Читать книгу Gramercy Park - Paula Cohen - Страница 9

LIKE JUNO ON MOUNT OLYMPUS, Mrs. William Backhouse Astor stands at the pinnacle of New York society. From her exalted vantage point, with its commanding views, Mrs. Astor single-handedly metes out the fate of those would-be immortals who everlastingly strive for a place on the holy mount. The self-appointed arbiter of worth in her rarefied universe, Mrs. Astor admits only the most deserving to the ranks of the blessed. In all such matters her power is absolute, and her word, law.

In consequence of such toilsome efforts to organize society into a finely measured hierarchy, and to elevate it to ever new levels of distinction, Mrs. Astor’s life had been measured not in days or weeks or months, but in cotillions and balls and levées. For twenty years, newcomers worthy of a foothold on the lower rungs of the celestial ladder might have been invited to an afternoon reception, one of the lesser observances in Mrs. Astor’s ritual; only for those in the preeminent ranks of the pantheon would there have been an invitation to one of her weekly dinner parties.

But alas for New York! The goddess’s consort is two years dead. While Mr. Astor lived, Mrs. Astor’s year would begin in the autumn, when the elite, after the summer’s diaspora, were gathered once more in the city; would build momentum through the fall and early winter with patriarchs’ balls, assembly balls, family circle dancing classes, Monday nights at the opera, and a hundred exquisite suppers at Delmonico’s; would whirl past Christmas and the New Year; and would achieve its culmination at her annual ball, held on the third Monday of each January—the single most sacred occasion of the social year. Since Mr. Astor’s translation to an even higher sphere, however, his widow has ceased to entertain. For two years, no events have breathed life into the great crimson and gold ballroom in Mrs. Astor’s Fifth Avenue mansion.

Until tonight.

Tonight is a supreme occasion, in every respect worthy of bringing society’s queen out of mourning: not merely an amusement, but a portent of glories to come … a ball to welcome Maestro Mario Alfieri, primo tenore assoluto, to New York. Moreover, it is a radical departure for the fastidious Mrs. Astor, an anomaly that in itself would be enough to bring society snapping to attention. Mrs. Astor has long held that artists of any ilk—painters, authors, actors, and the like—merit no recognition unless safely dead, and that meeting them risks both needless mental fatigue and the possibility of social contamination.

But Mario Alfieri is no ordinary artist. The reigning god of Europe’s opera stages for as long as Mrs. Astor has been the reigning goddess of New York society, he is still bettering his art, going from strength to strength, and triumph to triumph. What is more, he is said to be able to trace his ancestry back, in an unbroken line, for five hundred years, a feat that dazzles in a country where four generations of known ancestry constitute an aristocracy. Lastly, and providing the absolute gilding on the lily, is the fact that he dines regularly with the Prince of Wales. Alfieri is notorious, in fact, for having certain tastes in common with His Royal Highness that cannot be mentioned in polite society, and it is widely rumored that the two have been known, on numerous occasions, to cap their dinners with visits to certain private establishments where exquisite young women use astonishing skills to gratify quite other kinds of appetites.

True or not, it makes no difference. The entire Continent lies at the tenor’s feet, and those American aristocrats who have seen and heard him during seasons in London, Paris, and Milan have, for several years, been feverishly negotiating for the honor of humbling themselves before the tenor on their own soil.

And success is theirs at last. On the nineteenth of November, a little less than six months from tonight, Maestro Alfieri will make his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House and begin his conquest of yet another continent. To have ample time to prepare for this momentous occasion, he arrived here a week ago; and the reverence in which New York holds him can best be appreciated by realizing that Mrs. Astor had arranged to call upon him—in her own person—on the very next day, bearing an invitation to tonight’s gala.

Alfieri had been reluctant to attend at first, pleading the fatigue of his travels, but Mrs. Astor had, of course, carried the day … with the result that he is here, now, looking like a prince of darkness with a familiar in mauve and purple—which is Mrs. Astor herself—appended to his arm.

Magnificently arrayed, formidable in her majesty, Mrs. Astor stands in her traditional place beneath the celebrated life-sized portrait of herself by Carolus-Duran, bidding welcome to the long line of lesser divinities as they approach. Pearls and diamonds glitter, thick as the stars of heaven, across her antique lace bodice and down her long velvet train, and crowning her black pompadour is the fabulous diamond and amethyst starburst tiara that had once belonged to the Empress Eugénie.

But for all her splendor, Mrs. Astor is eclipsed tonight. It is upon the tall and smiling man at her side that all eyes instinctively fasten. His face has long been familiar to habitués of Europe’s greatest opera houses: the wide forehead, the brilliant black eyes and heavy brows, the prominent nose, the full lower hp. Familiar, too, is the way that, in smiling, the right corner of his mouth draws up, creasing his cheek with deep lines of mirth and almost shutting his right eye … as if the warmth of his smile, so like the sunlight of his native land, causes him to squint even as it brightens everything it touches.

Mrs. Astor, standing with her hands clasped about his arm, flutters in the light of that smile like a netted moth; and if Alfieri seems amused that she forgets her imperial dignity in his presence, it is a kindly amusement—such lapses happen all the time and he is used to them by now: one German princess even forgot herself so far as to kneel to him.

“You are most kind to a stranger in a strange land,” he says to those who crowd around him as the receiving line dissolves in the heat of the evening’s excitement. “Thank you for inviting me.” His voice is soft and very light, holding no hint of any hidden glory.

“The pleasure is New York’s, we assure you, maestro,” says one matron. “We only hope that you will enjoy your stay in our city, and come to think of it as home.”

“Madame, if all of its people are like you, I cannot fail to do that.”

It seems, in fact, that this night he cannot fail at anything. At the sight of him, New York goes slightly mad, its most exalted citizens jostling each other in their haste to be at his side, and he laughs as he shakes the hands of the gentlemen, and bends over the outstretched fingers of the ladies, and says charming and appropriate things to the glowing faces of both—such as how he remembers Mrs. Dobson from that reception in Rome two years ago, and hopes her daughter’s wedding had come off as planned; and how, yes, he does recall Mr. Martindale from that small supper party after the performance of Faust last fall in Paris, and trusts that his gout is much improved; and no, he has never had the pleasure before, but surely Mrs. Pennington must be a cousin, and not a very distant one, of the delightful Comtesse de la Mercier-Trouville, for the resemblance is certainly remarkable …

And the city surrenders.

Thaddeus Chadwick watches it go down from a vantage point on the far side of the ballroom. Three broad, shallow steps lead up and into the conservatory, and he stands on the topmost of these and observes the debacle through gleaming spectacles, a small, mild, Buddha-like smile on his face. He is a portly man, all jowls and chins, with sausage fingers encased in tight white gloves, and an odd, bobbing quality to all of his movements, for his thin legs and small feet seem not to support him so much as to anchor him to the ground, much as a string holds a child’s balloon.

“… most astonishingly handsome,” one substantial lady in blue silk and sapphires is saying as she passes by amid a knot of revelers, fresh from their introductions to the guest of honor. “And not vulgar in the least. I had expected him to be quite uncouth … and yet he seems a perfect gentleman, for all that he is such a notorious libertine …” And she gasps, turning bright pink at her own audacity.

Her companions laugh and murmur agreement, but a slender woman in dove-gray satin embroidered with pearls, replies: “Oh, no! My brother has written me from Florence. He says that the Alfieri family is most respectable. They can trace their line back to the fifteenth century, and are descended from the Medici.”

“The Medici?” Chadwick says, lifting a glass of wine from the tray of a passing footman. “What of them, Mrs. Hadcock? If it is true—and I very much doubt that it is—they hardly seem to have done him much good. Your great Maestro Alfieri is no better than Little Tommy Tupper. He, too, sings for his supper.”

It is the lady’s husband who takes up the challenge. “Perhaps you would call it supper, Chadwick, but then, attorneys doubtless set far richer tables than do bankers, which—alas!—is what I am. I rather think of what Maestro Alfieri sings for as a twelve-course banquet. With an excellent vintage at every plate.” Hadcock smiles faintly. “He earns twenty-five hundred dollars for each performance. A very rich supper,” he says, and eyes widen as jaws go slack.

Chadwick clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Details of finance before the ladies, Hadcock? How shocking!”

“Only when the boodle’s your own, old man,” says another member of the little group, turning to Hadcock. “Is that his price? For each performance?”

“That, and twenty-five percent of the gross over five thousand … every time he steps onstage.”

Another man does the calculations. “But that’s upward of five thousand dollars a night! For twenty performances … that’s one hundred thousand. You must be joking! Grau would never spend that kind of money … and even if he would, Morgan and the other shareholders would never stand for it!”

“He would and they have. In fact, Morgan and the others will hoist Grau on their shoulders. Grau knows what draws, and he’s willing to spend in order to get. Alfieri will bring money into the house as it’s never been brought before.”

“Where did you hear all this?”

“Beeson told me over luncheon at the club. Grau called him in during the negotiations; they needed his expertise in foreign currencies and rates of exchange. Alfieri is no one’s fool, by the way … he’s being paid in pounds sterling and the money is going directly to his account in London.”

“Beeson advised him, of course,” someone else says.

“So I thought,” says Hadcock. “But Beeson says not. He said it was one of Alfieri’s own stipulations. He also said that he wished his own people had as much business sense.”

“Quite a compliment, coming from Beeson,” says still another. “But the man must get advice from someone. He’s a singer, not a financier.”

Hadcock shakes his head. “Perhaps he does. But it appears that he handles all his business affairs himself, and just today Beeson told me that in the week Alfieri’s been here he’s made inquiries about some very sound investments.”

“Then perhaps he is descended from the Medici, after all,” murmurs Mrs. Hadcock.

For these, at least, of Mrs. Astor’s guests, it only remains to be seen if the tenor can make lame men walk and blind men see; there is plainly nothing else he cannot do.

Still talking amongst themselves about the prodigy they have just met, the little group moves on. Chadwick watches them go, slowly sipping his wine until, tiring of the noise and the heat, he retreats to the conservatory, to seat himself in the cool shadows and smoke a cigar amid the foliage. If he is surprised, halfway through his cigar, to have someone sit down quietly beside him, he gives no sign of it.

“Mr. Chadwick?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Chadwick, I believe that you are the only man in New York tonight whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting. I am Mario Alfieri.”

“I know who you are, signore, even though I did not join the lines of those waiting to shake your hand. I am not easy in crowds.”

“On a warm night even I find them trying, Mr. Chadwick. There is no need to apologize.”

“Apologize? I’m not apologizing, signore; merely explaining.”

The tenor smiles in the darkness. “Then let me explain, as briefly as I can, why it is that I have sought you out. You are, in fact, the chief reason that I am here tonight, although I would hope that you would not say as much to Mrs. Astor. I understand from Mr. Upton that you were the late Mr. Slade’s attorney.”

“If this is business, Signor Alfieri, perhaps it will wait until tomorrow? You may not be particular about where you are when you break into song, but I make it a rule never to discuss business either after hours or away from my office.” He stands and bows shortly. “Allow me to retire so as not to disturb you.”

“I wish to buy Mr. Slade’s house, Mr. Chadwick.”

There is silence for several moments. “Did you say ‘buy,’ signore?”

“I did.”

“Strange. I was not aware that the property is for sale.”

“Nor am I. That, obviously, is why I am speaking with you now.”

“But you are aware that the house is available for lease. Did Mr. Upton tell you why?”

“He told me that you are in no hurry to sell it, but wish the money for its upkeep to come from somewhere other than Mr. Slade’s estate.”

“Mr. Upton does not have a massive intellect, Signor Alfieri, but he shows houses very well, and his memory is excellent. What he told you is perfectly true. What, then, makes you think that we are prepared to sell the house, at this time—to you or any other speculator?”

“Because the sale of the house—for cash—which I am prepared to pay, Mr. Chadwick—would both relieve you of the burden of responsibility for it and enrich Mr. Slade’s estate considerably. And surely a man as careful as yourself would welcome the opportunity to save time, as well as money.”

“You are being presumptuous, signore, which is unbecoming to a so-called gentleman. And have you any idea of what the property would fetch if it were for sale?”

“I have a vague idea, Mr. Chadwick. I saw the house today. I have a few properties in Europe—a town house in London, an apartment in Paris, a country place outside of Florence. I would wish to buy Mr. Slade’s house as it is, by the way. Completely intact,” he says pleasantly. “Just as it was during Mr. Slade’s lifetime.”

“As an investment?”

“As a place to live. I will be here for more than a year.”

“And what do you wish me to say to you, signore? Surely you do not expect me to quote you a price here and now?”

“Hardly that, Mr. Chadwick. I merely wish you to tell me if the house is for sale, and, if it is, whether or not you will see my attorney if I send him to you.”

There is another pause in the darkness; then: “I will see your attorney, Signor Alfieri.”

“Thank you. I am grateful to you.”

“I have not said that the house is for sale, signore. Merely that I will see your attorney.”

“But you have not said that it is not for sale, Mr. Chadwick, and I am an incurable optimist.”

“Then I will take my leave now,” Chadwick says, with another bow.

“Forgive me, Mr. Chadwick,” Alfieri says as the attorney turns to go. “There is one more thing I must ask you.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“I met Miss Adler today.”

There is a brief silence. “That is not a question, signore.”

“No, Mr. Chadwick, it is not.”

“Would you care to tell me the circumstances of your meeting?”

“Gladly. Miss Adler was feeling better than usual this morning, or so she told me. She thought that a walk, to build up her strength, would do her good. You know, of course, that she will not go outside—not even into the garden—for fear that someone will see her unfortunate hair. She decided, instead, to walk in what she calls the ‘shut-up’ part of the house. I fear that she is not so well as she tries to be, Mr. Chadwick. She became tired and could go no further, entered the music room and fell asleep. And that was where I found her.”

“You would make an excellent trial witness, signore. You are succinct and very clear. Did you speak with Miss Adler?”

“We had tea, Mr. Chadwick, and spoke, yes.”

“In her room?”

“In her sitting room.”

“Of course. And just what is it you wish to ask me about Miss Adler?”

“Just this: I am prepared to make over one whole wing of the house for her exclusive use, and to provide her with a staff and a companion—a duenna, or chaperone, if you will—so that she need not leave the home she is accustomed to. She told me that you have made arrangements to have her moved elsewhere once she is strong enough to leave. She is frightened, Mr. Chadwick, and very much alone, and she does not wish to go. She is not of age, and you are her late guardian’s attorney, and so I appeal to you. Will you permit me to do this?”

“Signor Alfieri, if your attorney comes to see me, and we find that the house is in fact for sale, and we discuss terms, and you are able, somehow, to meet those terms, and you buy the house, then you may do whatever it is you wish to do with it, including pulling it down around your ears. Miss Adler, however, is another matter entirely, which I have no intention of discussing with you, either now or in the future. I bid you good night, sir.”

Alfieri listens to Chadwick’s departing footsteps until they are lost against the distant sounds of a waltz coming from the ballroom beyond the conservatory. After several minutes, another figure disengages itself from the shadows and takes Chadwick’s vacated seat.

“Forgive my intrusion, Mario, but when I saw him leave and you did not follow …” Alfieri does not answer, and the speaker says quietly: “Is it that bad?”

Alfieri shakes his head. “I fear that Mr. Chadwick and I will never be friends, Stafford. He is not an agreeable man and I—stupidly—let him provoke me.” His tone is bitter. “You said your attorney was eloquent? He will have to be a perfect Cicero to win for me now.”

“You tried your best, Mario.”

“And failed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, yes I do. He will not discuss the matter with me under any circumstances. That is what trying my best has led to—”

“Then let Buchan handle it. I have seen him win the most amazing battles. Leave it until tomorrow.”

“—I could cut my tongue out!”

“Mario, Buchan knows him. Let him deal with it.”

“He does not care that she is afraid. How could he not care? How could anyone be harsh with her? Such a small child, Stafford … such eyes. Did I tell you about her eyes?”

“All afternoon, Mario.”

Alfieri turns to his friend, his smile returning. “You think I have gone mad.”

“I think you have been struck by lightning, as they say in Italy. Are you in love with her?”

Alfieri’s laugh is incredulous. “I? In love with a child? My God, Stafford, are there not women enough in the world? You think that now I must start with little girls?”

“She’s not a child, Mario … I understand she’s nearly twenty.”

“An old lady, certainly! But only if one is your age, ragazzo.” Alfieri shakes his head again. “Stafford, you know my family. My youngest sister—the baby, Fiorina—will be twenty on her next birthday. When she was born I was twenty, and already singing leading roles. How could Miss Adler be anything more than a child to me? And a little child, at that … when I first saw her I thought she was fourteen and no more.”

“Then why this concern for her?”

Alfieri shrugs, his smile fading. “Can you see a child in pain, and not try to help it? Some can, maybe … Mr. Chadwick, perhaps. But I cannot. And then …” He stops, thinks, shakes his head again. “I tell you, Stafford, there is something about her. She is so like … and yet not …” He raises his hands, then lets them fall, helpless, to his sides.

“Let it go until tomorrow, Mario; wait and see what Buchan can accomplish. There is nothing more to be done, certainly not tonight. Besides, all of New York must be wondering where Mrs. Astor’s guest of honor has gone.”

“You are right, my friend,” the tenor says, as they make their way back to the ballroom. “At least I know that little Miss Adler is not in any distress now. Only musicians—and the very rich—turn night into day. At—what time is it?—two o’clock in the morning?—most of the world, and especially children, are in their beds and fast asleep.” He lifts two glasses from the tray of a passing waiter and hands one to his friend. “To our success, Stafford, and her sweet dreams.”

REST OF ANY KIND, whether of mind or of body, has always eluded Clara. She cannot remember a time when sleep has come easily for her; perhaps it never has. Even in childhood, in the many beds and the many rooms of the many houses in which she had passed her years—more than a visitor, less than a guest—sleep had been a stranger. What wonder, then, that now, in her forfeited bed, in the room that is no longer hers, in the house she will soon leave forever, it should continue to pass her by.

She has left her childhood very far behind her; but she lies now, in her warm bed, as she did then, under the thin blankets and the mended sheets, in the hot rooms or the drafty ones; lies awake and staring at the chink in the curtain where morning glimmers like a star, listening to the birds wake and call—such a lonely sound—in the twilight world outside.

What was it he had said that morning? “You deserve a better life.” She had thought so, once. “My dear child,” he had said. “Have you no family to return to? No one at all?”

“No one.”

“No parents? No brothers or sisters? No relations of any kind? All dead?”

“Yes,” she had said. “All dead.”

“Then where will you go? Has anyone told you?”

“No.”

“How can you bear not to know?”

“They will tell me when it is time.”

“Haven’t you asked?”

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

“My dear, if that doesn’t matter, then what does?”

“Nothing.”

He had looked at her so pityingly. He had been so kind. He will take the house—he had told her so—and she will move on once more.

It occurs to her, now, lying in the gray light, that he must think her mind unsound; must believe her despair to be both symptom and proof of madness.

Not so. Her mind has already passed through that shadowy realm, like a soul sinking into hell, and fallen out the other side. To go mad again would mean an ascent, an upward journey; but she has tumbled out of madness onto a plain of such pitiless clarity, and there is no escape.

Madness would be a relief. Madness, at least, being shadowy, had offered her places where she could hide. But it has all come back to her now, one death resurrecting another, grief reviving grief … and here, in this boundless desolation, the vision stretches endlessly: the past remembered clearly, the present lived clearly, the future—oh, not the future of his tea leaves—seen clearly.

What she has done is always with her now, as is what is left to her; and the two are joined inextricably, the one engendering the other, and both are linked through what she is. It is like being the point where two lines cross; like peering through the wrong ends of telescopes into remote distances on both sides of her life at once; like looking forward and backward together.

There is no forgiveness in either direction. No pity. No hope.

She wipes her eyes. Waking to the sound of his voice, she had thought, at first, that she had died, and for the moment she had felt such joy, knowing that her misery was over at last. And then she had opened her eyes and seen him, and he was his voice made flesh, dark and beautiful, and she was glad she was not dead … forgetting, as she watched and listened, that alive or dead is the same to her now. If she were different, if she were not who she is …

Never mind. He had been kind. He had kissed her hand and read her tea leaves. How could he know that there was nothing to see in them because she had ceased to be long ago?

If she were different, if she were not who she is …

Alone in the dawn, Clara curls herself up, and cries.