Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

Speak with your whole face, he said. Not as a lunatic, but as an artist. I think you fear you are giving something away, yes? But not if you can master this. If you master this, you can give and never give away anything.

This I could understand, and soon he praised me as a quick student.

§

I had another concern, one I could not even mention to the tenor: My voice had disappeared before. When the Conservatoire professor had said, You could destroy your voice just in the training , it was like finding myself in Hades and being told I could leave, but the bargain was that there was just one candle to get me out and it might not last the way. And I wouldn’t know until I’d begun.

When I returned to Delsarte next, I told him of what the jurist had said and of how my speaking voice had once disappeared, and I asked how this could be.

This problem you describe, it is very interesting, Delsarte said. Your speaking voice and singing voice are located in two different parts of the throat — this is true of everyone — but it bears examining.

He had various instruments he brought forth to observe my throat as he had me intone various syllables and then sing.

I think the disappearance, it is perhaps a part of the Falcon voice, he said, as he put the instruments away. You must be careful. Your voice, the tones it makes, it sounds so strong, as if it could never go away. But it might, all at once, without warning. Certainly it was true for Marie, he said.

He knew the woman for which the voice was named, of course, and then he told me of how she had lost her voice midperformance as she sang Niedermeyer’s Stradella.

The line she was to sing was “Je suis prête.”

It might be you are the next Falcon, as the Conservatoire seems to think, he said. You could do worse. But it might also be, if you are careful, that you could do better.

§

The letter from the Conservatoire said that despite a brilliant audition there was too much to overcome, and it suggested private training. The tenor had brought it himself, still sealed.

Comprimaria, I heard him say behind me. What news? Please, he said, let me see the letter.

I tried to hold it away, and as he reached for it, I ran for the door.

No, he said. No, no, no, and he caught me and then tried to hold me. I struggled, pushing him, and then screamed.

He couldn’t console me, and yet he was all I had.

No, he said, it is a mistake.

Nothing could happen with him, I understood, as he stroked my back. Whatever his intentions, for me to be a singer, to really be a singer, I needed to be rid of him.

Dark thing, night, shooting stars. How ridiculous. How beautiful and how cruel to know what I was or could be, and yet to be kept from it — and to know it could vanish as I reached for it. Still, it was enough to be everything I wanted, and this was when I knew.

I pushed away from him and ran out to the street, a street where I knew I was not to be, and having spent so much time avoiding arrest, I knew exactly what to do next. I drew my knife as I had at the Bal Mabille and walked slowly toward the police officers I saw who rushed for me.

When I looked back, I saw him at the gate to the apartment, startled. He ran to speak with the police, desperately shouting first at me and then to the police, insisting they release me. They asked if he was my husband, and when he said he owned me, they told him to come to the jail for me and bring my contract and bill of sale.

I would not look at him again after this; there was nothing more to say. I did not know what was next, only that it began here.

§

When my turn came before the magistrate, I was told I was to be taken to Saint-Lazare.

I was put in with a girl they called only La Muette, the mute. They had no way to know her name. But they were certain that, for being mute, she could not be corrupted by the likes of me.

She sniffled occasionally, weeping, leaning into the corner of the cell as if it might give way and let her go. But soon she was quiet, and the two of us were a pool of silence amid the noise as the other prisoners argued and insulted one another, alternately threatening and weeping.

All grew quieter eventually as the night began and sleep came over the jail. I unfurled my sleep roll on the floor and I lay there awake for some time before thinking to at least help my cellmate to her own sleep roll — she shouldn’t, I thought, sleep there in the corner that way. I stood and went over to her to find her cool to the touch.

She was quiet because she was dead.

The magistrate had ordered her to be sent to the convent orphanage, its having been decided that she needed some sort of education in reading, writing, and a trade, as well as some protection from vice and sin. But she didn’t react to most of what was said, and I was left to wonder if she even knew what her fate was.

By now it was becoming light. I could see her soft expression, so like sleep I envied her a little. Soon the tenor would come, he would pay my bail and show my papers, and I would be returned to him.

I had thought to ring for the guards. I looked down the hall to see the one set to watch over us asleep at his post. He’d be angry to be woken, I knew, and would demand to know which of us was who, and it was then I knew it was likely all the same to them which one they buried, and which they sent on to the nuns.

She had been mortally injured but unable to say so, her girl’s body all bruises and infected wounds, which I saw as I undressed her, for I was now determined to take her place. I felt a terrible sadness and also fear, that to even pass myself off as her would make me share this fate or worse. If you were damned before this, I told myself, you’ll be twice damned now. But I wouldn’t be stealing from the dead — she couldn’t use her future, and I could. The only person it would matter to was me.

I remembered the prayer I had said over my own mother’s body and whispered it softly, as if she could listen, and then kissed her hand, pressing my cheek against it.

I know you can’t give a blessing, I said to her quietly. But spare me a curse.

§

The guards came to take us to our breakfasts, such as they were. As I had suspected, the morning shift was new.

You there, wake her up, the first guard said, before the second yelled over him, Wake up, my dear! It is time for breakfast!

They laughed at this, but stopped laughing when she didn’t wake.

They looked at her, arranged in a posture of sleep, her face turned to the wall, her feet set into my cancan shoes, visibly displayed. This had been the most difficult part, her feet having stiffened after death and me still wanting the shoes.

What’s the matter with you? Are you stupid? asked the first guard to me, before the other said, She’s dumb, she can’t understand us. They began miming to me, for me to go over to her.

I did. I pulled at her shoulder, and she fell to the side with that unmistakable slowness of death. I stepped back, my face a perfect expression of terror, fit to make Delsarte proud.

All right then, one less mouth to feed, the second guard said, as he unlocked the door. Our little slut is dead.

§

After breakfast, I was returned to wait in the now-empty cell. I stared at the cell door for some time, waiting for them to angrily return and accuse me of what I had done. But the guards returned to escort me to the sisters, and I was handed a small satchel I understood to be the girl’s effects.

I had not expected this somehow. Light as it was, it was heavy in my hands. Not quite a warning.

Her name was unknown to me, and so as I stood before the magistrate again, he asked me if I understood that he was releasing me to the care of the orphanage. I only stared as I had seen her do.