Mozart’s Blood (31 page)

“Clothes,” he laughed, his mouth still on hers. He began to tear away his shirt, wriggle out of his jeans. He held her close with one arm and unbuttoned her blouse with his free hand.

Her blood rose in answer to his, a surge of heat, a flood of passion. Her skin came alive at every touch of his hands, his thighs, his smooth chest. Her eyelids were heavy with desire. Her lips swelled with hunger for the taste of him, for the feel of his body against hers, for the hard pressure of his mouth…and with thirst.

At the supreme moment, when the pleasure was almost too great to be borne, when his body arched above hers, he threw back his head. His throat hovered above her face. Just above the collarbone, the muscles stretched aside and revealed the beating pulse, the external jugular vein, where the blood ran tantalizingly, maddeningly close beneath the surface of silken skin. She heard the call of that hot tide and craved its source.

In her moment of abandon, her upper lip lifted and her mouth opened. It was involuntary. Instinctive, as always. She sank her teeth into and through the barrier of Massimo's skin.

He stiffened in shock, moaning something, but she held fast. She couldn't help herself. The taste of him, sweet and hot and salty, filled her mouth. She clung to him with her arms, her legs, her teeth. He fell back, and she rolled with him, her body covering his, her hair spilling across his face, across both of them, a golden veil behind which Octavia took from Massimo what she so desperately needed, and he, shivering in ecstasy and submission, gave it. Energy poured through her, thrilling in her arms and her legs and her breast. The murk she had been moving through lifted all at once.

With the return of clarity, her mind rebelled against the demands of her body. Panting, she withdrew. Still holding him close, she licked his skin where two scarlet drops welled, then licked it again. When no more drops appeared, she untangled herself from him, pulling back to look down at him, pushing her hair back so she could see his face.

Confusion shimmered in his eyes. He tried to speak to her, to say something, but it was no more than a mumble. A second later his eyelids fluttered closed.

Numb horror seized Octavia. Her blood, which had been so hot a moment before, ran suddenly cold. She jumped from the bed and stood looking down at Massimo, lying naked and vulnerable on the tumbled bedclothes. With shaking hands, she pulled the quilt up over him, tucking it under his shoulders as a mother might do, trailing her fingers across his cold cheek. He sighed at her touch and rolled to his right side. His thick mop of hair fell back, exposing the two umistakable wounds at the base of his neck.

Octavia covered her mouth with her hands. Her lips were sticky with his blood, and her body glistened with sweat. With a moan, she tore her eyes from Massimo's inert body and rushed to the bathroom.

She stood under the shower for a long time, letting the hot water sluice her. Every cell of her body seemed to vibrate with energy and strength. It was her mind that reeled, turning this way and that, looking for escape.

How would she ever forgive herself? She let the water sting her eyelids and soak her hair until it hung in lank strands across her shoulders. How would she explain—aside from the guilt and regret that consumed her—the changes that would come over Massimo? He would demand answers from her, as she had demanded them from Zdenka Milosch. She didn't know if she could face it.

But she must. The only other option was the one that Vivian Anderson had been forced to exercise. She hated to flee now, abandon her contract, ruin the years of work in building the life and career of Octavia Voss. Even worse, she could never bring herself to abandon Massimo Luca to the cruelty of Zdenka Milosch and La Società.

The thought of the Countess made Octavia's heart lurch with panic. She wrapped herself in a bathrobe and went back into the bedroom, determined to make a clean breast of it all, to tell him everything and accept the consequences.

But the bed was empty. Massimo was gone.

 

Opera in America suffered between the world wars, and with it, Hélène Singher's career. Audiences wanted the forgetful antics of speakeasies or vaudeville, not the challenging music of the opera. Nightclubs sprouted during the Great Depression, where those who could afford it went to drink and listen to big bands play hit tunes. To complicate things, Hélène Singher, who should have been growing older along with her colleagues, looked no older than in those difficult days of Caruso's
Carmen.

Hélène suggested to Ugo that she return to Europe to begin a new career, but he told her that disaster was brewing there. An oddly malevolent figure had risen to power in Germany, where there were more opera houses even than in Italy.

“It wouldn't be possible now to make a big career without singing in Germany,” he told her. “And the elders tell me this man's strength is increasing every day.”

“Are they helping him? La Società?”

Ugo nodded, his face grim. “Many of their acolytes are members of his secret police. They say he's interested, too. Endless life is a hard prospect to resist.”

“It's not truly endless.”

“No.” He was leaning against the window frame of their suite in the restored Palace Hotel, staring down into the busy streets of San Francisco. “No, but sometimes it seems like it.”

“I will never understand,” she said darkly, “why God would allow such things.”

He turned his face to her without moving his body. “Hélène. Why torment yourself? It's not God who allows it.”

She shook her head, tired of the old argument. “If we can't go to Europe, then where shall we go? I can't stay here.”

“I know. Someone asked me just the other day to tell them again where you made your début—and when.”

“What did you say?”

He gave her a narrow, distracted smile. “The usual. The obscure French town, then a contract in New York, and I'm always vague about the year. But they remember
Carmen
, because of the earthquake. And you don't look a day older than you did then.” He straightened and turned his back on the street scene. He was quiet for a time before he asked, “What would you think about Melbourne?”

“Melbourne? Where Nellie Melba was from?”

“That's it. Australia.”

“I thought there was no opera there. That she went to France because there was nothing in Melbourne.”

“That was then.” He crossed to the desk and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. As he unfolded it, it crackled, shedding bits of paper on the glass top of the desk. He smoothed it with his fingers before he handed it to her. “See? Melbourne has an opera house. There's talk of one in Sydney, too, and there are touring companies.”

Hélène took the stiff paper in her hands, and scanned it. “Touring, Ugo? Do you think we can manage—that is, that
you
can manage—touring in such a wild place?”

He said, a little sourly, “According to our Zdenka, I can.”

She made an unhappy gesture. “But do you want to? Maybe I should just stop singing for a while. A long while.”

He came to her and sat down in the little armchair opposite her chaise. Gently, he took the flyer and laid it aside, then put his hands on hers. “It was twenty-five years between Teresa and Hélène. I can't imagine how you tolerated that, all alone, no colleagues, no work…. Do you want to be idle another twenty-five?”

She shook her head.

“And I don't want you to go through that again.” He released her hands. “I think Hélène should develop some illness—rheumatoid arthritis, possibly, or senility.”

“Senility! No, Ugo!”

He laughed. “All right, no senility. But something that requires her to retire.” He touched her cheek with one finger. “A nice sea voyage sounds nice, doesn't it? And no one from America is singing in Australia these days, except for tours. They all go to Europe.”

“I'll need a new name.”

“I know. And a different accent.”

She laughed. “I'm getting awfully good at accents!”

“Yes. It helps to have plenty of time.”

 

Melbourne seemed a rough-and-ready place after the sophistication of San Francisco and New York. The Depression had hit the city hard. Its population had swelled in recent years with Greeks and Italians pouring in to fill the Victorian terrace houses. But nearly a third of the workforce had lost their jobs, and with them, their homes.

Ugo had no trouble finding a pretty apartment in the center of the city. It felt strange to take someone's home, someone who might now be standing in soup lines and begging for handouts, but it was lovely to have a place of their own. The mood in Melbourne was troubled, with politicians ranting on street corners and charities struggling to meet the demands on them. It was an odd time, in which the wealthy lived in comfort while the poor—whose numbers seemed to be growing every day—struggled just to eat.

Ugo and the new singer, Vivian Anderson, scoured the newspapers and collected playbills, searching for theater companies. On the ship from San Francisco they had developed the new persona. Vivian now had a history, a slender résumé, and conservatory credentials. Three months after her arrival in Australia, Ugo arranged her first audition at Her Majesty's Theatre on Exhibition Street, the theater where Nellie Melba had sung Violetta and Gilda and Mimi nearly thirty years before.

Vivian chose her dress carefully, a flared skirt with a fitted bodice and open collar. She brushed her hair back and tied it with a loose ribbon beneath a small dish hat. She was an expert now at auditioning, both at choosing her repertoire and at presenting herself well to an audience of no more than two or three. At Her Majesty's Theatre she sang arias of Susanna and Cherubino, selections suitable for a very young soprano. She offered the director a short list of credits, mostly conservatory productions and one or two musical theater parts in obscure Canadian cities. The director of the theater hired her on the spot.

With Ugo's help, Vivian had a much easier time building her career than had Hélène. Besides Her Majesty's Theatre, she sang recitals in Brisbane and Canberra and Sydney. She sang oratorios with regional orchestras and added several musical theater parts to her repertoire. She was asked several times to sing at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne, but somehow she and Ugo always found a conflict in her schedule, and her refusals seemed not to attract much notice.

They moved to a more spacious apartment, with a lovely veranda overlooking the Yarra River. Ugo bought a two-year-old 1937 LaSalle. Both of them wore better clothes, and on nights Vivian wasn't singing they drove out in the LaSalle to restaurants and nightclubs. They were delighted when the director of the theater decided to stage
Così fan tutte
as part of the city's festivities for Christmas 1939. He engaged Vivian to sing Fiordiligi, and he brought in a young conductor from Canberra who was just beginning his own career.

But halfway through the rehearsal period, the conductor broke his contract and enlisted in the military. Australia had declared war with Germany in September. The news from Europe was even worse than Ugo had predicted. The German houses were playing nothing but Wagner. Only the largest Italian companies were able to keep up their performances. Rumors abounded, and Jews and Gypsies were already fleeing Germany and Austria.

The cast of
Così
gathered on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre to hear their director address the crisis. Ugo lounged in the front row of seats with the stage manager and the lighting designer, all of them waiting to hear what conductor would replace the one who had gone to be a soldier.

When the name was announced, the cast and crew applauded. The director went on speaking, detailing how they would manage rehearsals until the new conductor arrived from America, but Vivian heard none of it. She fled the stage the moment she could and found Ugo waiting for her just outside the stage door. The December day was hot and windy, with what looked to be a thunderstorm building in the north.

She said, “Ugo! What are we—” but he hushed her with a finger to his lips. He took her arm and led her around the corner to where the LaSalle was parked. Not until they were inside and driving toward their apartment did he speak.

“There's nothing for it,” he said. “We'll just have to go.”

“Oh, Ugo! All this work wasted!”

Keeping one hand on the big wheel of the automobile, he put out his free hand to take hers. “There's no choice, Vivian. I'm sorry.”

With sinking heart, she stared out the window of the car at the Yarra spilling alongside the roadway. “I like being Vivian,” she said. She knew she sounded petulant, but she couldn't help it. “And I wanted to sing Fiordiligi.”

“I know,
bella,
” Ugo said gently. “I know you did.”

“Now I have to begin again, start all over. How long? How long until I can sing again?”

He shook his head. “It will be a long time, I think.”

They were just pulling up in front of their building when she cried, “The pictures!”

In the act of opening the door, he turned back. “Pictures?”

“In the lobby! The theater put up photographs of every cast member.”

“Not in costume?”

“Ugo, we don't have costumes yet. It's a new production. The pictures are in street clothes—mine is a very nice little suit with that silly blue hat. He's bound to recognize me.”

Ugo turned the door handle and climbed out of the car. “Let's go inside,” he said. “We'll make a list of things we need to do.”

They talked through the afternoon, while thunder shook the windows and the fierce Australian summer rain rattled on the roof.

The conductor coming to Her Majesty's Theatre was one Hélène knew. She had sung under his baton twice in San Francisco, when he had been a man of thirty-five or so. It had never occurred to either Vivian or Ugo that a man of seventy would take a ship across the Pacific in wartime to conduct Mozart in Melbourne, Australia. But evidently he would, and he was, and it meant the end of Vivian Anderson's brief and promising career.