The Soprano's Last Song Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 RESTLESS DAYS, RESTLESS NIGHTS

  Chapter 2 LIKE A LIGHTNING BOLT

  Chapter 3 THE BLUE TRAIN

  Chapter 4 AN UPSETTING ENCOUNTER

  Chapter 5 OPHELIA THE DIVINE

  Chapter 6 IN THE HEART OF THE CITY

  Chapter 7 DREAMS AND SURPRISES

  Chapter 8 A DARK TRUTH

  Chapter 9 THE ART OF GOSSIP

  Chapter 10 A TRAP

  Chapter 11 THE RIVAL

  Chapter 12 NEWS FROM THE ROAD

  Chapter 13 THE PRINCE OF RIDDLES

  Chapter 14 A THREAD OF THE PAST

  Chapter 15 INTO THE FOG

  Chapter 16 THE DEVIL OF BETHNAL GREEN

  Chapter 17 A PIECE OF RED SILK

  Chapter 18 THE MAGIC OF THE THEATER

  Chapter 19 DARKNESS BEHIND THE CURTAIN

  Chapter 20 THE DEVIL'S COSTUME

  Chapter 21 LIKE A DREAM

  Chapter 22 ONE LAST CUP OF COCOA

  Chapter 1

  RESTLESS DAYS, RESTLESS NIGHTS

  It is difficult for me to admit — even many years after the Franco-Prussian War — that in those horrible days when the Prussian army was attacking Paris, I could think only about the two wonderful friends I had said goodbye to at the end of the summer — Sherlock Holmes and Arsène Lupin.

  Those days, the French Army was in retreat after their shameful defeat at the Battle of Sedan. The Prussian forces were now closing in on Paris, and they showed no signs of stopping.

  Luckily, Sherlock was safe, far away from France, while Lupin, wherever he was, was someone who could take care of himself. So I cannot say I was worried for their safety.

  Back then, my thoughts were far more foolish and my youthful heart was beating fast.

  All of Paris was talking about our good country’s defeat, our sudden fall under Prince Albert of Saxony’s bayonets. Some people argued that a truce with the Prussians was necessary to restore the peace. Many people, however, kept up the resistance, joining patriot groups and fighting to defend every corner of the city, ready to die for the cause.

  In the meantime, I, Irene Adler, rode in a carriage among the frightened crowds in the streets. While others were out fighting for what they believed in, I was relaxing in a lovely home in Saint Germain des Près while my foster parents were deciding what to do amidst the war that surrounded us.

  Yes, my foster parents. Back then, in my naïveté, I never questioned my origins. I had never considered why my small, freckled face, bright hair, and blue eyes did not resemble that of my mother or father.

  Reflecting on it now, I realize there were many things I chose not to think about back then.

  There were other things that made me restless when I thought about them. War, of course.

  But my most pressing thought was another one. Among all those headlines and announcements, all the homes blackened from fire, and all the soldiers in their imperial uniforms that were torn to pieces, all I could think was . . . where were Sherlock and Lupin?

  I remember all the support people offered me then: I did not have to worry, nor be scared, they told me. Indeed, many wealthy, young girls were just that — not worried, nor scared. And it was these young girls my mother hoped I might befriend.

  Some of these unworried girls and their mothers happened to be in our living room that Tuesday in September 1870 when I begin my story.

  When I spotted them arriving at our house from my bedroom window, I thought they looked like ducks marching in a line toward a lake. But instead of shimmering feathers, my mother’s friends and their daughters (for these girls were not my friends at all) were showing off fancy blue, pink, and yellow dresses. Their boring eyes were hidden underneath delicate hats with veils, and their pale, soft hands sported smooth khaki gloves. They carried small silk fans and wore all the jewelry a thief could ever hope for.

  Bakeries in Paris were already rationing bread, and many shops throughout the city were showing sad, empty shelves. Considering this, I should have been very upset about all that unnecessary frill.

  But I often found myself behaving like a child in that house. Back then, I pretended to be quieter and more cooperative with my parents than I really was.

  It was only when I was with my two best friends, Sherlock and Lupin, that my spirit was set free. And it was during these moments that my mind uncovered the reckless emotions and thoughts I never before knew I had.

  * * *

  The Parisian society ladies were in the living room, and I was in my bedroom. Mr. Horatio Nelson, our butler, hovered like an owl outside my door.

  “Miss Irene,” he called. “Your mother is waiting for you.”

  He didn’t call as much as sigh.

  I looked at the two letters that were lying on my desk and sighed back to him. “I’ll be there right away,” I lied, unable to look away from the willowy, elegant handwriting that covered the longer note — the one Sherlock had given me the day I left Saint-Malo that summer.

  I knew what he wrote to me by heart. I had read that note many times on the road back to the city and many times in the days following.

  Sherlock wished me all the best for my journey home, and for the first time since we met, he mentioned the violence and chaos that was going on in France. We were far away in Saint-Malo, protected by our distance from the war and by the slowness of the mail service. Because of this, we were able to ignore most of the threats that our home country faced that summer.

  But when summer was over, I returned to Paris, while Sherlock went to London with his family.

  London . . . from his letter it seemed that Sherlock was convinced everything would be perfect there. And he was starting violin lessons! That news made me smile.

  Imagining Sherlock playing the violin . . . it was like picturing Arsène Lupin wearing a priest’s robe! Sherlock seemed too anxious and impatient to master an art that required so many boring and repetitive exercises.

  I say this with some humor, but . . . the truth?

  The truth is that I spent some sleepless nights, surrounded by the white light of the moon, picturing Sherlock Holmes standing by me and playing his violin. While cannons and gunfire rumbled just outside of Paris, was this just my way to avoid thinking about the war that was moving closer to my city?

  The rest of Sherlock’s letter was hasty. He wrote that he hoped someday I could get to London or he to Paris — maybe when the war was over, when it was not so dangerous to travel. The letter ended this way:

  Either way, I promise to take you to the most discreditable and disreputable places in town when we are together again!

  Yours, Sherlock Holmes

  I had just finished reading it again when Mr. Nelson gently knocked on the door once more and told me I had to go downstairs . . . our company was asking for me. But I did not want to give much of my time to those guests — not more than was necessary.

  “Come in, Mr. Nelson,” I said, folding the letter from Sherlock.

  “I am not the one who needs to come in, Miss Irene,” Mr. Nelson reminded me, pulling the door open. “You are the one who needs to come down. The ladies are waiting for you.”

  Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “And what do they need from me exactly? My knowledge of Latin poetry, my opinion on fashion during war, or just my unique sense of humor?”

  “The last thing you said, Miss.” He smiled.

  Now I can easily say it: I got along much better with Mr. Nelson than with my mother.

  Don’t be shocked, please. It was nobody’s fault.

  For I was not a
good girl.

  And she was not my mother.

  Chapter 2

  LIKE A LIGHTNING BOLT

  “This tea is really delicious!” squeaked the young girl dressed in white. She was perched on a small couch in our living room like a curlicue of cream atop a pastry.

  I ignored her — as an act of survival for us both — and gazed out the tall windows of our living room. The very air seemed thin. Big clouds were speeding westward across the sky. They made me think about how time was passing so quickly and how I was wasting it, letting it melt away like sugar in hot tea. I had been with these women and their daughters for less than fifteen minutes, and I already felt overwhelmed with boredom.

  I knew that Mr. Nelson was standing just behind one of the living room doors, and I envied him. He, at least, could smile in secret about the useless habits, the unkind gossip, and the meaningless conversations these women had.

  My mother seemed to love these things so much. She told me she had missed the company during our vacation in Saint-Malo.

  During the months we spent at the coast, her tiny, pale face did not tan even a little bit, and her slow and proper movements seemed to get even slower.

  And how did she describe the time she spent on the beautiful Normandy coast to her friends?

  Boring.

  She managed to highlight all the problems she had with a place that I, on the other hand, thought was quite lovely.

  Much better than being in Sedan! That’s what I wanted to say to remind her . . . at the same time we were vacationing on the coast of France, people were dying in battle on the opposite side of our country. But it would have been rude to say that.

  I did not want to hurt my mother . . . I simply wanted not to be sitting there with that dull crowd.

  So I decided on a sort of compromise. I would throw a small stone, so to speak, into the motionless waters of the conversation.

  “This morning I heard some gunshots here in the main square. Have you heard anything?” I asked, biting into a piece of coffee cake. “It sounds like someone probably died!”

  “Someone died?”

  “Why was he killed?”

  “Was he married?”

  The little cuckoos got excited.

  And once again I wished I could have seen Mr. Nelson’s face.

  Bored by the chatter, I began to think of my friend Arsène Lupin. He had written to me a couple of days after I left Saint-Malo. It was lucky that his brief note got to me despite the war.

  He wrote just a few lines. While it did not have the nice, lengthy sentences that Sherlock’s letter had, it was no less interesting. He wrote that he had been thinking about me for days, and I thought that admitting it to himself must have been difficult.

  On the back of the postcard he wrote:

  I’m leaving with my father, looking for shows. I hope you’re doing well and that we can meet again. Don’t try to get back to me — I don’t know what address I’ll be at. Kisses.

  The way Lupin ended that letter showed all his confusion. Kisses.

  Like it was normal to write this type of thing to a friend like me. Or like it was normal to kiss me.

  The truth?

  The truth is that while one of the prissy girls babbled on about some singing teacher at the Academy, I imagined Lupin’s face — his high cheekbones and floppy, black hair — right in front of my eyes. And I considered what it would be like to kiss him.

  At the very thought, I blushed and laughed out loud, almost pouring tea on my dress.

  “Irene? Is everything all right, my dear?” my mother asked. Her eyes were troubled.

  My mother was charming. I say this without my usual sass. She could be admirable in a certain way. She could pretend she was talking to me while she was actually talking to her friends. While she was afraid of my unpredictability, she needed me there to show off what a wealthy and respectable family we were.

  We could drink tea and have cookies even while the empire was falling apart!

  I did not want to oppose her, even if it was difficult for me. I would rather be in the library with my books, or (I wish!) walking around town with Sherlock and Lupin.

  But I was a girl, and from a good family. All the things that might have been allowed to a son were forbidden to me.

  “Everything’s fine, Mother,” I answered.

  I held in a yawn for all that surrounded me. It seemed unbelievable to me that while a whole army was marching toward the capital, people could waste away their days in a sitting room.

  The torture lasted for another hour, until, thank goodness, my father came home. Slamming the front door behind him, he managed to dodge the staff and barge into the living room with his coat dripping water on the floor.

  “Leopold!” my mother immediately scolded him.

  The clouds in the sky were thick now. They let loose an angry, noisy rain on the city.

  “How lovely!” I exclaimed. “It’s raining!”

  Our guests gazed at me, shocked, from around the room.

  “Irene!” my father greeted me enthusiastically. Then he added right away, “Good afternoon, ladies!”

  He looked at me with those sharp eyes that made him look like a mischievous child — not like the railway and iron mogul that he was.

  I looked back at him, feeling my cheeks burn under my mother’s envious gaze. Every time she saw Papa and me together she seemed to be wondering what the secret was behind the bond we shared.

  “Go pack your bags!” my father said. “Both of you, go pack your bags. Next week Ophelia Merridew will be at Covent Garden, where she will be performing in the latest work of the famous Giuseppe Barzini!”

  “Ophelia Merridew?” I answered in shock. She was the best opera singer of all time.

  “Covent Garden?” my mother asked, nearly jumping out of her chair. Since there was no theater in Paris by that name, she added: “Covent Garden — where, my dear?”

  “We’re going to London!” my father said, excited.

  It’s not difficult to imagine that my father’s announcement created tension in the quiet Adler family.

  But what I did not know then was that my life would be changed completely because of that piece of news . . . and because of the events that followed.

  * * *

  That evening, dinner was served at 7:30. We had a hearty chicken soup. I entertained myself by floating croutons on top and counting how long it took them to sink, while my parents began discussing London.

  They had not talked about it yet, because my mother thought it was impolite to do so in front of her guests — even if the ladies, of course, would not have left anyway. Minding someone else’s business was too much of an attraction for some women!

  “So this Ophelia, my dear —” my mother started.

  That was all my father needed to begin a passionate review of the singer’s hits, list a summary of the positive responses she had received from critics around the world, and an account of how Merridew enchanted every audience for whom she performed.

  “But, Leopold, in this circumstance . . .” my mother said. “Circumstance” was the strongest word she ever used to refer to war.

  I sipped a spoonful of broth. I guess I was too loud, because they realized I was there.

  “Even Irene loves her,” my father said. “Don’t you, sweetie?”

  I nodded. I did not have to pretend. Ophelia Merridew was the role model of almost every singing teacher I’d ever had.

  “Mrs. Gambetta says that Ophelia’s voice is outstanding, and that having the chance to listen to her is an absolute privilege,” I said.

  “See, my dear?” my father said. “An absolute privilege. And do you really want to give up an absolute privilege in times like these?”

  “Leopold . . .” My mother sighed. “Irene and I only just came back from ou
r vacation at the coast. I’m exhausted. Just the thought of traveling again frightens me. And how would we get there? Is transportation even running? I heard that the whole city is shut down and that there’s a mass of people coming to Paris from the countryside —”

  My father made his lips snap. “Nonsense,” he said. “I have already planned everything.”

  “You have already planned . . . without asking my opinion?” she asked.

  “Oh, come on dear!” he countered.

  “Don’t be pushy, Leopold.”

  “I’m not being pushy.”

  “Yes you are.”

  They kept arguing in their usual style. It was like witnessing a bizarre fight between knights wearing rubber armor, the sword strikes just bouncing off one another.

  Even if I did not have the slightest idea what was really happening in Paris, I understood what Papa was trying to do. He was trying to send us as far away from the war as possible.

  During a break in the argument, I intervened, “Mrs. Gambetta said that if only Ophelia had come to Paris, she would have done anything to take us students to see her. Because you cannot know the true essence of song if you haven’t heard her sing.”

  A long, embarrassed silence followed. It was my mother who pushed me to take singing lessons, for she considered a good singing voice necessary to be part of the high-class society.

  “Did she really say that?” Papa asked, satisfied by my support.

  The truth was that Mrs. Gambetta was convinced that she herself was better than the most renowned opera singer of that time. She thought that by simple bad luck, no one could appreciate her voice. That, or there was some type of conspiracy against her.

  “Yes,” I confirmed anyway. “That’s exactly what she said.”

  I avoided looking into my mother’s eyes, but I felt shivers down my spine.

  “And when did Mrs. Gambetta listen to, uh . . .” she whispered, rattling her silverware, “Ophelia Merridew?”

  “Oh,” I answered. “You’d have to ask her.”

  “If Mrs. Gambetta said that, though . . .” my father whispered, taking a big sip of wine.