Prima Donna: A Novel

by Megan Chance

"Then where?"

  I measured my words carefully, not wanting to reveal too much, nervous even at this. "I sang in a beer hall when I was young."

  "A beer hall? So you do have talent."

  "My father owned it."

  "Even so. Johnny don't know this?"

  "I've never told him. It's better that way. I don't want him to nag me about it. And I don't sing any longer in any case." I was growing uncomfortable now; I wanted the conversation to change.

  "Why not?"

  "I fell out of practice."

  "How hard is it to fall back in?"

  "Too hard," I said and felt the tears well in my eyes, the sadness I could not bear for her or anyone else to see. "I'm tired, Charlotte. Good night."

  She murmured a good night. I heard her disappointment, but I couldn't salve it. Not now, not tonight. I rolled onto my side, away from her, so she wouldn't see me cry.

  From the Journal of Sabine Conrad

  JANUARY 9, 1872--I am to sing at the Academy. They want me for next season, to change off with Pauline Lucca and Clara Louise Kellogg for the Italian: L'Africaine, Faust, and La Traviata. I would be glad but it is so far away, and cannot help with funds for now. All of New York City is entranced with Christine Nilsson, she is singing Lucia at the Academy and then will leave and return in late February and in the meantime there is the Philharmonic and some Italian company doing English opera and they have no need of me.

  Gideon says that the soprano with the Mulder-Fabbri Company at the Stadt Theater is ailing, and they've asked me to audition as her understudy for Der Tannhauser. He does not want me to do it, as he fears Wagner will strain my voice, but I have insisted as we need the funds too much. Even if I get that, it is only for a few weeks, and so we must arrange another tour for the spring and summer. Barret said we should arrange concerts here in the city, but Gideon told him most schedules are tied up for the summer already, and they argued about it until Barret stalked off somewhere, and Gideon went to find him. Barret is my brother and I love him, but Gideon has been in the business longer and he knows it better. Yet when I say that, Barret accuses me of being disloyal and worse. I don't know why he looks at me so sorrowfully or what he means when he says he is failing me.

  I wish I knew what could be done--Gideon says that Barret will only be a problem for us and that I cannot afford to have a drunk for a business manager, even if he is my brother. But that is exactly why I cannot let him go, either. We are the only family each other has just now, and I know he means well and would love him even if he didn't. I could never send him away.

  FEBRUARY 14, 1872--Tonight I had the night off, as too many in the Mulder-Fabbri Company are ill and there is to be no performance at the Stadt. Barret asked if I would go to dinner with him, just the two of us, and then he smiled and said it would be a family dinner. It had been so long since I'd seen that smile! I thought what fun it would be because he was in a good humor, which is so rare lately.

  But then Gideon came home with tickets to the New York Circus, saying I deserved a treat. He had bought a ticket for Barret too, and I was so excited--I had thought Barret would want to go, as neither of us had been to the circus before. But Barret said I had agreed to go to dinner with him alone, and I must choose.

  Well, what could I do? I was torn, because as much as I'd looked forward to dinner with my brother, I've never seen the circus and I have so little time with Gideon that's not spent in rehearsal or practice. My heart wanted to be with him, and I felt so guilty for wanting it above Barret. Oh, why couldn't Barret understand that and just come along? We could go to dinner together any night!

  He got that hurt, disappointed look in his eyes. I had promised, but it was all so unnecessary! It was only dinner, and he was being so contrary only because he is angry with Gideon. I know Barret would have chosen the circus any other time, so it was unfair of him to make me feel so horrible.

  Gideon said not to let Barret spoil things and the truth is that I was so excited to go it was easy to forget about Barret once we were there. There were so many people! The main event there was called: the "Mirthful Equestrian Pantomime of: Ride a Jack Horse to Banbury Cross to see an Old Lady on a White Horse." Of course the lady was not so old, and she did the most amazing tricks on that horse, who was not that white, but who cared? I held my breath every time the tightrope walker swayed, and grabbed Gideon's arm so he laughed. He bought me a ginger cake and ale and said he liked to see me this way.

  Afterward, we stood outside and looked across the street to the Academy of Music, whose lights were very bright, and carriages gathered out front with drivers in livery slapping their hands against the cold. Gideon whispered to me that they would be coming to see me in only a few months. "Imagine it, Sabine. Imagine how they will hold their breath to see you. They won't believe such a voice is real, they'll wonder if it wasn't an angel from heaven they heard instead."

  Oh, how I loved his words! After that, I couldn't bear to let the evening end, so we walked to the Bowery, though it was starting to snow. It was a long way, but I hardly cared, and the noise from the saloons and the theaters and the screech of streetcar brakes and the wheedling cries of the men hawking amusements was like music that seemed to float down with the snow. It was the most romantic night. Gideon took my hand and tucked it into his arm and pulled me close into his side. We stopped at the crowd standing around a man selling patent medicines. His face was so strange in the haze of kerosene torches and the freezing clouds of his own breath that I laughed, and Gideon pulled me into the alcove of a darkened doorway and kissed me so passionately I forgot to breathe. Suddenly I understood why the younkers and their girls had never cared whether people saw them. I didn't care either. I could have kissed him this way all night on a stage in front of a circus crowd and it wouldn't have mattered.

  He drew away, but he took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes and said, "Sabine." He made my name sound like a high A rising, my very own angel's voice, and he smiled at me and drew me out again into the street.

  Before I knew it, we were climbing the stairs and standing before my door. He said good night; I grabbed his arm, pulling him back to me so hard we fell against the wall. I think I said "Don't go," but I wasn't sure, because before I could finish, he was kissing me again.

  And then his door opened, and Barret stepped out to see us there.

  I felt a great shove, and then Gideon was gone from me and I was reaching for air. He and Barret fell hard onto the floor. Barret pounded on Gideon, who was first only holding up his hands to shield his face, and then he fought back, and I was screaming at them to stop. The hotel manager came up and told us we must leave, that he wanted us out of the hotel by tomorrow, even though we were paid through the week--the money must go to repair a hole in the plaster they made.

  Barret ended up far the worst and lay flat out on the floor. He was drunk, of course. I smelled the liquor on him. Gideon dragged him into their room and laid him on the bed. Barret was muttering again about failing me and saying things like "Don't, Bina. Don't do it," and not making much sense as I tugged off his boots. I was so angry at him. He had ruined this perfect, perfect night, and I wanted to hit him myself. I put my face in my hands and cried, and when Gideon touched my shoulder I just couldn't bear to look at him. I didn't want the look on his face to make me forget the one I remembered from earlier, when he had gazed into my eyes and said my name in a voice like an angel's. I told him to go, and when he left, my tears dried up and I felt very calm, as if this were all a dream I was watching from faraway. I cleaned the blood off my brother's face, and when I turned to go he grabbed my wrist and opened the eye that wasn't swollen shut. He said that Gideon wanted to be rid of him so he could have me all to himself, and I called him a fool and tried to pull away, but he held me tighter. "We should leave," he said. "You and me. We can go back to Kleindeutschland. Papa can get you a tour. Herr Wirt could help. Please, Bina. You should leave while you can."

  I said I was staying, but I was
too angry to care if he left.

  He said he would stay too then. He said he needed to protect me, and I laughed meanly and asked him, "Protect me from what?"

  He didn't answer. He fell asleep, and I left him there, snoring.

  FEBRUARY 15, 1872--Barret walked me to practice today because Gideon was auditioning. (I can only say this here, but please God, let them choose a different tenor!)

  People stared at Barret as we went, and well they should because he looks terrible. Both eyes are black and one he cannot open enough to see through, and he kept rubbing his shoulder, which is hurt from going through the wall. He was sober, and I begin to wonder if that is such a good thing, because he asked me very roughly if Gideon had already taken me to bed, and I felt myself go red and told him no in as offended a voice as I could manage, because it would not do to tell him that I wished Gideon had!

  He was very sorry then, and he asked me if I remembered the afternoons on tour when the two of us would sneak out to the confectioner and weren't those the best times? He said we could do the same thing today if I would skip practice, and he gave me the smile I love but it was lopsided because of the swelling.

  Of course I do remember, though it seems very long ago now and I am no longer a child but a woman with responsibilities. I told him I could not, that Gideon would not like it, and Barret said that the last he'd heard, he was my manager and not Gideon, and he should be the one to say whether I needed practice. He said again that Gideon meant to come between us and I told him that I was tired of this argument, which I am.

  And I am also tired of how sad Barret gets when I tell him this. When he let me off at the door to the theater, he sighed and kissed my cheek and asked would I please be careful and remember the things he'd said, and I kissed him back and said I would.

  I went to the back practice room, where Gideon was waiting at the piano. He was distracted and tense, which meant he had not got the role, and though I was relieved, I went to him and pressed myself against his back where he sat on the bench and leaned down to kiss his hair and say I was sorry. He twisted around, and caught me about the waist, and pulled my leg up so my foot was on the bench and my skirts fell back.

  I could barely speak. He traced up my stocking to the ribbons of my garters, and his fingers slid beneath to touch my bare skin. He asked me if Barret was upset with him, and I was too mindless to do more than nod, and he leaned over to press his lips where his fingers had been. I thought I would swoon; the pleasure of it was too much. He moved his mouth as if he wanted to touch every part of those few bare inches, and when I gasped he raised his eyes to me and said that Barret wanted to tear us apart and I must not let him. He said my brother was jealous of how close we were, and of how well Gideon understood me. I felt his lips move against my skin and my thoughts grew all muddled, but I remembered what Barret had said, and I felt a twinge of doubt that made me thread my fingers through Gideon's hair and hold him still. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him I thought Barret was worried that he would seduce me and leave me.

  Gideon laughed then, and pulled away, and said it was hard to concentrate while I was around, but he supposed we must, and I wished I hadn't said anything at all because all I wanted was for him to keep kissing me.

  MARCH 6, 1872--There is to be no tour this summer because Mr. Mulder has asked for me to stay through the end of the season and by then it will be too late. So we are to stay in New York, which is both a relief and not. I'd hoped that a tour would keep Barret from drinking too much, but now there is no help for it, and I cannot make him stop in any case, though I've told him often that I wish he would. He only says he wishes I would do as he tells me too.

  Gideon has got us rooms at another hotel--the Farthingale, which is down the street and two blocks over from the Town-shend. The rooms are small and not as nice, and the hotel is closer to the Bowery, which is no good for Barret. I see the whores lingering about when we come back late at night, but when I told Gideon my worry, he said that Barret would find trouble wherever we went.

  Then he kissed my jaw and undid my dressing gown and unhooked my corset and murmured that I did not need my brother anymore, not when he was there to watch out for me instead, and his mouth was hot against my nipples--oh my God, just to think of it now turns me to liquid! I want him so I cannot think. Since the night at the circus, things have grown more heated between us. But it is only caresses and kisses; he never does what I most want him to do.

  I wonder if he waits because of Barret? I think if my brother ever learned how Gideon touches me when he is not around he might kill him.

  Or perhaps ... could it be that Gideon still thinks of Willa? It has been seven months since it was ended, so surely it can't be that. Maybe he doesn't wish to cause more estrangement between me and my family, who all seem to dislike him now....

  Oh, I hardly know! and I am tired of guessing! All I know is that my mind is full of him, and beyond that and the music there's room for nothing else, and I find myself confused sometimes, so that when I look at Barret I think Gideon is right and I should send him home, and perhaps if I do, Gideon will come to my bed at last.

  But I can't do that. Gideon doesn't know the brother I know late at night, when Barret stumbles into my room to be sure I am safe and alone, or the way he lies on the bed beside me and strokes my hair, as if I were still the small sister who followed him around the alleys like a little dog. "Don't worry," he says to me nearly every night. "I am here to protect my own dear schwester." And before we both fall asleep I tease him that he must not speak German. How could I possibly send him away?

  AUGUST 1, 1872--I am now eighteen and a soprano at the Academy of Music! Rehearsals began today. Mr. Maretzek is very demanding. Kellogg and Lucca sometimes don't show up for rehearsals, though I am expected to attend every one, and in the evenings I practice still again with Gideon, who serves as my accompanist and teacher (though of course we still hold to the fiction that Barret is my manager). Gideon has not stopped auditioning, though I live in terror every time he goes--I think I would die if he left me to be some other girl's tenor!

  OCTOBER 4, 1872--I am a success as Marguerite! The reviews said I added a "saucy innocence" as a contrast to Kellogg's more restrained interpretation, and that my voice had "a lyric genius rarely encountered and which portends greatness for Mme. Conrad's future." !!!

  Lucca herself congratulated me after the performance, though she also made a point of asking where my "pretty repetiteur" was. She is a bitch, actually, and I know she has her eye set on Gideon. He only laughs when I say it and says I have nothing to worry about, but still I don't trust her.

  Barret is seeing one of the girls in the chorus. Her name is Dorothea, and she is only seventeen, but very blond and pretty. She has gone out with us after rehearsal three times now, and Barret seems smitten. The best part is that it has turned his attention from me for a time, which is such a relief.

  OCTOBER 26, 1872--This afternoon I came home after a costume fitting to find Gideon sitting in the hallway outside his and Barret's room because Barret was inside with Dorothea. They were rather loud too, as I could hear her moans. Gideon looked exhausted and said he had just returned from an audition for the Layler Company and I told him to come into my room to wait until Barret was done and then I told him he should not bother with auditions anymore as I was doing well enough for us all.

  He went to my window and seemed so sad. When I asked him why, he told me that this wasn't what he'd expected for himself. He had wanted to make a name in his own right. I told him he was making a name for himself, as my manager, and he laughed and said Barret was my manager. I told him everyone knew it was really him, and that he had a talent for it and was very clever besides. He has learned so much about the business these last years. He watches so carefully and Barret has not half his ambition or skill. I believe he could make us both rich, and I told him why shouldn't he reap the rewards, as he has been the one to set it all in motion? He could be a famous impresario if he
wanted. Then I said that I needed him, and I could not bear it if he went away. He got the most brilliant look in his eyes and asked, "Do you mean it?"

  I confessed that I loved him, and once I said the words I was so horribly afraid, because he said nothing, and then I was reassured when he kissed me, and I thought at last I would have what I've wanted for so long. When he led me to the bed, I tried to undo his trousers, but he stopped me, and I was so frustrated I slapped at him, and he whispered, "Patience, sweetheart." He put his hands up my skirts and then he was touching me just as Paolo had done, but it wasn't the same, it was ... I thought I might burst, and I twisted and gasped and he kissed me into silence and suddenly I could not keep myself still. I grabbed his hand to keep it there and cried out--I could not help myself. It was as if my body belonged to him and not me, and I wished it would go on forever. And when it faded he said, "Do you really love me, Bina?" and I kissed his face the way he kisses mine and said yes, yes. Then he said he meant to plant a claque in the audience the night Kellogg performs to boo her on my behalf, because the best prima donnas have rivalries. It keeps them in the news even if they aren't singing. He said I must start one with Kellogg.