Authors: Janice Weber
Almost at once, mother and son began a reign of terror among hoteliers on every continent. They were famous for traveling
with a pet tiger and a piano teacher named Lydia Varnas, for their midnight concerts in presidential suites, and literally
tons of luggage. Suddenly it all stopped. Fausto immured himself in a conservatory and Ethel retired to Washington. One spring
afternoon, she slipped off a parapet of the National Cathedral. No witnesses but the organist, who thought she was reaching
for a bird.
I cut to the society column. Ethel’s death stunned Washington. Several distinguished men (including Senator Phil Pixley) claimed
to have been engaged to her, on the grounds that they had asked and Ethel had not given them a definite no. Even the president
made a special trip to her coffin the night before the funeral. Mourners, including Ethel’s jilted English fiancé, overflowed
the National Cathedral. After her burial in the family plot at the Congressional Cemetery, Fausto had everyone back to his
house for a party that lasted seven days.
Switched off the screen. Thirty-plus years later, gone to seed, Fausto was still officiating at his mother’s wake. Why would
a woman like that lean over a parapet, tempt fate so? A few months earlier, Ethel had jumped off a boat in London. Dress rehearsal?
I cabbed to the Congressional Cemetery, where Ethel moldered in the plot begun by her grandfather, the senator. A row of squat,
identical monuments lined the main strip. Celebrity alley: John C. Calhoun, Preston S. Brooks, Henry Clay … once upon a time,
this must have been the most prestigious resting place in town. Now the cemetery was bordered by tenements and a huge jail.
Vandals had wrecked the front gate and overturned dozens of headstones. Everywhere I saw dead, ivy-strangled trees, overflowing
garbage pails, weeds high as my knee: that sot Pixley hadn’t been exaggerating. This place was a disgrace.
“You want to visit J. Edgar Hoover’s grave?” my driver asked. “John Philip Sousa? Tip O’Neill? Private Matlovich?”
“How about Ethel Kiss.”
“Can’t help you with that one. There’s a directory in the chapel.” He stopped outside a simple structure in the center of
the graveyard. Thick weeds brushed its stucco walls. Windows boarded, doors secured with corroded chains: the last service
here may have been during the influenza epidemic of 1918. “Good luck.”
Bouncing over potholes, the cab left. I circled the chapel, looking for a way in. Best bet was to unpry the boards and No
TRESPASSING
sign that had recently been nailed over a bulkhead door. I’d need a crowbar, though. And I didn’t really want to poke around
a desecrated church. Even at midday this cemetery spooked me. So green, bright, still, yet I sensed corruption wafting from
the graves of the illustrious dead, as if they wanted to come back, win a few more elections … escape hell for a while.
Thunk:
down the hill, a thin black man patted earth with his shovel. I walked over, waited for him to pack in a headstone he had
just righted. “Excuse me, are you the caretaker?”
He wiped his brow with an old handkerchief. Age anywhere between fifty and one hundred. He could have been a ghost.
“No, I just try to keep the place up a little. Live across the street.”
“It sure needs work.”
“Oh yes.” He offered me hot water from his dented canteen. “You lookin’ for something?”
Careful, Smith.
“My guidebook gave this place two stars. Is the chapel open? The cabdriver said I could find a map of all the famous people
buried here.”
“You won’t find no map in that chapel. Vagrants were living there. Wrecked the place. A few weeks ago they finally chased
them out and closed it up. Won’t open again until they find some fix-up money. Your best bet is to walk along the rows and
read the headstones. All kinds of folks here. Lots of history.”
Just ragweed now. “Okay. Thanks.”
In death as in life, the heavies congregated on the hill. Slaves and Indians lay in the gulch by the jail. I hurried past
the public vault, with its crooked iron doors agape. Didn’t take long to locate Ethel Kiss just a stone’s throw from another
outstanding American, John Philip Sousa. Their beautifully tended graves were roses in a wilderness: I guessed the marines
and Fausto came out here once a week with fertilizer and hedge shears. Granddaddy Senator’s black granite stele rose like
a gigantic railroad nail, dwarfing lesser memorials in the vicinity. His name was etched in six-inch letters, challenging
the reader not to recognize it. His daughter, Ida, Ethel’s mother, got four-inch letters on the north face, but she hadn’t
lived as long. Ethel lay beneath a gorgeous pink granite headstone. “Her son Fausto,” I read with a shudder. Just a date and
a dash: a death in progress.
Morbid curiosity drew me to their numbers. Granddad hung around a long time but his wife had died at forty-six. Ethel’s mother
Ida had died at forty-nine. Ethel had died at forty-seven. I looked over the last half-entry in the plot. Tremor inside as
something dark and heavy winged by: next month Fausto would be fifty-one. Way beyond the Kiss shelf life.
“Find what you wanted, miss?” asked the gardener.
No. Never. “I think so.”
Back to the Library of Congress, this time to find Ida’s obituary. A snap since I knew the day and date. Ida had died at home
following a short illness. Due to the heat, burial had been immediate. I went back a few more decades to check out the demise
of Ida’s mother. Big headlines and a long article listing the nabobs who had attended the funeral. She had also died at home
following a short illness. Immediate burial. Bah.
The afternoon was shot and I was tired, empty, dusty with death. Returned to the hotel and plummeted asleep. Then the phone
rang.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” fumed Bobby Marvel.
“I’ve been busy.” Looked at my watch: five-thirty. If I didn’t get out of here in one minute, I’d be late for a Brahms rehearsal.
“How’s your nose?”
“Damn rug burn stings. I want to see you. Tonight.”
Men always got so territorial after a concert. I suppose it was a compliment. “Send a car to Fausto’s around ten,” I sighed.
Bobby was my best link to Barnard and it was time for a few more questions. “I can drive around with you for an hour. Or come
in if you want. You two can play a few duets.”
“Me? Play duets with Fausto? That’s not what I would call fun.”
He’d seemed to enjoy it well enough the other night. “We’ll order pizza.”
“I hate pizza,” Bobby growled. “You’re spending too much time with that repulsive weasel. I’d be careful if I were you. He’s
a dangerous man.”
“And you’re a safe one?”
“Absolutely. But I can be extremely jealous.”
“Look, I’ve got to run. See you at ten.”
“Wear that fuzzy pink top for me, will you?”
I was beginning to understand Paula Marvel’s forty extra pounds, her wardrobe of virginal bows, and her arthritis. Small price
to pay for running the country, and she could always divorce Bobby when they were busted back to Kentucky. Still, a bad marriage
was like secondhand smoke: sooner or later it would kill you. Paula had been inhaling for thirty years. I threw on the fuzzy
pink halter and dashed to Fausto’s.
Pulled the Corvette behind a Hummer in his driveway. If Rhoby’s taste in cars was any indication of her musical talent, this
was going to be a long evening indeed. I let myself in and stood at the door of the music room. Unaware of my arrival, Rhoby
and Fausto were futzing with chairs and stands. He wore a light blue smoking jacket and black pants: ducal in comparison with
Rhoby’s grunge. As always, smoked fish and effervescent liquids waited on a sideboard. Fausto looked over and half smiled.
“Ah, there you are.”
“Miserable traffic. Sorry.”
He watched my approach but didn’t kiss me hello. Rhoby did, however. Now that she was with arty types instead of politicians,
she wore a nose ring and a few tiny barbells in her eyebrow. “I could have given you a ride,” she said. “Nothing gets in Hummer’s
way.”
“I’ll bet.” Aware of both their eyes on my fluffy pink halter, I tossed my violin case on Fausto’s divan. Bad choice, this
outfit. Should have worn a chador.
“It’s so great to be here!” Rhoby shivered in delight. “I’ve been practicing all day!”
“Our pleasure, believe me,” Fausto replied. “We’re always looking for new diversions, aren’t we, sweet?”
“Right.” Wrong. Disaster in that cool voice: did Fausto know I had been spying on him all afternoon? “How long have you been
playing the cello, Rhoby?”
“Fifteen years. I sort of dropped it since coming to Washington. It doesn’t fit into the lifestyle, if you know what I mean.”
Fausto gave a pensive A and watched me tune. His look lacked the conspiratorial warmth I would have preferred after bedtime
events of last night. Ah well, at least he had straightened the rug on top of his piano. “We’re here to enjoy ourselves,”
he said without a scintilla of smile. “Set for Brahms?”
He began the trio with magisterial poise, as if he had been playing it for years: no question who was going to rule this soundscape.
Phenomenal tone. But Fausto had the advantage of plush fingers, pudgy arms, deep center of gravity … stuff a cigar in his
mouth and he’d even look like old Johannes. It melted my brain all over again.
Mind the gap, Smith!
Fausto handed his phrase to Rhoby, who came in with the mellifluence of a strangled loon. Once she got over her nerves, she
just played louder. She could count like a son of a bitch, though. Out loud. “Excellent,” Fausto called after the first movement.
“You’ve got a marvelous ear.”
“Thanks!” She retuned, for reasons unknown. “What tempo would you like in the scherzo? You’ve got all those nasty repeated
notes.”
“Anything you can handle, dear. I’ll do my best to keep up.”
Rhoby took a running leap at the opening. After her fourth miss, she said, “I guess that’s a little too fast.”
“Just a hair slower, then. We can always ramp up later.”
Brahms took another beating. Few human inventions inflicted worse aural pain than a badly played cello, whose woofs and shrieks
originated somewhere in the Ninth Circle of hell. Even Fausto needed a break after the second movement. “Whew! Can I get you
something to drink?”
“Just a little juice, please.”
He mercifully brought me champagne. I was gratified to see him swallow a belt of bubbly before the adagio. What was he trying
to accomplish here? Without Rhoby, the two of us could have been reading violin and piano sonatas in perfect bliss. “Have
you played this trio before, Rhoby?” I asked.
“Oh yes. With Chickie.”
“My God!” Fausto exclaimed. “Is she a pianist?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. She only studied for a few years.”
I glared at him. “Ready when you are.”
He began with eight quiet chords. Then violin and cello had to play with each other for three bars. Here, at least, Rhoby
had the courtesy to cringe a little, muttering “Oops” and “Sorr-eee!” as she trashed our duet. Soon I just closed my eyes
and pretended she was Yo-Yo Ma after a lobotomy. Fausto got her next, in an extended section for cello and piano: excruciating.
An orchestra could absorb a deadbeat string player or two, a trio never. But I humored him: music wasn’t uppermost on Fausto’s
agenda tonight.
We plowed to the end. “Wow!” Wet and exhilarated, Rhoby laid down her cello. Since neither of her colleagues had stopped to
make corrections, she may have presumed that we had liked her performance. “You guys are great! Let’s do it again!”
Fausto hit the food trolley. “Have a bite first,” he called. “Brain food. Les? What can I get you?”
Earplugs and hatchet. I got another glass of champagne. “We should form a trio,” Rhoby said, making herself a sandwich. “There’s
potential here.”
It probably wasn’t Rhoby’s fault that her self-esteem swelled in inverse proportion to her talent. She had gone directly from
Sesame Street to Capitol Hill. “One problem,” I said. “I live in Berlin.”
“You’re going back? I thought you’d be here for a while.”
Why would she think that? “Not the case.”
“How long will you be staying, then? We could play a benefit before you leave.” The studs in Rhoby’s eyebrow quavered as her
jaw mashed the sandwich. “Chickering could pack the place.”
“No time. I’m going back in a few days.”
Touché: Fausto momentarily ceased chewing pâté. We all ambled back to the piano. “Tell you what,” he said, closing the Brahms.
“Let’s read a little Haydn.”
Rhoby’s trepidation dissolved as she discovered that the cello part was identical to the piano left hand. All she had to do
was imitate Fausto, who had had the foresight to bring the champagne bucket over to the keyboard. By the end of the third
trio, he and I were fairly ripped: a good way not only to play Haydn, but to listen to him. We ended our reading session with
Mozart. Rhoby thought her part was easy because she didn’t have many notes.
Fausto had become more remote with every page. Finally he stood. “That was fun, ladies. Let’s get some dinner. I know a great
French restaurant.”
“Can’t.” I looked at my watch. “Someone’s picking me up in half an hour.”
For the first time that evening, he looked me directly in the eye. I flushed redder than Justine’s feathers. “In that case,
I’ve got some bouillabaisse kicking around the fridge. Rhoby, have a drink. You earned it.”
She followed him to the Scotch bottle. “Not too much. I still have to work, you know.”
“I would think a little nip would help you through the night. All those nut cases calling in their conspiracy theories.” Fausto
poured Rhoby a hefty highball and led us into his kitchen. “How does a cellist of your caliber end up at the night desk at
the FBI?” he called, half disappearing into his Sub-Zero.
“I auditioned for orchestras for five years. They all discriminated against me because of my sexual preference.”
That was a joke, considering that nine out of ten conductors were gay, not to mention ninety-nine out of one hundred artistic
administrators, music critics, record company executives, and concert agents. Fausto clucked sympathetically. “Tough going
out there.”