Herma pretended to look over her shoulder at the music, which she knew perfectly from hearing Madame Melba sing it at the Electric Theater. She slipped easily through the song.
“Voi che sapete
che cosa è amor,
donne, vedete,
s’io ho nel cor.”
“Why, that’s splendid, dear. It’s as though you already knew it. You’ll make a perfect Cherubino. If you were a boy, you’d be a counter-tenor. But since you’re a girl you’re either a soprano or a mezzo-soprano. You can do either, dear. Your versatility is prodigious. I’ve never contended that you have a great voice, Herma dear. It’s a good voice, but the tessitura is prodigal. In this case,” she said, “it’s a mezzo part, so you’ll have to sing mezzo. But that will be easy for you.”
“Will I be dressed as a boy?”
“Of course. With a wig and tight breeches, and shoes with buckles. Pretending to be a boy is easy.” And here she got distracted again and went off on one of her detours. “Men,” she said, “make such a fuss about being a man. According to their view, nobody can do anything but them. But all they do is go around the world with all that hair on their faces, sticking their—noses into everything. The silly creatures.”
“Have you tried it?”
“What, dear?”
“Being a man.”
“No, but anyone can tell it’s easy by watching them do it.”
Herma had got to the point where she wasn’t sure what they were talking about anymore, and neither, evidently, was Mrs. Opdike. She brushed it all off and flapped the score back to another place. “But you’ll have to work like a trooper. You haven’t got the part yet. There will be many fine voices at the audition. But you have perfect pitch.
“And as I’ve always told your Mama,” she said, “Herma can do any thing that she wants. And she will.”
She tried her next on the little aria in Act One. “I no longer know what I am, what I do, now I’m all fire, now all ice.” Herma read it blithely off the score, staying very slightly flat on the high notes to indicate the melancholy, but suffusing the melody nevertheless with the pure and sweet fervor of love. As she sang it seemed to her that she stood with Earl on the wharf with the sea washing underneath.
“Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio;
or di foco, ora sono di ghiaccio;
ogni donna cangiar di colore,
ogni donna mi fa palpitar.
Solo ai nomi d’amor, di diletto
mi si turba, mi s’altera il petto,
e a parlare mi sforza d’amore
un desìo ch’io non posso spiegar!”
Mrs. Opdike blossomed. “That’s very nice. One might almost think you were a man who wanted to—love somebody. You are a prodigy, dear, and I’ve always said so. Someday you are going to be a famous opera star. But first you must work like a trooper on the part of Cherubino. Do you know why, dear?”
Herma thought she did, but she said, “No.”
“Because, if you win the part in The Marriage of Figaro, it may be your one big chance. And even a person with talent, dear, may have only one Big Chance, so you must be sure to be prepared for it when it comes, and make it into a triumph. Even though,” she went on, “it may mean that you will leave Santa Ana and go on to bigger things. For,” she admitted, “we are getting to the point where there is very little more that I can teach you. Although to tell the truth, Herma dear, I have grown very fond of you through the years, and I would be very sorry to see you go away. For you are the best pupil I have ever had in my entire life.” Here, carried away by her emotions in a way that Herma would never in the world have expected, she wiped her eye with the back of her hand. Then, regaining control of herself, she reiterated, “You must work like a trooper. The thing is, at two different places in the opera Cherubino puts on girl’s clothing. So then you will be a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl. Do you think that will be too hard for you, dear?”
“No,” said Herma.
20.
Mrs. Opdike was a dear creature, who knew a good deal about music but rather less about life. And she knew nothing at all about Herma, and Herma’s secret. And yet, the odd thought occurred to Herma that she herself hardly knew more about men than Mrs. Opdike did. They were indeed rather vain, gross, and silly creatures. There was nothing much about them to understand. And yet—did she know Fred? No, because she had never seen him and never been with him. He was only a wraith, a fleeting and elusive memory—a being who was present only when she wasn’t, and never present when she was. One does not know one’s self, even the odder parts of one’s self, in the way one knows others—someone that one loves, for instance. If only, she imagined, she could step through the mirror, like Alice through the looking glass, and touch and clasp the person on the other side—then perhaps something might be different. Of course there was Earl. Here her blood gave a little warm jump inside her, and she smiled. But it wasn’t the same—she didn’t exactly love Earl, at least not in that way—even though she was very fond of him. Suppose, she thought—her reverie falling into a conventional and romantic vein—suppose it were really possible to love only one other person in a lifetime. And if that person were on the other side of the mirror—he was forever denied to her. The thought left her with a kind of empty longing, really a silly feeling, since what was the point of it? Unless—she smiled again. The idea occurred to her that Fred could have his photograph taken and give it to her, so that she could carry it in her purse. She could show it to people and tell them it was her sweetheart—here she laughed out loud, crumpled the note she had been about to write to Fred, and threw it at the mirror.
21.
Fred arrived, as he had planned, just at nightfall. Turning off the road, he pedaled his way carefully along the rickety boardwalk through the dunes to Cantamar. He locked the bicycle and stood it against the building, and inspected the place again from the outside for a moment or two. Then he went in.
The long dance hall inside was only dimly illuminated, so that the great spaces of the ceiling overhead remained in shadow. At one end a band of three or four musicians was playing dance music in a thumping tempo. No one was dancing. At the other end, on the raised platform, a dozen or so people were sitting at the tables. It was still early in the evening. The barman leaned on the damp mahogany surface in front of him, bored. Buena Suerte was sitting at one of the tables with three or four other people.
Fred went up to the table. Buena Suerte looked up, regarding him with composure. He was still a young man, perhaps only thirty, dressed with a kind of cheap dandyism in tight-fitting black pants, a black shirt, and a broad leather belt. He was clean-shaven except for the sideburns that came down in a narrow line almost to the corners of his chin. He didn’t seem surprised that Fred recognized him. Everybody who came to Cantamar knew who Buena Suerte was.
“May I talk to you for a moment?”
Buena Suerte lifted his shoulders in a noncommittal gesture.
“Alone.”
“These are all my friends.”
Somebody brought up a chair, and a place was made for Fred at the table.
“A beer?”
“All right.”
Buena Suerte summoned the waiter with a motion of his head.
“Dos Brujos.”
The two bottles with glasses upside down on them came in an instant. Fred took his glass and poured it half full of beer. Buena Suerte left his where it was. The waiter stood with his napkin over his arm.
“Algo màs?”
Buena Suerte moved his head sideways a fraction of an inch, and the waiter disappeared. He seemed to be able to run the whole place with little motions of his head without removing his hands from the table.
Fred reached into his vest for a pair of Nickel Guanos and offered one across the table.
Buena Suerte smiled politely. “Please have one of mine.”
It was an excellent Havana, a Fine Hortelano. They lit them and went on studying each other acro
ss the table for a while. Then Buena Suerte smiled again in his reserved way and introduced the others. The lean and wiry individual with catlike eyes on his right was Ocho Veces. On his left was Paco, a boy not more than fourteen who imitated Buena Suerte as well as he could in his clothes and manners. The last to be introduced was Evelyn, who was sitting next to Fred. She was evidently a little older than Buena Suerte, with a narrow face and a thin elongated body. She wore a short black dress with lace at the hem, and narrow strips over the shoulders like a piece of black underwear. On the neck at one side was a soiled embroidery rose.
“Are you Spanish?” she asked Fred.
She knew he was not. Even though he spoke Spanish, and fairly grammatically, he spoke it with a strong English accent.
“No.”
“You have the body of a Spanish. You’re slenderer than most Gringos. I’m slender too.”
Buena Suerte caught her glance and gave her a single stare. She lapsed into silence, with nothing showing on her face. Presently Ocho Veces got up without saying a word; she rose too and they went off together toward the dance floor.
This left only Fred, Buena Suerte, and the boy Paco at the table. Buena Suerte allowed another silent minute or so to elapse. Then he said, “Y pues. You want to talk to me?”
“Do you know where a person could get fifty dollars?”
“Get fifty dollars?”
“Yes. I mean earn it.”
He studied Fred for a moment with his lazy dark eyes. Then he said, “That is very difficult. It is a lot of money. Do I have fifty dollars?” He smiled. “What do you think?”
“I think you have it.”
Buena Suerte only smiled again and said, “Es muy difícil.” The conversation on this subject seemed to come to an end. They turned to look at the dance floor, where Ocho Veces and Evelyn were swaying around to the rhythm of a syrupy Malagueña. Ocho Veces was an excellent dancer. He carried Evelyn around with him like a doll. His left arm, holding her wrist, was stuck out with the elbow bent; his right arm clung along her back. With each step he thrust his leg in between her legs, skillfully, and left it there for a second. It was clear that for him relations between the sexes dominated his life but he personally did not consider them important. They were gestures to be learned, in order to be competent at your trade. Evelyn followed him woodenly.
“Perhaps there might be something,” said Buena Suerte.
Ocho Veces and Evelyn came back to the table. Evelyn sat down next to Fred and put her hand on his. He pulled his hand away. Immediately, however, he became aware that her knee was touching his under the table.
“What kind of work can you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“There isn’t much work to do around here.” Buena Suerte glanced around at the almost empty dance hall. “Certainly not fifty dollars worth.”
Under the table Evelyn slid her hand onto Fred’s thigh.
“No hay mucho trabajo,” repeated Buena Suerte. “Business is bad.”
He seemed to consider, drawing at his Fine Hortelano. He hadn’t touched his beer.
“Still, I can imagine ways in which a man might obtain that sum of money. There’s your sister, for example.”
“My sister? I haven’t got a sister.”
Evelyn’s hand had now reached a point where it could verify for itself the effect it had made. Fred pushed it away. Evelyn sat back and resumed her former impassive expression.
“Everybody knows about your sister,” said Buena Suerte. “She sings.” He drew at his cigar and set it down on the table. “If she were to come here …” He glanced at Fred to observe his reaction. “Perhaps that might be worth fifty dollars. Even though it’s a lot of money.”
Fred stared back at him. “Come here!”
“You know. Just to be friendly. Just to sing a song and entertain the people who come here.”
“Just to sing a song?”
Buena Suerte met his glance evenly. “Yes, of course. What else?”
“You shouldn’t drink beer,” Evelyn told Fred. “Beer isn’t good for love. It only makes you go to the latrina.”
She glanced at Buena Suerte. He made one of his almost imperceptible nods.
She went on, “Do you like a sweet wine? Muscatel?”
Under the table she had put her hand back on his thigh again. Fred pushed it away.
“In my room,” she said, “I have muscatel, which is better to drink than beer. Also I have better music. Soft music, better to dance to.”
She got up, and Fred stood up too.
“So,” said Buena Suerte. “It’s settled then?”
Fred met his glance for a moment. Then, without replying, he turned away and went off with Evelyn. She led him through the curtained door with a small brass plate over it: “Hotel Dolores y Sueño.” He followed the black dress up a flight of stairs. The dress was short, and the hollows of her knees were visible in the slightly wrinkled black stockings. For the first time he noticed that she was wearing soiled pink bedroom slippers instead of shoes.
They reached the top of the stairs. In some way, although the hotel on the outside was rectangular, the corridor inside was curved. This, along with the sound of water washing underneath, contributed to the expression that the whole place gave somehow of a ship. Everything was painted a soiled white, and the fittings on the doors were brass.
Evelyn went on slowly ahead of him. The doors along the corridor were all identical, and each one had a small metal card-holder on it. Most of these were empty, but some had scraps of paper stuck in them with various markings: a crude drawing, a pair of initials, an awkward monogram. On one card there was simply a penciled circle with three lines extending from it: . Evelyn’s door was the last on the corridor. On her scrap of paper was a square of E’s facing all ways, with a crudely drawn torch in the center.
She translated for him: “Evelyn is hot four ways.” Then she opened the door and went in.
A sick-looking light bulb hung from the ceiling on a wire. The room was full of all kinds of junk. There was an old-fashioned high bed, which lacked a headboard and had a large lace mantilla tacked up on the wall behind it. The other three walls were lined with dressers, chests, and shelves. All the horizontal surfaces of the room were covered with an indescribable clutter of objects: dolls in costume, yellowed letters, pencils with the points broken off, a man’s bow tie with an elastic ribbon, bottles with an inch or two of liqueur in the bottom, a small revolver with the cartridge chamber missing, a cosmetic box filled with faded ribbons, a partly used package of a well-known brand of condoms, a glass bowl containing a nutpick and some empty shells, a bag of caramels, an unstrung mandolin, various salves in tubes from which the caps were missing, a pink bird-of-paradise feather, and a styptic pencil. There were also countless photographs in cheap silver frames, mostly of actresses, politicians, and young men in slightly old-fashioned clothes. He recognized a photo of Ocho Veces and another of Paco, this second when he was perhaps seven years old.
He shut the door behind him. Evelyn was standing with her face fixed in a childish imitation of a knowing smile. Her black dress with the straps over the shoulders, he now saw, was not very clean; the hem was gray with dust. The embroidered rose was stitched in place with thread of a different color, and in the light from overhead the thread threw a tiny but clearly visible shadow onto the clay-brown of her chest.
She went to the dressing table and poured a half glass of amber wine into a tumbler. She handed it to him, saying, “A sweet wine. Muscatel. You shouldn’t drink beer. If you drink beer, you start making love but right away you have to go to the latrina.”
Behind the dressing table, he saw, was a mirror even worse than the one in Fred’s own room. It was like gazing into a gray ocean, with ripples of breeze passing over it now and then. He said, “Thank you.” He took the wine and set it back down on the dressing table.
Evelyn began disrobing; not rapidly, instead with a leisure that was evidently intended for a tantalizi
ng seductiveness. Her dress came off with a series of little rotary jerks which were prolonged for some time. Then it was the turn of the stockings and some black underwear. She lay down on the bed.
Her body was extraordinarily lacking in curves. The shoulders, waist, and hips were all exactly the same width. One could have laid a board along her side and touched it at every point. The tuft of hair between her legs, black and glistening, ended in a point like a goatee.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Just no.”
She looked disappointed. She sat up and looked at him. Then she lay down again.
“For nothing then.”
“Thank you. But it’s still no.”
She sat up again, thought for a moment, and then went to the bureau. She opened the drawer and took out a wrinkled bill. “I’ll pay you.”
Fred looked at the dollar bill in her hand. “No, I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal. I just don’t feel like it.”
She gave him one more look, regretful and at the same time professionally appraising. Then she began putting her clothes on again. As he turned to leave she said, “Take the dollar anyhow.” She tucked it into his back pocket, and he went out, shutting the door behind him.
22.
When he came back to the place a few nights later Fred had to take the Yellow Dog, since he had a suitcase with him that was too large to carry on a bicycle. He met nobody as he made his way across the dunes in the darkness. Arriving at the big stranded ark of a building, he opened the door cautiously and went in.
He stood for a moment in the shadows at the end of the dance hall. It was Saturday night and the place was crowded. The tables on the platform were all occupied. At the other end of the room the band was playing a tinny waltz. Nobody noticed Fred standing in the doorway. Carrying the suitcase, he pushed aside the velvet curtain that led to the hotel.
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