Priscilla Yeung

Rondo

Novel extract

Chapter One

Aloisia

The law of the universe dictates that the day you want to forget the most will be the day you remember every single second for the rest of your life; and the day you desperately try to remember, little remains. 

It started as a calm autumn evening. Overcast, greyish-blue, typical. Aloisia Kögl was leaning by the windowsill on the second floor of an old stone building overlooking the Karlsplatz Square. She thought of many things Vienna wasn’t famous for but really should be. The giant bronze rabbit on the roof of a pork sausage stand in Albertina. The fountains where water came out of a man’s belly button and the mouth of an angel boy. The flying horse sculpture with six hard nipples in Belvedere Garden. 

Absurdity was part of Vienna’s charm. Viennese artists had the imagination and appetite to take risks, but tourists couldn’t always see the city’s humour straight away. It was subtle. At first glance, they would see the chains of warm light bulbs illuminating the cobbled streets, the horse carriages driven by handsome Austrian men in high hats and double-breasted coats, and Mozart Balls – the chocolate named after the famous composer. The tourists wouldn’t have known, but Mozart would have loved this. He loved everything to do with genitals, especially jokes about his own pair. 

Aloisia chuckled, and the rest of the room stared at her, frowning. That was inappropriate indeed, given that Aloisia’s orchestra, Vienna Finest Concert, was in crisis mode. Amusement should be forbidden. 

Their First Violinist, Reina Harding, paced around the room in circles. She clasped her violin under her arm like she was holding it hostage. Her face had turned gaunt and grey within the last hour, and her already badly hunched back deepened, making her small frame even smaller. 

Aloisia watched Reina’s off-shoulder dress swish around her moving feet. The bubble sleeves, the sweetheart neckline, the layered skirts, every clumsy detail slammed into one. What made her take out her credit card and pay for it? A reckless, evil salesperson? Reina’s desire to remain a child forever? She looked like a toothpick buried in a tiered wedding cake. Her tiny spine could break any minute. 

The rest of the orchestra, all fifty of them, gawked nervously at the sturdy grandfather clock by the wall behind Reina. Its hands edged closer and closer to seven o’clock. 

Nobody made a sound. 

Nobody dared. 

Their conductor, Ian Cowherd, had gone missing. Another Brit-in-Vienna like Reina but with a hundred-and-eighty-degree different interpretation of the word ‘professionalism’ – he was always tipsy, late, and flirting with young musicians. No one liked him, but right now, they just needed him to turn up to his god-damn job. 

Aloisia wasn’t too worried, however, because the plan B was well-versed. It was the same plan B over the past five hundred years, like a law. In the rare event that a conductor became unavailable to perform for whatever reason, and there were no stand-ins, then the Concertmaster, usually First Violin, was expected to take over. If Ian didn’t turn up by the time they were on stage, Reina would lead. Reina knew that from the day she took up the job, and Aloisia knew she could do it just fine. It was Reina Harding, for God’s sake, the musical prodigy who had been mesmerising the classical music world since she was four years old. What could go wrong? 

The problem was Reina’s sabotaging self-doubt – it crippled her confidence. As Aloisia could see right now, Reina, the toothpick, was shrinking into her fat dress.

Her colleagues shifted their bodies away from Reina. Some stared at their feet. An oboist tapped the table unconsciously out of anxiety, tah-tah-tah-tah-tah-tah, until Gayle, a cellist, put her hand over his.

The panic in the air made Aloisia sick, or maybe it was the new mint green paint on the ceiling. It didn’t go with anything. There was nothing they could do but wait. Ian might turn up. But why bother? It’d be an understatement to say that he was incompetent, and it was a mistake that Aloisia hadn’t fired him yet. After tonight, Aloisia thought, she would have that conversation. 

6.52 p.m. 

They were due on stage in eight minutes. 

She yanked the old window open and shoved her head outside for some fresh air. The evening breeze froze the tip of her nose, but at least it was refreshing. She could feel the gaze of her colleagues on her back, questioning her lack of action and urgency. She fished her vape out from her jumpsuit pocket and inhaled. Nicotine fogged her brain for a moment, a crow cawed and she switched her focus to the starlings flying in unison around the plaza. 

The sun slipped into the horizon and turned the sky bright orange, lighting the stone buildings around the Ringstraße on fire. The way starlings flew during sunset was called a murmuration. She had learned this word from Reina when they were drinking at a rooftop bar a while back, making the best use of the Austrian summer. Happier times. 

Without a leader, the starlings swirled in one tight formation. Each took their part in creating ever-changing patterns mid-air. If you looked closely, each bird flew at a slightly different angle. No teacher, no choreographer, no director. Just themselves. Flying. And free. Some swooped, some swirled, and the smaller, younger birds were surrounded by the stronger ones on the edges. They moved and turned gracefully, appearing and disappearing between the buildings. 

How the birds communicated fascinated and bewildered humans. Leadership, words, divulgence – language was futile to these birds. 

If the starlings could do it, surely her orchestra could do the same, Aloisia thought. 

The sky turned from orange to violet, bringing the crescent moon into focus. Well-dressed tourists walked around with cameras hanging on their necks. Their whispers were barely audible. 

‘Even we need a conductor. How do they just know where the others are turning and going?’ Reina had said on that rooftop bar, nursing a glass of chilled Riesling. 

‘Hmm, dunno…How do they not shit on each other’s head?’ Aloisia had wondered out loud. 

Whilst the starlings were majestic and whimsical, the crows flew low and suspiciously along the streets like thieves. A common bird with no particular skills, crows were everywhere. Caw-cawing, fighting with other birds, picking food wrappers. They were the survivors and the beggars. They stood along the electric cable. Their claws clenched on the power lines. Insulated and unaffected. These lines lit up the countless chandeliers, music halls and street lights across the country. The crows stood on guard on top of the golden sphere at the Succession building not far away from where Aloisia was, spying on art lovers and tourists making a pilgrimage to the Austrian painters. That gold was real, as was the gold used in Gustav Klimt’s paintings. 

The gold on the grandfather clock in their rehearsal room was real, too. It had to be, considering how old and expensive it looked. A specialist came and polished it every few years. First, a silver-haired man, then his son, Aloisia was friends with both. The clock was a permanent fixture in this music hall, like the Vienna Finest Concert, which had been performing here for fifty years. The old mahogany wood had a dried blood colour, complementing the yellow in the gold. If you stood closely enough, you could hear the gears grinding. 

Aloisia caught Johanna, the pianist’s, gaze, as she retrieved her head from the other side of the window. Johanna widened her eyes, urging Aloisia to do something. Aloisia nodded and made an ‘okay’ sign. 

As a musician, Aloisia was comfortable with or without Ian, but as the impresario, she had the duty to make sure everyone felt as confident as they normally did to put on a good show. Her colleagues were fantastic, but like all musicians, they were chaotic and dramatic and when left without a leader, they let loose and fooled around like kids on recess. They needed their conductor, no matter how terrible he was. The Finest’s reputation was on the line. Aloisia only assumed the managerial role two months ago, but she had been expected to take over the ensemble from her dad since she was a child. Now she must step up to do her job. 

‘Crisis mode equals robot mode,’ her dad had said. He had sprinkled wisdom like confetti on a soft serve at every opportunity when Aloisia was growing up. As a conductor, Aloisia’s dad saw both art and mathematics in music. Notes fit together snugly according to the time signatures. 

‘There is always rationality in music. The job of a musical leader is to make sure this rationality is not forgotten,’ he had also said that before. 

Aloisia had to be the rational one now. She put away her vape, walked up to Reina, and whispered, ‘We’ll split Ian’s role. I’ll be the host, and you’ll focus on conducting.’ 

‘Oh God…no…just no, please.’

Reina walked away in denial. Her eyes fixated on the door. Her head shook in desperation, bobbling on top of her cake dress like a broken doll. Sweat travelled down her face, melting the makeup into streaks. With that face, that white dress and that straight, long black hair, Aloisia thought of the ghost that crawled out of the television in the Ring and shivered.

‘He won’t come. We don’t need him,’ said Aloisia, dabbing Reina’s face with a tissue. A vertical crease appeared on Reina’s forehead. Reina waved Aloisia’s hand away, sulking. 

The old clock chimed the familiar tune of St. Michael at 7 p.m. sharp, which sounded more like a siren tonight.

Reina’s prayers were not answered. She surrendered her knees to the floor and buried her head between her hands. The fabric of her gown scrunched up like an overbeaten meringue with too many folds. Her violin slipped from her armpit and lay on the carpet like a corpse. Some members sighed, others swore, and Aloisia felt despair buzzing around the room like one thousand flies. 

It was a curse that Austrians were always on time. A commotion broke out from the music hall, audible to the entire orchestra in the rehearsal room behind the side stage curtain. The audience started trickling in. Whispering, marvelling at the chandeliers, cameras clicking, stall seats flapping. 

‘We are fucked.’ Reina covered her ears and shook her head in gloom.  

‘No. This is our turning point.’ Aloisia pressed her hands on Reina’s exposed shoulders. They were cold to the touch. 

If anything, Aloisia saw this crisis as her time to shine. She had known for a while that Ian was not reliable. How had he sweet-talked her dad to retire and take over his conductor job, she didn’t know – Vienna Finest Concert was Josef Kögl’s other baby, besides Aloisia. He founded the orchestra, and he was both the impresario and the conductor until he retired. Aloisia got the job of the impresario, only to watch Ian ruin the orchestra with his arrogance. 

Aloisia knew why he couldn’t be bothered though – because the Finest was a commercial ensemble that entertained tourists, as opposed to winning competitions and touring around the world. They were the Vienna Finest Concert, not the Vienna Philharmonic. One of the many in town who played Mozart for money. 

‘I can’t believe you have ticket stands outside the Opera House,’ Ian had said once with the purest disgust – as if it was a sin for musicians to make money. Aloisia had watched his interest in the Finest tank since. He had been late to rehearsals, and Reina had stepped in to fix the members’ mistakes he had failed to notice. What had Ian expected? There were more musicians than rats on the Viennese streets. Didn’t they all go through music schools and endure hours of practice since they could walk? Didn’t they all share the dream of becoming part of a national orchestra or even soloists? But dreams were, sometimes, just dreams, and musicians needed to eat too. As revolting as Ian might have felt about this orchestra, a job was a job, and it helped to pay the bills, but his pride had blinded him. Aloisia didn’t understand why Ian would take this job if he despised it so much, but tonight seemed to be the night he finally gave up. 

Even if he’d turned up, he would have missed signalling different parts and given terrible speeches that irritated the audience. Let’s be frank, he was no Bernstein. All he did was flick the baton in the air. A buffoon could do that. It was better that he wasn’t here. The orchestra only panicked because they were used to having a conductor. They were scared of changes, but revolutions always came unexpectedly, like a tsunami.

Aloisia now had the indisputable reason to get rid of Ian, and legally, too. If anything, she felt relieved. 

‘You better get on stage now…wait…where on earth is Ian?’ said a concert hall staffer as he rushed in and tapped an invisible watch on his wrist. 

‘Okay. Attention, please.’ Aloisia clapped her hands and rounded her troops. She stood tall and maintained a grin. ‘I know you guys aren’t comfortable because Ian is not here, but we all know how bad he is and how good we are. Okay? Okay. Reina, adjust your seat a bit on stage so everyone can see your bow. We’ll follow your lead – just make eye contact with the principals from time to time and exaggerate your gestures so we can all hit the note at the same time. You’re the concertmaster now. Everyone, we’ll do what we normally do.’ 

Reina whimpered like a wounded cat. 

‘We’ll be fine, honestly,’ said Aloisia, extending a hand to their new maestro, who looked like a puddle of melted vanilla ice cream on the floor. 

‘I’ve never led a full recital. I’m fine to steer some bow directions at best. But…but how can I possibly play and conduct at the same time…What if I screw up the tempo…What if I forget to cue the parts…What about acoustic delays? And….And…’ Reina held her head like it was about to fall off. She hyperventilated and struggled to catch her breath. 

Aloisia pulled Reina up and grabbed her shoulders with both hands, forcing Reina to look at her.  

‘Inhale, Reina. That’s right. Now exhale. We won’t miss our parts. The scores are right before us, and we can all count the bars. We’ve done it so many times. Guys, tell Reina, do you even look at Ian?’ Aloisia turned to her colleagues, made an ugly face, and prompted the members to act. 

All fifty heads shook as hard as they could. 

‘You can do it, Reina,’ said Hans, the percussionist.

‘Ian is useless. We always look at you anyway,’ said Gayle.

‘Trust yourself and trust us, darling,’ said Johanna.

There was no time for Reina to doubt herself. The audience was waiting. The impatient staffer nudged again. Everyone picked up their instruments, ready for Reina’s go-ahead. Aloisia shoved Reina’s violin and bow into her trembling hands. 

‘Some heroes are made by good timing, and some heroes make good timing for themselves. I choose to be the latter today. What about you, Reina, what do you choose?’ said Aloisia.

From the side of the stage, they could see that the audience had seated. They had to get on stage soon before their patrons got annoyed and demanded their money back. Ian’s bad conducting and poor attitude had brought down their Google rating. There were a few one-stars, calling him ‘arrogant’ and ‘Voldemort with a baton’, which must have contributed to the barely half-filled auditorium tonight. More than once, he had stopped their performance halfway to tell off patrons for chitchatting. He’d introduced the pieces like he was patronising ignorant children. Aloisia brushed away the guilt that she should’ve done something sooner to prevent this saga, but she could only move forward now. 

‘Small crowd…okay… that’s better. Fine…fine…fine,’ said Reina as she followed Aloisia’s gaze to the crowd. 

‘Exactly. It can’t get any worse. Reina, copy me.’ Aloisia took away Reina’s instrument. She put her hands on her waist, spread her elbows wide, looked up to the ceiling, tightened her arse, and struck a power pose. Reina followed, and they both took a big breath. A smile appeared on Aloisia’s face, and some colour returned to Reina’s cheeks. 

‘Repeat after me: I am Reina Harding, and I am a kick-ass concertmaster,’ said Aloisia, still holding the power pose. 

‘I am Reina Harding, and I am a -’

‘Kick-ass concertmaster!’ the rest of the orchestra finished the sentence with Reina. 

Reina turned around, offered a weak smile, and nodded. Johanna gave Reina her violin and tied her hair into her signature ponytail with a white ribbon. Hans took the lead and stepped out of the curtain. The audience clapped at once, and the staff whistled to build the hype. Hans took his position at the far end of the stage, where the ensemble of timpani, snare drums, and everything else stood. Then others followed – the cellos squeezed between the cellists’ legs, the violas and violins snugged between the players’ heads and shoulders. Woodwind players moistened their reeds, and Johanna rested her hands on the piano keys. Aloisia found her spot as First Flautist and secured her shiny flute near her lips. After tonight, she should raise her salary. It was too much to be a manager and a musician. 

All set. 

Reina stepped on the stage last with her violin. Her strides were stiff like a C-3PO. She bowed. Louder applause. The audience’s eyes brightened with anticipation. Aloisia widened her chest and lifted her chin, and she saw Reina straighten her back. 

Reina adjusted the music stand and scanned the stage, meeting everyone’s eyes. Aloisia and the other principals nodded to confirm they could see her with no problem. Reina remained standing. She raised her bow and tuned her violin’s A to the oboe’s, and everyone followed. An enticing unison of sounds echoed around the hall. Whoever invented this way of calming the crowd was a genius. From this point onwards, the Finest became one. 

The chandeliers dimmed, and the spotlights switched on. The audience stopped chatting and looked at the performers with excitement and anticipation. 

Show time. Nothing could go wrong, Aloisia was convinced.