by Janice Weber
“You didn’t eat much.”
“I will later.”
“Nervous?”
“Just excited. I’m so looking forwa—” Bolting upright, Fausto peered at my face in horror, as if it had sprouted mushrooms.
“What’s the matter?”
He outstretched his arms and slowly wiggled his fingers, staring at them as he had at my face. His complexion went from pink to gray. “Lock the door, Leslie.” As I obeyed, he unhooked his cummerbund, removed his pants: surprisingly shapely legs in yellow silk shorts. “Please do as I say. In a moment I’m going to be sick. Don’t be scared. Don’t call for help. It will go away.” Fausto slid his arms into the pants, crossed them in front. “Tie me in back. I don’t want to be smashing any of Aurilla’s treasures. You can gag me with the cummerbund if you like. Don’t worry about my tongue. I won’t swallow it.” I knotted him up. Seconds after he lay on the bed, Fausto’s blue eyes slid out of sight, into his skull. His body went rigid then snapped into convulsions, as if he were on the receiving end of a thirty-thousand-volt prod. Aurilla’s antique bed began to hop. As I was pushing the night tables out of range, Fausto broke into tormented snarls. When they turned fortissimo, I gagged him. A pillow over the face would have been more effective, but I didn’t dare: those tremors were already taxing his body to the point of collapse. Twice Fausto almost fell out of bed. Took all my strength to keep him from hitting the floor: that would put a dent in palaver below. Already Aurilla’s guests would be misinterpreting the commotion above their heads.
After a few horrible minutes, the tremors stilled. Fausto’s body stank, as if he had been half-fried. Red patches spattered his skin. When his eyeballs regained their proper axis, they were bloodshot. “What happened?” he whispered.
“You fainted,” I said, untying him. “Stage fright.”
He ran a heavy hand over my disheveled hair. “I don’t think so.” He shut his eyes. “Damn, I’m going to vomit.”
I got one of Aurilla’s frilly wastebaskets under his mouth just in time. Up came deer, truffles, sorbet: the stench almost brought my dinner up as well. “Sorry,” Fausto rasped, dropping his head back to the embroidered pillow sham. “It’s almost over.”
As I was getting rid of his puke, he slumped against the bathroom door. His shirt was unbuttoned. Without pants, he looked helpless as a little boy. A gigantic little boy. “Just throw me in the shower, would you, sweet.”
“Are you mad? Go lie down!”
“Please, I’ve been through this before. Just get the clothes off. My fingers are still numb.”
Modesty did not exist backstage ten minutes to show time. I stripped him naked and flipped on the shower. As he stepped in, I saw hideous swirls of scar tissue running from shoulder to thigh: third-degree burns. Once, under the spray, he shuddered. I thought he would go into convulsions again. But he held on. “Okay,” he said.
I turned off the water, handed him a towel. He dried off what he could reach, namely, a penis hiding beneath a convexity of flesh. I dried the rest. “Those are bad burns.”
“Penance.”
I got his clothes back on and plopped him in the chaise longue. Fausto slept while I repaired my face and hair. Downstairs, shuffling and laughter as Aurilla’s guests migrated to her next party room. I finally had to wake him. “Are you up for this? Tell the truth.”
He managed a wilted smile. “You’ve got the hard part.”
“What if you have a relapse out there?”
“I’ll fight it.” He half sat up. “I didn’t intend for you to see me like that.”
“I’ve seen Duncan worse,” I lied. “Look, let’s cut out a few pieces. Aurilla’s not going to sit there with a stopwatch. It’s so damn late already.”
The maid knocked. “Hello? Scusi? Downstairs now?”
“Coming,” I called. Tuned the violin, feeling cold inside: the old demons were back. I would have given ten years of my life to be home in Berlin, eating kirschtorte. But I smiled at Fausto. “Let’s go, champ.”
He pulled himself together the moment we went public: a born performer, as he had said. We shuffled downstairs. In the concert room, spotlights brightened the piano and, over the fireplace, a recent portrait of the hostess; elsewhere, illumination was mercifully dim. Aurilla stood under the glare introducing the entertainment as if we were her running mates. Despite the hour, not one of her guests had dared leave: they knew this party was the first skirmish in a four-year war of attrition. Fortunately the heat, darkness, and general intoxication would carry them off to La-La Land minutes after the hostess took her seat in the front row.
“Psst! Miss Frost!” Daughter Gretchen, flanked by two maids, sat just inside the door. Someone had dressed her in a pinafore and gigantic hairband, perhaps in the hope that, looking like Alice in Wonderland, she would behave as such. She was holding a small stuffed animal. “Mom said I could listen.”
A suit interrupted. “This will just take a second,” he apologized, stroking Fausto and me with a metal detector. My brooch made it nervous but the Kiss trinkets had that effect on everything.
“Marvel’s inside,” I told Fausto as he straightened his mother’s sapphires.
“Who cares?” Applause: I wanted to evaporate here, condense anywhere else. Fausto patted my rear. “Go earn your living, widow.”
We walked to the front, where Aurilla stood applauding our entrance. Two air kisses, then she nestled between Bendix and Bobby Marvel, whose wife had stayed home tonight. Chickering filled in at the president’s side. Next to her, Rhoby Hall clapped furiously.
Fausto gave me a soft A. I tuned, caught in that terrifying chasm between contact and chaos. Was he going to make it? Then I heard a perfect introduction to the Saint-Saëns. He did what we had talked about in rehearsal, only more so: Fausto was one of those magical accompanists with whom it would be impossible to play badly. He forced me to listen to him because he reinvented as we went along, daring me to respond to the tiniest change of accent, a fleck of rubato: performers didn’t try this without monumental reserves of confidence. The last time I had felt such electricity was years ago, in Vienna, with my future husband Hugo conducting. There had been a thousand concerts since then, all decent enough to leave me satisfied, my audience impressed, my agent paid. But once every aeon, maybe three or four times a career if you were lucky, the gods gave you a break and brought you into their fold. In between, just to keep you going, they sprinkled the divine dust on you for a phrase here, a movement there, but never from first note to last. The only musicians who reached ecstasy regularly were the composers, the creators, but they didn’t have to contend with real time and human frailty. Performers got hit with memory slips, stage fright, cold halls, elephantine orchestras … the odds were against them from the first note. Somehow, tonight, Fausto was doing the impossible. I wasn’t that surprised: he had genius. But I never thought he’d share it with me.
We rolled with Saint-Saëns, Hubay, Wieniawski. Five feet away, but in another world, Aurilla counted notches in the ceiling, exactly as Paula Marvel had at the White House. This time Bobby stayed awake, studying the sway of my hips as if I were a belly dancer. Bendix listened to our musical oddities because he had to. Chickering scribbled repeatedly in the pad around her neck, earning black looks from Rhoby. Aurilla’s shadow Wallace sat straight as a ramrod, blinking occasionally. The rest of the audience either dozed off or tried to look beatific as they fought to keep digestive gases under control. Aliens, all of them.
“Now for that little surprise you see on your program,” Fausto announced from the keyboard. “In appreciation of Bendix Kaar, who is highly responsible for having brought us together tonight, we would like to perform a sonata he wrote over thirty years ago. The slow movement is an elegy. We’d like to dedicate it to Vice President Bailey, who is in all our thoughts tonight.”
Bendix’s mouth dropped open. Aurilla frowned: surprises in this town were generally fatal. Marvel was all smiles. “I didn’t know you composed, Ben
,” he called over the applause.
Having been led to believe they would be hearing something melodious, the audience was unprepared for grating tone clusters. Their wrinkled noses and sidelong glances reminded me of children smelling boiled turnips. No one dared walk out, of course. Fausto and I continued to perform expertly. But the piece didn’t fly. Never would. It was first cousin to fingernails scraping blackboard.
Bobby and Aurilla never relinquished their utterly delighted smiles. Bendix looked ready to burst into flames, but this sonata was his proud, perfect child, blossom of his blood: each note clawed at his soul. He was overwhelmed to hear it again but furious that Fausto had reduced him to postprandial bonbon. Ah, poor composer, forever misprized! Which was the greater torment, oblivion or botched resurrection?
By the time Fausto and I got to the elegy, the audience, with the exception of the front row, had slipped back into its torpor. Even Fausto got bored for a few measures. Then several rows back, down by the shoes, I thought I saw a ball of black dart across the aisle. Long tail. Rat? Too round. Monkey? Unbelievable, not here. Then I remembered the lump in Gretchen’s lap.
I kept playing, bracing for a shriek that never came. Perhaps the animal had curled up harmlessly in someone’s pocketbook. Once, at a summer festival, a skunk had wandered in, traversed the open-air theater, and left; Gretchen’s pet could do the same. Then I noticed a ripple across the fifth row. Furball on the move. I concentrated on a nasty set of trills. When I finished, Aurilla’s eyebrows had risen a good inch. A split second later, I heard why.
The monkey had jumped into the piano, burying Bendix’s elegy in an avalanche of twangs. “Bloody hell!” Fausto snapped, looking inside the lid. The ensuing scream would have knocked King Kong off the Empire State Building. A Secret Service agent, leaping from a side chair, threw Bobby to the carpet. Another slammed the lid of the piano. Vicky Chickering fainted.
A second shriek, piercing as a train whistle, froze the room. “Herman! He killed Herman!” The wails gradually receded as Gretchen was carted upstairs.
From the sound of things, Herman was not only alive but multiplying. I stepped over Marvel to get to Fausto. Flushed, wheezing: last thing we needed here was a reprise of his performance in the bedroom. “Are you all right?”
“What was that filthy beast?”
“Gretchen’s pet monkey.”
“Oh God! That’s too funny!”
Bendix didn’t think so. He flung up the piano lid, grabbed the terrified animal by the neck, and stormed out. Aurilla kneeled over Bobby as her dismayed audience whispered nervously, wondering how to react. Chickering, regaining consciousness, slid like a giant amoeba back into her seat in the first row. Finally the president was helped to his feet, having suffered only a minor rug burn on the tip of his nose.
“Now that’s what I call a rip-roaring performance,” he announced with a twenty-tooth smile. Everyone laughed and clapped. “Thank you both!” I got a hug and sloppy kiss. Fausto was embraced like a brother. “And thank you, Aurilla, for a thrilling evening! Never a dull moment, eh!”
Her smile returned about three seconds into her standing ovation. When that finally died down, the gracious hostess thanked her musicians, as if our concert had come to a natural end, then her chef, then Bobby Marvel, her eloquence thickening as she ascended the social ladder. Guests surrounded her for a farewell blessing as the butlers returned with more coffee, brandy, and chocolates.
Chickering shuffled to the piano bench, leaning heavily on Rhoby Hall. “You’re a man of many talents, Fausto.”
He remained seated. “I was inspired. Feeling better now?”
“Much. Did Bendix really write that sonata? I had no idea he had a musical background.”
“Ask him about it sometime. Did you like the piece?”
Chickering took cover in the mother of all insults. “It’s interesting.”
Rhoby pumped my hand. “You gave me the shivers!”
“Let’s play together sometime,” I said.
Myrna, eyes red and rough as bricks, hugged Fausto. “At least someone in this rat hole thinks of Jojo. What a gorgeous piece. I was beside myself! Until that dreadful animal got loose.”
“Really, Myrna,” Chickering scoffed. “We should send it a dozen roses.”
Rhoby was mortified. “You don’t know a thing about modern music, Victoria. All you can play is Mozart. Stop wolfing down those chocolates, would you? Geez!”
Fausto squeezed my hand: time to blow this joint. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll get our things.” Leaving him with the ladies, I worked my way down the clogged aisles. A few people interrupted their impromptu policy meetings to nod at me. Tougaw, brandy in hand, stood at the door.
“You are so fine,” he said. “But how ’bout naughty Herman. He goes back to Belize.”
I went upstairs to the guest room, where a faint odor of vomit still mingled with potpourri. Sight of the rumpled bed stopped me cold: last time I had seen such distressed sheets, Barnard’s body had sprawled thereupon. Sorry, friend: I was no closer to finding her murderer than I had been that first night in Washington. I had even let her corpse get away from me. Suddenly I felt a rush of guilt for being here, dressed in satin and sapphires, making music while Barnard rotted in a secret grave.
The heavy door clicked shut. Bendix: for a moment I thought he’d strangle me. “I hope you two amused yourselves.”
“Not really. Your piece was harder than hell.” I picked up Fausto’s music bag. “I get about ten manuscripts a week from composers all over the world. In a year maybe three of them make the cut. I accepted yours sight unseen.”
“Why tonight? Why here?”
“Why not? You wrote the piece. You don’t own it.”
“That bastard did it to humiliate me.”
“I would have thought he paid you the ultimate compliment.”
“That’s not the way Fausto works.” Bendix boiled quietly, dangerously, like a cauldron of lead. “He’ll pay for this.”
“Oh stop it. If you hadn’t noticed, this was his first recital in thirty years. You can’t blame him for going with pieces he’s done before.”
“He hasn’t done this piece before. You just played the world premiere.”
What was I missing here? “But his mother’s writing is all over the score.”
“She died before the first performance. Fausto didn’t tell you? I suppose you don’t know each other as well as I thought.” The composer’s fury intensified as he looked at the disheveled bed. “All that noise and no communication. How do you two screw, by the way? Sideways?”
I tucked my violin case under an arm. “Thank that monkey for me, would you?”
“Get out.” Bendix dropped to the bed, lost his face in the pillow. “Just get out.”
Guilt rolled over me: I had just stomped on a failed artist. That was on a par with mugging grandmothers and tearing the wings off butterflies. “I liked the trills in the elegy,” I said from the door.
Bendix didn’t acknowledge the compliment. I carted my things downstairs, afraid that he might trample me from behind, like a gored bull. Fortunately Fausto had maneuvered himself to the crowded foyer, where he was rubbing date books with Rhoby Hall between slugs of champagne. He looked not only sharp, but energetic: incredible, after what his body had just been through. “Up for Brahms trios tomorrow night?” he called over the din.
Hadn’t he wrecked enough evenings with music? “Should you be drinking that?”
He had also cadged a large sandwich from the butler. “Hard work up there, darling. Have a bite.”
Pileup at the front door: Marvel leaving. As he was shaking Aurilla’s hand for their hundredth good-bye, he glanced over and up, found me on the staircase. For just a second, his jaw stilled, eyes flared: I felt like a dinghy caught in a lighthouse beam. Bobby had flashed me the same look at Ford’s Theatre last week. This time Aurilla caught it. Across the room, I saw her face change: she had learned something. The information would
be tucked away, retrieved when most useful. Bobby didn’t know it yet, but he had just lost a pawn.
Chickering wrapped an acquisitive arm around her lover. “Time to go, Rhoby. You’ve got to get to work.”
“Forget it! I’m calling in sick! Tonight I’m practicing Brahms!”
“You go to work at this hour?” I asked innocently.
“Graveyard shift at the FBI,” she replied. “You can call me there after midnight.”
As Fausto burst into laughter, Chickering realized too late that she should have left Rhoby home. “What is so funny?” she demanded.
“Nothing that concerns you!” Fausto chomped his sandwich. “Please tell Mrs. Marvel we missed her tonight. You were so kind to come in her stead. And to bring along your delightful partner.”
Rhoby nearly curtseyed. “Can you check your date book and call me ASAP?” she asked me.
“No problem. I just dial the FBI and ask for you?”
“Right.”
Chickering lugged her away. “What are you up to, Fausto?” I asked.
“Nothing! I thought you liked chamber music!”
“You’re doing this to torment Chickering.”
“And you’re not?” He washed down the sandwich with the rest of his champagne. “Let’s go. I’m beat.”
Senator Pixley dammed traffic at the front door as he babbled with Aurilla about forming a committee to restore the Congressional Cemetery to its erstwhile grandeur. “Scandalous,” he kept repeating. “Weeds up to your knees!”
“I’ll look into it,” she finally snapped. “Good night.” Her composure returned after she had processed the dozen myrmidons ahead of us. “Leaving so soon, Fausto?”
“Breakfast at six,” he replied with a loud smooch. “You know how it is. Where’s Bendix? The least he could do is thank us for playing his piece.”
“He’s inside with his guests, I’m sure.”
Still no apology for the monkey. On the one hand, that burned my ass. On the other hand, we had been spared the brutal fugue at the end of Bendix’s sonata. “Give our love to Gretchen,” I said, shaking her mother’s hand. “We’re so glad she could make it.”
