Джеймс Кейн - Career in C Major and Other Fiction

I watched da conductor. I glued my eyes on him from then on, and didn’t miss any more cues, and by the help of hypnotism, prayer, and the rest of them shoving me around, we got through it somehow. What I never got caught up with was the speed. You see, when you learn those roles, and then coach them with a piano, you always think of them as a series of little separate scenes, and you take a little rest after each one, and smoke, and relax. But it’s not like that at a performance. It goes right through, and it’s cruel the way it sweeps you along.

I remembered the hat and muffler, and when I came off she was back there, smoking a cigarette, ready to go on. “You’re doing all right. Sing to them, not to Mario.”

She rapped at the door, sang a note or two, put her heel on the cigarette, and went on.

We had a little off-stage stuff coming, I and the two basses, and we stood in the wings listening to them out there, doing their stuff. I found out something about an operatic tenor. He doesn’t shoot it in rehearsals, and he doesn’t shoot it in the preliminary stuff either. He saves it for the place where it counts. Parma, who at the rehearsal hadn’t shown enough even to make me look at him, uncorked a voice that was a beauty. He uncorked a voice, and he uncorked a style that even I knew was good. He took his aria, the Che Gelida Manina , slow and easy at first, he just drifted along with it, he made them wait until he was ready to give it to them. But when he did give it to them he had it. That high C near the end was a beauty, and well they knew it. Cecil sang better than I had ever heard her sing. I began to see what they were all talking about, why they paid her the dough.

I went out on the first two calls, like the bulletin said, but when we came in from the second Parma whispered at me: “You hide, you. You hear me, guy? You keep out a way dat Mario!”

I didn’t argue. I got behind some flats out there in the wings and stayed there. Cecil had heard him, and after a few minutes she found me there. “What happened?”

“I missed a cue.”

“Well what’s he talking about? He missed three.”

“I wasn’t watching the conductor.”

“Oh.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s the cardinal sin, the only unforgivable sin, in all grand opera. Always watch him. Sing to them, try not to let them see you watch him. But — never let him out of your sight. He’s the performance, the captain of the ship, the one on whom everything depends. Always watch him.”

“I got it now.”

The next act was better. I was getting used to it now. I got a couple of laughs in the first part, and then when it came time for me to take up the waltz song he threw the stick on me and I gave her the gun. It got a hand, but he played through it to the end of the act. The Musetta and I did the carry-off we had practiced, and it went all right. The regular way is for Marcel to pick her up and run off with her, but she was small and I’m big, so instead of that, I threw her up on my shoulder and she kicked and waved, and the curtain came down to cheers. The third act I was all right, and we had another nice curtain. The four of us, Parma, I, Cecil, and the Musetta were in all the calls, and after we took the last one Parma followed me to the hole where I did my hiding. “O. K., boy, now on a duet.”

“Yeah?”

“Make’m dolce. Mak’m nice, a sweet, no loud at all. No big dramatic. Nice, a sweet, a sad. Yeah?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You do like I say, we knock hell out of’m. You watch.”

So we went out there, and got through the gingerbread, and he threw down his pen and I threw down my paint brush, and we got out the props, and the orchestra played the introduction to the duet. Then he started to sing, and I woke up. I mean, I got it through my head that when that bird said dolce he meant dolce. He sang like that bonnet of Mimi’s was some little bird he had in his hand, so it made a catch come in your throat to listen to him. When he hit the A he lifted his eyes, with the side of his face to the audience, and held it a little, and then melted off it almost with a sigh. When he did that he looked at me and winked. It was that wink that told me what I had to do. I had to put dolce in it. I came in on my beat and tried to do it like he did it. When it came to my little solo, I put tears in it. Maybe they were just imitation tears, but they were tears just the same. When I came to my high F sharp I swelled it a little, then pulled it in and melted off it just like he had melted off the A. When I got through the orchestra had a few bars, and he sat there shaking his head over the bonnet, and out of the side of his mouth he said: “You old son-bitch-bast.”

We went into the finish, and laid it right on the end of Mario’s stick, and slopped out the tears in buckets. Buckets, hell, we turned the fire hose on them. It stopped the show. They didn’t only clap, they cheered, so we had to repeat it. That’s dead against the rules, and Mario tried to go on, but they wouldn’t let him. We got through the act, and Parma flopped on the bed for the last two “ Mimi’s, ” and the curtain came down to a terrific hand. We took our first two bows, the whole gang that were in the act, and when we came back from the second one, Mario was back there. Cecil yelled in my ear, “Take him out, take him out!” So I took him out. I grabbed him by one hand, she by the other, and we led him out on the next bow, and they gave him a big hand, too. That seemed to fix it up about that missed cue.

It was a half hour before I could start to dress. I went to my dressing room, and had just about got my whiskers pulled off when about fifty people shoved in from outside, wanting me to autograph their programs. It was a new one on me, but it’s a regular thing at every performance of grand opera, those people, mostly women, they come back and tell you how beautifully you sang, and would you please sign their program for them. So I obliged, and signed “Logan Bennett.” Then I got washed up and met Cecil and we got a cab and went off to eat. “You hungry, Leonard?”

“As a mule.”

“Let’s go somewhere.”

“All right.”

We went to a night club. It had a dance floor, and tables around that, and booths around the wall. We took a booth. We ordered a steak for two, and then she ordered some red burgundy to go with it, and sherry to start. That was unusual with her. She’s like most singers. She’ll give you a drink, but she doesn’t take much herself. She saw me look at her. “I want something. I... want to celebrate.”

“O. K. with me. Plenty all right.”

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I enjoyed the final curtain.”

“Didn’t you enjoy the applause after the O Mimi duet? It brought down the house.”

“It was all right.”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

“I liked it fine.”

“You mean you really liked it?”

“Yeah, I hate to admit it, but I really liked it. That was the prettiest music I heard all night.”

The sherry came and we raised our glasses, clinked, and had a sip. “Leonard, I love it.”

“You’re better at it than in concert.”

“You’re telling me? I hate concerts. But opera — I just love it, and if you ever hear me saying again that I don’t want to be a singer, you’ll know I’m temporarily insane. I love it, I love everything about it, the smell, the fights, the high notes, the low notes, the applause, the curtain calls — everything.”

“You must feel good tonight.”

“I do. Do you?”

“I feel all right.”

“Is it — the way you thought it would be?”

“I never thought.”

“Not even — just a little bit?”