Aloha, Mozart

by Williams, Waimea

  Living thriftily made Maile expert at finding free things to do. In that regard the city was a feast, with a generous heart. At Goethe House she saw exhibits by Berlin artists and enjoyed surprising people with her earnest German. She got through a solitary Thanksgiving and Christmas by window shopping and attending free concerts in churches decorated with fragrant boughs of pine. At Rockefeller Center she saw the tree lighting, the skaters. Snow was so strangely dazzling that she often stood still among passing pedestrians to watch it fall from the sky, swirled by gusts, or driven sideways by high winds that whistled along the grid of Manhattan streets. But without a crowd of relatives the holidays felt empty. Worse, just to get by she couldn’t help spending more money than ever intended. She made a list of unavoidable expenses and figured out that what she had left would only last until next fall—six or eight months short of two years.

  The gap between daily necessities and the funds provided by the clan grew ever wider. None of them had traveled or lived elsewhere, or had any idea of expenditures that ordinary New Yorkers took for granted: bus fare, snacks, resoling shoes. Maile imagined Auntie Lani asking, “For real, in cold you need different clothes?” Yes, she even needed different underwear. Staying warm and dry, and not falling ill in a world of ice and slush meant never just throw on a coat, always remember hat, gloves, scarf, umbrella, tissues, ChapStick. Waterproof your boots with mink oil, scrub off the salt rings every night, stuff the damp leather with wads of newspaper.

  One day in late February, Maile was picking through a Brahms song when her apartment radiator sputtered, clanked and went silent. The room chilled minute by minute. Outside in the hall the building superintendent went door to door calling out, “Boiler’s busted, no heat ‘til tonight, boiler’s busted . . .” She considered spending the morning in the grimy cafeteria across the street. Everyone else in the building would go there. The food was terrible and the toilets filthy. A surly teenage gang with knives claimed the tables when school let out.

  Across the room the apartment’s one small window was blotched with sooty ice crystals that clung to the outside. Maile put on her coat against the increasing cold and pulled her suitcase from under the bed. From a pocket she took out the leather pouch, hidden there her first night aboard the ship. “Makua,” she said, hoping he might have taken the day off to go spear fishing at Ka‘ena Point. Sit on the rocky shore afterwards with his brothers and a cooler of beer. Grill fresh squid. Talk story.

  On the windowsill she laid out the three King Kalākaua coins, evidence that her father and Auntie Lani had forgiven her even though she’d broken the greatest kapu by selfishly hoarding money. The open suitcase yawned on her bed. In her mind she began packing it: the sarong, white high heels no one wore after Labor Day, her painstakingly assembled winter wardrobe with the fine labels that had fooled Madame. Walking through Central Park in a fox fur hat and camel hair coat, she had looked, she was sure, like a fashion model. At home such haole clothes would be useless, would make Jade hoot with jealous laughter.

  All too clearly Maile imagined arriving back in Papakōlea with nothing but evidence of her failure. No opera contract, no fame. She returned the coins to the pouch, the pouch to its hiding place, and slid the suitcase under the bed. Taking a score, she went outside to catch a bus to the Lion’s Head. For the price of a coffee and Danish she could claim half a small table until noon, shut out the political arguments among Columbia students, and study in warmth.

  BY MARCH THE tree branches along Morningside Drive had a faint wash of green. The putty gray sky was almost pale blue. A breeze with a trace of warmth came from the river. Everything Maile saw and felt had such a sense of promise she imagined living in Manhattan for six months of every year. In a larger, nicer apartment, which she would pay for by joining the Met studio on a beginner’s contract. Madame had hinted at such a possibility; eight young singers at East Coast conservatories were attracting attention in Manhattan, and Maile Manoa was one of them.

  Over the next months she worked part-time at Bergdorf Goodman promoting Tahitian Gardenia perfume. For two hours a day she played with accents and attitudes while selling dreams to women whose sophistication she no longer feared. She visited the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum because it was there to be admired. Every payday she bought something small at an exclusive French bakery. She sensed herself claiming the city just a little more, but the sweetness of spring turned to heat that soon frayed peoples’ tempers into public bursts of viciousness. Columbia students grew beards, traded their jackets and trousers for jeans, and their manners for aggressive confrontations with strangers. Card tables appeared on the edge of Harlem for voter registration and civil rights petitions, manned by angry young Negroes who insisted on being called “black men.” Maile tried to sympathize with their cause but couldn’t associate herself with the grim history of slavery.

  The route she took to lessons and classes was disrupted by ever larger protests, against the Vietnam War, military spending, Jim Crow laws, and in support of jailed marchers in southern cities she couldn’t picture. From inside a bus she watched protesters with Peace Now signs charged by police on horseback. Passengers stared in silence or yelled at the officers to club those bastards.

  Madame dismissed the whole problem. “I see all this before in Germany,” she said. “I am familiar and can say in America not to worry.” She gave no more than this glimpse of her former life. Maile recalled Professor Chaimowitz describing a rabbi beaten to death in public, but if Leah Renska had experienced similarly dramatic events, it was none of Maile’s business. Most Juilliard students were puzzled by civil rights, voting rights, states’ rights, trifling issues compared to the eternal values of art. If you mastered the Dvorak cello concerto, who cared if you were a hawk or a dove, a Democrat or a Republican?

  ONE AFTERNOON MAILE returned to 153rd Street and saw a black coroner’s car out front. Inside the building, a policeman stood in the hall writing on a notepad. A sign over the elevator door read CLOSED. A breathless first-floor resident told Maile that Mr. Landau had been knifed, his stomach sliced open. “Likely dead by the time he hit the floor. Blood all over, gold watch gone. Ask me, it’s that cafeteria gang, but bound to happen, him going over there, that wrist band flashing like some advertisement.”

  Upstairs, Maile stared out the window at the black car until it pulled away. She had never known someone who was murdered. A Jewish gentleman who survived World War II did not deserve such a terrible death in America. Land of the brave, home of the free. Then the sorrow she felt turned into panic at being stuck in this building, forced to use the same entrance the killer had used. Even with her part-time job, her money would be gone by mid-October. The Kalākaua coins were worth about nine hundred dollars, enough to buy her another two months in Manhattan. That would mean staying in the same apartment, and riding the elevator after the blood was mopped up, or going up and down eight flights of poorly lighted stairs.

  At the piano she threw open a score to lose herself in music. Her hands shook and her pulse thudded. Finally she found a calming soprano solo in Mozart’s C-Minor Mass. She focused on the opening phrase so that nothing else existed and played the accompaniment with a light touch. “Et . . . in—carna—tus est,” she sang, a slender shaft of sound, the composer at his most graceful. She held her voice back so it fit the piece as cool silver radiance instead of vibrant warmth. The melody’s shimmering beauty filled the apartment. “De spi . . . ritu sancto . . .” She eased into the difficult interval, letting the tones rise above her to unfold. Mozart himself seemed to be speaking to her from a great distance, across centuries, across a vast ocean.

  She played the subtle interlude and imagined the notes as an orchestra, string instruments with a solo flute gently leading the way. In the apartment above, a sudden voice: “C’mon out to the park, it’s a breezy ninety dee-grees, we gonna burn, baby, burn!” The nearly deaf veteran who owned the radio didn’t react to thumping on the ceiling with a mop handle. The anno
uncer called out hits, runs, strikes. A memory flitted through Maile’s mind: years ago, another baseball game on Tūtū’s radio. By now she should be auditioning at the Met for an apprentice contract, the only chance to make enough money to stay. As a nonmatriculated student she was ineligible for Juilliard scholarships or loans. As a concert soloist, at best she might squeeze out half a month’s rent with pickup jobs, a saint’s day mass in Queens, a wedding in Connecticut. Thirty dollars, fifty dollars.

  She started over. “Et . . . incarna—” Up on Broadway a police siren blared in a competing E-flat. She sang against it, against the radio, and recaptured Mozart, making it all the way through the opening section to, “Fac—tus est . . .”

  She closed the score. Mass in C-Minor, a church job. After the performance, without a doubt, soloists would be asked to donate their fees. Every day in Manhattan musicians performed for free, from the greenest beginners to the greatest artists. On the radio a trio of women sang in tight harmony, “For soup that’s mmm-mmm good!”

  MAILE GOT OFF the bus at Broadway and 86th to walk the last two blocks to Madame’s building. Her stiletto heels clicked on the side-walk, tak-tak, tak-tak, as irksome as a metronome. She wore an early fall outfit, a risk when the heat hadn’t yet lifted, but she planned to ambush Madame. From the beginning her teacher had predicted a promising future, then an unusually good future, finally: a great future. Yet beyond the original two years no deadline was ever set—art could not be rushed. How long did it take to develop as a soprano? No discussion was allowed.

  Crossing 88th Street, Maile concentrated on the slow, gliding melody that opened the famous aria from Norma: Ca—sta di—va, the first phrase spun out over fourteen notes of silky simplicity. Diva, for divine, for singers who had roses thrown at their feet. She forced herself to enter the building calmly. In the lobby she checked her reflection in a narrow glass mail chute: half a russet pillbox hat, half a plaid shoulder cape in russet and black, a matching mini-skirt. One sleek black shoe. Her hair coiled into a large chignon. Diva-diva. Twenty-six was the right age for a debut.

  She rode the elevator to the top floor, rang the bell at 67-A, and adjusted her shoulders for perfect posture. When the door opened, she said, as instructed at her first lesson, “Good afternoon, Madame Renska.”

  “Feh,” her teacher exclaimed, a gasp of pleasure. “Such a lovely ensemble to anticipate the autumn! You are being aware of details like between early and late season.” She took Maile’s arm and led her inside.

  At the piano Maile swung off her shoulder cape and unpinned her hat. Madame’s eyebrows were still raised, waiting for a grateful response to a rare compliment. Maile held out the sheet music for Norma. “I have to audition.”

  Madame gave the pages an affronted glance. “Did I not request Zerlina? We must rehearse your middle-of-range line.”

  Maile slid the sheet music onto the piano lid.

  “Audition?” Madame squinted as though trying to solve a riddle in a foreign language. She turned to a pair of large wall calendars: Juilliard School of Music, Summer Session 1967, and Metropolitan Opera, Fall Season ‘67, covered with the names of professional singers and students. “I see no audition for Miss Manoa. You are now giving the orders?”

  Nervously Maile stared at a bookcase. Madame’s one inflexible rule of never mentioning financial problems came from her belief that singers must fight their own battles with the realities of life. It made them better artists. In almost thirty years, Madame claimed, no student had asked for a loan or free lessons. Raising the subject was grounds for immediate dismissal.

  The silence between them tightened, as though both were competing for a limited supply of air. Maile dove off a cliff into deep water: “It’s the problem we can’t discuss.” Madame shook her head, but Maile plunged on. “I can only stay ‘til October. I can’t ask my family for more money.”

  Madame drew back, silent, then said in a mean little voice that breaking even the most established rule was petty compared to the much greater crime it implied: a brilliant young soprano was simply quitting. Betraying her gift. And because of finances. “Or your sweet-heart calls to you?”

  “No,” Maile said.

  “You want babies, babies.” She poked at Maile’s bosom.

  “No! I can’t.”

  “Do you mean to say you are not able?”

  Maile nodded fiercely to cut off further questions.

  “Well,” Madame said, “at least that. Sopranos cannot have babies and husbands. However, after all our work you must know you make excellent progress. I do not praise too much.” She stroked her fingertips across Maile’s throat. “Now, pah, you must go home!”

  Maile leaned away from her touch. “I’ve tried so hard. The cost of. . .”

  “I do not relax my standards.” A surge of anger colored Madame’s cheeks. “If you cannot remain here, go to Europe for further study.”

  Her words sailed past Maile. Madame could schedule a Metropolitan Opera audition with one phone call. “Please.” It came out in a wheedling whisper. “An apprentice contract, like you mentioned.”

  With a forefinger Madame gave the sheet music a contemptuous flick. “You had hopes with this aria?”

  “It’s memorized. Just listen to the opening.” She gripped the piano, ready to beg or cry, but Madame went to a desk. Maile waited for her hands to stray over to the phone, to dial a number that didn’t have to be looked up. Opera careers had been launched with a single piece sung for the right director at the right time—in April a mezzo from Florida went straight to debut as Carmen.

  Madame flipped through a stack of mail and pulled out a flyer. She wrote down an address. “Meet me here tomorrow. I give you my time for this because of your worth. Now go.”

  AT THE SOUTH end of Manhattan, Maile went up subway stairs to find herself in the middle of Fulton Fish Market. Men were stacking crates, dumping ice, hosing down display tables. She checked the address Madame had given her, then consulted a city map and walked two blocks east to the John Street Church. Above the open doors hung a hand-painted banner: CULTURAL TALENT SHOWCASE 1 PM TODAY. Baffled, she worked her way forward through seafood truckers taking a lunch break on the sidewalk.

  Madame sat alone in a back pew. She motioned for Maile to join her. Four other people were seated down front. The mimeographed program was too blurred to read. They listened to African-style drumming and watched a mime troupe demonstrate jungle warfare in Vietnam with cardboard rifles and palm fronds. When the group exited, Madame turned to Maile with a pay-attention look and said, “John Eagleclaw.”

  A tall brown-skinned man of about thirty, in buckskins and a Cheyenne headdress, stepped in front of the altar. Dutifully Maile focused on him, another unusual performer, still confused as to why they were here. His stark cheekbones and uplifted gaze gave him the look of an idealized Indian in an old Western. After a soft introduction on the organ, he began. “Our Fa—ther . . . who-art-in . . .”

  The front row audience sat up. Maile had performed the same piece dozens of times in Honolulu churches, but was unprepared for the gorgeous tone that flowed over the pews like a benign river. Everyone was tensely still, as if also amazed by such a magnificent tenor.

  Except for Madame Renska. “There, my dear,” she whispered, “is a superb talent who cannot overcome his background. He only studied a little, years ago.” Maile eyed her warily. “He is unable to sing a duet, trio, quartet, or follow a conductor’s baton. Yet he dreams of a great career as the Caruso of the Indian Nations.”

  The tenor built toward the conclusion, delivering each note all the way to a profound “Aaa—a-men!” The echo reverberated from the ceiling. People applauded vigorously. Maile sat dazed. Madame nudged her outside and walked ahead to a cab stand.

  A minute later they were headed uptown through dense traffic. “You can always go home,” Madame said tartly, “and deny your gift. There is no greater shame for an artist.” She outlined Maile’s future as the Honolulu version of the Cheye
nne tenor, performing “The Lord’s Prayer” for the rest of her life at weddings and funerals, giving comfort and inspiration on a safe, sentimental level, risking nothing, having no ambition. In short, dying.

  Maile protested that she did have ambition.

  “Tsk!” Madame Renska clicked her tongue. “How much you must learn. Living in New York has taught you well, yet in America we have only the distant imitation of European music and culture. If you desire success, I shall not be your last teacher. You must know repertoire from the first hand. In places where Mozart lived, for example. Can you describe what separates German opera from Austrian? The difference between one famous conductor and the next? Do you recognize the style of Werner von Wehlen or Gerhardt Trakt? Have you visited the great music festivals?”

  She gestured at Maile’s chignon and plucked at her suit jacket. “Your appearance is excellent but deceptive. Underneath you are still a country girl. In Germany or Austria or France, voice students can manage with one hundred dollars a month in the not so very large cities.” She folded her hands and sat back.

  Maile saw the front window of the cab waver as if it were melting. Go home or go to Europe. She imagined arriving at Honolulu airport, stepping into the gentle breeze, met by relatives giving her one lei after another, fragrance for Maile the famous, the good daughter, their singer returned to them. Her mouth went dry.

  FOR YEARS MAILE would look back on the next ten days as the time when everything changed in a way that could not be undone. She cried and cried, then consolidated her life so it fit into a trunk, two suitcases, and a shoulder bag. There had been no phone calls from home, no letters, just a birthday card from Auntie Lani, “We love you and we miss you,” with twelve signatures. Maile longed to see them all in the backyard, Makua dropping a heap of fish over coals on the oil drum grill, Jade’s girls pulling waxed paper off bowls of macaroni salad, Hermann’s boys struggling to uncap sodas in crates—how old were they now, two and three, or three and four? She could get on a plane tomorrow. And by the end of the week be jobbing around town singing “Lovely Hula Hands” and substitute-teaching at an elementary school.