A Dance in Blood Velvet (36 page)

For a long time, she dared not seek news of Violette. To hear that Violette had stopped dancing, that she’d gone mad or even died - because Charlotte had indulged in one moment of sensual pleasure - would be unbearable.

At last, unable to tolerate the lonely chalet any longer, Charlotte moved to a hotel in Salzburg. Built high on the Mönchsberg ridge, the lovely building was swathed in ivy, and gave a breathtaking view across the town and river valley to the mountains opposite. From her window she could see the almond-green house of the Ballet Janacek. Still she kept away. Numb, she simply waited, read newspapers, listened to gossip in coffee houses.

The Ballet Janacek was still in business. Occasionally she saw a dancer or musician in the town, but never Violette. The temptation to seek her out grew stronger, but Charlotte resisted. To relive it all, to be rejected again - no, it would finish her.

One morning, as she sat in a dark café in the Getreidegasse -coffee steaming untouched in front of her - she saw a newspaper announcement that shook her to the soul.

Ballet Janacek announced the debut of a brand new ballet,
Dans le Jardin,
in Vienna.
Prima ballerina assoluta
- Violette Lenoir.

Relief consumed Charlotte like a flash of fire. She dropped the paper and walked out, giving the startled waiter a lavish tip.

And now she was in Vienna on opening night. She sat at the front of the balcony, no longer aware of the miasma of perfume and body heat around her. All her attention was on the stage, her breath held.

The curtains unfurled on darkness. A curved blue line glimmered... shafts of light shone from clouds... music rolled like thunder. And in one of the most glorious solos Charlotte had ever seen, a muscular male dancer portrayed God’s creation of the world.

Green light shimmered through a scrim, creating the illusion of a garden. The Tree of Knowledge was rooted in the earth and stretched its branches up to heaven; under its foliage, God brought the beasts to life. Delightful, the
corps de ballet
dressed as rabbits and birds and deer; but a sinister undertow was developing. There was menace in the modern angularity of the music, the eerie use of lighting. A story everyone knew - but why had Violette chosen it?

Then God beckoned Adam and Eve to life. Two pale sinuous figures in flesh-coloured body-stockings - shocking to see them apparently naked beneath trails of ivy. Charlotte stared at the female dancer’s yellow hair. Why wasn’t Violette dancing the main role?

Most shocking of all - God was portrayed as a leaping, clowning trickster. A dream figure from a William Blake watercolour, with the malicious intelligence of Puck. The dancer was magnificently believable. He took not so much pride as glee in his creation, placing the Tree in the Garden of Eden as a deliberately cruel temptation.

Then came the Serpent.

Even before the creature slid onstage to weave magic around the sweet blonde Eve, Charlotte was dizzy with anticipation. Violette appeared all in black, sinuous, glittering, full of energy. A world away from the innocence of Giselle. Incredibly evil and seductive, she courted Eve with the allure of a vampire. At the same time, she achieved the incredible feat of making the Serpent sympathetic, God the malevolent one.

Take the apple. Eat. Make a fool of God.

Violette in this role was completely in her element.

Charlotte actually shut her eyes at times, thinking,
This is impossibly daring. I dread to think how it will be received.

The sin was committed and the Fall began. In a spectacular change of lighting, the softness of the Garden turned to harsh spiky angles, as angry and modern as the music. God’s pleasure in his creation became implacable rage...
But you put the Tree there,
Violette told him with expressive hands and eyes.
You made me, too.

God crushed her underfoot. The audience gasped.

With a pointing finger he’d created Adam and Eve; with a pointing finger he drove them from the Garden. Now the
corps de ballet
became fiery angels set to guard the gates of Eden, and Man began his eternal exile.

No happy ending to this tragedy. The end was the beginning; the whole history of mankind unfurled from this moment like an infinite tapestry on the red darkness... down through the ages... to the present, to the sinners sitting in this theatre.

Utter silence greeted the curtain. Charlotte guessed how the audience would react; their disapproval had been tangible throughout. When she was proved right, though, she was furious. The polite applause that finally broke out failed to mask the babble of people surging rudely towards the exits.

Technically the ballet was breathtaking. Emotionally, too. But it was wrong. There was a taint of insanity on it. It was too serious, too full of pain. Blasphemous.

Charlotte made her way into the foyer, feeling stunned.
Dans le Jardin
was glorious... but it was the creation of a deranged mind, too far ahead of its time. She sensed disaster.

She pushed impatiently towards the outer doors, famished. Anger made her thirsty... as did love, paradoxically.
Must hurry or I’ll take one of these sneering idiots where they stand...

“Entschuldigen Sie bitte, gnädige Frau,”
said a voice behind her, “are you not Charlotte Neville?”

Charlotte turned as if jerked by a chain, and looked into a face she’d never seen before. A man in his mid-fifties gazed at her over black-rimmed spectacles. He had a beautiful, sharp-boned face, a shock of soft grey hair, bushy iron-grey eyebrows.

“I think you’ve made a mistake,” she said thinly.

“Forgive me, but you look so very like the daughter of an old friend. Or rather, I should say, like his wife.”

His words swept Charlotte abruptly into a different world. The notion that this man had met her mother transfixed her.

“George and Annette Neville,” he said, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m being foolish. If you say I’ve made a mistake...”

“Did you know my - Mrs Neville well?”

He smiled, more confident now she’d given herself away. It was a very warm smile. “Hardly at all, I regret to say. My name is Josef Stern. I’m delighted to meet you, for the second time. I don’t expect you to remember me. I met your father at a scientific conference before the War, you see, and a few months later while I was in England he kindly invited me and my sister Lisl to visit his house. We spent a delightful afternoon. You were barely two years old at the time, but I remember you distinctly. An enchanting child, so shy.”

Charlotte was suddenly her human self again. Her mouth softened. “That would explain why I don’t know you, Herr Stern. I’m astonished you recognise me.”

“You’re so like your mother. I recall that Mrs Neville was expecting her third child at the time...”

“That was Madeleine,” Charlotte said quietly. “Mother died soon after her birth.”

“I know, I heard. I was so very sorry.”

“But what was she like, my mother? I was so small when she died, I barely remember her.”

The man held her gaze. His eyes were almost black, very kind. “Shall we escape this crowd and stroll together? You will call me Josef, please. I hate formality.”

“So do I,” she said.

Outside, in the cool air of the street, they walked through avenues of trees and into a public garden. Charlotte forgot her thirst.

“She was very like you,” Josef went on. “She had a glow about her. Hospitable, but rather aloof and fragile; the sort of person of whom they say, ‘She was not meant for this world.’ And I fell hopelessly in love with her, of course.”

Charlotte was shocked, but his smile made her laugh. “Well, if you only met her once, I still envy you.”

“I understand,” he said. “So sad, hardly to have known her; such a lovely woman. But many years have passed since then. Your father, is he well?”

“I - I’m afraid I haven’t seen him for two years.” Odd that she was compelled to be honest, but the stranger felt like an old friend. “I heard his health is not good... but there are certain reasons why I can’t go home.”

Josef raised a hand. “Please,” he said. “I don’t mean to intrude. Shall we talk of something else?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Very well. How did you like the ballet?”

“I thought it was wonderful. It’s a shame the audience were too stuffy to realise it.”

Josef chuckled. “I am inclined to agree. Also a shame Madame Lenoir took the theme so literally, however.”

“I don’t think it was at all literal!”

“No, no, but she lifted the story we all know straight off the page. She didn’t look behind it, to other versions, the derivations. For example, did you know that the myth of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib may have been a misinterpretation of an ancient relief?”

“No,” Charlotte said, fascinated.

“The relief shows the goddess Anath, watching her lover Mot murder his twin Aliyan. The goddess is mistaken for Eve and Mot for Yahweh, who is actually driving his dagger beneath Aliyan’s fifth rib, not removing the sixth.”

“Indeed? Why are we never told these things?”

“It wouldn’t do to disbelieve the official version, would it? Still - of course she had to use the familiar creation story, or no one would have understood.”

“Are you a scholar of Hebrew mythology, Herr - Josef?”

“Oh, it is only an interest; I moved from science to psychology, which seems to have helped me understand nothing at all about life...” For a moment he stared at the ground, lost in thought. Then he glanced sideways at her and smiled. “Still, let us be glad we have people like Lenoir to make great art out of sorrow.”

They walked on through the park, at ease with each other. Charlotte found Josef’s company soothing; he was courteous yet outspoken, reminding her of Karl. In fact his face captivated her, because Josef was so very much as Karl might have looked - had he stayed mortal, and grown older.
And then I would never have met him,
she thought with a stab of pain.

“My dear, you looked unwell for a moment,” he said. “Or unhappy?”

“No, it’s nothing. Memories.”

“You know, I neglected to ask if you are married.”

Without thinking, she said, “I don’t know,” and was astonished when he burst out laughing.

“Of all the things to be unsure of! ‘Do you believe in God?’, ‘Will it rain next Thursday?’, ‘Are you married?’ - ‘Oh, I’m not quite sure.’ Forgive me, I’ve no right to make a joke of it. Perhaps you are separated from your husband and don’t want to be.”

“Something like that.”

“And it’s none of my business, anyway.”

She half-smiled, to show she wasn’t offended. “And you?”

“I never married. The only girl I loved turned me down, which was very sensible of her; I could never have been faithful, and would have made her terribly unhappy.”

They stopped under a tree. Streetlights made the foliage a web of radiance. “At least you are honest,” said Charlotte, looking up at him.

He paused, as if tempted to kiss her; and the awful thing was that she didn’t mind, that she liked him very much. So easy to let this go further. It would be wonderful and comforting; he would make her feel safe, cherished. But that treacherous moment would come when she could no longer resist the thirst... she saw Violette’s stare of betrayal and horror, heard Karl’s sad voice,
“Never look at their faces or ask their names...”

Oh God, but she was thirsty and he was so close and there was no one near...

With a great wrench she turned her face aside and pulled away.

“Forgive me,” he said sadly. “I was too forward. Such a fool, I forget I am no longer twenty-five. It is not to be, is it?”

“No,” she said. “Not because I don’t like you...”

“My dear, no need to explain.” He looked wistfully at her. “You are so young and I am so old...”

“Nonsense,” Charlotte said softly. “You’re not old, and I’m not as young as I look. But I can’t, because... I’m afraid I might hurt you.”

A quick, indulgent smile. “How could you possibly -” Josef stopped. She was looking straight at him, letting him
see
. The glassy light of her skin, the tips of her canines.

He went deathly pale and took a step backwards, swaying. She thought he was about to faint or run away, and she didn’t want that. Taking his arm, she guided him to a bench and sat beside him. A statue of Mozart gazed benignly down at them.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” she said, clasping his hands. “Please. I let you see what I am because I trust you. I didn’t want to deceive you - and I think you are the exceptional kind of man who can accept it. Can you?”

The stiff revulsion in his eyes began to soften. Warmth returned to his clammy hands. “Oh my God,” he said, taking a deep breath.
“Mein Gott.”

“Forgive me, Josef. I didn’t mean to shock you. I simply couldn’t lie.”

“Such creatures exist, then. Ones who are not quite alive, but prey on the living. And if we’d grown close, would you have killed me - like a black widow spider eating her mate?”

“I might have done.”

“There cannot be a pleasanter way to die,” he murmured.

“That’s what they all think,” she said drily, “until it’s too late.”

He blanched. “How strange. My friend’s little daughter.” He looked intently at her, frowning in curiosity. “But how did this happen to you?”

“It would take forever to explain.”

“Does your family know?”

“Yes. That’s why I can’t go home.” Suddenly she no longer felt that this mattered. She stood and began to walk away, but he followed.

“This is terrible,” he said. “Don’t go. I’m not afraid. Let us talk.”

Her thirst was growing too strong. “Please, you’re in danger if you don’t let me go.”

“Charlotte,” he said with sudden intensity, “come home with me.”

“I told you, I can’t.”

“Not for that reason.” The sadness in his face was something far deeper than horror or infatuation. And she knew her instinct had been right; Josef did possess the calm intellect to accept her. “I believe you won’t hurt me; we will just be friends, yes? But please. There is a reason.”

Without knowing why, Charlotte gave in and went with him. Fatalistic curiosity took over.