The Crescendo (The Musical Interlude) (5 page)

Alek

The first performance of Requiem without Nikolai takes place the next evening and I’m completely unfocused as I stand before the instrumentalists of Diabolique’s symphony
. Their eager faces are studying mine as they wait for the cue to begin with their fingers poised in the various starting positions. I inhale deeply and aim my stick toward the tubas. I’ve chosen the deepest and darkest arrangements for us to perform inside the Fenice tonight. The Venetians crave dark and mysterious; the same qualities as their ancient city, a place my baby sister claims will always own a piece of her heart. Losing myself inside the music comes easily once the violins chime in and blend with the bass of the tubas, an arrangement that appeals to the most carnal side of human nature and one of the grittier pieces inside Reqieum. It is a reflection of the way I’m feeling when I think of all the things I could so easily lose because of unresolved debts from my past.

The Gina incident is only one of several reasons I shudder when I think of the many ways I could ruin the life of the woman I love. I don’t want to do that to Erin. Doing so would be like pushing a stake through my heart. I think the worst thing about all this shit is that I'm not
particularly clear about what happened between me and that woman; and my stupidity bothers me as much as it does Erin. I recall Gina attempting to kiss me; but I do remember telling her the lips were off limits--the gesture making me think of Erin and the way she wouldn't kiss me for the longest time after we had begun our arrangement. Then Gina proceeded to unbutton my shirt, the feel of her lips on my chest burning me, inscribing the brand of shame onto my skin just before she lowered her body to the floor and proceeded to start fumbling around with my trousers. That was when the full force of downing four straight shots of Vodka in a matter of minutes caught up with me and put me in darkness, something I've now added to my list of the top five most idiotic things I've ever done.

I make it through four sets of Requiem’s grittier pieces. During the intermission, Erin strolls to center stage
with the silky, royal blue dress flowing around her ankles and her black hair secured in a loose bun. Standing underneath the lights above the stage, my woman glows as though a goddess has touched her with magic. She is a true diva if I’ve ever seen one.

Damn
, the woman makes my body sing. I swell with pride at once. She’s mine. I’m hers. The feeling inflates my head more than Erin already claims it should be. My goddess has chosen to wear a dress from Black Butterfly, a creation that exposes her slick shoulders and gives her hourglass figure a comely look. I can almost feel the eyes of every man in this auditorium consuming that body, and for the first time since we’ve been performing together, I find myself consumed by jealousy.

She doesn’t wait for me to make my way over to where she stands so I can kiss her the way I always do before her part of the show begins. Instead, she takes the microphone, locking her gaze on the crowd and begins singing. Her voice chimes through the air, perfection inside the body of an angel
, yet she’s not singing the song we’ve been assigned to perform.

The piece she’s performing is acoustic, a tune by an American singer named Christina Aguilera, one of Erin’s favorite vocalists. The song’s called
Save Me from Myself
. The lyrics tell the story of a woman that’s hard to love because of the things she has suffered in her past, and of the man who has saved her from herself by loving her anyway. She couldn’t have picked a more appropriate song to describe the way she feels inside for me, but I already know her defiance will cost me an ass chewing by both Mother and Frederico. At the end, the crowd’s applause roars through the Fenice’s auditorium, and as usual, Erin receives a standing ovation.

I move to her side, even though I’m both angry and intrigued by her decision to change the program at the last minute. This exchange of love between us during the intermission has quickly
become a company tradition, much to Mother’s dismay. People expect me to show them how much I love the woman standing on the stage with me tonight. A ritual we started the first time we did this, the day I got down on one knee and proposed, laying my heart on the line for everyone to see; something I would never have thought of doing a year or so ago.

After the performance, I get that ass chewing
I’ve already predicted. “What in the hell did I just see?” Frederico shouts as he approaches me in the hallway. “Flat notes, wrong notes! Dancers all over the place. A fecking fiasco! You need to check your singer. She was out of line! Diabolique is a repertory company, not an MPV show!”

“It’s MTV, Frederico. You saw a crowd standing in ovation, yes?” I answer, my gaze locked on his, feeling anxious to get back to Erin.

“You are trying to ruin my reputation,” I hear him saying just before he starts dishing out a string of Italian curse words. I’m no longer listening, though. I’m headed toward Erin’s room down the hall.

Inside her dressing room, I approach her, wondering what evil deity has gotten into the people I love. I stop inside the doorway and ground the heat rising from my ears. “What happened, Erin?”

“Sorry, I just wasn’t in the mood to sing about turning into a big red flower.” She keeps staring into the mirror on her dressing stand.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” I ask, thinking of the way we made wild,
animalistic love a couple nights ago after my shameful serenade at her friend's house. Thinking about it makes me get hard, even though the situation playing out between us right now proves to be anything but intimate.

Sighing deeply, she turns her beautiful but sad
, dark eyes on me, and says, “Of course I’m going to try and get over this. I love you. I just ... it’s only, I wish you trusted me enough to allow me into every part of your life.” I step into the room and ease the door shut.

“What do you mean? No one has ever been able to work their way into my life before.” I move closer to her, inhaling her scent
; a mix of floral and sweetness and some other exotically Asian scented aromas. “I don’t know what would happen if something... I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”

“Alek, baby, nothing is going to happen to me
—to us. You’ve got to let go of the past,” she says, her eyes pleading as she stands and cradles my face between her hands. “This is crippling us. Please.”

I reach up and gently grasp her wrists, easing them away from my face and turning her palms upward so I can take a turn kissing the delicate skin of each one. Glancing into Erin’s dark eyes, I see the pain and confusion storming inside them
. Finally, I understand the song she has just sung wasn’t about a woman asking her man to save her from the fucked up past. Instead, she was offering to save me from the demons lurking around the corner, the shadows of my own life.

♡♥♡♥♥♥

Maggiano’s on a Monday night is the last place I want to be, but Mother has insisted. Neither Adriana nor I agree with her on why we need to make a point of dining in a spot where a plate costs almost as much as the Valentino suit I’m wearing. Plus, I’ve spotted several viperish paparazzi hanging around outside the entrance, waiting like piranhas to catch a story to catapult their career.

The only thing I need to do is be able to make it through Mother’s inquisition this evening. She has arrived in Venice for Tuesday night’s showing, voicing her distaste for the hotel we
’ve chosen. Nikolai’s sudden departure from Diabolique has hit her hard. I can tell by the way she fidgets and picks at her
Ossobuco con risotto
—a chicken and rice dish served with a spicy tomato sauce laced with garlic and a mozzarella cheese that almost tastes like the American kind.

“I don’t understand how Nikolai could leave this way,” Mother says, waving a forkful of food in the air. “No phone call. Nothing.
It doesn’t make any sense. He’s like a son to me. This secret assignment he has agreed to ... I fear it’s going to take him down a road from which he cannot return.”

“Then he will have made his own mess. I think he’s old enough to get out of it,” I snap without meaning to.

Ever since we were children Mother has always taken Nikolai’s side over mine. Since he has always been more of a brother to me than my own flesh and blood one it never really mattered. Now, however, she wants to blame me for the lifestyle he’s chosen, becoming a negotiator—a man who gives a person two choices before sentencing him to whatever fate the Boss sees fit to give. I don’t tell Mother or Adriana what I’ve learned. Mother would only blame me as she has always done in the past when Nikolai gets caught doing some random or degrading act of vigilance he has thought to be necessary. Half the time I never even mention these episodes to Mother. My sister, on the other hand, believes that she is the one to blame for Nikolai’s sudden departure from Diabolique.

“Burkeinstein will mean nothing but trouble for him,” Mother says, her gaze unfocused and worried. “Why didn’t he just come to me? I would’ve happily given him the money.” She pulls out a strange black wand and starts fumbling with it, something that reminds me of a metal cigarette.

“What is that creation?” I asks when she lights the object up and actually starts smoking it.

“A cigarette. An electronic one, of course.”

In the past, I’ve only seen Mother smoke two times, since smoking was a habit she’d long since abandoned by the time I turned six-years-old—there was the time she argued with Father over his infidelities, and then again on the night before we made our escape from Moscow.

I make an attempt to change the subject. “The Bocacci tastes divine today,” I take a bite and manage to swallow it, even though tension fills the air around us, making it so thick that I might choke on my bread at any moment.

“Nice try, son, but I’m not letting this go. You’re hiding something. What is Nikolai up to? Tell me the truth,” she demands.

At once, a flash almost blinds me. Fucking paparazzi. We never get a break. The reporter, a man around my age who has light brown hair and an expensive suit that makes him blend in with the rest of this restaurant’s clientele
, shoves a microphone towards us and says, “Is it true that Diabolique’s dabbling in illegal affairs once again? We hear that your lead dancer, Nikolai Belikov, is actually working with the head of an underground organization that deals in the arms trade.”

Mother’s eyes find mine, searching as they widen. I hold her gaze a short moment because I’m that angry. If I try to check this man right now
, then he’ll wind up getting up off the floor and I’ll end up in jail. That’s what these people want, to milk the life out of my family by exploiting our past experiences until there’s nothing left for us to live on. The question remains, though, how the hell has this reporter found out about Nikolai? He can’t know everything. Even I don’t know what my comrade’s doing, or where he’s relocated to.

“You need to leave now!” I order. The guy with the camera moves closer and another reporter, a female, slinks around the group to where mother sits, shoving a microphone toward her. Mother’s face turns almost as white as the blouse she’s wearing. I hate that she
has had to hear about Nikolai’s new ventures this way.

“Alek, what are they talking about?” she asks.

“Later, Mother.” I motion across the room toward the manager, making a mental note to give him a piece of my mind later. He should never have allowed this vermin to get into the place. That’s why we obsess over eating at Maggianos; because the management has a way of keeping people like the ones harassing us right now in complete check.

With obvious reluctance, he heads toward our table. “Mi spiace,” the manager, a short man with glasses and kind eyes offset by a firm mouth that says he means to handle his business says to us as he motions to a couple of burly men waiting in the shadows of the bar across the main dining area.

“One last question, Signora Dostovsky,” the female reporter continues, reminding me of someone I can’t place for some reason. With short, jet black hair, a pixiesh face and determined, bright blue eyes—a combination of looks that doesn’t jive with her crisp gray blouse and pencil skirt—she’s ruthless and determined to get whatever she can from my mother. “Could you tell me if it’s true that your ex-husband has been spotted here in Italy?”

As if the woman’s brutal line of questioning
hasn’t been enough to rip me back to the past and then straight into the present in record time, then her accomplice starts on Mother next. “Is it true that you’re having inappropriate relationships with your dancers, Signora Dostovsky, and that these types of affairs are what has set your husband off on a mission of revenge?”

Slimy fucking bastard. I know this scene is probably a setup, but no one disrespects the people I love this way. I lose my shit. My fist flies out before I can think of what I’m doing, where I’m doing it at and the person I
’ve just done it to. The man tumbles backward, his microphone flying through the air.

“Make sure you record this!” the guy’s partner, the woman in the suit, orders the cameraman. Flashes blind me as rage consumes my body. Pulling the man to his feet, I aim another blow at his face.

“Aleksandr! No!” Mother calls out to me, her hands firmly wrapped around my wrist, her gray eyes filled with worry as she shakes her head. I didn’t even see her move toward me.