Nightingale (13 page)

"Oh, God in Heaven! How could I sing? Every time I opened my mouth, I'd feel as if my heart were going to fly right out!"

"It might lead to Klara’s release, but it also might lead to trouble. What if Count Oettingen feels that you have unfairly set his peers against him? He's won far more battles than you have, young man."

"We are already in trouble, Signor," said Klara, “exactly as you have said. And the Count himself has said he would someday set me free."

"Yes, when the time came, a thing which has to do with his pleasure, and not yours." Manzoli frowned and looked away.

Akos said no more, but he slipped a protective arm around Klara's waist. In the next room, they heard the staff clatter to the floor, the signal that Liese was returning. When she entered a few minutes later, she found her mistress, the young
‘doctor’ and Signor talking about the latest opera.

***

"Let me drop you by Vehnsky's palace, Concertmaster." Manzoli made the offer as he shouldered his cloak.

"That is a long way out of yours, Signor."

"My pleasure, Concertmaster."

Once they were both in his carriage and the horses had moved off, Signor Manzoli said, "Now that we are alone, let us have a man to man talk, sir, that is," he added with a wry smile, "if you will allow me that honor."

"Certainly, Signor. You made a great sacrifice in order to serve the Muse. In my eyes, that exalts you."

"A very graceful speech, Herr Almassy." Accepting the compliment to go against Manzoli’s grain, but the poetry had clearly touched him. "Nevertheless, allow that I have seen the world from a rather different perspective than your own." When Almassy courteously nodded, he added, "Most especially in regard to Fraulein Silber."

For a time, they rocked side by side in the carriage, and listened to the clatter that arose from the surrounding traffic.

"You think I should relinquish her. Allow her to pursue her art in the imperial city."

"You have anticipated me."

"You believe, if I may presume further, that exactly as you have made a supreme sacrifice, so should I."

"I cannot even say that I remember exactly what the two of you are feeling, for I gave up my manhood the year I was eleven. I know only shadows and echoes of the desire you feel, but I have lived long and have seen ample evidence of the transitory nature of human affection."

"I have been in love before, Signor, but this is an experience entirely different, a grand passion, if you will. I believe that our love is part of our destiny."

"Ah, so lovers must say! I repeat: I am inexpressibly worried about what will happen to Fraulein Silber."

"You are also most unhappy that a future with me removes her from Vienna."

There was a moment of silence.

"Acute, Concertmaster. Yes, 'tis true that Fraulein Silber has more than one jealous old man who doesn't want to let her go. Still, try logic for a moment. What can you and the provinces offer her? What a shame to maroon in a backwater a talent like hers, the kind which comes once in a hundred years."

"She may not, in fact, be exiled to the provinces forever, for neither Count Oettingen nor his spite shall endure forever. As to myself, well, if I didn't think I was man enough to take good care of her, I wouldn't have paid her court.”

Manzoli cleared his throat and shook his head, indicating that he thought this was arrant nonsense.

“Well, Signor, let me ask you a question. You've seen her health failing for the last several winters, have you not?"

"She has had several severe catarrhs. Yes, that I cannot deny." Manzoli looked uncomfortable.

"And do you know the cause?"

Manzoli gave an expressive shrug. "These things are Acts of God."

Almassy's handsome face darkened. "I don't think you believe that, sir."

"Indeed? I believe you now verge upon presumption, Concertmaster."

Their eyes locked. Almassy said, "The cause of her illness is exactly what you wish her to go on enduring, the patronage, along with all that entails, of Count Maximilian von Oettingen."

Manxoli shook his head dismissively. "Comfort and safety, wealth, privilege and large doses of admiration are what an artist needs. Not that dubious and selfish desire which masquerades as love. Childbirth has ruined the career of more great prima donnas than I care to remember. Don't try to tell me that the danger, the uncertainty, into which you wish to carry her will do her health or her voice any good."

"Do you know of the legend of the vampire, Signor? They do indeed walk the earth and many of them are noblemen."

"This is not an opera or some Transylvanian tall tale, but the real, cruel world. Maria Klara is a rare being, a nightingale born. It is her destiny
– and her doom – to be a great singer. Anything else that may happen in her life is, and should be, incidental. You, sir, are a fine musician. I appeal to you because I know you recognize her sublime gift."

"I am said to have a good ear, Signor."

"Yes, well, I want you to consider whether your desire to possess her, your over-confidence and the kind of impetuosity I just witnessed this afternoon is truly loving her, or whether all this will simply end in her ruin. After you've taken her away from Countn Oettingen and exiled her from Vienna, will she not simply end like a thousand other women? Her belly full every other year, her voice, that glorious voice, lost in the wilds of Hungary? What can you truly offer?"

"Oettingen will kill her more surely than I." The reply came with equal force. "If she doesn't escape him, and soon, the grief she feels at what he demands of her, this evil which you call comfort, will cause her to fall ill again. Mark my words, Signor Manzoli, without hope of escape, this caged bird you profess to love will soon take flight into the arms of Death. I may not succeed in saving her, but with my last breath I shall strive to set her free."

"And it may very well be your last breath, Concertmaster, when the Count finds out."

"Why? Do you intend to betray us to him, exactly as you doubtless did when she was in love with Giovanni Lugiati?" The sudden accusation, the cold menace, caught the older man by surprise.

"Yes, well, Lugiati was a vain, selfish fool. I always do what is best for Klara."

"I shall not tell Klara about Lugiati if you will help us."

"Outrageous! You know nothing! What are you, sir? Do you think she will make you rich? I warn you, she'll be of no use once you take her from Vienna. A singer needs connections. A wealthy patron is necessary to secure her roles at all the best opera houses."

"She is a human being, too, a woman, and a sensitive one. Not everyone is capable of sacrificing as much as you have, Signor."

"She must sing. That alone is her destiny."

"I am her destiny."

Then, reaching up, Akos rapped hard on the roof the carriage, bringing the coachman to a halt. Manzoli, stunned, sat speechless while his passenger opened the carriage door and stepped out.

"Your servant, Signor Manzoli." Door opened, his tone was as even as if they had passed their journey in a discussion of the weather. Then, without waiting for acknowledgment, he turned on his heel. With a sweep of his long black coat, he strode away into thickening snow.

Manzoli's soft bulk shuddered. Watching Akos, he raised the line of flesh over his eyes where the brows should have been. His man servant, who had been riding the back luggage step, hobbled to the open door to see what his master's pleasure was.

Manzoli gestured, speaking in swift Italian: "Come inside, Vincenzio. Keep me company."

Using his crutch as if it was the missing leg, with an accompanying grimace, the servant made his way into the opposing leather seat.

"
Grazi
, Signore." He slipped the staff forward so the space would accommodate it. "The wind has teeth this afternoon. Do we go home now, Signor?"

"Yes
," Manzoli nodded. After the servant called the direction up to the driver and they had turned and started off again toward the new destination, the old singer murmured, almost to himself, "A most dangerous young man."

"Sir?" Vincenzio queried. His battered face registered surprise. "Prince Vehnsky's apothecary?"

"Ah," Manzoli murmured. "That one is a man of many parts, Vincenzio. He's also house-musician to the prince. Plays cembalo and harpsichord admirably. But what," he continued after a meditative study of the coarse features beside him, "would you take him for if you knew none of those things?"

"Well,” the man said after a moment’s thought, “he carries himself like a soldier, Signor."

"Indeed."

"Yes, Signor. And, sir, there's something else about him, now I think on it."

"Well, say on."

"You know I lost my leg serving under Count Vencel, Prince Vehnsky's second son."

"Yes, of course."

"Well, sir, that young fellow's got the look of them, don’t you think? The Vehnskys, I mean."

"You confirm my observation." Manzoli’s mind had been pouring like quicksilver ever since Akos had departed. "And there is only one thing, my old friend, more dangerous than a vengeful aristocrat."

"And what is that, Signor?"

"An aristocrat's bastard, Vincenzio. They are gunpowder waiting for a spark. And when that spark ignites, they destroy everything around them, friend and foe alike."

Chapter
7

Klara remembered the first time she'd gone to Manzoli’s apartment, how she'd been shown up the dingy stairs to his third floor apartment, quite a climb in heels and panniers and pillow bustle, high wig and hat, all the paraphernalia of the prima donna which Max insisted she always go out wearing. The woman who'd opened the door to the apartment was a curious creature, painted and wigged, too, but less than four feet high, her voice squawking harshly, like someone mimicking a parrot.

There were smells too. Some were foreign kitchen smells, Italian ones of garlic, oregano and basil. Some Klara recognized from her own house: there was vinegar used for cleaning and a musky odor of felines, who might sometimes make use of the low bins into which the ashes were swept. The furniture was heavy, gilded in a style that was now old-fashioned, with stuffing poking out through frays at the corners and bottoms in a way that confirmed the presence of cats. This desire to scratch was a perennial household war Klara also fought. Although Max insisted that cats properly belonged to barns, kitchens and roof tops, not in parlors with the good furniture, Klara allowed her Satz everywhere, with similar annoying results.

In fact, as she came further into the room, her eye was attracted by a long-haired black cat gliding away under a couch. The plumy tail, like an animate feather duster, twitched upon the terrazzo floor for a time before withdrawing into shadow.

"The Maestro will be right with you, Prima Donna Silber. He begs your patience."

The door had closed behind the squat little maid, leaving Klara alone in the music room. A monstrous, painted harpsichord had once been the centerpiece, but one of those dainty new fortepianos had been tucked in beside it. Both were neatly placed with their keyboards facing the window, so that anyone playing or reading music would have the best light.

There was music everywhere, heaps in boxes beneath the instruments and sheets on the music stands. The first ones she picked up had words in French, though it was a piece with which she was unfamiliar. Ordinarily Klara would have been intrigued and would have begun to hum what she was reading, but the strangeness of the room compelled her to study it further. She saw several wing chairs upholstered in scarlet rowed against the wall. The longest uninterrupted space was decorated with lively and well-drawn classical frescos in the Italian manner, a tall, handsome Apollo, whose expression, Klara noted, was more than usually ecstatic, perhaps because of the scantily clad Muses dancing before him.

The back of the long room was dim. It was an unfortunate fact that in this, as in so many other apartments, the middle and inner rooms had no direct access to light. As Klara's eyes became accustomed to the shadows, she saw several items of furniture. One was a baize covered card table with four chairs around it.

In the farthest corner was a long divan covered with pillows, a sensual touch, which, considering the condition of Signor Manzoli, gave her an unpleasant shuddery flicker, calling up murky visions of appetites hitherto unimagined. She imagined obscure perversities of the sort Max liked to threaten her with when he was angry.

On the darkened wall, however, she spied something comforting. A violin and a viola hung neatly side by side, in a place where neither heat from the stove nor light from the window could easily reach them, the way a real musician would care for them. She moved toward them, wanting to see them better.

As her eyes adjusted, her gaze fell onto the card table where she saw cards laid out in a circle, not in the rows of solitaire. It wasn't only the pattern, but the cards themselves which were unfamiliar. They were large and marked with suits Klara had never seen before. There were stars, swords, cups, and another, a face card, she guessed, of a queen on a throne holding a leafy staff.