Free Requiem in Vienna by J. Sydney Jones Page A

the role of Brünnhilde at the Hofoper. Usually stars of the stage are much smaller when encountered outside the theater. However, Anna von Mildenburg was actually bigger in life; not a heavy woman for a Wagnerian soprano, but substantial, like the building she lived in. She was tall and thick-boned and wore a flowing wrap, half kimono and half robe. A shock of dark brown hair was held aloft with pins and combs; her face was punctuated by a broad Roman nose. She gazed at them curiously.
    “You would be Herr Werthen,” she said, extending her hand.
    Werthen took the warm hand in his, feeling an electric pulse from her. Actresses and singers always had this effect on him: he blushed up to his hair roots and had trouble finding his voice as she led them into a sitting room. Everything here was rightangles and geometric designs as if a decorator from the Werkstätte had been given free rein, just as at Mahler’s apartment. Werthen finally stammered introductions all around and found a seat next to Gross on a settee covered in a fine byzantine, mosaiclike design that Klimt himself could have painted.
    “So you are investigating these attempts on Mahler’s life.”
    Werthen was caught off guard. He looked at Gross, who simply nodded an assent to her.
    “But of course I called Mahler after your assistant made such a mysterious appointment. We have nothing to hide from each other.”
    “It would appear so,” Werthen finally said.
    “And you, sir,” she said, turning to Gross, “are not the nameless assistant Herr Werthen makes you out to be, are you?”
    “Well—” Gross began.
    She cut him off. “Of course you’re not. I may be merely a performing artist, but I am no fool. I have seen your photo before. The criminologist, Dr. Hanns Gross, if I am not mistaken.”
    “You are not,” Gross allowed.
    “Then this is serious,” she said. “Not merely one of Gustav’s flights of fancy.”
    “He is subject to such things?” Gross inquired.
    A sly smile from von Mildenburg as she settled back in her Hoffmann chair, drawing the Japanese robe demurely over an exposed ankle.
    “He is a creative genius. The world reveres him for his flights of fancy.”
    “At the podium or piano, however,” Gross added.
    “One cannot compartmentalize one’s life,” she said. “Or can one?”
    Werthen had by now lost any and all awe of the singer; in fact, he was becoming increasingly irritated by her manner. And Mahler. What was the man thinking of to blurt out the nature of their mission to his former lover? He was hoping to catch thewoman off guard or at least off balance. Now, however, she was in control of the interview. They might just as well call it a day.
    “Why so perturbed, Counselor?” she said. “As I said, Mahler and I share no secrets. We may no longer be engaged, but the spiritual connection remains.”
    “To be sure,” Werthen said, eager to move on to another subject. “You knew the young Kaspar girl, did you not?”
    “Of course. She was a singer at the Hofoper, as am I. Were we friends? Intimates? Hardly. She was far too jejune a creature for me. But for Mahler, oh, she was just right. Malleable. Someone to form, to build.”
    “As he did with you?” Werthen bluntly asked.
    She nodded. “As he did with me. But then, I had already had the wonderful coaching of Rosa Papier at the konservatorium at the beginning of my career, and later the invaluable help of Cosima Wagner herself in interpreting her husband’s works. Whereas Fräulein Kaspar . . . well, she had Mahler.”
    “And native talent?”
    “No end of that. Quite a lovely little soubrette and a perfect mezzo. Mahler, however, had plans to turn her into a coloratura.”
    “Were you present at the rehearsal where the unfortunate young woman died?” Gross asked.
    “No, thank God. That would have been more than my nerves could have taken. To see poor Mahler so close to injury, perhaps death!”
    “There was of course the death of Fräulein