Pinball (29 page)

He said that, if she liked, he would introduce her to some of the composers at the festival; for each introduction, she might wear a different wig and dress and makeup. That might allow her to become different women, with new mystery and a fresh source of emotional fascination, for each composer she met.

Each metamorphosis, he said, would also be an act of composing a new
persona,
not unlike composing music, a comic opera of sincerity, and it would enrich her search for the self—and her sense of self-discovery. Even if she did not win a lasting place in the imagination of any of these creative men, she would feel her momentary effect on all of them and, in the process, expand Domostroy’s own reality as well. He frankly admitted that even though he had only just then thought up the scheme, the prospect excited him and he hoped she would take part in it. He confessed that he already had an idea for capturing it in music: he would, he thought, call his piece
Octaves
, and it would be a series of metamorphoses of a single melody broken up and punctuated, step by step, by frequent pauses, solo voices, and silences.

Obviously flattered, the woman did not seem disconcerted by his plan, and she meekly admitted that she often wore wigs and costumes at home, but she wasn’t brave enough to go out on dates in them. For her, by nature so shy, this could be the closest thing to becoming an actress, she said, to playing a new, exciting role each day—or even each night. She knew that some of the men in the prop and costume unit—hairdressers and makeup artists—occasionally borrowed wigs and clothes and even went out dressed as women. They had told her about their escapades, and more than once she had found herself envying their courage.

On the first night of the festival, Domostroy invited the woman to a café which was frequented by local musicians. Many of the visiting artists also were there, and a number of them recognized Domostroy and waved to him or came over to chat. Several spoke enthusiastically about compositions of his that they had played, and Domostroy could tell that the woman was impressed by these tributes.

The following day she told Domostroy that if he still liked his idea of introducing her in disguise, she was prepared to go along with it. She had chosen three outfits and had even picked out the accessories—wigs, coats, scarves, shoes, handbags, and jewelry.

Domostroy told her he was delighted, and that night he looked over the list of participants in the festival program and selected three composers he had met at various gatherings in the past. He promptly called them all and arranged to meet them at different times.

The first was an American, known primarily as a composer of serious pieces, but also as a songwriter. He was in his fifties and had lived most of his life in Minneapolis, where his wife had died recently. They met in the hotel bar, and the man seemed glad to see Domostroy. As they ordered a drink and began to talk, Domostroy saw the prop girl enter the bar.

If he had not known in detail what she would be wearing, he would never have recognized her. The curly blond wig fit faultlessly; a fine makeup job discreetly altered her lips and eyes; the borrowed black silk dress elegantly outlined her girlish waist, and a padded bra made her small, firm breasts look substantially fuller. Long gloves, an alligator bag, and high-heeled shoes completed the lofty image. Playing her role well, she glanced around as if in search of someone, registered slight disappointment, turned to leave, then suddenly feigned surprise at noticing the two men. She approached their table and spoke to Domostroy with astonishing assurance and poise, reminding him that she had once had the pleasure of meeting him at a benefit concert in London. Stunned at her effortless manner in carrying off the deception, Domostroy muttered some words of apology for not having recognized her sooner, and then he introduced her by her assumed name to the American and invited her to join them for a drink. Politely she agreed and proceeded to prove herself as accomplished in her conversation as in her disguise. She talked knowledgeably and at length—thanks to the reading material Domostroy had given her—
about music, the subject she said fascinated her above all others.

At what seemed the right moment, Domostroy excused himself and left. On the following day, when he asked her if she had succeeded in leaving her mark on the composer, she replied distantly, saying only that the composer had asked to see her again.

More intrigued than ever, Domostroy proceeded with the other introductions. The first was to a Soviet composer-conductor who was touring Western Europe by himself, having left his wife and three children behind in Kiev. For this meeting the woman came disguised as a loquacious redhead, a college student on vacation in Spain. Again she talked convincingly about her main interest—the history of musical form—and in an hour’s time she had the Russian captivated. Domostroy pleaded a previous commitment and soon left the two of them alone.

The final candidate Domostroy chose for her was a recently divorced middle-aged German, a distinguished composer of chamber music and the author of a lengthy study of the physics and development of the entire family of stringed instruments. For him the woman had become a midwestern music critic who was covering the festival—a trim, luscious, full-breasted brunette who wore silk blouses and tweeds—and the German turned out to be by far her simplest conquest.

Soon all three composers were pursuing her, and Domostroy was amazed at how expertly she managed to keep all three relationships—and disguises—going. Several other composers had complimented Domostroy on the beauty of the three women they kept seeing in his company; one of the men came to the movie set seeking them on his own, and was disappointed not to find even one. Meanwhile, in the evenings, on her way to one romantic rendezvous or another, she would often stop by Domostroy’s room and let him check out her wardrobe and makeup or coach her in appropriate dialogue. As to her amorous progress with the three men, she was reluctant to be specific. She would only say that they all seemed
to be intensely interested in her and that she was pleased by the success of her disguises.

Throughout the time of her adventures, Domostroy wondered how truthful the woman was being with each of the men. Had she told any of them about her game of disguises? Had she admitted to wearing a wig, for instance?

Aware of Domostroy’s curiosity, as if to tease him, the woman began to hint that she had gone to bed with all three of his candidates. At such moments, her manner itself was a disguise, and it intimidated him. In perfect control, without a trace of her timid self, she would stare into his eyes and watch his slightest move, as if she expected to find some dissembling in his voice and look and manner.

Under her scrutiny, he broke, admitting to her that he wanted very much to know more about her and her conquests of the three men. When she answered him, she was no longer cryptic. In a voice quite empty of emotion, she described in minute detail how she let each man make love to her without ever letting any of them fully undress her. She also told Domostroy that during these simultaneous love affairs, she felt herself to be an entirely different woman with each man, but that the three men now appeared to her as one and the same man. With the American, she said, she was inventive and demanding, and she would usually straddle him to bring him to orgasm; with the Russian she was docile and submissive, almost in a trance, and she would let him excite himself by rubbing against her; with the German she was fresh and innocent, and she would tease him until he begged her to let him rip off her clothes. She would often go from one fever to the next, right in the same hotel, during the same afternoon or evening. Because sex, like music, was sensual and direct, she said, she had the feeling that she was the composer and they mere performers of her sexual music.

When the festival ended, most of the participating artists, including the American and Russian, promptly left Seville. The German, however, decided to stay a bit longer, and Domostroy wondered whether the man had made this decision on his own or at the woman’s request.

In another week the German left too, and Domostroy looked forward to seeing the woman abandon her last disguise. But she did not. One night she came to his room so well disguised that he could have passed her on the street without recognizing her—although he certainly would have wanted to meet her.

“And for whom are you wearing this costume?” he asked.

She came close to him. “It’s for you,” she said. “Aren’t you about to compose your
Octaves?”

Years later he met the woman again, and it was then that her name was linked with his in a trashy magazine article about a weekend he spent with her at a couples’ club.

“Why don’t you call her?” Andrea’s words reverberated in Domostroy’s mind all day. When he got home that night, he wrote a note to Donna Downes, care of Juilliard, asking if he could see her. But when several days passed and she did not respond, he assumed she had decided against seeing him, and once again he resigned himself to his routine—but he thought of her often.

Donna was young, beautiful, gifted. And now he also knew that she was drawn to him because of his art—he remembered all too well what Andrea had said—that Donna had been carrying one of his albums. If Donna found his music fertile, then he had already gained access to her as an artist. But he desired her, and what he now wanted as a man was to gain access to Donna as a woman.

On occasion Domostroy went after odd jobs to supplement his income and to break the routine of his solitary existence. Going out into the world somehow recharged him. He would photocopy his capsule biographies in
Who’s Who in America
and
Who’s Who in the World
and send them out with brief notes, saying that he was available for
special engagements. These notes went only to nightclub and hotel managers, dance hall operators and small-time agents who would know little and probably care less about his failure of the last decade.

Through one of the Cuban waiters at Kreutzer’s, Domostroy had also made contact with some members of the Free Cuba Fighters, a loosely organized group of Cuban patriots living in America, ranging from well-to-do businessmen to aged veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Hardworking professionals for the most part, of quick intelligence and uncanny commercial drive, these Cubans proudly declared themselves the “Jews of Latin America,” a claim they supported by their vigorous work habits. Although they had often asked Domostroy to play at weddings and small parties, he was surprised when one of them called and offered him an unusual amount of money for playing at their annual formal party, which was to be held at the Harmony, one of Manhattan’s newest and most elegant hotels.

Dressed in his tuxedo, Domostroy arrived at the hotel on the appointed evening and left his car, an oddity in the long line of double-parked chauffeur-driven limousines, in the care of one of the uniformed attendants. Then he made his way through the vast marble lobby, feeling a bit intimidated by the crowd of expensively dressed men and ostentatiously bejeweled women who mingled there.

After reporting to the manager, he was promptly escorted by a security guard to a suite on one of the hotel’s top tower floors. He had to show identification at the door, and after two powerfully built, tuxedo-clad Cubans frisked him thoroughly, he was allowed to proceed into the magnificent suite where the Free Cuba Fighters were gathering for an evening of amusement. One spectacular salon led to the next, and since the doors between them all were open, he was free to wander from room to room, although as he did so he realized that security guards were stationed throughout at regular intervals.

In the center of the largest room, Domostroy saw a white fiberglass enclosure, some twenty feet in diameter, its sides about three feet high, with a floor of spongy
rubber matting. Nearby stood a portable scale in a wooden case, and the room’s corners were filled with clusters of empty cardboard carrying cases. At the room’s far end stood a Paganini console, which, Domostroy realized, was brought there for him. He had played such an instrument only once before, the previous year, at the Music Fair Exhibition where its versatility and sound fidelity had surprised him.

More and more Free Cuba Fighters continued to arrive, the men in tuxedos, the women in extravagant evening gowns. A number of the men carried extra-wide attaché cases made of wicker or polished wood and equipped with combination locks. Domostroy watched each of the men calmly open the case he had brought with him and transfer its contents into one of the larger carrying cases grouped in the corners of the room. The contents were all the same—fighting cocks, the evening’s only serious fighters, their feathers rainbows of red, orange, black, yellow, and beige with iridescent ruffs billowing around their necks, their legs and beaks tied to prevent them from hurting themselves.

Helpers tended the birds, carefully affixing spurs and identification bands to the legs of each rooster. A man beside Domostroy took it upon himself to explain that these spurs were of different sorts, depending on the kind of fight the bird was bred and trained for. Some spurs were made from dead roosters’ legs, honed to razor-sharpness and cured for strength, designed to slide in and out of the opponent’s body. Others were made of metal; of these, the “gaffs” looked like bayonets, while the “slashers” were single-edged and sickle-shaped.

At a table near the pit, the helpers neatly laid out assorted cockfighting paraphernalia; pads for cleansing and healing, waxed nylon strings, leg bands, leather gaff sheaths, moleskin tapes, additional rubber mats, sponges, plastic garbage bags for the dead cocks, as well as supplies of dextrose for injecting strength into wounded birds and antibiotics to guard them against infection.

Waiters in white jackets circulated with trays of drinks. Domostroy helped himself to a Cuba Libre, and as he
watched the activity in the room he recalled hearing once that with bettors shouting, pitmen screaming, and bystanders cheering on the birds, cockfighting was a noisy sport. His reason for being hired for the evening now became clear to him: with the help of the Paganini—which could sound like a whole band—he was supposed to drown out the sounds of the cockfight and declare to guests on the floors above and below that patriotic Cubans were dancing and cheering and singing to the music of a native combo.