A Song for Summer

"I'm afraid I do. We're transferring our business to London as I told you. We're hoping to be able to forge some transatlantic links too from there. It was a hard decision--as you know, our traditions go back three hundred years."

Marek nodded. He had dealt with Universal Editions since his student days; they had proved competent and fair, but it was more than that: under glass in a corner of the office was the facsimile of the Schubert Quartetsatz. The first edition of Berg's Wozzeck, heavily annotated, lay in another case.

"We were hoping of course that you would stay with us, but--"'

"I have decided to do so. I'm leaving for America very soon, but if you're setting up links with the United States, London could be a convenient halfway house."

"I'm very pleased to hear it and my partner will be too. He's going ahead; he's Jewish and we feel ..."

"Yes, you may feel that."

"You don't have anything ready now? To arrive in London with a piece by Altenburg would be a certain triumph."

"Soon," said Marek. "I've been doing other things."

"But you'll be staying for the gala?"' "I doubt it. I gather there have been ructions."

Herr Jaeger smiled. "Yes, you could say that. You could certainly say that. Now, as to the contracts; I wonder if you could glance at these ..."

Leaving the office, making his way towards the Hofburg, Marek saw a group of tourists outside the Stallburg waiting for the Lipizzaners to be led from the Spanish Riding School back to their princely stable. This was how they had waited--and probably waited still--for Brigitta to come out of her apartment and make her way to the Opera, and that was reasonable enough. She was after all a kind of human Lipizzaner, richly caparisoned, adored and nobly housed, and knowing perhaps at some level that he had meant to do this all along, he made his way past the Augustiner Kirche and the Albertina, and found himself by the small unobtrusive door which said simply: "Zur B@uhne."

Outside, on an upright chair sat an old man, still wearing the uniform of the stage doorkeeper though he had been retired for many years. His son was the doorkeeper now but Josef was an institution, allowed to watch the great and the good come through that small entrance into the opera.

"Good afternoon, Josef."

The old man looked up, blinked--and recognised him. "Herr Altenburg," he said. "You're back in Vienna.

Well, well --wait till I tell my son."

Nothing could stop him getting to his feet and leading Marek into the cluttered office. "Here's Herr Altenburg, Wenzel; you'll remember him."

His son nodded. "There's a bit of a to-do in there, sir. It's the gala--they're doing Act One and well ... I expect you've heard. No one's to be admitted, but as it's you ..."

Both father and son could remember the time when Herr Altenburg had accompanied the diva to rehearsals. A golden age, he'd heard it referred to, when she'd behaved herself and sung like an angel.

"They're in the auditorium, sir. It's the first rehearsal with the full orchestra."

Marek nodded, made his way down the familiar corridors, pushed open the heavy door--and stood quietly at the back.

"I shall cancel!" cried Brigitta. "I

tell you, I shall cancel. You can go now, you can tell the papers, you can tell anyone! I cannot sing at this tempo, it is an insult to me and an impossibility for my voice. Either you fetch Weingartner or I cancel."

"Now Brigitta, please ..." The voice coach came out of the wings and tried to mollify her. The music director, sitting in the front row, groaned. Nothing but tantrums and tempers from the wretched woman.

There was a week to go to the gala and he was sick of it. He didn't just want her to cancel, he wanted her to be run over by a tram or eaten by rats or both. But who could they get at the last minute? The gala had been set up with her in mind.

"Perhaps we could try again, Herr Feuerbach," said the director. He detested Brigitta, but it had to be admitted that Feuerbach was a disappointment: an arrogant little man who had got on the wrong side of the orchestra. Once that venerable body of men despised a conductor they were implacable. If the Vienna Philharmonic could ever be said to play badly they were doing it now.

"I gather you want it played like a funeral march," sneered Feuerbach.

"No. Just a little more andante. It is after all a lament for the passing of time," said the director, wondering why it was necessary to explain the score of Richard Strauss's most famous opera to the man who was conducting it.

Feuerbach curled his lip and raised his baton. Brigitta moved forward.