beneath him?

  Mitch steeled himself for what he thought was a beef course. Filet, Coeur de Boeuf, Bouquetiere. However it was a beefsteak tomato served like a flower. Another simple palate cleanser.

  As Mitch ate it, he became aware that a silence had spread across the table. He looked up to find Dr. Fraenkel was staring at him again.

  “I see something disturbing about you, Mr. Mitchell.”

  “O
h, really?”

  Alma called, “Doctor, you are not to perform your diagnoses at the dinner table! Mitchell is new to us.”

  “You are a man out of time,” said Fraenkel.

  Mitch felt a qualm of unease. This doctor was about to expose him. “I’m not sure what that means,” he lied.

  Alma laughed too gaily. “Dr Fraenkel, you shouldn’t tease Mr Mitchell like this. I forbid it.”

  The others laughed, all but Fraenkel, who gazed at Mitch as if listening to the music of his soul. Then he too grinned along with the rest and bowed to Alma. “Forgive me, dearest Alma.”

  Mitch caught a flash of something in Fraenkel’s eyes. A little dart of venom. Was it jealousy?

  Fraenkel was in love with Alma. Yes, that was it.

  Could he love her and blackmail her at the same time? Was it Dr Fraenkel fighting with her in the alleyway downtown? Surely she would recognize him? But she had said he wore a scarf around his face. Did it make sense that Fraenkel would destroy the Mahlers’ reputation, by exposing Alma’s affair, so he could then comfort her and pick up the pieces?

  He made a mental note to underline his name in the list of suspects. Twice.

  “We must have another séance!” cried Olive Fremstad. “Oh do, please, let’s!”

  “Not tonight,” Otto said. “We occasionally have them, Mr Mitchell, just for fun.”

  “I would love to have a séance,” said Alma.

  The thread of sadness in her voice was read by everyone. Gustav glared from the other end and Alma looked down at her plate.

  Her dead daughter. She thought it was possible to talk to her again. The desperate delusion of the recently bereaved.

  There was a lot of blather about theosophy and the renowned mystic, Madame Blavatsky, all to cover up Alma’s little display of emotion — her miniature ‘scene’ — and then the sixth course arrived and it was all forgotten.

  Rise de Veau, Archeduc, Addie informed them, was veal sweetbreads in brandy and port liquor, with cream sauce and truffles.

  Mitch swooned at each mouthful, but held himself back, not wanting to scoff it all and lick his plate. How strange that this whole evening was devoted to stimulating the senses but one had to pretend nothing enjoyable ever happened.

  Sorbet a la prunelle came after. Another palate cleanser. A neat globe served in a miniature pewter goblet. He wondered aloud at how sweet prunes could taste and Addie and Alma laughed. It was a sloe sorbet, not prune.

  Was this his first gaffe? Perhaps he had made a dozen more. Microscopic sins that would see him ostracized from polite society.

  It came to him just as they served the Canard Roti a la Broche, roast duck cooked on a skewer, with Salade Quatre Saisons, parsley, garlic, potato, tuna, olive oil.

  But they were discussing Mahler’s Eighth Symphony now, in polite deference to the guest of honour. None had heard it, but all were aware of its gigantic staging — the Symphony of a Thousand — and wondered how difficult it was to conduct.

  Burgstaller called up the table. “But, Maestro, do you believe in the curse?”

  “What curse?” asked Otto.

  “Why, the Curse of the Ninth,” said Burgstaller. “Should I be saying this? I do apologize.”

  “I believe it,” said Mahler. “Those who have written a ninth symphony stand too close to the hereafter. What might be imparted in a tenth symphony is something we are not ready to know yet.”

  “How many composers have died after writing a ninth symphony?” Mitch asked.

  “Beethoven, Schubert,” said Gustav.

  “Schumann?” Olive Fremstad offered.

  “No,” said Mary. “He only wrote four.”

  “Bruckner,” said Mahler. “Dvorak, Spohr.”

  Otto laughed to dispel the cloud of gloom that threatened to form. “Didn’t Mozart write forty-one symphonies?”

  “At least four of them are not by him,” said Burgstaller.

  “Yes, but you would need to discount another twenty-eight!”

  “Haydn wrote a hundred and four,” said Conried.

  “Ah, but the curse began with Beethoven,” said Mahler.

  “You must be terrified, Gustav,” Olive Fremstad laughed, stroking his arm. “How can you possibly begin writing your ninth symphony without cowering in terror?”

  Gustav smiled. “That’s easy. I will trick Fate. My next symphony shall be comprised of songs. I won’t call it the Ninth, even though it will be my ninth symphony. Then I’ll write my ninth symphony, which is really my tenth, knowing that I’ve broken the curse.”

  They laughed around the table and even applauded.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Mahler, with a twinkle in his eye. “The Majestic tried to put me on the ninth floor, but I objected. So now we reside on the eleventh.”

  Again, they laughed, and the champagne flowed a bit more freely afterwards.

  The table chatter was disrupted by the doorbell ringing. A few moments later, consternation in the next room.

  A woman burst in, taking off her coat, the butler and a couple of servant girls rushing after her, practically tearing it from her.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “Ah, Otto! Addie! Have I missed much?”

  Otto rose, dabbing his mouth with his napkin, and she rushed to kiss him on the cheek.

  The butler retreated with her coat and Mitch noticed its frayed hem. The name card at the empty place next to him.

  Miss Natalie Curtis.

  Was she drunk? Was this a scene?

  None around the table seemed concerned. They grinned indulgently as if she were the Kahns’ child, storming in in her nightdress, demanding a bedtime story.

  She came round to the seat next to Mitch. All the men around the table stood. Mitch got up and pulled the chair out.

  “Allow me, Miss Curtis.”

  “Oh, you needn’t,” she said.

  As Alma had said, Natalie Curtis’s dress was the kind you’d see on a working girl, not a Manhattan socialite at the dinner party of a billionaire banker.

  Was she drunk? No one seemed to think so.

  The servants came in with Glaces Corbeille Jeannette, a basket of sorbets in a glass sherbet cup, and the butler asked Miss Curtis if she would like the previous course.

  “Not at all,” she said, waving it away. “I’ll have the sorbet like everyone else.”

  Addie clapped her hands together in delight, as if Natalie’s turning up so late were an act of artistic genius.

  “I seem to have missed most of the meal. I do apologize. I was transcribing a fascinating Lakota Indian song and quite lost all sense of time.” She turned to Mitch and introduced herself. “I hear you’re the hero of the hour. Saving poor Mrs Mahler from attack?”

  Mitch wondered at the network of gossip that might inform her of this, even a distracted artist with no sense of time.

  “Ugh,” said Addie, “the Tenderloin district is so dangerous. How unfortunate that Alma just did not know that this is not the place to be seen for a respectable woman.”

  “Oh that’s poppycock,” said Natalie. “There are some simply divine hotels and clubs in the Tenderloin. It’s where New York really comes to life.”

  They tittered around the table and Mitch saw his chance.

  “Oh, I was given a flyer today for a hotel in the Tenderloin district. At least I think it’s there. Of course, I have no idea what kind of place it is.” He looked carefully at the faces around the table, to see if the name cast a shadow on anyone present. “The Hotel Marshall. Do you know it?”

  “Oh, Marshall’s!” Natalie cried. “It’s simply divine! Every night you can hear the greatest ragtime bands. And a Negro clientele that is simply the tops.”

  Mary Seney Shelden had looked away with a smile. She was surely too sweet to be hiring blackmailers, wasn’t she?

  Conried had leaned forward to hear, his eyes glassy with champagne fatigue. Interest, but no flame of recognition in his eyes.

  Otto Kahn had nodded enthus
iastically, but it was clear he didn’t know the place.

  Burgstaller wrinkled his nose in disgust, just like an operatic tenor being invited to sing at a fleapit. “Polite society does not gather in public places,” he said. “Especially in hotels.”

  “What rot,” said Natalie. “No offence to the assembled company — you are all artistic geniuses — but the Met is frequented by a filthy rich rabble who go only to show off their finest clothes. They care nothing for culture. Marshall’s is where real culture is happening.”

  Burgstaller threw his nose higher in the air, but they all laughed.

  Olive Fremstad had shown no interest, nor Addie. Dr Fraenkel still stared at Mitch, as if examining a crocodile in the Natural History Museum, but there was no spark of recognition for anything concerning Marshall’s Hotel.

  “We must go there,” Natalie cried. “Tonight. Right now!”

  “But we have another course,” said Alma. She cackled and covered her mouth. “Excuse me. The champagne has rather gone to my head.”

  She was drunk. Too drunk to play footsie, Mitch noted.

  Gustav glared down the table and Alma folded in on herself, muttering something in German.

  “It’s only coffee,” said Addie, signalling the butler.

  The servants rushed in to take away the Jeannette cups and within moments, they were serving hot fragrant coffee.

  Mitch noticed Addie give the slightest of nods as Alma’s coffee was poured, in a measure that seemed twice as large as everyone else’s.

  “I’m serious,” said Natalie. “We should go to Marshall’s.”

  “I’d love to go,” Mitch said.

  “So would I,” said Alma.

  “Alma, you can’t!” Mary Seney Shelden cooed. “Not after what happened today.”

  They all joined in. It was very important that Alma Mahler never went near the Tenderloin district ever again.

  “If a horse throws you off,” said Natalie, “the best thing is to jump right back on it. Or you’ll never ride a horse again.”

  “I cannot allow it,” said Gustav.

  Natalie shrugged and turned to Mitch. “Then it looks like it’s just you and I.”