T. Bunn - Winner Take All

Kirsten replied delicately, “It pertains to research I’m doing for Senator Jacobs.”

They looked at one another, then his wife said, “Zurich.”

“Absolutely.”

“Excuse me?”

The husband said, “Her first foray into the limelight was at the Zurich opera house. She was nineteen and a student under the great Adrienne Salzer.”

“You have to understand,” his wife added, “that it is extremely rare for a young would-be soprano to be given a chance at a starring role. The opera powers assume that her voice would require further development. Sopranos of Erin’s age are rarely even permitted to audition at a major house. Which makes what we’re about to tell you all the more remarkable.”

Kirsten asked, “You know Ms. Brandt well?”

“Oh, we’ve never met. Well, Elizabeth bumped into her once in the Savoy elevator. But our introduction to Erin Brandt is part of operatic lore. Ms. Brandt was in the audience that night in Zurich, you see. Then what happens but the lead singer collapsed backstage.”

“Bad cramps, so we heard,” his wife interjected. “ La Traviata . Some say it’s Verdi’s finest opera. Violetta is a courtesan. She falls in love. And dies. It’s a classic Italian fable.”

Her husband continued, “The director of the opera house was actually onstage, about to apologize and say there was no time to bring in a replacement, so the evening’s performance would be canceled. Then it happened. Erin Brandt walked up to the conductor with her teacher, who is known and respected throughout the entire operatic world.”

His wife took up the story. “The conductor, Mrs. Salzer, and Erin Brandt went backstage and met with the director. He then returned in front of the curtain and said there was a student of the same voice coach who had prepared that night’s star for the role. Ms. Brandt had sat in on all the rehearsals and been walked through the opera by the house’s artistic director, as a favor to her teacher. The conductor had heard her sing, and was willing to use her for the night’s starring role.”

“Naturally, none of us were very enthusiastic about the change,” her husband continued. “We had been treating this evening’s performance as the highlight of our Swiss vacation. It didn’t matter whether she could sing. It would be a student . One who had never been on the stage before, much less performed this particular role.”

“They delayed the opening curtain a full forty-five minutes, which did nothing for the audience’s frame of mind.” His wife’s face was alight with the thrill of remembering. “When Erin Brandt came onstage, my goodness, it seemed as though a child was playing in her mother’s clothes. The seamstress had done her best, but the costume just swallowed her. She had to use both hands to lift the skirt every time she moved.”

“Which only made it more amazing,” her husband added, sharing his wife’s thrill.

“We could actually see the people in front of us squirm, like the entire audience wanted to draw farther back. We were ready to bolt, I don’t mind telling you.”

“And then she began to sing.”

“Magic,” the husband reminisced. “We were captivated from her very first note.”

Kirsten asked, “She was good?”

“Magnificent,” the man said. “Extraordinary. Utterly wondrous.”

His wife continued, “The first act concludes with ‘Sempre libera,’ one of the most challenging arias in a soprano’s repertoire. At the end of the aria there is an E-flat above high C. The myth is that Verdi wrote it into the original score, then decided it was an impossible challenge and took it out.”

“Not only does it arrive after a very taxing aria, but the singer then has two full hours left to sing,” the husband explained.

“The audience was so spellbound by that point, I’m certain they would have forgiven her if she had tripped over that atrocious costume and fallen flat on her face.”

“But she didn’t,” her husband recalled, smiling into the past.

The wife drew closer to Kirsten. “She hit that note and held it forever. She held it so long we could see the conductor’s baton begin to tremble. The audience began to cry their bravos while she was still singing.”

“The Swiss are never what you would call demonstrative,” her husband said, still smiling. “But that night they gave her a standing ovation. Right there, while she was still holding the note, they rose to their feet and cried out their applause. The man next to me was weeping.”

“She drew them up like she had cast a spell,” the wife said. “I stood because I had to, the people in front of me were on their feet and I could not bear to lose sight of that beautiful, beautiful woman.”

“Callas reborn into a fairy’s body,” the husband said. “That is what the Zurich papers declared the next day. The new Anna Moffo. The find of the century. We kept all the reviews.”

“Callas never had her voice,” the wife sniffed.

“They were referring to her stage presence,” he replied, with the patience of one who had covered that same ground many times before. “Erin Brandt is a consummate actress as well as a great singer.”

“The night has taken on mythical proportions,” the wife said. “I know people who weren’t even on the continent who claim to have seen the performance.”

Kirsten glanced at her watch and rose to her feet. “Thank you for your time.”

The detective was there waiting when Kirsten’s taxi pulled into the Savoy alcove. He did not approach, did not really even look her way. But she felt a need to check things out once more. She walked over and pointed to his briefcase. “Is that it?”

His tone suggested he had fielded the question a thousand times before. “The trigger’s in the handle, miss. The coverage is excellent. Absolutely spot on. Used it several hundred times and never had reason to complain.”

“All right.” She took the revolving doors into the lobby and walked straight to the room telephone poised on the front desk. When the operator came on, she said, “Ms. Brandt’s suite, please.”

The phone clicked, rang once, then a man responded with “Yes, what is it?”

Kirsten recognized the voice of the well-padded manager who wore his suit like a sausage skin. “This is Kirsten Stansted.”

She knew the little man was tempted to hang up on her. But he ticked off the words “Stay there on the line.”

As she waited for Erin, Kirsten checked her shoulder bag for the FedEx envelope that had arrived from Marcus that morning. She then surveyed her own inner space, finding satisfaction in this new determination. She had spent her entire life avoiding the hidden side of people. Pretending she could escape ever noticing it, so long as she held to counterfeit blindness. But it had gotten her nowhere she wanted to go. It was time, as they said, for a change.

The dulcet voice declared, “Tell me I’m not dreaming, sister.”

“This is Kirsten. I’m downstairs.”

“Well, of course you are. I spent my entire night hoping this might happen.”

“I’d really like to have a minute of your time.”

“A minute? Darling, come up and let’s find us a few hours.” The low chuckle finally broke free. “I assume you’ve come to realize just how awful you were to me last night. And how wrong you were to leave.”

“There’s been a change of heart. Definitely.”

“Then your apology is accepted. Give me three minutes to free up my afternoon and put on something more in taste to the occasion.”

“I’d rather you come downstairs.”

“Nonsense. Three minutes. Suite four two six.”

When Kirsten hung up the phone and started for the rear elevators, the detective rose from his chair, picked up his briefcase, and fell in behind her. Several other people crowded into the cage with them. The detective did not say a word.