“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for, Mr. Ormund. Or for me either. That is, if you’ll still let me have the job.”
“But if it would interfere with your career… ?”
Daniel gave a theatrical laugh. “Don’t worry about that. My career can’t be interfered with, because it doesn’t exist. I haven’t studied, in a serious way, for years. I should have known better than suppose the Metastasio would be calling me up for a place in the chorus. I’m not good enough, it’s simple as that.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Ormund, placing his hand gently on Daniel’s knee, “you’re superb. You’re ravishing. And if this were a rational world, which it is not, there’s not an opera house in this hemisphere that wouldn’t be delighted to have you. You mustn’t give up!”
“Mr. Ormund, I’m a punk singer.”
Mr. Ormund sighed, and removed his hand.
“But I think I’d be a terrific usher. What do you say?”
“You wouldn’t be… ashamed?”
“If I stood to earn money from it, I’d be delighted. Not to mention the chance I’d have to see your productions.”
“Yes, it does help if you like the stuff. So many of the boys don’t have an educated ear, I’m afraid. It is a special taste. Are you familiar, then, with the Metastasio?”
“I’ve heard recordings. But I’ve never been to a performance. Thirty bucks a ticket is a bit out of my class.”
“Oh dear. Dear, dear, dear.”
“Another difficulty?”
“Well, Ben. You see…” He raised his hand to his lips and coughed delicately. “There is a grooming code our ushers must observe. A rather strict code.”
“Oh.”
They both stood silent for a time. Mr. Ormund, standing behind his desk, struck a business-like attitude, clasping his hands behind his back and thrusting his wine-barrel belly forward aggressively.
“Do you mean,” Daniel asked cautiously, “that I’d have to… uh… darken my complection?”
Mr. Ormund burst into silvery laughter, lifting his arms in minstrel merriment. “Dear me, no! Nothing so drastic. Though, to be sure, I’d be the last person to prevent any of the boys from exercising the option. No, we couldn’t require anyone to convert against his will (Though it would be false to deny that I find it an appealing idea). But there is a uniform that must be worn, and though its essentially a modest sort of uniform, it is rather, how shall I say, jaunty? Maybe blatant comes closer.”
Daniel, who had walked all over the city in nothing but gym shorts, said that he didn’t think that would faze him.
“Also, I’m sorry to say we can’t allow beards.”
“Oh.”
“That is a pity, isn’t it? Yours is so full and emphatic, if I may say so. But you see, the Metastasio is noted for its authenticity. We do the operas the way they first were done, so far as that’s possible. And liveried servants did not have beards in the age of Louis Quinze. One may find precedent for mustachioes, if that’s any consolation, even rather swaggering ones. But no beards. Ahimé, as our Spanish friends say.”
“Ahimé,” Daniel agreed sincerely. He bit his lip and looked down at his shoes. His beard had been with him twelve years now. It was as essential a part of his face as his nose. Further, he felt safe behind it. Only once had Daniel been recognized behind his mask of dense black hair, and that once, luckily had done no harm. The risk was small, admittedly, but it couldn’t be denied.
“Forgive my impertinence, Ben, but does your beard conceal some personal defect? A weak chin, perhaps, or scar tissue? I wouldn’t want to have you make the sacrifice only to discover that we couldn’t, after all, hire you.”
“No,” said Daniel, with his smile back in place. “I’m not the Phantom of the Opera.”
“I do so hope you’ll decide to take the job. I like a boy with wit.”
“I’ll have to think about it, Mr. Ormund.”
“Of course. Whatever you decide, do let me hear from you tomorrow morning. In the meantime, if you’d like to see the performance tonight, and get some idea of what exactly is expected, I can offer you a seat in the house’s own box that’s going begging tonight. We’re doing Demofoönte.”
“I’ve read the reviews. And yes, of course, I’d love to.”
“Good. Just ask Leo in the box office as you go out. He has an envelope in your name. Ah: one last thing before you go, Ben. Am I right in assuming that you’ve had some instruction in the use of small arms? Enough to load, and aim, and such.”
“In fact I have — but it seems a strange thing to assume.”
“It’s your accent. Not that it’s at all pronounced, but I have a rather good ear. There’s just the faintest echo of the Midwest in your r’s and your vowels. Like an off-stage oboe. May I assume, further, that you’ve had some training in self-defense?”
“Only what I got in the regular phys ed program. Anyhow, I thought you wanted an usher, not a bodyguard.”
“Oh, you’ll rarely, if ever, be called on to shoot anyone. It hasn’t come to that yet in this theater (knock on wood). On the other hand, I don’t suppose a week goes by without our having to give the heave-ho to some asshole. Opera still does have the power to excite passions. Then too, there are the claques. You shall surely have a chance to see them this evening, for they’re bound to be out in force. Geoffrey Bladebridge is making his premiere in the title role. Till now only Rey has sung the part. The house will undoubtedly be packed with the partisans of both men.”
“Fighting?”
“Let us hope not. Generally they just scream at each other. That can be nuisance enough, when most of the audience has come here to listen.” Mr. Ormund once again offered his hand. “But enough idle chatter. Duty calls, ta-ra, ta-ra! I hope you enjoy the performance this evening, and I’ll expect to hear from you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Daniel promised, as he was shown the door.
Daniel clapped dutifully when the curtain came down at the end of Act One of Demofoönte, the single wet blanket in an audience berserk with approval. Whatever had stirred them to these raptures he couldn’t work out. Muscially the production was professional but uninspired; mere archaeology pretending to be art. Bladebridge, whom most of this commotion was about, had sung neither wisely nor too well. His stage-manner was one of polite, disdainful boredom, which he varied, when he wished to call attention to a particularly strenuous embellishment, by a gesture (always the same) of the most schematic bravado. At these moments, as he extended his meaty, jeweled hands, tilted back his head (but carefully, so as not to dislodge his towering wig), and let loose a bloodcurdling trill or a long, loud, meandering roulade, he seemed the apotheosis of unnaturalness. The music itself, though a pastiche of four composers’ settings of the same Metastasio libretto, was uniformly monotonous, the slimmest of excuses for the endless flowerings the singers foisted on it. As to drama, or poetry, forget it. The whole unwieldy operation — scenery, costumes, staging — seemed quite defiantly pointless, unless the mere expenditure of so much money, energy, and applause was, in itself, a kind of point.
He felt almost the same befuddlement as when, so many years ago, in the alternate world of his childhood, he had sat in Mrs. Boismortier’s living room and listened to a Mozart string quartet. With this difference — that he had lost the humility that had allowed him, as a child, to go on believing, provisionally, in the worth of what befuddled him. He decided, therefore, when the house-lights finally went up, that he would not return for the second act. Never mind that he probably wouldn’t have the chance to see anything at the Metastasio again (He’d already made up his mind to that). He had too high a respect for his own opinion to go on watching what he’d decided was complete claptrap.
Even so, once he was out in the lobby he couldn’t resist the opportunity of circulating among the Metastasio’s regular patrons, who were (despite their dominos, which were, as in old Venice, de rigueur) not at all so glittering an assembly as might be found, between the acts,
at either the Metropolitan or the State Theater. There were, to be sure, more phoneys. Most castrati of celebrity rank were blacks, just as, in the heyday of bel canto they had been, mainly, Calabrians or Neopolitans, the poorest of the poor. Wherever blacks were offered for public worship, whether in the ring or on the stage, there were certain to be phoneys on hand worshipping. But this lot were an uncommonly discreet sort of phoney; the men tended to dress, like Daniel, in conservative and slightly démodé business suits, the women in dresses of well-nigh conventual plainness. Some of the genuine blacks allowed themselves a higher level of luminescence, with feathers or a bit of lace livening their masks, but the general tone, even among them, was decidedly muted. Possibly, even probably, a different tone was set downstairs in the Metastasio’s casino, but only members with a key were admitted there.
Daniel propped himself against a pillar of fake marble and watched the parade, such as it was. Just as he’d made up his mind, for the second time, to leave, he was suddenly latched on to by the girl he’d met that morning, Jack Levine’s official wife, who saluted him loudly with — “Ben! Ben Bosola! What a pleasant surprise.” For the life of him he couldn’t remember her first name. She lifted her domino.
“Mrs. Levine,” he murmered. “Hello.”
“Marcella,” she reminded him, and then, to show that in the face of Demofoönte personal slights were of no account: “Isn’t it the most beautiful… the most wonderful… the dreamiest, creamiest…”
“Incredible,” he agreed, with just enough conviction to get by.
“Bladebridge is going to be our next great singer,” she declared in a passion of prophecy. “A true soprano assoluto. Not that Ernesto is in any way less important. I’d be the last person to speak against him. But he’s old, and his top notes are already gone — that can’t be denied.” She shook her head with vigorous melancholy, wagging her long blonde braid.
“How old is he?”
“Fifty? Fifty-five? Past his prime, anyhow. But such an artist, even now. No one has ever equalled his ‘Casta diva.’ Isn’t it amazing, our meeting again so soon? Jack didn’t mention your being a buff. Naturally, I made him tell me all about you as soon as he got home.”
“I’m not what you’d call a real buff. I’d say that I’m at least six or seven levels from the top on anyone’s scale of buffdom.”
Her hollow, hooting laugh was as inane as his remark. Even with the terrycloth muumuu removed and repackaged in brown velvetine, Marcella was intensely the sort of person you didn’t want to be seen with in public. Not that it mattered, since he wouldn’t be returning to the Metastasio. So, as penance for his condescension, he forced himself to be nicer than the circumstance strictly required.
“Do you get here often?” he asked.
“Once a week, on my night off. I’ve got a subscription seat way in the last row of the Family Circle.”
“Lucky you.”
“Don’t think I don’t know it. At the start of this last season they raised the prices again, and I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to renew. But Jack was an angel and lent me the money. Where are you sitting?”
“Uh, in a box.”
“A box,” she repeated reverently. “Are you with someone?”
“Don’t I just wish! In fact, I’m all alone in the box.”
A wrinkle of doubt creased her forehead. Since he couldn’t see any reason not to, and since it was something to talk about, he told her the story of Ormund’s phonecall and their cross-purposed interview that afternoon. She listened like a child hearing the story of the Nativity, or of Cinderella, for the very first time. Her large eyes, framed by the slits of her mask, grew moist with unshed tears. The first of the intermission bells rang just as the tale was completed.
“Would you like to share the box with me?” he offered, in a burst of generosity (which, admittedly, cost him nothing).
She wagged her braid. “It’s sweet of you to ask, but I couldn’t.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“The ushers?”
“As long as you’re not taking someone else’s seat, they won’t know.”
She looked anxiously at the people filing up the stairs, then at Daniel, then back at the stairs.
“There are four seats in the box,” he urged. “I can only fill one of them.”
“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your losing your job before you’d even started.”
“If they’re going to be pissy about a thing like that, they’re not the kind of people I should be working for.” Since he wasn’t going to take the job, it was easy to be high-minded.
“Oh, Ben — don’t say that! To work here — at the Metastasio — there’s nothing anyone wouldn’t give for the opportunity. To see every performance, every night!” The tears finally reached saturation point and trickled into her mask. The sensation must have been uncomfortable, for she pushed the domino up into her hair and, with a wadded-up hankie from the sleeve of her dress, dabbed at her smudged cheeks.
The second bell rang. The lobby was almost empty.
“You’d better come along,” Daniel urged.
She nodded, and followed him to the door of the box. There she stopped to give one last swipe at her tears. Then she tucked away the hankie and gave him a big, brave smile.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t know what came over me. It’s just that the Teatro is the center of my whole existence. It’s the only reason I go on living in this stupid city and working at my lousy job. And to hear you being, I don’t know, so cavalier about it… I can’t explain. It upset me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course not. I’m being an old silly. Is this your box? We’d better go in before they spot us.”
Daniel opened the door and stepped back to allow Marcella to go before him. Halfway across the small antechamber she stood stock-still. At the same moment the house-lights dimmed, and the audience applauded the entrance of the conductor into the pit.
“Ben,” Marcella whispered, “there is someone else.”
“I see her. But there’s no need to panic. Just take the seat beside her, as though you belong there. She probably snuck in the same as you. Anyhow, she won’t bite.”
Marcella did as she was bidden, and the woman paid her no heed. Daniel took the chair behind Marcella.
As the strings commenced a jittering introduction to the duet between Adrasto and Timante the intruder lowered her opera glasses and turned round to regard Daniel over her shoulder. Even before he’d recognized her, Daniel felt a premonitory malaise just watching the slow torsion of her spine.
Before he could rise, she had caught him by the sleeve. Then, deftly, without putting down her opera glasses, she plucked off his mask.
“I knew it. Despite the beard — despite the mask — I knew it!”
Marcella, though only a bystander to this drama, began once more, and quite audibly, to weep.
Miss Marspan released Daniel to deal, in summary fashion, with Marcella. “Hush!” she insisted, and Marcella hushed.
“As for you,” (to Daniel), “we’ll speak later. But now, for goodness’ sake, be quiet and pay attention to the music.”
Daniel bowed his head by way of submission to Miss Marspan’s command, and she fixed her falcon gaze upon the mild Adrasto, the merciless Timante, nor did she ever, in the whole course of the second act, turn round again. She was that certain of her grip.
As they rode, with the curtains of the taxi drawn, zigzagging along the potholed streets, Daniel tried to formulate a plan. The only solution he could think of, which might restore his shattered status quo and keep his whereabouts unknown to Grandison Whiting, was for him to murder Miss Marspan. And that was no solution. Even if he’d had the gumption to try, which he didn’t, he’d be more likely to wind up her victim, since Miss Marspan had let it be known (by way of assuring the taxi driver that it was safe to take them through Queens) that she carried a licensed pistol and was trained in its use. He could foresee t
he tenuous fabric of his incognito unravelling inexorably, twelve years of shifts and dodges undone in a moment by this woman’s whim, and he could do nothing but come along for the ride. She wouldn’t even listen to explanations until she’d seen for herself that Boa was alive.
“Is it all right if I ask you a question?” he ventured.
“All in good time, Daniel. If you please.”
“Have you been looking for me? Because otherwise I don’t see…”
“Our crossing paths was chance. I was seated in the box opposite to yours, and a tier above. While I waited for a friend to join me, I studied the crowd through my glasses. There is usually someone one recognizes on such an evening. You seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place you at once. Naturally enough. You didn’t have a beard, or wear a domino, when I knew you. And I supposed you to be dead. At the intermission I watched you in the lobby, and even contrived, standing on the other side of the pillar, to hear some of your conversation with that girl. It was you. It is you. And you tell me that my niece is alive. I cannot, I confess, imagine your motive in having kept these matters secret, but I’m not really interested in your motives. I’m interested in my niece, in her well-being.”
“It’s not pretty where we’re headed,” he cautioned. “But it keeps her going.”
Miss Marspan made no reply.
Daniel parted the curtain to see how far they’d come. What he could see looked like any part of Queens he’d ever been to: there was the wide, untrafficked highway lined on either side by junked-out cars and overturned trucks, a few of which gave signs of being inhabited. Farther back from the road were the blackened shells of single-dwelling houses. It was hard to believe that away from the highway there were still large areas of Queens that had been left unblighted. He let the curtain fall closed. The taxi swerved, avoiding something in the road.
On Wings of Song Page 21
