“Your investigators were delayed with their reports.”
“Do they have something?”
Reiner merely waited.
Erin uncoiled from the Parisian fainting couch which occupied the central position beneath the front bay windows. She drew the young man up with a caress to his cheek. The lad was quite handsome in a raw and unfinished manner. He was also utterly bewitched by Erin. “You do understand, don’t you, darling. I’d love to spend the entire day in your delicious company, but all the pressures I face just now.”
She endured his lingering kisses of farewell. To Reiner’s trained eye, the young man was not long for this parlor. Reiner never bothered to even ask their names unless they lasted more than a week. Which, since Erin’s return from the dreaded Swampville, had happened with less and less frequency. Erin had always shown a voracious appetite toward virtually every pleasure. But since her return to Düsseldorf, her cravings had been alarming.
The situation in London was a perfect case in point.
“Well?”
Reiner seated himself on the polished piano bench. “She has decided to follow you.”
“Kirsten?” Erin swiveled around to face the bay windows. The lakes shimmered in uncommonly strong July sunshine. Even the swans looked smug this morning. “She is here?”
“She is on her way.” Reiner pointed out to where the city loomed beyond the lakes’ fringes. “Your minions reported that she has booked herself into that ghastly hotel by the Kö.”
As if to punctuate his news, the baby began squalling in earnest. He demanded, “What is the matter with that child?”
Erin responded as she normally did, which was to pretend the baby did not exist. “Does she know where I am?”
“One can only assume so.”
“What about my trip to New York? Does she know about that too?”
“Erin, you cannot possibly be serious about traveling to America. Not now. Not with all-”
“Answer my question!”
Her screech was so loud it momentarily silenced even the child. Then the baby began screaming back. Erin pounced up and marched to the doors, sliding them back so hard they hammered the side walls and accordioned back toward her. “Goscha!”
The Polish woman was not even Reiner’s age, yet appeared closer in years to his mother. In many respects she reminded Reiner of his wife, a silent specter who was far more comfortable with life’s back rooms. Goscha padded down the stairs, her silver-blond hair bundled into the tight knot she always wore, her limp sweater and housedress some color that always seemed scarcely able to pull itself from drabbest gray. Like her voice. “Madame?”
“That screaming must stop!”
“I fear she has a cold.”
“Then call the doctor! Take her to the hospital! Whip her until she understands! Do whatever you must! But make her stop!”
Goscha’s one unfailing habit was absolute obedience. Her means of avoiding life’s confrontations was to anticipate Erin’s every need and serve them in advance. It was rare even to hear her speak, much less speak back. But this morning, Reiner was drawn to his feet by the impossible happening. The woman showed such fury it drew her features back into a slit-eyed snarl. Even Erin was forced to retreat toward the study’s safety.
Goscha lashed out, “Celeste is a baby. A beautiful child.”
Erin drew the doors shut against Goscha’s glare. She then declared, “Something must be done.”
Reiner studied her face, and realized the impossible was happening. Erin Brandt was afraid. Which only strengthened his plea. “You can’t go to New York. You heard the attorney’s warning. There is every likelihood that you will be ordered to appear in the Raleigh court. If they learn that you are traveling to America, they can issue an arrest warrant.”
She did not even seem to hear. She stood frozen to the spot, seeing nothing.
Reiner found himself thinking back to their earliest days together. He had been managing a few other sopranos, good voices and fair actresses, but none of whom would ever make the world’s top ranks. That evening Erin had been singing a lesser role in Turandot in Vienna, where the oldest of his ladies had the lead. To have any role at Erin’s age at the Vienna house was a coup, and he went as much to see what the fuss was about as to attend his own star’s performance.
Before the performance he found himself listening to the conversation around him. Which was something he never did. But tonight every voice he heard was about Erin Brandt. They were not here to see a new production by perhaps the finest opera company in the world. They were here to see her.
Reiner Klatz found himself completely spellbound. Erin sang the role of Liù, a slave girl from another country, and should have merely polished the star’s luster. Erin’s voice was exactly what Reiner would have predicted-underdeveloped and somewhat thin, the standard weaknesses of every young soprano. Yet every time Erin entered the stage, the audience waited breathlessly for her next note. In the last act, the diva broke with stage instructions and marched angrily to the stage’s far corner. Still everyone’s eyes remained focused upon the real star. And when Liù died and Erin was carried offstage, the night dimmed somewhat and the performance turned pallid.
The next day Reiner made an appointment to meet this astonishing young woman. He was thrilled to discover that her allure in person was even stronger than upon the stage. She entranced him such that, when this too young singer with almost no record asked him to manage her career, Reiner Klatz had felt honored. Only his wife remained untouched by Erin Brandt’s spell. His wife was not a person to have many opinions about anything, which was one of the reasons why she made such an excellent wardrobe mistress. She did exactly what was expected of her, and never revealed an opinion contrary to the artistic director’s. But she despised Erin Brandt. The worst argument Reiner could recall ever having with his wife had been over his decision to take Erin on.
Reiner now watched as Erin crossed to the small locked corner cabinet. This in itself was astonishing. The first time he had seen the cabinet had been the day he had arrived with her contract. She had been residing in a tiny walk-up flat on the outskirts of Cologne. Reiner had spotted a photograph within the cabinet and asked about the stolid, formal, utterly Germanic family staring coldly at the camera. Erin had responded with cold viciousness, ordering him never to ask about her past. Why she even kept this locked cabinet, he did not know. But it had followed her from that cramped apartment to Koblenz where she had her first standing contract, then Brussels, then Munich, and finally here. Always locked, never mentioned. Yet here she was, extracting a key from a mock Fabergé egg and opening the cabinet.
“Erin?”
She plucked a diary of some kind from the top shelf. The volume was so worn she had to hold the pages in place. She leafed through a series of letters bundled in the front. She found what she was looking for, unfolded the yellowed page, and reached for the phone. When someone answered, Erin switched to French and said, “I wish to speak to Sister Agnes, please.”
Whatever it was she heard, it was enough for Erin to spill the diary in a heap of tattered pages at her feet. “You can’t be serious.” Then, “No, no, forgive me, that was not what I meant at all. It’s just, well the news is so unexpected.”
Erin hesitated a moment, then decided, “No, please do not tell the Mother Superior anything. I want this to be a surprise for her as well.”
She hung up the phone, and resumed her blind stare out the front bay windows.
“Erin, you must permit me to call New York and cancel-”
She turned to him and revealed a smile that would only have confirmed his wife’s worst fears. “Go and bring the car around,” she ordered. “Then come back for the baby.”