Ghost Country (15 page)

The diva put a hand on the piano, raking the crowd with an imperious glance. At the spindly-legged tables patrons were talking, softly, it’s true, but Luisa was used to the silence of awe when she walked onstage. When a trio of men continued their conversation—one of them giving a loud shout of laughter—Madame Montcrief leaned forward.

“If you would like your conversation to be part of the performance, could you kindly join me here on the stage? Otherwise, have the courtesy to be silent while I sing.”

A few people clapped, but the three men got up to leave. The hostess ran after them, trying to collect their money, but they were offended: they didn’t come into Corona’s to be insulted, and that by some singer who wasn’t even on the advertised program.

“Oh, go back to whatever two-bit town you come from,” Mara called. “Luisa Montcrief is one of the greatest singers in the world. No one wants to listen to your chatter about football or computer sales or whatever boring topic is so important to you. You’d have to pay a hundred dollars to get this close to her at the opera. Maybe more.”

“No one lectures me on how to act in public.” The biggest of the three men came over to Mara’s table and glared down at her.

“What a pity.” The diva spoke from the stage. “You have so much to learn.”

The pianist began playing variations on “Troubled in Mind.” “Let’s have a few songs, Luisa, while Minnie settles things at the door. She’s an expert at sorting things out, you’re an expert at singing, so you leave the sorting out to her.”

Luisa was reluctant to abandon the battlefield, but still sober enough to realize her audience agreed with the pianist. She bowed again to their applause and began singing. She’d sung a lot of ballads and Broadway in her student days, and pulled “Careless Love” from her old repertoire. An intelligent performer, she muted her big
voice to fit the small room, and reached into her lower register for a smoky undertone. The audience, suspicious at first, began to respond, clapping hard as the last notes melted past the bar.

Luisa paused to drink most of a glass of amber liquid, then sang Maria’s song from
West Side Story.
As she began her third song, the three loud men worked something out with Minnie and returned to their table. They immediately began laughing, emphasizing their humor by slapping the table. When Luisa finished “Thievin Boy,” they applauded loudly and whistled.

“I see our cretinous friends here have decided to join the party,” Luisa announced. “Perhaps I should sing a song just for them, and loudly enough for them to make it out.”

She began singing in German, using her full voice, which was so powerful, it set up a whistling feedback in the sound system. The piano player gamely followed her, although Mara could tell from his expression that he was annoyed. The three men continued their loud, staged remarks, but no one could hear them over the diva in full throttle.

When she finished the song there was a smattering of doubtful clapping. “Ah—since that was in German, and our friends here can barely understand English, I had best translate. It is, of course, by Hugo Wolf, from his famous
Italienisches Liederbuch
—for the ignorant, the
Italian Songbook
—and it means:

So, you troglodytes, like Hugo Wolf I gladly forgo your presence here. Leave now so I can continue this concert.”

One of the men stood and cupped his hands to bellow, “Hey, you snot-nosed bitch, we came here for music by American singers with American words. Go back to whatever foreign rock you crawled out of.”

“She is American, you great ape,” Mara yelled from her table.
“If I was as stupid as you I’d stay home instead of coming and showing it off in public.”

Some of the crowd was laughing, but others began to gather up their handbags and briefcases, preparatory to departing. The hostess hurried over to Luisa and started a whispered entreaty that she ignore the men and return to pop music. Luisa turned a shoulder to her, and began singing, again at fall voice, “Sempre libera,’ from
La Traviata.

Minnie ran around behind Luisa to the sound system and turned off Luisa’s mike. Even without it her voice filled the room, but Minnie went to the pianist’s mike and was able to speak over the diva.

“I’m sorry, folks, but we have a temporary malfunction of the sound system. You’ll be getting drinks on the house while we sort it out.” She hustled Luisa from the stage.

The three men applauded, giving loud sports cheers. Mara stomped over to their table. She picked up a drink with either hand and dashed the liquor in their faces.

They sat frozen for a moment, then roared with fury and jumped her. She was on the floor, kicking and squirming, when the bouncer pulled the men from her. He tossed the trio from the bar.

Jake came back inside, his breathing only slightly hurried. “And as for you, Mara, out you go. You know Queenie doesn’t tolerate any nonsense in her club. If she was here you might be barred permanently, so you’re lucky she’s not.”

“Okay, Jake, okay. Can I clean up first? They’ll kill me if I come home like this.”

Unlike the bouncer Mara was panting hard. She was wet and dirty from being rolled around on the floor. Her feet were sticky inside her high-heeled sandals. In the dim toilet light she saw a bruise forming below her left eye and blood on her left arm. Her tank top had a tear under one arm.

“Huh. I look like that woman at the wall.”

She washed off what parts of her arms and face she could fit in
the tiny sink and let Jake escort her outside. The diva was there, arguing with Minnie about getting Corona’s to give her cab fare.

“Ah, the little heroine.” Luisa grabbed Mara’s arm and stood on tiptoe to plant European kisses on both cheeks. “How brave you were, and how kind, to come to my support amidst that band of Philistines.”

Her breath stank of whiskies past and present.

“I’ve been an admirer of yours for years,” Mara muttered. “It’s too bad Queenie wasn’t here tonight. She’s a pretty cool head, she wouldn’t have let those guys get out of hand the way they did.”

“I pay no attention to the
canaglia.”
Luisa snorted, like Harriet’s horse, Mara thought, suppressing a giggle. “Chicago is a vulgar town with no regard for artistry. My own brother is the
example par excellence
of that. A cretin, more at home on a scrap metal heap than a concert hall. Can you believe we shared a womb? I was born first: I couldn’t wait to leave him. Even
in utero
I knew him for a Philistine.”

This time Mara couldn’t help giggling, but she said, “I hope you don’t think everyone in Chicago is as ignorant as those guys. I love your singing. I own all your recordings. I bet I’ve listened to your
Tosca
a thousand times.”

Luisa bridled again, this time with pleasure. “You are young to have such an appreciation for opera, I could use an amanuensis in this town. My dresser, my agent, they have all abandoned me; my own brother threw me out on the street. I’m reduced to making appearances in nightclubs, and that
malandrina
—excuse me—robber—I’ve lived so many years in Italy that their language comes first to me—wouldn’t even give me cab fare, after agreeing to pay me for my performance.”

“I live with my grandfather,” Mara said. “He threatened to throw me out because I got fired from my job. Also because he doesn’t want to admit he knows what happened to my mother.”

“Hah! These men and their fixation about jobs. My brother would be happy to see me teaching music to kindergartners. I, who sing routinely at the Met and the Berlin Staatsoper, I who got
fifteen curtain calls at La Scala after my debut as Carmen—” She lost the thread of her declamation. “He thinks only of money, and of scrap metal. Come! You may take me home with you.”

“I’m not going home tonight. They had to choose between me and the housekeeper, so they chose the housekeeper.” Mara gulped down a sob of self-pity. “I’m going to teach them a lesson.”

H
ARRIET, WHAT IN
hell do you think I pay your firm three hundred dollars an hour for? A paralegal who tells the garage manager to hose down the wall? That did absolutely nothing except generate more trouble for us. Some snooty doctor was down there last week protesting to Brian Cassidy, and last night—last night—”

“I know about last night,” Harriet said. “The police woke me at three this morning. That was my sister you had arrested.”

“I don’t care if it was the pope,” Gian Palmetto snapped. “What in hell was she doing creating a riot at my garage?”

Channeling for the goddess Gula. Entertaining Luisa Montcrief. Sticking it to Harriet. Enraging Grandfather. Yes, all of the above, and who knew what else besides.

“And furthermore, she says
you
advised her that the sidewalk was public property. Whose side are you on, anyway? I’ve got a good mind to take this up with Leigh Wilton. You’ve been giving us only half your attention these days.”

It wasn’t true she’d told Mara that the sidewalk was public property. In fact, when Harriet raised the issue at dinner last week, it was only to pass on Brian Cassidy’s complaint about Hector.

Grandfather said he’d talked to Hanaper, but urged Harriet to have the woman at the wall arrested for trespassing.

It’s not that simple, she’d responded: the wall belongs to the hotel, but the sidewalk is the city’s, and that makes it tricky, especially if someone is advising the women on their legal rights. The hotel can’t afford the negative publicity they’ll get if some hotshot civil rights lawyer takes up the woman’s cause.

And then Mara blew up at her and fled the house, leaving Harriet both angry and unaccountably forlorn. The sisters had not spoken since, except to grunt “excuse me” if they encountered each other in a hallway.

Harriet’s head was aching. She didn’t want to try to explain why Mara thought she should champion Madeleine Carter—even if Harriet understood what went through her sister’s mind, which she didn’t.

When the call came from the assistant state’s attorney Grandfather insisted on going to the police station with Harriet; the rest of the night had been spent in a series of scenes with him and her sister.

If this
charade
—Grandfather gave the word its French pronunciation as he yelled at Mara—was designed to make me reconsider my ultimatum, you mistook your tactics badly, young lady, very badly. By then they were back in the Graham Street apartment and it was almost five. I want you out of this apartment today, and I will take steps to make sure you leave.

Goose steps, Mara said, green eyes smoldering.

How dare you! Grandfather’s bellow rocked the chandelier. If you had seen the sights I did in Europe you would never use that expression so flippantly. I risked my life to create a world in which a pampered self-indulgent miss like you not only gets arrested for disturbing the peace, but can come home to hurl insults at me.

You risked your life to fight the Nazis, Mara said, but you run this house like a totalitarian state. Grannie couldn’t live according to your petty rules, so she left. Then you drove your own daughter
away. Only Harriet is too scared not to do every little thing you say-Harriet, scared? You ignorant bottom-feeder; you’re just smart enough to be jealous of her, but not smart enough to emulate her. Harriet doesn’t know the meaning of fear.

And then he called to her, his golden girl, the apple of his eye, and demanded that she find Mara an apartment and have her installed in it by noon the following day: tonight is to be her last night under my roof. He was almost purple with fury.

Harriet was wobbly from interrupted sleep, from rage with her sister for getting involved with the woman at the wall, from worry over Mephers, from worry over herself (was she really cold, as Mara kept saying? was she really scared?), but when she looked at Mara’s swollen face she felt a twinge of sadness.

It was her own photograph that dominated Mephers’s bedroom, Grandfather’s study. No one ever had time for Mara, not from the day Beatrix dumped her at Graham Street. She was desperate for attention. So she cococted the outrageous story about Mephers hiding a letter for Beatrix.

When Harriet didn’t pay attention to her latest fabrication, Mara created a disturbance on Underground Wacker. Mara’s behavior throughout had been totally inappropriate—okay, unbelievably sick—but how could Harriet continue to inhabit—rent free—her elegant suite, with her meals provided by Grandfather’s cook, and send her sister off to some dismal apartment: on her own?

Mara needs help, she told Grandfather. She needs love, and our support. Maybe she should see a therapist.

Don’t you start in on me with that sob sister nonsense, Grandfather shouted, forgetting that he’d been considering the same notion. Every day at the hospital I see some patient who’s never grown up despite years of therapy, sniveling about how their mothers didn’t love them or their fathers raped them, so they’re not responsible for their own acts. Look at Luisa Montcrief, ruined a brilliant career through petulant self-indulgence. That brother of
hers is right: tough love is the way to handle this kind of problem. He says Hanaper advised it—good man, Hanaper, not like that idiot resident of his, mewling on about therapy.

Harry Minsky and Grandfather had encountered each other at the police station that morning. Of course, they had met many years earlier, when Grandfather removed a glioblastoma from Harry’s mother’s brain, but Grandfather had been a surgeon then, not a person but the priest in whose hands lay the auguries of life and death. Harry hadn’t existed for Grandfather then, either: he’d been one of the doctor’s many supplicants from a world of prayers and tears. But at the First District police station in the middle of the night, Harry Minsky and Abraham Stonds were simply two men terribly aggrieved by their female relations.

Harry roared into Chicago after Luisa’s fourth phone call, the one she made to Becca’s room on Becca’s personal line. When his daughter came in to wake him—Daddy, Aunt Luisa’s in trouble, she’s been arrested, she says you just want her to rot in jail—he rose in a fury so intense, he could hardly control his body. Let her rot there, a year in jail would be a year of peace in our lives.