Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

I forgave Aristafeo then for knowing the truth I would not tell him and for being driven to drink by it. I forgave him for not being able to make me confess. I forgave him for giving up, for his intention to leave me. I leaned down and kissed him lightly in case either he or I left before I could kiss him again. And then I returned to my own rooms for such sleep as I could find, where I stayed half a fortnight without leaving.

And so we find ourselves near the end of my tale.

MORE LETTERS CAME. One from Verdi, saying he accepted my offer of withdrawing from both operas and that it was very kind of me. Not one but two letters from Pauline as well, desolate at the news of the tenor’s death— The papers say he was set on fire and then drowned! What monster could do this? — and upset that I had not accepted a grieving call from her, turned away by my maid. Why would she not tell me you were away? I have not told the men the news of the murder, she said. They are not well enough.

My heart ached to think of this.

There was a note from Euphrosyne as well. If you leave me once more without saying good-bye, never come to look for me again.

She knew. And if they knew to find me here, the police would as well.

I wrote back with some little lies. I wrote to Euphrosyne and assured her I would be back soon. I wrote to Pauline and apologized, telling her I would see her on my return. I wrote to Verdi and asked him to forgive me — this was sincere.

I had written meanwhile to Lucy to inquire as to the sale of my things and to see to the money being sent to me. A letter came from the concierge instead to say the apartment was empty, ready for a new tenant, and would I like to let it or sell? She had my address from the letter to Lucy, which had waited unopened, arriving after she had left. It never reached her.

This pleased me somehow, despite my shock, and I laughed. I had never suspected that at the end Lucy would steal everything down to the forks. That she would put any bandit to shame. I laughed as it was what I had wanted, for every remnant of that life to vanish as if it had never been. I wanted the past to die to me, to let me go; I wanted the relief of vanishing. And with the tenor dead, I might really escape this time, unlike the others. But this was the moment to steal away.

Instead, I stayed in bed, seeing only Aristafeo when he chose to come for short visits neither of us could quite endure. Each day I thought on how I had meant to leave at once, and to my amazement, I could not bring myself to do so. There seemed to be nowhere to go. Each hour made the need for a departure more urgent, but each hour also made departure feel the more impossible.

My rooms collected dishes and dresses, unkempt without Doro’s regular tidiness — the hotel’s maid was unreliable. I had not opened the curtains. To see any of it repulsed me. I began to send the newest clothes back, hoping to seek refunds and discounts, afraid of needing to withdraw the money from that Prussian reward given to me by the Prince — that seemed sure to bring the tenor back from the dead — though I feared also discovering that it too was gone as well.

The Prince, if he guessed, would either never forgive me the crime or never forgive me that I had killed his beloved heldentenor first.

I had finally separated them forever.

That monster they searched the Seine for, then, in London, having made her own chains as I always did.

§

When Aristafeo called on me last, he entered with a very different air about him — circumspect, cautious, managing a tiny smile even as he grimaced at my rooms. I assumed he was there to say his good-byes, and I was about to send him away before he did.

Get out, I said.

They’ve asked me to come in and see if you’ll let them clean. But I have news. Make yourself presentable, he said to me, looking to the mess around him. Order a bath. Perhaps two.

Why?

Le Cirque de Monde Déchu has a new suitor, he said.

Who could have more money than the Russians?

Americans, he said. Thunder broke overhead as he said this, as if to remind us we were still on stage in a drama, and so I laughed, and he did as well.

§

All the years I’d lived in Europe, the Atlantic had seemed impassable and return impossible. But as the coach sent for us drew up to the front of Brown’s, as I stepped into that coach, I did so as if I were leaving on the trip itself. Thunder broke overhead and then the carriage roof became a drum for the rain. By the time we arrived, the streets soon ran with water, and so the doorman came out to offer to carry me across.

P. T. Barnum was a man who knew how coins worked.

The notorious impresario had read of our troubles in the newspapers and was intrigued. A circus opera too expensive to be staged anywhere in Europe was a cheap circus to Mr. Barnum. And a cursed soprano, a gold mine, his London agent said, as he pushed a sheaf of papers across the desk to us.

Barnum had telegraphed him after reading of our news, instructing his agent to make an offer. Contracts, he said, as he gestured to what he had put before us. He proposes a tour of America. A hippodrama, his agent said. Do you know them?

I nodded.

The agent then spread his hands in the air, and as if he read from a headline there, said, One of Europe’s most famous singers comes to America, running from a curse that might take her life. Only here, in this show, the last she has agreed to be in, can she be seen for one last time.

He put his hands down. You’ll be rich. We’ll all be rich.

Bill it as a farewell tour. It would run even if you lose your voice, if you like, he said. If that happens, we can hide someone behind you and have her sing. We’ll have you say good-bye until all the good-byes are said. So, a year, maybe two. He drummed his fingers on the desk, a sound like the drumroll of a circus, and then lifted his hands in the air, palms spread.

You are retiring, yes? To marry? This the lucky suitor? And here he glanced at Aristafeo, and I did as well. He looked at me, and I could see he was eager to leave.

Think it over, take one night, the agent said.

§

In the carriage Aristafeo was silent until we drew close to our hotel.

Defy your fate, he said, very quietly.

What do you mean? I asked.

Don’t do this. Don’t become this.

This is what I always was, I said. There is nothing to become.

I thought to compel you once, he said, to blackmail you. When you first refused, I thought I will force her to do this, I will make her free herself. But then I did not, in the end, because I knew you would never forgive it from me.

I only waited. I would not sign the contracts in front of him, but I had already decided to sign.

The curse wins after all, he said. You were right. Did you know this all along? You warned me that if you said yes you would be a circus rider again, and here you are.

Change the ending, I said. Give her back her voice, keep them together.

No, he said. She must lose her voice. It is what she traded for her soul.

I knew he was right, as did he.

And how will I know if I win it back? I asked.

You’ll lose your voice, he said. Perhaps you’ll lose everything. Even me. Everything but that.

He signed the contracts and left me sitting in the carriage, and as soon as the door was closed, I ordered it back the way we came.

§

Barnum’s agent expected me, laughing a little when I disturbed his dinner.

I’d waited too long as it was.

I could feel a palpable relief at his smile. He knew me, much as I knew him — we were of that same peculiar family that finds itself time and again. After so much time trying to learn the ways of this place that I was leaving, it was a relief to find myself feeling at home.