A Cadenza for Caruso (14 page)

Caruso stopped to examine the two dozen different types of daggers he found on display. A chair once used by England's Henry VIII elicited a long and appreciative
ahhhh
. The singer avoided a sinister-looking set of black armor and bumped a secret spring with his elbow; a wall panel raised to reveal a lighted recess filled with jeweled rosaries.

The tenor moved on, trying to take in everything at once. He had trouble tearing himself away from a hearth made of tiles stolen from the Alhambra by slaves who'd labored there. He opened a low Gothic door and peered into a tunnel filled with rare pamphlets. He rounded a corner and exclaimed with startled delight—he'd come upon a small fountain flinging its spray over a pool in which violets, sweet peas, and roses were floating.

But then Caruso abruptly jerked himself into an almost military posture and made a gesture that seemed to reject all the things he so obviously wanted to linger over. Resolutely he marched back to the desk—where he started going through Belasco's papers!

Belasco watched in amazement for two full minutes. When Caruso didn't find anything of interest on the top of the desk, he started opening the drawers to see what was there. Belasco stepped into view, lowered his voice an octave, and said in his best King Lear manner: “What is the meaning of this, sir?”

Caruso jumped a foot. “Oh, ah, uh, Mr. Belasco! Uh, I did not know you were here!”

“Obviously,” Belasco said in a way that made Caruso's hair rise.

“I knock,” the tenor said hastily. “I knock but—”

“You did not knock,” Belasco interrupted coldly. “I was here all the time. And you did not knock. You sneaked in—”

“I do not sneak!” Caruso's outrage was almost authentic. “I sometimes move quietly, but I never sneak!”

“What do you want, Mr. Caruso? Why were you going through my papers?”

“Papers, uh, that is a mistake. Uh, I hear about your marvelous collection and I want to, uh.” He looked around desperately. “I want to see this!” He grabbed up a Japanese sword.

Belasco blinked. “That is a stage property from
The Darling of the Gods
.”

Caruso hastily put the sword down. “I mean this!” He seized a small figurine of Hercules.

“Yes, I can see how you might confuse the two,” Belasco said dryly.

Caruso started backing toward the door. “I come at a bad time—I am so sorry I interrupt you. So many lovely things!”

Belasco followed him, saying nothing but looking icicles.

Caruso, on the other hand, was sweating buckets. “Someday you must come see my collection. We compare, yes?” His hand found the door handle behind him. “So nice to see you—good day!”

“Mr. Caruso!”
An iceberg speaking.

The tenor wilted. “Yes?”

“My Hercules?”

Caruso thrust the figurine into Belasco's outstretched hands, opened the door, and fled.

“Yes, we are doubling the price of admission,” Gatti-Casazza was saying on the telephone. “But that is only for the première, you understand.” He listened a moment to the gentleman from
The New York Times
on the other end of the line. “No, I do not know what the scalpers are getting … what's that?… Thirty times the box-office price! That's outrageous.”

Secretly, Mr. Gatti was pleased; scalpers' prices were the most reliable indicator of public interest that he knew. And he did not tell the reporter that if the première was a success, he was planning to
quadruple
the admission prices for the second performance.

He brought the conversation to an end and hung up, satisfied. Two days until dress rehearsal! The opera was coming along nicely; now that Toscanini had had his temper tantrum and Caruso had played his practical joke, there should be no more high jinks.

A slight movement in the open doorway of his office caught his attention. He looked up to see one eye peering at him around the doorframe. “Yes?” he said sharply.

An embarrassed Enrico Caruso stepped into view. “Uh, good morning, Mr. Gatti. I come to see how you are feeling today.”

“I am well, Enrico, thank you,” Gatti-Casazza answered, puzzled.

“That is good,” the tenor smiled, and left.

The general manager shrugged and got back to work. A note from the printer, saying the programs were ready—good. Mr. Gatti approved payment of a few bills. The bleachers still had to be put up at the carriage entrance on Thirty-ninth Street; the press needed a place to stand where they could note who came through and what they were wearing. He telephoned the florist to find out what time of day the curtain-call bouquets for
Fanciulla's
three principals would be delivered. Then he read a memo from the house manager—oh dear, the plumbing again! He'd better see what that was all about.

He found the plumbers at work in the gentlemen's washroom backstage. “How bad is it this time?” he asked the man who seemed to be in charge.

“Not so bad,” the man answered. “Coupla pipe fittings need replacing, thass all. We hadda turn the water off.”

“How long will it take?”

“Twenty, thirty minutes.”

Two hours
, Gatti-Casazza thought. “I would appreciate haste on your part. We have a rehearsal here this afternoon.”

“Haste makes waste,” the plumber replied sententiously.

“Does it really? Well, do the best you can.” He left the washroom—and found Caruso flattened against the wall outside the door, a foolish look on his face. “Enrico? If you want to use the washroom, I'm afraid the water will be off for a while.”

“I can wait, I can wait,” the tenor muttered and hastened away.

Gatti-Casazza checked his watch; if he hurried, he could squeeze in a visit to the silversmith before rehearsal started. That was one job he didn't want to delegate.

The December wind cut through him as he hurried east on Fortieth Street, turned left on Fifth Avenue past the new Public Library, bucked the wind for another block until he came to the establishment of E. Klein and Sons, Silversmiths. Mr. Klein greeted him personally.

“Is it finished?” Gatti-Casazza asked eagerly.

“It is finished,” Mr. Klein beamed. “Wait—I show you.” He disappeared into the back room of his shop and reappeared carrying a folded black velvet cloth, which he opened ceremoniously to reveal an ornate silver wreath.

“Oh, Mr. Klein! It is beautiful!” Gatti-Casazza rotated the wreath in his hands, looking at it from all angles. “Truly beautiful! Oh, yes! I must congratulate you on an exquisite piece of workmanship!”

“You are satisfied?”

“I am more than satisfied, I am delighted! Mr. Puccini will adore it!” The general manager was planning to present the wreath to the composer between Acts II and III of the
Fanciulla
première, and it was to be a surprise; Gatti-Casazza worried about keeping it secret. “You have told no one?”

“Only my son Abraham knows,” Mr. Klein said. “He did part of the work. Do not worry, Mr. Gee Cee, Abraham is a good boy—he will not speak of the wreath.”

Gatti-Casazza nodded. “And you will deliver it on the tenth? It must be the tenth—I do not want to have to hide it before then, and even one day later will be too late.”

“At eleven o'clock on Saturday morning, the tenth of December,” the silversmith intoned solemnly, “I personally will place the wreath in your hands.” Suddenly he started, and hastily wrapped the wreath back up in the velvet cloth. “Someone is looking!”

Gatti-Casazza glanced over his shoulder—and saw Caruso out on the street, hands cupped around his eyes, peering through the shop window. In two strides the general manager was at the entrance; he pulled the door open angrily. “Enrico! What are you doing here?”

“I, uh … I start my Christmas shopping! Yes! I look for silver cuff links. This is a nice place, yes?”

“What did you just see?”

“See?”

“Yes, Enrico,
see
. What did you just see?”

Caruso shrugged. “I see you looking at a kind of wreath.”

Gatti-Casazza groaned. “You must mention this to no one.” He told Mr. Klein goodbye and started walking Caruso back to the Metropolitan. He explained what the wreath was for, and urged the tenor to secrecy.

“Of course!” Caruso agreed enthusiastically. “What a wonderful gesture! Puccini will be enchanted. Do not worry, I tell no one. Mom's the word.” He was quiet a moment, thinking. “Do you know, Mr. Gatti, our friend Belasco has worked very hard on
Fanciulla
. Perhaps some token for him, too? To let him know how much we appreciate all his effort?”

Gatti-Casazza groaned again. “I will be presenting Mr. Belasco a memorial plaque at the same time I give Puccini his silver wreath. Now that makes
two
secrets you must keep. Can you keep two secrets, Enrico?”

Caruso waved a hand airily. “Piece of
torta
.”

They were almost back to the Metropolitan when Gatti-Casazza thought of something. “Enrico—you were at the opera house when I left. Did you follow me to Mr. Klein's?”

“I? Follow you?” Caruso appeared astonished. “Why would I follow you? I am Christmas shopping early this year, that is all.”

The general manager eyed him suspiciously but said no more. In the Met lobby they parted; Gatti-Casazza hurried up the stairway to his office.

To find Pasquale Amato waiting for him there. “Ah, Mr. Gatti—I come to beg. I desperately need two more guest tickets to the première. I promise them long ago, but—alas!—I do not have enough of my own.”

The general manager shrugged out of his overcoat and sat at his desk. “I am sorry, Pasquale—there are no more tickets available.”

“Perhaps just one?”

“Not even one. I am sorry.”

The baritone sighed. “I was afraid of that. But always there is someone unable to come at the last minute. If I could have
those
tickets …?”

Gatti-Casazza pulled at his beard. “Perhaps. Well, I shall speak to the box-office chief—we will see what can be done.”

Amato bounded up out of his chair. “Thank you! I am eternally in your debt, dear Mr. Gatti!” The manager waved a hand at him as he left—and then heard a muffled sound from outside the door. “Oof!” came Amato's voice. “Sorry, Rico—I did not see you standing there.”

Gatti-Casazza jumped up from his desk and hurried to the door, just in time to catch a glimpse of the broad back of his star tenor, beating a hasty retreat down the stairway.

Emmy Destinn sat in her dressing room, frowning as she read a letter from home.

Sigrid came in, carrying the soprano's
Fanciulla
costume. “Bad news?”

“Gunfire in the streets of Prague again.” She folded the letter and put it away. “Ever since I was a little girl—they fight. They fight, then they sign a treaty not to fight, and then they fight some more.”

Sigrid laid a sympathetic hand on Emmy's arm. “It will stop some day. And you are safe here.” She put up an ironing board and started pressing the soprano's costume.

Emmy was troubled. The shaky Austro-Hungarian Empire was obviously trying to hold itself together by whatever means possible and at whatever cost. Time and again the Austrians had put down the Czech rebels, but the movement simply would not die. Slavs deserved their own federation! Emmy had long since given up trying to keep track of the various factions involved in the fighting; what she knew for a certainty was that her section of Europe had not known true stability once during her entire lifetime.

You are safe here
, Sigrid had said. Not for the first time, Emmy wondered what was involved in becoming a citizen of the United States of America. She was a little awed by her own daring; she'd never even been to this country until two years ago. And Prague was home—beautiful Prague, with its big house she'd filled with antiques and cats and friends. On the other hand, there was a great deal to be said for waking up in the morning knowing that an armed force from New Jersey would not be invading Manhattan that day.

She watched her maid at the ironing board. “Sigrid—do you miss Sweden?”

“I miss Stockholm,” Sigrid said without hesitation. “The rest of the country, you can have.”

Emmy smiled; Sigrid would be no problem. She'd come with her wherever she decided to live—unless it was Italy. Sigrid didn't like Italy. Her maid had had to learn the language, since Italian was the international speech of opera. But she'd once dismissed the entire country as “heat, dust, loud voices, and bad manners.” Poor Sigrid! A great deal of her life was spent backstage at the various opera houses of the world; but no matter which opera house it was, she was always surrounded by volatile Italians. No wonder she got what the Americans called “peckish” once in a while.

The soprano touched her jaw. If she moved it just right—here!—she could still feel a twinge from the poke she'd taken yesterday. She was beginning to regret walloping Pasquale Amato so hard; she'd simply taken out on him all the frustrations aroused by that ill-fated rehearsal. But she would not apologize to the baritone—no indeed! Let him stay intimidated. It might teach him to be more careful.

“Does your jaw still hurt?” Sigrid asked sympathetically.

Emmy put on a fairly good martyred look. “I try not to think about it. Sigrid, if you iron that skirt much longer you're going to wear a hole in it!”

“You must look nice,” the maid said in a no-argument voice.

“Mr. Belasco doesn't think so,” the soprano grumbled. “He wants me to look dowdy. Cotton stockings!”

“He does not mean that, surely.”

“He
does
mean that, surely.”

Sigrid shook her head, not convinced. “Such a nice man—so polite and well-spoken. He will not make you wear something you do not wish to wear.”

“You deceive yourself. That mild manner is just a face Mr. Belasco presents to the world. Underneath is a will of iron.”