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XXXI Walpurgisnacht

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The overture had begun and Katherina stood with the orchestra behind the Witches’ Altar, but already she sensed that something was not right. The invited listeners at the dress rehearsal had waited in respectful silence until they understood what was expected of them. But the new crowd kept up a low, persistent murmur, and they smelled of sweat.

The audience buzz subsided as the overture concluded and Mephisto climbed the Witches’ Altar to sing the Prolog in Heaven.

Behind the rock cluster, Katherina could not see the audience, but she could hear that there was no applause. There should have been, and its absence was ominous. Were they bored? A terrible thought. Boredom was a gaping maw that could swallow up the whole performance.

A sudden “whuuupf! ” and the sound of crackling signaled that the fire in the pit had been ignited. Overhead sparks shot up through the opening in the roof. Hundreds of voices murmured approval. Good, the audience was on their side again.

At her cue, Katherina emerged from behind the rock for her Envy ensemble, and she saw for the first time who made up the audience. She all but gasped.

By the flickering light of the great bonfire she saw only men. Not just men, but soldiers, in two kinds of uniforms, German and Russia. Obviously, a deal had been struck for the Brocken garrison to fill the house. Warmed now by the flames, the theater air carried the smell of them toward her: cigarettes, sweat, and alcohol, the smell of a beer hall.

She was about to sing the opening night of a world premiere to men in sweaty fatigues. The cameras seemed to be taking note of them too, at least the two that she could see, for they swept across the width of the hall, recording their mass.

Composing herself, she sang her part mechanically, through Envy and Sloth, while the sullen men all around her began to sway slightly with the music. Was it a sign that the men were willing to play along? She couldn’t tell yet. Probably no one could tell. They were in uncharted waters.

Gluttony was the turning point, when Katherina realized that not just rowdiness, but danger was in the air. The dancers threw doughnuts over the heads of the soldiers and, instead of eating them, the men caught them and tossed them back, pelting the stage performers. At the same time, it seemed like everyone was drinking from little whiskey bottles. The food fight, which had been so innocent in dress rehearsal, took on aggressiveness as the doughnuts were returned with force. Something sticky hit her on the shoulder and she smelled that it was one of the pastries soaked in whiskey. Her big aria for Pride was next and she had no idea what to expect.

She waited again near the orchestra while the dancers built their pyramid on the rock. Mephisto offered his hand and lifted her up to kneel on them. Singing her Pride aria from the top of the slippery mound, she watched the swaying mass on the other side of the fire. It seemed to watch her back, not amused, but predatory. Was it her imagination, or did some of the faces grimace and make lewd expressions at her?

She turned her attention to the pyramid that heaved beneath her with the rhythm of the music. Three of the five bodies were audience members, and they reacted perceptively to her touch. The huge bonfire had heated the entire rock cluster they were on, and everyone’s skin was slick with sweat. When she gripped one of the men by his shoulder, he arched his back, causing her to lose her balance and regain it only after spreading her knees wide. “Jawohl! ” someone called out from the audience.

At the end of the Pride aria, the staging called for her to flash open her shirt. It had elicited playful shouts at dress rehearsal, even though the filmy undergarment had covered her. Katherina hesitated, but obviously people were planted in the audience who knew what should happen next, and they started the chanting, “Take it off, take it off. ”

Hoping that the undergarment would signal that the nudity was only pretended, she opened her shirt to the audience. The crowd roared approval and some men pulled off their own shirts.

One more sin done, she thought. Now it was Greed. Katherina climbed down from the human pyramid for the next ensemble. Although she had rehearsed the scene mingling with the swaying audience members, she decided to stay close to the central rocks. But before she had ventured even a few meters, the emboldened audience came to her. Drunken men surrounded her, clapping and grunting so loudly that she could barely hear the orchestra. She tried to keep her composure, but the lyrics of the song were dangerously provocative. “Give it to me, give it to me; I want it all, ” she sang, and the soldiers were suddenly roaring with her, full throated, grasping their crotches.

Still bravely singing, Katherina brushed away groping hands and worked her way back to the rock. As she stepped up to the platform only slightly above the audience floor, she caught sight of Sabine, who didn’t seem perturbed at all. She danced from soldier to soldier, encouraging any touch. One of the cameras was filming the interaction while the others still pointed toward the stage.

After an orchestra passagio, Wrath began. Now thoroughly frightened, Katherina sang her part from the safety of the rock, letting the huge Matti mingle with the dangerously excited audience. But he too seemed nervous, and where at dress rehearsal he had pushed and shoved people, he now just prodded them gently. Too late, for the element of playfulness was gone. The soldiers continued chanting, supported by the orchestra, but they were clearly becoming hostile. In place of the words the soloists had given them, they chanted curses invented on the spot. Gradually they drove the huge bass back to the safety of the rocks behind the fire pit.

Seemingly oblivious to the heavily charged atmosphere in the hall, the orchestra segued into the sin of Lust. With the change of music, the soldiers stopped cursing and began to clap again in rhythm. But now more of them were shirtless and they shoved one another, vying for a better view of what was happening on the rock.

Lust required another hint of disrobing, but Katherina was too fearful and she played the scene covered, remaining on the stage. Still fearless, the four witch dancers mingled with the audience, led by Sabine naked to the waist. Half a dozen bare-chested soldiers reached for the women and danced, pressing them from behind. None of them seemed to mind. Then Katherina understood why. They all were drunk.

Without pause, the orchestra modulated into the Dies Irae theme and Gustav appeared, perfectly on cue, as if emerging from the fire, all the cameras directed at him. Raising his scythe to gather in the Sins, he began his dance of death. With only the slightest direction from the dancers, dozens of drunken and shirtless soldiers joined the line. Lurching and stomping, but more or less in rhythm, the human centipede snaked around the hall and back to the bonfire, followed by the cameras. The entire mass of people now was in motion and in various stages of undress. Above them on the highest rock of the Witches’ Altar, Katherina waited for Mephisto to join her for the final aria.

He handed off his scythe and leapt to her side, his eyes red against the dead white of his makeup. His gestures were larger, more dramatic than before, and she guessed he was just as glad as she was that they were at the end. Skating at the edge of danger they had delivered the opera, bringing the unruly audience to a near frenzy. This would be the climax. She inhaled deeply, found her pitch, and, suffused by both fear and dizzying excitement, she began her aria.

“Es wird Tag! Der letzte Tag! Der Hochzeittag! ” she sang, full out.

“Die Glocke ruft! Krack, das Stä bchen bricht! ” Someone dropped something into the fire and it blazed suddenly higher.

“Es zuckt in jedem Nacken die Schä rfe, die nach meinem zuckt! Die Glocke! ”

Mephisto grasped her roughly by the shoulders. “Meine Pferde schaudern…”At the mention of horses, he straddled her. “Der Morgen dä mmert auf! ”

Mephisto took hold of her around her chest and as she prepared to sing the final phrase, he turned her and pressed her onto her back. What was he doing? She had another line to sing, the final ecstatic climax of Marguerite’s surrender, but she had to be able to get up again on her knees to sing it. Mephisto knew that, but he didn’t just kneel over her while he sang his own line, as rehearsed. He pinned her down by her arms while the electrified audience swarmed up onto the rock. She lay, bewildered and panicky. What was happening? The cameras were running and the performance had to somehow be brought to a conclusion. But now, she feared for herself.

The chorus sang full-throated, the orchestra continued fortissimo, and chanting men clambered up all around her. Suddenly Mephisto fell sideways and someone else was on top of her, thrusting against her, sucking her breast through the fabric of the shirt. Katherina thrashed. Hands grabbed her ankles and knees and forced her legs apart, tearing at her costume.

The soldier on her chest was heavy and stank of sweat and alcohol, and after a few thrusts of his hips she could feel his erection on her thigh. She struggled beneath him. Someone’s hands fumbled at her groin, trying to pull away her underwear and expose her to his penetration. The fabric tore and she could feel his naked member pushing, trying to find entrance.

Panicked, she summoned her last strength. With the only defense she had left, she bit her assailant in the throat. He recoiled, clutching at the wound, and she wrestled out from under him. Scraping hands and knees, she scrabbled down from the rock, her costume torn. She staggered through the crowd, which seemed demented now from the ear-splitting “Dies irae, dies illa” of the oblivious chorus and orchestra.

Hands reached out from everywhere to grasp her. Twice she was fully embraced, mouths pressed on her throat or breast, but she scratched and bit her way free and managed to stay on her feet. Some of the men stumbled after her out of the circle, still grasping at her, and she fell, finally, onto the freezing ground.

Something large loomed in front of her, lit by one of the torches. A Soviet soldier, drunker and uglier than the others, gangly and with a huge hooked nose. And this one held a rifle. Shivering with cold and near hysteria, she tried to pull herself up, but was jolted back to her knees as he shot his rifle into the air. The men scrabbling behind her immediately retreated, but by then Gregory Raspin had appeared at her side. For a moment he and the rifleman glared at each other, until Raspin snarled, “Get out of the way, ” and the gunman retreated. Raspin helped her to her feet.

“The military police are arriving. Everything will be under control in a moment. Please, come back to the rock, ” he said softly. “You’ll be warm and safe there. ”

Stunned, she let herself be led back, clutching her torn costume around her. He led her down the gauntlet of silent men, toward the fire pit. The crowd was tense and sullen, but the near riot, it seemed, was over.

Raspin drew her gently back onto the rock, though after the first step, she balked. What was the point? There was nothing left to perform. She wanted only to get off the Brocken altogether. But he gripped her hand harder, refusing to let go, and drew her up.

“The aria, you never finished it, ” he bent down toward her and whispered, his eyes red from the smoke and fire. “Sing it. You were paid to sing it. The cameras are still filming. ” He took the last step onto the high flat rock of the Witches’ Altar and with a final yank brought her forcefully up next to him. She cowered for a moment, fearful and exhausted.

“Sing it once, for me, and then it will be over. ” Raspin picked up one of the gauntlets that Gustav had discarded and put it on. He glanced upward at the cameras and signaled the conductor who, amazingly, was still in place. The orchestra gave the first chord. E-flat major. Like the Rosenkavalier trio, she thought, absurdly. The audience, still drunk, was curiously subdued, as if waiting to see what would happen. “Come on, ” he coaxed, and sang her first line for her in a soft falsetto. “Day is dawning. My judgment day…”

She sang along with him at half volume, though her throat was now tight and tears ran down her face. Raspin stopped singing then, and she continued weakly. “The blades cut into every neck, into my neck too. I hear the bell…”

Raspin then spoke Mephisto’s line, in a toneless whisper. “You can hear my horses waiting, look, the day is dawning. ” He reached out as if toward the rising sun. Something dropped from the glove into the fire, causing it to suddenly blaze up high. She recoiled from the heat, looking for escape. A single shot rang out and a bright red spot appeared at the center of his forehead. His gloved hand dropped to his side and he toppled into the raging fire.

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