Chapter 17

After my afternoon with Bill, I caught sight of Olivia’s likeness more often in newspapers and magazines, even in Europe. Gunther turned out to be a good career move, and soon Olivia was being cast in films. She got what she wanted, I marveled to myself: a successful acting career. Somehow, given her background, her achievements seemed far more impressive than my own. I found myself proud to mention, when her name came up in conversation, that I had known her.

“We went to high school together,” I would say. “We were both in Camelot. She was Guenevere. I was Lancelot.” That always got a reaction.

“You’ve kissed Olivia de la Vega?” people would cry. “You lucky dog!”

I’d smile coyly, but I never said anything more. It was all just a memory, just acting, just pretend. Even though I had once believed it was something far more rare, I convinced myself that my connection with Olivia was worth nothing more than a good laugh at a cocktail party.

In 1979, the International Herald Tribune reported that Olivia married Jay Conklin, “her former manager.” A year later, I read about the birth of their first child, a daughter named Theodora.

In early September 1985, I accepted a dinner invitation from Maria Gürtler and her husband. Maria was a cellist who had taken me under her wing when I first came to Vienna. She and Dieter helped me find my first apartment.

“Come over Monday night,” she said. “We’ve invited a few friends for a pig roast.” She winked and patted my cheek. “Including someone I’m eager for you to meet.”

Maria was always trying to set me up. “You need a partner, Edward,” she was fond of saying. “Do you want to grow old alone?”

When I arrived at the Gürtlers’ house in the suburb of Neustift am Walde, it was obvious that “a few friends” was an understatement. Cars lined both sides of the street, and the sound of merriment was audible from the pathway to the front door. I rang the bell. It was a beautiful, balmy evening, and I turned to watch the sunset while I waited.

“Come in!”

I spun around to find myself face to face with one of the most arrestingly beautiful women I had ever seen. Her sleek black hair was drawn up in a twist, and her dark eyes sparkled as she dazzled me with a smile so warm I almost began to sweat.

Although I had only seen her from a distance, I recognized her. I was staring at Valeria Cosimano, a soprano who had just arrived from Rome to spend a season with the Vienna State Opera. She held out her right hand.

“Valeria.”

“I know,” I said taking her hand. “I’m Edward.”

“I know.” She smiled again. “Maria told me you were coming.”

Heat spread through my body as she drew me into the entryway and tucked her arm through mine.

“Everyone is on the terrace,” she said. “Come on.”

“I need to do something with these flowers,” I said. I was holding a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums.

“Oh, of course,” Valeria said. “Let’s see if we can find a vase.”

“Your English is perfect,” I said, following her into the kitchen.

“I spent a year in Iowa when I was sixteen,” she said. “Not very many people there spoke Italian.” She looked at me, and once again our eyes locked. Again I felt warmth spread through my body.

We must have found a vase for the flowers, and I’m sure I spoke with Maria and Dieter that evening. I must have met their other friends, too, and I have no doubt the pig was delicious. But all I remember is Valeria.

We had dinner together the next night, too, at a tiny bistro near my apartment. The third night, I cooked spaghetti at home while Valeria made a salad. She sang as she worked, in between sips of red wine.

“You are a terrible cook, Edward,” Valeria said later as we piled the dishes in the sink. “I haven’t had worse pasta since Ames, Iowa.”

“I guess it’s more of a corn-on-the-cob kind of place,” I said.

Valeria shuddered.

“American food is so horrifying,” she said. “My host family served something called ‘chicken in a basket’ the first night I was there.” Her face contorted at the memory. “I couldn’t believe they ate chicken with their hands! And they seemed so shocked when I asked for a knife and fork!”

She turned toward me. Grabbing the lapels of my jacket, she pulled me close. “You’re barbarians, all of you!” she said and, as if to prevent me from denying it, she kissed me. It was a fierce, hungry kiss, and it seemed to last an eternity.

“And you call me a barbarian?” I asked when, breathless, we finally parted.

“Well,” she said with a laugh, “my mother always told me she bought me from some Magyar gypsies. Maybe she wasn’t joking.”

We kissed again, and now we were lucky we both had a few days without commitments. Except to eat and practice, we didn’t get out of bed for the next three days.

“You owe me,” Maria said when Valeria moved in with me two weeks later. She was ecstatic that one of her matchmaking attempts seemed to be such a success.

My mother was thrilled, too, when she and my father came to visit in October.

“It’s as though someone turned the lights on in here,” she said as she walked through my flat, “or built a fire.”

She was right. With little effort, Valeria had transformed my stark bachelor’s pad into a warm and elegant home. And there was no denying the heat between us.

“She’s really something,” my father said with a wink one night when Valeria was out of earshot. He took a final drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out. “She reminds me of your high school friend.”

“What?”

“Your high school friend. The Mexican girl.”

“She’s nothing like her.” I was surprised at the anger in my voice. I watched as my father lit another cigarette.

“Would you like a brandy?” I asked. He nodded as he clicked his lighter shut.

My hands shook as I lifted two snifters down from the cabinet over the countertop and pulled the stopper from a bottle of Rémy Martin. After I filled both snifters with hefty slugs of cognac, I picked one up and knocked it back. By the time I returned to the living room, I could feel the alcohol beginning to numb me. I handed a snifter to my father and sat down.

“I’ve read about her,” he said. “She’s done well.”

I stayed silent.

“Have you stayed in touch?”

“No. She’s married. She has a kid. Do we have to talk about her?”

“Not if it upsets you, Ted.”

“It doesn’t upset me,” I said, my voice too loud. “It’s just stupid.”

That night, I dreamed I was searching for Olivia, but I could never quite catch up with her. “She was just here,” people said wherever I went. “She’s gone now.”

Before my parents left two days later, my mother invited Valeria and me to come to California for a visit.

“We will, Mom,” I said. “Sometime soon.”

At first, I thought we would.

“I’m going to leave the Vienna Phil,” I told Valeria. “I’ve always wanted a solo career, and then I can live wherever you choose.”

“Roma,” Valeria said. “I can travel the world, but Roma will always be home.”

I can live in Rome, I thought. Rome is wonderful. I’ve always wanted to learn Italian.

But spring rolled around, and I had done nothing to begin a new career or separate myself from the Vienna Philharmonic.

“Next year, Valeria,” I said. “I promise. I just need a little more time.”

“I know, tesoro mio,” she said, patting my cheek. “And in the meantime, we have Alitalia.”

Valeria left in May for a summer engagement in Verona. My apartment felt the chill, even though she came to visit twice during the summer. In October, I flew to Rome.

Valeria wasn’t at the airport, though she had promised to pick me up. I called her apartment several times, but all I got was a busy signal. After an hour or so, I took a taxi to her apartment building near the Theater of Marcellus. It was a relief to hear her voice through the intercom, and after she buzzed me in, I rode the elevator up to the eighth floor.

Valeria was standing in front of me when the elevator door slid open. She was wearing a silk kimono, even though it was nearly noon. Was she sick? I wondered. But she didn’t look sick. She looked as stunningly gorgeous as ever. She led me down the hall to her apartment. I set my bag and my violin case on her sofa, and I took her in my arms.

“Oh, Edward! I’m so sorry!” she said, her hands curled into fists on my chest.

“It’s okay. I took a taxi. I tried to call you, though. Is your phone working right?”

“Oh, Edward,” she said again. “Everything is so—so complicated.”

“Complicated?” I said, pulling away. If there was one thing our relationship had never been, it was complicated.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she said, pulling me back. She kissed my forehead, both cheeks, my lips. “I miss you so much every day.”

She let me go. I took off my jacket.

“You are so beautiful,” she said.

“What?”

“You’re beautiful. I love you. You’re perfect.”

I stared at her.

“Oh, Edward!” Valeria burst into tears.

God! What was this? Valeria could be something of a drama queen, but I’d never seen her like this before. I put my arms around her and patted the back of her head as she sobbed against my shoulder.

“Oh, Edward, oh, Edward, oh, Edward. I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

When her shoulders finally stopped heaving, I took her face in my hands and looked into her eyes.

“Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it,” I said.

She nodded, still hiccupping, and pulled away.

“I—just a minute,” she said, and she disappeared into another room. As she did, I couldn’t help noticing something. A pair of tall black leather boots stood next to the archway she had just passed through. They couldn’t be Valeria’s. They were huge and masculine and slightly scuffed. I was still staring at them when Valeria reappeared, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

Not many women look beautiful when they’ve been bawling their eyes out, but Valeria was one of the few. She crossed the room, took my hand, and led me to the dining table. On it was a crystal vase holding a dozen red roses with a card nestled in them.

“Edward.” Valeria pulled her chair up until our knees touched. She took both of my hands and turned her eyes up to meet mine. They filled with tears again, but her voice was steady this time.

“I’m a bad person. Evil.”

I had no idea what to say, so I just stared at Valeria in silence.

“I’ve been unfaithful to you.”

The boots. The flowers. The tears.

“Do you want me to leave?” I asked.

“No! I love you! And I promise it’s over!”

But he left his boots?

“Who is he?”

“A tenor,” she said, the tears spilling over. “Oh, Edward. I was so lonely.”

A big tenor, I thought, looking at the boots again. A goddamn giant.

Suddenly, I had to get out of there. The boots were too big, the flowers too fresh. Moving back to the sofa, I threw on my jacket, picked up my violin, and reached for my suitcase.

“Edward, wait!”

I turned. Valeria was holding the black boots, one in each hand. She shot me a fiery look as she marched across the room and flung the front door open.

Curious, I followed her. She flounced across the hall and yanked the handle on the garbage chute. Holding one boot high, she dumped it in. I could hear it rattle and bang all the way down to street level. After the second boot made an equally noisy descent, she slammed the chute shut and blew past me back into the apartment.

Valeria wasn’t finished. She strode across the room and seized the roses with both hands. She was just pulling them out of the vase when I reached her.

“Don’t,” I said, laying my hand on hers. “It’s okay.”

Valeria relaxed her hold on the roses.

“It’s okay?” she said without looking at me. “That’s what you think?”

“I mean they’re just flowers. You don’t have to destroy them.”

Valeria turned a ferocious gaze on me.

“That’s what you think?” she asked. “They’re just flowers?”

Once again, I had no idea what to say.

“They’re roses,” she said. “Red roses. Do you have any idea—?”

I grabbed her and tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

“Red roses mean love,” I said.

Valeria kept her back to me.

“Does he love you?” I demanded. “Do you love him?”

Valeria whipped around, her eyes full of angry tears. “This is your fault, Edward,” she said. “All your fault.” She fell against my chest, weeping inconsolably like a child. I stroked her hair, and tears began to fill my eyes, too.

“I’m sorry, Valeria,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I never should have let you go.”

Once again, we spent as much of the next three days as possible in bed. The roses were thoroughly wilted by the time I left, and Valeria threw them down the garbage chute as we departed for the airport.

“Finito!” she shouted after them, and we laughed at the echo.