Voice of Destiny

by JH Fletcher

  ‘I’ve taken care of that. I’ve spoken to Signor Zaccaria at the bank and he’ll find a place for you. The pay isn’t huge but it’ll be enough for you to live on.’

  Even Helena’s gratitude had edges. ‘You mean I won’t have to depend on Eduardo any longer!’

  ‘You don’t depend on him now. It’s my cottage, not his. But you’ve already told me to mind my own business. I accept that. What you do about Grandini’s your business. Be careful of him, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  He left her to her thoughts, which were uncomfortable, because Guido was right; their life was precarious. Eduardo was a help, for the moment, but Helena knew very well that men like Eduardo were unreliable. Lucia, on the other hand, offered hope. If she became the great singer of Helena’s dreams, her decision to come back to Europe would be justified. If she did not …

  Helena would not allow herself to think about that. She remembered what Guido had said about Eduardo.

  You don’t use men like Grandini. They’re the ones who do the using.

  I mustn’t love him.

  It was easy to say. He was young, handsome, a man of power or at least the potential for power. He was a good lover. It was flattering to have the attention — the exclusive attention, she corrected herself — of such a man.

  Guido had criticised her for discouraging Lucia’s friendship with the fat child Angelina.

  She needs a friend.

  Hadn’t Guido thought that Helena, too, might be lonely? Or was she the only one not permitted to have a friend?

  A friend: that was safe. Even a lover, as long as there was no question of love. But Helena, in the new job that Guido had arranged for her at the bank, found herself waiting, more and more eagerly, for each day to pass so that she could be with Eduardo again.

  They’re the ones who do the using.

  It was something to worry about but she did not. She was beyond worry or even thought. Love, however foolish, however dangerous, had made her helpless.

  3

  Lucia saw that, to Eduardo, she had once again become a child. She watched her mother smiling secretly to herself, dressing up in the only smart frock she possessed, driving off with Eduardo in his shiny car. At first she’d been jealous but by now had learned not to care.

  Eduardo was old. He was ugly, whatever the light. She washed her hands of him. She gave up any belief in the conservatorium, her hopes of a career in music. She was fifteen and it would have taken very little for her to hate the world.

  4

  Eduardo was often away on party business. Then mother and daughter sat at night in the cottage, pretending to be at ease with one another, each thinking her own thoughts.

  I am going to make something big of my daughter, and myself.

  She thinks she will make something big of me, and herself. She is wrong. What there is in me, I shall make. Her contribution is the blood, the will. I have paid for that already. As for the rest … I shall make something big of myself, alone.

  ‘You have to learn to dream,’ Helena told her. ‘Not the marshmallow dreams that leave a taste of sweetness on the tongue. Dreams like diamonds, hard and bright. Provided you never lose sight of them, they will carry you to your goal.’

  Helena dreamed, too, at times. Once again she was running from fears and dangers across a landscape swarming with the detritus of a defeated army. She hid in the long grass and watched the shingles blowing off the roof as the farmhouse burned on the far side of the stone wall. She sought refuge in the darkness of the forest, her terrified gasps echoing in her head while a succession of gaudily chequered biplanes howled low above her. She closed her eyes and ears, trying to shut out the noise. When she opened them again she found that the wood had changed, become the contorted shapes of the mallee. The branches closed about her. They stifled her struggles and her screams. The dream became a long pursuit. She was stumbling down a rocky hillside in an attempt to escape from unknown dangers. She was alone, with no-one to help her. She was lost in a wilderness of stone, unable to find safety. She was seeking her home, the home where she had been safe, but she knew it was gone, her parents were gone, she would never be safe again. Yet still she ran amid the looming darkness, her feet stumbling over the ankle-twisting rocks. She must not fall, must not, yet all the time knew that falling was inevitable, because she was alone.

  5

  All through the winter it rained, with many electrical storms. Through the steamy window, Lucia watched the forked lightning across the plain, that stretch of open country the locals called the pianura. Nearby, the melon fields were black and empty, with puddles reflecting the leaden sky; beyond them, extending to an horizon lost in rain, were the trellises of the vines.

  Not all the storms took place out of doors. Helena and Eduardo had become increasingly careless of parading their feelings in front of Lucia; night after night she lay awake, listening with gritted teeth to her mother’s passionate groans.

  Now they had words, Helena’s fury crackling like the lightning as she threw at him the names of other women.

  Eduardo laughed at her, then became angry, his temper flaring to match her own. Finally, when she still kept on at him, he walked out.

  Lucia might have been delighted — she’d hated her mother having a lover whom she’d briefly fancied herself — but with him went Lucia’s last chance of getting to the conservatorium, and that was a different matter.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ she told her mother.

  ‘Who says I want him?’

  Lucia left it for a day or two while Helena prowled about the cottage, making life miserable for both of them, then tried again.

  ‘Go and make it up with him.’

  Eduardo had wangled a transfer to Montegallo and had a room in the village.

  ‘You think I would chase after a man who doesn’t want me?’

  ‘He wants you, all right.’

  ‘Then why isn’t he here?’

  ‘He’s probably saying the same thing about you at this minute!’

  Helena looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why should you care?’

  Lucia put on her innocent look. ‘I want you to be happy. Besides, if you really want me to have a career, he’s the only one who can get me into the conservatorium, isn’t he?’

  All that evening Helena sat, staring at the wall in front of her, fingers picking at her skirt. Lucia watched, her own fingers crossed, and said nothing.

  The next morning was fine. Helena dressed herself up and went out very early. When she came back she was smiling.

  ‘Make yourself scarce this afternoon, won’t you?’

  Lucia obeyed, but spied from a spinney of trees. After half an hour a car turned off the road and came bumping down the track to the cottage. It stopped and Eduardo got out. He went indoors and shut the door behind him.

  Lucia walked away across the neighbour’s fields. She’d got what she’d wanted, yet was filled with pain that this man, who should have helped her but had not, should now have come running back, not for her but her mother. There was outrage, too, that her mother was so easily talked into making herself available to him. She shut her mind to the image of the two of them together but it would not go away. It made her angry: worse, jealous. She had told herself that Eduardo would arrange things for her at the conservatorium, but would he? Did he really have that kind of influence? And would he use it, if he could?

  He’d better, that was all. But she knew only too well how little she could do about it if he did not.

  6

  It was a fortnight later that she saw a man on a bicycle riding towards the house. It was February, now, and still raining. Her mother had gone to work and Lucia was alone. She watched the cyclist pedalling, head down, with the dogged determination of one used to overcoming the elements.

  It was Giuseppe Puglia, the local postman. His arrival at the cottage was a rare event. Lucia watched as he drew nearer. He passed
the window and she went to open the door. ‘Letter for you.’

  ‘For me? Or my mother?’

  ‘For you. From the city.’

  Lucia’s heart lurched. She held the typed envelope as though it might be a holy talisman. It will be nothing, she told herself.

  The envelope was damp from the rain. Giuseppe was watching her, eyes curious in his rain-wet face.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She closed the door and went and sat in the window seat. She turned the envelope in her hands. She tried to be calm but the terror of disappointment dried her mouth.

  She opened it.

  Inside was a folded sheet of heavy paper, complete with letterhead. A typed letter, neatly paragraphed. It was from the Principal of the Parma Conservatorium, summoning her to an audition the following week.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1

  The professor stared at her, as at a bug. On either side of him, two lesser mortals also looked down their noses at the young woman sitting in front of them. The room was dark, green-tinged, gloomy.

  If they thought to intimidate her they would not succeed. The professor held up a letter between fastidious fingers. ‘Selection to the Arturo Toscanini Conservatorium is by merit only. Political influence has no place here.’

  Which was clearly untrue or she would not be sitting there now. But Lucia kept her mouth shut.

  His eyes challenged her from beneath a cockscomb of black hair. Tall, with the keen gaze of an eagle and a profile that might have come from a Roman coin, Professor Menotti was rumoured to fancy himself as a ladies man. There was no evidence of it now.

  ‘You understand?’

  Again Lucia said nothing. A single word here could be a trap.

  ‘It appears you have friends in high places. They seem to think you have talent.’

  Sneering, nostrils flared, he read aloud from the offending letter: ‘… will make a suitable candidate for admission to the conservatorium. Well, we shall see.’ He razored her with his smile. ‘First, a few questions.’

  Lucia regarded him steadily. ‘I shall answer them as well as I can.’

  Sarcasm dripped. ‘We are honoured!’

  He turned to the man on his left, who had a list of questions ready.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Age?’

  Badgered by her mother, Eduardo had finally fixed things up for her, arranging with the party headquarters in Parma to write to the conservatorium on her behalf. Now she remembered his warning that it had a minimum age for its students.

  ‘Sixteen.’

  Professor Menotti frowned suspiciously. ‘You look younger.’

  Again Lucia took refuge in silence. The professor sighed and gestured with a weary hand for his colleague to continue.

  ‘Place of birth?’

  ‘Australia.’

  Silence, broken at length by Menotti’s outraged voice. ‘Where?’

  ‘Australia. In the mallee. A soldier settlement near the Murray River.’

  Only the crystal clarity of Lucia’s reply, each word separately enunciated as though explaining something very simple to a fool, gave evidence of insubordination.

  ‘You are an Australian?’

  Yes, she was; in her heart she was nothing else. But she was willing to say whatever was needed to overcome prejudice. She spoke out, daring her questioners to deny what she was telling them.

  ‘I am Italian. My mother’s maiden name was Sforza. We came back to Italy two years ago. By choice. We —’ It was enough; the man moved on to his next question.

  ‘After you returned to Italy you received training from a Signora Cehovin?’

  As though it were an exotic form of cheese.

  ‘The opera singer. Yes.’

  ‘You were selected to sing at the dedication of the Redipuglia cemetery?’

  ‘In the presence of Il Duce. Yes.’

  She would defy them to the last, politely. Eventually they came to the final question.

  ‘You have something to sing to us?’

  They trooped next door, to a large hall with chairs and a stage on which stood a grand piano.

  Professor Menotti snapped his fingers. ‘Music?’

  She took it from the case she carried and handed it to him. He glanced at it; his lip curled. ‘Donizetti.’

  As though to say: What can you expect?

  It was from Lucia di Lammermoor: not the mad scene — she knew she wasn’t ready for that — but the ghost story from Act I. It was a good showcase for her voice, requiring range without the challenge of any very high notes.

  She sang. Exultation filled her. It was both challenge and vindication. She heard the notes sounding within her head and knew that, although the letter from the local party office might have gained her the interview, it was this that would win her the scholarship.

  e l’onda pria si limpida

  di sangue rosseggi …

  The notes died. She was still.

  Professor Menotti closed the lid of the piano and stood up.

  ‘Interesting. Wait here, Signorina Visconti, while my colleagues and I talk it over.’

  They trooped out, leaving her beset by doubts. She hated this arrogant professor. He had made no attempt to hide how much he resented being pressured by the local party. She knew he could ruin her out of spite, if he wanted. She would go to Eduardo, she told herself. To Mussolini, if she had to. She would make them accept her. It would be impossible, she knew. If they turned her down now, she was finished.

  Oh God. Please, God.

  They came back.

  Was it her imagination, or was Menotti looking at her differently now? ‘We have a member of our establishment here. We would like you to sing for her. Her name is Marta Bianci.’

  One of the greatest of all the singers of her generation, and a famous coach. With absolute certainty, Lucia knew that she would be able to persuade her.

  ‘I am very grateful.’

  Menotti was not to be won over so easily.

  ‘So you should be. But talent has its own imperatives.’

  She had won.

  2

  Lucia got on well with her tutor. Marta Bianci was an imposing woman with flashing eyes, very dark, in a face that in her youth must have been of extraordinary fascination. Even now, well into her sixties, it was full of vitality. She was tall, formally dressed in a tailored black gown, and walked as though she owned the world. Lucia worshipped her from the first. Marta Bianci was another who recognised talent — how could she not? — and occasionally offered her new pupil extra coaching. On those nights it meant staying in the city but Marta had a spare room that Lucia was welcome to use. It would have been better had she been able to find somewhere to stay full-time in Parma but the scholarship would not cover the cost, so that was out of the question. The rest of the time she travelled to and from the city every day.

  It was a seventeen-kilometre journey. The tram was drawn by a steam engine and left Montegallo every morning at half-past seven, which meant getting up an hour earlier than that. During the warmer months it wasn’t too bad but in winter the compartment was bitterly cold, even with the iron containers filled with hot water on which the travellers rested their feet. By the time she arrived in Parma, Lucia was frozen, but walking as quickly as she could through the city helped warm her up before she reached the conservatorium. Once, when the tram was late, she ran but was reported for it. Professor Menotti had her in and told her coldly that students of the conservatorium — especially female students — did not run or indulge in unseemly behaviour of any kind. Or not in public.

  Even that Lucia did not mind, or not much. She was too busy with her studies to pay attention to anything else. She knew how much progress she was making and the knowledge spurred her to ever greater efforts.

  After she’d been at the conservatorium for six months she took part in a student concert, singing both the Donizetti that had won her the scholarship and a duet with one of Bianci’s top male students, a tenor, singing ‘Qua
le occio al mondo’ from Tosca. It was difficult music for a student of such little experience but the applause when they finished heartened her.

  Her mother was present, as many parents were. The guests sat in the body of the hall through which the students had to parade before the concert. She managed to flash Helena a smile but that was all. After the final performance they all had to wait for the results: there was a prize for the best performer, for the most promising newcomer, for a host of other categories.

  She knew she had no chance, yet hoped, all the same.

  The judges returned. They sat in their chairs on the platform and stared out at the audience with doomsday faces. Professor Menotti stood. Lucia clenched her sweating hands in her lap. His ego required that he talk and he did so, seemingly endlessly. About music as a haven of sanity in a world growing progressively more insane. About Italy’s historic role in the civilising process that was so sadly needed. About a dozen other things, while Lucia, writhing silently, urged him on.

  Finally he came to it.

  First prize for solo instrument. For conducting. Best performer, male. Best performer, female. And then: ‘Most promising newcomer … Lucia Visconti.’

  She was swallowed up by tears, joy, disbelief and a defiant sense of self-justification; finally, after all the problems and challenges, she was on her way.

  3

  It was 1940, the world — including Italy, now — was at war but in Lucia’s life all was well. She had been studying in Parma for two years, she was seventeen years old and had been selected to sing the role of Santuzza in the conservatorium’s production of Cavalleria Rusticana.

  A triumph, if she could pull it off.

  For weeks she lived the role, memorising not merely her own part but the whole libretto. The same with the score: she could have sung the entire opera from first note to last, had it been necessary. She did more: she tried to understand the character of the woman she was portraying, the better to bring her to life upon the stage.