Capriccio Read Free

stranger she’d picked up at work. If I liked the way he behaved himself at the concert, and if he showed up in a decent jacket, I’d ask him to Eleanor’s party afterwards. If not, I’d hitch a ride with Victor.
    I got a lift to the apartment with one of the tour guides, and hurried off bustling Bloor Street into the air-conditioned lobby to swish up on the elevator to the seventeenth floor. I enjoyed the elegant building as much as Victor—probably more, since he was used to such things. Victor had a maid who prepared dinner before she left at five. There was a note on the kitchen table. “Cold chick. and salad in frig, buns in oven to be heated. Fruit and cheese and leftover choc. cake for dessert. Enjoy.”
    About five hundred calories of the choc. cake would be enjoyed before dinner. Nobody should go through life without reading Proust and without trying Rhoda Gardiner’s chocolate cake. It was sinfully rich, and definitely addictive. My mouth salivated at the very thought of it. I cut off a wedge, put it on a plate, and headed to the living room. I turned on the radio, then sank down on the sofa and leaned back, kicking off my shoes.
    Doleful classical music moaned from the hi-fi, telling me that Victor had been the last listener. Rhoda liked country and western, and I preferred light rock. I switched the dial and luxuriated with the cake, thinking about the night. When I saw the Toronto Star on the coffee table, I opened it and flipped to the Entertainment Section to see what they had to say about the concert.
    It was the usual stuff—a rehash of Victor’s career, his recent tours, his records, a few references to the more spectacular moments in his life. The time he walked off the stage in Boston due to a noisy audience was, as always, mentioned, along with a comment on his flamboyant affair with the soprano from the New York Met, and a discreet, non-libelous reference to his drinking problem—that would infuriate Victor. He was dry nowadays. Maybe I should hide the paper till after the concert.
    In the accompanying picture, he held not his famous Guarneri violin, but a large cigar. His head was cocked to one side, and the famous Mazzini smile flashed. A close examination of the picture showed some resemblance to Mom—the eyes, the wide, warm smile—but Mom was a woman of a certain age and a certain weight and a certain rigid coiffure held in place by lashings of hair spray that robbed her of style.
    The article described Victor’s violin. It wasn’t just any old Guarneri, but a Giuseppe del Gesù. Giuseppe was the greatest of all the Guarneris. One of them worked with Stradivari. In fact, a del Gesù was second only to a Stradivarius. “Like Paganini, I prefer the more robust tone of a Guarneri to the sweetness of an Amati or Stradivarius,” Victor often said to the press. I suspect his taste would change if he could ever get his hands on a Stradivarius.
    There was also a tantalizing hint of the “surprise” Victor had been using as a gimmick for this show. I had an unconfirmed idea what that surprise might be but hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even Victor. When the cake and the article were finished, I set the table. We’d have to eat early to allow my uncle to get to the hall on time. He wouldn’t eat much tonight, but he’d make up for it later at Eleanor’s party. Shrimp and lobster, champagne, caviar—Eleanor threw the greatest gourmet bashes in town.
    At six-fifteen, Victor still hadn’t arrived. I became a little worried and called the ball, but he wasn’t there, On his way home then. He’d grab a wing of cold chicken when he got here and call that dinner. I wished I had his will power, but rationalized that a woman who’d been on her feet all day required more nourishment. I took a peek in his room and saw his tux was gone. It had been there in its plastic bag from the cleaner’s yesterday. Actually my uncle hadn’t sounded very sure about eating at home. Maybe he’d gone on