Authors: Janice Weber
“Oh yes. I see her at de conference. She introduce me to vera important people.”
“Aha.” No more questions. Maybe Fausto was too beset by preperformance demons to continue.
Myrna blubbered back to the table. “I’m sorry. I have to pull myself together.”
“That’s the spirit,” Pixley bellowed, positioning his empty glass beneath a butler’s upended wine bottle. “Life goes on. You
have too many good years ahead of you to let something like this bog you down.”
Aurilla Perle, who had been slowly working over the room, now blessed us with her attention. “How’s everything here?”
“Couldn’t be better.” Pixley kissed her hand. The gesture looked less like gallantry than a plea for mercy. “Fantastic meal
you’ve cooked up, Senator.”
The soon to be ex-senator wisely skipped over Pila. “How are the musicians?”
“Fine,” Fausto replied for both of us. “Thank you.”
“Tanqueray?”
“Dis is de bes’ evening of my life.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. And how are you, Myrna?”
“I’ll be all right.”
One big fucking country club. Worse, I was just one of the golf balls. As Aurilla transferred her unsmile to the next section
of minions, I realized that someday she would be president. Ghastly thought, not because the woman wasn’t bright, persuasive,
or connected. Maybe she even had principles. But I had seen that same bloodless glint in a mercenary’s eye in a rundown Belizean
café. I had seen it in the obsidian gaze of the fer-de-lance that killed Yvette Tatal. It wasn’t a human look. Bobby Marvel
didn’t have it, but his wife did. Bendix, too. Fausto was capable of it. I conjured a weak variant of that look each time
I walked onstage, but I was just a musician, my foe imperfection. The look got more evil as the stakes got less noble. Those
eyes in the Oval Office? Look out, America.
Aurilla’s departure left a reverent hole in conversation, which Myrna filled by asking Pixley for highlights of his career.
The senator was delighted to furnish a Homeric history that took us through a rack of venison, a fussy composed salad, fiery
sorbet, and many more glasses of wine. He finished with the recent funeral of one of his colleagues in the Congressional Cemetery,
where Pixley hoped to repose someday himself. The place was a mess, though. Scandalously neglected, a national disgrace, an
insult to the patriots buried there.
Finally Pila Pixley, who had been playing footsie with Tougaw ever since her husband’s riveting account of JFK’s assassination,
couldn’t take any more. “Will you stop!” she cried. “Who’s going to visit you in a cemetery?”
Pixley switched to a soppy paean to Aurilla Perle, spewing encomia as if the candlesticks were bugged. Maybe, deep down, he
knew as well as the rest of us that once she was sworn in, all the doors he had opened for her would be slammed in his face.
“A vera intrestin’ story,” Tougaw said as a waiter removed his panne cotta and fresh currants. “But did you not meet otha
fine women in Washington? Marilyn Monroe?”
“She was a sweet girl with a nice voice.” Becoming melancholy now, Pixley took a long drink. “And I’ll never forget Ethel
Kiss. She was magnificent.”
“I just told you to cut out the dead stuff,” Pila snorted.
Fausto’s entire bulk became still as earth. Beneath the table, I touched his thigh.
“Who was dis?” Tougaw persisted.
“Fausto’s mother. She was lovely. Talented. A princess. She made us all laugh. The whole town came to a standstill when—when
we lost her. It hasn’t been the same since.” Pixley looked across the table. “I still miss her, Fausto.”
“Don’t we all.”
Silence as the waiters brought coffee and chocolates: after this repast, Aurilla would have better served her guests with
a three-mile hike, not a concert. “Tell us about Jackie O,” Pila said.
“She’s dead,” Pixley snapped.
Fausto licked the vestiges of cream from an antique spoon. “Heard from Louis lately, Myrna?”
“No. Nothing. He’s somewhere in the jungle. Probably Belize, but no one knows for sure. We won’t hear from him until it’s
too late.”
“Madman,” Pixley said. “What’s he doing there?”
“The usual. Boiling plants.”
“Who is Louis?” Tougaw asked.
“Jojo’s brother. He’s a scientist.”
“Does he know Jojo’s sick?” Fausto’s voice rose a tiny notch. I noticed, but I had been listening for it.
“I doubt it. We don’t know where he is and we’re not about to send a search party into the rain forest. Last time we did that,
they were gone for two months. I don’t hold out much hope that he’ll make the funeral.” Myrna edged close to sobs again. “When
was the last time you heard from him, Fausto?”
“June sometime.”
Tougaw was impressed. “De jungle is a dangerous place. He goes alone?”
“Sometimes he takes an assistant,” Myrna said. “A Mayan boy. I forget his name.”
Fausto didn’t offer it. “Louis will turn up. He always does.”
“Now there’s a man who should’ve gone into politics,” Pixley boomed. “He had all the right stuff. Twice the brains of his
brother. Sorry, Myrna.”
“Jojo has more personality,” she retorted, conceding the brains.
“Old Bailey thought Louis was going to carry on the family tradition. Then I remember the boy went abroad. England, I think.
Something disgraceful happened. His father nearly died of shame. Know anything about that, Myrna?”
“That was before my time.”
Pixley’s glass clanked his plate as he replaced it, empty again, on the table. “That’s the game. One little slip and you’re
out, sometimes before you’ve even started. Something always comes back to bite you in the ass. At times I wonder how I’ve
managed to survive all these years.”
By farting with the wind, of course. Everyone knew that, including Pixley. “Soon you can retire,” Tougaw said brightly. “Move
to Florida.”
Pixley glared at him. “I hate Florida. Nothing but swamps and mosquitoes.”
Far away, Aurilla tinkled Reed & Barton against Waterford. Fausto folded his napkin, looked over at me. “Excuse us. Musicians
are not required to stay for speeches.”
I followed him to the foyer. “Wasn’t that a fascinating dinner?” he asked. “No one paid the slightest attention to you but
Rhoby Hall, and the poor girl was two tables away.”
The maid took us to the bedroom directly above the speeches. My violin was untouched. “What a fairy tale,” Fausto said, flopping
onto the bed. The canopy didn’t collapse but its ruffles flounced like startled geese.
I sat next to him. “How do you feel?”
“I’m still dying for a drink.”
“You didn’t eat much.”
“I will later.”
“Nervous?”
“Just excited. I’m so looking forwa—” Bolting upright, Fausto peered at my face in horror, as if it had sprouted mushrooms.
“What’s the matter?”
He outstretched his arms and slowly wiggled his fingers, staring at them as he had at my face. His complexion went from pink
to gray. “Lock the door, Leslie.” As I obeyed, he unhooked his cummerbund, removed his pants: surprisingly shapely legs in
yellow silk shorts. “Please do as I say. In a moment I’m going to be sick. Don’t be scared. Don’t call for help. It will go
away.” Fausto slid his arms into the pants, crossed them in front. “Tie me in back. I don’t want to be smashing any of Aurilla’s
treasures. You can gag me with the cummerbund if you like. Don’t worry about my tongue. I won’t swallow it.” I knotted him
up. Seconds after he lay on the bed, Fausto’s blue eyes slid out of sight, into his skull. His body went rigid then snapped
into convulsions, as if he were on the receiving end of a thirty-thousand-volt prod. Aurilla’s antique bed began to hop. As
I was pushing the night tables out of range, Fausto broke into tormented snarls. When they turned fortissimo, I gagged him.
A pillow over the face would have been more effective, but I didn’t dare: those tremors were already taxing his body to the
point of collapse. Twice Fausto almost fell out of bed. Took all my strength to keep him from hitting the floor: that would
put a dent in palaver below. Already Aurilla’s guests would be misinterpreting the commotion above their heads.
After a few horrible minutes, the tremors stilled. Fausto’s body stank, as if he had been half-fried. Red patches spattered
his skin. When his eyeballs regained their proper axis, they were bloodshot. “What happened?” he whispered.
“You fainted,” I said, untying him. “Stage fright.”
He ran a heavy hand over my disheveled hair. “I don’t think so.” He shut his eyes. “Damn, I’m going to vomit.”
I got one of Aurilla’s frilly wastebaskets under his mouth just in time. Up came deer, truffles, sorbet: the stench almost
brought my dinner up as well. “Sorry,” Fausto rasped, dropping his head back to the embroidered pillow sham. “It’s almost
over.”
As I was getting rid of his puke, he slumped against the bathroom door. His shirt was unbuttoned. Without pants, he looked
helpless as a little boy. A gigantic little boy. “Just throw me in the shower, would you, sweet.”
“Are you mad? Go lie down!”
“Please, I’ve been through this before. Just get the clothes off. My fingers are still numb.”
Modesty did not exist backstage ten minutes to show time. I stripped him naked and flipped on the shower. As he stepped in,
I saw hideous swirls of scar tissue running from shoulder to thigh: third-degree burns. Once, under the spray, he shuddered.
I thought he would go into convulsions again. But he held on. “Okay,” he said.
I turned off the water, handed him a towel. He dried off what he could reach, namely, a penis hiding beneath a convexity of
flesh. I dried the rest. “Those are bad burns.”
“Penance.”
I got his clothes back on and plopped him in the chaise longue. Fausto slept while I repaired my face and hair. Downstairs,
shuffling and laughter as Aurilla’s guests migrated to her next party room. I finally had to wake him. “Are you up for this?
Tell the truth.”
He managed a wilted smile. “You’ve got the hard part.”
“What if you have a relapse out there?”
“I’ll fight it.” He half sat up. “I didn’t intend for you to see me like that.”
“I’ve seen Duncan worse,” I lied. “Look, let’s cut out a few pieces. Aurilla’s not going to sit there with a stopwatch. It’s
so damn late already.”
The maid knocked. “Hello?
Scusi?
Downstairs now?”
“Coming,” I called. Tuned the violin, feeling cold inside: the old demons were back. I would have given ten years of my life
to be home in Berlin, eating kirschtorte. But I smiled at Fausto. “Let’s go, champ.”
He pulled himself together the moment we went public: a born performer, as he had said. We shuffled downstairs. In the concert
room, spotlights brightened the piano and, over the fireplace, a recent portrait of the hostess; elsewhere, illumination was
mercifully dim. Aurilla stood under the glare introducing the entertainment as if we were her running mates. Despite the hour,
not one of her guests had dared leave: they knew this party was the first skirmish in a four-year war of attrition. Fortunately
the heat, darkness, and general intoxication would carry them off to La-La Land minutes after the hostess took her seat in
the front row.
“Psst! Miss Frost!” Daughter Gretchen, flanked by two maids, sat just inside the door. Someone had dressed her in a pinafore
and gigantic hairband, perhaps in the hope that, looking like Alice in Wonderland, she would behave as such. She was holding
a small stuffed animal. “Mom said I could listen.”
A suit interrupted. “This will just take a second,” he apologized, stroking Fausto and me with a metal detector. My brooch
made it nervous but the Kiss trinkets had that effect on everything.
“Marvel’s inside,” I told Fausto as he straightened his mother’s sapphires.
“Who cares?” Applause: I wanted to evaporate here, condense anywhere else. Fausto patted my rear. “Go earn your living, widow.”
We walked to the front, where Aurilla stood applauding our entrance. Two air kisses, then she nestled between Bendix and Bobby
Marvel, whose wife had stayed home tonight. Chickering filled in at the president’s side. Next to her, Rhoby Hall clapped
furiously.
Fausto gave me a soft A. I tuned, caught in that terrifying chasm between contact and chaos. Was he going to make it? Then
I heard a perfect introduction to the Saint-Saëns. He did what we had talked about in rehearsal, only more so: Fausto was
one of those magical accompanists with whom it would be impossible to play badly. He forced me to listen to him because he
reinvented as we went along, daring me to respond to the tiniest change of accent, a fleck of rubato: performers didn’t try
this without monumental reserves of confidence. The last time I had felt such electricity was years ago, in Vienna, with my
future husband Hugo conducting. There had been a thousand concerts since then, all decent enough to leave me satisfied, my
audience impressed, my agent paid. But once every aeon, maybe three or four times a career if you were lucky, the gods gave
you a break and brought you into their fold. In between, just to keep you going, they sprinkled the divine dust on you for
a phrase here, a movement there, but never from first note to last. The only musicians who reached ecstasy regularly were
the composers, the creators, but they didn’t have to contend with real time and human frailty. Performers got hit with memory
slips, stage fright, cold halls, elephantine orchestras … the odds were against them from the first note. Somehow, tonight,
Fausto was doing the impossible. I wasn’t that surprised: he had genius. But I never thought he’d share it with me.
We rolled with Saint-Saëns, Hubay, Wieniawski. Five feet away, but in another world, Aurilla counted notches in the ceiling,
exactly as Paula Marvel had at the White House. This time Bobby stayed awake, studying the sway of my hips as if I were a
belly dancer. Bendix listened to our musical oddities because he had to. Chickering scribbled repeatedly in the pad around
her neck, earning black looks from Rhoby. Aurilla’s shadow Wallace sat straight as a ramrod, blinking occasionally. The rest
of the audience either dozed off or tried to look beatific as they fought to keep digestive gases under control. Aliens, all
of them.