Voice of Destiny

by JH Fletcher

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For your mother? Or yourself?’

  No thought of dentistry now. ‘For myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘When I was nine my teacher told me I had a special voice. Since then I have always wanted it.’

  She guessed it was what the old lady wanted to hear; after her experiences on the liner, it might even be true.

  ‘I daresay I can listen to you. I ask only one thing: please try not to fracture my eardrums. If you would be so kind.’

  They went to the piano standing against one wall of the room. Signora Cehovin settled herself on the stool and turned to Lucia, standing at her side. ‘What are you going to sing?’

  Prompted by Miss Powell, she had sung a piece at a school concert that had earned applause from an audience that would have applauded a cow, had it been one of their own. Nevertheless she remembered it with kindness. ‘“La Paloma”.’

  ‘Very well. But first I want to hear you sing your scales.’

  She struck a key in the middle of the range.

  ‘Sing that.’

  She listened, frowning, as Lucia obeyed. By the window, ignored for the moment, Helena sat, skin tight to bursting as she listened to what might be not only her daughter’s future but her own.

  Had she disappeared at that instant, neither pianist nor singer would have noticed.

  ‘Sing it again.’

  And again. Then, step by step, up the scale to …

  ‘Enough. We want you to sing, not scream. Now: the other way.’

  Down they went, far and still farther, until once again Signora Cehovin called a halt.

  ‘Hmmm …’

  She sat for a while, head bowed over the keyboard.

  ‘“La Paloma”, you said? Very well. But gently, mind. Quietly. We want nothing loud here. Nothing vulgar.’

  And the old lady started at once, without music or warning. Lucia, taken by surprise, came in late in a jangle of broken notes. The claw fingers crashed the keys.

  ‘No! No!’

  ‘I wasn’t ready.’

  The teacher sharpened her eyes at this spirited child. ‘You must always be ready. Now: again. And remember: pianissimo!’

  Afterwards Signora Cehovin dug out a piece of music: the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen.

  ‘Try that.’

  ‘I don’t know the words.’

  ‘Never mind the words. The notes, that’s what I want to hear. Only the notes. And quietly, remember. Yet so I could hear them in the street, if I wanted.’

  The trouble was, Lucia did not know the notes, either, or not properly. Three times she went wrong, each note a dagger burying itself in her. When the music was finished she waited for the teacher to tear a strip off her. She didn’t. She walked across to Helena who watched her with eyes wanting, demanding, the world.

  ‘The child has a great talent.’

  Helena’s sigh was clearly audible but no-one but herself could have known how her shoulders relaxed with the loss of tension.

  ‘Will you take her?’

  ‘I shall. For piano lessons and voice training. Also she needs to improve her sight reading, but that will come with practice.’

  ‘When can she start?’

  ‘Today.’

  Part Two

  THE STUDENT

  1936–1946

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1

  From the first it became obvious that Setra Cehovin was determined to work Lucia to death.

  Musical technique, the rudiments of piano playing, vocal expression, operatic history …

  Lucia didn’t care. She discovered at once how much she loved it. She spent all the time she could with her teacher, she resented the hours Signora Cehovin spent with her other pupils, she was jealous, prickly, utterly dedicated.

  Her voice opened up, she heard it herself, she could sense the future stretching before her in a succession of triumphs, and she was impatient to seize them. She wanted the world and she wanted it now.

  Helena was equally impatient. She badgered Signora Cehovin, demanding to know when her daughter would be ready to step onto the stage that both she and Lucia were convinced was waiting only for her, but the teacher was not to be hurried.

  ‘She is not ready. When she is, I shall tell you.’

  The old bat! Helena could have strangled her. She looked back on her life now with a sense of martyrdom, and was determined that her daughter’s success would compensate for the tribulations that war, marriage and the mallee had forced on her; she, too, resented the time Lucia spent away from her teacher. She drove her remorselessly, telling her over and over again how success was the only thing that mattered in life, how upon Lucia’s shoulders rested the responsibility for making up for all her mother’s sufferings. Guido was moved to protest.

  ‘You’ll make the child think you don’t want her around at all.’

  ‘It’s for her I’m doing it!’

  ‘Not only for her; for yourself as well. Be careful. Carry on like this, she’ll end up believing you don’t love her.’

  Helena refused to trouble herself about such sentimental nonsense; success, not love, was what mattered.

  ‘You wait! The world will bow down before both of us, one of these days.’

  2

  Lucia was less willing to accept discipline from her mother than her teacher. She and Helena fought constantly.

  ‘Will you do what I tell you?’

  She would not.

  Helena came after her, hand outstretched to slap. Lucia fought like a wildcat.

  ‘My father would stop you, if he knew.’

  Slap.

  ‘I’ll write and tell him, he’ll come and take me home with him.’

  ‘Home? This is your home!’

  Slap.

  3

  There were other times.

  ‘I do it only because I love you. To be the best you must work.’

  If only the child would plead, would beg forgiveness. Then all could be forgiven. Helena imagined the consoling arms, the tears, the kiss of peace. If only Lucia would yield.

  She did not.

  ‘A friend. That’s all I want. What everyone else has. A friend.’

  With whom to exchange secrets and laughter, to spread her wings. But friendship bred distraction and could not be permitted, either for Lucia’s sake or her own.

  ‘Work! You must work! You’ve no time for friendship.’

  Lucia rewarded her mother with sullenness. She would give her work, if that was what she wanted, but would tell her nothing of herself, her days or dreams. At night she mourned her loneliness. Her mind formulated thoughts she could not express. I would have shared with you my secrets, had you permitted. I would have opened to you the petals of my trust.

  She dared not. To open herself to her mother was to face the certainty of wounds. She would not do it.

  4

  There was a contest on the wireless each week, an amateur show based in Trieste where performers had the chance to demonstrate any talent they might have, with a small prize for the winner.

  Without a word either to Signora Cehovin or Lucia, Helena entered her daughter for the competition.

  The confirmation came. Lucia Visconti — the Italian name that Helena now selected for both her daughter and herself as something closest to the Australian Fisher — was required to present herself at the studios in two weeks’ time, with the other competitors. When her mother broke the news, Lucia became hysterical with terror. Helena slapped her back to commonsense.

  ‘How will you ever be famous if you’re frightened of singing in public?’

  Lucia was not reassured. She told Signora Cehovin, who came stamping around to the house in black-gowned fury.

  ‘How dare you make such arrangements without discussing them with me first!’

  ‘I would remind you she’s my daughter!’

  But Helena’s efforts to put Signora Cehovin in her place failed most dismally.

  ‘And
her voice is my responsibility. She is not ready. You wish to risk her entire future for the sake of five minutes on a radio show?’

  Helena, conscious of being in the wrong, was more determined than ever not to give way. Eventually they reached a compromise. It wouldn’t happen again. As for the broadcast, Signora Cehovin would do what she could to make her pupil ready. Compromise or not, she could not resist flinging one last irate remark. ‘Two weeks! You ask the impossible!’

  ‘I never asked you for anything at all.’

  But Signora Cehovin had the final word as she swept out. ‘Amateur hour!’

  The old woman gave it her best shot, all the same. She drilled Lucia like a soldier but it was not enough. The judges favoured a harmonica player from Trieste; Lucia came second. For both Lucia and her mother, second place would never be anything but failure and for days both of them were inconsolable.

  Helena, in particular, became vindictive.

  ‘If that woman had trained you properly you’d have won.’

  Perhaps; but Lucia still attended her classes most assiduously; Signora Cehovin might be a broken reed, but she remained the only reed they had.

  5

  Lucia had not won but the radio contest changed her life. A woman from the Fascisti called on them, an imperious scowl in a black blouse.

  ‘This child is not enrolled as a Giovane Italiana.’

  Which was the term given to the young members of the fascist organisation for children over the age of twelve. Helena knew when to be humble.

  ‘We have only recently arrived in the country.’

  ‘Our records show that she was never enrolled as a Piccola Italiana, either.’

  ‘It was too late for that. She was already thirteen by the time we arrived in Italy. As I said, we’ve only been here a short while —’

  ‘Long enough for her to attend school. To receive voice training. To enter radio contests.’

  Silence, while the uniformed bully granted Helena time to contemplate the enormity of her sins.

  ‘Until your daughter is enrolled as a Giovane Italiana she will not be permitted to attend school or receive an education.’

  ‘I shall attend to it.’

  But the woman hadn’t finished.

  ‘You claim to be Italian?’

  ‘I am Italian!’

  ‘From which part?’

  ‘From Tolmino.’

  ‘Tolmino?’

  As one might say: Mars? The woman’s lip curled.

  ‘You are Slovenian.’

  ‘No! Italian, as I said. My family name is Sforza.’

  ‘Next thing you’ll be claiming you’re the Duke of Milan!’

  The Sforza family had ruled Milan in the Middle Ages; her grandmother had indeed claimed a connection but now was clearly not the time to say so. Helena said nothing.

  ‘I notice that you, too, have not applied for membership of the Fascist Party.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure I’d be acceptable.’

  ‘You may well be right. But the child is a different matter. See to it.’

  Arrangements were made. Lucia received a black pleated skirt, white blouse and black beret. She was a Fascist, if only a little one. She wore her uniform for parades, when patriotic songs were sung.

  Giovinezza, giovinezza,

  Primavera di bellezza …

  Even the black-and-white uniform did not make the words of the fascist anthem less stupid, but she kept her thoughts to herself and sang full-voiced.

  On one occasion, hoping to impress, she wore the uniform to her singing class. Signora Cehovin looked her up and down, her expression saying all her mouth did not. Not until Lucia left did she refer to it, and then only obliquely.

  ‘Art is where your future lies. Not politics.’

  Now Lucia was feeling uncomfortable about her black-and-white clothes. ‘We have to wear it.’

  ‘I know. But not to my house.’

  6

  A dream. Lucia was riding a horse, the same horse she had wanted in childhood without ever having the courage to ask for it. She felt the beast’s strong movements between her thighs, the ground speeding past beneath the thundering hooves. She smelt her own sweat and the animal’s; the hot wind blew back. She could hear the clank of the iron roller as it crushed the branches of the mallee, smell the mixture of dust and leaves and drought. Beyond the branches she caught a glimpse of another place. They passed beneath arching branches through which shone the blue jewel of the sky. She came to a range of mountains. Streams ran white; flowering bushes covered the lower slopes with smouldering fire. In the distance a wall of rock rose, white flecked with grey, while near at hand purple peaks were fissured by gorges dark with shadow. Unlike the mallee earlier in her dream, she did not recognise this country yet still she knew it, in her soul and the steady beating of her heart. It was her homeland. When she awoke, her face was wet with tears in the knowledge that all of it, the remembered and the unseen, was gone from her. She was in exile, beyond contact with her beginnings, and the loss filled her with grief and the sharp thrust of a pain so intense that it was all she could do not to cry out because of it.

  It seemed to her that in her dream the two images — of the mountains and the mallee — had existed side by side. They had been at once separate and together, like two truths superimposed upon each other, each of them part of herself in the now and then of her life.

  She mentioned her dream to her mother, who disapproved, as she did of anything that reminded her of the life that she had chosen to abandon.

  ‘Nostalgia is useless.’

  Lucia did not agree. ‘Not if I mean to go back there one day.’

  ‘To Australia? Don’t be ridiculous!’

  7

  They never discovered whether the fascist woman was behind it or not but, a month later, Guido received notice that he was being relocated to Parma.

  ‘I hoped they’d forgotten about me.’

  It seemed not. Helena was concerned for him but more for herself and Lucia. ‘What will happen to us?’

  ‘You’ll come with me.’

  ‘Will they permit it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Indeed, although officials needed no reasons for what they did. In the event, however, Guido was right. He moved to the small town of Montegallo, in the country outside Parma, and Helena and Lucia went with him: first by train to Venice, then to Bologna and finally to Parma. It seemed very far from everything Lucia had known before: as far away as Australia, she sometimes thought. Even the language was different. In place of the Triestino dialect everyone here spoke Parmigiano, which made life difficult until she got the hang of it.

  It was an even smaller house than they’d had before, and at times Lucia felt that she was about to burst. When that happened she went out into the fields and let off steam by singing as loudly as she could, a series of scales and exercises ringing across the flat land of the district with its distances divided only by the multitudinous trellises of the vines.

  It was not the same as having proper training, of course, but there were no singing coaches in Montegallo. In the place of formal coaching she carried always before her the memory of what Seta Cehovin had said to her when she had visited the old lady to say goodbye.

  ‘You have a great gift. With work, you could become a truly fine singer. That is a great privilege but also a great responsibility. You must not let your talent go to waste; that would be a crime. I know how hard life will be for you but do not use that as an excuse. Only weaklings do that. It is up to you to achieve success in any way you can. You will have to do whatever you must to continue with your training. There is a fine conservatorium in Parma. Who knows, perhaps you will be able to win a scholarship?’

  Even a scholarship would take far more money than they had. Quite simply, regardless of what Lucia wanted and Signora Cehovin said, to go on with her training seemed an impossibility. The future was empty and intolerable.

  8

  ‘Tell me again about your c
hildhood.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘If we’re going to stay here

  Australia would always be home but, for the moment, Italy was where they were going to live. The more she knew about it and her mother’s background the better.

  ‘Tell me again what happened to you in the war.’

  And later: ‘Did you ever hear from that girl again?’

  ‘From Marija? No, of course not. I went with your father to Australia.’

  ‘Could you show me, d’you think? Where you lived when you were a child?’

  Helena looked thoughtfully at her. The school holidays were coming.

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  They went by bus, travelling for hours across the dusty plain where the vegetation was bleached almost white by the summer heat and drought. The bus climbed in a grinding of gears into the mountains until at last they reached their destination.

  Lucia stared about her at the houses set in terraces on the mountainside, the people with their dark and shuttered faces. They visited the cemetery where her grandparents were buried. They stood amid the grass-covered ruins of what her mother said had been her home. All that remained were the stone slabs of the kitchen floor, piles of broken bricks from what had been walls. Lizards basked; the breeze blew, bending the heads of the seeding grass.

  ‘Is this all?’

  Helena stood looking about her, encircled by sunshine and memories. Or a lack of memories. She had expected to feel a hundred emotions — loss, grief, anger, even joy that she was once again standing in this place — but the wind blew, the grass heads whistled softly and there was nothing. It was unbearable. She turned away.

  ‘Come …’

  ‘What about the girl?’

  ‘She’ll be a grown woman, now, with children of her own, I expect.’

  She made enquiries, all the same, eventually found an old woman who told her that Marija had moved away years ago. ‘Trieste, I think it was. Or was it Stanjel?’ Hopeless.