Then she thought of Lisa. Perhaps Lisa had bought the ticket and left it as a present. It was a lot of money, but the way Lisa had been dressed and nuances about her attitude indicated that money wasn't a problem for her. She would move, then she would find Lisa and ask her.
It took less than an hour to move all of her things, and in the process of moving she picked out a nice dress she would wear to the Staatsoper. A few minutes after she had finished the landlady came up with a man who was carrying a large scuttle of briquettes for the fireplace. He put them down and left, and the landlady asked if everything was all right. Janice told her yes and thanked her, and asked if Lisa was in. At first the landlady didn't know who she was talking about, then it finally registered on her and she seemed slightly surprised and somewhat offended by Janice's familiar reference to her. "Nein. Fraulein. Fraulein Doktor Comtesse Annalisa van Grevenburg ist nicht hier."
The door was closed before Janice got her mouth closed. The battery of titles and honorific reference had been almost overwhelming. Being entitled "doctor" simply meant that she had a degree, because a baccalaureate was normally addressed as "doctor". But only a countess was addressed "comtesse" and it was rare to come into contact with the titled European aristocracy. She thought about it, looking at the ticket, then she brightened. Perhaps it was a very subtle invitation, and Lisa would have the adjacent seat when she got there. She took the dress out of the wardrobe and hung it on the door, then walked toward the bathroom, undressing.
The dress was dark blue velvet, and when she got there she was glad that she'd worn the long white gloves, matching shoes and hat, and carried her best purse. Almost all the Friday evening crowd was formal, the men looking uncomfortable and pompous.)n their stiff collars and tails, and the women looking soft and feminine in the low-cut dresses as they chatted with each other. She looked at the posters as she walked through the massive entrance lobby, trying to translate the script letters. The program was Beethoven, and there was a guest conductor from Brussels. She followed the crowd toward the doors, and a doorman in a gaudy uniform glanced at her ticket and imperiously beckoned an usher over. He snapped an order to the usher and turned to her, bowing sharply, clicking his heels together, and motioning toward the usher. The usher whipped out a program and offered it to her, and he bowed and clicked his heels as she took the large, embossed velvet folder from him. He motioned toward the wide, winding staircase at one side of the entrance, and she followed him up to the box seats.
It was a small box with a dozen seats in it, and the only other ones in it were an old couple sitting on the other side. The woman was in a white evening dress and was wearing a glittering tiara in her hair, and the old man had several medals dangling on the left front of his tuxedo coat. There was a dizzying atmosphere of luxury and pomp as she followed the usher down the tiny aisle in the center of the box. The sides of the box were hung with thick, heavy velvet drapes and tassels, the carpet underfoot felt as thick as a pillow, and the seats were upholstered in thick velvet. The old man heaved himself to his feet and bowed to her with gracious, old world courtesy when she got down to the railing, and the old woman leaned forward in her seat in a bow. Janice smiled and bowed to them, then turned and walked to the seat the usher was holding down for her. She sat down, he clicked his heels and turned away to leave the box and she sighed with excitement, looking around. There were several seats, and perhaps Lisa would be in presently.
The musicians were already in place, and they were noodling on their instruments, loosening their fingers and lips. Janice opened the program and squinted at it in the darkness of the box, trying to read the script letters. A hush fell over the orchestra and the audience, and the applause signaling the entrance of the conductor began to swell. Janice let the program fall to her lap and began quietly patting her hands together as she sat forward in her seat and looked down at the orchestra. Her hands slowly stopped moving as her mouth fell open, and she sat and looked, frozen. The reason for the strange events of the day became clear. She knew why all the professors had gone out of their way to help her, why the landlady had found her a better room, and why the ticket had been in her room.
It was a guest conductress, not a guest conductor. And it was Lisa.
Janice was so excited that she hardly heard the music at first, then the swelling majesty of Beethoven superbly performed penetrated, gripped her, and held her spellbound. The magic of Lisa's genius wove a spell throughout the audience. She cracked them from their supercilious, musically knowledgeable shells with the heady draught of thunder and lightning which she wrung from the orchestra, and the staid, reserved audience came to its feet with a roar of applause and ringing shouts of "bravo" at the intermission. Janice was on her feet and pounding her hands together in a frenzy of excitement. The orchestra was also applauding, a rare accolade. The violinists rapped their bows and the other players scumed their feet, looking at Lisa as she stood by the podium and bowed, her beauty a poignant, heart-wrenching agony. She turned and bowed to the orchestra then walked toward the wing, motioning for the house lights to stop the applause. It swelled higher as the lights came up, shouts still echoing across the massive hall, and she stopped at the edge of the curtain and turned. She bowed to the audience, turned slightly and bowed to the orchestra, then she looked up at the box where Janice was. Her glittering smile crossed the distance between them, and Janice felt weak and giddy, almost feeling the touch of her warm hand. Lisa's white-gloved hand came up to her lips and she threw a kiss at Janice, then she disappeared behind the curtain. Janice fell back in her seat, almost fainting from joy.
The applause began swelling up and filling the hall again as Lisa came back in after the intermission. She was businesslike, unsmiling. She bowed shortly to the audience and stepped up onto the podium, ignoring the applause as she raised the baton and her left hand. Silence abruptly settled. She looked like a poised, slender Goddess as she stood motionless for an instant, gathering the orchestra and bringing them to the edges of their seats in an agony of expectancy. A quick movement, and they were unleashed. It began again, the magic spell of wailing strings and sobbing woodwind, rising to choking, rending torrents of fire and fury as she led the orchestra and the audience into Beethoven's soul.
The audience went wild at the end, when she stood on the podim for a moment with her shoulders slumped, looking down. Then she stepped down from the podium and turned to bow to the audience. She was tired, almost exhausted, and she stumbled slightly as she turned to bow to the orchestra. The applause verged on hysteria as she walked toward the wing. Her face was drawn, unsmiling, and she turned at the edge of the curtain to bow again, to the audience then to the applauding orchestra. She disappeared behind the curtain and the applause swelled even louder, beckoning her out again. Her hand touched the curtain as she came back out to bow to the audience and then to the orchestra, and she turned and disappeared again. To be called out again. And again. And for the fifth time. Then the sixth. And seventh. On the tenth bow she motioned for the house lights, and she finally raised her head and looked up across the open distance to Janice. Janice's hands were stinging as she pounded them together, the sound lost even to her own ears in the noise which swelled upward from the main auditorium. Lisa smiled. She threw another kiss. Then she disappeared…