The Queen of the Night

by Alexander Chee

  My rooms collected dishes and dresses, unkempt without Doro’s regular tidiness—the hotel’s maid was unreliable. I had not opened the curtains. To see any of it repulsed me. I began to send the newest clothes back, hoping to seek refunds and discounts, afraid of needing to withdraw the money from that Prussian reward given to me by the Prince—that seemed sure to bring the tenor back from the dead—though I feared also discovering that it too was gone as well.

  The Prince, if he guessed, would either never forgive me the crime or never forgive me that I had killed his beloved heldentenor first.

  I had finally separated them forever.

  That monster they searched the Seine for, then, in London, having made her own chains as I always did.

  §

  When Aristafeo called on me last, he entered with a very different air about him—circumspect, cautious, managing a tiny smile even as he grimaced at my rooms. I assumed he was there to say his good-byes, and I was about to send him away before he did.

  Get out, I said.

  They’ve asked me to come in and see if you’ll let them clean. But I have news. Make yourself presentable, he said to me, looking to the mess around him. Order a bath. Perhaps two.

  Why?

  Le Cirque de Monde Déchu has a new suitor, he said.

  Who could have more money than the Russians?

  Americans, he said. Thunder broke overhead as he said this, as if to remind us we were still on stage in a drama, and so I laughed, and he did as well.

  §

  All the years I’d lived in Europe, the Atlantic had seemed impassable and return impossible. But as the coach sent for us drew up to the front of Brown’s, as I stepped into that coach, I did so as if I were leaving on the trip itself. Thunder broke overhead and then the carriage roof became a drum for the rain. By the time we arrived, the streets soon ran with water, and so the doorman came out to offer to carry me across.

  P. T. Barnum was a man who knew how coins worked.

  The notorious impresario had read of our troubles in the newspapers and was intrigued. A circus opera too expensive to be staged anywhere in Europe was a cheap circus to Mr. Barnum. And a cursed soprano, a gold mine, his London agent said, as he pushed a sheaf of papers across the desk to us.

  Barnum had telegraphed him after reading of our news, instructing his agent to make an offer. Contracts, he said, as he gestured to what he had put before us. He proposes a tour of America. A hippodrama, his agent said. Do you know them?

  I nodded.

  The agent then spread his hands in the air, and as if he read from a headline there, said, One of Europe’s most famous singers comes to America, running from a curse that might take her life. Only here, in this show, the last she has agreed to be in, can she be seen for one last time.

  He put his hands down. You’ll be rich. We’ll all be rich.

  Bill it as a farewell tour. It would run even if you lose your voice, if you like, he said. If that happens, we can hide someone behind you and have her sing. We’ll have you say good-bye until all the good-byes are said. So, a year, maybe two. He drummed his fingers on the desk, a sound like the drumroll of a circus, and then lifted his hands in the air, palms spread.

  You are retiring, yes? To marry? This the lucky suitor? And here he glanced at Aristafeo, and I did as well. He looked at me, and I could see he was eager to leave.

  Think it over, take one night, the agent said.

  §

  In the carriage Aristafeo was silent until we drew close to our hotel.

  Defy your fate, he said, very quietly.

  What do you mean? I asked.

  Don’t do this. Don’t become this.

  This is what I always was, I said. There is nothing to become.

  I thought to compel you once, he said, to blackmail you. When you first refused, I thought I will force her to do this, I will make her free herself. But then I did not, in the end, because I knew you would never forgive it from me.

  I only waited. I would not sign the contracts in front of him, but I had already decided to sign.

  The curse wins after all, he said. You were right. Did you know this all along? You warned me that if you said yes you would be a circus rider again, and here you are.

  Change the ending, I said. Give her back her voice, keep them together.

  No, he said. She must lose her voice. It is what she traded for her soul.

  I knew he was right, as did he.

  And how will I know if I win it back? I asked.

  You’ll lose your voice, he said. Perhaps you’ll lose everything. Even me. Everything but that.

  He signed the contracts and left me sitting in the carriage, and as soon as the door was closed, I ordered it back the way we came.

  §

  Barnum’s agent expected me, laughing a little when I disturbed his dinner.

  I’d waited too long as it was.

  I could feel a palpable relief at his smile. He knew me, much as I knew him—we were of that same peculiar family that finds itself time and again. After so much time trying to learn the ways of this place that I was leaving, it was a relief to find myself feeling at home.

  As I handed the contracts over, he asked, There’s no real curse, is there?

  I only smiled.

  We will need to hire a troupe for this show that can enact a hippodrama, the agent said, as he signed the contracts. But not one committed to the silent traditions of French pantomime. One that will permit singing.

  I may know of one, I said.

  Twelve

  I FOUND THEM WHERE the route book said they’d be. At the edge of the rail yard in the outskirts of London. As I approached, it looked as if a group of children held ropes, struggling to hold on to the world’s largest kite. They had the faces of angels and the determination of demons. As I grew closer, it was clear it was an enormous new tent and that some of the strugglers, in fact, were children, but others looked to be the smallest small people I’d ever seen. A few looked me over as I approached.

  What is it? one asked.

  What does it want? It’s looking at us.

  Find out what it wants!

  It’s a tart, so it wants what a tart wants! And at this, they laughed and yet did not stop pulling.

  It’s pale! It’s the Ice Queen herself, come to take us away!

  They were speaking several languages to one another, but they all seemed to understand, and as I listened I felt a pang of homecoming.

  You there, the show isn’t till much later. Go on, before we’re strung up on morals charges. This was said in some very odd French with a grin by a very small man. But thanks for coming by.

  I took my card from my pocket; but before I’d finished handing it to him, he said, Oh, darling, I can’t read a lick of that, I’d bet. He took the card from me and passed it behind his back, holding it so someone there could read it.

  It wants a job!

  Ach, darling. Much, much needs doing around here. And he waved at the tent that was still rising.

  He likes it! He’s . . . he’s flirting with it!

  At this, he took off his hat, bowed to me, and then, as he stood up, backhanded the young boy who’d just said that, who sneezed in surprise, and shouted, Don’t make me fall!

  Darling, he said, you’ll need to speak to la maîtresse. I don’t know if she wants anyone what can read, though. That’s probably more trouble to her than it might be worth.

  It can’t have my spot!

  Ah, no one’s got their eye on that.

  No one’s had their eye or anything else on it in years!

  With that, there was again much general laughter.

  What does it do? Ask, ask!

  Yes, darling, my inquisitor asked. What do you do? That is what we need to find out for you to be useful. It’s better in the circus if you can do many things. So let’s see, simple yeses and nos . . . can you . . . can you sew?

  I nodded.

  There’s not . . . well . . . we darn our own
costumes here. Or we have at least.

  Can it tumble!

  I smiled at that and nodded again.

  Can it tumble from a horse!

  I nodded once more.

  It’s a kinker, I knew it!

  Nah, it’s a chava josser, isn’t it?

  If it is, she’s like none I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t bet on it. She’s a kinker, you can tell. She’s got a talent somewhere.

  I’m a kinker, to be sure, I said at last. And I’m here to hire you all. But for now, I would speak with Ernesto.

  At this they laughed. Ah, so it’s like that, said one of them. It’s coming home, is what it is.

  And then Ernesto appeared from behind a corner of the tent and roared as he ran toward me; sweeping me into his arms, he lifted me to kiss my face, my feet dangling at his hips. Oh, sweet girl, thank God, he said. I’ve missed you so.

  §

  I sat together with Ernesto for a little while at the hotel tent, over mugs of beer, as we waited for Priscilla, now the new boss. When I asked after Flambeau, he only shook his head. His absence like an omen.

  You’re lovelier than ever, he said finally. I can’t get over it. Look at you. Who’d have thought you were ever our little Settler’s Daughter? He reached down and plucked at the dress I wore, which swept out around the edge of the booth. You could fit a team of you in there.

  He swept his hands up. I can’t fancy that you’re here to come back.

  I am, I said.

  But you’re a woman of means now, as we can see.

  I explained myself.

  A hippodrama? he said.

  Yes, I said. And I’m paying.

  §

  I could not vanish as I had hoped I might. I instead needed to put myself once more at the center of the public’s eye as the cursed soprano. News of the curse would be my letter to the police and my escape from the police both.

  I sent a statement to the press through Barnum’s agent, asking them to my rooms at Brown’s and saying I would make an announcement concerning my imminent retirement.

  All questions would be answered in writing.

  I suppose I did not believe what I would do until the appointed hour, when, under the watchful eye of the agent and his assistants, I opened the door to my suite myself, dressed in my best widow’s weeds and the tenor’s emeralds, and welcomed the crowd I found there inside.

  I was inside my love’s opera, I knew, very near the ending. If the curse was true, and it did seem to rise up around me, as if it would become the very ship that would take me back to America, then I would sing for Aristafeo at least once more, somehow, before losing my voice forever—perhaps regaining my soul if it had ever really been lost. His opera and its fate for me even protecting what had been true so far of us, may be true once again: Aristafeo delivered to me, his steps away from me once again leading back to me in some way neither of us could imagine.

  If not, I would never see him again. But the only way to know was to go away and see.

  And I would accept no other role until he was at my side.

  Each answer I wrote to the journalists in my room was like a signature on this contract with Fate.

  When did I know of my curse? I first guessed after my debut as Amina, when my only love returned to me after I had lost all hope.

  The tenor’s death has left me terribly changed. I loved him dearly. But you see, the news of his death told me this curse, it was coming for me next.

  In Un Ballo in Maschera, the husband of the soprano Amelia is murdered, his fate sealed by a fortune-teller. I knew I could not take the stage after it was reported he’d died.

  In death, then, one last role for the tenor to play with me. And then a last message for Aristafeo, left here.

  You may understand then why it is so important to me to per form this last role, to create the role as written for me. The worst that might happen? That I would lose my voice.

  When I returned, I went to the desk to pay for Aristafeo’s rooms with some of the new money from Barnum, but he was gone.

  Epilogue

  LE CHARME OPÈRE. The spell works.

  The crowds begin at the pier the day we arrive, vast and dark, wet from the rain, like a funeral for a head of state.

  On seeing the gangplank lower, they say my name as if singing in a discordant round, Lilliet Berne, Miss Berne, Lilliet Berne, Miss Berne, vive La Générale!

  The gangplank lands on the dock and even the crew is cheered by the crowd until I emerge. At the foot of it waits one Mr. Frederick March, Mr. Barnum not in sight.

  I’d know later the reason Mr. Barnum hadn’t been there—there’d been one more journalist to strong-arm, one more feature story to run. The morning editions of the New York papers waited for me at my hotel, all with stories of the diva who’d fled the stages of Europe for fear of a curse, here now to perform on her final farewell tour, this circus her first official visit to America. As I stood finally in the air and the cheering crowd roared, I raised my hand to keep out the rain and waved to them.

  My name, taken from the little graveyard by the East River, hadn’t sounded like the stolen thing it was in years.

  Mermaids and nightingales, Columbus wrote, of what he saw in the New World. Creatures of music, monstrous and fair. I was home.

  §

  The Americans favor a dark color, at least in New York, the people there colored like crows and sparrows. When I make my first entrance, on a trapeze decorated like a crescent moon, I feel them below me, the heat of them rising through the cold night air, the tobacco, the smoke, the cologne, and the perfume all together. I watch the jewels of the women flash in the dark as I descend. When I look down, the indigo silk panels to the backdrops, hung to make it look like night, are not as dark as the crowd, and so it looks, each time as I enter the ring, as if some of the real night from outside has come inside to wait below me.

  My future, then: a traveling show, a hippodrama with a year-long tour featuring two stars, a beautiful young man from Paris who plays the captured angel and me. And now we are in trains, the opera about a circus now a circus opera; and the crowds move in and out, all applause and tobacco, oily smoke off the tapers; and the tents rise, fill, fall. The angel wears taxidermy wings taken from a condor and isn’t, according to the posters, allowed to fly because then he might “escape.” He holds me tightly instead from behind as I ride the horse with him around the tent, the wings flapping in an imitation of flight. The man himself never wants to leave, and sometimes neither do I.

  Though there’s only one escape I long for now.

  The boy who plays the angel in our show is from Pest. He’s unspeakably beautiful, taller than aerialists usually are, with pale white skin to match my own and long dark hair that flies in the air behind him like a flag. He’s from a family of aerialists; his family has performed in circuses for at least a century. Perhaps since the birth of Christ. He launches himself into the air with only a rope tied to the roof of the tent. The prop master and the taxidermist used three normal condor wings each to make them. No living thing has ever used them to fly.

  Of course, if there’s wings that can’t be trusted, I want to try them on.

  At night, I go to the train’s roof with him. When the cars wait patiently in the dark for some night procedure, and as the trainmen shout to one another, he hands the wings up to me, and I slide the harness on. As he ties them in place, a passing wind tugs the nets of feathers, bones, and glue, and I can feel where, if the harness wings were to grow into place, these might allow me to shrug up into the air. In the sky my eyes follow the path of the wind’s gesture. I see for a moment as if from the place I would have gone to then, the distant train below me, how this boy would stare at me as I left, soaring.

  I watch that spot as he comes behind me and undoes the knots, and then we return to our compartments. Alone again, I draw back the curtains and watch the sky until the vertigo and the wishing go away.

  I had always imagined any return home would wait
until after my death when perhaps, at my mother’s Lord’s command, this would be His only mercy to me, that I would have those wings. What kind of angel would I be? I ask myself. And yet I know. I’d ride storms like they were old ponies, sing off-key from behind the statue of Saint Mark, organize the pigeons to scald the bishop’s miter with their dung. But I would obey finally, at the end, for the chance to fall from the sky’s belly over the ruined farm, wings spread wide, in a gown as dark as crows, the angel face so bright the lightning dims. I’d obey for the chance to be the one who comes for her then, on the Lord’s return. To open her grave, me hidden in that final storm she waits for to wash her tenderly from the ground under my direction until she is clean again. Until she should feel newborn.

  §

  When I make my entrance now on the trapeze swing, the tent painted to look like the sky at night, I want it then, ask for it from God. As I step to the ground, the applause sounds to me at moments like hard rain. I try not to search for the places in the sky where I would be if I could fly. And yet, the wind at my back, this new appetite awakes, and I do.

  For now, it seems, the heroine is separated from her lover by the act he had hoped would bind them. I can feel the miles run under me, and I hope, by the tour’s end, I will know which was greater, curse or fate. Soprano or song.

  In my compartment at night, where I write this now, I draw back the curtains and see myself in flight, riding down the dome of the night sky, the stars a road descending to the composer’s windows in London. Knocking on his shutters, I would be wearing the Russian Empress’s sapphire crown, our ransom lifted gently from her sleeping brow. My first stop.