CHIMERA'S WALTZ

CHIMERA’S WALTZ PROLOGUE BARCELONA, SPAIN -February, 1898 American pianist Royal Harley shivered and warmed his fingers at the meager fire of a coal stove in the vast, cluttered labyrinth backstage of a concert hall. A cold rain fell outside and the chill of it along with the faint odor of mold pervaded the cavernous space within. Only two performers remained backstage. As Royal hovered over the fire and waited to go on, he cast covert glances at the featured artist, a Spanish violinist of wide renown, last on the program. The great man stood alone, his open green plush-lined case containing his instrument on a high stand beside him, his features deep in concentration causing him to frown under his pince-nez while he tapped his fingers lightly against his boiled shirt. Royal decided the Spaniard could possibly be of use to him, perhaps even become a sponsor if approached just right. Seizing the opportunity while a cellist on stage still played a concerto, he tugged down his vest and approached the older man. “Perdóneme, Don Enríco” he addressed the man in Spanish. “My name is Royal Harley. I wish to tell you that I am a great admirer. I’ve listened to your recordings on the gramophone and once went to a concert in Paris. It’s an honor for me to appear on the program with you.” The Spaniard stared at him without speaking and Royal wondered if his American accented Spanish made his words unclear. The violinist turned and stalked over to the stage manager. “Señor Baldes,” the virtuoso said in a loud voice with aristocratic inflection, “please tell this idiot American that only a barbarian would approach an artist preparing himself for an appearance. Request that he desist from his ridiculous, sophomoric attentions. This is yet another case of an uncivil people intruding where they don’t belong.” The stagehands stared in fascination at the imbroglio. Royal reeled with mortification and groped blindly behind him for the curtains, as if he wished to be swallowed in their folds. Anger rose like a gorge in his throat. His temper, the fiery specter that always hovered, gathered itself to crush him to nothingness. He needed time to regain his equilibrium, refocus on his performance. But he was helpless. A red mantle of fury flowed over his eyes as though someone had placed tinted gels in front of the gaslights. He wanted to smash the face of the arrogant violinist. He spread his fingers, then closed them in a fist, almost feeling the snap of the violinist’s bulbous nose as bone and cartilage broke under soft flesh. The cellist onstage played the last bars of his concerto and stood to receive his applause. The stage manager gestured for Royal to take his place among the dusty velvet hangings in the wings. Royal found himself unable to concentrate with the turmoil in his brain. He could not perform now. The fragile shell of his temper was punctured and he could scarcely see in the scarlet haze that enveloped him. It had happened before in Seville when the noble Señorita Tancia spurned him just before a recital and he barely managed to perform, resulting in virulent reviews in the journals. To maintain a standing as a concert pianist, he needed time to recover now. His lips moved, reciting a litany that sometimes calmed him. Royal is good. This person is not worthy of my anger. I am not naughty and lazy. Papa loves me. But this time it was to no avail. The cellist was coming offstage. Royal opened his mouth to explain to the managing director that he could not go on, but his tongue felt thick and his speech incoherent. The man shushed him and propelled him roughly to the wings. Applause for the cellist died down, and the hall became quiet again. Now the audience made fidgety noises, coughed, rattled programs, whispered and shuffled feet. An assistant made frantic gestures for him to go on stage. The angry director came over and shoved Royal out beyond the curtains. He walked slowly, like a somnambulist in a nightmare, across the expanse to the great piano. A polite scattering of applause startled him and he looked out to the audience to see only rows of white masks floating in a sea of blood. The piano seemed crouched, ready to spring at him with bared teeth. He sat, poised his trembling hands over the keys and began to play. Hot perspiration ran down from his pale, high forehead. His fingers were like India rubber and could not reach the octaves. The sound came out wrong—discordant music, as from a far-away circus of lunatics. Then new sounds. Dazed, he looked out at the audience and saw angry faces. Jeers and hisses came at him like barbs, the white masks now with knotted brows and stretched, gaping mouths. His hands dropped away from the keyboard and fell upon his knees. He rose and walked with stiff, awkward steps to the wings, not stopping there but going on through the maze of ropes, past the stage hands, picking up speed, through the disembodied voices that spoke to him, hands that clutched at him, distorted faces that leered and seemed to laugh crazily at him, until he reached the outside door which he flung open and drew in great gulps of moist air. A heavy rain fell now as he ran, careening through the streets of embedded stone in a clumsy, stumbling gait, grabbing at lampposts, his dress suit drenched. When he reached his lodgings, he threw himself against the scrabbled stone of the outside wall, heaving for breath. He tried to gather his wits before he faced the proprietario in the lobby. The rain let up for a moment and the churning purple-black clouds above seemed to form the angry face of God. Was there actually a God up there who had kept careful count of his past misdeeds to make sure that he paid in full for each? For sure his dead father kept watch on him from some lofty or nether region, scowling under his bush brows and stroking his side-whiskers. He mumbled aloud, So, Papa, just as you said I would, I failed at this too. He leaned against the wall, still wheezing from the unaccustomed effort. Raindrops ran down in rivulets into his collar. Finally his breath slowed and his head felt clearer. He pulled himself together and lurched forward to heave open the heavy outer doors of the lodging house. In the vestibule he stopped before opening the inner glass doors because of a commotion inside. A dark, balding Spaniard of mid-years with a white waiter’s apron wrapped around his middle waved his fists and screamed at the proprietario, his face explosive red, spittle flying from his mouth. Royal recognized the man as the owner of a small cafe where he sometimes took his meals. The little redhead’s father! Through the glass doors the man’s frenzied rage, along with a thick dialect, rendered him quite unintelligible. Royal knew, however, why the man was here. When he had enticed the usually compliant girl to his quarters with an expensive bauble, she had refused his more unusual requests. He had left some ugly marks on her and thought he saw some teeth missing before blood poured from her lip. Now he withdrew and went around to the servants’ entrance. His heavy, wet clothes seemed to hold him down as he dragged himself up the back stairs. His rooms were dank and chilled, lit only by the glow from the street-lamp outside that threw a silvery light, pock-marked by raindrops, against the walls. Who said, `Troubles come not single foe but in battalions’? He slumped into a chair and a deep, groaning sigh came from the depths of his soul, the first step to expunge himself of the events of this night. The daily newspaper lay on the table where the criada had placed it when she came to clean in the mornings. Slowly a headline in large black letters registered on him. An American Navy ship, the Maine, had blown up in the harbor at Havana, Cuba. After all the failed diplomacy and wary circling, the United States and Spain would now certainly go to war over the plight of the Cubans. His grandfather and ancestors before him had been military men. Here