“How do you know that?”
“We’ve been watching you, Hélène.”
She missed a step, stumbling on the grass. “Watching me?”
He guided her to a long piece of driftwood, an ancient log with a single disintegrating branch pointing its silver-gray arm at the sky. It lay a few feet from where the water foamed over the sand, washing bits of sea wrack up onto the beach. He made an elegant gesture with his free hand, inviting her to sit.
Hélène, with a wary glance at him, sat down. The top of Nob Hill was just beginning to show through the mist. Everything else hid behind its shifting veils. The bay itself was invisible, present only in the faint slap of water against the shore. She felt as if she and this man, this stranger, were alone in the world. He frightened her, with his black eyes and dusky skin, his knowing, pitiless smile.
He sat down beside her, leaning negligently against the splintered branch.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m someone who cares what happens to you.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
The turn of his wrist, the opening of his fingers as he gestured were as graceful as any dancer’s. “We first began to wonder about you in New York.”
“We? Who else?” She stiffened. Her scarf had fallen back, and wisps of her hair, dampened by the mist, began to curl around her chin. She wanted to flee. She had been so careful and had convinced herself she was safe, but now a sense of hopelessness swept over her, more chilling than the fog from the San Francisco Bay. She had escaped detection for so long. Only Zdenka Milosch, she believed, knew of her existence, and she had not seen the Countess since Teresa Saporiti’s last performance.
“The elders,” he said quietly. She brought her gaze back to his face and saw a flash of something there, a crinkle of the eyelids, a slight softening of the lips. It looked for a moment like sympathy, and it frightened her even more. She could trust no one. It was too dangerous. She had learned that from Countess Milosch.
She started to rise. He caught her back, but this time his hand was gentle. “I’ve heard you sing,” he said.
“What does that matter?” she demanded. The mist absorbed her voice, drank it as if she had no resonance at all.
“Yours is a great gift,” he said. “I don’t want to lose it.”
She stared at him, confused. “Who are these elders? And what do you want?”
He took a breath, and released her arm. “I’m going to tell you.” She settled back onto the cold driftwood, watching him.
“The elders,” he began, “are like you, Hélène. Or may I say, Teresa?”
Her fingers flew to her mouth.
He smiled. “Please don’t worry. The elders of La Società have known about you from the very beginning. About you and Mozart.”
“Gran Dio,” she breathed.
At that he grinned, his teeth white against his dark face. “Indeed.”
“And are you—are you like me?”
He shook his head. “No. I am something quite different.”
“What?” she demanded. “What something?”
“That doesn’t matter now. What is important is what the elders of La Società want you to do. Or more precisely, what they want you not to do.”
“Where are these—these elders? Why don’t they come to me themselves?”
“Oh, they rarely leave their compound. They prefer privacy.”
“But if they’re like me, they need…they need to…”
He nodded. “They do. But there are many who want to be what they are. What you are. An endless stream of them, really, who go in search of the bite. Who beg for it.”
Hélène stared at him, all thoughts of flight gone. “Beg for it? But don’t they know what can happen? More than half of them die of it.”
“No one,” he said softly, “thinks that will happen to them.”
“And so…these elders…are they careful?”
“Absolutely not.”
“They—you can’t mean that they kill them. All of them?”
“All.”
Her lips parted again, but she could find no words. She searched his face for some emotion, some regret or guilt or sadness, but she found only pragmatism.
He nodded, as if he understood what it was she was looking for, and as if he knew she had not found it. “They want me to talk to you about that. About being careful.”
She blurted, “I don’t like them to die.”
“But they must. Otherwise, there are too many of them. La Società fears an epidemic, and the threat of exposure that would bring.”
“Some die even when I’m careful. When I hold back.”
“Not everyone can bear the weight of memory.”
She sighed, remembering Mozart. “I know.”
Then this strange man, this puzzling creature, stood up and put out his hand to lift her to her feet. “I’ll walk you back to your hotel.”
The hand that had felt so hard a few moments ago now had a friendly warmth. His fingers were gentle under her arm as he walked beside her up over the strand, onto the grass and the road beyond.
As they walked, Hélène said, “What will they do if I refuse?”
His voice was level and uninflected. “Some do refuse. I know how to deal with them.”
“They die.”
He shrugged. “It is regrettable, but necessary.”
She stopped on a street corner and faced him. People walked by them, hardly glancing at the tall young woman and the slight man. She lifted her chin and gave him a challenging look. “You would kill me.”
He looked into her eyes, and she read in his a reflection of her own long loneliness. “I don’t want to,” he said in a confiding tone. “This is a hard world. There are so few of my kind, and the ones I’ve met I don’t care for. But when I heard you sing in New York, and again at rehearsals here in San Francisco—I felt more joy than I’ve known in half a century. It’s not just your voice—which is spectacular—but your music. It touched even me. And I thought I was beyond touching.”
“You don’t want to kill me,” she said flatly. “And I don’t want to kill them.”
He took her hand in his. “Let me find another way,” he said.
Her laugh was short and bitter. “Another way? There is none.”
“There may be.”
She tore her hand from his and turned away. Her wet skirts swung heavily around her ankles. “I have to change and go to the Opera House.”
“Please, Hélène.” And more softly, “Teresa. Don’t do anything until I—”
Over her shoulder, she said, “You can’t help me. Leave me alone.” She stalked away toward her hotel, her back stiff with anger and fear.
She sensed his presence, dark and very still behind her. Watching.
19
Perché mi chiedi, perfida?
Why do you ask me, unfaithful one?
—Masetto, Act One, Scene Three, Don Giovanni
Octavia came to herself, finding that her retreat into memory had kept her standing in the center of her suite, her scarf hanging limply from one hand, her coat half off her shoulders, trailing on the floor. The curtains were open and the city lights sparkled through the darkness.
She called, “Ugo?” There was only reproachful silence.
She started toward her bedroom, then paused. Ugo’s case was in his room. He would be furious if she opened it, but—he had been gone so long. Surely he would understand if she—if she simply took the briefest look inside. There might be a vial there, something to tide her over, to sustain her until Ugo reappeared. He could hardly object to that. He didn’t want her hunting in the streets.
She turned, stepping over her coat and scarf where she had dropped them. Seizing upon the slender chance, she hurried to Ugo’s room and opened the door wide.
Something about the too-tidy bedroom made it seem cold. Though Ugo’s clothes hung in the closet and his
suitcases were stacked neatly beside the bureau, the room had an uninhabited feeling. Octavia turned on every lamp before she began opening drawers.
The case, a rather small rectangle of embossed brown leather, was in the bottom drawer of the bureau. She pulled it out and carried it to the bed. She dropped to her knees on the carpet and snapped open the locks.
The interior of the case was as orderly as Ugo himself. There were four syringes neatly Velcroed into place in the lid, with disposable needles in their sealed packages tucked into a pocket beside them. She lifted out the small square of absorbent toweling, bleached to a brilliant white, and found beneath it a package of alcohol wipes and one of tiny, clear bandages. There was a coil of tubing and a plastic box holding several clean, empty ampoules.
Feeling hopeless and helpless, Octavia lifted the packages out and searched the corners of the case. She sat back on her heels, holding the towel to her chest, and stared into its emptiness. Nothing. There was nothing in the case to help her.
Carefully, trying to put everything back exactly as she had found it, she repacked the case and replaced the folded towel. She snapped the case shut and stood.
She looked around Ugo’s room, as neat and tidy as her own was perpetually messy. She didn’t know, really, where he kept her supply, nor did she know how he stored the herb he used to stop his transformations. She sometimes imagined him running through the hills, breathing the wind, feeding in the wild. But she never asked if he missed it. He was adamant in refusing to speak of the other side of his nature.
It was possible, she supposed, that Ugo was weary at last of taking care of her. But surely, had that been the case, he would have given her some indication. He had simply vanished, without warning, without a trace.
She put the case back in its drawer and went to the closet. She pushed back the folding door and found that all of Ugo’s things were there, his beautiful jackets and slacks, his two tuxedos, even his opera scarves hanging, smoothly folded, on a padded hanger. She touched them with her fingers and sniffed the faint scent of the sea that clung to his skin and hair.
He laughed at her when she told him she could smell it. “You have a dog’s nose,” he had said once, reaching out with his slender fingers to tweak that feature. She had slapped at his hand and made some silly remark, and they’d laughed together, secure in their affection, in having found companionship at last.
But that was long after San Francisco.
20
Batti, batti, o bel Masetto, la tua povera Zerlina!
Beat me, beat me, dear Masetto, beat your poor Zerlina!
—Zerlina, Act One, Scene Three, Don Giovanni
It seemed that all of San Francisco’s high society attended the opening night of Carmen at the Grand Opera House on Mission Street. The theater glittered with jewels and furs and rich fabrics, and the air was close with cigar smoke and perfume.
Fremstad, though unconvincing as the gypsy dancer, sang magnificently, her rich voice winding with apparent effortlessness through Bizet’s sensuous melodies. The lengthy and enthusiastic ovation for Caruso’s Flower Aria brought the show to a halt. But Hélène, in her unflattering costume, struggling with the stubborn tempo of her conductor, had no more than a moderate success as Micaëla. She took her bows as always, curtsying, smiling out into the house despite the humiliating coolness of her applause. It was a relief to go back through the parted curtain.
When the curtain came down for the final time, Hélène forded a stream of people crowding the stage. She found her way down the cramped hallway to her dressing room, trying to keep her composure despite her disappointment and fatigue. She was alarmed to find the dark-haired, slender stranger waiting outside her door. She tried to push past him, but he slipped inside after her.
“Get out,” she said. “The dresser will be here in a moment.”
“Please,” he said, in a gentle tone that belied his hard hand on her arm. “You must talk with me. It’s for your own good.”
She pulled away from him. “You think I’m a fool. I’m no biddable girl, remember?”
“Indeed you’re not!” When he smiled, his face took on a boyish charm that made her mistrust him all the more. “Hélène,” he said. “You sang gloriously tonight. And your interpretation was flawless.”
“Merci,” she said bitterly. “Too bad the San Francisco audiences don’t agree.”
“They’re barbarians. They don’t understand your voice.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “And so now you will stop me from ever singing again?”
“No!” He took her chin in his fingers and looked into her eyes. “I want just the opposite. Please. Per favore, Teresa.” He dropped his hand.
“Don’t speak Italian here,” she snapped.
“Let me take you home.”
“And if I don’t?”
The dresser rapped on the door and called, “Miss Singher? Are you ready?”
“You have to get out,” Hélène said, turning away from the stranger’s dark gaze.
“Not until you agree.”
She glared at him over her shoulder. “Why should I? All I know about you is that you tried to kill me.”
“I did not.” He gave her that deceptively sweet smile again. “I only showed you that I knew how.”
The dresser repeated her knock.
“Promise me,” he said. “I’ll wait outside.”
She gave a noncommittal shrug. He chuckled and moved to the door to hold it open for the dresser.
Hélène took her time after the dresser had carried Micaëla’s costume away. She put on her new Eton suit of dove gray, with its circular skirt folded at the bottom in the latest style and jacket trimmed with silk braid and tiny ivory buttons. She brushed her hair up into a chignon and touched her cheeks and lips with rouge. When there was nothing else she could think of to do, she opened the door.
He was leaning against the wall, a slim, chic figure in a tailored overcoat and white opera scarf. He straightened as she came out, and offered her his arm.
“Ugo,” he said.
“What?”
“My name. It’s Ugo.”
“Oh. Italian. Really?”
“Ma certo, bella. I was born in Sicily.”
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “How long ago, Ugo?”
He grinned, took her hand, and tucked it under his arm. “Trust me, bella. I’m older even than you are.”
As they made their way up Market to New Montgomery Street, Hélène said, “You’re not coming to my room.”
“It’s not necessary. Not now. We can talk in the courtyard lounge.”
“You know my hotel.” Her feet dragged on the wooden sidewalk. Her world looked as bleak as it ever had, her career in ruins, her life in the control of this Ugo. She longed, as she often did when she was sad, for the little stone house on the shores of Lake Garda. She didn’t even know if it still stood there.
“Bella,” her companion said quietly, squeezing her hand against his side. “I know everything about you.” His waist was as lean and hard as a boy’s. “Anything I couldn’t find out for myself I read in Zdenka Milosch’s diary.”
She caught a swift breath and lost her footing for a step. “Diary?”
He took her elbow to steady her. “Yes. Odd, isn’t it, that someone with such long and perfect recall should keep a diary? But our Zdenka is nothing if not arrogant. She imagines that the details of her life are too fascinating to leave to one memory, no matter how remarkable. And a good thing it is for me. I’m not like you. My memory is long, but far from perfect. And she let me read her diary, at least the parts that relate to you.”
“And so…Mozart.”
He grinned at her. “Oh, yes, carissima. Mozart, and a rapacious stagehand, and a thousand other details of the early days, when I was not present but Zdenka was.”
“And was it she who told you how to—how to kill one of my kind?”
His look was sympathetic. “Oh, yes. She, and the others of the
society. Though I might have guessed. I’ve dealt with death a great deal, I’m afraid. And the femoral artery is so vital. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Heart’s blood.”
They reached the Palace and made their way through the lobby to the Palm Court, where upholstered chairs were scattered here and there around an ebony grand piano. The lounge was full of celebrants, many of whom murmured as they walked by, recognizing one of the singers of the night’s opera. One or two gentlemen rose and bowed as Hélène passed them. She inclined her head in thanks, and Ugo nodded acknowledgment as if it were he, and not she, who had performed.
A woman in pink satin with cascades of ivory beads gave her a sidelong glance and murmured something to her companion. They both laughed, and Hélène’s cheeks burned.
Ugo led her to a corner where one of the courtyard’s namesake palms provided a bit of privacy. Soon she had a glass of brandy in her hand, and Ugo, his own glass of port set aside on a low piecrust table, leaned toward her and spoke in Italian.
“La Società is very strict about their numbers. Many want what you have, and think they can acquire it. They are the foolish ones. But Zdenka and the other elders know you are not foolish. You are, in fact, most desirable, and a credit to your—let us say, to your kind. They have no regrets that you became one of them.”
She touched the brandy to her lips and set the glass down. “I was hardly given a choice in the matter.”
“I know.” He patted her hand. “But you have managed it very well, haven’t you?”
“Managed it?” she said bitterly. “Survived it, I think you might say.”
“No, no, I wouldn’t say that, Teresa.”
“Call me Hélène. And speak English.”
He shrugged, and switched languages. “Sorry. Hélène. But you did manage. Your previous persona lived a very long time, and yet somehow melted into obscurity, avoiding scrutiny and questions. And then you, dear Hélène, appeared as if out of nowhere, but quietly. You auditioned at the Paris Opéra, and then at the Metropolitan, a very proper rise. You keep to yourself and behave in a professional manner.” He smiled. “Well—perhaps one or two lapses. Quite unavoidable, of course.”
“Lapses,” she repeated. She picked up her glass and took a deep swallow. “I thirst. Sometimes I thirst so that I cannot bear it.”
Mozart’s Blood Page 17
