Tom Purdue went from wondering how Dexter Shoad stole his music to how his housekeeper Mrs. Danvers' strange intruder (he's decided to name him "Mr. Wormwood") knew to approach her and ask about Dr. Kerr rather than confront Tom himself. What was he after and how did he know where to go to find it? Other than the original manuscripts of those compositions by his Cousin Emaline he'd found in a box, what else was there in the cabin somebody would think worth stealing?
Meanwhile, Cameron is running down another hallway at the Basilikon Labs with a bunch of IMP agents, trying to escape from the Aficionati's killer drones when he hears Dr. Kerr's ringtone on his phone. Unfortunately, he has to let it go to voice-mail: something is following them and they don't look like the tiny "bugs" Agent Sam Senn (formerly Double Agent Krahang) had described.
But now, it's time to return to the Allegro Conservatory's rehearsal for Mozart's Cosí fan tutte where things are not going all that smoothly...
= = = = = = =
CHAPTER 26
After the break, six singers gathered in the mansion's ballroom, more morose than before, neither looking at nor talking to each other, while the pianist sat down and kept his eyes on the keyboard. Whatever the Allegro Conservatory claimed to be, it was successfully proving itself to be anything but “Your Grandfather's School of Music.” Whatever these walls may have witnessed in their glory days – fancy-dress balls and cotillions filled with the sons and daughters of the local aristocracy – the singers knew it had never seen anything like this.
Lauren Mostovsky, whom the website's bio identified as a “revolutionary young talent in the opera world,” stood before them, a peacock-patterned silk scarf thrown jauntily over the shoulder to add a bit of confidence. To the director, the room was nothing more than empty space to be filled with the sights and sounds of art-in-the-making.
The singers had left the rehearsal with little more than lunch on their minds, basically each in an overall grim mood, especially after that bizarre turn where everything, without warning, exploded beyond the surreal. Whatever they were feeling individually, they all agreed, along with Joe the pianist, this was not the time to discuss it.
Instead, Felicia retired to a distant practice room and stormed through Dorabella's first aria, Smanie implacabili, about those “implacable pangs which torment me,” an excellent way to work out her frustrations. “Okay, use them...”
Before they would gather again that afternoon for a second meeting, the director had texted each of them a short message: “Think of your character as daPonte intended. Bring an accessory to the rehearsal.”
Mark felt it was 4th Grade show-and-tell déjà-vu.
For instance, the text Henry received was direct, a simple if ungrammatical suggestion:
“Look into your closet and see what you could improvise with,” Mostovsky suggested. “Ferrando, your the dashing young soldier in love with sultry Dorabella: so what would you choose to accessorize your character with?”
Whatever the director's intentions were behind this message, the consensus would've been a hopefulness that, perhaps after all, they would now revert to a more standard, traditional approach with this production – “as daPonte intended.” Back in the rehearsal room, they took their seats with their chosen accessory, most of them hidden in plastic shopping bags.
With a clapping of hands to break the awkward silence, Mostovsky suggested starting with the recitative after Act One's big quintet. She explained “the moment,” how Alfonso had broken the news and the boys have come to say good-bye to their sweethearts. “Just read your lines in English, don't worry about Mozart's rhythms – just lines.”
After they'd gone through the brief scene once, Mostovsky asked Rosa, since Despina was not involved here, whether they were “convincing.”
Rosa clearly felt awkward critiquing them and said, “well, it's their first time...”
“Okay, fair observation.” This time, the director suggested they put on their accessories and “work” them as if they were props.
Rosa watched from the sidelines, and smiled broadly. “Oh, God yes, much better!”
For this next time, Mostovsky wanted each of the lovers to trade accessories. “And with them, now absorb each other's characters.”
Henry was the first to balk at this as Felicia handed him the turquoise throw she'd fashioned into her trailing skirt. “So, I'm supposed to strut around like her?”
“It's just an exercise, Henry.”
Orchis laughed, putting on Frank's blazer with the plastic rose in the buttonhole. “It doesn't fit – it's like a trench coat!”
“And that's exactly the point,” Mostovsky explained, smiling. “They're not meant to fit, to make you comfortable; you're different, now. Begin. But this time, say the same words while acting in your new genders.”
Rosa tried not to giggle. After all, she'll have to do this also when she becomes Doctor Miracle or the wheezy old notary in each act's finales, but her smiles quickly turned to concern. She also noticed Mostovsky wasn't doing much to help them, letting them see (or not see) where they'd naturally lead themselves. They were having obvious trouble with this, especially Henry who'd become sullen and had to stop in the middle of a line to control himself; unfortunately, once he resumed, things didn't go any better.
After a few more minutes of this, it was Henry, predictably, who broke down and just plain stopped. The others waited.
Rosa sat back, hoping she looked nonchalant rather than too concerned and analytical.
The rest had their own issues with this “exercise” but realized, whatever Mostovsky said, they'd need to work this out themselves.
“It's not a matter of self-identifying as this character, Henry,” Mostovsky began quietly and without the condescension the rest had anticipated. “It's a question of allowing yourself to inhabit, momentarily, another person's... well, persona.”
Henry walked away, shaking his head, embarrassed to look anyone in the eye. “I feel idiotic. The whole thing feels idiotic.”
Orchis was the first one to speak up. “I think I get it – I'm not sure I like it, not yet. I feel I'm playing 'dress-up,' only this time not a character I'd chosen.”
“But you're a girl,” Henry protested, “girls play 'dress-up.' I would never in a bajillion years dress up as a girl!”
“Why not? I was always dressing up as a boy,” Felicia said, laughing slightly, “I liked playing baseball, I liked being one of the guys playing War – doesn't make me any less a girl.”
Frank saw Henry'd grown more uncomfortable. “Henry – or should I call you 'Hank'? – you sang Curly in Oklahoma, right?”
Henry nodded.
[w]Well, when you dressed up as a farmer, you didn't really become a farmer, right? So, in this play, we're playing 'dress-up' in costumes that represent characters who may not be us in reality.”
Felicia picked up the argument. “I've sung 'pants-role' arias like Cherubino's a lot. It's a matter of broadening your comfort zone.”
“At least,” Frank chuckled, “we're not doing any nude scenes, right? – are we...?”
Mark pointed out, ever the observant philosopher, Henry and Frank only needed to master the art of cross-dressing for the first few scenes since they'll be spending most of the opera disguised as Albanians. “Or, in this case, gay men back from a night at the bars.”
“And that's supposed to make me feel better?”
“Henry,” Mostovsky said, “go with us on this, We'll drop the nude scene when Dr. Miracle's magnets make your clothes disappear – though there'd be no costume then to have issues with...”
Even Henry laughed.
“I have a cousin who's gay, about my age, and he fits the stereotype of my character's 'disguise' to a T,” Frank said with that kind of expression the Light Bulb of Epiphany creates. “So, imagining how Guglielma moves and stands as a gay man, I'll think 'What Would Cousin Bruce Do?' and imitate him.”
Henry shook his head. He'd never known any gay men, didn't have any gay friends or relatives either, and he'd never been in the habit of watching gay men when he did see them.
“That's not entirely true, Henry. You've been around me for several weeks now,” Mark said to him, “and you've watched me. Ah, from your expression, apparently you didn't know I was gay? Oh please...” He explained how liberating it had been to play “Charley's Aunt” in a high school production. “I was magnificent,” he chuckled.
They'd been singing individual songs or arias in a studio for years but only a few had been on stage before, so the idea of coordinating singing and movement wasn't entirely new to them. Was this the best way for them to make that transition, when just learning the basics of stagecraft was challenge enough?
Henry thought they should learn a standard opera, first, in a standard production. That's what he'd wanted, why he'd signed up. Wouldn't this kind of experimenting be better left to those more experienced singers?
“Oh, come on, Henry,” Rosa said, standing up to strike a pose, “I've been playing nothing but 'roles' all my life. I'd been a black girl in a white world so long, I didn't know who the Real Rosa Miller really was. I even had to act Blonde to become a cheerleader in high school.”
Mostovsky, sensing some of them were warming to this interpretation and may be adaptable to playing an outlandish game of 'dress-up,' reminded them of the importance of loyalty to any production they'll sing in. “And that will be the case whether it's here at the Allegro Conservatory's Opera Department or at the Metropolitan Opera House.” First, each singer must sublimate themselves to their character – confusion was slowly diminishing over Mostovsky's non-grammatical use of various personal pronouns – and to the director's vision of the production, the story behind the music.
“What you need to do is discover how you'd interpret what the composer wrote for the story provided by the librettist, to bring out your character and make sense of the production's overall vision. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you at all, all these gender changes, but it all comes 'round in the end.
“In the final Wedding Tableau,” Mostovsky explained, “the original couples are reunited. Fiordiligio, now married to Guglielma, reaches around secretively and takes Ferranda's hand, just as Dorabello and Guglielma 'make eyes' at each other. In their original pairings, it was all 'opposites attract' so perhaps they realize they might've married the wrong ones after all.
“In the Italian, the title Cosí fan tutte means 'So Do They All,' but the emphasis is different, translated into English. Once it's 'Women Are Like That,' however, it's the English that's become misogynistic.”
There was not a peep from the singers who stood back as a whole cluster of epiphanic light bulbs went off. Hummel, seated attentively but otherwise invisible at the piano, played a crisp, recitative-like dominant-tonic cadence to punctuate the moment, “plunk, plunk.” Mostovsky's smile barely hid the fact – “oh, yeah” – the premise had been sold.
There wasn't much time left in the rehearsal, so the director hoped to make as much progress in the remaining twenty minutes to give them something to work on before meeting again that evening.
“Here is another exercise we can try,” Mostovsky explained, “and you can observe each other. Maestro, music? No words, just pantomime. Take off the accessories” – Henry gladly did so – “the boys are now the sisters but you'll be playing them as men, while the girls will now be the boyfriends, but playing them as women.”
They'd hardly gotten started, the two “sisters” looking at their lovers' portraits, sighing, smiling, and comparing notes when Mostovsky stopped them. “Yes, but seriously, is that how guys would really be looking at photos of their girls they'd have on their phones? 'You think yours is pretty? Look at this!' Maybe even some wink-wink, nudge-nudge...?”
The boys tried again, this time pointing at their palms, pretending they're phones, but now their body language was clearly bragging. Henry tried to convince Frank his girl was much hotter but Frank disagreed.
“I know Mozart's music is bouncy, there,” Mostovsky said, stopping them once again, “but would you really just start skipping around? No, maybe you'd swagger, swing your shoulders, cut a few strutting dance moves?” When they'd gotten it down to something Mostovsky found believable, the director had the girls imitate their various swaggers and strutting.
Orchis laughed but agreed it was working. “I feel I'm a little girl pretending to mock my older, would-be macho brother.”
“Right, but with practice, you can absorb that and make it more natural.”
Henry stood back, ready to start imitating the girls when it's their turn to be the boyfriends. He was pretty sure he would be “absorbing” this only in the privacy of his locked room.
The door burst open and the conservatory's Chancellor, Holly Grayle, barged into the room without knocking. “Everybody out of the building!”
Ms. Grayle, a prim, middle-aged bean-counter of the Old School, saw little need for art (it was just another four-letter word). She didn't even look at the students or register what they were doing. As far as she was concerned, she agreed with Samuel Johnson's definition of opera, and considered it “the most useless entertainment.” Why she was even involved with a music school was beyond her, but it paid well and she was good at crunching numbers – and well-known for her various recipes about the cooking of books.
As Chancellor of the Allegro Conservatory and CFO of the Proteus Foundation, the last thing she would be interested in was what a bunch of students were doing prancing around to some idiotic music. If this wasn't distasteful enough, she had to deal with this weirdo director-person, Lauren Mostovsky (“Who the hell ever hired her?”).
She noticed the students still stood there, open-mouthed and unresponsive at the interruption.
“Hey,” Grayle shouted at them, “are you deaf or just that stupid? I said 'everybody out of the damn building!' Now!”
They picked up their books and scores, leaving their accessories behind, and ran toward the door. “What the fuck's going on?”
“Think of it as a fire drill, moron, if you have to have it explained to you,” she yelled after them. “Whatever happened to those nice, obedient children back when I was growing up...?”
Once everybody'd cleared the room, Grayle approached the director, whispering under her breath. “It's come way sooner than we thought, so not everyone is prepared. Clear everything out you can, except for the furniture.”
“What's come sooner than...?” Mostovsky looked completely befuddled.
“You don't know? Why, the police, of course!” Grayle shook her head disapprovingly.
“The police...? But... why are the police coming?” Mostovsky started gathering up folders and handouts, different scores, anything she could carry. “What about the piano?”
“Oh, good grief, that counts as furniture, doesn't it?”
Grayle explained as the school's finances began to tank, it was only a matter of time before creditors would close in but they thought they'd make it to the end of the academic year. If they'd gotten money in for the fall semester's registrations, they might've succeeded, she continued, but everything imploded like yesterday's quiche.
“They're going to close the school?” Suddenly, Mostovsky became seriously alarmed. “That's awful! Our Cosí could've put us on the map!”
For a brief second, Grayle stared at her, disbelieving the woman's complete naivety.
“Where're the sets and costumes stored? Get 'em loaded onto the van, ASAP!”
“Oh, we're not quite that far along, yet.”
“Well, that's good news. Get everything out your office that could associate you with any Opera Department that ever existed here.”
“What office...? And what about the website? It's all over the school's website!”
Grayle said the website's already been taken down and all their computers' hard-drives are being scrubbed “as we speak.”
“My laptop...?”
“I'll take it. IT's going through the place, collecting any technology they find. Oh, your personal bank account and on-line social media have already been closed down and transferred into the Foundation's overseas accounts.”
With arms already loaded beyond capacity, Mostovsky stopped and wondered if they'd be mailing back paychecks from the past two months.
“Paychecks? Sure, sure,” Grayle said, almost patting Mostovsky's shoulder. “Monday, so I'm told.”
Mostovsky took one quick look around, saw nothing left behind, and ran toward the front door. “No, not that way,” Grayle said, “the students... – the police may be waiting out front. Go out back. All the doors are being locked. Put everything in your car,” she said, “and drive away as far as you can.”
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
Alone in his office, the curtains drawn against the gloom of a rainy afternoon, Lucifer Darke, the beleaguered head of SHMRG, paced back and forth, lost in the labyrinth of his equally gloomy thoughts. A tall man whose shoulders were now eternally hunched, his eyes averted, he'd become an introvert who's become even more insecure.
He was never fond of bright lights, even now the room lit solely by the dim banker's lamp on his desk. Unfortunately, these events of recent months had placed him in an uncomfortable spotlight. It had never really felt like his office or even his desk; even the company he ran didn't feel like his, everything around him suffused with the malingering presence of the man he'd replaced. But the scandal that plagued him now was clearly of his own making and nothing he had tried could stop it.
It was to be his claim to fame, the triumph he'd point to to make SHMRG his and rebuild its finances, opening new business vistas with a software product intended for amateur would-be composers. Program it to suit your own tastes, whatever you liked, and the software would write its own compositions in your name. Of course the fine print stated, while it was “in your name,” anything created by the software would be published by a SHMRG subsidiary and became the property of the parent company – his company.
That, however, wasn't the scandal, whether anyone noticed the fine print or not; that was the new, 21st Century business model. If they're “amateurs,” would they need professional recognition like new-found wealth from royalties? Hence, the company, licensing the software to them under a lugubrious contract nobody'd read, offered to take care of this burden. If there were any profits to be had, the “composer” would receive 13% as royalties, while 21% went to the publisher, 55% went to SHMRG and the remaining 11% went discretely into Darke's pocket.
There was no guarantee anything the software created would generate a hit; the odds were slim there might even be one. In short, the company wasn't liable for any failures in the program's production. Like any success, much of it depended on how well the software was programmed. Very few geniuses wrote nothing but masterpieces.
Then there's that glitch that killed dozens of Happy Customers after weeks of successful collaboration between stupid dreams and intelligent technology. And the latest count of SHMRG customers electrocuted by their computers reached 89. Suddenly one day, an unsuspecting “composer” would be working on a new song and – Zap! – an electrical current short-circuited their heart. One happened during a live tutorial on You-Tube as an older gentleman demonstrated how you'd program certain parameters into the system's database when he was electrocuted live (so to speak) and died on camera.
“Freak accident” or not, some dubbed the video “the smoking gun” and others, without irony, “living proof” the program was faulty. The video received 196,418 hits in the hour before it was taken down. Complaints began pouring in hourly and customers flooded the Help Line (which was normally understaffed) wondering if their computers were safe.
All of which led to calls for various investigations, including a congressional one called by Representative Ben Gozzi from North Carolina, none of which accomplished anything beyond making SHMRG CEO Lucifer Darke look uncomfortable. He'd taken the expected approach to defend his company's product, that it was perfectly safe to anyone who operated it properly. All this bad publicity sent SHMRG's stock flushing down the Wall Street toilet, yet the product was never taken off the market, as government and company officials cited nothing, so far, could be proven.
Darke assured them he felt the pain of those customer's families deprived of their loved ones, all because they'd wanted to, however vicariously, experience the thrill of creating something beautiful by purchasing SHMRG's software. Just think, if they hadn't done that, they'd still be there at the dinner table enjoying fulfilling lives with their families. It had been the worst experience of his life, he added, such an inconvenience, going before all those cameras and panels and legislators, repeating ad nauseum his product was “perfectly safe if properly handled.”
It had turned into a media circus of frenzied speculation, the very frame from that video where the old man died turned into a meme: “I'm sorry, Dave, I can't let you do that...” Conspiracy Theorists who spouted the “Artificial-Intelligence-Was-Evolving-A-Mind-Of-Its-Own” thing, swore any computer could now turn into your worst critic, a truly killer app.
When it was discovered the old man in the video already had a heart condition and diabetes, what more proof was needed any mild shock, impervious to a healthier individual, couldn't cause his death? If you don't follow the instructions, does someone killed by hooking up a car battery wrong prove the battery is faulty? Darke even had some of his best engineers testify before some of these investigations to snow the would-be experts under an avalanche of Geek-Speak to prove you couldn't make assumptions based on mere speculation.
Privately, Darke blamed Purdue, an amateur computer engineer, for flaws in the original code, not his own engineers desperate to meet holiday sales deadlines who'd overlooked some key keystrokes which created the fatal glitch. Perhaps the system, which after all they'd stolen from Purdue (not that they'd admit that) had been hacked by the Chinese?
“No, of course,” he realized, “not the Chinese – it must be the Aficionati! It must have been sabotaged; and most likely an inside, undercover job. If I ever find out the one who's responsible...”
“But you are,” a not too distant yet too familiar voice crooned, hidden somewhere in the mordant shadows behind the desk, “you couldn't control them, could you, imposing unrealistic deadlines, demanding impossible sales reports. You even threatened them with terminations – right before Christmas, too, just like Scrooge.”
Out of nothingness, a shape began taking form.
It was a figure in a wheelchair, dark and formidable, its eyes smoldering, and caressed the desk once the mysterious shape behind him pushed him forward, slowly but with an irrefutable sense of possession. Those eyes softened: this desk had once been his. This room had once been his office. Even this view'd been his. The secret passage he'd designed so he could come and go without anyone in the office knowing had especially been his. And clearly, judging from Darke's amazement, Steele had caught him by complete surprise.
Darke threatened to call security. “You know the IMP has been searching for you for years? I'll have them arrest you.”
Steele's hand immediately shot toward the phone, blocking Darke's move. “Don't – even – think...”
“Why have you resurfaced now, after all these years sniveling in your hideouts?”
“Because now, I'm ready to take everything back.”
Especially on this afternoon's flight, courtesy of his friend's private jet, nodding in the direction of the statuesque blonde behind him, Steele said he's had plenty of time to contemplate the importance of loyalty. He realized he couldn't control his company unless he controlled the loyalty of his people – and Lucifer was out of control.
“Because there's nothing worse than a traitor,” Steele sneered, his words rolling out in increasingly stentorian tones, “a traitor to the cause, a traitor to the firm, a traitor, most of all, to me.”
Clearly, in the few hours since he'd come under her spell, Steele had been artfully coached by Savannah Roller who continued to hold Lucifer Darke in her gaze like a cobra ready to strike.
“Something you conveniently forgot, Mr. Darke, is that you were not to replace me. You were only 'standing in' for me.”
His voice rose in a long crescendo. Steele thundered home, “someone loyal to the firm would take one for the team. Remember, Lucifer, there's no U in 'TEAM.' You cannot spell 'TEAM' without ME!”
Roller laid her hands firmly on Steele's shoulders and his body quaked visibly. When she lifted her arms with an expression of triumph on her face, Steele rose from his wheelchair and stood tall. With aid of neither crutch nor cane, Steele walked the few remaining steps and pressed the escape key on Darke's computer.
Darke stood gaping at Steele and his antics. Compared to what his minions had been reporting to him over the past few years, what he knew of Steele himself, this was more the Old Steele but with an even more demonic twist. And who was this blonde woman he'd brought with him, some latter-day Svengali?
“They're here – the IMP,” Steele said, “ready to arrest you, not least about your 'z'Art Software.' You'll be gone for years. I'd been like a father to you. This is how you've repaid me?”
Once more, Steele sat down in the wheelchair and the woman pushed him into the shadows, one last wave before disappearing. However long Darke might have to remember things, he'd never forget that wave. But it was the smile on the man's face, the smirk that chilled him to the bone. It was unadulterated evil.
Beneath the siren's intensifying wail, Darke could hear the scuffle of feet as fists pounded on the door.
It was over.
“Lucifer Darke,” one voice yelled, “we know you're in there. Open up – IMP!”
Capt. Ritard, bashing the door down, placed him under arrest for Corporate Malfeasance involving the deaths of dozens of SHMRG customers.
Ritard and his team of agents escorted the handcuffed Darke away, so many frightened prairie dogs peering out over their cubicles.
Darke knew what they were thinking.
“TEAM is also an anagram of MEAT...”
= = = = = = =
©2022 by Dick Strawser for Thoughts on a Train
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