3

Vladik in Trouble

Carolyn

"Carolyn, here is Lady Macbeth, Senora Maria Ojeda-Solano, and Macbeth, Wang Zhijian," said Vladik, taking away my chips and dumping them on top of his guacamole. "Not need these when have fine jelly crackers," he added when I looked mutinous. Then to his stars, "And this is Mrs. Carolyn Blue, whose crackers you are enjoy."

The two singers stared, bemused. Perhaps they hadn't understood the introduction.

"I go talk to president of board. Rehearsals closed, even for big shots. My Macbeth surprise for everyone but cast." Vladik took himself and the guacamole off in the direction of the neurosurgeon, and good luck to Opera at the Pass's artistic director, I thought, if he believed that he could convince the very conservative Dr. Peter Brockman that the drug-war Macbeth had been a cultural triumph and should be followed by more, not less, avant-garde productions. What did Vladik have in mind? I wondered. Carmen set among the cardboard shacks in the squatter barrios of Juarez with the smugglers transformed into coyotes sneaking illegal aliens across the Rio Grande?

"What an honor to meet you, Senora Ojeda-Solano," I said, shaking the Chilean soprano's hand. She had an empty flute of champagne in the other hand and was wearing a very regal garnet satin gown and a tiara. I'm not sure I've ever actually met anyone wearing a tiara. "Your Lady Macbeth was wonderfully powerful." She nodded in queenly acceptance of my compliment. "I see that you need another drink. Would you like to try a margarita?"

"I dreenk only champagne," she replied. "Mexican cactus dreenks ees bad for throat. So ees strange-" She looked disapprovingly at a tray of my canapÈs. "-theengs on plate." She touched her throat as if to ascertain that it had not been damaged by our humble border offerings.

I waved a waiter over to refill her champagne flute and turned to the Chinese baritone. Initially I had thought a Chinese Macbeth even stranger than a drug lord Macbeth, but Mr. Zhijian, a stocky man with thick black hair, had proved to be not only a fine singer, but also an excellent actor. By the end of the production I had accepted him as a Juarense with a desire to garner the whole drug trade for himself. "What a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Zhijian. I enjoyed your performance so much."

"Not Mr. Zhijian. Wang my family name. Zhijian mean firm in spirit. In English you, Carolyn; I, Firm-in-Spirit. You, Blue; I, Wang." He nodded cheerfully. "I like you food things." He popped a jalapeno-peach canapÈ into his mouth. "Vely good taste, like dragon fire on tongue." He consumed another and then tossed down the margarita a waiter had just provided.

Noting that Mr. Wang was not only very cheery but also somewhat glassy-eyed, I said, "Margaritas taste better if you sip them."

"Yes," he nodded with a wide, loopy smile. "Taste vely good. I have another." And he did. If I had drunk two, or however many, margaritas straight down, I'd have fallen flat on my face, which is almost what Mr. Wang did. Luckily, those of us in the circle, excluding Senora Ojeda-Solano, caught him before he could hit the floor, after which several male members of the chorus helped him away, while the Chilean soprano looked on with raised eyebrows.

She then turned and began a conversation in Spanish with Barbara Escobar, the banker's wife. I went looking for Vladik in case there was any guacamole left. I almost caught up with him, but he had flitted off with the bowl, leaving me to catch a conversation between Dr. Brockman and Frank Escobar.

"We've got to get rid of him," said the neurosurgeon. "It's bad enough that he snuck that atrocious staging of Macbeth in under our noses, but now he insists that more of the same is just what El Paso needs. We'll be the laughing stock of the opera world when this gets out."

I wasn't convinced that the greater world of opera was that cognizant of what we were doing in El Paso, but I didn't say that.

"I did not participate in establishing Opera at the Pass to be made a fool of by some upstart Russian," the doctor continued. "I have to wonder now where the university found him. Probably some place like Uzbekistan."

"Or Chechnya," suggested Frank Escobar. "They're a group of troublemakers. I think the university suckered us when they suggested we take him on. I've heard that the new fad there is Zarzuela, not grand opera."

"He won't even be able to ruin that program," said Brockman and turned to me. "I'm sure you're aware, Carolyn, being connected by marriage with the university, that state budget cuts are hurting spending on education. I'm told the music department took a severe hit."

"Scientific research funding too," I agreed. Jason had been complaining, although a lot of his funding comes from outside sources, thank goodness. Otherwise, I'd never hear the end of the blow to science dealt by shortsighted state legislators and a penny-pinching Republican governor.

"Let's hope the music critic from the Times is still sick," said Frank Escobar. "I'd just as soon not have this production reviewed."

"Yes, I was very upset when I heard there'd be no review of the Friday night performance, but it turned out to be a blessing that the critic is the first reported flu case in the city," Brockman agreed.

I murmured my excuses, having spotted Vladik with a group of university people. He'd only managed to finish half the guacamole. I accepted another margarita from a passing waiter and joined the new circle. My husband was trying to convince Vladik that the administration wasn't singling him out for unwarranted budget cuts.

"President hate me," said Vladik stubbornly.

I thought he looked rather sickly, but then who wouldn't after eating a half-vat of guacamole. I helped myself to some in the interest of his health.

"Vice-President for Academic Affairs hate me," he persisted. "Music chairman hate me. All jealous of Vladik. My Macbeth make them give money."

I personally thought that if the upper administration had been in attendance-I hadn't seen any-that they'd take away his budget entirely.

Melanie Collins, who is married to a geology professor, said, "I thought it was wonderful. My first opera, and I was absolutely enthralled. I think the university is treating you dreadfully, Vladik. It's shameful." She laid a sympathetic hand on his arm and smiled at him like a girl with a teenage crush.

"You would say that," snapped her newly arrived husband, who, instead of a tuxedo, was wearing dusty khakis and heavy hiking boots.

"Why Brandon, I thought you were still on a field trip," said his wife. "Couldn't you have changed your clothes before you came to the party?"

"And give you time to trot off with this Russian puke? You think I don't know you've been sleeping with him?" Brandon Collins turned on Vladik and snarled, "I ought to break your scrawny neck, you Communist son of a bitch." He actually put his hand on a pointed hammer--some geological tool, no doubt, but it did look dangerous, holstered there on his heavy leather belt.

Those of us in the circle were, needless to say, both embarrassed and alarmed at this turn of events.

The opera's artistic director, who had turned a sickly shade of green, said, "Vladik sick. Very sick." He thrust the guacamole bowl into my hands and stumbled away before Professor Collins could crack open his skull as if it were a rock of scientific interest.

"Some lover you picked," Collins said to his pink-faced wife. "He didn't even have the guts to stay and fight for you, did he?"

"It might have been the guacamole," I murmured.