up his hand to her. “It’s very impressive.”
“It’s a fine instrument,” said Vanessa, bending down briefly to take his hand. “I should probably get the tuner back here. The pitch is beginning to slip.” She started away from him toward the prompt-side wing.
“Would you rather I go? I have some equipment to bring in, and I don’t want to disturb you.” Warren watched her pause. “It’s no trouble.”
“All right. I’ll just sit down for a bit, get some water.” She resumed walking.
“Why did you stop where you did?” Warren called after her.
Vanessa halted. “Did I stop?” She seemed confused. “I guess it was the pitch going. It felt like I was finished.” Her frown became a glower. “I don’t leave music unfinished.”
“Well, if the pitch wasn’t right,” said Warren as he cut through a row of seats toward the side door that led to the offices of the hall, “I can see how you’d stop.”
Vanessa nodded, but went back to the forte-piano, and, after a long moment, sat down and began the Sixth fugue again, concentrating on the music, doing her best to ignore the slight shift in pitch in the strings. “That’s the trouble,” she said. “It needs tuning.” She continued on through the fugue, paying close attention to its tone and the pacing of the work. As she reached the extended passage for the left hand, she faltered. “Damn,” she said aloud, and began the left-hand passage again, a bit more slowly and deliberately. This time it worked, and she thundered on into the end, careening through the dizzying pyrotechnics with the verve of a race-car driver. “There,” she said as if to confirm her final repeated chords. When she was finished, she was a bit shaky; the beginnings of a headache buzzed behind her eyes and she pinched the bridge of her nose to stop it.
“Brava!” called Warren from the side-door. “That was spectacular.”
“Yeah. But the pitch is off,” said the tuner, who stood beside him, “still, the playing’s first rate.”
“Thanks,” said Vanessa, moving away from the forte-piano. “The low E is really off.”
“I’ll take care of it,” said the tuner, and brought his small case of tuning forks onto the stage. “Have to do this the old-fashioned way,” he said.
“Good,” said Vanessa, and sought out the soothing darkness of the backstage area. She leaned against the wall and willed herself to relax, which left her jittery. What on earth had happened to her? she asked herself.
“Ms Hylas, are you okay?” Warren asked her as he rolled a strange-looking, metal box on wheels, ornamented with dials and gauges up next to the stage-manager’s podium.
She made herself straighten up. “Just a bit tired.”
“There’s coffee in the house-manager’s office.” He studied her for a moment, then began setting up his equipment.
“And it’s terrible,” she said, attempting levity. “But it’s hot.” She started toward the door that would lead to the hall to the offices.
“You sure you’re all right?” Warren called after her, his question underscored by the tuner as he started his work.
“Yes, thanks,” she said automatically, and wondered if she dared to eat anything. It might help her feel better, but it could make her feel worse. She was still debating this as she reached the house-manager’s office, where the odor of scorched coffee told her not to have any of it. She went to the drinking fountain and gulped down several mouthfuls, then wandered back toward the stage where the tuner was making progress on the forte-piano and Christopher Warren was busily setting up his display of machines.
“Feeling better?” Warren called out cheerfully. “You look a bit less pasty.”
“Thanks,” she said drily. “Rehearsing can take a lot out of me.”
“If it was just the rehearsing,” he said almost jauntily.
“How do you mean?” Vanessa asked.
“I’ll tell you after I’ve finished monitoring the rest of your rehearsal,” he said, merrily adjusting what appeared to be an oscilloscope.
“All right,” she said, trying not to be too curt with him even though she resented his intrusion on her rehearsal time.
“Just carry on as if I weren’t here,” he encouraged her. “You know how to do it.”
“What makes you think so?” she could not stop herself from challenging.
“Well, you certainly weren’t aware of me when I arrived,” he said blandly, his pleasant face showing no signs of sarcastic intent.
“No, I wasn’t,” she allowed, and listened while the tuner finished his work.
The Nursery Songs went well enough, their fancy ornaments and flourishes sounding impressive, as they were intended to be. When she was finished, she had the tuner come back again, before she started the Grand Toccata and Fugue on a Polish Folk Song. “If it isn’t slipping now, it will be before the piece is done,” she said with a wry smile. She turned to Warren. “Anything so far?”
“I’m not certain,” he said from his place in the first row of the audience where he was staring at the screen of his laptop.
Vanessa paced the apron, reviewing the piece she was about to rehearse in her mind. She paid little attention to her slight light-headedness, attributing it to her skipped lunch. As soon as the tuner relinquished the forte-piano to her, she sat down, ready to begin.
“This is the piece he played when he—?” Warren asked, breaking her concentration.
“Yes. He shot himself three-quarters of the way through the piece,” she said testily. “Anything else, or can I…” She gestured to the keyboard.
“Go on,” he told her, his whole attention on the screen.
The opening bars of the toccata went well, the pace a confident andante con moto. Vanessa let the steady four/four beat carry her along through the modulation from E-flat to G-flat, and back to E-flat again. She was part of the music now, like a raft on a river, riding the current. Gradually all sense of the hall and the strange monitors around her faded away and she seemed to be in the eerie splendor of Lowenhoff, lit by candles in chandeliers and sconces, with a select group gathered to listen to him play this newest piece he had composed, the piece that was dedicated to Maria-Antonia, Graffin von Firstengipfel, the woman to whom he was utterly devoted, and who could not express her love to him. The stage lights vanished, and the darkened concert hall was gone, and in its place was the ballroom of Lowenhoff, golden and glistening.
The Graf sat bolt upright, listening in growing fury at the scandal this man had brought upon him and his family; Dziwny could see his disapproval in every line of his body. He knew this was the last concert he would ever give under von Firstengipfel’s patronage, but he would not accept the callous dismissal he had been given—that way lay ruin for him and a tarnished reputation for the Graffin. No, he would show the Graf what he thought of his arrogant termination with one far more damaging than anything the Graf had promised. The fugue began simply enough, and he played the octaves with deceptive ease, thinking of the song he had heard so many times in his childhood: Endless Love. The melody, plaintive and sweet, echoed from hand to hand, growing and enlarging in long cantabile passages that led to the astonishing fermata. He laid his left hand on the keys and began to play the long restatement of the fugue’s theme, while he reached for the pocket in his swallow-tail coat.
Fumbling with her skirt on the piano bench, Vanessa was transfixed by Dziwny’s composition. Her face was without expression, and everything but her hands moved like a doll, stiffly and automatically. With a sudden cry of frustration, she rose from the bench, slapped the side of her head and collapsed, falling between the bench and the forte-piano as Warren sat all but mesmerized by what he saw on his screen.
* * * *
Faster