The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “That’s the thing. Callas must have sung plenty of other operas before Tosca. She knew what she was doing by then. I’m sure she didn’t start out singing Tosca.”

  “But you should know, Mr. Lamontagne. Mom gave you her biography, after all!”

  I almost fell over. Just how much did Stella know about her mother’s visit to my apartment? I pointed to the clock on the wall and motioned to the bike. It was time to get to it, vivace allegro.

  Stella had lost a little over fifteen kilos by June. My three princesses at Holy Canadian Martyrs couldn’t believe it. But I took no pride in her transformation. Maybe Stella was overdoing things, I tried to tell them.

  “She’ll only put it all back on when she lets herself go.”

  “But word is she’s working out with you,” Melikah said.

  So they knew. Later I found out that everyone knew. I don’t think Mrs. Thanatopoulos would ever have come clean about the terms of our agreement, but people must have guessed I wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of my heart. And yet little Stella was a docile student, hard-working and obedient. But it was clear to see that she was behind none of it: not the music, not the working out. If you asked her to sing, then she sang, just like she would take to the gymnastics mat if you told her to. She toed the line. In Mrs. Thanatopoulos’s eyes, Stella was still too fat. She wanted me to spend the summer having her run around the Toronto Islands. I must admit I’d started to enjoy Stella’s company. When she wasn’t banging on about the gospel or the saints, she could be very funny. She was incredibly cultured for her age. And since you had to take a ferry out to the islands, Mrs. Thanatopoulos left us alone. She suffered from sea sickness, which I thought was strange for a Greek. “Mom is always ill on the boat.” I was hardly champing at the bit at the prospect of finding myself all alone with Stella on the Toronto Islands. I much preferred our workouts at the fitness center, with the city’s divorcees looking on attentively, watching my every move. Any one of them could have testified that my behavior was entirely beyond reproach. How do I know all those women were divorced? What do you think they were doing at the gym, Michel?

  In the summer of 1998—last year, in other words—Mrs. Thanatopoulos would pick me up in the morning in her BMW and drop me and Stella off near Harborfront. Then she would watch us get on the ferry and wait two hours until we came back. The Toronto Islands are beautiful in a calm but fragile way. Since they’re not linked by road to the mainland, only a few hippies live there, in tiny wooden homes that form a charming little village at the eastern tip of the long island. They have a wonderful view of downtown Toronto; in fact, this is the view that’s on every postcard of Ontario’s capital. Trails run along the island from east to west and that’s where I brought Stella jogging. She was no longer fat, not even plump. To be honest, she was already losing too much weight, but that was nothing compared to the pale skeleton she was to become a few months later. Often we wouldn’t meet a soul on our morning jogs. Visitors go over mostly on weekends or late in the afternoon. I kept our distance from Hanlan’s Point to the west, right beside the airport, where nudists (mainly homosexuals) roamed in all their glory. Stella pretended not to know what went on over on that side, but every Torontonian knows the place.

  That July, we’d take the ferry back after training. Stella always stood up front and tried to spot her mother on the wharf. As soon as she found her, she’d take an enormous white handkerchief out of her duffle bag and wave it in the air until her mom saw her and waved back. Stella’s love for her mother was boundless, an antiquated respect that would have been admirable if it hadn’t been clear to everyone that it would end up killing her. One day in August when we were almost back at the wharf, Stella took out her white handkerchief and told me to wave it to let her mother know we were coming. I thought her little game was amusing—touching, even—the first few times, but I quickly found it silly and ridiculous, especially once the other passengers began to give us strange looks. What choice did I have, though? The mother still had a hold on me through her daughter.

  “Stella, why do you wave your hankie around every time we take the ferry back?”

  “Do you know the legend of Theseus? He left Athens to vanquish the Minotaur.”

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “After slaying the Minotaur on Crete, Theseus sailed back to Athens. His father Aegeus was waiting for him at the wharf. It had been agreed that if Theseus had been killed by the Minotaur the ship would hoist black sails. And if Theseus returned alive, the sails would be white.”

  “So it’s to show your mom that you’re back safe and sound? That you survived the Minotaur?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  The last Friday in August, right before the kids went back to school, Mrs. Thanatopoulos dropped us off at the ferry again. Just before she left us, she looked her daughter hard in the eye with a seriousness I hadn’t seen since she came to see me that January. We hadn’t been running for more than half an hour when Stella veered off toward a deserted sandy beach. There were a few trees at the end of it and they cast a pleasant shadow.

  “Stopping already, Stella? Are you tired?”

  “I need to sit for a while. I want to look at the lake.”

  Lake Ontario is beautiful to look at, it’s true. Almost as big as a sea in the middle of the continent. Stella looked serious.

  “Mr. Lamontagne, my audition in New York is in less than a month. I’m very nervous.”

  “I’m sure you’ll knock ’em dead, Stella. You have a wonderful voice.”

  “My singing teacher Mrs. Pantalone isn’t so sure. She thinks you need to believe what you sing and sing what you believe.”

  “What does she mean by that?”

  “She doesn’t really agree with Mom’s choice of song, Vissi d’arte.

  Technically, I’m perfect, she says, but the performance isn’t there yet.”

  “Singing teachers are never happy, Stella.”

  “It’s so nice of you to say so. Mrs. Pantalone says you need to have experienced what you’re singing if you want others to believe it.”

  “I’m sure she’s partly right, but it’s about acting too. Opera singers haven’t been through everything their characters have and we still believe them. You don’t have to be a mom who was abandoned by a US Navy lieutenant to play Cio-Cio San in Madame Butterfly; you just need to feel what Cio-Cio San feels.”

  “That’s what I tried telling Mrs. Pantalone, too, but she wouldn’t listen. She says I’m too young to sing Vissi d’arte. She even got into an argument with Mom in June. ‘How do you expect the poor girl to feel what Floria Tosca feels?’ she said. ‘I lived for art, I lived for love . . . She’s only seventeen! Honestly, I really think we should work on something else, a piece better suited to her age.’ Do you think she’s right?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person, Stella. I don’t know Tosca well enough to answer. What exactly did poor Tosca go through?”

  “So, Tosca is an opera singer in real life. In the opera, she’s a bit of a diva, una donna gelosa. A jealous woman. So we have a singer playing a singer who’s being a diva. It’s not easy to pull off. When she sings Vissi d’arte, it’s halfway through Act II.”

  “And what happens in Act II?”

  “It’s set in Scarpia’s office. He’s a monster!”

  “And what did this Scarpia guy do?”

  I’d touched a nerve, by the look of things. She got up from the piece of driftwood she’d been sitting on and starting explaining Tosca’s second act.

  “Scarpia? Bigotto satiro! He’s the police chief in Rome. He has the cavalier Mario Cavaradossi arrested by his henchmen. He has Cavaradossi brought up to his antechamber in Palazzo Farnese and orders his gorillas to torture him, just like Christ Our Lord! He also has Tosca brought up and she can be heard singing at some party or other in another of the palazzo’s rooms. Scarpia suspects she knows where Cavaradossi is hiding Angelotti, a fugitive. But Tosca is a real artist, an actress! She stays ou
t of politics and knows when to keep quiet. Then, on dastardly Scarpia’s orders, the door is opened to the room where Cavaradossi is being tortured. Tosca is horrified to hear his cries of pain, a ring of iron around his temples. Poor Cavaradossi! Tosca begs Scarpia to stop. But the monster only orders his men to torture him even harder, carrying a bloodied Cavaradossi in to Tosca so that she can see what he’s done to him with her own eyes, so that she might dip her innocent fingers in his gaping wounds! It’s really awful, Mr. Lamontagne! And then the torture starts up again, worse than ever. Scarpia, that awful Scarpia, is about to take advantage of Tosca, because that’s what he wants: he wants Cavaradossi’s lover for himself, he even says so! Scarpia wants to have her once, then cast her aside like the stone in a piece of a fruit he’s just eaten. But brave Tosca puts up a fight, suggesting she knows more than she’s letting on to Scarpia. Tosca offers him money. “Your price?” she asks, wanting to buy her freedom. But that only goes to show how little she knows the ignoble Scarpia. Tosca manages to free herself from her tyrant’s clutches. She kneels and begins to sing. Vissi d’arte.”

  Stella struck the poses of the characters as she told the story, driving home every word, and gazing heavenward as though imploring God to spare poor Tosca. I was surprised she knew the word “ignoble.” Her mom was right: she must really use her dictionary as a pillow. The whole thing was so over the top, I had to stop myself laughing. I swear to you, dear brother, then she knelt down on the deserted Toronto Island beach and sang the aria from start to finish. I lived for art, I lived for love, I never harmed a living soul, she sang. Why, why, Lord, why do you reward me thus? I donated jewels to the Madonna’s mantle . . . all the way until humiliated, defeated, I await your help. It’s a kind of prayer, really, isn’t it? She was a convincing singer; it was a moving performance. But aside from that, all I wanted to do was laugh. Now I could see why Stella couldn’t play a diva. It was because she is a diva. You can’t pretend to be something you already are. If her performance didn’t ring true, it’s because she persisted in playing a role when her regular self would have been enough. I thought back to little Stella barely a few years earlier, the Pet Shop Girl at the Eaton Centre, cowering behind a pile of sacks of cat litter.

  “You need to be more natural than that, Stella. You’re already Tosca. No point laying it on any thicker.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But do you also think you need to sing what you believe and believe what you sing?”

  “That seems important, yes.”

  “So how will I ever manage to sing, I lived for art, I lived for love?”

  “You’re an artist, Stella. You’ve studied music since you were a little girl, and you know how to pray too.”

  “But what about love? How can I sing about love if I’ve never been loved?”

  “There are all kinds of love. There’s love thy neighbor, a mother’s love for her daughter, love for the work you do . . . You know love. Do you believe that God loves you?”

  “Of course! What are you insinuating?”

  “Nothing. Just that you’ve known love, God’s love for you.”

  “No! You don’t understand! That’s not the love I’m talking about. Tosca is a woman of flesh and blood.”

  “Stella, I think you’re overestimating the value of experience. I’ve known the kind of love you’re talking about, but that doesn’t mean I can sing Tosca. If you really don’t feel ready, then you need to choose another piece. Why not Schubert’s Ständchen?”

  Stella glared at me with the same look her mother had shot me when I’d tried to stand up to her that day in January. She pursed her lips in exactly the same way. The only thing missing was a dish of galaktoboureko to complete the picture.

  “Ständchen for a Juilliard audition! You haven’t been listening to a word I said. You can’t be serious! Besides, it’s too late. It’s too late to choose something else! Mom wants me to sing Vissi d’arte! And that’s what I’m going to sing in New York! Do you hear me? I’ll be singing Vissi d’arte!”

  Stella was beside herself. She stomped her foot on the sand, screamed, spat, shouted herself hoarse. Thank God it was just the two of us. Not a soul in sight. Only the gulls echoed the girl’s shrieks. Now she was standing knee-deep in Lake Ontario and was holding her face in her hands. I went over to try to calm her. She was sobbing.

  “Stella, I’m sure you’ll do a fine job with Vissi d’arte. If you sing it like you just sung it to me, they’ll have to let you in.”

  “Mr. Lamontagne, love me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want you to love me. Right here, right now.”

  “What the hell, Stella? I mean, I love you,” I lied, “but not like that.”

  “Stop. I know you don’t love me. You might pity me, but you don’t love me. You think I’m an idiot, just like everyone else does. All I’m asking is for you to do with me what you did with Mrs. Poisson and the librarian and hundreds of other women. Everyone knows you’re a real Casanova. Even Mrs. Delvecchio. Even Zira.”

  “Stella, you’re being very unpleasant. I’m not going to touch you. Now let’s head back.”

  “Love me!” she cried, flinging herself into my arms.

  She tried to rip my shorts off with her tiny hands. I slapped her.

  “Stella, get a hold of yourself!”

  She staggered back.

  “Listen, Mr. Lamontagne, if you don’t take me right now behind these bushes, I’ll tell everyone you raped me. I’ll start with the school psychologist; he’ll have to turn you in. When Mom finds out how disrespectful you were to me, you’ll be looking for a good lawyer, believe me. I’m seventeen, in case you’ve forgotten!”

  “Stella, you don’t know what you’re saying!”

  Her arms hung loosely by her side. I was screwed. There was no way out. The ferry would be there in half an hour. If I walked off with my head held high and didn’t so much as touch her, she’d tell her mother I’d raped her. She was crazy enough to see her lie through to the end. And her intentions were honest, I realized. She wasn’t asking much. All she wanted was to feel a man’s body against hers, to feel possessed by someone so that she could sing Vissi d’arte. I can’t say I found her especially attractive; she was pretty, that’s all. Mind you, if that ever stopped me, there would be precious few books on my shelf, no more than five or six. Not between one and two thousand. By the time I turned seventeen, I was already plenty experienced. Weren’t all the girls we were friends with in Montreal sleeping with someone when they were seventeen? There was really nothing wrong with it, I said to myself. With her tendency to overdo things, the girl was really all set for a career as an opera singer. Her emotions were completely over the top; it was all or nothing, a nonnegotiable quantity of absolutes that were the polar opposite of restraint and discretion. A monumental failing, a crack so huge it would be pointless trying to paper over it; better to highlight it and build her whole personality around it. Stella was a bad actress, but it was in this duplicity that she was at her most genuine . . . and a little gauche. You know, Michel, there’s nothing more awkward or adorable than youth.

  “If you love me, I won’t breathe a word. If not . . . I don’t know what I might do.”

  On the ferry back, Stella had a look on her face I’d never seen before. A peaceful smile, the Mona Lisa’s smile. The sun was shining and it was one of those hot and humid summer days you get so often in Toronto. Children raced around the deck, little blond girls who reminded me of Claudia. I tried to chat with Stella. I’d forgotten that wasn’t her thing. Nothing about her was ordinary or mediocre. Everything had to be taken to the extreme.

  “And what happens to Cavaradossi?”

  “Cavaradossi? He dies valiantly.”

  She really had quite the vocabulary. Her English teacher would be proud of her, I thought. The ferry must have been five hundred yards from the dock when, calmly and regally, Stella stood up to move to the bow of the ship,
as she always did. Without once looking away from her mother’s silhouette on the wharf, she opened her duffel bag and took out a huge black handkerchief, much bigger than the white one she usually had. She raised her arm and, in a precise, feminine movement, waved it over her head like the pennant of a victorious army. Standing behind her, I suddenly felt the full heat of the Toronto summer at my back. She continued to wave the black handkerchief until we docked. Then she tucked it away in her bag.

  Mrs. Thanatopoulos walked up to me on the wharf. I kid you not, dear brother: she actually sniffed me. It was discreet, but a sniff all the same. I was speechless. She seemed satisfied. She kissed her daughter on the cheek, sniffing her too, like a sow looking for a truffle. Mother and daughter were silent. They drove me back to Spadina Avenue. I was exhausted. Before she let me out of the car—Mrs. Thanatopoulos controlled the locks on her BMW—she told me that she would no longer be needing my services as a trainer. That she was ever so thankful. That she would be eternally grateful. I stepped out of the car without saying a word. When I got home, I ran myself a bath and poured a full cup of bleach into it.

  Then I went out. Since I was heading back to Holy Canadian Martyrs for the last time as a teacher, I decided to do it in style. I walked to Richmond Street West in the Entertainment District. There’s a nightclub there, on the corner of Widmer Street, where the women don’t take much persuading. In the cruel light of dawn, I staggered back home with Fall on Your Knees.

  I slept until the Tuesday after Labor Day. I really enjoyed Fall on Your Knees. It’s a complicated novel that takes place over several decades. Part of the story is about a girl from Cape Breton who leaves to study classical music in New York City just after the First World War. She doesn’t stay very long. She comes back home pregnant and dies after her mother gives her a do-it-yourself Caesarean. What a story, eh?

  Night has fallen over Berlin. Time for me to head back to Lichtenberg before the last S-Bahn.