Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

His friends were very loyal, I noted.

Did you know of her roses when you chose your dress? he asked.

I did not, I said. As I spoke, he offered the flower to me.

I watched it and then looked back to him. I did not reach for it.

How does she have roses so late into the fall? I asked. Is it magic? I smiled as I said this, instantly aware of how childish the question was.

No, he says. Her gardener cuts them so they never fruit, only flower.

He held it out once more. The rose always tries again, he said.

I did not take it.

Cette fleur, tu l’as gardée, I said. Tu peux la jeter. The line Carmen uses to tell Don José to throw the flower he has kept away.

I withdrew the ring and held it out to him.

Le charme opère, he said quietly.

The spell works.

It belongs to you, he said.

I shook my head, and yet as I let it go into his hand, I knew he was right.

He tried to meet my eyes, and when I would not let him, he went back quickly. I waited and walked slowly enough to let him arrive first.

The Baroness was standing outside her ballroom windows as the wind blew around us. I carried my dress and train as she waited and watched.

Do you ride?

I smiled and nodded.

I thought we would ride before the storm returns. I’m sorry, it was planned before. Did our friend not tell you? We thought we might discuss it over dinner but you have planned to return by then, yes? And you’ve no costume to ride, she said. And I’ve nothing that would fit you. Perhaps you will entertain yourself until we return?

Behind her, the forest looked like a legion of black-skirted widows. She their leader.

I pushed at the silk skirt of my gown suddenly, enlivened, and gestured at it. My riding costume, I said.

She laughed. You speak after all! Very well, perhaps you are also a horsewoman? I shouldn’t like you, she said. But I do. Thank you for indulging me.

A horse was brought for me, a mare, as well as my cloak. I walked up to her and looked to the stable hand, who came close and offered me his clasped hands to step into. With his help, I settled the gown into place, the train at my wrist so it wouldn’t catch the horse up, and sat at attention, waiting as the men emerged on their mounts.

The tenor appeared first, very handsome in a riding costume he appeared to have had ready, sheepish as he caught sight of me. From behind him, Aristafeo appeared, likewise attired. I borrowed his, the tenor said, as if he understood me. But, my God, you’re beautiful this way. I’ll have your wedding portrait painted for you just like this, he said.

§

If you love me, you’ll run away with me to the hills, Carmen tells her lover.

The storm returned more than restored almost as soon as the riding party set out, and the assorted nobles, industrialists, novelists, philosophers, and foreign heads of state lost control of their horses all at once. I was separated from them quickly or, rather, we were all separated from one another.

I had insisted on riding as it had been so long since I’d ridden in woods like this I couldn’t have cared if I’d ridden naked.

I slid from my horse and tied its reins to a tree, prepared to wait out the storm. I’d lost patience with the mare well before she calmed, and soaked to my skin in this gown, I hoped the mare, when calm, would know the way home, but I wanted to be sure. I walked to the middle of the field to see if I could find my bearings.

The lightning’s bright cracks along the sky made it look as if Rouen’s countryside were a painting thrown on a fire and burning from underneath, the hills running with autumn color, gold and red.

I tipped my head back and drank from the rain. It was cold and sweet.

During the haying season when I was a girl, I stalked storms, ran to meet them. Rain at the horizon looked like grass burning. The horses weren’t any good then as well, their screams like grass cuts along the thunder, thinning as they rose in the air. As if they felt they could hold it back. My mother would say, You’d let yourself die from it , when I returned wet. To which I always said nothing.

All thirsts are without explanations, as are all loves.

I was relieved to be lost in an open field under the retreating storm, far from my troubles. I decided to sing to console myself, as I had when I was young, and began softly with Aida, her lament aria, where she asks for death as her lover and her father face each other in battle, her lover sure to become her mistress’s husband. I sang her part in the scene after she has seen her father dragged back alive in front of her; I sang her begging to be allowed to see her own country again, and I sang it as if it could reach to the country I was sure I’d never see again while I stood there on the grassy roof of the world. I begged to be let back, and when I was done, I sang this part again rather than go on, and then again, and once more, louder and louder, in full voice finally, until the woods rang.

People told me what my voice did to them but they did not know what I wished it could do. Could I do one thing with this voice more than be made to entertain the world’s kings and their replacements, in the company of their wives, whores, and assassins? What was this gift, as my mother had called it, for? How I wished it could sing open graves, ransack Hell for my dead friends, smooth Aristafeo’s crippled hands, bring my family back to life — a voice that could change the course of Fate, summoning out of my many roles a storm of Fates until they were scattered and I was free, alone with nothing less than the world shining and made whole.

That was what I wanted; it would have sufficed.

Were we done? Was it all only for this? The ring was with him, at last; were we were done? I sank to my knees in the rain.

So then let it play on, this game of ours, I decided, when I stood. Curse or no curse, that was my prayer to whatever it was that ruled me. The Comtesse and her bargains, the tenor and his games, my voice, God, the Fates. Let us play and be done. To the death and beyond.

I stood and saw he was behind me. His dark eyes still full of love despite it all.

§

If you sang a lyric, it traveled farther than if it was shouted. Anything for any of the gods to hear was sung — for this reason the first theater was set to music. So they could hear, too.

Aristafeo had followed my voice in the distance until he came near the top of the hill behind me and then waited as I sang, unable to come any closer until I was done. This was how he’d always imagined operas, not as stages filled with women and men in wigs, but a storm, woods, a woman lost and in love singing somewhere in the dark.

He had been weaned practically on horseback and had never had any trouble riding, even in storms.

He had said nothing, waiting for me to notice him.

I brought my hand to my mouth as I turned to face him, and he put his arms around me and held me against the cold.

The rain had plastered his hair to his head, and the silver curls rose in a crown.

Leave with me, I said. I’m ready now. I’m sorry I wasn’t before. We can leave through the woods and never return.

He blinked from the rain and surprise. No, he said. Not this way. For now, I cannot.

Are you so afraid to leave her now? I asked. I gathered my dress to me. If you won’t, please, get me back so I may at least leave this place. I pulled away from him.

He remained standing there, looking down to his feet.

The rain fell softly again as we stood there, neither of us moving. In some way, our refusal to act or speak allowed us to be at rest with each other again.

What hold does he have over you? he asked me again, as he had at the ball.