Hot Ticket (28 page)

Slept until the slate gray ocean gave way to land. In a few minutes I’d be in London. Europe. Civilization, or what was left
of it. Home. Already I felt more human. That was the up side of Washington: it might obsess you absolutely while you were
there, but once you left, it vanished like Oz. As I deboarded, a fellow passenger smiled at me. Perhaps somewhere he had seen
me onstage in a pretty dress making pretty sounds. Ah, if only I had stopped there.

Called Curtis from Heathrow. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“Aurilla’s party? A barrel of laughs.” I told him about our concertus interruptus. “Hope she didn’t ask for a rebate.”

“Not yet. How’d Fausto make out?”

“He’s a great pianist. If he ever decides to resume where he left off, you should put him on the roster.”

Curtis didn’t affirm. We both knew that no matter how great a pianist Fausto might be, his nationality, size, and sexual persuasion
presented insurmountable marketing obstacles. “I booked you for the twenty-third,” he said. “Beethoven with Derschl.”

Couldn’t say I’d be there. I rented a car and drove smack into a monumental traffic jam on the M4. Nothing I could do about
it but roll down the windows and inhale cow manure. It was a crystalline evening, on the cool side without a whiff of humidity:
even the weather was more civilized over here. The scent of grass gave way to curry and exhaust as I entered a maze of increasingly
narrower streets. After the grandiose parade routes of Washington, London was like spaghetti. Delivery trucks, cyclists, and
one-way alleys dented my timetable even further.

I found Captain Poore in a Fulham pub, as we had arranged. He was short and thick with an impressive thatch of white hair.
His pension evidently covered necessities like beer and smokes but didn’t cover luxuries like nail clippers and weekly trips
to the Laundromat. Nevertheless, he was a cheerful, Father Christmas sort. If he had children, I bet they visited him often.
“Captain Poore? I’m Cosima Wagner.”

He ordered shepherd’s pie and a revolting side of canned peas and mayonnaise. I repeated some old fibs about my journalistic
career, listened to tales of tugboat life, then got right to the point because each time a few more people walked into the
pub, the proprietor cranked up the music three decibels. “I’m writing an article on river rescues and was referred to you
by the people at Charing Cross Pier.”

“Is that so! I’ve made a few rescues in my day.”

“I know this is a stretch, but do you remember an incident about thirty years ago involving five people jumping off a cruise
boat?”

“I remember most clearly. You’re speaking about Mrs. Kiss.”

Way to go, Ethel. “Could you tell me about it?”

“It was a warm evening in June,” Poore began. “With a full moon. I was returning to Fulham from the Greenwich Pier. As you
would expect, there were a lot of pleasure boats on the water. People were out walking on the bridges and the river-banks
until four or five in the morning. No one wanted to go back inside. I sailed under Waterloo, Westminster, Lambeth, Vauxhall,
Chelsea Bridge.” The captain paused over each name, conjuring different silhouettes of light and history. “I was just about
under the Albert Bridge when I passed a party cruiser. We were so close, I could see the cream on everyone’s ale. It was a
jolly crowd. They all waved at me. Then I saw a riveting lady on the handrail. She wore an enormous hat covered with flowers.
She was surrounded by four young men and a girl. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and it was a good thing I didn’t because
just a few moments later, she jumped into the water, hat and all. Astonishing.”

“You didn’t see a violin case fall overboard first?”

Poore’s fork abandoned a brownish lump in his shepherd’s pie. “Violin case? No, I certainly did not. What makes you think
that?”

“An article in the
Observer
mentioned a violin overboard.”

“Rubbish. Anyway, within seconds the entire group jumped in after her. I never saw anything like it. Four strong gents and
that tiny girl right into the current. I had a devil of a time pulling them all in. Fortunately, they could all swim well
except for the woman in the hat. One of the lads got to her in the water and managed to grab the life preserver I had tossed
out. She almost didn’t make it.”

“Did she need artificial respiration?”

“Water wasn’t the problem.” Reluctant to continue, Poore started playing with his mashed potatoes.

I put my pencil in the ashtray. “What was the problem?”

“The boy asked me not to mention anything.”

The boy had probably backed up his request with a bundle of pound notes. “The lady in white died a few months after the boat
ride,” I said.

“Oh, the poor thing! I wondered what would become of her!” Poore blew his nose. “Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling
you. After I pulled the two of them in, she lay still as an anchor on the deck. Suddenly she started shivering in a most violent
manner. Her son bent over her, crying until it passed. Meanwhile, mind you, I was flinging every last life preserver into
the water. It was bedlam. I nearly rammed the bridge.”

“Did anyone else see the woman in fits?”

“No. They had passed by the time I pulled the next lad in. I wrapped them all in blankets and brought out a bottle of whiskey.
The boys were all laughing and drinking as if they jumped into the Thames seven nights a week. Ah, reckless youth.”

“What about the girl?”

“I took her aside and tried to tell her what a dangerous thing she had just done and maybe she should not be with this group.
She laughed and said not to worry, in a week she’d be returning to America to marry her childhood sweetheart.”

Wrong horse, Justine. “That’s nice.”

“Soon the young man’s mother sat up and introduced herself as Ethel Kiss, as if nothing had happened. She said that her son
had just performed a magnificent piano recital over at the Wigmore Hall and they had been out celebrating. She thanked me
most profusely and apologized for all the trouble. I let them off at Cadogan Pier. The next day, a courier came to my boat
with an envelope from Ethel and her boy. Inside was five thousand pounds.” Poore finished his peas. “So if you were wondering
why an old bloke like me would be remembering an evening so long ago, there is your reason.”

“That’s quite a story,” was all I could say.

Captain Poore dabbed his mouth with a napkin. He seemed suddenly exhausted. “I’m so sorry to hear about Ethel. I had always
hoped to see her again one day. How is her boy? Still playing the piano?”

Yes,
I almost said, then remembered that I was here writing rescue stories. “I could look him up,” I said.

“No, no point. It was the mother I took a shine to. A police reporter came by the next morning. I was a bit of a hero for
a day.” With an effort, he pushed back his chair. “Thank you very much for coming to see me.”

I had ruined his evening. Said good-bye and drove to the Royal College of Music, a flat concrete temple of art in Kensington.
Grungy students hung out on the stairway, smoking and looking disdainfully at people with less talent but nicer shoes. Eventually
a girl with four nose rings and a violin case recognized me. “Are you Leslie Frost?” she asked, dropping a candy wrapper onto
the sidewalk.

Her hair looked green, her lipstick black. Maybe it was the street lamps. “Right.”

“Playing in town?”

“Just passing through.” I looked inside the school entrance. “I was wondering if the library’s open.”

“Till midnight. Come on, I’ll walk you in.” I followed her sarong and army boots to the man standing guard over the next generation
of unemployed musicians. “Just sign there,” she pointed. “It’s okay, Harold.”

We walked past cracked walls, dirty glass, dozens of posters for student recitals, mental health workshops, parades for justice,
zero posters for night courses in business school. Younger students gawked at me. Older ones looked away as I passed. I felt
uncomfortable as a freak here, for good reason: I was exactly that. Hey guys, what can I tell you. Natural selection plus
I happened to be riding the right merry-go-round when the brass ring whipped by.

“There you go,” said the girl.

The female behind the librarian’s desk looked like a singer. False eyelashes, built like a rain barrel, she was very busy
trying to stamp a stack of checkout slips and hum an aria from
The Magic Flute
at the same time. “Excuse me,” I finally interrupted. “I’m looking for old programs of concerts at the school. Do you have
an archive section?”

“Sure. Over by the magazines.”

I found Fausto’s recital programs, all big and brash, all planned brilliantly as a royal banquet. I began to understand why,
denied pure music, he would turn to conducting in Washington: politics was the loudest, most treacherous symphony of all.
Still, what an enormous waste of talent, of peace. I needed to know the reason for it.

London was a great walking town but no time for that now. I drove toward Hampstead through miles of dark, empty streets barely
wider than my bumper. Took a while to reach my next appointment because I made a few wrong turns and there was no such thing
as going round the block and ending up where you had started here.
Stay awake, Smith.
Madame Varnas, Fausto’s former piano teacher, lived above a baby boutique on Haverstock Hill. If her seven decades behind
a metronome had perhaps not produced a first-rank concert pianist, they had secured Madame lodgings in a tony neighborhood.
Its shops offered exquisite shoes, belts, gold, cakes, cheese … even the vegetarian restaurants had linen and candles. Foot
traffic seemed to be ninety percent au pair girls. Just before seven I rang her doorbell.

Lydia Varnas answered the door in a houndstooth suit festooned with old, heavy jewelry that had probably come from lovers
sixty-odd years ago, when she could still toss off the Tchaikovsky concerto and ten orgasms a night. With stacked heels she
only reached my nipples and I had eaten suckling pigs with bigger butts than hers. However, her blue eyes could stop a gorgon.
I wasn’t expecting that: Varnas had looked much softer in the snapshots on Fausto’s dresser. Those had been happier days.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Leslie Frost. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

Accepting my bouquet of roses, Varnas led me inside an apartment crammed with the memorabilia of a lifetime in pedagogy. The
autographed pictures alone would render a student’s fingers numb with fright. Toss in death masks, plaster casts of hands,
honorary doctorates, three pianos, a horrifying collection of sharpened pencils, and the line between castration and music
lessons became razor thin. She filled in the spaces with cacti and violets. I didn’t see a trace of Fausto anywhere.

Varnas seated herself on a small sofa. “What can I do for you, Miss Frost?” Voice sharp as her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re
interested in piano lessons.”

Not with you, honey. “I just played a concert with Fausto Kiss. I understand he was your pupil at one time. I’d like you to
tell me as much as you can about him.”

One eyebrow arched ever so slowly upward, as if I had just run a saber between her ribs. “Why would you like to know?”

“He’s a stunning pianist. I need to understand why he stopped playing.”

She breathed with difficulty: I had ruined another octogenarian’s evening. Finally, “He became sick.”

“With what? The same thing his mother had?”

No answer as Varnas eyed me suspiciously. “He’s playing again?”

“Just one concert.”

“How’d he do?”

“Splendidly.” After the fit had passed.

“You must have enormous powers of persuasion. I congratulate you.” Varnas’s bony hand stroked her white fox collar as she
sized me up, trying to decide whether to humiliate me with silence or blast a lot of pus from old blisters. The blisters won:
audiences were scarce at her age. “As you know, I was a very famous pianist at one time. I played in every major concert hall,
with every major orchestra, in the world.”

Obviously not very well, otherwise she’d still be doing it. I nodded reverently. “Yes, I know.”

“At the height of my career, Ethel Kiss brought me to Washington to hear her son Fausto, who was then seven years old. He
was a phenomenally gifted child. Ethel proposed that we travel together so that the boy could continue his studies without
interruption.” Varnas paused melodramatically. “Naturally, I accepted, honoring my debt to the Muse. For the next ten years
the Kisses and I went all over the world. We had quite a time. Quite a time.” Varnas’s reverie curdled into a frown. “Until
Ethel became sick. Since we could no longer travel, I insisted that Fausto stay with me in London. It was high time for him
to be on his own, away from his mother. She was a free spirit and the boy needed to become more serious. So he enrolled at
the Royal College. Ethel returned to Washington. She made frequent visits, of course. But her health deteriorated over the
next three years. She would have lucid days and terrifyingly bad days. It agitated the boy tremendously but he continued to
perform. London took notice of him.”

“I read a wonderful review of a Wigmore Hall recital.”

“Yes, that was quite an evening. I was the proudest teacher on earth.” Varnas squinted at me through half-closed eyes. “Are
you aware of what happened afterward?”

“Was that the time everyone jumped off the boat?”

“Ethel just leapt right over the railing into the water. It was incredible. Had I been able to swim, I would have tried to
rescue her as well.” A crocodile sigh: perhaps Varnas had been a little in love with her pupil, who was hopelessly in love
with his mother. “Her decline after that was swift. She died three months later. Fausto was in Washington for a month. When
he returned to London, he was a shadow of himself. But I convinced him that he must go on. Music was his salvation! He shut
himself away and practiced like a fiend.”

Silence. I waited for the inevitable. “He was at the Purcell Room, in the middle of an electrifying performance of
Petrouschka,
” Varnas continued. “When suddenly he just stopped, stared at his fingers, and staggered offstage. I found him lying on the
floor having a—a nervous fit. Just like his mother’s. It was horrifying.”