The Brahms Deception Read online

  He should have told her he was going to be delayed. He knew how she worried.

  Octavia, in silver-beaded black silk, stood with the other principals to shake hands with opera patrons who strolled through the Upper West Side apartment. Tuxedos and designer gowns studded the crowd. The air was redolent with the scents of money and privilege, a cultural incense that swirled over trays of champagne glasses, among white linen tables with platters of caviar and canapés, and over the heads of the gay bejeweled company.

  The room warmed as more people pressed in through the French doors from the foyer. Octavia held her smile, accepted compliments, made polite conversation. The little line of singers dominated the room as if they were still performing. Admirers came and went, looking pleased to have touched the hands of these unique personages. When one person stepped away, another took the empty place, beginning afresh with comments and questions. The air grew close, and Octavia felt sweat begin to bead anew beneath the silk sheath, to trickle down the small of her back.

  When the flow of well-wishers began to lag at last, she slipped away to the coolness of a large, elegant bay window facing the park. Someone pressed a glass of champagne in her hand, and she drank half of it down straight away. Not a good sign. Thirsty already.

  She leaned close to the glass so she could see past the shimmering silver of her own reflection. A couple, walking hand in hand, was just crossing the avenue to go into the park. As she watched, they stopped to kiss. When they moved on, they slipped their arms around each other, melding them into one person in the glow of the streetlights. Octavia sighed and finished the champagne. Someone refilled her glass, and she drank that, too, though she knew she probably shouldn’t.

  Damn Ugo. She hated being alone at these things.

  She tried not to think about where he might be, what unsavory character he might be meeting. She hardly knew enough to be able to imagine these things, in any case. He refused, ever, to tell her.

  She turned away from the window, thinking perhaps it was not too early for her to make her escape. She found the shy young mezzo who had sung Annina standing just behind her.

  “Oh!” Octavia said. “Hi, Linda.”

  “I just wanted to say good-bye,” Linda said. She was a plump, freckled American with a sweet smile. “It was so nice working with you, Octavia.”

  “It was lovely,” Octavia agreed. “You were a perfect Annina.”

  The girl shrugged. “Oh, well. Comprimario rôles. Where I’m stuck, probably.”

  Octavia said what she always said in such situations. “You must keep trying. I know what it’s like.” And she did. She had struggled herself, in ways this nice young singer could never understand. “You have to persevere.”

  “Oh, I’ll hang in there.” Linda gave a self-deprecatory laugh. “But you know what they say about opera—voice, voice, and voice.”

  “Yours is very pretty.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.” Linda put out her hand. “Yours is magnificent, Octavia. And I hope to see you next year for Rusalka. I’m hoping they’ll cast me as one of the Wood Nymphs.”

  Octavia pressed her hand. “I’m so glad. If someone asks me, I’ll tell them they should give you a contract right now.”

  Linda blushed and admitted, “I hope they ask you, then! A Met contract makes my whole year.”

  “Mine, too.” Octavia set her empty glass on the windowsill. “I think I’m going to say good night to everyone. I’m tired, and I still have to pack.”

  Linda walked her to the door. Octavia thanked her hostess while someone from the opera’s administration went to call for the limousine. Someone else retrieved her coat and escorted her down in the discreetly luxurious elevator.

  It was a relief to be alone in the limousine, to stop smiling, stop being gracious. She leaned back against the leather seat, pulling pins out of her chignon to let her hair fall on her shoulders, strands nearly as pale as the silver beads on her dress. It wasn’t a long drive to her East Side apartment, but she found herself drumming her fingers on her thighs. Restlessness. Another bad sign.

  The doorman met her. She said, “Good evening, Thomas,” as he held the door for her.

  “Good evening,” he said. “You look lovely tonight, Miss Voss.”

  She smiled. Ninety more seconds to be on, to be charming. “Thank you, Thomas. It’s nice of you to say so.”

  He crossed the parquet floor to call the elevator. “Good show tonight?”

  “It was, actually. Everything went well. And a lovely party afterward.” As the elevator’s doors slid closed, she said, “Good night.”

  With relief, she let her smile fade again as she felt in her bag for the apartment key. She could have asked Thomas if he’d seen Ugo, but they had learned long ago not to call attention to his comings and goings. She realized, halfway up to her floor, that her left foot was tapping a restive rhythm against the carpeted floor. She forced herself to stop, but she fidgeted until the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

  She unlocked the apartment and stepped inside, hoping to find the lights on, perhaps smell something cooking in the kitchen.

  Nothing. The empty apartment felt cold, though she knew that was an illusion.

  She hung her coat in the foyer closet and kicked off her pumps, leaving them on the polished wood of the entryway. She went through the living room to her bedroom and flicked on the light over the dressing table. She was reaching for the zipper of her dress when she heard the door open.

  She hurried back into the living room in her stocking feet.

  He was just shrugging out of his cashmere overcoat and unwinding his white silk opera scarf. Anger glittered in his eyes. Whitened lines ran from his nose to his mouth, marring the smooth duskiness of his cheeks.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t even ask,” he said, with the flat vowels of an American television actor. He didn’t look at her.

  “Ugo—are you all right?”

  “Yes.” He unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and threw it across a chair. It missed, and he said, “Goddammit,” under his breath as he bent to pick it up.

  Octavia put her hands on her hips, tilted her head, and regarded him as she might a naughty child. As he straightened, he caught her look, and his mouth relaxed a bit. “Don’t glare at me like that,” he said in a lighter tone. “I’m here. I have it.”

  “I’m glad of both.” Even knowing he had it made her feel better. She moved toward a stuffed leather chair and pulled its matching ottoman close.

  He retrieved his case from where he had left it by the door. He nearly tripped over her pumps as he came back to the living room, but he didn’t scold. “How was the opera?”

  “You were supposed to be there, Ugo.”

  His eyes flashed again. He shook his head and began to undo the pearl buttons of his shirt. “I wanted to be. There were complications.”

  She went to the bedroom to slip out of her dress and into a short belted robe. She hurried back, impatient now, and dropped into the leather chair.

  Ugo, seeing her haste, said, “Poverina. Feeling bad?”

  “No, not really—but thirsty.”

  “Not really thirsty, Octavia. Not yet. You just get anxious.”

  “I didn’t know where you were.” She tried not to sound plaintive.

  He turned his dark eyes up to her. “You have your own ways if you need them.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “I just didn’t know where you might have gone—if it was safe.”

  He pulled his shirt off and folded it neatly across a chair back. His arms and chest were dark against the clear white of his undershirt. “I’m always safe,” he said. “And you can take care of yourself if you have to.”

  “No, Ugo. Never again.”

  “Don’t say that. If it got bad enough—”

  “Ugo, let’s not talk about it.”

  He shrugged, more relaxed now. The lines in his face had disappeared, and his accent was his own. “Va bene.” He sat
on the ottoman and laid his case beside him. He snapped it open and withdrew his tools as she rolled up the sleeve of her robe and propped her elbow on the arm of the chair.

  “So,” he said. He wound the tourniquet around her upper arm, then flicked the syringe with his fingernail, popping the bubbles to the top. “Tell me. Did the duet with Germont fils go better tonight?”

  “Yes, it did. It was fine. Beautiful, actually.”

  “Good. The best part of the whole opera.”

  “What, not my ‘Addio del passato’?”

  Ugo only grinned. He slipped the superfine needle into the vein of her wrist, then loosened the tourniquet. As he depressed the plunger, the cold liquid trickled into her flesh, and the flow of sweet energy began to pour up her arm, across her chest, through her abdomen. She sighed, letting her muscles dissolve, relishing the burst of warmth in her body that felt like the rising of the sun. She sensed it creeping through her veins and capillaries, tingling in her temples and her toes. She felt its silken texture in her throat, tasted it in her mouth.

  Not that she wanted to taste it, ever again. Ugo’s way was infinitely better.

  Ugo withdrew the needle, touched her wrist with a bit of cotton, then looked at it critically. “Niente,” he said with boyish pride. “I’m awfully good, don’t you think?”

  She laughed. She felt wonderful, energized, utterly alive. “I do think!” She watched as the little mark of the needle closed and vanished, then rose from her chair to scoop up Ugo’s jacket and scarf. “I’ll help you pack, Ugo.”

  He rearranged the items in his case, checked the refrigeration sensor, and snapped the lid shut. He tucked the case under his arm and took his things away from her with his free hand. “I’ll pack my own clothes, thanks. You get started on yours.”

  She smiled at him and pirouetted toward her bedroom. “You spoil me, Ugo.”

  “Don’t I just.”

  “I meant it, you know.” She stopped in the doorway, tightening the belt on her robe, looking back at him. “I could never go back.”

  “I don’t want to hear that.” He started toward his own bedroom, then made a detour to the foyer for her shoes. He carried them to her and pressed them into her hands. “Spoiling is one thing, Octavia. Ruining is another.”

  She laughed, took the shoes, and went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  “You still have sources in Milan?” Octavia asked.

  “Carissima,” Ugo purred. He had been out of the apartment all day, only returning just before the car arrived to take them to the airport. “Do I have sources in Milano? I have sources everywhere.”

  “It’s been such a long time.”

  “Sì, sì. A long time. It will be good to be in Italy again.”

  He lay back on his pillow. Around them the first-class cabin of the British Airways jet was quiet. The flight attendant had drawn the window shades, blocking the moon that shone like a lamp above the cloud cover. Only one or two passengers were using their personal screens, but most drowsed in the reclined leather seats, accordion curtains drawn for privacy. Octavia, despite two glasses of excellent cabernet, felt wide awake.

  “It will be dear in Milano, you know,” Ugo warned from his pillow.

  Octavia glanced across at him. His eyes were closed, their long lashes curving against his cheeks. He looked deceptively like a sleeping child. She leaned across the curtain and whispered, “How much for your supplier, dear Ugo, and how much for you?”

  He opened one eye. “Don’t be bitchy, bella. It doesn’t become you.”

  She chuckled and poked him with a manicured finger. She pulled her oversize shoulder bag from beneath her seat and extracted her Giovanni score. She switched on her reading light and scanned the first pages. “Ugo, this is my favorite opera.”

  He didn’t open his eyes. “You say that about every opera.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, cara, you do. Whatever opera you’re working on is always your favorite.”

  “Can’t sleep, Miss Voss?”

  Octavia looked up to find the flight attendant, a slender man with a receding hairline, bending over her. His shirt collar was open, and she could see the pulse beating in his thin neck, just above his collarbone. She gave him her close-lipped smile. “No,” she said. “It’s curtain time in New York.”

  “I heard you at the Met last week,” he said. “You were marvelous. Bravissima!”

  “How kind of you to say so.”

  “Can I get you something, as long as you’re awake? Tea, or sparkling water?”

  “Tea would be lovely.”

  “Very good,” he said, and walked away toward the galley.

  Octavia opened her Bärenreiter score to the first ensemble. She ran her fingers over the staves, smiling to herself. She knew it perfectly, of course. This would be Octavia Voss’s first performance of Donna Anna, but Teresa Saporiti had sung the opera’s premiere in Prague, and many performances after that. Hélène Singher had sung the rôle in San Francisco and New York. The dark color of her voice had not been popular with audiences in those cities. Vivian Anderson had fared better. In Australia they had loved the richness of her timbre.

  No, no one in the world could know the score of Don Giovanni better than Octavia did.

  But performance practice was a fluid thing. Each new editor fancied that he knew more than the previous one, and she had learned long ago to bend with the winds of such changes. She had been tempted, more than once, to tell an arrogant conductor what Mozart had intended, but she had never done it. Restraint was another trait she had learned, over time, and with difficulty, but she had learned it.

  The flight attendant returned with her tea and glanced down at the score. “Ah,” he said. “Will it be Donna Anna?”

  “It will. My first,” she said, with just a hint of anxiety, a droop of the lashes.

  “The perfect rôle for you! I wish I could hear it.”

  Octavia took the teacup in her hands. “If you’re in Milan,” she said, “send me a note at La Scala. I’ll arrange a ticket.”

  He put his hand to his breast. “That would be wonderful! I may just do that.”

  “Please do,” she said with a smile, then pointedly turned her page. He took the hint, backing away, turning to another passenger. Octavia sipped the tea, turned the page back, and began to study.

  Ugo’s closed eyelids trembled with mirth. “You know, darling, you’re wasting your time with that one.”

  “I think he’s sweet.”

  “Very. But he doesn’t play for your team.”

  She chuckled. “You underestimate me.”

  “Oh, God. Such a diva. I can hardly stand it.”

  She blew him a tiny raspberry. He laughed and pulled his blanket up to his chin.

  The moon was just setting when they landed at Malpensa. A limousine was waiting, with someone to speed them through customs and direct a porter with their bags. They were out of the airport within fifteen minutes, and riding through morning traffic toward Il Principe di Savoia. Ugo was quiet, his head resting against the seat as he watched their approach to the city. His complexion seemed a bit ashen to Octavia.

  She touched his knee. “Are you all right? Didn’t you sleep?”

  “I did,” he said. “But I need my valise.”

  “Just a little longer,” Octavia said. She leaned forward to open the glass partition, and said, “Più veloce, per favore!”

  “God, Octavia.” Ugo turned his head to roll his eyes at her. “Any faster and we’ll be roadkill. This is Italy, remember?”

  “But you don’t look well.”

  “I will look terrible smeared all over the highway,” he said. He closed his eyes. “Just make sure he drives between the lines, d’accordo?”

  She patted him. “D’accordo.”

  Ugo swayed a little on his feet as they walked into the colonnaded entry of Il Principe. Octavia took his arm, and his body felt hot through the sleeve of his coat. The assistant from La Scala
guided them through the marble lobby, expedited their registration, oversaw their luggage. In the elevator’s gold-flecked mirrors, Octavia saw Ugo scratching at his jaw and wriggling inside his shirt as if it had grown too tight for him. His nostrils flared, scenting something beyond the range of her own senses.

  In their suite, they had to wait politely as the bellman pointed out the amenities, the flowers and fruit sent by La Scala, the Pellegrino and chocolates provided by the management of the hotel. He assured them the hotel limousine was at their disposal at any time.

  Ugo leaned against a blue velvet armchair throughout the bellman’s recitation. The moment they were left alone, he disappeared into the connecting bedroom, where his bags had been left, and closed the door behind him.

  Octavia wandered through the curtained doors into her own bedroom. She pulled off her shoes and lay down on the big bed, tucking a cushion under her neck.

  It troubled her sometimes that she and Ugo were not of a kind. She could not do for him what he did for her. What he needed was quite different from that which sustained her, and he would not allow her to help him acquire it. Too dangerous, he always said. And unnecessary.

  Octavia tossed aside the cushion and got up again. She padded to the window and pushed aside the heavy draperies to look past the hotel’s circular drive into the Piazza della Repubblica. The morning rush hour was almost over, the flood of taxis and scooters settling down to a trickle. The Duomo’s forest of spires shone in the distance, and beyond it, the Galleria with its airy dome. It was good to be back. And surely, here, where there were people who understood him, Ugo could find what he needed.

  She rubbed her arms and glanced across the suite at his closed bedroom door, irritated, worried, wistful.

  She stripped off her traveling suit and shrugged into one of Il Principe’s thick robes. She undid the clasp of her hair and took up her hairbrush just as Ugo’s door opened. He lounged through the suite into her bedroom and flopped down across her bed, giving her a wide white grin. “That’s better,” he said, touching his temples. “Whole again.”

  She laid her brush on the bureau. “Ugo. You must let me—”