Mephisto Aria

Mephisto Aria

Is the history of a dangerous love affair destined to be repeated?

At the height of her career, opera singer Katherina Marow is brought crashing down by her father's suicide. Among his effects, she finds his wartime journal and reads the heart-wrenching entries of a soldier in Russia and in war-torn Berlin. She learns the crimes and secrets her father harbored, but cannot condemn him, for while she discovers his demons, she is facing her own. The stage-world she lives in draws her into a lawless ecstatic realm, and she is tempted, as he was, by forces which could destroy her. Has she too made a devil's pact? And if so, will she pay for it, as her father did, with her life?

I
Overture

Berlin 1982

Katherina Marow staggered toward the parapet, at the end of her strength. She heard her own panting and the footfall of the men behind her, in close pursuit. Her knees were stiff, from kneeling by the body, and both of her palms were perspiring where she clutched handfuls of her bulky skirt. She focused on the steps, the speckled gray-green of weathered stone, and watched each foot landing, fearing above all that she might stumble. Finally, she reached the crenellated wall of the castle.

She stepped up on it, paused a fraction of a second to gather her courage, and turned her face to the light.

“Avanti ŕ Dio!” she cried with her last breath, and threw herself off the wall.

She landed smartly on the perfectly placed cushion and stayed on her knees until the final chords of the opera sounded. The two stagehands, who always stood by during her plunge, appeared without speaking and helped her to her feet. She thanked them with a nod, adjusted her costume, and stepped carefully around the set for her curtain call. The firing squad was just coming offstage.

Dazed, her heart still pounding from the exertion of the final scene, Katherina joined the cluster of singers waiting their turn to go before the curtain. The others glided out and returned, singly and in groups, from their applause.

Finally the tenor ventured out for his solo bow. His applause was long and enthusiastic, and she waited patiently while he savored his moment of glory. Then she strode out, passing him in the alley formed by the stagehands holding apart the overlapping curtains.

Katherina stepped out into the light and the Berlin audience erupted into ovation. Clearly, they adored their Tosca. Detached and enthralled, she gazed dreamily into the interior of the theater, absorbing the acclaim. She swept her eyes across the entire hall then glanced to her right, toward the space between the fluted columns that made up the patrons’ box.

Of the several people there, one stood out by virtue of his height. Gray-haired and debonair, he had an air of authority. Even his clapping was reserved, as if his admiration were somehow different from that of the crowd. But at that moment, she belonged to the adoring world, and she shifted her gaze toward the highest balcony, where the students sat.

Exuberant applause washed over her from the dark mass above and below her and blended with the fierce glare of the footlight so that the sound itself seemed to radiate color and warmth. Intoxicated, she closed her eyes, letting the wave of adulation envelop her; she could almost lean her head against it.

Flowers landed at her feet and she gathered up the ones she could easily reach, holding them overhead in both hands. The volume and duration of applause was greater than it had been for the others and greater than she was used to. It suggested she had just advanced a stage in her career.

After a final inhalation of the sound, she curtsied deeply and exited the stage.

In the wings, the other singers had dispersed and the general manager stood alone, his expression somber. “Can we talk in your dressing room?” Without waiting for a reply, he took her arm.

The general manager closed the dressing room door behind him with excessive care, as if fearing to disturb anyone. Given the noise and activity everywhere else in the theater, his restraint was ominous. Katherina’s joy drained away to dread.

“Is something wrong?”

“I am sorry, Katherina.” He handed her a small note and waited silently, his eyes averted. She read the brief message, understanding the words but not the meaning. She forced her eyes over the senseless paragraph a second time, and as its sense gradually seeped in, her jaw trembled. “Is it true?” she whispered, hoping for denial.

The general manager nodded. “I’m afraid it is. I can assure you, the staff will keep the utmost discretion. I knew your father. Dr. Marow was a quiet man, but suicide was the last thing I would have expected.”

II
Doloroso

Katherina taxied directly to the morgue, as if confronting her father’s body would provide some explanation. The attendant led her along a corridor of white tile into a room of steel tables. The faint odor of decomposition and the stronger pungent smell of cleaning agents assaulted her. Only one table, to the left of the door, held an occupant, draped in a green cotton sheet. She hesitated for just a moment, knowing who it was and not wanting it to be so.

The attendant uncovered the cadaver to the chest and backed away. “His housekeeper has already identified him,” he said. “But the police may want your statement too. You can stay with him as long as you’d like.”

Katherina brought her hand automatically to her heart as she caught sight of the mortal remains of her father. But for the slightly blue lips, his sunken face was colorless. The jaw that fell back in the relaxation of death held beard stubble, giving him a look of shabbiness he did not deserve. She tried to convince herself it was a stranger. His head was wrapped in surgical gauze, which mercifully concealed the gunshot entry and exit wounds, though she could not help but imagine the mess they had made of his skull.

Suicide. She struggled to understand him. What could have brought him to that extreme? She yearned to talk to him, for just a moment, to ask why he had chosen that evening, the night of her great success, to abandon her.

She adored both parents but, even before her mother’s death, had always felt she was her father’s daughter: solitary, introspective, musical. She had inherited his cynicism and even looked like him.

Her earliest recollections were of their quiet conversations, mostly the undoing of the nonsense other children taught her. She had absorbed his little lessons on their trips to the zoo on winter days, when almost no one was there but the two of them. Holding her hand as they stood before the animal cages, he disabused her both of religion and of fairy tales. Cinderella and religion, he said, told the same lie, because they made you believe that someone good would always rescue you. But there was no rescue, not without payment.

He had lavished attention on her, but in a curious emotionless way, like a doting teacher rather than a father. No matter what she asked for, voice lessons, concerts, clothes, he gave them to her, though in postwar Germany everything was hard-wrought. Her mother had been an open book, a gentle, uncomplicated person. But even in their most tender hours, Sergei Marow was opaque.

She wept quietly, grasping his cold right hand—the hand that had held the pistol that sent him from the world.

Katherina climbed out of the taxi in front of the house in the Schlossstrasse. A lovely old brick structure in the Wilmersdorf suburb of Berlin that had withstood World War II, it seemed a luxury when they moved into it during the 50s. East Berlin, a few kilometers away, became a foreign land, all the more so in 1961, when the Wall was built. After a year, they added an office space to one side, to house her father’s modest but slowly growing dermatological practice.

She let herself into the house. “Tomasz? Casimira? Is anyone here?” No one answered. She set down her suitcase and wandered from room to room.

The house was immaculate with every object in its place, which she found somehow disquieting. No one lived here any longer who might create disorder. Deliberately, she tossed her coat over the staircase banister and climbed the stairs to her old room.

Pensive, she stood at the window, gazing down into the frost-covered garden looking for the gardener and housekeeper. Their cottage, which had also been added to the house, made the property seem like a miniature estate. Even now the grounds had a sort of elegance, derived from the gardener’s constant maintenance.

Tomasz and Casimira Mazur had lived here since her mother died, and she was grateful that they were here now. She had no idea what to do with the house, so their presence—and the stipend from her father’s financial estate that she would see to—allowed her to postpone any decisions.

“Katya!” A familiar voice called her by her childhood name and she turned around to the warm face of the housekeeper. The gray-haired woman embraced her unreservedly. As always, she smelled of cooked potatoes.

Tears welled up, but Katherina cleared her throat. “Thank you so much for taking care of things, Casimira. I’d be lost without you.”

“Liebchen. You know, we’s all family here. But come on now. Dry your face. There’s an ‘in-queerey,’ of course, and the detective is already here. We was showin’ him around the basement, but he’s in the kitchen now lookin’ to talk to you.”

In fact, the detective already stood in the doorway behind Tomasz. “Walter Froelich, Berliner Polizei.” A portly balding man in a dark green suit came forward and shook her hand, his grip loose and impersonal. “I am sorry to bother you in this difficult hour, Fräulein Marow, but there are questions I must ask.”

“Of course.” Katherina blew her nose in a tissue and composed herself.

The detective took out a tiny voice recorder and held it inconspicuously in one hand. “Since the deceased left no note, I must ask you, do you know of anyone who might have wished him harm or, at the very least, triggered the…act? Someone who stood to gain from it?”

“No, he never spoke of anything like that. But of course I was not usually here. Tomasz and Casimira would be in a much better position to answer that.”

The detective turned his attention to Casimira. “Did you notice anything different on the day of his death, or shortly before? Any strange people in the neighborhood?”

“No, sir. Only a black dog, a big raggy poodle loose on the street. Sign of the devil, some folks say.”

Katherina winced. “Casimira, where do you get those medieval ideas? It was probably just some stray.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Katherina dear. But you never know, do you? They’s all kinds of things—”

The detective ignored the little side discussion and moved on. “What about letters or telephone calls?”

Casimira shook her head. “The telephone didn’t ring that day at all. Herr Marow got his own mail every morning. ’Course I checked his desk. Nothing there but the electric bill.”

“Did he say anything to you that might have suggested something was bothering him? Anything out of the ordinary that had happened to him recently?”

“No, sir.” Tomasz rubbed his cheek, recalling. “But he was real quiet that day. Just sat in his study all afternoon, with the music going. Then, some time during the night, when we was sleeping, he went out and…and shot himself. The noise woke us up, and then we found him in the snow. We called an ambulance right away. The police was here too and they took the weapon.”

“Yes, I have examined it,” Froelich said. “An old Russian sidearm.” To Katherina, “Did you know that he owned this pistol?”

“I had no idea. If it was Russian, I would assume it was a war souvenir, taken from the enemy. I don’t know how else he would have a gun, least of all a Russian one.”

“Suicide with the enemy’s gun. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?” Froelich said softly. Then, resuming official procedure, “Have you examined all the likely places for a note? And the less likely places? Desk drawers, wardrobe, coat pockets, the floor under his bed or desk?”

Casimira’s chin went up. “I keep a clean house, sir. They’s nothing on the floor. We checked the drawers and Herr Marow had only one coat. Its pockets were empty.”

The detective raised an open palm, as if to placate her. “All right. We’ll leave it at that. It’s possible that something may turn up later. In the mail, for example.” He drew a business card from a side pocket and laid it on the table. “Please keep me apprised of anything unusual.”

He clicked off the tiny tape recorder, signaling the end of the interview, and Tomasz led him to the door.

Katherina followed the housekeeper out of the kitchen. “Casimira, do you know if my father was seeing a doctor?”

“No, dear. Not for a long time. He was as healthy as any man his age. But the last day he did seem depressed. Moody, like after your blessed mother died. Come to think about it, he mentioned her.”

“Really? What did he say?”

“That her death was his fault. Don’t know why he said that. It wasn’t nobody’s fault. Tomasz and me, we didn’t arrive here ’til she was gone half a year already, but we knew it was the diphtheria. That was the year of the epidemic. We was just glad you made it through.”

Katherina dropped her eyes at the mention of the double disaster that had been visited upon them. It was a wound that had never closed.

Casimira went on. “Then he talked about the war, and about people who came home alive, but all broke inside. ‘Soulless,’ I think he said.”

The housekeeper began dusting while she talked, moving around the room and wiping already clean surfaces with her dishtowel. Katherina watched the woman who had stepped into the role of caretaker for both her and her father. She had been a godsend, a calm, efficient presence around the house, cleaning up after them, sensing where she was needed.

Casimira had instinctively found the middle place between housekeeper and parent, and had seen to a child’s physical needs without trying to meet the emotional ones, unless invited. And she was almost never invited. For all her kindness, she could not fill the void that opened up the day Katherina’s childhood ended and guilt began. For Katherina remembered the last warm embrace of her mother, that feverish night. The embrace that killed her.