Prima Donna at Large Read online

  It was my chauffeur’s day off, so that meant I’d have to drive myself. Operating a motor car is not one of the things I look forward to when I wake up in the morning; but I refuse to ride those noisy trolleys or call one of the taximetre cabs, because I do not relish the thought of entrusting my life to the driving skills of a stranger. So I steered my way down icy Broadway—doing it, but not liking it.

  I was relieved when I got to the Astor and happy to find Amato was indeed out of his sickbed. He was wearing several thicknesses of red flannel wrapped around his throat, but he was talking instead of scribbling notes on little pieces of paper. “Gerry!” he cried happily. “Look at me! Like Hercules, eh?” He thumped a fist against his chest. “Now I am ready to move mountains, to swim oceans, to sing! Am I not picture of health?”

  “Pasquale, you are as healthy and handsome as ever,” I laughed. “And I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am you’re well again! When are you coming back?”

  His face fell a little. “Dr. Curtis is cautious man. He says another week. I miss two more performances—Carmen tomorrow night and Madame Sans-Gêne.” He brightened. “But I am back for Aïda!”

  Emmy Destinn’s opera, but I didn’t care. Amato was looking so good I just had to give him a little hug. “You don’t know how much we’ve all missed you. You just don’t know.”

  He winked at me. “You are not happy with your Monsieur Duchon?”

  “He’s not my Monsieur Duchon,” I shuddered, “thank goodness. Do you know, Pasquale, the entire atmosphere at the Met has changed since he’s been here?” I realized that was true only as I said it. But it was true—Amato had always been an oasis of stability and calm in the middle of the chaos that was normal in an opera house, but Duchon had generated nothing but dissension from the day he arrived. From calling me a German-lover to double-crossing Morris Gest, there’d been just one troublesome thing after another. But there’d been nice things too, luncheon at Delmonico’s, a box of orchids. Ah, what was the use? I gave up trying to understand the man. “I’m glad you’re better,” I told Amato again.

  “Grazie. I am so much better,” he announced, “that I come to hear your Carmen tomorrow night.”

  “You’re coming to hear Duchon’s Escamillo, you mean,” I said. “But Pasquale, do you think you should be going out so soon? That’s not summer weather out there. Does Dr. Curtis approve?”

  “Dr. Curtis accompanies me! I am in the cold air only un momento—when I get into limousine and when I get out. We take precautions, cara Gerry. Do not worry.”

  “Well, if Dr. Curtis will be with you, I suppose it’s all right.”

  “Dr. Curtis and my nurse,” Amato laughed. “Emmy Destinn casts herself in role of angel of mercy. She says she will carry the medicine and assist Dr. Curtis.”

  “What does Dr. Curtis say to that?”

  Amato raised his shoulders, spread his hands. “He is resigned.”

  Amato wanted to be brought up to date on the latest gossip; I chattered on for half an hour, hearing myself mention Philippe Duchon’s name a little more often than I really cared to. I’d just about run out of things to say when Amato pulled a watch from his pocket and reluctantly announced it was time for his nap.

  “I am instructed to sleep two hours every afternoon,” he said with a sigh. “Dr. Curtis says that if I do not, my knees start to bend the wrong way and green feathers grow on my back.”

  “Good heavens! Well, we can’t have that.” I stood up to leave. “Besides, two hours in bed every afternoon sounds like a good idea.”

  He gallantly invited me to join him, but I declined.

  Scotti lounged elegantly in the chair beside my dressing table while Bella arranged my hair; I never wear a wig for Carmen. “You seem in high spirits tonight, Gerry,” Scotti said.

  I smiled at my reflection in the mirror. “Amato is almost completely recovered. This is the last Carmen I’ll have to sing with Duchon.”

  “Ah. Also your last chance to upstage him.”

  “Why, Toto, the idea! I don’t have to upstage him.” My hair didn’t look quite right; I told Bella to brush it out and start over. “He’s coming tonight, you know. Amato.”

  “È vero? That is good news, yes? He must indeed be better, to brave this weather.” He sighed. “New York winters are not easy for us Neapolitans.”

  “Poor Toto.”

  Just then a timid knock came at the door. Bella let in Uncle Hummy, who was wearing an expensive-looking new gray tweed overcoat.

  “Uncle Hummy!” Scotti cried. “How dashing you are! Turn around—let us see.”

  The old man beamed, showing off his new coat. “Meeztair Caruso buy me.”

  It’s incredible what a difference the change of one garment can make (as I am always telling Emmy Destinn). Uncle Hummy didn’t exactly look like a new man, but oh my, what an improvement! Having that expensive coat on his back had given him a sense of pride; he was standing up straight and grinning from ear to ear. No one would mistake him for a tramp now.

  Uncle Hummy held out a folded piece of paper to me. “Note you, Miz Zherry.” He bobbed his head once or twice, grinned a toothy grin, and left.

  The note said:

  My dear Gerry,

  I would be most grateful if you would not remain seated at your table during the Toreador Song. You are the only one on stage who is not standing at the time, and I fear you draw attention away from the aria. I thank you in advance for indulging me in this whim.

  Votre ami,

  Philippe Duchon

  Silently I handed the note to Scotti.

  He read it and shook his head. “He does enjoy telling others what to do, does he not? And now he uses Uncle Hummy to run the errands. What are you going to do?”

  “What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to glue myself to that chair! He wants me to fade into that mob of people who stand around and cheer him. Ha! That’ll be the day!”

  “Foolish man,” Scotti murmured.

  “Toto, why on earth did you never learn Escamillo? It’s a simple enough role.”

  “Eh, that is why.”

  “You could still learn it,” I persisted. “You already know the Toreador Song—everybody does. And you could learn the rest of the role in twenty minutes.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Then why haven’t you ever done it!” I cried, exasperated. “Why must I be subjected to this, this pillar of vanity telling me what to do?”

  “Now, now,” Scotti said in his most soothing voice. “Only one more performance with Duchon, remember? Amato is back for the next one.”

  I let him now now me into a state of something resembling calm. If Amato had made a similar request, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it. But coming from Duchon, after all the other things that had happened—well, it was just too much. All this fuss over the Toreador Song.

  “To-ré-a-dor, en ga-a-a-r-de,” sang a friendly, familiar voice from outside the door. In came Pasquale Amato, radiating good cheer and well-being. “Gerry! And Toto! I come to wish you well tonight, cara Gerry! And perhaps to frighten Monsieur Duchon a trifle, no? I am back!”

  “Not yet, you’re not,” Dr. Curtis growled, following him in. “And I told you not to do any singing yet.”

  Amato gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Where is my nurse?”

  “She’s coming,” Dr. Curtis said.

  “She is here,” Emmy Destinn announced, marching in like the soldiers’ chorus in Faust. For once she was wearing a flattering gown—wine-colored velvet with a minimum of flounces and ruffles. But the effect was spoiled by what she was carrying over her left shoulder. It looked for all the world like one of those saddlebags you put on horses.

  “Charming accessory, Emmy,” I said dryly.

  “Pasquale’s medicine,” she explained. “You never know what might be needed.”

  “I told you not to bring so much,” Dr. Curtis grumbled. “We’d never even need most of those things.”


  “You never know,” Emmy repeated.

  My small dressing room had become crowded; I shooed the maid out. “So, Pasquale,” I asked, “have you seen Duchon yet?”

  “No, Duchon has not seen me yet,” he answered blithely, putting things in their proper perspective. “I save that little treat until last minute.”

  “Childish,” Dr. Curtis muttered.

  I handed Duchon’s note to Emmy. “Here’s something you might find interesting.”

  She draped the saddlebag over the back of a chair and read the note. She made a tsk-tsking sound and said, “You are going to remain seated, aren’t you?”

  “Need you ask?”

  “At least he’s polite. He signs it votre ami instead of ton ami.”

  Scotti was peering down Amato’s throat. “It looks well to me, Pasquale.”

  Dr. Curtis shifted his weight. “So glad you agree, Dr. Scotti. It’s almost time for the curtain. We’d better take our seats.”

  “First we seek out Duchon,” Amato said, “and then we take our seats. Come.”

  They were going out when Scotti called, “Oh, Emmy—do you not forget something?” He pointed to the medicine bag draped over the chair.

  “Oh—thank you, Toto.” She saddled up and left.

  I started warming up while I finished putting on my make-up. After a while Scotti began humming along with me, just for fun, until I told him he was distracting me. That was about the five hundredth time I’d told him. As usual, he said he’d forgotten and wouldn’t do it again. We both knew he would.

  I made one final check of my appearance in the mirror; then we went down to the stage level. I asked Scotti where he’d be watching from.

  “The first act—from out front. Thereafter, we will see. Cielo! What bothers Rico so?”

  Caruso was running around backstage with a look of absolute desperation on his face, and he had half the backstage crew running around too. Caruso always panics right before a performance, but this wasn’t his normal stage fright. “Rico, what’s wrong?” I called.

  “My throat spray!” he cried. “It is disappeared! Vanish-ed! I cannot sing four acts of Bizet without my throat spray! Impossible!”

  “Then why not send your valet back to the Knickerbocker for more?”

  He stared at me blankly for a moment, then whirled on his heel and dashed away yelling, “Mario! Mario!” Caruso’s apartment at the Hotel Knickerbocker was only three short blocks away; the valet could get there and back in no time.

  I barely felt Scotti’s good-luck hug as he slipped away to take his seat out front; I’d already started the process of shutting out everything except Bizet’s music. Carmen doesn’t make her entrance immediately, but I like to be there from the very beginning. We got the word; it was time. Applause from out front told me Toscanini was making his way through the orchestra pit to the podium. The applause increased slightly—he was taking a bow. Then the orchestra crashed into Carmen’s noisy prelude, and it would be only a few minutes until the curtain opened. Gooseflesh time.

  La voilà! I don’t believe I thought of that irritant Duchon once during the entire first act. I sang the Habanera and was rewarded with a nod of approval from Toscanini as well as with thunderous applause from the audience. I got into a fight with another woman, I was arrested, I had my wrists bound, and I was turned over to Don José/Caruso to be guarded. But when a little later he was supposed to set me free, Caruso “forgot” to loosen the ropes. So I had to finish singing the Seguidilla with my hands tied behind my back. Caruso thought that was very funny.

  But he wasn’t laughing during the act break. I made a quick costume change, picked up my castanets, and came down to find our tenor looking like a storm about to break. He’d found out what had happened to his throat spray. Uncle Hummy had taken it.

  “I mistake! I mistake!” the old man cried pitifully. “I think it other!”

  Caruso threw up his hands. “What does that mean, you think it other?”

  “Other,” Uncle Hummy insisted. “Duchon.”

  Just then Duchon himself came strolling up. “I do apologize if I’ve caused you any inconvenience, Caruso. I told your uncle here to see if he could find my throat spray, and evidently he picked yours up by mistake.”

  “Mistake,” Uncle Hummy agreed.

  Caruso could never stay mad long. “Eh, well, it does not matter. I have more now.”

  Uncle Hummy tugged at his sleeve. “Sorry. Sorry.”

  Caruso busied himself with reassuring the old man that all was well, but Duchon had already forgotten the incident. He headed straight for me with fire in his eye. “Gerry, I want you to have a word with your protégé. He keeps watching me. As if willing me to suffer a totally unexpected heart failure or something equally incapacitating. No finesse, that one.”

  “Jimmy? Surely you exaggerate.”

  “See for yourself.” He gestured angrily behind him.

  I looked over to where Jimmy Freeman stood once again in his thankless role of waiter-in-the-wings. Jimmy was in costume, listening to useless last-minute advice from his ever-present mentor, Osgood Springer. Listening to Mr. Springer, but never taking his eyes off Duchon. It was eerie, the way he kept staring at him.

  But I was in no mood to do Philippe Duchon’s dirty work for him, not after that bossy note he’d sent me, politely worded though it was. “So he’s watching you,” I shrugged. “You let the strangest things bother you, Philippe.” I gave a little rattle with my castanets for emphasis.

  His eyes hardened. But before he could say anything, Gatti-Casazza came lumbering up. “Ah, Monsieur Duchon! Everything goes well? No problems?”

  “If you mean do I still have my voice, yes, I do,” Duchon said harshly. “I will tell you if I need a replacement—you do not need to keep inquiring. You might as well send that boy home.” He flapped a hand in Jimmy’s direction.

  “Eh, well, now that he is here …”

  “Mr. Gatti, I do not want that boy around boring holes into me with his eyes! I insist you get rid of him.”

  “But he is here only because you—”

  “I know why he is here and I am telling you there is no longer any need for him to be here! Send him away!” Duchon was shouting.

  Caruso rushed over to us. “Send who away? Why? Something is happening, yes? What is wrong? Who—”

  “Tacete, Rico,” I whispered.

  Gatti was looking worried. “Monsieur Duchon, it is almost time for the second act—”

  “I should have smashed that insect when he presumed to attack me,” Duchon snarled, “that day in Delmonico’s.” He stared at me. “And I would have, too—if you had not kept encouraging him!”

  “I!” I said, astounded. “I did no such thing!”

  Caruso’s eyes were wide. “Someone attacks you in Delmonico’s? Who?”

  Duchon ignored him. “Oh, you are denying it now? You did not, ah, egg him on?”

  “I most certainly did not!” I underscored my denial with a roll on the castanets. “You are rewriting what happened to suit yourself!”

  “What happens?” Caruso cried plaintively. “Who attacks you?”

  “I did, Mr. Caruso,” came Jimmy Freeman’s voice from behind me. “But only with words. I should have used my fists.”

  Duchon laughed. “You? You are good only for making scenes in restaurants. To impress a woman old enough to be your mother.”

  Jimmy lunged at him, almost knocking me over. Gatti and Caruso both got between Jimmy and Duchon and prevented a fight. The two Italians were both talking loudly in their language, Duchon was answering in French, and Jimmy contributed some downhome American cussing. I decided to join the party.

  “Bâtard!” I screamed at Duchon. “Old enough to be his mother? I would have had to give birth at age ten!” Mr. Springer was there, trying to pull Jimmy away. We were surrounded by stagehands and the other singers, all of whom seemed to find this intermission feature far more interesting than the opera. “And I had nothing to do wi
th what happened in Delmonico’s!” I went on. “Did I encourage you in any way, Jimmy?” He shook his head. “There—you see!”

  “Oh, how innocent you are,” Duchon sneered. “You know perfectly well you enjoyed seeing that boy make a fool of himself!”

  I threw the castanets at him.

  I didn’t stop to think; I just threw them. If I had stopped to think, I undoubtedly would have thrown them harder. As it was, it was quite hard enough, thank you. I was using the hardwood castanets that night, not the ivory ones; and the edge of one of the clappers had a little rough spot on it—not much, just a little place. But evidently that rough spot caught Duchon just at the hairline, and … well, you know how scalp wounds bleed.

  Duchon stood there with the blood running down his face, bellowing like a bull.

  Caruso stood there staring at Duchon, horrified.

  Gatti-Casazza stood there staring at me, horrified.

  Jimmy Freeman stood there staring at me, openly admiring.

  I stood there listening to my conscience and waiting for remorse to set in. It didn’t happen.

  Then everybody was screaming and waving their arms and accomplishing nothing. Gatti sent someone out front to fetch Dr. Curtis. He came, followed by Emmy Destinn with her saddlebag of medical supplies, followed by Pasquale Amato, who wouldn’t dream of missing out on the fun. Osgood Springer recovered my castanets and handed them to me with a wry smile.

  Dr. Curtis got the bleeding stopped and was applying a miniscule bandage. Gatti hovered over Duchon anxiously. “Can you sing?”

  “Of course I can sing,” Duchon snapped. “I do not sing with my scalp.”

  “Somehow,” a soft voice said out of nowhere, “I do not think this is a good time to visit.” It was David Belasco, who I’d completely forgotten was coming tonight. He stood there in the midst of the pandemonium, a serene figure in his priestly garb, with a bemused expression on his face. “Even opening nights aren’t as hectic as this. Are you all right, Gerry?”

  I said I was. Morris Gest stood beside his father-in-law, gawking at Duchon. “Did you do that?” he asked me.