‘And I came with him,’ he said now. ‘What else could I do?’
I ordered another glass of wine for him. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I see. And tonight? What kept you so late?’
‘I was trying to get an interview with Van der Velde.’ ‘The impresario?’
Kraszinsky nodded. ‘Meierwitz refused to see me, so did Niklaus. The Dutchman was my last chance. I went to his office but they said he wasn’t in, so I went out to his villa in Hitzing. A beautiful place… a long drive and high gates with stone pillars. The maid wouldn’t let me in — she said he was away from town. But I waited… I waited all day by the gates. I thought I would throw myself down on the gravel in front of his automobile, I was so desperate. It was evening before he came and then the chauffeur got out and said he would call the police if I didn’t go away.’
‘Is that what you want for Sigismund? A concert? Is he ready?’
Kraszinsky shrugged. ‘I tried all the music academies at the beginning. Probably it would be best for the boy to be with good teachers and postpone his debut… I don’t know. But no one would see me there either. If the doorman didn’t throw me out it was one of the secretaries. They only see a poor Pole with a foreign accent and funny clothes.’ He stretched an arm across the table in a gesture of despair. ‘I only want them to hear Sigi. Is it such a crime to want that? Is it so wicked of me to ask it?’
Yes, of course it’s wicked. To be talented and still alive in Vienna is unforgivable. Ask Mozart, ask Hugo Wolf… Ask Gustav Mahler who died six weeks ago to the unctuous lamentations of the men who hounded him.
But my mind was on something else. On Van der Velde, to be exact. Meierwitz and Niklaus I only knew by their less than savoury reputations, but Van der Velde I had met. Van der Velde I had, in fact, once known quite well.
I decided to go to the Opera.
This was nice of me: a sacrifice. It was Tristan and Isolde; the last night of the season and the last appearance of the veteran soprano Motte-Ehrlich before her retirement, so all Vienna would be there. Not just the fashionable world, but critics and agents and impresarios.
But if I felt daunted at the prospect of all that darkness and sadness on ramps, there was someone who was pleased. Up there on her cloud, the Polish wraith (now red-haired and not resembling at all Frau Wilkolaz in the paper shop) looked down at me and smiled.
Of the families who had offered me, whenever I cared for it, a place in their box, I selected Peter Konrad and his wife. Konrad owns a large department store in the Mariahilferstrasse with a flourishing dress department. He’s always been helpful to me in my work and I thought a little professional gossip in the interval wouldn’t come amiss.
‘Of course, dearest Susanna,’ said Konrad when I telephoned him. ‘I’ll be enchanted. In fact you’ve saved my life — Marie has gone on to the Attersee with the children; they’ve all had chicken pox and needed the mountain air. Being envied by all the men in Vienna will make up for four hours of High Germanic screeching.’
There are not many Wagnerians in the rag trade.
I decided to wear black velvet, cut very low, with a small train, and gardenias in my hair.
‘Ah, you mean dressing against the season,’ said Nini appreciatively. ‘While everyone else is all frothy in muslins and organza.’ She paused, eyeing me tentatively. ‘And The Necklace?’
I nodded. It was The Necklace which would turn this somewhat banal outfit into a triumph, but the topic is taboo between us. I have told Nini that my diamond necklace is a fake and she has raised her iconoclastic Magyar eyebrows and disbelieved me.
I never wanted presents from Gernot. I don’t know why this is — I took them readily enough from my earlier admirers, but when I found out what being in love really meant, I became difficult. I wouldn’t let him buy me jewellery or lend me money to start my own shop, and I made my own clothes.
‘I don’t want any wages of sin,’ I said, teasing him, ‘I like sin and no one is to pay me for it.’
Not quite true, but my struggles in the confessional were not his business.
‘And what of me?’ he said furiously. ‘Would it hurt you to consider my feelings in the matter?’
But seeing how serious I was he acquiesced. For five years he only bought me flowers. Then one snowy December day a week before Christmas, a messenger arrived with a box from Cartier’s in Paris. ‘You will accept this,’ said the accompanying dictatorial note. ‘You will not, please, make me any scenes.’
It was a bad moment. Gernot is not rich; I envisaged a small forest sold, a farm sacrificed. Each time I wear this necklace I am transformed.
Peter Konrad came to collect me. From his startled look before he began to pay the routine compliments I saw that my toilette was effective, and I was glad of it because I had work to do.
We dined first at Sachers and he told me all the gossip of the trade. Chez Jaquetta, I was happy to hear, was borrowing too much, expanding too quickly.
‘And you, my dear? You’re doing well?’
‘Yes. Modestly, but steadily, I think.’
‘I’m still annoyed that you wouldn’t come and run my dress department. The woman I’ve got is adequate but you would have made it the place to go.’
‘It’s nice of you, but I really love my shop, Peter. I don’t think I could bear to be anywhere else; it’s exactly right for me.’
He was a nice man, old enough to regard me as still young and desirable, but handsome and distinguished with his thick, greying hair and superbly cut clothes.
We entered the foyer of the Opera well pleased with each other. Looking round I saw that indeed ‘everyone’ was there. Princess Stephanie, Rudolf’s widow and the plainest woman in the Empire; Hugo von Hofmannsthal; the French Ambassador with his party. I’m good at walking up staircases — models have to be — but as I ascended, smiling at acquaintances, demurely ignoring the stares of potential admirers, I was searching for one man. And just before the bell rang for the first act I saw him.
Klaus van der Velde started life trading tobacco on the quayside in Rotterdam and now trades in sopranos, pianists and string quartets. I’d met him through Alice in the days when I worked in the shop in the Herrengasse and he’d pursued us both, along with most of the other personable females in the city. This was before I’d met Gernot and I was technically available — but not to him. He had a fierce Dutch wife who was reputed to disinfect the marriage bed every time they made love. A square-headed, thickset man; unscrupulous, even brutal — but tender-hearted men don’t often become impresarios.
The first act of Tristan is long. The tenor staggered, the soprano tottered, and I recalled Motte-Ehrlich’s bon mot: that the most important thing when singing Isolde is a comfortable pair of shoes.
But the interval came at last.
‘Peter, you know Van der Velde?’
‘The impresario?’
‘Yes. Could we bump into him, do you think?’
‘My dear, the way you look tonight we could bump into anybody!’
We struggled to the buffet. Van der Velde had already acquired a Wagnerian stein of beer and was standing with his wife beside a potted palm. As Peter went to procure champagne, he turned and stared unashamedly at the blonde woman in black with gardenias in her hair.
I smiled at him.
The discovery that he knew me pleased him. It pleased his wife rather less, but she followed him as he bent over my hand and tried to think who I was, and more importantly, whether I mattered.