Nightingale (18 page)

She offered her carriage, and, as luck would have it, they were not otherwise committed. Now the night had come. Klara sent the coachman to collect her friends and tried to calm her nerves with a long session before the mirror. She had several costumes in blue green, for it was a color which brought out the color of her mahogany hair and enhanced her bright blue eyes.

Tonight, however, the much admired and famous locks were hidden, disguised beneath a curly silver wig. To this, Klara affixed an exotic hat, one which complimented the feathered dress. Every wealthy Viennese lady had a hat like this, although the style was a few years old and therefore somewhat passé. The hat was actually the stuffed body of a bird which sported a long colorful tail. The bird's beak was open and the wings spread, as if it were scolding. The eyes glittered; rubies had been inserted into the empty sockets. Klara had to fasten it high on the wig, or the fabulous length of tail was liable to get entangled in someone else’s clothing, a disaster for both parties.

When her friends arrived, she rushed to meet them. Olympia was dressed as a plump and cheerful gypsy woman, her husband muffled inside the costume of a bear, whose mouth was permanently opened in a roar. Florian's face peered out between the jaws.

"It looks as if the bear swallowed you
." Klara giggled.

"My wife's abominable idea! She says I won't catch cold as bear, but the head's so tall, I can barely get myself into your carriage."

"Yes!" Olympia began to laugh too. "He has to keep it down on his knees. It was either that or undo it."

"And we weren't up to that." Florian rolled his eyes. "It would mean stitching the damned thing to my shoulders again."

Klara noticed that the bear had a fine chain threaded through his nose. Olympia, following her gaze, seized the end and playfully tugged.

"Poor bear!" Klara exclaimed. "Is the cruel woman going to make you dance?"

"No doubt." Florian released a huge sigh. "I shall not be able to escape and go frolicking with some pretty young masquerader for even a minute."

"Which is why I chose this costume for you." Olympia’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

Florian muttered something about making her pay later, which his wife cheerfully ignored.

"What have you done with your peacock, dear? She's a modest bird tonight."

"This is a public ball," Klara said. "I wouldn't dare to wear it so low cut to the Mehlgrube!"

"She shouldn't be going there at all." Liese had entered the room too and now made her opinion known. "Not without Count Oettingen's permission."

"The Adambergers are a more than sufficient escort! Or do you mean to cast aspersions upon my friends, as well as to impertinently break into our conversation?"

Liese shifted foot to foot,
jutting her jaw with annoyance.

"Don‘t wait up," Klara said airily.
“I will be late."

"You shouldn't go. You have been sick. Very sick! At least, according to that Hungarian."

"Good night, Liese." Klara swept past her.

"Never mind, my dear Liese." Florian rested a large furry paw on the servant's arm. "We promise to keep a close eye on your young lady. She'll come to no harm."

Perhaps because Klara was so excited, the ride to the Mehlgrube hall seemed especially long. Not only were they crowded inside the carriage and hampered by their bulky costumes, but there was plenty of traffic clogging the narrow streets. Everyone, it seemed, was traveling to the same place, the old mill with its wide open floor plan and tall ceilings, now converted into a popular ballroom.

At last they arrived and clambered out. Snowflakes blew wildly around them. They joined the crowd already queuing at the front door, presenting their billets to servants dressed as Romans, complete with breast plates and plumed hats. Torches set along the front of the building flared and roared into the windy darkness.

"Thank heaven we got in quickly! It's too cold to stand long outside," said Olympia, shivering and drawing her fringed shawl closer.

"We're unfashionably early," said Florian. "But coming here, it's the only way. In another hour you won't be able to walk from one end of the main room to the other without an armed escort."

They stopped for a moment in the long, broad outer corridor which extended on both sides of the great door. Along the dim length were what appeared to be curtained tents. Inside each one small braziers glowed. This was the notorious corridor of cabinets. Their silken sides fluttered constantly in the drafts which the entering crowd let in.

"There are going to be some chilly lovers along there," Olympia said.

"Indeed," Florian laughed. "Does that mean you won't meet me there tonight?"

"Guess!" Olympia teased back. "If you desire such a favor, my darling, you'll have to be a very, very good bear."

Klara stared at her friends, blue eyes wide. This was something she hadn't reckoned on. It would be terribly embarrassing, not to mention inhibiting, to discover that she and Akos were neighbors to the Adambergers in the aisle of cabinets.

"Oh my darling! You look surprised." Olympia turned her engaging smile upon Klara. "Did you think we came here for the dancing? When you have an apartment packed full of children and servants, you must take whatever opportunities for romance you can."

Standing up on her toes, she kissed a finger, then reached inside the bear's roar to place it upon her husband's nose. Their tender moment was abruptly ended when a Perrot came bounding up to seize Florian by one furry shoulder to shout, "Good God, you great fool! What kind of a get-up has your Frau talked you into this time?"

Apparently, the new arrival's voice betrayed him, for Florian spun around and caught the Perrot in a huge breath-stopping bear hug. "I may be a fool
– but I am also – a bear!" He caught the smaller man in his big arms and squeezed.

A noisy belch followed the hug, aimed right into the roar. Florian dropped his victim and went reeling backwards.

"The bear is vanquished by my breath alone!"

Taking advantage of the moment, Olympia slipped an arm around Klara's waist and said, "Tell me quick, naughty girl. Are we really supposed to take care of you, or do you want to get lost for a while?"

Klara swallowed hard. The few times she had been alone with Giovanni, enough alone to make love, she had not made any friend into an accomplice, although she had certainly cried on Olympia's shoulder after the final, awful denouement.

"Yes," she admitted. "I need to – find someone."

"I can guess who." Olympia did not look entirely pleased. "Do be careful, Klara!" After a meaningful pause she added, "For all our sakes."

In the meantime, Florian's drunken friend had spied another acquaintance he intended to offend, and was instantly off in that direction, shouting cheerful insults and leaving the original three to enter the ballroom. Lit by candles and smoking torches, the great space was not crowded yet, although the band was playing loudly.

All present were masked and most were costumed. Gods and goddesses danced past, as well as myriad repetitions of the characters of the Commedia dell'Arte: the Harlequin, Columbine, and Perrot. Besides mythological figures, there were quite a few horned creatures: stags, bulls, unicorns. A pair of lions passed conversing with a sinister figure shrouded in black. They turned to gaze curiously at Klara and her friends, but gave no sign of recognition.

Then, in the flickering torchlight, their path was blocked by another bear, one who began to box playfully with Florian. With a wave at Olympia, Klara took the opportunity to move away. As she did, Olympia called after her. “Under the clock at twelve, Bird of Paradise!" Then Klara watched her plump figure turn and disappear into the throng, leading her bear along by his silver chain.

A group of well-built men were making a tour of the room, laughing, apparently daring each other to ask ladies to dance. Their costumes were identical suits of close fitting brown and they wore long green cloaks and the bucks’ antlers, rather like mummers at some back country dance.

As Klara drew closer, the group fell silent. The wooden masks and horned heads angled in her direction. One stepped forward to bow, but even after he was close, she couldn't be absolutely certain of his identity, for the mask was so strange. Beneath a billowing cloak, the close
-fitting costume displayed an abundance of lean muscle. The horns were two neat branches on either side of his head. Sweeping a flourishing bow, he handed Klara a circlet of dried flowers.

"Bird of Paradise! Your song ever haunts my dreams."

His voice, the charming accent, the golden eyes that rose to meet hers!

Ah, wunderbar! Akos!
A hot rush of excitement went tingling through her.

His close-fitting disguise, one in which no flaw could be hidden, showed off his build, more muscularity than Klara had suspected. Only an athletic man would dare to wear such a costume.

“I've been dreaming of this moment since we parted," Akos said. "Beautiful Bird, give me your hand."

The orchestra was preluding a contradanse, a cheerful frolic which Klara particularly enjoyed. The music was like a draught of new country wine, bubbling irresistibly.

There was a rush of pleasure as they executed the figures. Sensation rushed through their fingertips. They danced three dances, hardly speaking, smiling into each other's eyes. Partners came and went as they worked through the progressions of the set, and at the end they reliably found each other again. The room was fast filling, as ever more people pushed through the door. She'd been chilly at first, but now the place felt hot.

"It should be safe to leave in this mob." Akos lowered his horned head to whisper. "Go out that green door there, just to the left of the main one, and give the servant this." He pressed a small trinket, a tin rocking horse, into her hand. "He'll to take you to the last cabinet but one, which is also to the left. In a few minutes I'll join you."

Klara understood this was how it was done. Still, now that the moment had come, she was a little scared. It took all her courage to let go of his hand and start through the crowd to the door he’d pointed out. On the way, she had to give one impertinent fellow a push, to get him to take ‘no’ for an answer.

"Already got a date, have you?"
he called after her, while she nervously excused herself to the couple who were blocking the green door and then squeezed her flowing bustle of ribbons and tail feathers through the crowd.

"How about later?"

Klara grimaced behind her mask.
Ugh! Public masquerades!
To meet Akos in a place where a woman alone had to listen to such suggestions was true desperation.

Then she entered shadow, for a moment blind after the light of the ballroom. Just to her left, behind a table sat a burly man, his hands extended towards the glow of a low three-legged brazier full of hot coals. A row of small lanterns rested on the floor, illuminating the way down the passage.

As she drew nearer, she was nearly knocked off her feet by the angry passage of a tall woman who came dashing from one of the cabinets. With shocking strength, she shoved Klara aside and went stamping away through the green door back into the ballroom. Her hasty departure was further dramatized by the hissing of the ocean of black gauze she wore.

"Never mind him,” said someone. “He's always in a temper."

He?
Klara startled, not only because of the unexpected pronoun, but because the voice came from the vicinity of her knees. When she looked down, she saw that a dwarf with a large head and bandy legs had materialized beside her.

"May I help you, m'lady?" His words were polite, but the smirk wasn't.

Uncomfortably, Klara handed him the tin horse.

"This way," he said, briskly tucking it into a pocket. Picking a lamp from the number on the floor, he led her away from the large man and his fire, ever deeper into the shadows, between the tents of fluttering silk. One of these, illuminated from inside, shimmered with light.
Klara knew that everything could be accomplished here, cries for help or pleasure lost in the noise of the party just behind the wall.

Plucking the corner of the curtain back, the dwarf bowed Klara into a compartment where a divan was pushed against the wall. To one side, discreetly in the corner, she saw the white outline of small chest with a pitcher, basin and folded toweling.

Klara swirled around, now hugely embarrassed, but the dwarf had vanished. She stood still, hugging herself in the chill of this cabinet so far away from the heated, noisy ballroom.

Oh, did she really dare stay? Did she really want to, in this place equipped with the bald essentials of assignation
, a soft place to lie, candidly accompanied by towels, water, and washbasin? All of a sudden it seemed very wrong. Sordid! Calculated! Like something Max would devise….

A door banged, one hitherto unsuspected, at the dark far end of the corridor. Laughter and footsteps sounded as a group stumbled past. She could tell, because the lantern they carried sent their shadows to linger and waver across the silken curtains of the little cabinet, all queerly elongated.

"Why, the doorkeeper's up the other end! Idiot! Next thing we know that big animal will be down here, kicking us all out."