Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

But first things first: I’m working up Carmen. The Kaiser “objected strenuously” but gave in, for what choice does he have after all? He still snipes that I’m being “perverse” working against my “natural freshness and youth” — “My God, Miss Piper, you are an ingénue , Carmen is a whore.” Thinks the idea that I’m a mezzo is professional suicide, “witches and bitches, dahling,” he says, but I refuse to get stuck anywhere. I don’t intend to be Gilda for ever. Not when I’m a wizened thirty-two, and I certainly don’t intend to take my final curtain a moment before I absolutely have to. Mezzos live longer. I’ll sing Carmen and I’ll sell Tosca. And there will not be a single pair of trousers left unsung. Kaiser doesn’t know whether he is witnessing my first divinely inspired diva fit, or me falling on my face. Neither do I, but at least I’m no longer bored! He does see the wisdom in showing Gatti-Casazza the extreme outposts of my range, however, not just vertically but dramatically. Because that’s where it really counts. It’s not enough to have the most beautiful voice. If I have to sing ugly to put the feeling of a scene across, I’ll do that. Opera isn’t supposed to be “pretty”. Women stabbing themselves and everyone else half the time isn’t pretty, it’s wild, it’s passionate and gruesome and beautiful and you can’t tell me that such women don’t snarl as much as they sing. And that’s not counting the comic roles, which are even more grotesque. But I digress….

All right. Oh dear. Here goes. I have no shame in front of you, Diary, for you are me. You won’t squirm, you can’t be shocked, you know that nothing in love is nasty so I will try to be as free with you as I am in my own thoughts. Lest I forget, let me offer up a sincere orison of thanks for Giles. She is the least curious person on the face of the earth. Without her total lack of vigilance my life could never have got started. If Daddy knew what a lackadaisical gatekeeper she is he would be down here in a second to board me with the nuns. Which reminds me, I’d better write him. Oh but I’m teasing you, aren’t I, Diary? You’re in an agony of anticipation. Be still, open your heart, and I will begin at the beginning and unfold it for you as it unfolded for me. The joyful mystery of the Rose….

On the ferry in the middle of the Strait of Canso, Lily puts the diary down and looks behind her at Cape Breton because she will never see it again. She takes her last scent of salt island air, harsh, coniferous and cool, the indescribable grey that contains all things. Home. Farewell.

She wonders about the soles of her new red boots. Eleven days of gravel on Highway 4, a hundred miles to the Strait of Canso. Many people are kind so Lily is only a bit hungry. It is important not to spend any of the money in her boots. Not until she has arrived. She has sucked water from bright moss and slept beneath the low boughs of pine trees, their needles soft and young with May. The nights are cold but Lily is not. Every night as she falls asleep, she feels someone walk through the soft dew and cover her. And every morning she is warm and dry.

The ferry-man took her coin and gave her a worried look. “What’s your name dear? Who’s your father?”

… My first class after our “tryst” on her fire escape, I was afraid Rose would treat me like a stranger again. But she didn’t. She wasn’t exactly warm, but she called me Kathleen and said, “Let’s get to work,” and that’s what we did for days and days like riveters on a skyscraper.

I finally got her over for supper again — tore her away from her daughterly duties — and again Giles slept while Rose played and I sang the old-fashioned songs that Giles likes. Then I brought Rose to my room and tried to get her to take the ribbons out of her hair and do something less childish with it. But she wouldn’t let me touch it. I decided I’d like to meet her mother and have a talk with her. Why should she have a grown daughter who’s as tall as a man, and more beautiful than a woman, decked out like a kewpie doll?

I waited for Rose to spot the framed photograph of Daddy and Mumma on my dresser. She said, “Who’s that?” I said, “That’s my father.” She said, “Who’s that with him?” And I said, “That’s my mother.” And she just stared at the picture, then looked back at me and said, “Not your natural mother.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not your blood kin.”

“Yes.”

Then she looked back at the picture. “I can’t see it.”

“No one can.”

“What is she?”

“Canadian.”

Rose blushed. Hurray! But I put her out of her mystery; “She’s Lebanese.”

“She’s an Ayrab?”

“They don’t like to be called Arabs. Especially not ‘Ayrabs’.”

“What’s wrong with that, that’s how I’ve always said it.”

“Well. Anyhow, a lot of Lebanese come from the coast and they’re more Mediterranean, more European, you know. Not like Arabs.”

“She musta come from inland.” Then she looked at me and said, “Coulda fooled me.”

I said, “I’m not trying to ‘fool’ anyone.”

“You look pure white.”

“I am pure white. My mother is white.”

“Not quite.”

“Well she’s not coloured.”

She smiled — sneered is more like it — and said, “Don’t worry, honey, you plenty white for the both of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Now you’re mad ’cause I called you white.” She was laughing at me.

“I like to be called by my name. Please.”

She stopped laughing and looked at me for a moment and said, “Kathleen.”

But I wanted her to get the point. “I’m not ashamed of my mother, but I take after my father. My mother is devoid of ambition and not terribly bright, although she is a devoted parent.”

“Goody for you.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say “To hell with you” or worse when she got serious all of a sudden and said, “I’m sorry but you’re not being honest with me. You are ashamed of your mother.” I got a hot sick feeling in my stomach. “And I think that’s a sorrowful thing,” she added.

The feeling was coming up through my skin. I was sure Rose could smell it.

“Kathleen?” She looked so sorry for me, and that’s what made me feel strange. In a sticky dream with my eyes on sideways and can’t stand up.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I had to lean over.

“Are you okay?”

I thought, please God don’t let me throw up.

“Want me to get Giles?”

I must have caught a bug. The floorboards were shifting. She put her hand on the back of my neck. “Breathe,” she said. Her hand was cool.

“Good,” she said. “But the idea is, once you’ve breathed out, it helps to breathe in again in the near future…. That’s it.”

I breathed and she kept her hand there until my head stopped spinning and my stomach cooled down.

“I’m okay now.”

We lay on my bed and played Chinese checkers for an hour and Giles brought us cocoa and oatmeal cookies. I wanted Rose to stay overnight so we could tell ghost stories but she has to be home by nine or her mother worries.

The next day I told Rose she was in a state of social mortal sin because she had yet to invite me to her home. I have to come like a thief in the night and even then she doesn’t ask me in. I asked her point-blank why not. She said, “My mother is an invalid.”

She was lying, I could tell by the veil that came down over her eyes, but I went along with it.