Mozart’s Blood (18 page)

It seemed that all of San Francisco's high society attended the opening night of
Carmen
at the Grand Opera House on Mission Street. The theater glittered with jewels and furs and rich fabrics, and the air was close with cigar smoke and perfume.

Fremstad, though unconvincing as the gypsy dancer, sang magnificently, her rich voice winding with apparent effortlessness through Bizet's sensuous melodies. The lengthy and enthusiastic ovation for Caruso's Flower Aria brought the show to a halt. But Hélène, in her unflattering costume, struggling with the stubborn tempo of her conductor, had no more than a moderate success as Micaëla. She took her bows as always, curtsying, smiling out into the house despite the humiliating coolness of her applause. It was a relief to go back through the parted curtain.

When the curtain came down for the final time, Hélène forded a stream of people crowding the stage. She found her way down the cramped hallway to her dressing room, trying to keep her composure despite her disappointment and fatigue. She was alarmed to find the dark-haired, slender stranger waiting outside her door. She tried to push past him, but he slipped inside after her.

“Get out,” she said. “The dresser will be here in a moment.”

“Please,” he said, in a gentle tone that belied his hard hand on her arm. “You must talk with me. It's for your own good.”

She pulled away from him. “You think I'm a fool. I'm no biddable girl, remember?”

“Indeed you're not!” When he smiled, his face took on a boyish charm that made her mistrust him all the more. “Hélène,” he said. “You sang gloriously tonight. And your interpretation was flawless.”

“Merci,”
she said bitterly. “Too bad the San Francisco audiences don't agree.”

“They're barbarians. They don't understand your voice.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “And so now you will stop me from ever singing again?”

“No!” He took her chin in his fingers and looked into her eyes. “I want just the opposite. Please.
Per favore,
Teresa.” He dropped his hand.

“Don't speak Italian here,” she snapped.

“Let me take you home.”

“And if I don't?”

The dresser rapped on the door and called, “Miss Singher? Are you ready?”

“You have to get out,” Hélène said, turning away from the stranger's dark gaze.

“Not until you agree.”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “Why should I? All I know about you is that you tried to kill me.”

“I did not.” He gave her that deceptively sweet smile again. “I only showed you that I knew how.”

The dresser repeated her knock.

“Promise me,” he said. “I'll wait outside.”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. He chuckled and moved to the door to hold it open for the dresser.

Hélène took her time after the dresser had carried Micaëla's costume away. She put on her new Eton suit of dove gray, with its circular skirt folded at the bottom in the latest style and jacket trimmed with silk braid and tiny ivory buttons. She brushed her hair up into a chignon and touched her cheeks and lips with rouge. When there was nothing else she could think of to do, she opened the door.

He was leaning against the wall, a slim, chic figure in a tailored overcoat and white opera scarf. He straightened as she came out, and offered her his arm.

“Ugo,” he said.

“What?”

“My name. It's Ugo.”

“Oh. Italian. Really?”

“
Ma certo, bella.
I was born in Sicily.”

She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “How long ago, Ugo?”

He grinned, took her hand, and tucked it under his arm. “Trust me,
bella.
I'm older even than you are.”

As they made their way up Market to New Montgomery Street, Hélène said, “You're not coming to my room.”

“It's not necessary. Not now. We can talk in the courtyard lounge.”

“You know my hotel.” Her feet dragged on the wooden sidewalk. Her world looked as bleak as it ever had, her career in ruins, her life in the control of this Ugo. She longed, as she often did when she was sad, for the little stone house on the shores of Lake Garda. She didn't even know if it still stood there.

“Bella,”
her companion said quietly, squeezing her hand against his side. “I know everything about you.” His waist was as lean and hard as a boy's. “Anything I couldn't find out for myself I read in Zdenka Milosch's diary.”

She caught a swift breath and lost her footing for a step. “Diary?”

He took her elbow to steady her. “Yes. Odd, isn't it, that someone with such long and perfect recall should keep a diary? But our Zdenka is nothing if not arrogant. She imagines that the details of her life are too fascinating to leave to one memory, no matter how remarkable. And a good thing it is for me. I'm not like you. My memory is long, but far from perfect. And she let me read her diary, at least the parts that relate to you.”

“And so…Mozart.”

He grinned at her. “Oh, yes,
carissima.
Mozart, and a rapacious stagehand, and a thousand other details of the early days, when I was not present but Zdenka was.”

“And was it she who told you how to—how to kill one of my kind?”

His look was sympathetic. “Oh, yes. She, and the others of the society. Though I might have guessed. I've dealt with death a great deal, I'm afraid. And the femoral artery is so vital. It makes sense, doesn't it? Heart's blood.”

They reached the Palace and made their way through the lobby to the Palm Court, where upholstered chairs were scattered here and there around an ebony grand piano. The lounge was full of celebrants, many of whom murmured as they walked by, recognizing one of the singers of the night's opera. One or two gentlemen rose and bowed as Hélène passed them. She inclined her head in thanks, and Ugo nodded acknowledgment as if it were he, and not she, who had performed.

A woman in pink satin with cascades of ivory beads gave her a sidelong glance and murmured something to her companion. They both laughed, and Hélène's cheeks burned.

Ugo led her to a corner where one of the courtyard's namesake palms provided a bit of privacy. Soon she had a glass of brandy in her hand, and Ugo, his own glass of port set aside on a low piecrust table, leaned toward her and spoke in Italian.

“La Società is very strict about their numbers. Many want what you have, and think they can acquire it. They are the foolish ones. But Zdenka and the other elders know you are not foolish. You are, in fact, most desirable, and a credit to your—let us say, to your kind. They have no regrets that you became one of them.”

She touched the brandy to her lips and set the glass down. “I was hardly given a choice in the matter.”

“I know.” He patted her hand. “But you have managed it very well, haven't you?”

“Managed it?” she said bitterly. “Survived it, I think you might say.”

“No, no, I wouldn't say that, Teresa.”

“Call me Hélène. And speak English.”

He shrugged, and switched languages. “Sorry. Hélène. But you did manage. Your previous persona lived a very long time, and yet somehow melted into obscurity, avoiding scrutiny and questions. And then you, dear Hélène, appeared as if out of nowhere, but quietly. You auditioned at the Paris Opéra, and then at the Metropolitan, a very proper rise. You keep to yourself and behave in a professional manner.” He smiled. “Well—perhaps one or two lapses. Quite unavoidable, of course.”

“Lapses,” she repeated. She picked up her glass and took a deep swallow. “I thirst. Sometimes I thirst so that I cannot bear it.”

“I know.” He took her hand in his and held it.

It felt strange to her, oddly appropriate, as if he were a friend. But of course that couldn't be. She had not had a friend—not a true friend—since Vincenzo died. Not since Teresa had been forced to disappear more than fifty years before. She had dared to reemerge only when everyone who had known her was gone. She took a new name, and she started again.

His gaze was soft on hers, as if he understood what she was thinking. “La Società is offering you a choice.”

“Kill or be killed? A poor choice, I think.”

“No. Listen to me, Hélène Singher.” He squeezed her fingers and then released them to pick up his glass. “I am part of the choice.”

“Sex? You could find that anywhere!”

Now he laughed with real mirth. “No, no, not sex! The kind you can offer doesn't interest me.”

“What, then?”

“I will supply you with what you need. With
sangue.
”

She nearly spilled brandy over her Eton suit. “That's not possible!”

“Oh, but I assure you,” he said, “it is.”

“But how would you get it?”

His eyes narrowed a little, and the hard glint she remembered from the first night she had met him shone out of them. “As I said, there is an inexhaustible supply of fools.”

She narrowed her own eyes, trying to see behind his urbane façade. “You're telling me,” she said slowly, “that I would no longer need to…resort to the tooth.”

“An interesting phrase. You can do that if you prefer. But when you do, it must be final.”

“How would you give me what I need?”

He put his dark hand inside his coat and pulled out a small, flat packet tied with tabs of linen. Holding it low, so that no one else could see, he unfolded it to reveal several gleaming needles, a roll of black silk, and four empty vials of dark glass.

Hélène eyed the apparati. “What is all of that?”

“You can guess, surely.”

“I need to think about this.”

“You must think before you grow thirsty again,
bella.
They won't tolerate any more randomly chosen members of La Società.”

She put a tentative finger on one of the vials. The glass was thick and brownish, cold to the touch. She felt like a trapped animal, her back to a corner, with no escape from her tormentor. And yet—

She looked up at his finely cut features, his full lips, his delicate, rather narrow nose. His black eyes could be frightening or appealing. She shouldn't trust him, but there was something in those eyes, and the touch of his hand, that tempted her. They spoke of comfort, beguiled her with the possibility of no longer being alone.

She opened her mouth to ask him more about La Società, but before she could speak, his nostrils flared suddenly. He threw his head up and froze, the way an animal does when it hears something. His eyes narrowed, and he said urgently, “Get up! We have to get out of here.”

“What's wrong?”

“Don't say anything.” He gathered the needles and vials into their cloth case and folded it. He tucked it into his inner coat pocket even as he stood, pulling her to her feet. “Hurry, please!”

She glanced around her at the crowd in the courtyard. The hour had grown late, well past midnight, but the crowd had hardly diminished. Whatever Ugo thought he had heard, evidently no one else had. They talked on, sipping their drinks, smoking.

Hélène lifted her long coat from the chair and slung it over her shoulders as she let him tug her past the palm tree and on toward the door. As she passed the woman in beaded satin, the lady gave a tipsy laugh and scattered droplets of champagne across her bosom.

As they reached the door, Hélène said, “Ugo, what is it?”

He cast her a glance that glittered like obsidian. “Something's coming.” His grip on her hand hardened. “We're going to find shelter.”

“Surely the hotel—”

“No. Bricks, and flimsy wood. Come. This way.”

He pulled her out through the lobby and into the street. They set off at a near run toward Market Street. He turned left, drawing her with him up the slope toward Golden Gate Park. As they drew near it, Hélène heard a distant rumble, as of thunder. She glanced up into the April sky. It was almost perfectly clear, with stars glimmering through faint wisps of high fog. Dawn already brightened the eastern horizon. The moving waters of the bay shimmered silver and green under its rosy light.

The park was deserted, and oddly silent. Hélène peered up into the trees, wondering what had become of the birds. Surely they should have been singing their morning greetings by now. Ugo led her to the highest point in the center of the park, where a grassy field stretched on either side of them, and there he stopped. He stood still, his head lifted, his eyes fixed on something she couldn't see.

The rumble came again, and this time it didn't fade, but grew louder. Hélène whirled involuntarily to look behind her, thinking a train was bearing down on them or that a wagon full of logs was crashing through the park. There was nothing there.

Just as she turned back to Ugo, to beg him to explain, the first temblor hit.

It felt as if the log she had imagined began to roll beneath her feet, and a heartbeat later it was ten logs, or fifty. The earth groaned as if its bones were breaking, and the ground shifted so that if Ugo had not held her wrists with an iron grip, she would have fallen. Church bells began to ring in the city below them as the temblor shook their towers. The city itself seemed to moan, a long, painful sound that lasted for a minute or more. When it stopped, there was a moment of respite, a sort of suspension when even the breeze was stilled. Then, ten breathless seconds later, another great temblor shook the city.

Ugo pulled Hélène to her knees, and he knelt beside her, one arm around her back, the other hand pressing her head down. Trees began to fall, randomly, their impact intensifying the shaking of the ground. Tearing noises ripped the cool morning air as building fronts began to collapse, spilling bricks and glass into the streets. A great roar began in the area of Chinatown and rumbled across San Francisco as the earth bucked and rolled.