Little Hands Clapping

by Dan Rhodes

  She opened the front door, stepped outside and breathed a light mist on to the brass plate, which she rubbed with her cloth. When she stepped back to inspect her work, her smiling face was reflected in the metal. She looked at the blue sky. At times like this it almost seemed as if she wasn’t going to Hell. She knew she was though, and there was nothing she could do about it. In the meantime there was plenty to be getting on with, starting with mopping the tiles in the entrance hall.

  At nine thirty the old man walked down the stairs to see Hulda greeting Pavarotti and his wife as enthusiastically as propriety would allow. He extended his hand to meet theirs, his fingers cold and dry in their fleshy grips. Hulda watched them go up to their meeting.

  By the time they reached the old man’s kitchen, Pavarotti was out of breath. Sweat had dripped into his thick black beard, and he dabbed his face with a handkerchief, which changed in moments from sky blue to navy. He noticed the old man’s eyes upon him. ‘It has been something of a busy morning,’ he said in his defence. His voice was thin and high, and seemed not to belong to him; it was nothing like the dramatic rumble that might be expected from a man of his appearance.

  They sat around the table. ‘To business, gentlemen?’ said his wife. She was short, and shaped like Queen Victoria, her silver hair tied into a bun and her face grave.

  Pavarotti poised his pen, ready to take the minutes, and the old man gave the faintest of nods as he wondered when she was going to produce the cake.

  Every week, at some apparently random point of the meeting, Pavarotti’s wife would present him with a large home-made chocolate cake. He had difficulty concentrating on her opening topic, Strategies for facilitating an increase in visitor numbers, partly because the few visitors the museum already received were enough of a nuisance to him, but also because he could think of little besides the cake. For now, though, it remained concealed inside her large bag.

  These meetings were usually little more than monologues, with the old man giving the occasional nod and Pavarotti keeping his eyes lowered as he transcribed everything his wife said. In spite of his size, Pavarotti always remained in his wife’s shadow, and the old man knew very little about him. He had learned that he ran a small chain of candle shops, and that with his wife he was father to four daughters – Liesl, Chloris, Dagmar and Swanhilde. There was plenty he did not know. He didn’t know, for example, that it was only at these meetings when Pavarotti’s voice became so high and so thin, that when he was at home with his children, and at work among the candles, it had a depth to it, and an authority. The old man also had no idea that Pavarotti was just twenty-six years old.

  Pavarotti’s wife had been born into a family that lived for opera. Her mother and father had hoped their child would be just as intoxicated by it as they were, and they were not disappointed. She was happy to spend her weekends and school holidays accompanying them on trips to the major houses of the world to watch the classics, and to festivals to hear revivals of obscure pieces, and on school nights she would often sit in on rehearsals of productions by the local company, of which her parents were enthusiastic patrons.

  When she was seven years old she was taken to La Scala, where she saw a rising star called Luciano Pavarotti singing the part of Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. She knew from the moment he stepped on stage that he was as desirable as it was possible for a man to be. Looking down from her box she found herself overwhelmed by his beard, his black hair, his twinkling eyes and his magnificent shape. He didn’t appear to be fat, nor even overweight, he just looked powerful, and when he opened his mouth to sing this power was confirmed beyond doubt. The experience rendered her mute for an entire fortnight. Her parents were not at all concerned, having themselves been struck dumb by the opera for long periods of time, and they calmly brought her soup and fruit while they waited for her to snap back to life. As she lay in bed for those two weeks, staring at the ceiling and reliving every moment of the concert, she began to accept that a union with the singer was out of the question. She was just a seven-year-old girl, awkward and bashful, and even though she would soon be eight and would one day be a woman, she understood that the thick shape of her body and the coarse texture of her hair could never bring him the joy she felt he deserved. Such a man would consort only with angels. She let him go then, and once she had said goodbye to her dream she went down to breakfast. As she sat with her parents, she put down her grapefruit spoon and spoke. ‘Mother, Father,’ she said, ‘I very much enjoyed our visit to La Scala. I thought the young tenor Pavarotti quite exceptional.’

  They smiled because they too had very much enjoyed their visit, and thought Pavarotti quite exceptional.

  As the singer’s fame grew she could feel him drifting even farther from her reach, but she clung to the hope of meeting somebody who could be her own Pavarotti – not the celestial creature she had seen on the stage but a Pavarotti in human form, with perhaps just one or two of his epic qualities. On reaching the age of forty-one she finally gave up hope, and accepted that there was nothing she could do but continue to devote herself to a productive spinsterhood. Then one night, at a charity gala that she had helped to organise, she saw a young man standing alone on the other side of the hall. For a moment her heart stopped, then she swept over and introduced herself. She found that he was there not to socialise but to hear one of his favourite soloists singing one of his favourite pieces, and on being told that she had booked the soloist and chosen the piece, he complimented her taste. The performance was about to begin and she was obliged to return to her duties, but not before inviting him to dinner so they could continue their conversation.

  Two days later they met again, and before they had reached the end of the main course she broke off from their discussion of the strengths and shortcomings of Salieri’s Axur, Re d’Ormus to say, ‘You do realise, don’t you, that time is against us? We must start trying for children at the earliest opportunity. I mean, of course, within the realm of decency.’ The boy raised no objections, because by this time he had fallen quite in love with her. The conversation immediately returned to a light-hearted comparison of Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto with that of Pierre Beaumarchais, and he continued to nod his assent as she offered to pile extra helpings of food on his plate. As they said goodnight she lifted her face and he kissed her. It was the first time for both of them, and they proceeded the only way they knew, with a passion that was truly operatic.

  ‘You will grow a beard for me?’ she asked, breathless, when this kiss at last came to an end.

  He nodded, and headed into the night, his belly almost ready to burst.

  Six weeks later they married, and by then he had gained so much weight that he had to have a new cummerbund fitted at the last minute. Within a year Liesl had arrived in the world to the sound of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, a sterilised pianist playing in the corner of the room as the teenage father took the part of Wolfram and his wife, sweating and pushing, sang Elisabeth. By this time his beard had grown quite substantially, not quite to the density it would later reach, but already thick and black against his boyish complexion. His hair had grown too, and he wore it swept back from his substantial brow. The likeness she had spotted at the gala, then little more than a suggestion, was reaching a level beyond which she had ever wished for, but she was relieved and delighted to find it was not only this resemblance that she loved. She also loved the way he looked at her as if she was the only woman in the world, the way he pursued his dream of running a small chain of candle shops without once asking her for financial support, the way conversation and song flowed so freely between them, and how, whenever he came in from work with the twinkle in his eye that had resulted in Liesl, Chloris, Dagmar and Swanhilde, her body fizzed with pleasure, readying itself to melt into his.

  They had not assumed that children would come, and had never dared to hope for four in such quick succession. She often felt her heart leap with joy at the thought of this family that had almost never been. Before long t
hough, this elation would pass, leaving only pity for those who had not found such happiness. As she settled into her marriage she thought about such people more and more. She worried that with the absence of contentment from their lives they might sink into despair and start thinking terrible thoughts. She had known the relentless nag of sadness, and there had been times when it had seemed it would never end, times when she had almost lost her strength of character, but she had always found within her the will to pick herself up and carry on. She could never stop herself from worrying about those who lacked her fortitude, and she was overcome with an urgent need to save these people from themselves. When she inherited a large house in the old part of the city she knew immediately what she would do with it. Six months later the brass plate was screwed into the wall, and the museum opened its doors to the public.

  She finished outlining her strategies for increasing visitor numbers, and the old man was satisfied that he would be able to find ways of keeping them all from being implemented. He had become adept at quashing her ideas while making it appear as if he was regretful that they could not, for some practical reason, reach fruition. He would cite prohibitive expense, health and safety implications, or another museum having beaten them to the idea. These reasons were often fabricated; he would do whatever it took to keep his days free of upheaval. Pavarotti’s wife had no idea that a war was going on, a war she was losing on many fronts. Sometimes, though, one of her ideas would get through his wall of resistance and a small change would be made, usually a new exhibit or a minor alteration of layout, and the old man would, in this small defeat, be strategically cooperative, even helpful.

  Her opening subject over, Pavarotti’s wife changed tack and started talking in a low voice about a recent trip to the dentist with Dagmar, who had been suffering from an excruciating toothache. It was a mundane anecdote, but the experience had reminded her of the very reason for the museum’s existence. The sight of her child in pain, and the helplessness she had felt at her own inability to comfort her, had awoken the misery and dread that lurks in the heart of every parent. Uninvited thoughts barged into her mind and wouldn’t leave; wild imaginings loomed before her as though they were real and urgent threats. These feelings were never far away. Sometimes, as with the toothache, there would be a catalyst, but often these worries jumped out of nowhere. While watering her house plants she would see an image of Liesl being flattened by a falling girder, or of Chloris, an enthusiastic needle worker even at her young age, entangling herself in a ball of cotton yarn and slowly, irrevocably, turning blue. Sometimes as she polished the silverware she would picture Dagmar having a happy and carefree childhood, but in her late teens falling in love with a dashing Finn who could never return this love and, thinking it the kindest way, telling her so, and the girl becoming so unhappy that this child who had been so full of life and joy, no longer wished to stay alive. And then there were the times when she saw Swanhilde developing a mental difficulty that came from within and which was far beyond her control or anybody else’s, a difficulty that engulfed her, and made her prone to the darkest thoughts, thoughts upon which, in a moment of terror, a moment in which there was nobody there to help her, she might act.

  The girder would be a dreadful accident, the ball of yarn a random tragedy: it was the last two that assaulted Pavarotti’s wife with the most force. It was thoughts such as these, and the possibility that one of her children, or indeed anybody’s child, would end up this way that had driven her to open the museum. But she said none of this, she just continued the story of her trip to the dentist, describing in great detail the extraction of the tooth. She didn’t mention that Dagmar’s every wail had been a brutal reminder of her child’s mortality, and that of all her daughters.

  The meeting was nearing its end, and the old man was invited to give his usual summary of the week. He included his doctored visitor numbers, and made no mention of having found a body in Room Eight the day before. When this was done, he reached into his breast pocket. ‘This arrived yesterday,’ he said. He handed the letter to Pavarotti’s wife, who put on her reading glasses and looked it over.

  ‘But this is wonderful,’ she said, almost breathless. She carried on reading to the end. ‘It is just this kind of correspondence that reminds us that our venture is so worthwhile.’ She stood and read it aloud, her voice rising and falling as though she were on stage:

  Friends, I came to your museum a man with a heart laden with the burden of darkness, looking for hints and tips for taking the easy way out. But I now realise that this is not the purpose of your estimable establishment. Nothing struck me more than the futility of joining what you so rightly describe as ‘this heartrending cascade of human lemmings’. I know it will not be easy, that there will be times when I shall once again drink deep from my tankard of despair, but even so I now face the future with a renewed sense of purpose and, dare I say it, optimism. You are a beacon of light in the darkness. Thank you.

  ‘Your estimable establishment,’ she repeated. ‘A beacon of light in the darkness. Have there ever been higher compliments? Gentlemen, we have saved him.’

  Her delight didn’t last. She looked at the ceiling and said, quietly, ‘But our work goes on. Every day we hear of unhappy souls who were not fortunate enough to have passed through our doors, and who are no longer here for us to save. This, gentlemen,’ she looked from one to the other as she held up the letter, ‘is why an increase in visitor numbers is so crucial. This afternoon I shall begin writing to the editors of publications around the world in the hope that our call will be heard. We must rescue as many such unfortunates as we can. If we can only get these people through our door then they will be saved, and get them through the door we must, no matter who they are or where they are from.’ She spread her arms wide. ‘We must reach out to every corner of the globe.’

  Whenever the old man heard a visitor speak, he would more often than not know where they had come from, every nuance of their diction bringing forward a place name. For thirty years he had worked in a government linguistics department, doing little besides sitting in what was referred to as the laboratory, listening to recordings of speaking voices from around the world. Regardless of the language, as soon as he had heard an accent from a particular region its idiosyncrasies would be locked into his mind, the knowledge ready for retrieval at any moment. Every once in a while somebody would come into the laboratory and play him a bugged telephone conversation or a recording of a ransom demand. He would tell them where the speaker’s accent indicated they came from, and the person with the recording would go away again. Usually he heard no more about it, but sometimes he would find himself being commended for his crucial role in an investigation. As populations became increasingly mobile he was able to peel apart the various layers of accent with considerable accuracy. He was largely indifferent to this talent, but even after so many years he still felt a light thud of satisfaction upon encountering an inflection or an intonation he had not previously heard outside the laboratory. A pin would go in the map that he carried in his mind.

  To his disappointment, Pavarotti’s wife’s publicity drive will not be without success, but with the increase in visitors will come new voices, and every once in a while he will feel this light thud. It will happen on hearing the man from Mindanao, and the child from Opobo.

  Before the year is out the old man will encounter a voice from Portugal, and he will know at once that it belongs to somebody who has grown up in a small town high in the hills some way to the north of the Rio Douro. The voice will be quiet, and devoid of even the faintest trace of hope, but this will not interest him; all that will matter is the map that flashes in his mind. Within moments any satisfaction will be gone, succeeded by a feeling of irritation at the thought of the inevitable inconvenience of the call to the doctor, and the clearing up, and a sense of impatience as he waits for them to get it over with.

  But that is all to come, and for now his eyes widen as Pavarotti’s wife reaches into her bag and
pulls out a large silver tin.

  VI

  A little over twenty-one years earlier, on a cold January night in a small house in a small town in the Portuguese hills, some way to the north of the Rio Douro, a boy was born. When the midwife had gone away the new parents, alone at last, gazed at their first born as he lay sleeping in his crib. After a few minutes they both looked up, and each could tell from the other’s expression that they had noticed the same thing, something which neither had expected. Saying nothing, they both wondered why the midwife had made no mention of it. She had seemed impatient to clear up and go as quickly as she could; maybe she knew that nothing she could say would make any difference, and this was something the parents needed to find out for themselves. They went back to looking at him, and tried to dismiss these thoughts. After all, it had been a long day and sometimes the mind plays tricks, but no matter how long or how hard they looked it was always there. They thought back to long conversations in which they had agreed that they would love their child just the same no matter what, and they told themselves that this was the case, that nothing in the world would have made them love him any more or any less. He blinked open his eyes, and seemed for a moment to be looking straight at them, from one to the other. At last they spoke.

  ‘Oh,’ said the mother.

  ‘I know,’ said the father, and he reached into the crib and scooped him up, this little thing that had opened chambers of his heart that he had never known were there.