The Paganini Curse
By Giselle M. StanciciUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Giselle M. Stancic
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4759-6159-1Chapter One
Aurora Lewis hugged her black violin case closer to her body, waiting on the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue for a break in the chaos of honking motor cars. Every week the noise and confusion got worse, with more of those smoking four-wheel contraptions crowding out the few horse-drawn carts left in New York City—automobiles driven by fools with no sense about going too fast or staying on the right side of the road.
Father said they were working on a signaling tower for the intersection, but Mother wasn't about to believe that some newfangled device was going to bring order to the bedlam. To her the street noise was just another reason to move from Grandmother's lovely flat in the Osborne Building to the edge of nowhere on the Upper West Side, into one of those fancy apartment suites in the Dakota.
The Dakota was simply the place to live in 1911, Mother was quick to remind them. But fifteen-year-old Aurora wasn't expecting to share an elevator with the Rockefellers anytime soon, not on Father's accountant salary. Besides, as far as she was concerned, this was the center of the universe. Just a five-minute walk to Carnegie Hall, and her Saturday morning music lessons with Professor Schmieder.
Brrr. She stomped her feet to keep warm. January's bitter temperatures cut through her wool coat and red leather gloves. Not to mention that in her rush out the door she'd forgotten her hat. Her wavy auburn hair would be a tangled mess, and she could hear Mother now, scolding her about catching her death of cold in this weather.
But she wasn't about to get sick, not before the most important week of her life. Maud Powell was finally here.
The newspapers called her the "First Lady of the American Violin." To Aurora, Maud Powell was the perfect combination of talent and beauty, with her upswept dark brown hair, flowing evening gown, and virtuoso violin technique. Ever since Father had brought home one of Miss Powell's records to play on their Victrola, it had been Aurora's dream to see her idol in person.
She and Grandmother had tickets to hear Miss Powell play with the New York Philharmonic tomorrow afternoon. But more important, Aurora was going to be in Miss Powell's master class next Saturday in Carnegie Hall, where she would play a solo for the famous violinist in front of the other students and an audience.
She'd just found out before the holidays that she had been chosen for the class, and this morning would be her first chance to share the news with Professor Schmieder. With all her practicing, and playing her teacher's arrangement for solo violin of the Paganini "Romanze," she was certain she would make an unforgettable impression on Miss Powell.
The sound of crunching metal brought the traffic to a sudden halt. In a blur, one of those crazy bicycle messengers sped past her down the avenue. He must have startled an unsuspecting driver, causing him to swerve into the path of another automobile. But only bent fenders and bruised egos seemed to be the casualties, given how quickly both men jumped out of their cars and started throwing punches. As for the pedaling menace, he just kept on going, not even noticing the ruckus caused in his wake.
Aurora used the temporary lull to cross the street, trying not to listen to the salty language that would have had her mother washing her ears out with soap. Gripping her violin case in one hand and lifting up her long green skirt with the other, she stepped around the sink holes and horse piles dotting the rutted avenue, careful not to scuff her polished black leather boots. She was nearly across when a revving engine backfired behind her. Aurora leapt to the curb and let out a few salty words of her own. What would Mother think now?
Safe on the other side of the street, she found herself elbow-to-elbow with people streaming out of Carnegie Hall. Since it was too early for a concert, she figured Mr. Carnegie must be holding one of his peace conferences again.
Father thought Andrew Carnegie was a crackpot for promoting something called a "League of Nations" to solve the world's problems. Aurora didn't know much about politics—that was men's business, after all. But Mr. Carnegie couldn't be completely off-key. Just look at the beautiful music hall that carried his name.
The elegant building rose above New York's grimy streets, its classic brick and brownstone exterior graced with tall, arched windows. When Mr. Carnegie built the hall back in 1891, the critics said he would never get an audience all the way uptown for a concert. Twenty years later, the city had grown up around the place.
Aurora worked her way through the crowd to the building's entrance and then into the lobby to the elevator going up to the Carnegie Towers. The Towers gave musicians and artists inexpensive studio space to rent, and all the inspiration they needed from the performances going on next door in the concert hall. Sometimes when Maestro Mahler demanded an extra Saturday rehearsal for the Philharmonic, Aurora could even hear the music coming in through the heater vents in Professor Schmieder's studio.
"Fourth floor, please," she said to the elevator attendant, a stooped little man obviously undersized for his wrinkled brown uniform.
"Yes, miss," he said, his eyes never looking up from the floor.
She clung to the railing as the narrow box shimmied its way upward, whining even more than usual as if the cables were going to break. When they finally arrived on the fourth floor, Aurora exited in a hurry. Now if she could just get past the drama school without being noticed.
Most lesson days she enjoyed the good-hearted bantering with the young men from the Academy of Dramatic Arts, on break from their play rehearsal or acting class. Especially cute little Eddie Robinson, with his bushy hair and tough-guy attitude. She liked him ever so much better than Bill Powell, who was all slicked back and smirking, forever bragging about how he was going to be in the moving pictures like the ones they were showing down on Forty-Second Street. As if being in those short ditties was ever going to be more important than acting on the stage.
Then there was the third member of their troupe, Theo Eckstein. Tall, gangly, with a pale complexion and rimless oval glasses, he always wore a sensible gray sweater and dark blue trousers to complete his studious, almost invisible look.
But today she didn't have time to chat with the boys. She wanted to get to her lesson early to tell Professor Schmieder the good news about the master class with Miss Powell.
She'd almost made it past the academy when a long wolf whistle stopped her in her tracks.
"Hey there, beautiful. Not even a `hello' for us?"
Aurora spun around and took a few steps toward the young man leaning out from the school's doorway.
"Shh, Eddie." She drew her finger to her lips. "You know Professor Schmieder doesn't like it when you boys make too much noise out here."
Seeing that she was still wearing her gloves, she slipped them off and tucked them into her coat pocket.
Eddie turned his head away. "Hey, Bill, Aurora's here. But she doesn't want to associate with us unsophisticates no more."
When Bill joined Eddie, Aurora couldn't help giggling. They must have been rehearsing an Arabian melodrama. Eddie was dressed as if he'd just stepped off a pirate boat, with bright purple pantaloons and a jeweled scabbard slung over his shoulder. A scraggly mustache and black...
