Someone coughed. We shifted apart. I checked that my dress still covered me. Another minute and it might not have. The outer door had opened. The other patrons filed in, carefully not looking directly at us. JC turned his head away, probably not wanting to be easily recognized. This version of Don Carlo called for him to be clean-shaven, so he hadn’t grown one of those telltale operatic beards Sean sometimes wore. Still, JC was a public figure. There could be gossip.
When everyone was seated, JC closed the door to the box and we were alone in the cloakroom. He made no attempt to recapture our passion of a few seconds ago, although I still simmered with it.
“The private handicapped restroom is just up the hall,” I said, with hope in my heart.
He smiled a little. “This it not the time or the place.”
“It almost was.”
“Don’t remind me. I can’t behave like this here.” He shook his head to clear it from the fumes of passion. “Kathleen, don’t come to any more operas. Stay away.”
Oh, that hurt. I made to object, but he put his fingers over my lips.
“No, don’t argue. You say you love me. Then do this for me. Keep away from here. Especially tomorrow night.”
My eyes filled with tears. I nodded. For JC, I would fight the compulsion. Even though it meant I could not see him when I ached to.
He left without making any promises that he would see me again.
Later, in the cold air as I slowly walked home across the south edge of Central Park and to the east side of town, I remembered that JC never said he loved me. Nor even that he cared about me. He’d taken what was on offer and then he had used my declared love to extort my compliance.
Suddenly, I felt anything but cooperative. I wanted to storm the opera house the next evening. Common sense told me it was a really bad idea. Ralph had said I was forbidden. JC had told me to stay away. What more did I need? A ride out of town on a rail?
Chapter 9
If I’d had any thought of getting around Ralph’s edict, his stern reminder the next morning put it from my head.
“My agreement with the general manager was that you would keep away from the opera house on any night that Don Carlo is being performed. Since tonight’s the night, I’m letting you off work early. You’ll have plenty of time to clear out and find something fun to do this evening.”
I had been silent all this while, letting Ralph’s lecture wash over me.
Silence wasn’t taken for consent. “I’m depending on you, Kathleen,” he said. “Do I have your promise that you won’t try to see the performance?”
“Yes.” Thinking that sounded mulish, I added, “I appreciate that you went out on a limb for me.”
He smiled. “You’re a good girl. Let’s not talk about it anymore today.”
We didn’t. We got on with our work. At three-thirty that afternoon, true to his word, Ralph told me to leave, to ensure that I would not run into any handsome Spanish tenors. The chorus and singers usually arrived much later, only ninety minutes before the performance began. Unless, like Sean, they received extra one-on-one coaching, which the Nat offered its singers. After years of paying for coaching, Sean lapped up the perk of accepting it free from an expert source.
JC was beyond Sean’s career level. He handled his own ongoing coaching privately. When Ralph dismissed me early, he knew my path would not cross with JC’s as I left for the day. Oh, how I wanted it to happen. I dragged myself home, feeling unsettled and all-over miserable. I yearned to see JC. He wasn’t angry with me anymore, but he didn’t want me around. Maybe he viewed me as a distraction. I knew he needed to concentrate to sing his best. Or maybe he thought I would appear on the stage again. I feared I might, too. I hadn’t done any harm before. Why should it be so important to keep me away? Was every note he sang so significant that my appearance on the stage was a huge danger to his career?
At home in Sean’s apartment, I was restless. I didn’t know how to fill the long hours until he returned from tonight’s performance. My thoughts kept going around and around. Would something ghostly happen at the opera house tonight? Could it happen even if I was not present?
I went over the notes I had taken from my latest research. I’d found a website that laid out the steps by which ghostly or other possession occurs. If I’d merely been looking at the site for entertainment, I would have been amused by it. It listed the steps with apparent logic and complete seriousness, as if ghostly possession were an everyday occurrence.
First the ghost weakened the person. Then the ghost rushed in through a breach or vulnerability. And finally, the ghost took control of the person. Supposedly, the ghost used “black energy” to do this. Another site explained that black energy might simply be a state of ignorance of Christ. That essay tried to legitimize ghosts into the Christian religion. It sounded ridiculous.
Still another site had an article entitled, “Ghostly Possession or Mental Illness?” but there was nothing when I clicked through. The title told the story, though. Either there was a ghost, or I was crazy.
None of it helped. I should try to distract myself from thinking about operas and ghosts. What was I going to do with my M.A. in Renaissance history? Where should I apply for a position? Should I attempt to work in a museum with a profusion of Renaissance paintings? Wouldn’t I need another degree, an M.F.A., for that? I’d already completed some art history coursework, but I’d probably have to do more. Back to the university again. One website I visited claimed that my research and analysis training would open possibilities in fields as varied as business, medicine, and communications. Right. I could become a history blogger. That was so a decade ago. Or perhaps my knowledge of the political struggles in the sovereign states of what we now called Italy, often directly involving the Pope, could be useful in a political or religious think tank. My understanding of the incursion of Islam from the east that frightened the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V might even win me a seat as some sort of government cross-cultural exchange expert. Of course there were the fascinating royal Tudors in England and all the religious and social upheavals there and in the German states and Flanders. I had plenty of possibilities to choose from. Previously, it had not occurred to me that Spain would be interesting. The Inquisition was a big turnoff.
According to the web, the Black Legend, the smearing of Spain’s reputation, was very successful in the U.S. We only had to look to our southern border to know that the social and political system that the Conquistadors brought to the rest of the western hemisphere bred massive poverty, social injustice, political unrest, and ferocious cruelty. Demonizing all elements of Spanish culture flowed from the crimes of the Conquistadors and of the Inquisition priests who accompanied them.
How ironic then that I was in love with a Spaniard. Or was he, at heart? He’d been educated in the UK and in the U.S. He spoke with a slight British accent, not a noticeable Spanish one. Opera singers seemed to be citizens of the world. They all sang in several languages and spoke in them, too. Even Sean. Sean now had favorite foods, clothes, and personal items whose origins were from various countries. He no longer was strictly an American. JC was probably the same. The edges of xenophobia got knocked off when you spent most of your time traveling from one country to another.
Sean had gone to Europe to build a reputation good enough to be invited to sing at the Nat. He sang in opera houses on as many continents as possible. Opening at La Scala was as important as singing at the Nat. For a Wagnerian singer, Bayreuth, Munich, or Salzburg were important, even if some of the modern opera palaces built in Spain and Italy now rivaled every other venue.
I’d learned all this in four months of working at the Nat. What I still had not discovered was any rational reason for the odd reaction I kept having whenever I attended a live performance of Don Carlo. I had tested to see if it happened when I watched a DVD. Nothing. It wasn’t simply the story. It was the live event.
JC never suggested this had happened before when he had played Don Carlo. I kne
w he had sung the role at Covent Garden a few years ago. No one else in the audience at the Nat interfered with Don Carlo. Only I was affected by the combination of a ghostly presence and the experience of the live opera. My actions completely defied the laws of science.
I had no way of comparing whether I would react this way to another cast in the same opera house, or the same cast in a different opera house. Or another cast in a different opera house, to list all the mathematical probabilities. Maybe I had a future in science after all. No one else was doing this opera anywhere in the U.S. until July.
I’d managed to distract myself for an hour with these ruminations, but Don Carlo ran far longer. I needed something else. I’d take a walk. New York was a great town for walking. I could walk down to Broadway and see a show. They would be starting around now. Don Carlo started early because it was so long.
I got a half-price ticket at the tickets booth in Times Square and went to a show. I sat through an inane story and singing that was amplified by microphones. The people sitting behind me loudly sang along with everything. The first act ended. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I left.
There was still time. JC needed me. There was still time. Don Carlo was calling me. I must hurry.
What else was I thinking as I quickly hailed a cab and headed for Lincoln Center? Was I thinking at all? I could not miss this performance. I knew I must be there. At the moment, I did not know how, though. Despite my promise to JC, and my understanding with Ralph, I knew I should be there. I must get inside. There was no time to waste.
One part of my brain was detached from the compulsion that fueled my behavior. One small part of me knew I was doing the wrong thing, but it was swamped by the compulsion. I arrived at Lincoln Center at least an hour or two into the opera. Tourists and lovers were grouped near the fountain, but the doors were closed in all three main buildings devoted to opera, ballet, and classical music.
The act ended, and people began to stream out of the Nat Opera building to take cigarette breaks. A few people seemed to be leaving, also. I approached one middle-aged couple.
“If you’re leaving, would you be willing to give me your ticket to Don Carlo?” I asked.
They brushed by me without answering. Humiliating to be a beggar, but I kept trying. There were only a few more people leaving. Finally, an old man saw me asking, and said, “Here, young lady. Take my ticket. I don’t like staying up so late anymore.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s very kind.”
“So you love Don Carlo, eh?”
“You could say that.” I thanked him again. I walked into the opera house and took off my coat. Once I had examined my ticket, I was thrilled. It was an orchestra seat, but on the side, and well back. There was almost no chance that JC would see me in the audience.
I had reckoned without JC’s determination to be safe from me tonight. Although I sauntered through the hall as if I had every right to be there, I noticed an usher staring at me. Then another one. Before I was able to make my way through the crowd and enter the orchestra section, an usher was at my side. She looked briefly at a small photograph she held in her hand, then nodded.
“Ms. Grant?” The elderly lady in the red usher’s blazer was polite, but very firm. “Please come this way.”
I turned to see if I could escape her. Another three ushers had closed in on me. They closed ranks around me and led me out through a side exit to a small office.
There, a high-end security guard in a sharp suit, not a uniform, was waiting. I’d met him before, when I wasn’t allowed backstage on Sean’s big night. The man frowned at me, having consulted a photo. It was of me. JC’s doing, or management’s?
“Ms. Grant, you are not supposed to be at this performance. Señor Vasquez warned us that you would try, anyway. You’re very lucky he did.”
My chest constricted with the pressure to scream, but all I said was, “I need to be here.”
“Management authorized us to have you arrested for trespassing if you showed up here tonight.”
“Arrested? But I work at the Nat. I need to be here.” My voice rose despite myself.
“Señor Vasquez interceded, requesting that we merely show you out instead,” the security man said.
I needed to be in the opera house. I needed to stay. I needed to get to Carlo.
“What’s it going to be, Ms. Grant?” his question interrupted my frantic thoughts. “Will you leave peacefully, or must we call the police?” He appeared indifferent to which fate I chose. His face expressed no emotion.
“Isn’t there any way you can let me stay? I must be here. I need to be here,” I pleaded.
The security man’s expression grew even stonier, if that was possible.
“No. Your only choice is how you leave.”
Even though every pore in my body strained to stay, I knew I was beaten for tonight. “I’ll leave,” I said, in as dignified a manner as I could. “Please don’t tell JC about this—at least, not until after the performance is over. I don’t want to upset him in any way.”
“Too bad you didn’t consider his comfort before you trespassed,” he replied.
“You don’t understand. I—oh, what’s the use?” My emotions threatened to overcome me, but some vestige of sanity remained. I nodded my compliance.
I let them discreetly escort me out. The ushers who had taken me to the security office remained at the outer edges of the building, by the doors, so I could not reenter. I could have hiked to the subway stairs, run through the station, and attempted to gain entrance to the opera house through the basement level. But they’d probably posted ushers at the doors there on the alert for me, too. I didn’t want to get arrested.
I left the building, but I didn’t go far. I couldn’t. My body kept trying to force me back inside. My thoughts fought each other. I must go back. No, leave. I told myself I should abandon Lincoln Center entirely. What if the security boss decided to have me arrested, anyway? But I could not make myself leave.
I sat on the rim of the big circular central fountain for the next hour. The water splashed at this time of year despite the cold weather. I was getting cold, despite my thick coat. The wind cut through the plaza mercilessly. I ignored my physical discomfort.
My mental state could best be described as hyper. Something inside me yearned and screamed to be set free, to fly inside and interfere with the opera. I held it at bay by the skin of my teeth. But I was not able to tear myself away and go home. My anxiety kept growing. The ghost possessing and directing me was in a state of extreme unrest. Something was wrong with the opera. Don Carlo was in danger. I must act to save him. I felt completely crazed, and yet I could hardly move my hand.
Then it was over. The final curtain came down. I could literally feel a relaxation within me when it must have happened. The confirmation came a minute later, when the first few people raced out. There always were people who wanted to leave in a hurry.
The opera had ended. I had internal and external confirmation. I could go home. The ghostly possession left me. My tense body began to relax, and my thoughts, so cloudy before, began to clear.
How humiliating. What an awful night. My mind had definitely been screwed with by some abnormal power. I’d acted out of sheer compulsion. I was ashamed of myself for breaking my word to JC and to Ralph. How could I face Ralph the next day? Both of them would be justifiably angry with me. If JC even spoke to me again. Of course the security man would not keep my attempt to sneak in a secret from him. JC would distrust me all over again.
Somehow, I got home. I was frozen and exhausted from sitting outside in the cold for so long. What an idiotic thing to do. The latest in a series of inexplicably foolish actions. It was hard to have self-respect when I was not in control of myself. I couldn’t control my love for JC, even if half the time it seemed more like a stupid, unrequited crush. I couldn’t control any of the weird psychic or ghostly happenings. I couldn’t even keep myself out of trouble.
Eventually, I retreated to m
y bed, only to toss and turn, going over and over my incredible behavior this evening. Finally, my tiredness took over.
I dreamed that I was Eboli. I was madly in love with Don Carlo, but with a frustrated emotion because he had revealed in the garden that he loved the queen. Furious, I had shown the king the portrait of Carlo from their aborted engagement that the queen kept in her jewel box. When the inevitable scene between the king and queen led to his remorse, I began to see the folly of my behavior. I repented. I cursed my beauty, which had led me into error. Even though at first it had all been about my ego, now that I realized Carlo was in danger, I was determined to help him.
All this information was imparted to me quickly, and then I saw myself leading Carlo out of his prison cell while the king and the Grand Inquisitor dealt with a sudden insurrection. Carlo intended to leave for Flanders, where he would take up the cause of the suffering rebels. He insisted that he must speak to the queen one last time. I escorted him as far as the chapel doors, and he slipped inside. I saw Philip and his soldiers heading in this direction. There would be a confrontation on sanctified ground. I prayed it would end well, but feared for Carlo.
I was woken from my dream at that critical point by Sean arriving home. I looked at the clock. Three a.m. I called out to him.
“Sean? Why were you out so late?”
“JC and I walked off our excess energy. He has the right idea. It’s much better to walk after a show than to rest—or worse still, eat.”
I threw a blanket over my shoulders and dragged myself out of the tiny cubby the landlord claimed was a second bedroom. I had moved back into it once Sean returned from Europe.
Sean looked happy. “I don’t need to ask how it went.”
“I got even more applause tonight.”
“Wonderful.”
Sean went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He called over the water. “You should come see the final performance. We’re getting better every night.”
Haunted Tenor Page 12