XXV Pericoloso

The guards of the Grenzpolizei at the Brocken Peak sprang to life as the steam train disgorged its passengers into the station. The soldiers were all young men in medium brown, lightly patterned field camouflage with the usual chest pockets and epaulets. They wore soft caps, and their unmilitarily long hair offered a stark contrast to the severe haircuts of the Wehrmacht. Each one had an assault rifle slung on his shoulder, which seemed excessive for monitoring an opera company. Two of them had huge binoculars hanging from their necks, and a third stood off to the side taking photographs with a bulky camera. Though Katherina suspected they were glad to have something official to do, the guards scrutinized each pass and visa meticulously, as if the safety of the entire DDR depended on their weeding out spies from among the opera crew.

The pass controllers asked every one of the newly arrived visitors the same two questions: “What is your reason for entering the Brocken security zone? ” and “Are you carrying instruments that could be construed as dangerous to the installation? ” Then, after a brief pat-down of each person, carried out with the same gravity as the interrogation, they stamped the papers presented and waved the visitor on.

Gustav, who stood just behind Katherina, seemed to share her annoyance. “Amusing for the first time, ” he whispered, “but two times every day will become boring fast. ”

After some twenty minutes, all the company members had passed through control without incident, and they moved in clusters up the long path to the performance site. Though the sun was already high, the temperature was still at freezing and the snow on the path was frozen hard.

Long before they arrived at the opening in the concrete security wall, Katherina could see the two transmission towers: the old concrete block tower and the newer and far higher one. The column of steel painted in three bands of red and white and standing on three legs looked more modern but was just as ugly as its predecessor. Katherina had a vague idea that the two structures were for broadcasting both television and the FM radio system of the DDR but was not sure if both were operational.

As they approached the gateway, two guards stepped forward to check their papers yet again, though this time with less rigor. By their uniforms it was evident that one was an East German “Vopo” and the other a Soviet. Katherina had heard that the Red Army maintained a barracks on the Brocken Peak, but had not thought about it until now. One of the women walking ahead of her addressed the German guard but he looked away from her, refusing to reply. Obviously they had been ordered not to talk to the visitors. An unpleasant welcome.

At the foot of the new transmission tower, cars and service trucks were pulled up in a circle. Trabants painted in camouflage had the circular emblem Grenzpolizei DDR on their sides, and dull green minivans were stenciled in black on the rear with Fernsehen der DDR. Shabby air-polluting vehicles Katherina had not seen in the West for years. A third building stood next to the towers, she presumed for administrative functions, and attached directly to its wall, a row of cages held German shepherd dogs. They erupted into a frenzy of barking as the visitors streamed through the gate.

Some hundred paces away Katherina and the other cast members stopped and formed a loose semicircle around the performance space. It was as primitive a thing as Katherina could imagine. A natural rock formation, which she assumed was the Witches’ Altar the stationmaster had talked about, formed the center. Behind it, temporary wooden flooring had been laid over the rocky ground for the orchestra and conductor. Directly in front of it, a pit had been dug. The only stage was a thin strip of platform a few centimeters off the ground, which surrounded the rock pile and the pit. A circular pine roof supported by beams covered everything but the fire pit, and the wide hole in the middle of the roof, some two meters in diameter, was obviously for smoke ventilation.

Two rings of wooden pillars supported the roof, though the inner pillars were doubly thick. She quickly saw why. Four of them held small platforms where a person could crouch. A narrow ladder ran along the column from ground to roof. A technician with Fernsehen der DDR on the back of his overall had just climbed down one of them with a coil of cable over his shoulder. She could see now that he had just installed a length of cable along the column up to the elevated workspace.

“What are those for? ” Katherina asked, pointing to one of the platforms.

“Camera emplacements, ” Radu answered. “DDR television will be filming from three of them. ”

“Hollywood on the Brocken, dear, ” Gustav quipped. “Aren’t you excited? ”

In fact she was a little excited, but also a little unnerved. Any error would be recorded forever. Every note and action, for better or for worse, would be irrevocable.

She was also not particularly happy to note that the audience had no seats but only narrow benches. Mere planks, the kind that did not encourage sitting. The audience would thus be standing, just as the chorus would do. Like Medieval spectators. It was an arrangement that encouraged noise.

“Where will we dress and make up? ” a dancer asked.

“There are rooms and toilets down there. ” Radu pointed to a long rectangular shed lower on the peak. “It’s not what you’re used to, of course, but don’t worry. It will serve for dressing rooms for that one performance night. ”

One of the younger singers warmed her hands under her armpits. “I don’t know how we’ll be able to sing for two and a half hours in this air. This ‘theater’ has no walls and it’s freezing up here. ”

Radu shook his head. “It won’t be. There will be a fire right here in this pit, a big one, as well as a ring of torches around the whole theater. That, plus some two hundred spectators will provide all the heat you’ll need. More than you’ll want. You’ll see. ”

Katherina exchanged glances with the singer, who shrugged, obviously unconvinced.

Sabine Maurach was suddenly at her elbow. “So, how have you been? ”

“Fine, just fine. ” Katherina mumbled, her eyes wandering again to Gustav, who stood nearby. The two seemed connected, although the dancers had only just arrived a few days before. Had Sabine already made yet another conquest? Katherina’s face burned as she considered the possibility that Sabine had already told him of her Carmina Burana seduction.

Sabine touched Katherina’s forearm, as if the thought had just occurred to her. “Look, why don’t we get together this evening after rehearsal, you know, for dinner? ”

Katherina tried to formulate an evasive answer.

Radu Gavril clapped his hands suddenly, interrupting. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get started. ” He ushered his cast to the center of the performance space. On a patch of hard-packed ground, the accompanist was just removing the tarp from the small rehearsal piano.

Radu seemed more edgy than he had been in Salzburg, his rapid-fire manner tense and hurried. He had just finished stage directing in Stockholm a few days before and was obviously under enormous pressure to realize an avant-garde work in a brief period of time. That would take its toll on any man, however brilliant.

He addressed the four female dancers. “Witches, you’ll be onstage at all times after the opening. Remember, you’ll be the ones to pull people into the ensembles. ”

“We’ll begin with the Prolog, ” he said without pause. “God and Mephisto. ” He swept his hand in a wide arc across the audience space. “As you wager for the soul of Woman, you will make a full circle around the audience. The chorus will enter at the end. ”

The lyrics of the Prolog sounded familiar, and then Katherina remembered her last course in German literature. Though the drama was about the Witches’ Sabbath, it began with a near duplication of Goethe’s Prolog im Himmel. The difference, which she found gratifying, was that it was not a temptation of Faust standing in for Man, but of herself, standing in for Woman. The difference seemed significant.

Moreover, the Devil was rather less threatening. In spite of Gustav’s robust stature, Katherina noted, to her amusement, he would sing his Mephisto as a counter-tenor.

Satisfied with the run-through, Radu turned the page in his score. “All right. The first sin is Envy. Katherina and Stefan, this is your duet and then trio with an audience member. Stefan, give us some good tenor excitement. One of the witches”—he pointed toward Sabine—“will pick out someone and get them to sing the refrain. Don’t worry about how bad they are. They’re there for emotion, not tonality. ”

Since the singers had rehearsed the vocal parts thoroughly in Drei Annen, they performed them only at half voice with the piano, pulling in a random colleague to stand in for the audience member. Radu seemed satisfied.

He turned his page again. “Let’s move on to Gluttony. Thomas, you’ll start the baritone while the witches distribute doughnuts and gelatin. The orchestra will be at full volume, so at the beginning of the third verse, I want you to start the food fight. Just mime it right now. We’ll have real gelatin on performance night. ”

He signaled the piano and the team rehearsed all three scenes. Even without the pleasure of a gelatin fight, Katherina had to admit, it looked like it would be fun.

An hour later, Radu called the next sin. “All right. Pride. That’s your first aria, Katherina. Mephisto will spot audience members for you, so you should move toward them. Make eye contact, reach out and touch people. ”

“The witches will bring up more people to the rock to make a pile for you to mount on. Mephisto will help you climb them, where you’ll sing the climax of the aria. Are the volunteers ready? ” Four young people, music students from town, as Katherina learned, moved to the center of the Witches’ Altar. The scene had to be rehearsed several times while Katherina learned how to sing at the same time she clambered over the unstable bodies.

“We’ll work on this again tomorrow. ” Radu looked at his watch. “Let’s move on to Greed. ”

“Here the idea is to get the audience angry and ready for the two final scenes. Katherina, on your duet with Barbara, you go with the witches into the crowd and reach into people’s pockets. Whatever you find, wave in their faces before dropping it on the floor. We’ll also have handfuls of coins to throw. ”

The duet worked well musically, with the feigned annoyance of the music students a lively foil. But would a real audience, caught off guard by the singers’ abuse, react with the same docility? Katherina had misgivings. Soon, however, Radu’s confidence in staging their movement and his frequent laughter swept them away.

It was midafternoon by the time they had rehearsed Sloth and Pride, and Katherina was muscle-sore. Radu’s energy was unflagging. “Wrath. That’s you, Matti. ” A bulky, bearded man nodded. “You and Katherina will circulate during this duet, punching and slapping the audience. Just hard enough to get them riled. The vocal range is from forte to fortissimo. The orchestra will be pumping out the rhythm. Bump pah boom, bump pah boom. ” He imitated the bassoons.

“All right, witches, students, take your places. We’ll run through it from the bass entrance. Matti, are you ready? And let’s pick up the pace. We’ve still got some big sins to commit. ”

It was four in the afternoon when Radu finally announced, “All right. This is the climax of the opera. ”

Katherina rubbed her neck, imagining a hot bath back in her hotel.

“Mephisto? ” He addressed Gustav, who gripped a gardener’s rake in place of the scythe he would carry in the performance. “This is where you begin the Dance of Death. The witches will herd people into a line behind the seven sins. The line will follow you around the hall while the chorus sings the Dies Irae. Lead them around once and return to this spot. By then, Woman will be up on the Witches’ Altar.

“Katherina, this is where you sing your big aria. The orchestra will diminuendo so your entrance can be heard. The conductor will be behind you, so you’ll have to listen for the A-flat chord to start. Mephisto will be right below you and will approach while you sing the first four measures. Ready? ”

He called to the pianist, “Two measures before the beginning of the aria. ”

Katherina knelt on the rough, slightly tilted rock of the Witches’ Altar, supporting herself on her hands. At the sound of the chord, she began. “Es wird Tag! Der letzte Tag! Der Hochzeittag! ”

Mephisto climbed up behind her, a leg on either side of her on the rock. Katherina sang the words of the tormented Woman to the empty air over the pit.

“Die Glocke ruft! Krack, das Stä bchen bricht! ” She sang of the flashing of the executioner’s blade and of a bell ringing out a death knell. “Es zuckt in jedem Nacken die Schä rfe, die nach meinem zuckt! Die Glocke! ”

Mephisto grasped her by the shoulders and tried to cajole her to flee on horses that waited. Quickly, before the dawn. “Meine Pferde schaudern, der Morgen dä mmert auf! ”

Katherina threw out her arms, appealing to the heavens, to the angels to save her soul. Her last note was a sustained tremolo of terror. “Mir graut’s vor dir. ”

Then Mephisto forced her down onto the rock surface. Kneeling on one leg over her prostrate body he sang her damnation in a high-pitched fortissimo.

Radu shook his head. “We need much more terror. In case you don’t know your Goethe Urfaust, there are no angels here. This is where Gretchen is doomed and damned. Blooie. Kaputt. ” He chuckled. “Here Mephisto has the last say, so put some guts into it. Don’t worry about getting a few scratches. ”

“As for Mephisto…” He addressed Gustav. “Don’t be afraid to be a little rough. Enjoy your victory. This is your message, the cold, terrible truth of the world. And to underscore your victory, right after ‘meine Pferde schaudern, ’ you should rip off her gown. We’ll set it up so that it comes off easily.

What? ” Katherina jerked her head toward him. “He’s going to tear off my costume? In front of hundreds of people? ”

“Yes, exactly. As you sing your last line, ‘Mir graut’s vor dir, ’ you will be nude. ”

Corporal Pavel Platinkov was very fond of both dancers and drink. Neither one was much of a liability during his deployment as a border guard at the Brockenberg base. Though his experience with ballerinas had been limited to a single brief and tumultuous affair with a student at the Minsk Ballet School, he harbored the notion that all dancers were open to his attentions. Since ballet was generally not available during his military deployment to the Brocken garrison, he made do with his other favorite thing: vodka. To be sure, he was careful to consume only during off-duty hours. It was rarely to excess, but when it was, his comrades generally kept him out of trouble. They found him congenial in spite of his gawky behavior and his extremely long nose, which had earned him the nickname Vulture.

He happened to be on duty at the security gate when the troupe of civilians passed through and took up position in their newly built shelter over the Brocken Stone. He had no idea what the arrival meant, and when he heard that the visitors were rehearsing some spectacle that involved dancers, he immediately petitioned to attend. Permission, he was told, was contingent on whether troops would be allowed contact with the civilians at all, a decision that had not yet been made.

It was thus that both of his weaknesses fell upon him at the same time, on the second day of rehearsal. While off duty, instead of keeping to the barracks or confining himself to forest outings, which were approved, he consumed a significant quantity of vodka with his comrades and went off-limits to the Brocken Stone.

Pavel and his friends stood partially concealed by a truck, trying to get a glance of the dancers through their binoculars. Finally they did spot one whose peregrinations brought her close enough to examine in the field glasses. She retreated quickly, however, and further study of her seemed hopeless. In any case, Pavel Platinkov was by now quite drunk and needed to relieve himself. It was at this moment that a well-dressed civilian, who had been watching the rehearsal from within the circle, approached the delinquent Russians. At that exact moment, unfortunately, Pavel was relieving himself, although, because his back was turned, this was not evident. When he felt the firm clap of the stranger’s hand on his shoulder, he spun around so suddenly that the full stream of his urine splattered on the stranger’s shoe.

The civilian looked down at his reeking foot for the briefest second and then, with the hand that had lain on Pavel’s shoulder, slapped him sharply across the face.

Reeling from the blow and his own inebriation, Pavel staggered backward. Furious, he regained position and threw himself on the man and would have done him serious damage, had his comrades not pulled him off.

They dragged him back to his barracks where, later in the day, he was called before his sergeant. The gentleman in question had obviously filed a complaint, and for the two violations of going off-limits and attacking a civilian, Pavel was broken in rank from corporal to private, sentenced to punitive bathroom duty, and confined to barracks.

While he scrubbed toilets, stone-cold sober, Pavel had one sole thought. Revenge.

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