Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (29 page)

Turned out he was quite a terror as a card-sharp. “Well, what can I say?” he chortled. “I’m from Naples!”

Diego had taught me several games—
vingt-et-un
,
écarté
. But did I remember the rules and the various hands, I wondered? Some hard practice with Pier-Angelo in the evenings had brought most of it back, and I’d been invoking Diego’s favourite strategy, ‘play hard, without fear.’

Pier also knew and taught me several other games I’d likely encounter, though I’d continued to evade the despised
lansquenet
which had been Bon-bon’s downfall at the supper party. We worked steadily: manual dexterity, keeping a cool head for the numbers, the suits and their combinations, making quick decisions.

“I hope you don’t think this will lead to anything, Pier,” I said, watching him over the rim of my glass.

“Of course I can hope. Why do you think I’m helping you?”

We both laughed. I was fond of him.

“If not now, perhaps someday,” he coaxed.

“When the seas run dry, and the little fishies fly…” Where this hearkening back to my Irish roots came from, I had no idea, but Pier didn’t seem to notice the slip. He was too busy pouting.

“Where are you going, anyway, with this new talent?” he asked, after downing the greenish liquid he’d been nursing for hours.

“Cruising the Rhine. I want to sit on the deck of the steamship, enjoying the breeze and watching the world go by—and winning at cards all night.”

“The Germans are boring,” he said, making the cards whizz again, and better than I could do it.

“Oh, don’t be a spoilsport,” I told him, with a poke to the ribs. I got up to retrieve my map and plunked it down on the table. “Look,” as I used my finger to trace the route, “I’m going to board at Mannheim and travel to the North Sea. Between Bingen and Koblenz, I’ve been told, the largest concentration of castles in the world can be found. That’s also where the best wines can be drunk, and I’m going to drink them. I’ll be back in time for the trial—whenever that date’s settled.”

“Why don’t I come with you?” His eyes lit up. “Even just as a friend? Keep you out of trouble—otherwise the men will be all over you: a woman alone.”

“No, because I’ll be taking my revenge by beating them roundly at the card table, and they won’t dare come anywhere near me.”

“Hmph.” Pier laid out a hand almost faster than I could follow it. “Match that.”

I gave it my best shot, and it was pretty good.

He poured himself another
fée verte,
then knocked it back. With this, I knew that he’d given up trying to get into my bed, for this night at least.

“I read in the papers that boring old Bonn is being shaken up in a few weeks,” he said. “Is that why you’re going in that direction, you crafty minx?”

“No. Whatever do you mean?”

“Not sure I believe you, but…” He blinked twice, then opened his eyes wide; they’d gone very bloodshot. “It’s the second Beethoven Memorial Festival, to be held in the great composer’s birthplace. Besides all the music that’s to be played, the other big attraction also happens to be one of the Festival’s largest benefactors and fund raisers.”

“Don’t be deliberately annoying, Pier, spit it out.”

“Franz Liszt.”

Good God.

“I’ve heard he’s sunk a personal fortune into the event, enduring years of bad management as the Bonn organizers struggled to pull it together. You’re telling me you didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know. And even if I had, all that is long over—as well as none of your business.”

Poor Pier, soon after, put his head down upon his arm and passed out, cards splaying from his fingers, trump card on top.

It was time to venture forth. I had nothing to lose—everything I cared about I had already lost. I could hear Diego’s voice in my head: “You must keep your head,
Bandida
. Trust your skill and your daring, and play hard, without fear.
Never
let them see your hand.”

Courage, Lola—and shuffle the cards.

*

It was mid-August, terribly hot when I stepped ashore. I told myself that it was a welcome diversion to be in a completely different nation, hearing another language, watching people behave in their very different ways. And it was good to be back on dry land, as well. My experiment—to cruise the Rhine and win at cards—had succeeded brilliantly, but Pier had been right: it was very hard work keeping the gambling gents at bay, even if I had just fleeced them. In general, the gamblers on board were there alone, and itchy to indulge in some randy behavior. I wasn’t interested in that—hard to believe, perhaps, but there it was. I also hadn’t intended to get off the ship at Bonn, but… Well. I had reached my limit of tolerance, and my purse was full. I was ready to celebrate that, and needed a bit of sport of my own, a festive digression: I deserved it, I told myself. Bonn was under Prussian rule, of course, and I reminded myself to be careful, recalling the previous intermingling of a Prussian officer and my riding whip.

I found the city in a crisis of mass confusion because there were not enough hotels to house the thousands of Beethoven devotees who had poured in from everywhere across Europe and Britain. Luckily, I managed to talk my way into a place—teensy and spartan, but at least somewhere to lay my head. Everyone was complaining: customs officials were hostile at all the borders, the trains couldn’t keep on schedule, the concert facilities were dreadful and the heat was worse. Sweltering! I kept hearing rumours and reading in the papers that Franz was being accused of promoting the festival in order to promote himself. More believably, I heard later that he was almost bankrupt by the time the three-day ordeal was over. Flags were flying everywhere, pickpockets scurrying behind and amongst the crowds; I wondered why I’d bothered. It all put me into a terrible mood. Even some of the fine concerts of that glorious music couldn’t loosen my irritation, and after two days I hadn’t managed to catch a glimpse of Herr Liszt even once.

On the final night, I was determined to get myself a seat at the closing banquet at the Golden Star Hotel so that I’d feel as if all of my accommodation costs would not have been in vain. I dressed carefully, in a new and rather fine dark blue silk dress sporting a cunning, cream-coloured grosgrain ribbon winding round and round the full skirt’s hem and up towards the waist, with a corresponding pattern on the bodice. A lucky purchase in Mannheim before I’d boarded the steamship, it accentuated my tiny waist and perky breasts quite stunningly. I felt beautiful and in control, so when I got to the Golden Star and found all those Germanic types in a very pushy frame of mind, I was pushy back. There were fisticuffs over banquet tickets—actual blows were being exchanged!—so what the hell; I threw my weight around a bit and declared that I was a personal guest of Franz Liszt’s. Why not?

I got my seat, and then was disgusted to have to endure hours of boring oratory while the various officials rose to their feet and covered themselves in congratulatory blather. At least there was champagne—lots of it, and I helped myself liberally—before I finally got my glimpse of Franz as he stood to give a speech about Beethoven’s universal appeal. I couldn’t believe how he had aged, poor man! He looked exhausted. He began to speak in halting German (which was brave, I thought, because he wasn’t very good at it)—thanking all of the various nationalities who had come to celebrate Bonn’s most famous son, and trying desperately not to leave out any of the assembled royalty, who were fanning themselves in a variety of snobby ways. He thanked the Dutch, the English, the Prussians, the Belgians—then faltered and wiped his forehead with a napkin. The impulsive French representative sprang up and shouted angrily, “Vous avez oublié les français!”

Immediate chaos. Others leapt promptly to their feet; men were yelling back and forth at each other and at Liszt.

A heavy-set gentleman farther down the table from me got up, and then stood upon his chair, waving his hands and trying to calm the crowd. This wasn’t successful, so he stepped up onto the table.

“Who’s that?” I whispered to the fellow seated beside me.

“Dr. Wolff,” I was told. “Wrote the words to the cantata Liszt composed for the festival.”

This Wolff, now upon the table, was shouting, and still no one was listening—it was a tower of Babel in the hotel dining room. Franz had sat down, seemingly overcome. How can I help him, I wondered valiantly—and then I had it! I too bounced up, stepped onto my chair, and thence onto the table. I admit I felt a bit fuddled from too much champagne (all that oratory, endured only through liquid encouragement), and there was a tiny part of my mind that wondered—fleetingly—if this was quite the right thing to do… But (oh dear) the wonder flitted away, and I carried on.

I could hear some loud tinkles and crunches below my skirts, followed by a few grander smashes. Around me, underfoot, diners were reaching for their toppling champagne flutes, or grabbing at the bottles that remained unbroken or upright. “Let him finish; what’s the harm?” I cried, and tried a gay pirouette. “Let Dr. Wolff be heard!” Voices were rising in angry protest, which (to my ears) seemed to change into a terrible howl (
mon Dieu
, were they
howling
at me?)—when, all of a sudden, there was an alarming flash of light, followed by an ear-deafening crash. Screams! People throwing themselves under the table! And then we began to understand, in our various overheated and perhaps drunken ways, that this was the dramatic breaking of the oppressive heat-wave that had held us in thrall, and that a storm of magnificent proportion was upon us.

Solid citizens and their wives began rising clumsily to their feet and making their way to the exits, avoiding the large picture windows which surrounded two sides of the banquet hall. Some of them had their arms over their heads, convinced (it appeared) that God would surely smite them down. That made me laugh, for some reason—I found it hysterically funny! Over to my left, I could see a tall man, bald as a polo ball and holding what appeared to be two crutches in one hand; he was bent slightly forwards, gripping something in his other hand and turning towards me. Just then, another sizzling flash of lightning smote the room, followed by a deafening crack, right overhead, at the very same instant that I leapt into the air with a gazelle-like
jetté
, crying “
¡Hola!
” and thence to the floor. Upon landing, I steadied myself with a hand on the table, emitting a little yelp of surprised, tipsy snickering at my near tumble and suddenly wobbly legs. The eye of the storm must be appallingly close, I hiccuped to myself, and also, isn’t nature wonderful? I was about to try to find my glass again (hopefully containing a lot of champagne) when a loud scream rang out, followed by a group of people gathering swiftly around one of the other banquet tables. Or, rather, around something on the floor in front of it.

Just then, I was muzzily considering whether I might have been a titch embarrassing, up there on the table, pirouetting around. Embarrassing to Franz? I hoped not. I was just trying to help. But why did I feel so…? Oops, oh crikey, p’raps I’d better sit down… I was blinking and looking about to see whether Franz had remained in the room, but far too many others were still in the way, moving to and fro. I burped thoughtfully (all that fizz). Blast and triple
merde
, had I done it again? Had I caused a scene? Oh, my broken heart, Bon-bon, how will I live without you…

And then a broken-hearted female voice screamed, “Help! Could someone please—my husband’s been shot! Is there a doctor in the room?”

“Over here,” a voice said from directly behind me. I spun and saw Dr. Koreff.

*

Oh, the poor woman; it didn’t bear thinking about… I was sitting at a table, shaking, drinking a fortifying glass of bubbly. I had popped the cork myself, and the bottle was protectively clasped in my lap: Koreff would not get anywhere near this one. My head was spinning and I
really
shouldn’t have had any more—part of my mind did indeed know this, while another part didn’t seem to give a toss.

Koreff, seated across from me, little hands upon his short thighs, leaned towards me with apparent concern. “How are you feeling now, mademoiselle?”

“Wretched.”

Minutes before, the squat toadstool had rushed over to attend to the fallen man. He’d opened the man’s jacket and then his shirt, which was covered in blood, and blood streaming out of his chest at a rapid pace; I’d been able to see that even from where I was. The woman, crouched beside her husband, all at once had thrown her head back and begun to wail, rocking herself to and fro. Was he dead? So quickly, so out of the blue? A gasp and a sob burst from my own chest at the sight. The woman clutched at the legs of another man—“Her brother,” I heard the fellow say as he’d knelt, drew the woman into his arms, and rocked with her… “Gunshot wound,” was pronounced by one man, passing me, and, “Did you see anything?” from another. The horror and rapidity washed over me with clamorous din: a life snuffed out, a beloved companion erased in a moment… I’d peered about me then, to right and to left. Her husband had been
shot
? Good God, by whom? Where had the villain gone?

After his statement had been given and the man’s body removed, Koreff had returned to where I was sitting, and now there he was, trying to look helpful. “Bugger off, why don’t you,” I said, turning away to sob, hands across my eyes to block out his bulbous visage and its curious gaze.

Then, “What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked, turning back, not wishing to show weakness before such a hunk of snot.

“Can a German not be in his own land to celebrate a national treasure?”

“Hmph.” I got up and left him, picking up the glass of champagne from the table where I’d set it, and went to sit again by myself in a corner, trying to work up the energy to leave for my tiny hotel. The champagne had a bitter taste. As I sipped, I tried to untangle the sequence of events that had led to the poor man’s death. Pandemonium in the hall. A jagged spear of lightning and huge crash of thunder, just as I’d
jettéed
off the table. The husband had been standing directly over there… If I’d still been up on the… Oh, fucking
diablo!
Could that bullet have been meant for me? I downed another large swallow—the last in the glass—and stared across at Koreff.