Morley Torgov - The Mastersinger from Minsk

"H elena, what the devil is going on ?”

“Why Hermann Preiss, what a nasty way to say hello!”

“Very well, I’ll begin again. Welcome to Munich. Now what the devil is going on?”

Opening wide the door of her room, Helena Becker made a sweeping gesture, her arms extended invitingly, and curtsied like a ballerina. “Perhaps you’d like to step in … unless of course you want every single person in the hotel to overhear your ranting and raving.”

I waited until she closed the door behind me. “Once more, then, Helena — ”

“- just what the devil is going on?” she said finishing the question. “I’m here to attend tonight’s premiere.”

“Without so much as a word to me in advance?”

“I didn’t know I required permission, Hermann. In case there’s some doubt, I am a German citizen. Let me take your hat while you examine my papers.”

“I fail to see the humour in all this,” I said. “Nor do I have time for your charming little guessing games, Helena.”

“Then I take it you won’t be staying long,” Helena said. “Well, perhaps it’s just as well, seeing you’re in such a foul mood, Hermann.”

“You would be in a foul mood too if you’d been made a fool of.”

“Are you suggesting that somehow I made a fool of you?”

“Apparently people who are total strangers knew of your arrival in Munich while I–I of all people — knew nothing.”

“The way I hear it, Hermann, if anyone made a fool of you it was you yourself. It seems there were two things you couldn’t resist last night: Champagne and Cosima Wagner. You indulged in far too much of one, and couldn’t get enough of the other. In fact, as she was bundling you into a carriage for your ride home you embraced her so effusively even the horses snickered!”

“Nonsense. Besides, you weren’t there, so you could not possibly know what — ” I halted in mid-sentence. In the few moments of awkward silence that followed, I found myself staring at Helena as though she were part of a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were suddenly and strangely falling into place. In a quiet voice I said, “ He told you all this, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.

“Are you lovers then?”

“Lovers? I’m not sure what that word means. Looking back on our past, yours and mine, I would say ‘lovers’ is impossible to define … something on-again, off-again … here today, gone tomorrow, who-knows-what the day after.” Helena looked away, a wistful smile on her face. She seemed to be reflecting. “Remember that night at Maison Espãna — ”

“I remember it all too well. Soon after, you said to me, ‘He is everything you are not … kind, considerate, charming, not to mention handsome.’ Your exact words. Hard to forget. So now, Helena, I have acquired a new title: Hermann Preiss, Inadvertent Matchmaker. I suppose I have only myself to blame. After all, I did throw the two of you together. But I never dreamed it would come to this. It’s all wrong, you know. The man isn’t who he says he is. Worse still, he hasn’t the slightest compunction about making promises and breaking them. He’s a master of obfuscation. He’s convinced his own moral code is all that matters. Hardly ideal credentials for a lover, wouldn’t you say?”

“Say what you will, Hermann. The fact is all of us — even you — bend the truth from time to time when it suits us.”

“So let’s speak of the truth then. I suppose Schramm was honest enough to reveal all about the Vanderhoute woman, the one you were so incensed about the night he broke his appointment with you? How she was an obstacle lying directly in his path of revenge? And how very convenient for him was her sudden death?”

“I don’t understand what you mean by convenient, Hermann. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that getting rid of an obstacle is not what I would call bending the truth. In my circles it’s called murder, pure and simple.”

“And in my circles, Hermann, people are more concerned about the kind of brutality Wagner inflicted on Hershel Socransky’s father. So whatever Hershel has done, allowances must be made.”

“But he has no right to take the law into his own hands, Helena. None!”

Angrily, Helena said, “Please, Hermann, spare me your policeman’s sermon about right and wrong, and especially those off-duty musings of yours about the artist being one thing and his art being quite another! There is no distinction! When will you ever learn this truth? If Hershel Socransky brings the opera crashing down tonight, then he brings Richard Wagner crashing down with it. The two are inseparable, and that is exactly as it should be.”

“You said, ‘ If Hershel Socransky brings the opera crashing down — ’ You mean when , not if, don’t you, Helena? Crashing down can only mean one thing: in the final scene … the ‘Prize Song’ … the defining moment, according to Wagner … he’s deliberately going to foul up the ‘Prize Song,’ sing it so badly that the entire opera will be turned into a laughingstock, and Wagner along with it.”

With a coldness I had never before witnessed in her, Helena gave a contemptuous laugh. “Well, why not? Anyway, that hardly amounts to a crime. My God, Hermann, if singing a song badly were a crime, half the tenors and sopranos in the country would be in prison.”

“I’m not an idiot, Helena. Of course ruining a song is not a criminal offense.”

“Then why do you care what he does tonight? For God’s sake, Hermann, let him be! Let him do what he must do.”

“We’re not speaking here merely about ruining an opera, Helena. If Socransky killed once as part of his mission here in Munich, he will likely kill again. This time his victim will be Richard Wagner. I’m sure of it.”

“Then so be it, Hermann. Look at it this way: by leaving Hershel Socransky alone to do what he has to do, you , Chief Inspector Hermann Preiss, will actually be looked on as a hero in the eyes of the mayor and police commissioner. You complained to me not long ago that they had — as you put it — dumped the future of Munich on your doorstep, remember? Well, beginning tomorrow, perhaps the shadow of Richard Wagner will no longer darken Munich. And whom will the grateful population of Munich have to thank for this happy turn of events? Inspector Hermann Preiss! Who knows? Maybe they’ll appoint you von Mannstein’s successor. Commissioner Hermann Preiss … how does that sound to you?”

“Very hollow. Very cynical.”

“Don’t pretend the thought doesn’t appeal to you,” Helena said. “That splendid office with the fine view of the city, the handsome desk and a carpet on the floor, heels clicking to attention as you pass your underlings at the Constabulary. Admit it, Hermann, it would be everything you’ve always yearned for.”

“Am I ambitious? Yes. Can I stand by and leave your new hero free ‘to do what he has to do’? I’m afraid not. Sorry to disappoint you, Helena. I must find him and there’s not a moment to lose. If you know where he’s gone, you must tell me.”

“I have no idea,” Helena said. “But even if I did know, I would not tell you, Hermann.”

“A moment ago you painted a picture of my future if Socransky’s mission were to succeed. Now let me paint a picture of your future. Let’s say if he’s lucky , he will be deported under police escort back to Russia because the authorities find it convenient to rid the country of him. So you follow him to Russia, to godforsaken snowbound Russia. I can see it now, Helena: you with a babushka on your head, dining on boiled cabbage three times a day, dwelling on a farm the size of a stable, taking your turn behind the plow, and fending off attacks by Cossacks. Is that what Hershel Socransky has to offer?”