Frank just shook his head and continued his note-taking.
I considered the demolished manuscript on the desk. The black writing was in all capital letters and in a smattering of different
languages; the only thing clear about it was its hostility. The green writing consisted mostly of question marks and expletives.
The commentary overlapped in several places, a whorl
of words, and it was hard to disentangle even the more legible arguments of Red and Blue. I saw how it would be possible to
think of all four sets of notes as extensions of the same mind, at war with its own moods. A kind of fugue.
“The Scheerbart Room, the Von Doderer Room,” Vollstrom said. “Just try to think of the right word down there, and I promise
the word will not be rehabilitation. When the work is going badly this does not seem like an assisted living facility at all,
more like thwarted living, hindered living.”
I assured Vollstrom that he was exaggerating. If Bernhard had really wanted him killed, I reasoned, he could easily have done
so already.
“Yes,” Vollstrom said, his words muffled by the olive blanket he’d drawn over his head, “but that would have been no
fun
. Just to have Frank snuff me with a pillow after dinner, which he would happily do. No, Bernhard is waiting and watching.
He will kill me gradually as he killed the ducks. Death by criticism is slow and painful, the will is sapped, and when I no
longer produce there will be no alternative. The notes of December do not bode well. Surely, that green handwriting is his.”
I told Vollstrom that the green script didn’t look like an architect’s handwriting.
“They say some of his blueprints were illegible,” Vollstrom said. “So this building may not be the one he exactly intended.
It was unfinished at the time of his death, and certain errors and misreadings crept in. That’s the only reason we can stand
this place at all.” He looked over at his bespectacled tormentor in the corner. “Are you getting this, Frank?” he asked. “The
ideal building, for Bernhard, is always an empty one.”
T
HE ORIGINAL
O
PERA
H
OUSE HAD BEEN BADLY DAMAGED IN
a 1935 fire set by an anguished fan of then-reigning diva Olga Hillenbrund. The young Bernhard had presided over the 1941
renovation in a spirit of high camp. “The intention,” as he explains in his
Memoirs
, “was to compile every possible excess of nineteenth-century ornamental architecture, for which I still felt some fondness
at the time, and to rid myself of it all through sheer exaggeration.” This would explain the two-ton chandelier, the gilt
banisters, the enormous ceiling mural that depicted Orpheus’s failed errand to the underworld. The public loved it, in a way
they would never quite love another building of Bernhard’s again. Young wags had their photographs taken on the grand staircase,
next to the blinking gargoyles. The richly encrusted balconies had provided a backdrop for countless marriage proposals and
unwise speeches of love. Far below Charon and his boatloads of Lethean dead, I toasted Jimenez. I’d found him lingering outside
the ruins of the Central Library and, remembering his love for opera, offered him my extra ticket. He was wearing
the clothes we’d bought for him at the Salvation Army thrift store down the street, baggy checkered pants and a crimson velvet
smoking jacket. He didn’t look any sillier than the surrounding bourgeoisie.
Having been denied backstage access, we waited for
Wozzeck
. Our pockets were stuffed with crossword puzzles and dessert tickets. Bubbles of talk slipped from mouths, blown nowhere
in particular; the talk-bubbles, buoyant, rose to the ceiling where they popped, leaving no trace except a slight dampness
in the air, which condensed on Madame Perloff’s fur muff. The iron-ore baroness’s headwear looked like a huge fur turban—if
she hadn’t owned a private box, it would have obstructed the spectators’ view of her daughter. There was an ostrich feather
jutting from it. When she leaned to tilt her ear toward the young man next to her, who was tapping notes into a phone, the
muff slumped precipitously. A crowd of hangers-on condensed around the baroness. Caterers in German military uniforms tiptoed
through the room, saying “
entschuldigungen Sie, bitte
.” A crowd of schoolchildren to our right, the baroness and her circle to our left, I began to experience a kind of
platzangst
, doubting that we could cut through the fizzy thickness of the lobby to our seats. The kids made a collective lunge for a
large bin of cough drops, which they mistook for candy, while their teacher flailed his arms and bright scarf. This wave forced
us to the fringes of the baroness’s circle. She looked us over, intrigued, as if our proximity to her proved our inherent
interest. Or maybe it was simply that her face, lifted and remolded so many times, assumed a permanent expression of high
intrigue or alarm. She fixed us in her surgical gaze. Unsure if the baroness remembered our meetings of past years, I hesitated.
The young man next to her stepped forward.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, with a British accent. “I’m Martin Breeze of the
Trude Trumpet
.”
I laughed in his face. “You’re not Martin Breeze.”
“Pardon me?” he asked. His phone began to vibrate and play the opening bars of
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
.
“He’s not Martin Breeze,” I said, turning to the baroness. “He must be some kind of …
impostor
.”
“An impostor!” exclaimed the baroness, grinning. She adjusted a ring of rubies on her white neck. “And what about you? Who
are you?”
“A phantom of the opera,” I replied. “And this is my friend the kidnapper,” I said, putting my hand on Jimenez’s shoulder.
“Oh, I see,” said the baroness. “And do you collect ransom?” she asked flirtatiously.
The pseudo-Breeze was speaking into his phone. “There’s some fellow here who disputes my existence,” he said, smiling at me.
“I think I must go and try to persuade him of my reality.” He tucked the phone in the pocket of his beige suit.
“Martin Breeze is dead,” I said coldly.
“I’m afraid I have to disagree with you there.”
“Baroness, you must remember Martin Breeze,” I said. “The critic.”
As the pseudo-Breeze dug out his passport, the baroness said, “I do seem to remember a short, dumpy fellow who used to hang
around here. His bow tie was never on straight. He did not look at home.” Her pasted-open eyes lit up. “Maybe he should never
have been here in the first place,” she said. “Maybe he was the false Breeze, the impostor. I can assure you that
this
one can write decent prose.”
And with that, no less a personage than Baron Perloff
stepped forward. The Baron wore a crimson tuxedo and a matching cummerbund over charcoal-colored slacks. He grabbed my shoulder
with the proprietary intimacy that was the shared estate of drunks and the rich, and began murmuring hot, rank words into
my ear. “I despise writers,” he said. “They’re like roaches. You kill one of them and a hundred more are born. Squirming to
life with their tender souls already budding, the antennae poking through, already groping for unique insights and observations,
it’s filthy, the little red mouths, the teeth …” The baron shuddered. He jammed an imported cigarette into his silver holder.
“The little teeth,” he said.
The baron turned his shoulder, and I found our position in the circle had changed drastically. Throughout the baron’s tirade,
a squad of ushers in German surplus duds had been closing in on us, and they now had us surrounded, though for the moment
they were keeping a polite distance, weighing deference against violence. “Are you gentlemen all right?” one of them asked,
doffing a vintage infantry cap. It was the “elevator attendant” from the
Trumpet
building, I realized when he revealed his gleaming dentures. He was slowly rubbing an opaque, perfumed lotion on his knobbed
and scarred hands.
“That man over there,” I said, pointing to the pseudo-Breeze, “is not who he claims to be. He says he is Martin Breeze, who
is dead, as you know.”
“But you say yourself that Martin Breeze is right there.” The elevator-operator-cum-usher smiled.
“I think we’ll head to our seats now,” Jimenez said, taking me by the arm. It was probably best to have an escort if you were
descending into the underworld, which I seemed to be. We maneuvered through the school kids and reached the door,
where another usher handed us a program. I regarded the deranged eyes and pale moony face of Wozzeck. I could not resist turning,
despite Jimenez’s protests. “Martin Breeze is dead!” I called loudly to the lobby, compelled to state the truth, even if it
no longer could have any impact.
“No I’m not!” was the cheerful reply, then laughter, and the five-minute bell.
I
COULD STARE
for hours at Molly’s face. She was my midnight double feature, my matinee. In my college dorm bed, I traced her topography:
the ridges of her eyebrows, the sled-hill of her sharp nose, the pink ravine of her parted lips. At first she permitted, even
enjoyed this point-blank spectatorship. “Why hello there,” she would say, groggily waking. “You must be the night watchman.”
Insomniac that I was, I could at least rest my eyes on her. The motions of her chest were my fence-jumping sheep, and I tallied
them to myself, sometimes picturing her ribs, lungs, heart, and blood working in concord beneath her skin. I would get thirsty
or have to go to the bathroom, but I couldn’t make myself leave the bed, unable to rip my gaze from her form. I didn’t fully
think through what it might feel like for Molly, to wake and find me staring hungrily at her, like I wanted to suck her in
with my eyes. Some years later, in our house, she woke and said: “You know, that’s kind of creepy. The way you watch me. I’m
just sleeping here. It’s not that interesting.” I apologized and told her I wouldn’t do it anymore. “It’s no big deal, it’s
just a little weird,” she replied, already losing consciousness again. I did my best not to stare at her as she slept. I stole
a minute here, a minute there, turning if she
stirred. The beige wallpaper on the other side of the bed was no comfort at all. It was like staring at a blank journal page,
my own drab soul.
The operatic fan base was composed of similarly desperate, intent observers. Among the socialites and retirees, they filed
in. Kyle’s art teacher from Humboldt High, inspecting the paint chips underneath her fingernails. The nurse from my ophthalmologist’s
office. A cluster of laid-off librarians in vintage dresses and drugstore plus-ones. A shaky Frau Huber, leaning on her husband’s
arm. Brought here by rumor and innuendo, we waited for Molly to reappear, to guide us from the underworld carved out by her
absence. In sharp contrast to the chatter in the lobby, a strange hush fell over the auditorium. Anything absolutely necessary
to say was spoken in a whisper, as if speaking too loud might disrupt the air and spoil the atmosphere needed for her return.
I was reduced to one among the many, her former husband. The lights darkened over us, creating a false night, and in the dark
we felt ourselves pleasurably effaced, rubbed out: we turned our eyes to the stage. The heavy curtains parted to reveal a
stark, minimal set. It resembled a still life in a high school art classroom. A child’s papery yellow moon dominated the backdrop.
Darkly expressive trees crept out from the corners of the set, casting weblike shadows in the pale circle of lighting. Stage
left were two darkened figures, one man sitting in a barber’s chair, the other standing over him, scraping a razor across
his face. The razor’s swipe was enhanced by sound effects, sending a serrated shudder through the audience. The orchestra
sounded a dissonant chord, followed by a snare blow and some disconcerting little woodwind trills. The spotlight came up on
the two figures: Wozzeck, in his uniform, played by the stocky tenor Andreas
Gutenberg, who had kissed my wife on several occasions. He shaved the figure in the chair, whose back was turned to the audience.
The captain, or Hauptmann, was tall and had red hair slicked back over a pointed, oblong skull. The captain’s back was turned
to us, and his face was covered with shaving cream.
Langsam
, he sang,
langsam
: “Steady, steady.” My hands shook wildly.
I could not get a good look at Hauptmann in the chair. As I watched the scene, in which the captain berates Wozzeck about
the bad manners of the poor (siring bastard children, pissing on walls), I tried to scrutinize the deeply familiar face. And
yet Wozzeck’s burly frame kept obstructing my view. It was almost as if the director had blocked the scene precisely to this
end: Wozzeck kept spinning Hauptmann around in the barber’s chair, dabbing a bit of shaving cream off his cheeks, ending up
directly in my sightline. All I could see of the captain was one lathered cheek and his lumpy uniformed body, which looked
heavily padded. His voice was an unusually high, almost chirping tenor—a voice in which I could almost, but not quite, hear
some echo of my wife’s. Staring at Hauptmann, I realized that I no longer remembered Molly’s face as well as I thought I did—that
years of research hadn’t prevented her image from deteriorating in my mind. And yet, there was no denying that the tenor playing
Hauptmann looked like Molly, or what Molly would have looked like had she been a man.
I flipped through the program. The cast notes included publicity shots of Andreas Gutenberg (as Wozzeck) and Ariel Perloff
(as Marie), but when I got to the role of Hauptmann, played by Brian Molloy, there was only a gray square and the words
PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE
. The tenor’s biography was masterfully
vague: Molloy had been born in County Cork, Ireland, and supposedly studied at Trinity College in Dublin. He had performed
in “major productions” of Strauss, Bizet, Mozart, and Verdi, and was delighted to “rejoin” the Lyric Opera for this show.
When I looked up from my program, Hauptmann had been wheeled from the stage, and his place was taken by Ariel Perloff as Marie,
who cantered out in a skimpy peasant smock. Perhaps her friends in high places had hoped that Ariel’s deficiencies would be
less obvious in an atonal opera such as this one, but they had underestimated the Trudian opera-going public. A group of grad
students hissed when Ariel mistook an E for an E flat. They winced at her lax, sluggish phrasing and plugged their ears to
her shrill attempts at the upper register. While the part of Marie would not have been out of Molly’s range, it became clear
that it was far beyond Ariel’s abilities. Several of the grad students tied white handkerchiefs to their canes—a fad among
composition PhDs—and waved them in surrender as Ariel attempted the lullaby in act two. The Baron and Baroness Perloff did
their best to counter with bravos from their second-tier box, where they sat with the pseudo-Breeze and the thuggish usher,
but they were outnumbered. A few seasoned buffs, librettos open in their laps, led the ironic, jeering applause when the child
had finally been serenaded to sleep.
Hauptmann reemerged in act two alongside his insane compadre, the doctor, who sang a brief aria celebrating the theories that
would make him immortal. I studied Hauptmann’s awkward movements across the stage, the feigned quality of his sure, masculine
stride. The egotistical doctor diagnosed Hauptmann. He hogged the stage, relegating Hauptmann to the background. There was
a delicate, even feminine quality to the
captain’s voice and gestures, but before I could conclusively link them to Molly, the scene ended. At the end of the second
act, the lights went up, waking me as if from a dream I had not yet understood and could not clearly remember.
At intermission, I walked upstairs to the balcony and joined the long line for the men’s bathroom. The facilities at the Opera
House were badly inadequate and a constant source of complaint. Male patrons of the Lyric Opera were forced to endure a subversive
Bernhardian joke as they waited: the line for the bathroom snaked down the so-called Castrato Hall. A series of portraits
and placards, celebrating the young singers who had sacrificed their manhoods for their art, hung over us as we inched forward,
bladders smarting. There was a solemnity to our brigade.