James Cain - Serenade

“He can sing it, all right.”

“Until then, I had not cared for Händel, but he revealed it to me. ’Tis something to be grateful for, the awakening to Händel. What is the reason for that? I’ve heard a million of your Wops, Frogs and Yankees sing Händel, aye and plenty of Englishmen, but not one of them can sing it the way that fellow can.”

“Well, in the first place, he’s good. That’s something you can’t quite cut up into pieces and measure off. And when a man’s good, he’s generally good all the way down the line. McCormack has music in him, so he no sooner opens his trap than there’s a tingle to it, no matter what he sings. He has an instinct for style that never lets him down. He never drags an andante too slow, or hustles an allegro too fast. He never turns a dumb phrase, or forces, or misgauges a climax. When he does it, it’s always right, with a big R. What he did for Händel was to bring it to life for you. Up to then, you probably thought it was pale, thin, tinkle-tankle stuff—”

“To my shame I did.”

“And then he stepped into it, like a bugler at dawn—”

“That’s it, that’s it, like a bugler at dawn. You can’t imagine what it was like, lad. He stood there, the most arrogant figure of a man I ever saw, with his chest thrown out and his head thrown back, and his thumbs in his little black book of words, like a cardinal starting the mass. And without a word, he began to sing. And the sun came up, and the sun came up.”

“And in the second place—”

“Yes, lad, in the second place?”

“He had a great voice.”

“He could have the Magic Flute in his throat and I’d never know it.”

“Well, he goddam near had the Magic Flute in his throat, if somebody happened to ask you. And your ears knew it, even if your head didn’t. He had a great voice, not just a good voice. I don’t mean big. It was never big, though it was big enough. But what makes a great voice is beauty, not size, and beauty will get you, I don’t care if it’s in a man’s throat or a woman’s leg.”

“You may be right. I hadn’t thought of it.”

“And in the third place—”

“Go on, ’tis instructive to me.”

“—There’s the language he was born to. John McCormack comes from Dublin.”

“He does not. He comes from Athlone.”

“Didn’t he live in Dublin?”

“No matter. They speak a fine brogue in Athlone, almost as fine as in Belfast.”

“It’s a fine brogue, but it’s not a brogue. It’s the English language as it was spoken before all the other countries of the world forgot how to speak it. There’s two things a singer can’t buy, beg or steal, and that no teacher, coach or conductor can give him. One is his voice, the other is the language that was born in his mouth. When McCormack was singing Händel he was singing English, and he sings it as no American and no Englishman will ever sing English. But not like an Irishman. Not with all that warmth, color, and richness that McCormack puts into it.”

“ ’Tis pleasant to hear you say that.”

“You speak a fine brogue yourself.”

“I try to say what I mean.”

We were creeping past Ensenada, four or five miles out, and we smoked a while without saying anything. The sea was like glass, but you could see the hotel in the setting sun, and the white line of surf around the harbor. We smoked a while, but I’m a bit of a bug on that subject of language, and what a man brings on stage with him besides what he was taught. I started up again, and told him how all the great Italian singers have come from the city of Naples, and gave him a few examples of singers with fine voices that never made the grade because they were bums, and people won’t listen to bums. About that, I knew plenty. Then I got off on Mexico, and about that, I guess you can realize I was pretty bitter. I began getting it off my chest. He listened, but pretty soon he stopped me. “Not so fast, lad, not so fast. ’Tis instructive that Caruso came from Naples, as McCormack came from Athlone, and that it was part of his gift, but when you speak so of Mexico, I take exception.”

“I say they can’t sing because they can’t talk.”

“They talk soft.”

“They talk soft, but they talk on top of their throats — and they’ve got nothing to say! Listen, you can’t spend a third of your life on the dirt floor of an adobe hut, and then expect people to listen to you when you stand up and try to sing Mozart. Why, sit down, you goddam Indian, and—”

“I’m losing patience with you.”

“Did you ever hear them sing?”

“I don’t know if they can sing, and I don’t care. But they’re a great people.”

“At what? Is there one thing they do well?”

“Life is not all doing. It’s part being. They’re a great people. The little one in there—”

“She’s an exception.”

“She’s not. She’s a typical Mexican, and I should know one when I see her by now. I’ve been sailing these coasts for fifty years. She speaks soft, and holds herself like the little queen that she is. There’s beauty in her.”

“I told you, she’s an exception.”

“There’s beauty in them.”

“Sure, the whole goddam country is a musical comedy set, if that’s what you mean. But when you get past the scenery and the costumes, what then? Under the surface what do you find? Nothing!”

“I don’t know what I find. I’m no great hand at words, and it would be hard for me to say what I find. But I find something . And I know this much: if it’s beauty I feel, then it must be under the surface, because beauty is always under the surface.”

“Under the bedrock, in that hellhole.”

“I think much about beauty, sitting alone at night, listening to my wireless, and trying to get the reason of it, and understand how a man like Strauss can put the worst sounds on the surface that ever profaned the night, and yet give me something I can sink my teeth into. This much I know: True beauty has terror in it. Now I shall reply to your contemptuous words about Beethoven. He has terror in him, and your overture writers have not. Fine music they wrote, and after your remarks I shall listen to them with respect. But you can drop a stone into Beethoven, and you will never hear it strike bottom. The eternities and the infinities are in it, and they strike at the soul, like death. You mind what I’m telling you, there is terror in the little one too, and I hope you never forget it in your relations with her.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. I had felt the terror in her, God knows. We lit up again, and watched Ensenada turn gray, blue and violet. My cigarettes were all gone by then, and I was smoking his tobacco, and one of his pipes, that he had cleaned out for me on a steam jet in the boiler. Not a hundred feet from the ship a black fin lifted out of the water. It was an ugly thing to see. It was at least thirty inches high, and it didn’t zigzag, or cut a V in the water, or any of the things it does in books. It just came up and stayed a few seconds. Then there was the swash of a big tail and it went down.

“Did you see it, lad?”

“God, it was an awful-looking thing, wasn’t it?”

“It cleared up for me what I’ve been trying to say to you. Sit here, now, and look. The water, the surf, the colors on the shore. You think they make the beauty of the tropical sea, aye, lad? They do not. ’Tis the knowledge of what lurks below the surface of it, that awful-looking thing, as you call it, that carries death with every move that it makes. So it is, so it is with all beauty. So it is with Mexico. I hope you never forget it.”

We docked at San Pedro around three in the afternoon, and all I had to do was walk ashore. He gave me dollars for our pesos, so I wouldn’t have any trouble over that part, and came down the plank with me. It took about three seconds. I was an American citizen, I had my passport, they looked at it, and that was all. I had no baggage. But she was different, and how she was going to get ashore was making me pretty nervous. He had her below decks, under cover, and so far so good, but that didn’t mean she was in, by a long way. He didn’t seem much upset, though. He walked through the pier with me, waving at his friends, stopping to introduce me to his broker, taking it easy. When he got to the loading platform outside, he stood there and lit a cigar his broker had given him. “Across there is a little cove they call Fish Harbor. It is reached by a ferry, and you should find out how to get there this afternoon, but don’t arrive before dark, as you should not be seen hanging around. By the wharves runs a street, and on the main thoroughfare leading down to it is a little Japanese restaurant, about a stone’s throw from the water. Be there at nine o’clock, sharp. Order beer, and drink it slowly till I come.”