by JH Fletcher
I shall succeed. I shall succeed.
A dozen times each day she told herself the same thing. Two weeks before the performance, Professor Menotti, who had thawed considerably towards her in recent months, called her into his private office where, after discussing with her the brilliant career that he said he could discern ahead of her, he put his hand down the front of her dress.
Lucia had watched — and imagined — her mother with Eduardo. She had wondered with a nervous quiver of her stomach that was part fear, part lust, how it would feel to have a man do such a thing to her. She had imagined the circumstances in which it might happen, had even taken note of the two or three male students with whom she might have been willing, had the right approaches been made. She had visualised nothing like this. The hard thrust of the fingers awakened alarm rather than lust; it was a violation of herself by an action at once unexpected and undesired. She stepped backwards to escape him. He laughed. He caught her by the arm, drawing her to him again, smiling through wet lips as though it were no more than a game.
She protested, her voice outraged yet little louder than a whisper, as though it were she who should somehow be ashamed.
‘No!’
He took no notice. His strength was beyond anything she had imagined or could control. He had one arm about her. With his free hand he squeezed her breast through her dress. His face was so close to hers that she could see the open pores about his nose, the bubbles of spit on his lips.
‘No!’
Still not a scream, but this time she spoke more loudly. With her clenched fist she punched him as hard as she could in the chest. He let her go, still smiling.
‘No harm …’
Lucia found her full voice. ‘No harm? How dare you!’
His expression changed. No longer tolerant of her maidenly protestations, his eyes grew mean, but Lucia gave him no respite.
‘You are a professor of music! I’m a student! You’ve got responsibilities: to me and to yourself! To your position! How dare you do such a thing!’
Fury flushed Menotti’s sallow features.
‘You admit you’re a student yet still you presume to lecture me? I’ve never heard such impertinence!’
Perhaps Lucia should have kept a prudent silence but she was beyond prudence. ‘You want a woman, why don’t you go out and buy one if you can’t get one of your own?’
Black rage boiling, Menotti threw out his arm to point at the door.
‘Get out! You hear me? Get out! To speak to me in such a way! I warn you, you’ve not heard the last of this!’
Lucia fled in a confusion of tears.
A ladies man. The students had giggled about it. She had, too, but had imagined nothing like this.
That evening, shortly before it was time to go home, Professor Menotti summoned her to his room and formally expelled her from the conservatorium.
It was the worst thing that could have happened to her. Her instinct was to weep, to plead, yet she would not do it. She stared at him, stony-eyed. The ceremony of dismissal took less than a minute. When he had finished she turned and walked with squared shoulders out of his room.
She did not go to see Marta Bianci. She spoke to no-one. She cleared out her locker. She walked out of the building and through the Parma streets. She caught the tram. She huddled in one corner of the compartment, her body aching as though she’d been beaten. The tram rumbled on its steel rails, the sound seeming to echo the catastrophe that had befallen her. She got out at Montegallo without even realising she’d arrived. Her music case in her hand, she walked home between the melon fields, the vines’ taut wires. All around, the flat countryside watched her silently.
The house was empty. She went indoors. She made herself a cup of coffee. She sat and looked out of the window at the ashes of her life.
It was dark before her mother came home. She must have met Eduardo in Montegallo; Lucia saw the lights of his car from a long way off. It came swaying down the rutted track and she heard the sound of its motor. She had not switched on the lights and the headlights cast shadows about the dark room. The car stopped and she heard her mother’s voice, laughter. Still she did not move; even her eyes were motionless.
She heard the front door close. Her mother came in and switched on the light.
‘Lucia! What are you doing, sitting in the dark?’
The tension, the unbelieving stillness, broke. She turned blindly to the mother from whom in the last twelve months she had felt increasingly estranged. She extended groping hands towards her while the tears, so long held back, ran scalding down her cheeks.
Helena’s expression, and her voice, changed.
‘My God, baby, what has happened to you?’
4
They made the journey to Parma together. Helena’s anger made everything about her sparkle. For too long she had forgotten what it was to be a mother, protective of her child who had been so wronged. They arrived in the city and walked to the conservatorium, Helena striding like a cavalryman readying himself for the charge. Her hand clutching Lucia’s arm, she thrust herself across the roads as though daring the traffic to harm them. She marched up the steps and into the entrance. She walked to the reception desk in a clack of heels and demanded to see Marta Bianci.
‘Without delay. You hear me?’
The woman behind the desk, elderly, lips prim in a tight face, saw the conservatorium as a temple of the arts, with herself as its priestess and custodian. Not by a flicker did she acknowledge Lucia, who rumour said had been dismissed.
‘Signora Bianci is teaching.’
Helena was not interested in what Signora Bianci might be doing.
‘Tell her Signora Visconti is in reception and wishes to speak to her.’
‘I have already told you —’
‘Or I shall go and find her myself.’
Priestess or not, the receptionist was unable to handle Helena in her present mood.
‘I shall enquire …’ She picked up the phone and conspired into it, softly and venomously, for a minute.
‘Signora Bianci asks you to wait. She will be with you as quickly as she can.’
It took fifteen minutes, while Helena sat in one of the shiny leather chairs that the reception hall provided. She stared ahead, not deigning to look at the portraits of the famous men that graced the walls: Verdi, Bellini and of course Toscanini himself, the great conductor after whom the conservatorium had been named.
Behind her high counter the receptionist rustled papers, casting glances, but Helena did not favour her with a look. Eventually a distant door banged and there was the sound of footsteps approaching down a corridor. Marta Bianci crossed the reception area towards them. Unlike the lady behind the counter, she smiled warmly at Lucia but it was to her mother that her attention was chiefly directed.
‘Signora Visconti?’
Helena looked up at her. ‘This is a terrible state of affairs.’
‘Indeed. Perhaps we should discuss it in private?’
She led the way to a little room smelling of dust, where she turned to face them.
‘I’ve been told Lucia was expelled for gross and repeated insubordination. The whole school’s been told.’
‘That is a lie! My daughter is being punished for attempting to defend her virtue.’
The teacher’s face became stone. ‘I know nothing of that.’
Helena was in the mood to tackle Mussolini himself, if that was what it took.
‘The question is, what are you going to do about it?’
‘I can do nothing.’
‘This ogre puts his hands on my daughter’s body and you don’t care?’
Fire could not have been hotter, but Marta Bianci was a match for her.
‘I did not say I don’t care! Lucia is the most talented student ever to have passed through my hands. Of course I care! But it’s her word against his, and Professor Menotti is Principal of the conservatorium.’
‘And has a name for this kind of behaviour!’
The stony look returned to Marta Bianci’s face. ‘I know nothing of that.’
‘And there is nothing you can do?’
‘Nothing I can do, no.’ She hesitated. ‘But perhaps you may be able to do something, yourself.’
‘Explain what you mean.’
‘I haven’t told you this, you understand. But I seem to remember that Lucia has sung in front of Mussolini, isn’t that so? It occurs to me that you might have contacts within the Party. If they were willing to intervene on Lucia’s behalf …’
‘That would help?’
The teacher smiled. ‘We are all devoted to the Party, are we not?’
5
Helena and Eduardo had words about it. Eduardo was unhappy about expending still more credit on obtaining favours for a girl about whom he cared nothing, but eventually Helena prevailed.
There was a week’s uncomfortable wait before Eduardo brought them the news they had been hoping for.
‘You’ll have to apologise to him,’ he said.
‘Apologise? What for?’
‘It doesn’t matter what for! He insisted, so do it, that’s all. You understand?’
Lucia’s eyes narrowed. ‘Very well.’
The two women went alone. Helena had wanted Eduardo to accompany them but he had refused.
‘He’ll do it, all right. You don’t need me.’
Professor Menotti sat behind his desk, his face sour. He had been defeated by a power mightier than himself and both these women knew it. He would have killed the pair of them most cheerfully. It was why he had insisted on the apology; that way he hoped to salvage some self-regard from the wreck.
Lucia did not permit him to enjoy even that. The time came for her to apologise. She did not stand with shamed, downturned eyes as he had expected. No; she knelt, most theatrically, arms out-flung, and besought his forgiveness for all the wrongs she, in her ignorance and inexperience, had done him. She praised him for his generosity in agreeing to reinstate her, she swore on her mother’s grave to be his slave.
‘Your mother is standing beside you!’
‘But one day she will die. As we all shall. I just wanted to say that, as long as I live —’
‘Enough! Enough! Get up, for heaven’s sake!’
She rose humbly to her feet. She came around his desk to stand close beside him. He recoiled.
‘What do you want now?’
‘To kiss your hand.’
He buried his hands as far below the desk as he could thrust them, while Lucia watched him adoringly. ‘Oh please …’
‘Get out! Go on: get out!’
Outside in the corridor Lucia collapsed, clinging to her mother while the two women laughed hysterically, not caring whether the professor heard them or not. Lucia was reinstated and that was all that mattered.
It went without saying that from now on her work would have to be of the highest standard, if she were to survive.
6
Helena travelled back to Montegallo on the tram. The wheels screeched on the rails, passengers got in and out. The grey day frowned endlessly beyond the windows, the gloomy countryside threatened like knives. She should have been delighted. She had taken on the professor and won. Yet now she was afraid. She had been forced to enlist Eduardo’s help. He had given it, but not happily. It was yet another debt she owed him and she was frightened that one day he might start asking himself whether she was worth it.
All her life she had been dependent on men. Father, husband, cousin. Each, in turn, had been lost. Her father dead, her husband on the other side of the world, her cousin in another part of the country. Now it was her lover’s turn. What would happen to her if he, too, abandoned her? She would be alone.
She got off the tram and did some shopping before walking home. There were several women in the shop. They looked at her without speaking. She ignored them, refusing to listen to their spiteful silence, knowing how these mouths would rend should Eduardo ever abandon her. Her life was lived on the edge of a precipice.
Yet at the end, as she opened the door to leave the shop, she found a smile of triumph with which to impale them, knowing that Lucia’s troubles at the conservatorium would be no secret to them.
‘My daughter has been reinstated. Professor Menotti has apologised for his mistake.’
And she went out into the raw afternoon. Let them stick that up their pipe.
Helena returned to the empty cottage. She opened the door, stood in the doorway and looked into the dark interior. She knew that eventually Eduardo would leave her. It was the way of men; it was not in him to do anything else. Besides, Eduardo was younger than she was; she could not hope to bind him indefinitely. No, it was Lucia rather than Eduardo who held the key to the future. She went indoors and closed the door behind her. She drew the curtains and switched on the light. The room sprang into being. Lucia would not be home before dusk, yet already she was everywhere, in the house and in her life. She was in the furniture, the picture of Jesus that had come with the cottage, in the shadowed air, the open vastness of the pianura beyond the curtains. She was memory, the child running through the mallee, her bare feet in sand. She was in the light, too, and in the future. In a very real sense, she was the future. It was another reason why Helena’s victory today had been so important. In defending Lucia she had been protecting herself, ensuring that together they would overcome the world. Together, always together. They would triumph, she working, encouraging, driving to bring to full ripeness Lucia’s gifts of voice and artistry. Together. Otherwise all her life — the saving of it during the war, the years in Australia, all the struggles and pain — would have been for nothing.
She knew how hard it would be. She wanted Lucia’s love, not gratitude. She wanted to love the child as well as the artist but doubted whether it would be possible. Without unremitting work all would fail and unremitting work left no room for love.
If she had to, she would sacrifice even love, if doing so could bring her daughter to her proper place. By sacrificing love, she would render her the ultimate gift of love.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1
Twice Helena had gone into battle on her daughter’s behalf. She had dragged Eduardo into it, nagging him until, reluctantly, he’d called in a few favours at party headquarters. Between them they’d got her reinstated, her career back on track. It was enough. Eduardo, in particular, had been quite sulky about it.
‘That’s it, okay? I’m not doing any more for her.’
From now on Lucia would have to manage on her own.
Lucia turned to her teacher, and became closer to her than ever. She would have made her into a surrogate mother, had Marta Bianci been willing, but she was not. Day and night she worked with her best student: that, she would do. More and more frequently she allowed her to stay overnight at her apartment but she refused, absolutely, to let Lucia play the role of dutiful daughter, the slave role that was the other face of arrogance. ‘I won’t have you doing my housework. That isn’t your job.’
‘I only want to help you.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Why not? You’ve been so good to me.’
It was evening and they were sitting by the apartment’s window, open now that the warmer weather had arrived. They listened to the cries of traders in the street below, saw the multi-coloured piles of produce — fruits, peppers, tomatoes — beneath the bug-swirled lanterns.
Marta Bianci said: ‘You’re an extremely gifted woman. There’s nothing in the world of opera you’re not capable of achieving. I’m honoured to be your teacher. Any problems and I’ll do what I can to help you, but you ought to talk to your mother about them as well. I don’t like to think of you turning your back on her.’
‘My mother has her own life.’
‘And so she should. But look what she’s done for you already. I’m sure she’d go on helping you, if you let her. An artist should embrace the world, don’t you agree? And she’s always wanted you to be a singer.’
‘I’m sure she cares about you, too.’
‘No! Everything I do is for her benefit. If I fail, she’ll never speak to me again.’
She was crying, and Marta took her hand. ‘She’s still your mother. You shouldn’t shut her out.’
‘She’s got Eduardo. He’s the only person she cares about. What’s she need me for?’
‘You’re her daughter, after all.’
Lucia’s tear-stained face challenged her. ‘You’re saying I’m a nuisance to you!’
Marta sighed. ‘You know very well that’s nonsense! I’ve already told you, I’m honoured to be your teacher. But I’m not your mother. You mustn’t expect me to take her place. It wouldn’t be right.’
She tightened her hand on Lucia’s fingers.
‘Being an artist is a lonely business. You have to get used to it but you mustn’t blame your mother for it.’
Lucia attempted a smile. ‘I’ll try.’
She went to stand up, but Marta had not finished with her. ‘Being a prima donna isn’t just singing and acting. How you look also comes into it. I won’t have you doing my housekeeping, because your hands have to be elegant, like the rest of you. Looks are very important. Your clothes, for instance …’
Lucia smoothed her hands self-consciously over the front of her dress. ‘You don’t like it.’
‘I didn’t say that. There’s nothing wrong with it. The point I’m making is that appearance counts. It does to every woman, but particularly to one who’s going to stand in front of an audience. There are some operas where you hardly move at all. Look at Tristan and Isolde, for example, or Lohengrin. The audience has nothing to do but look at you. If they don’t like what they see they’ll tear you to pieces afterwards, never mind how marvellous your voice is.’