Nightingale (6 page)

"Drop the old man! The blind fool didn't even think far enough ahead to protect you from his Countess!"

"To go with you? You who are at the feet of a new lady as soon as the last one's belly shows?" By this time Klara knew their ways all too well.

And it was not only the rakes young and old, but musicians, other singers and orchestra members who now looked at her differently. Here, she soon understood, was where the real danger lay. Mutual admiration among comrades in a shared discipline, comrades who also worshipped the Divinity of Music, could be a powerful aphrodisiac.

Klara stayed in her modest apartment, among furnishings and a few servants, the kind suited to a bourgeois existence even after the Count's return. After a little argument, he’d acquiesced to her desire to be, at least apparently, independent of him.

Still, Maximilian suspected what must happen as soon as he allowed his caged bird a little more freedom. During his next prolonged absence, Klara fell in love for the first time. Her idol was a young Italian, a talented tenor, whose glorious voice had sent him in one leap from chorus to hero. That winter Klara and Giovanni sang the parts of lovers, ridden the always thrilling skyrocket of success together. It wasn't long before Klara believed she was in love with him.

Overflowing with self-confidence, black-eyed and darkly handsome, Giovanni Lugiati filled her heart and mind for the better part of a whirlwind three months. She prepared herself to tell her patron that she and Giovanni were to be wed, had happily been thinking ahead to a glorious future of shared music and love, when one day she woke up to discover that during the night her lover had precipitously left for Milan.

***

"I thought Giovanni and I would marry and leave Vienna," Klara whispered against Akos’ cheek, "but then, Max came back."

One morning, when she'd gone joyously to see Giovanni, his landlady met her at the door, saying he'd decamped in the middle of the night, leaving no forwarding address. An hour later, while she was lying prostrate upon her bed in a pool of tears, Max had come marching in.

"All this over a florin a dozen Italian tenor!” He sat down beside her and roughly turned her over, pushing the ruddy dark hair from her face.

Of course, that had been provocation sufficient to rouse. Maximilian let her slap him once, then he'd simply engulfed her little hand in his big one.

"
Basta
! Enough! And I really don't deserve it!"

"Oh yes you do! You have driven my darling Giovanni away!"

"Yes. Aside from the fact that you are mine, a small fact which you seem to have forgotten, that arrogant brown cockerel was a disaster, not half good enough for my Maria Klara!"

"I don't love you. I know that now. You are the vilest kind of aristocrat! One who has used his power to force himself upon a helpless dependent! You've done your worst
, now let me go! I'm not your slave! I shall follow Giovanni."

"You and I, Maria Klara, will be done with each other when I say so and not a moment sooner." The Count was entirely calm, as if his words were sweet reason. "As for your Italian cockerel, well, some day you will thank me for running him off. What do you know of men, little bird? Jealous of your freedom, your voice, that prancing fool would have filled you with baby after baby, out of a weak need to assure himself he owned you. He would have destroyed your talent. "

"Dreck!" Klara screamed, spitting. "Dreck! Dreck! Dreck!"

She’d stared up into those cold, considering eyes and watched, mesmerized, as her contempt dripped from his proud hawk's face.

"The sad truth is that forty ducats and the promise of a primo role in Milan was all it took to get rid of Giovanni Lugiati, Klara," Max had said, getting out a handkerchief to wipe his face. "All things considered, I'm wondering if I’ve let him off too lightly." His pale eyes, which she'd seen full of desire as he moved passionately above her, seemed as cold as the frozen Danube, as cruel as those of his favorite falcon.

"Sir," she'd whispered, heart in her throat, "
please, oh please, do not hurt Giovanni."

"I did not have to hurt him, Klara. I confess that I longed to crush his throat
… I confess that I told him that I would do exactly that, but Signor Lugiati's greed and good sense prevented such wanton destruction of what even I must admit is a lovely instrument. I wish you could have seen how quickly and gratefully Bellisimo Giovanni Lugiati took the forty ducats and my letter of recommendation to Count Pallavicini in Milan."

When she began to sob bitterly, the Count released her.

"Imagine," Klara sobbed, "when you took me away from Saint Cecelia’s I thought I was so lucky, that my life was to be a fairy tale! What would the good Mother Superior have thought if she had known that you only meant to make me your whore?"

"Ridiculous! You can't really believe that. Why, even with your talent, don't you realize that without me you'd still be in the chorus?" He’d tried to stroke her, but she had furiously pushed his hand away. "Never mind," he grumbled, humbly accepting her rebuff. "You'll soon forget the greasy fool."

"I'll never forget my darling Giovanni and and his love. You may force me, but you will never again be able to compel my affection."

"Proud words, but still so
naïve." Max had suddenly smiled, so fierce and knowing, that Klara had thrown herself at him again in redoubled rage. Without much trouble he caught her wrists and tossed her back down upon the bed.

"Let me suggest," he said, getting to his feet and assuming the calm attitude of a schoolmaster giving a lesson, "that you do not yet understand your own warm female nature. What happened is that I was gone for too long and the strutting fool dared to caress you.
Cosi fan tutte!
Women are not called the weaker sex for nothing. My only prayer is that you be spared any lasting memento of this foolish and dangerous escapade."

"I hope I am carrying his child." She’d not bothered to deny that she'd given herself to Giovanni. "I pray that I am! All of Vienna will laugh at you and will know that for a moment a slave tasted freedom."

"Some dreck of your own, sweetheart." Max was dismissive. He turned on his heel and strode to the door, shaking his gray head wearily. "You have absolutely no idea of the hell you are wishing upon yourself."

Klara had raised her head, feeling only satisfaction. Something she'd said had finally hurt him!

"Once and for all, both presumptuous musicians and young rakes alike have been put on notice that Prima Donna Silber is firmly in the protection of Maximilian von Oettingen."

"By the Blessed Mother, I shall not be your slave forever. I swear it."

Max stopped at the door, one powerful hand resting on the high door latch, gazing back at her.

"The day will come when I will relinquish you to whatever fate devises," he replied evenly, as if this, too, were an outcome he would control. "But, Klara, haven't your teachers explained that words should be chosen precisely? You are not my slave. A more perfect metaphor would be that of a little brown nightingale kept in a fine and luxurious cage for her own good."

"Your pet!"

"My sweet, sweet songbird." Tenderness, for the first time in this encounter, entered his voice. "My beautiful and wonderfully talented Nightingale."

When she began to weep hopelessly he’d said, "Now listen to me, Maria Klara and listen well! I charge you to always remember, I am the one who holds the key to your cage."

Klara, raising a tear-stained face, caught a glimpse of something Max had certainly had not wanted her to see. The cruel self-confidence of his words did not match his expression. He seemed drained, for the first time ever in her eyes, like an old man.

***

"When he took me from Saint Cecil
ia's, I thought I might be a love child of his." Klara could feel confession coming, a torrential wave pouring from her soul. For the last hour she had been trying to swallow the past and its attendant sorrow back, but it was like a huge lump she couldn't close her throat around. Besides, his eyes seemed to demand nothing less than honesty.

"Count Oettingen?"

"Yes, but I’ve since learned that he he always has a singer." Miserably Klara raised the towel and blew her nose. "He had me educated like a lady, gave me the finest teachers. He opened the door for me at the Court theater, and I thought he was the kindest man in the world – I loved him like a good father! And then he, then he….”

Akos nodded, his eyes darkening with sympathy.

"The night after I had my first big success at the opera. At first I thought I loved him." Klara gazed into Akos' eyes, those beautiful eyes, praying not to see the love there change to disdain. "I had to."

He took her hand in his, gently carried it to his mouth and kissed it with as much reverence as he might have kissed the hand of the Virgin herself. When he raised his eyes to her again, he said, "For so many musical women, especially those of great talent, it is often this way."

"Ah, Herr Almassy…." His sympathy, his high regard, hurt almost as much as she had earlier imagined his disdain might. "I am ruined for the love of any honest man."

Klara rolled her head from side to side in grief, buried her face in her hands.

"Don't believe it." He was stern as he took her hands away, refusing to let her hide. "Never say it. He has done his worst, but he hasn't touched your soul, Fraulein. It remains pure and bright as your name." He drew her close against his slim strength, rocking her and her sorrow, her illness, like a child.

The sun came and went, a slow moving, a golden line upon the floor. After a while Akos said softly against her cheek, "I have heard about Giovanni Lugiati."

The look on her face, the flush, the rapid rising and falling of her bosom, the renewed tears, told the story of this next humiliation without words. To keep her from running from him, Akos' strong arms tightened, drawing her against his shoulder like a baby. Klara, far gone in the momentum of confession, was too weak to resist.

The kettle hissed softly; the fire crackled. The rattle and noise of the street, the sound of chatter in the apartment below rose into their silence. Akos held her, gently rubbed her back. Klara drew a deep sobbing breath, rested her head against the somber black broadcloth that covered his muscular shoulder. Now that it had all come out, she felt exhausted.

After a pause to use her handkerchief, she said, "Herr Almassy, I know what I must do. I must take the money I have saved and leave Vienna, try to make a life outside of the Empire. It is a bitter choice, though," she trembled as she spoke the words, the words which revealed the cross upon which she hung, "to choose between freedom and my art. Oh, when I think of never standing upon a stage again!"

"A nightingale in a cage
," Akos interrupted, quietly repeating Max's words. His strong arms were still around her. His face, serious and beautiful like that of a dark angel, turned to her.

"I am not afraid of Count Oettingen, Maria Klara. I will help you fly away. And not to obscurity, but to fame in another place. The Count does not command everywhere."

The room seemed to brighten, to open, at his words. A ray of sun, a miracle upon this afternoon of gray cloud slabs suddenly entered the kitchen windows.

Klara gazed at him in wonder. Her hand began a slow traverse along the bones of his cheek and jaw, deliberately, carefully, as if she were blind and learning to know him by touch. Akos' strong hand came to make an echoing tracery of her sad, sweet face. Tears stood bright.

"You mustn't endanger yourself on my behalf. I must find the strength to do what I must alone."

"I can take care of myself. And in this world, as you well know, by the rule of law, by the rule of church, a woman has no being but in a man. You will need help."

Even through the tears, her blue eyes flashed. She had allowed herself to depend upon Giovanni, too, upon his promises of eternal love. As if he had read her mind, Akos said, "But, Frauelein Silber, another pledge I will make to you. It is not my intent to take you from one cage only to seek to put you into another."

A sob rose. With those words he pierced straight to her darkest fear, the fear Max had taught her to know whenever she imagined the love of any other man.

Was this truly the miracle she'd prayed for? Was there a man on earth not like Max, wanting only to possess, to control, to display?

"Maximilian is not only a powerful nobleman, but he is a man who is said to take pleasure in killing. And you ah, sir
….”

"A mere musician, but I too have secrets, Maria Klara, for that is but one of the roles I play. I do not deny that your Count is a formidable enemy, but I am more than he thinks. You shall be free. Yes, you shall be free. I swear it!"

Capturing her hand, he brought to his lips. This time when he kissed, his mouth touched not the back, but made a tender salute to the palm. There was a thrill, not only in the warm caressing, but in his brave words, which had filled her winter dark heart with a spring-time of hope. She wanted to put her arms around him, to kiss him, but instead she said, "I cannot accept your help. I must do this thing alone. When Max comes back, I shall break with him for good and all. I shall leave Vienna.”