by Lee Smith
Yr Evalina
A “MESS” OF MARYLAND BLUE CRABS
Nov. 21, 1940
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
I have a new job playing piano for Mrs. Hretzsky’s private vocal lessons. Also Barbara and I are in a quartet together in Ensemble Arts, my favorite course so far. I love it. Also Italian, I am getting the hang of it now!
Ciao from yr
Evalina
JOYEUX NOEL
Dec. 15, 1940
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Please don’t worry. Of course I understand that it would be too expensive for me to travel back and forth for every holiday. In fact we have many international students who will be staying here for Christmas, too. I have sent a box, I hope it arrives before you leave for Italy. Please understand that I am forever yr grateful
Evalina
SNOW SCENE, VIRGINIA SKYLINE DRIVE
Dec. 28, 1940
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Actually Christmas was very jolly. Dr. Twomey took us all out to his house, a huge barn filled with children and pets and his beautiful wife (cello) plus a whole roasted pig with an apple in its mouth! Music and singing far into the night. There is a boy here from Sweden, we have gone to the cinema and several concerts during this holiday. He is a tenor.
Happy New Year from yr
Evalina
LUDVIG VAN BEETHOVEN 1770–1827
Jan. 6, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Surely not ALL tenors are homosexual! And I AM working hard, believe me! This term it will be more Italian, piano, ensemble arts, early music, and vocal accompanying, which is very helpful since I have also been hired to play for the Peabody Children’s Chorus at practice sessions, I am very excited about this!
Yr very busy,
Evalina
FREDERIC CHOPIN 1810–1849
Jan. 16, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
I am surprised by your note, though I do see what you mean, and yes, piano remains my focus of course, though I am not brilliant, Mrs. Carroll, not like these others. I know that now. We have prodigies here. I shall work very hard, however, and hope I shall not disappoint you. Be assured that I remain
Yr diligent,
Evalina
THE NORWEGIAN LADY
June 14, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
This Norwegian Lady looks out over the boardwalk of Virginia Beach where I am thoroughly enjoying my summer job playing for Mrs. Ruth Gardiner, a vocal teacher, and for the quaint Seaside Church upon occasion. Barbara’s job with the Starlight Dinner Theater is much more glamorous. Our boarding house is filled with such characters!
Yr Working Girl,
Evalina
THE HISTORIC CAVALIER HOTEL, VIRGINIA BEACH, VA.
Aug. 5, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Guess what? Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald came HERE, too! Along with many others such as Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, and Betty Grable. It makes me think of the Grove Park and Mrs. Fitzgerald and I wonder how she is now, and all. How are YOU? Right now Highland seems very far away from this hot sandy beach. Please write to me,
Yr Evalina
The Maryland Zoo, Baltimore, Md.
Sept.18, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
It is français, français, et plus de français this term! I am taking French language and diction/voice and also opera accompaniment. I love Massenet, do you? especially “Manon.”
Au revoir,
Evalina
“AUTUMN LEAVES”
Oct.2, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Now I have learned the most important skill of the accompanist—learning to breathe with the singer! That means playing on the vowels and breathing with the singer’s every breath, in and out, Mme. LeBlanc calls this the “shared intimacy of breath and being,” isn’t that beautiful?
Yr thrilled,
Evalina
THE TRAINING CHOIR
Nov. 11, 1941
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Here is my darling Children’s Chorus and there is my favorite, little Alex Chadbourne, 4th from the left in the third row. His hair is flaming red and his eyes are robin’s egg blue though you cannot tell that of course from the photograph. He has a hard little life but a heavenly voice, like an angel.
Yr Evalina
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, 1756–1791
April 18, 1942
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
After much soul-searching and many conversations with my teachers here, I have chosen ensemble arts/vocal accompanying and music education as my primary fields, for after all I must earn a living, must I not? And I am proud to do so, and eternally grateful to you and Dr. Carroll for this miraculous (for so it still seems to me) opportunity.
Yr ever grateful,
Evalina
“MORE THAN I CAN SAY”
Aug. 27, 1942
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Thank you and Dr. Carroll very much for the lovely visit back to North Carolina, it meant so much to me to be among my beloved mountains again and to see all of you, though now I wonder if I have done anything to offend you, perhaps? If so I assure you that it was entirely unintentional as I esteem and appreciate you and Dr. Carroll above all others in the world, and so, IF so, forgive me.
Mi dispiace,
Yr Evalina
FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT 1797–1828
Nov. 8, 1942
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
I have hesitated for weeks to pen this note, yet must now inform you that I have not been chosen for a solo piano recital as my senior performance, instead I shall accompany soprano Lillian Field, the star of our class, in a program to be presented Feb. 10th at 7 o’clock in the Great Hall. This is an honor. A proper invitation to follow. I hope so much that you and Dr. C can come!
Yr Evalina
“THANK YOU”
Feb 11, 1943
Dear Mrs. Carroll and Dr. Carroll,
Finally, a proper letter to thank you for the graduated pearls, they are just beautiful. I wore them at the performance with my new black taffeta dress, a gift from Barbara’s family. I was so surprised to look out at the audience and see Mrs. Hodges, Moira, Ruthie, and Miss Tippen along with her nice new husband, all sitting there. Oh, how I wish you could have come too! I still can’t believe that Lillian Field asked me to play for her, she was just brilliant! She chose a really hard Richard Strauss program, which included my absolute favorite song in the world, “Morgen!,” Op. 27, No. 4. Do you know it? The words go something like
In the morning the sun will shine again
As we walk the happy path together
Across the sun-breathing earth.
And all around us will sing
The muted silence of happiness
And I want you to know that I am happy, Mrs. Carroll and Dr. Carroll, and I am proud to say that I played well, all thanks to you.
Soon to be yr graduate,
Evalina
WILD PONIES, ASSATEAGUE ISLAND
October 16, 1943
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
I disagree with you! I love my work here at Peabody, both with the little chorus and with Mrs. Hretsky’s singers, and also the living quarters where I now reside as dormitory counselor, a privilege, I assure you! I am proud to be yr working girl,
Evalina
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
1756–1791
Jan. 21, 1944
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Perhaps you will feel better to learn that at a recent recital I was asked to fill in for Jules Brunhoff who had fallen ill at the last possible moment (!) accompanying Joseph Nero, a visiting Fellow, he is very Italian, all swagger and flash, as if straight from Rome. He received a standing ovation, and I believe I performed creditably.
Evalina
THE EASTERN SHORE
Mar. 6, 1944
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Don’t worry, nothing is wrong. Joseph Nero has selected me as his personal acco
mpanist and assistant—so, along with my other duties, I am yr VERY busy,
Evalina
LYRIC OPERA HOUSE, BALTIMORE, MD.
June 2, 1944
My dear Mrs. Carroll,
Au contraire I have left Peabody in order to establish my own career and accompany my fiancé Joseph Nero who has recently joined the Baltimore Opera at the urging of Rosa Ponselle herself. Perhaps you have heard of her.
Best wishes,
Evalina
CARMEN, GEORGES BIZET
June 18, 1944
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
In answer to yr question, Joseph spent his childhood in Italy, coming to America at age 9 with his family. He was trained in Philadelphia at the Academy of Vocal Arts founded by Helen Corning Warden. His mentor is Edgar Milton Cook, perhaps you have heard of him.
Best Wishes,
Evalina Toussaint
HARBOR LIGHTS, BALTIMORE
Aug. 23, 1944
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
While Joseph and I do appreciate yr kind invitation, we cannot plan a visit to Asheville at present as we shall be relocating to San Francisco immediately. The San Francisco Opera has made Joseph an offer he cannot refuse. So we are heading West! I hope it pleases you to imagine yr old steamer trunk embarking upon such a journey.
Au revoir,
Evalina
FISHERMAN’S WHARF, SAN FRANCISCO
Sept. 30, 1944
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
For your information, we are certainly engaged to be married! Joseph presented me with a beautiful diamond and emerald engagement ring just after his debut performance as Pollione in Bellini’s “Norma,” do you know it? And I continue to work simply because I enjoy it.
Our best wishes,
Evalina
ÉGLISE SAINT-EUSTACHE, C. 1637, PLACE DU JOUR, PARIS
Sept. 10, 1945
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Our new address is 5 rue Coquilliere in Les Halles, the marketplace. It is very colorful, quite near the Cathedral of St. Eustache, with its great organ. Have you heard of it?
Evalina
THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, NEW YORK CITY
June 9, 1946
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
As you see, we are stateside now as Joseph has joined Fortune Gallo’s San Carlo Touring Company with recent roles in “Tosca” and “Pagliacci”—plus his Tristan, of course. I find myself thinking of you; I hope that you and Dr. C are well.
Evalina
HOTEL DES FLEURS, VIEUX CARRE
Aug. 11, 1946
Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Look! Fortune Gallo has deposited us in New Orleans of all places, with performances at the Municipal Theater and an actual address: Hotel des Fleurs (above). How I should love to hear from you.
Evalina
CHAPTER 5
OR TO HEAR FROM anyone, actually, since by that time even I could no longer pretend that Joey loved me—or, that is, that he loved only me, for he had grown so large in his appetites that he was becoming legendary even among his peers. And New Orleans is a feast for the senses, of course. With the temptations of the street added to an ever-increasing intake of alcohol, Joey lost all vestige of scruples and caution. Even his beloved work suffered. Mr. Herbert issued a warning, then a strong rebuke.
Often alone, I found myself thinking back to that fateful night at Peabody when it all began, for Joey, whom I had yet to meet, was sitting in the dark audience when I accompanied Lillian Field in our senior recital. Lillian went on from there to sing with several of the leading orchestras in the United States before being struck and killed by a taxicab outside Severance Hall in Cleveland only two years later, when she was engaged to be married. The knowledge of this tragedy has always underscored my memory of our Strauss duet that evening, for it has a size to it, a sense of true performance, of grandeur even, from the dark wintry night outside to the gleaming chandeliers and mirrors within the hall. Wearing my new black dress and pearls, I scarcely recognized the girl I glimpsed in one of those gilded frames. Barbara had helped me fasten my hair up high on my head in that little knot that is traditional among accompanists. My neck looked somehow disturbing to me, so private, so long and so white as it rose from my low-cut neckline.
“You were like a little swan,” Joey told me later, “gliding across dark water.”
DARK WATER INDEED. Yet we did not meet until the evening when I filled in for Jules Brunhoff and accompanied Joey for that first amazing time. He was still surrounded by admirers when I slipped out unobtrusively, as was my wont, and headed across the cold dark campus with its antique lampposts bearing frosted globes, which shone at intervals along the sidewalk. Halfway to my dormitory I heard “Miss! Miss!” behind me and turned to see Joseph Nero himself rushing out of the darkness like a great black bird, long coat flapping out behind him, carrying a sheaf of music foolishly exposed to the elements. His gait was both impetuous and halting.
“Miss!”
I paused in a pool of light beneath one of the lamps, and waited for him.
It had just begun to snow; a few snowflakes were already glistening on his unruly cap of dark curls. He caught up to me then paused, hand on lamppost, like a figure from a melodrama—a big, hefty young man well over six feel tall, looming out of the elements, out of the very night, breathing hard. He reminded me of a bull, the bull in the Europa myth, perhaps. His breath made white plumes in the air.
“Why did you run away?” he asked—to my great surprise, for why would I have stayed? “I wished to thank you,” he continued, with a funny, almost archaic little bow. “So, thank you!”
This was so awkward as to be charming; I burst out laughing.
He laughed, too. “How can I find you again?” he asked. “For I will need you, I know. Please write it down for me how to find you, though I will lose it, and you will have to write it down many times more. As for me, it is easy, just ask them . . . ask that terrible woman, she will know.” Miss Turnbull was the administrative secretary in the opera division.
I smiled as I scribbled the information down on the little pad I always kept with me. “I am easy to find, too,” I said, “for I live at Peabody itself, in the dormitory, where I am a counselor for the girls.”
“Oh dear God!” He seemed to consider this situation intolerable, snorting out a cloud of frosty air. He jammed my scribbled note deep into his coat pocket, where I assumed it would stay forever. But “I shall need you,” he continued. “Peabody is a way-station for me, a distraction, yet a credential, do you see? In the meantime I must practice, do you understand? Can you do this? Are you available? I will need you.”
The words I could not refuse. “Oh yes,” I said, immediately reconsidering my crowded schedule.
Thus it began, in a circle of light in the chilly, dark Baltimore night, as the snowflakes began to drop silently, now in earnest, all around us. Joey stood completely still, looking at me. His was the perfect face for opera: the great dark liquid eyes, the bristling black brow, the strong cheekbones and sad, mobile mouth. He appeared to embody sadness, loss, and tragedy, an emptiness that could never be filled, a pain that could not be assuaged. Without another word, he turned and lurched off into the falling snow. Later I would learn that his left foot had been crushed by a streetcar in early childhood, an injury which kept him out of the War.
Waking in my narrow bed the next morning, I felt that I had dreamed the entire encounter, conjured him up “out of whole cloth,” as Mrs. Hodges used to say. I was distracted all day long, smiling a goofy smile that I was unable to wipe off my face.
Then, nothing. Ten days passed. Eventually, I plunged back into my work, chiding myself for my silliness.
Until that Sunday evening when the dreadful Miss Turnbull herself came pounding upon my door at 9 p.m., wearing red galoshes. “Can you come along then, Evalina?” she asked abruptly. “He is asking for you.”
“Yes,” I closed my book. “Of course.”
Soon I was indispensable to him, my duti
es rapidly expanding beyond the piano to errands, laundry, shopping, and even housekeeping. I could have walked with my eyes closed to his third-floor flat in an old brownstone rowhouse several blocks from Peabody. For such a rundown edifice, it boasted a surprisingly ornate stoop and entry—beautiful rose marble steps that appeared to change color depending upon the time of day, or the weather—they seemed entirely magical to me, an entry into another world.
I did not bat an eye the first time I encountered a disheveled woman coming down the narrow stairs as I climbed up to Joey’s apartment. She murmured an apology as I stood aside, with lowered gaze, to let her pass. Another time I slipped upon some tiny silk panties as I entered the apartment carrying groceries, and once I found “PIG! PIG!” scrawled in scarlet lipstick across the mirror in his bathroom.
All this seemed quite natural to me, for Joey drew women the way honey draws flies, through no will of his own it seemed, moving through the world like another order of being, one of the gods and goddesses of mythology who were not bound by earthly laws. I also realized that this was ridiculous, such power held by a big, undisciplined immigrant street kid from Philadelphia whose father was an Italian butcher.
Of course my own work suffered—I who had been appreciated and rewarded for my reliability now drew looks askance, raised eyebrows, as I arrived late for certain responsibilities and refused other requests. Such a good girl all my life, I felt my own identity crumbling, yet I did not care.
May arrived, the most beautiful springtime I had ever seen—or perhaps I was only noticing it, in the heightened sense of awareness that had come to me with Joey. One day I traveled down to Richmond for a noontime concert with my beloved choir, leaving in the predawn darkness and returning at dusk with our bus full of children . . . then waiting even longer for several tardy parents to pick up their exhausted little singers. I sat playing XO’s and Hangman with them until their parents finally came.
Though I had been absent from my post in the dormitory all day—and was exhausted, to boot—I felt that I must, must go by Joey’s apartment before returning to my room. I can’t even remember what my pretext was. Soon I was running up the rosy steps. I turned my key in the lock. “Hello?” I called. “Hello?” At first, stumbling through clothes and books strewn across the floor, I thought he wasn’t there.