She shook her head and widened her eyes as if she had no idea. She could hardly tell Giorgio that Nick’s fury at his thwarted ambition was ruining his performance.
Everything settled down as Brenda, her plain, plump face transformed by pancake and rouge into that of a beautiful woman made tragic by sorrow, began her “Ah, taci, ingiusto core.” Octavia couldn’t see Russell from where she stood, but she sensed his relief. Brenda’s dark soprano rolled out into the house, her tempo secure, her pitch as precise as Nick’s was erratic.
The act proceeded smoothly after that, through the deception of Donna Elvira and the other characters, on to the cemetery where the Commendatore’s statue came alive, spoke to Giovanni, and demanded an invitation to dinner.
Octavia’s long “Non mi dir,” sung to Peter in the fourth scene, drove everything else from her mind. She had the sense that she floated above the stage, above the orchestra, above the audience. She felt the spin of her voice beneath the vault as she sang Forse un giorno, il cielo ancora sentirà pietà di me. Perhaps one day heaven will once more take pity on me. Only in that moment, when all parts of her worked together to create art and magic, did such mercy seem possible.
She was sorry when she reached the final sixteenth-notes, Pietà, and then the resolution, di me. As she left the stage, her head high, her skirts sweeping the floor behind her, she savored the moment, appreciating its transitory nature, grateful only that her long years of work resulted in at least this one shining, fragile bubble of glory.
And then, the Allegro of the finale. Don Giovanni strode about the stage, commanding his festivities to begin. The chorus clustered around tables set with stage food and drink. Donna Elvira, rejected for a final time, left the stage, then rushed back through the door, screaming. And Lukas, back from his long rest since the first scene, marched in as the Commendatore’s ghost, the marble statue from the cemetery.
Now it didn’t matter so much that Nick’s voice was rougher, more strained. As the Commendatore demanded his repentance, and Giovanni refused, the lights darkened. Cunningly devised flames began to burn from beneath the stage as the ghost condemned Giovanni to eternal damnation. Nearly shrieking his last lines above the steadier notes of the chorus and Leporello, Giovanni was drawn down into the pit, the flames and smoke engulfing him. Nick, a defiant fist still raised, disappeared below the stage on the descending platform.
The final ensemble thundered across the stage, full-voiced and triumphant as the opera concluded with its declaration that all evildoers must repent, or suffer Don Giovanni’s fate.
The curtain fell on the D major cadence. The music ceased. The cast and chorus, laughing and talking, fell back to make room for curtain calls to begin. Octavia hugged Peter and said, “Thank you so much. This was a joy.” He pecked her on the cheek and took her hand as they stepped behind the choristers, who would have the first bow.
Nick ascended from the lower level. Octavia saw him approaching, to await his turn to step before the great red curtain. She gathered up Donna Anna’s voluminous skirts in preparation for her own bow.
When he seized her, she didn’t understand at first what was happening. He threw his arm around her, lifting her nearly off her feet. She tried to twist away, gasping, “Dio! Che successa?”
He growled in her ear, “I warned you,” and then, “Teresa!”
He dragged her backward through the crush of choristers just leaving the stage after their bow. They stared in amazement at the scene of two of their principals tangled together, leaving the stage during curtain calls.
Octavia felt the fastenings of her stomacher tear. The hem of the gown tangled around her ankles. “Nick!” she said. “Our curtain calls! Giorgio will be—”
“Fuck him,” Nick said in a voice so harsh she hardly recognized it.
Octavia used all of her considerable strength to fight him. She kicked backward, aiming for his kneecap, but she was hampered by the heavy layers of her costume. She squirmed and elbowed him, catching him a sharp blow on what she thought was his chin, and another that made him groan as her elbow buried itself in his solar plexus. Still he held on, hauling her into the darkness at the side of the stage. Among the clutter of set pieces, she wrenched his hands from around her waist and spun away from him. Both of them grunted with effort, like animals in a battle to the death.
Nick swore, “Bitch! I’ll kill you if I have to!”
She was already three strides away, hurrying back to the stage, hoping to salvage the curtain calls. She tripped over her skirts, and he was on her again. His grasping hands caught her head. The wig tore off, taking hanks of her hair as the bobby pins were yanked out and the wig cap came off. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, and she, too, cursed.
He had his arm around her neck now, and the other hand striving to cover her mouth. She raked his arm with her fingernails. He yelped, and she twisted free once again. She began to run, but he was close behind her. She dodged left, but he preceded her, guessing where she wanted to go. She pivoted on her heel, turning right. There was a lift there for the technicians who worked in the stage tower. Someone was there, a man in paint-stained coveralls who gaped at her as she leaped into the gray metal elevator and hit the top button.
Nick caught up with her, though, sliding through the doors just as they closed. She flattened herself against the far wall, one hand out, the other bracing herself. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled at him. “If I don’t succeed in killing you, Ugo will!”
He was panting, but grinning at her. Makeup streamed from his sweating cheeks and dripped onto the white silk of the Don’s ascot. His heavily penciled eyebrows were smudged across his forehead, making him look as if he had indeed been burning in hell with the Commendatore. The ribbon tying his hair into a queue had come loose, and his dark hair stood out in spikes from his skull. “You know what I want,” he said, puffing. “Just give it to me, and all of this will be over.”
“You’ve ruined the closing of the opera,” she said. “Poor Russell! And Giorgio!”
“I sang my part,” he said. “They can’t complain.”
“Curtain calls,” she snapped.
He snorted. “What the hell difference do bows make? They got their show.”
Octavia made a disgusted noise. “You’re a cretin. It’s no wonder your performances are so stiff. You understand nothing.”
He laughed, but she saw the flicker of doubt in his face and she realized that he already knew how weak his music was, how unsympathetic his acting. No wonder he wanted the bite. He wanted what she had. He wanted Mozart’s memories.
But she had no intention of giving them to him. Not Nick Barrett-Jones.
The lift stopped, and the doors crept open. Octavia braced herself, then made a dash for them as soon as she dared, thumping the bottom button as she passed it. Someone would surely follow them. It would help if the lift were already at the bottom.
Nick was quick behind her as she cast about outside the lift, looking for someplace to run. Catwalks stretched to her left and her right in the cavernous space. Everywhere hung the great ropes that operated the sets. Octavia knew this area because she had toured it once, admiring the choice of natural ropes over steel cables, which made too much noise. Beneath the catwalks was the convex arch of the ceiling vault. Its chestnut wood had also been chosen for the acoustics.
She turned full around, identifying the catwalk she wanted. It led toward the winch housing, the framework protecting the machinery that lifted the great chandelier through the ceiling for cleaning. She picked up her skirts and walked toward it as fast as she dared.
He followed, but he didn’t press her. He didn’t want her to fall, she supposed. It would do him no good if she were to pitch from the catwalk to tumble down into the rafters.
She hurried on past the winch housing. There was a stairway at the far end of the catwalk that led down into the loggione. If she could reach it before he caught her, she could slip into the attic above the galleries. She had been there be
fore, but she doubted Nick had. She could lock the door behind her and walk at her leisure back to the other end.
She nearly had her foot on the stair leading off the catwalk when he caught her.
He had pulled off his ascot this time, and he slipped it over her head like a noose, pulling it tight enough that she had to grab it with her fingers to keep from choking. He was breathing hard, noisily. His voice was tight and low. “Back up.”
She tried to resist, but at each twist of her body, he tightened the scarf. She felt him shift his grip behind her head, and then one of his hands came around in front of her face to show her the knife he held. She supposed it was the same knife. She had already seen that he knew how—and where—to use it. She dared not fight any more.
He didn’t speak again. He loosened the scarf a little, so she could breathe. He pulled her back a few steps, and then thrust her to one side. She stumbled as the floor disappeared from beneath her feet, and then her toes touched the first tread of a steep iron stairway. He prodded her hip with the knife, and the blade’s nearness sent a shock through her nerves.
She descended the stairs and found herself in a long, dim space with a wooden floor and a low ceiling. She glanced around.
“Jews,” Nick grated, seeing her look.
“What?”
He released her, and she faced him. “Jews,” he said again. “World War Two. They hid them here, from the Nazis.”
“Here? Are you sure?” She glanced around again, feigning surprise. In truth, she was searching for a way out, or for something to defend herself with.
He was not an intelligent man, but a cunning one. He gave a low bark of laughter. “You can’t get away,” he said. “There’s no other way out.” He took a step closer, twitching the knife in his fingers. “You know what I want, Octavia.”
She brought her eyes back to him. She stood very still, watching him come, and she began to tremble with rage. There was no sound but her own harsh breathing and the soft brush of his shoes against the wood. They were far too high for the hubbub beneath them to reach. “People die of the bite, Nick,” she said.
“I won’t,” he said. He loosened the collar of his shirt, pulling it open so his neck was exposed, then fisted the knife in his right hand, so the blade pointed downward. “And you won’t take too much from me, because if you do…” He sliced the air with the blade.
“There are other consequences.” She forced herself to speak matter-of-factly, her eyes holding his. Her body began to pulse, her throat to burn, saliva to fill her mouth. She had not been thirsty, but now she was. And she was angry.
He was healthy. Ripe.
And so very, very stupid.
He reached for her with his left hand and pulled her to him. Her eyes were inches from his, and the heat from his body burned against her breast and belly. He lifted her skirt away from her thigh and rested the flat of his little blade against her skin. His lips were slack, as if with lust, and his eyes were bloodshot, the pupils expanding in the darkness.
“Do it,” he whispered, and then again, urgently, “Do it!”
Fury and loathing and thirst welled in her like a fountain, like a geyser, the pressure building in her belly and her lungs and her brain. She was facing the stairway down which he had forced her, and she saw that someone was there, bending down to see into the space, but she no longer cared.
Nick Barrett-Jones bent his head to the right, offering her his throat.
And Octavia—Teresa, Hélène, Vivian—bared her sharp teeth and buried them in his yielding flesh.
His grip on her tightened, and his blade pressed into her. She drank, and drank again, then again. He moaned and pushed the knife against her thigh. A heartbeat later, one strong pulse of heart’s blood, his grip began to falter. The blade lifted, wavering over her leg.
She drank more.
He groaned, ecstatic and frightened. The blade slid away, and her skirt fell back over her leg. His arm lost its grip on her, but now she had her own arms around him, one at his waist, the other circling his neck. The knife clattered to the floorboards.
He shuddered from head to foot.
Octavia ignored the sound of footsteps on the wooden stairs. Now she bore all of Nick’s weight in her arms as his legs gave way. Spasms shook his body, and she lowered him to the floor, her mouth fastened deeply to his throat, where his lifeblood fed her, energized her, assuaged her fury and her need.
“Octavia! Stop,” someone said softly.
Octavia was beyond thought, beyond hearing. There was nothing in the world at that moment but the source, and she could not bear to leave it.
“Octavia!” Whoever it was dared to put a hand on her, dared to tug her free of her prey. The body collapsed to the floor in a nerveless heap.
Outraged, she whirled, teeth dripping, mouth open to strike again.
He sprang back, out of her reach, and put up his hands. “Octavia! Bella! Son io!”
She stopped where she was, her fingers curled like claws, her lip still retracted. His voice cut through the red fog of her fury like cold steel. Slowly, she lowered her hands. A moment later she palmed her lip down over her teeth, and when she withdrew it she found it dark with blood. Her costume was spattered, the ruffles at the bodice ruined.
At her feet, Nick Barrett-Jones sprawled, unconscious, but audibly breathing.
The fog before her eyes cleared slowly, and Octavia came back to herself. She looked down at Nick’s white face, his bleeding throat. She remembered where she was, and who she was. “Ugo,” she said. “What have I done?”
As calmly as if Nick’s inert body were no more than an inconvenient bit of trash, Ugo bent and pulled him up by his armpits. “Gave him what he wanted, didn’t you?” he said lightly. “I didn’t think you would.” He moved backward, dragging Nick toward the metal stairway.
“Where are you going?”
“Darling, we don’t want him to die here. Too obvious.”
She bent to lift Nick’s feet. He struggled weakly and kicked out of her hands. “I don’t think he’s going to die,” she said. “But he would have, if you hadn’t come along.”
Ugo made a face. “You make it sound as if I just happened to be strolling a catwalk at the very top of Teatro alla Scala and stumbled across a seventy-year-old hidey-hole by accident.”
Nick groaned and rolled his head against Ugo’s chest.
“Turn him,” Octavia said. “He’s too heavy to get up this stairway. He can probably climb it if we help him.”
Nick’s hands were useless, limp. They quivered occasionally as they tried to manipulate them. His feet, however, retained a bit of strength. In the end, Ugo went up ahead and leaned down to pull Nick up by his arms while Octavia set each of his feet on a tread, one at a time, and pushed from beneath until they got him up through the opening. He slumped on the floor while Octavia and Ugo caught their breath.
“What now?” Octavia panted.
For answer, Ugo pointed to the door leading to the attic. “Let’s get him up there until things have quieted down. Then we can leave him in his dressing room. Someone will find him tomorrow.”
“He should probably go to the hospital,” she said glumly. “As poor Massimo did.”
Ugo bent over Nick again and began to pull him upright. “We’ll address the issue of Massimo later,” he said. “For now, let’s get Nick away before some of the crew follow us to see what we’re doing.”
Octavia braced her shoulder under Nick’s left arm, and Ugo took the right. “Ugo,” she said, as they began their slow progress, “what happened with the curtain calls?”
“They brought the curtain down,” he said, with a grin. “Right after the Leporello and Donna Elvira bows. What else could they do? Their primo uomo and their prima donna had disappeared.”
“But what did the audience think?”
“They probably think you’re both burning in hell with the Commendatore.” He glanced at her, past Nick’s drooping head. “We’ll need to explain th
is, Octavia. To Russell, at least.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Well, we can start with the truth. Nick attacked me.”
“Russell collapsed, Octavia. They called a doctor.”
“Oh, no. Poor Russell! He was already on edge.”
Nick stumbled, and Octavia readjusted his weight on her shoulder. “You were right, Ugo. I didn’t mean to give him what he wanted…but he threatened me again with that knife, and I lost my temper.”
Ugo raised his eyebrows and gestured with his chin toward Nick’s bleeding throat. “You did a bang-up job of defending yourself. Brava.”
“But now,” she said, as they reached the door to the attic, “we’re in more trouble than ever. What is La Società going to say about this one?”
Ugo braced Nick’s nerveless form against his hip and reached for the door. “Don’t worry about the society, Octavia. I have it under control.”
37
Convien chinare il ciglio al volere del ciel.
The best thing we can do is submit to the will of heaven.
—Don Ottavio, Act Two, Scene Four, Don Giovanni
Octavia took a moment in her dressing room to wash any trace of blood from her lips and chin. Her dresser was waiting for her when she came out, and cried out at the bloodstains on the lace of the costume, but Octavia hushed her. “I’m all right,” she told her. “A nosebleed.” She hurried to Russell’s dressing room and knocked on the door.
A woman she didn’t know answered the door. “Dottoressa?”
“Sì, sì,” the woman answered. She took in Octavia’s costume at a glance, then opened the door wide. “Come in,” she said. “He’s going to be all right. A nervous collapse.”
Octavia slipped in the door, and the doctor closed it behind her. Russell was sitting in a chair with his head resting on a pillow. There was a nurse beside him, urging him to drink something she had in a glass. His face was paper-white, and his lips were tinged with blue.
“Russell,” Octavia said softly. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry about everything.”
He looked up at her and reached out his hand for hers. “Good Lord!” he said. “Good Lord, I thought someone had abducted you!”
Mozart’s Blood Page 37
