Career in C Major: And Other Fiction

by James M. Cain

  Rossi rehearsed me until I swear blood was running out of my nose, throat, and eyeballs. I never got enough pep in it to suit him. I had always thought grand opera was a slow, solemn, kind of dignified show, but the way he went about it it was a race between some sprinter and a mechanical rabbit. I was surprised how bad the others sounded. It didn’t seem to me any of them had enough voice to crush a grape.

  Monday I tried to keep quiet and not think about it, but it was one long round of costumes, phone calls, and press releases. I was still singing under the name of Bennett, and when they called me down to give them some stuff about myself to go out to the papers, I was stumped. I wasn’t going to say who I really was. I gave them the biography of an uncle that came from Missouri, and went abroad to study medicine. Instead of the medical stuff in Germany, I made it musical stuff in Italy, and it seemed to get by all right. Around six-thirty, when I had just laid down, and thought I could relax a few minutes and get myself a little bit in hand, the phone rang and Cecil said it was time to go. We had to go early, because she had to make me up.

  When we went in the stage door of the Auditorium Theatre that night, and I got my first look at that stage, I almost fainted. What I had felt in Rochester was nothing compared to this. In the first place, I had never had any idea that a stage could be that big, and still be a stage and not a blimp hangar. You only see about half of it from out front. The rest of it stretches out through the wings, and back, and up overhead, until you’d think there wasn’t any end of it. In the second place, it was all full of men, and monkey wrenches, and scenery going up on pulleys, and noise, so you’d think nobody could possibly sing on it, and be heard more than three feet. And in the third place, there was something about it that felt like big stuff about to happen. I guess that was the worst. Maybe an army headquarters, the night before a drive, or a convention hall, just before a big political meeting, would affect you that way too, but if you really want to get that feeling, so you really feel it, and it scares you to death, you go in a big opera house about an hour and a half before curtain time.

  Cecil didn’t waste any time on it. She went right up to No. 7 dressing room, where I was, and I followed her up. She was in No. 1 dressing room, on the other side of the stage. When we got up there, there was nothing in there at all but a long table against the wall, a mirror above that, a couple of chairs, and my trunk, that had been sent around earlier in the day. I opened it, and she took out the make-up kit, and spread it out on the table. “Always watch that you have plenty of cloths and towels. You need them to get the make-up off after you get through.”

  “All right, I’ll watch it.”

  “Now get out your costume, check every item that goes with it, and hang it on hooks. When you have more than one costume in an opera, hang each one on a separate hook, in the order you’ll need them.”

  “O. K. What else?”

  “Now we’ll make you up.”

  She showed me how to put the foundation on, how to apply the color, how to put on the whiskers with gum arabic, and trim them up with a scissors so they looked right. They come in braids, and you ravel them out. She showed me about darkening under the eyes, and made me put on the last touches myself, so I could feel I looked right for the part. Then she had me put on the costume, and inspected me. I looked at myself in the mirror, and thought I looked like the silliest zany that ever came down the pike, but she seemed satisfied, so I shut up about it. “These whiskers tickle.”

  “They will until the gum dries.”

  “And they feel like they’re falling off.”

  “Leave them alone. For heaven’s sake, get that straight right now. Don’t be one of those idiots that go around all night asking everybody if their make-up is in place. Put it on when you dress, and if you put it on right, it’ll stay there. Then forget it.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m trying to forget it.”

  “Around eight o’clock you’ll get your first call. Take the hat and muffler with you, and be sure you put them in their proper place on the set. They go on the table near the door, and you put them on for your first exit.”

  “I know.”

  “When you’ve done that, read the curtain calls.”

  “To hell with curtain calls. If I ever—”

  “Read your curtain calls! You’re in some and not in others, and God help you if you come bobbing out there on a call that belongs to somebody else.”

  “Oh.”

  “Keep quiet. You can vocalize a little, but not much. When you feel your voice is up, stop.”

  “All right.”

  “Now I leave you. Good-bye and good luck.”

  I lit a cigarette, walked around. Then I remembered about the vocalizing. I tried a ha-ha, and it sounded terrible. It was dull, heavy, and lifeless, like a horn in a fog. I looked at my watch. It was twenty to eight. I got panicky that I had only a few minutes, and maybe couldn’t get my voice up in time. I began to ha-ha, m’m-m’m, ee-ee, and everything I knew to get a little life into it. There was a knock on the door, and somebody said something in Italian. I took the hat and muffler, and went down.

  They were all there, Cecil and the rest, all dressed, all walking around, vocalizing under their breaths. Cecil was in black, with a little shawl, and looked pretty. Just as I got down, the chorus came swarming in from somewhere, in soldier suits, plaid pants like mine, ruffled dresses, and everything you could think of. They weren’t in the first act, but Rossi lined them up, and began checking them over. I went on the set and put the hat and muffler where she told me. The tenor came and put his hat beside mine. The basses came and moved both hats, to make more room on the table. There had to be places for their stuff when they came on, later. I went to the bulletin board and read the calls. We were all in the first two of the first act, Cecil, the tenor, the two basses, the comic, and myself, then for the other calls it was only Cecil and the tenor. On the calls for the other acts I was in most of them, but I did what she said, read them over carefully and remembered how they went.

  “Places!”

  I hurried out on the set and sat down behind the easel. I had already checked that the paint brush was in place. The tenor came on and took his place by the window. His name was Parma. He vocalized a little run, with his mouth closed. I tried to do the same, but nothing happened. I swallowed and tried again. This time it came, but it sounded queer. From the other side of the curtain there came a big burst of handclapping. Parma nodded. “Mario’s in. Sound like nice ’ouse.”

  From where you sat out front, I suppose that twenty seconds between the time Mario got to his stand, and made his bow, and waited till a late couple got down the aisle, and the time he brought down his stick on his strings, was just twenty seconds, and nothing more. To me it was the longest wait I ever had in my life. I looked at the easel, and swallowed, and listened to Parma vocalizing his runs under his breath, and swallowed some more, and I thought nothing would ever happen. And then, all of a sudden, all hell broke loose.

  Were you ever birdshooting? If you were, on your first time out, you know what I’m talking about. You were out there, in your new hunting suit, and the dogs were out there, and your friends were out there, and you were all ready for business when the first thing that hit you was the drumming of those wings. Then they were up, and going away from you, and it was time to shoot. But if you could hit anything with that thunder in your ears, you were a better man than I think you are. It was like that with me, when that orchestra sounded off. It was terrific, the most frightening thing I ever heard in my life. And it no sooner started than the curtain went up, except that I never saw it go up. All I saw was that blaze of the footlights in my eyes, so I was so rattled I didn’t even know where I was. Cecil had warned me about it a hundred times, but you can’t warn anybody about a thing like that. Light was hitting me from everywhere, and then I saw Mario out there, but he looked about a mile away, and my heart just stopped beating.

  My heart stopped, but that orchestra didn’t. It ripped t
hrough that introduction a mile a minute, and I knew then what Rossi had been trying to get through my head about speed. There’s a page and a half of it in the score, and that looks like plenty of music, doesn’t it? They ate it up in nothing flat, and next thing I knew they were through with it, and it was time for me to sing. Oh yes, I was the lad that had to open the opera. Me, the lousy four-flusher that was so scared he couldn’t even breathe.

  But they thought about that. Mario found me up there, and that stick came down on me, and it meant get going. I began to sing the phrase that begins Questo Mar Rosso, but I swear I had no more to do with it than a rabbit looking at a snake. That stick told my mouth what to do, and it did it, that was all. Oh yes, an operatic conductor knows buck fever when he sees it, and he knows what to do about it.

  There was some more stuff in the orchestra, and I sang the next two phrases, where he says that to get even with the picture for looking so cold, he’ll drown a Pharaoh. The picture is supposed to be the passage of the Red Sea. But I was to take the brush and actually drown one, and it was a second or two before I remembered about it. When I actually did it, I must have looked funny, because there was a big laugh. I was so rattled I looked around to see what they were laughing at, and in that second I took my eye off Mario. It was the place where I was supposed to shoot a Che fai? at the tenor. And while I was off picking daisies, did that conductor wait? He did not. Next thing I knew the orchestra was roaring again, and I had missed the boat. Parma sang the first part of his Nel cielo bigi at the window, then as he finished it he crossed in front of me, and it was murderous the way he shot it at me as he went by: “Watch da conductor!”

  I watched da conductor. I glued my eyes on him from then on, and didn’t miss any more cues, and by the help of hypnotism, prayer, and the rest of them shoving me around, we got through it somehow. What I never got caught up with was the speed. You see, when you learn those roles, and then coach them with a piano, you always think of them as a series of little separate scenes, and you take a little rest after each one, and smoke, and relax. But it’s not like that at a performance. It goes right through, and it’s cruel the way it sweeps you along.

  I remembered the hat and muffler, and when I came off she was back there, smoking a cigarette, ready to go on. “You’re doing all right. Sing to them, not to Mario.”

  She rapped at the door, sang a note or two, put her heel on the cigarette, and went on.

  We had a little off-stage stuff coming, I and the two basses, and we stood in the wings listening to them out there, doing their stuff. I found out something about an operatic tenor. He doesn’t shoot it in rehearsals, and he doesn’t shoot it in the preliminary stuff either. He saves it for the place where it counts. Parma, who at the rehearsal hadn’t shown enough even to make me look at him, uncorked a voice that was a beauty. He uncorked a voice, and he uncorked a style that even I knew was good. He took his aria, the Che Gelida Manina, slow and easy at first, he just drifted along with it, he made them wait until he was ready to give it to them. But when he did give it to them he had it. That high C near the end was a beauty, and well they knew it. Cecil sang better than I had ever heard her sing. I began to see what they were all talking about, why they paid her the dough.

  I went out on the first two calls, like the bulletin said, but when we came in from the second Parma whispered at me: “You hide, you. You hear me, guy? You keep out a way dat Mario!”

  I didn’t argue. I got behind some flats out there in the wings and stayed there. Cecil had heard him, and after a few minutes she found me there. “What happened?”

  “I missed a cue.”

  “Well what’s he talking about? He missed three.”

  “I wasn’t watching the conductor.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “It’s the cardinal sin, the only unforgivable sin, in all grand opera. Always watch him. Sing to them, try not to let them see you watch him. But—never let him out of your sight. He’s the performance, the captain of the ship, the one on whom everything depends. Always watch him.”

  “I got it now.”

  The next act was better. I was getting used to it now. I got a couple of laughs in the first part, and then when it came time for me to take up the waltz song he threw the stick on me and I gave her the gun. It got a hand, but he played through it to the end of the act. The Musetta and I did the carry-off we had practiced, and it went all right. The regular way is for Marcel to pick her up and run off with her, but she was small and I’m big, so instead of that, I threw her up on my shoulder and she kicked and waved, and the curtain came down to cheers. The third act I was all right, and we had another nice curtain. The four of us, Parma, I, Cecil, and the Musetta were in all the calls, and after we took the last one Parma followed me to the hole where I did my hiding. “O. K., boy, now on a duet.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Make’m dolce. Mak’m nice, a sweet, no loud at all. No big dramatic. Nice, a sweet, a sad. Yeah?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You do like I say, we knock hell out of’m. You watch.”

  So we went out there, and got through the gingerbread, and he threw down his pen and I threw down my paint brush, and we got out the props, and the orchestra played the introduction to the duet. Then he started to sing, and I woke up. I mean, I got it through my head that when that bird said dolce he meant dolce. He sang like that bonnet of Mimi’s was some little bird he had in his hand, so it made a catch come in your throat to listen to him. When he hit the A he lifted his eyes, with the side of his face to the audience, and held it a little, and then melted off it almost with a sigh. When he did that he looked at me and winked. It was that wink that told me what I had to do. I had to put dolce in it. I came in on my beat and tried to do it like he did it. When it came to my little solo, I put tears in it. Maybe they were just imitation tears, but they were tears just the same. When I came to my high F sharp I swelled it a little, then pulled it in and melted off it just like he had melted off the A. When I got through the orchestra had a few bars, and he sat there shaking his head over the bonnet, and out of the side of his mouth he said: “You old son-bitch-bast.”

  We went into the finish, and laid it right on the end of Mario’s stick, and slopped out the tears in buckets. Buckets, hell, we turned the fire hose on them. It stopped the show. They didn’t only clap, they cheered, so we had to repeat it. That’s dead against the rules, and Mario tried to go on, but they wouldn’t let him. We got through the act, and Parma flopped on the bed for the last two “Mimi’s,” and the curtain came down to a terrific hand. We took our first two bows, the whole gang that were in the act, and when we came back from the second one, Mario was back there. Cecil yelled in my ear, “Take him out, take him out!” So I took him out. I grabbed him by one hand, she by the other, and we led him out on the next bow, and they gave him a big hand, too. That seemed to fix it up about that missed cue.

  It was a half hour before I could start to dress. I went to my dressing room, and had just about got my whiskers pulled off when about fifty people shoved in from outside, wanting me to autograph their programs. It was a new one on me, but it’s a regular thing at every performance of grand opera, those people, mostly women, they come back and tell you how beautifully you sang, and would you please sign their program for them. So I obliged, and signed “Logan Bennett.” Then I got washed up and met Cecil and we got a cab and went off to eat. “You hungry, Leonard?”

  “As a mule.”

  “Let’s go somewhere.”

  “All right.”

  We went to a night club. It had a dance floor, and tables around that, and booths around the wall. We took a booth. We ordered a steak for two, and then she ordered some red burgundy to go with it, and sherry to start. That was unusual with her. She’s like most singers. She’ll give you a drink, but she doesn’t take much herself. She saw me look at her. “I want something. I—want to celebrate.”

  “O. K. with me. Plenty all ri
ght.”

  “Did you enjoy yourself?”

  “I enjoyed the final curtain.”

  “Didn’t you enjoy the applause after the O Mimi duet? It brought down the house.”

  “It was all right.”

  “Is that all you have to say about it?”

  “I liked it fine.”

  “You mean you really liked it?”

  “Yeah, I hate to admit it, but I really liked it. That was the prettiest music I heard all night.”

  The sherry came and we raised our glasses, clinked, and had a sip. “Leonard, I love it.”

  “You’re better at it than in concert.”

  “You’re telling me? I hate concerts. But opera—I just love it, and if you ever hear me saying again that I don’t want to be a singer, you’ll know I’m temporarily insane. I love it, I love everything about it, the smell, the fights, the high notes, the low notes, the applause, the curtain calls—everything.”

  “You must feel good tonight.”

  “I do. Do you?”

  “I feel all right.”

  “Is it—the way you thought it would be?”

  “I never thought.”

  “Not even—just a little bit?”

  “You mean, that it’s nice, and silly, and cock-eyed, that I should be here with you, and that I should be an opera singer, when all God intended me for was a dumb contractor, and that it’s a big joke that came off just the way you hoped it would, and I never believed it would, and—something like that?”