Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

At Laguna, Mildred was indifferent to the impending event, and had little to say to the girls, the cooks, and the customers who kept telling her about Veda’s picture in the paper, and asking her if she wasn’t excited that her daughter was on the air. Bert, however, wasn’t so reticent. While his steak was on the fire, he held court in the bar, and told all and sundry about Veda, and promised that if hot licks were what it took, the kid had them. When the hour drew near, and Mrs. Gessler plugged in the big radio on the veranda, he had an audience of a dozen around him, and extra chairs had to be brought. Two or three were young girls, there were two married couples, and the rest were men. Mildred had intended to pay no attention to the affair at all, but along toward 8:25, curiosity got the better of her. With Mrs. Gessler she went outside, and there was a lively jumping up to give her a seat. One or two men were left perched on the rail.

The first hint she got that Veda’s performance might not be quite the torchy affair that Bert had taken for granted came when Mr. Somerville, early in the program, affected to faint, and had to be revived, somewhat noisily, by members of his band. The broadcast had started in the usual way, with the Krazy Kaydets giving the midshipmen’s siren yell and then swinging briskly into Anchors Aweigh. Then Mr. Somerville greeted his audience, and then he introduced Veda. When he asked if Veda Pierce was her real name, and she said it was, he wanted to know if her voice was unduly piercing. At this the kaydets rang a ship’s gong, and Veda said no, but her scream was, as he’d find out if he made any more such remarks. The studio audience laughed, and the group on the veranda laughed, especially Bert, who slapped his thigh. A man in a blue coat, sitting on the rail, nodded approvingly. “She put that one across all right.”

Then Mr. Somerville asked Veda what she was going to sing. She said the Polonaise from Mignon, and that was when he fainted. While the kaydets were working over him, and the studio audience was laughing, and the ship’s gong was clanging, Bert leaned to the man in the blue coat. “What’s it about?”

“Big operatic aria. The idea is, it’s a little over the kaydets’ heads.”

“Oh, now I get it.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll knock it over.”

Mildred, who found the comedy quite disgusting, paid no attention. Then the kaydets crashed into the introduction. Then Veda started to sing. Then a chill, wholly unexpected, shot up Mildred’s backbone. The music was unfamiliar to her, and Veda was singing in some foreign language that she didn’t understand. But the voice itself was so warm, rich, and vibrant that she began to fight off the effect it had on her. While she was trying to get readjusted to her surprise, Veda came to a little spray of rippling notes and stopped. The man in the blue coat set his drink on a table and said: “Hey, hey, hey!”

After a bar or two by the orchestra, Veda came in again, and another chill shot up Mildred’s back. Then, as cold prickly waves kept sweeping over her, she really began to fight her feelings. Some sense of monstrous injustice oppressed her: it seemed unfair that this girl, instead of being chastened by adversity, was up there, in front of the whole world, singing, and without any help from her. Somehow, all the emotional assumptions of the last few months were stood on their head, and Mildred felt mean and petty for reacting as she did, and yet she couldn’t help it.

Soon Veda stopped, the music changed slightly, and the man in the blue coat sipped his drink. “O.K. so far. Now for the flying trapeze.” When Veda started again, Mildred gripped her chair in sheer panic. It seemed impossible that anybody could dare such dizzy heights of sound, could even attempt such vocal gymnastics, without making some slip, some dreadful error that would land the whole thing in ruin. But Veda made no slip. She went on and on, while the man in the blue coat jumped down from the rail, squatted by the machine, and forgot his drink, forgot everything except what was pouring out into the night. Bert and the others watched him with some sort of fascinated expectancy. At the end, when the last, incredibly high note floated over the finale of the orchestra, he looked up at Mildred. “Jesus Christ, did you hear it? Did you—”

But Mildred didn’t wait for him to finish. She got up abruptly and walked down toward Mrs. Gessler’s flowers, waving back Bert and Mrs. Gessler, who called after her, and started to follow. Pushing through the bushes, she reached the bluff overlooking the sea, and stood there, lacing her fingers together, screwing her lips into a thin, relentless line. This, she needed nobody to tell her, was no descent from Beethoven to Hank Somerville, no cheap venture into torch. It was the coming true of all she had dreamed for Veda, all she had believed in, worked for, dedicated her life to. The only difference was that the dream that had come true was a thousand times rosier than the dream she had dreamed. And come what might, by whatever means she would have to take, she knew she would have to get Veda back.

This resolve remained hot in her mouth, but back of it, like a fishbone across her throat, was her determination, that Veda, and not herself, would have to make the first move. She tried to put this aside, and drove to Veda’s one morning with every intention of stopping, ringing the bell, and going in. But as she approached the little white apartment house, she hurriedly told Tommy to drive on without stopping, and leaned far back in the car to avoid being seen, as she had done that morning at Mrs. Lenhardt’s. She felt hot-faced and silly, and the next time she decided to visit Veda she drove the car herself, and went alone. Again she went by without stopping. Then she took to driving past Veda’s at night, and peeping, hoping to see her. Once she did see her, and quickly pulled in at the curb. Taking care not to slam the car door, she slipped out of the car and crept to the window. Veda was at the piano, playing. Then suddenly the miracle voice was everywhere, going through glass and masonry as though they were air. Mildred waited, a-tremble, until the song was finished, then ran back to her car and drove off.

But the broadcasts continued, and Mildred’s feeling of being left out in the cold increased, until it became intolerable. Veda didn’t appear again on the Snack-O-Ham program. To Mildred’s astonishment, her regular spot on the air was Wednesdays, at 3:15, as part of the Treviso Hour, offered by star pupils of the same Carlo Treviso who had once closed the piano so summarily over her knuckles. And then, after listening to two of these broadcasts, and drinking in Veda’s singing and everything the announcer said about her, Mildred had an idea. By making use of Mr. Treviso, she could compel Veda to call her on the phone, to thank her for favors rendered. After that, pride would be satisfied and almost anything might happen.

So presently she was in the same old anteroom, with the same old vocalizing going on inside, and her temper growing hotter and hotter. But when Mr. Treviso finally received her, she had herself under what she thought was perfect control. As he gave no sign of recognition, she recalled herself to him, and he looked at her sharply, then bowed, but otherwise made no comment. She then made her little speech, which sounded stiff, and no doubt was supposed to sound stiff. “Mr. Treviso, I’ve come on a matter that I shall have to ask you to keep confidential, and when I tell you the reason, I’m sure you’ll be only too glad to do so. My daughter Veda, I believe, is now taking lessons from you. Now for reasons best known to herself, she prefers to have nothing to do with me at the moment, and far be it from me to intrude on her life, or press her for explanations. Just the same, I have a duty toward her, with regard to the expenses of her musical education. It was I, Mr. Treviso, who was responsible for her studying music in a serious way, and even though she elects to live apart from me, I still feel that her music is my responsibility, and in the future, without saying anything to her, without saying one word to her, Mr. Treviso, I’d like you to send your bills to me, and not to her. I hope you don’t find my request unreasonable.”