Thomas Disch - On Wings of Song

“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 the 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.”