“I never shake hands when I’m working,” Wagner said without so much as a flicker of apology. “I don’t know why it is, Chief Inspector, but too many men nowadays seem under some kind of compulsion to prove their manliness by crushing the living daylights out of you when they shake hands. My hands are my life, Chief Inspector.”
I couldn’t resist a smile. “I assure you, Maestro Wagner, I would have been as timid as a virgin.”
Wagner stared at me for a moment with what I took to be disapproval, then suddenly smiled (though cautiously). “Well, Mecklenberg,” he called over his shoulder, “at least he’s got a sense of humour. Are you quite sure he’s a policeman?” His eyes narrowed again. “Wait … Hermann Preiss? … weren’t you the detective back in Düsseldorf some years ago … yes, of course! … involved with the Schumanns. Am I correct?”
“You are, sir.”
“Pity about the poor idiot. Schumann, I mean. Died young, didn’t he? Some asylum near Bonn, as I recall. That wife of his … Clara … there was a witch if ever I met one. Never had a decent word to say about me and my music. Still doesn’t, damn her. Brahms … Johannes Brahms … now there was a man more to her taste, in every sense of the term, if you know what I mean.” Wagner frowned, as though struggling to recall something. “There was talk about whether or not Schumann did away with some journalist … something scandalous about Schumann’s past that this writer threatened to expose. They say Schumann literally got away with murder.” Looking me straight in the eye, Wagner snorted, “Doesn’t say much about the quality of police work in Düsseldorf, does it … people getting away with murder.”
I had two choices here: to agree with him, as a good public servant should do, perhaps even going so far as to bow and scrape; or to reply in kind and to hell with the consequences. I chose the latter. “It occurs to me, sir, that you must be a genuine connoisseur of police work, having been involved much of the time with justice systems here and abroad.”
Wagner glared at me for a moment, then turned to Mecklenberg, the old man looking as though he wished the floor would open and allow him to disappear. “Well, Mecklenberg, at least he’s not spineless, which is more than I can say about most people with whom I’m forced to deal these days, isn’t that so?” Returning to me, Wagner said, “I’m not sure we’re going to get along, you and I, Preiss. I’ve been confronted with a serious threat. I need a man who will be at my service, nothing less.”
“And that is exactly what I’m prepared to do, be at your service,” I said. “I am not, however, prepared to be your humble servant.”
I won’t flatter myself by claiming that this retort had the effect of putting the Maestro in his place; whether one knew Richard Wagner by reputation only, or was a personal acquaintance over many years, or was meeting him for the very first time as I was, one thing was incontrovertible: nothing short of the voice of God could cause this man to go weak at the knees. Still, my refusal to humiliate myself at least managed to establish a ground rule that would govern my relationship with Wagner if only for the time being. As far as I was concerned, Richard Wagner needed me more than I needed Richard Wagner.
“Very well, you two. Come!” Wagner stood to one side, motioning for us to move into the drawing room. He pointed to a sofa in a remote corner of the large room and ordered us to be seated there. “We’re nearly finished, these two young people and I. There’s not much more we can accomplish, not tonight at any rate.”
I had expected to be introduced to the pair of singers posted close to an enormous Bösendorfer, waiting in silence, like soldiers anticipating their next orders. But no introductions were forthcoming; instead it was back to business. Wagner took his seat at the piano and, sounding more like a military commander than a musician, he delivered the following lecture: “I remind you once again that this scene is crucial between Walther and Eva. Act Two succeeds or fails depending on how you relate to each other at this point. You are planning to elope; you are frustrated by conventions that constrain your emotions, your love for each other. Walther has been treated like an outcast by the Mastersingers Guild; Eva is being used as a pawn in what will be an arranged marriage. Both of you are challenged now to defy narrow conventionalism. So passion … passion! … you must not only sing, you must act!”
What followed for the next thirty minutes was some of the most sublime music and singing ever to fill my ears. Indeed — and I admit this without shame — I could feel tears forming in my eyes and I was forced to blink hard at times to clear my vision. If the person responsible for this was a monster (and already I’d formed an opinion that he was) then let him be monstrous, I thought. As for the two singers, despite the fatigue evident in their faces, they were carrying out the monster’s orders above and beyond the call of duty.
At last, Wagner removed his hands from the keyboard, signalling that the session was ended. Nodding brusquely, all he said to the singers was “We’re getting there. Go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock sharp.”
Rising from the sofa, I approached the three at the piano, calling out, “Maestro, I should like an introduction to your singers, if you don’t mind.”
“Why? Is it essential for some reason that you meet them?”
“No, not essential,” I admitted, somewhat taken aback, “but it would be a privilege … for me, I mean.” Addressing the singers, I said, “I’m Inspector Hermann Preiss, of the Munich Police.”
The tenor, without waiting for Wagner’s approval, stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “I’m Henryk Schramm.” He beckoned the soprano to come forward. “And this … this is Karla Steilmann!” Schramm said this with such enthusiasm that I wondered whether it was her voice or her beauty that elicited such a show of warmth and admiration from her collaborator.
Visibly annoyed that these two young people hadn’t waited for him to manage the formalities, Wagner addressed them gruffly, insisting that they depart without further delay given the demands of tomorrow. “Now get home, the two of you. Go! Out!”
“I do hope we meet again, Herr Preiss,” the young woman said, reducing me with her smile to a mound of wet clay.
Wagner stood watching with undisguised impatience as his singers made their exit. Then, satisfied that they had left the house, he turned on me and said in an angry voice, “That was most imprudent of you, Preiss, if I may say so. I am not eager to announce to the entire world that my career — maybe my life itself — is so threatened that I require the protection of the police. Do you have any notion at all about how much comfort and joy such a revelation would bring to my enemies? My God, man, a little discretion!”
“I think you’re overlooking something, sir, with all due respect,” I replied. “It was your idea … your sense of urgency … that brought me here tonight. It was you who invited me to be in this room when I would have been perfectly content to wait in some other part of the house until your rehearsal was finished.”
Wagner did not take kindly to this response, which was no surprise. To Mecklenberg, who was by now a living portrait of misery, he called: “Is this the best you could secure for me?”
In a weak voice the impresario answered, “I was assured, Maestro, that Inspector Preiss is the finest in the Munich Constabulary. None better.”
“He certainly doesn’t impress me as having the attributes of a conventional policeman. Considering the threat made against me, one would expect at least a modicum of sympathy, of respect.”
“If you are looking for a ‘conventional’ policeman,” I said, “then look elsewhere, Maestro. To borrow your little sermon to your singers a few moments ago … or at least part of it … I have always felt challenged to defy narrow conventionalism.”