Ariana

by Edward Stewart

  “I used to be able to vocalize to high F. Now I can barely reach D. I have trouble sustaining in the upper register.”

  The bones in Vanessa’s face showed bluishly through her skin. Ariana could see that something was very wrong.

  “What are you eating?” Ariana asked.

  “I haven’t any appetite.”

  “That’s your answer. It’s a physical problem. Something to do with metabolism. You have to see a doctor, not me.”

  “But it’s more than physical. I have memory slips. Roles I learned by heart aren’t in my head anymore. There are gaps.”

  “What do you expect? A singer’s memory is an organ, like a lung. You’re not taking care of yourself. All your organs suffer.” She took a cigarette from the majolica box on the coffee table.

  Vanessa watched her light it. Astonishment crossed her face. “You’re smoking?”

  “Nerves,” Ariana said. “It’s a low nicotine brand. I don’t inhale.” She added, “It’s a dreadful habit. Don’t you ever start.” She followed this with five minutes’ practical advice.

  Vanessa listened patiently. “But there’s something else. Whatever it was I had when I was working with you—whatever it was you gave me—is gone.”

  Ariana had a fleeting intuition of an existence as painful as her own. She brushed it aside. “You’ve got to get over this fixation you have on me. Stop making me the center of your problems.”

  “The center of my problems? Oh, no, you’re the center of my hopes. You’re the only one who can help me.”

  “I can’t help you. I can’t help anyone.” Ariana sprang from her chair and went quickly to her desk. She flipped open the album-sized checkbook. Her accountant would kill her for this, but so what. She scribbled her signature across check number 763, left the amount blank, made a note on the stub: Vanessa B.

  She ripped the check out.

  “Here. Get yourself another teacher. Get yourself a fur coat. Get yourself a car, a trip around the world, anything. And, please, forgive me.”

  When Ariana sang Gilda in Paris that May her voice felt inexplicably slurred and thick. Her tongue had trouble tossing off the articulations in “Caro Nome” and she cracked on her very first E in the coloratura section. She recovered, but on the next E her voice broke entirely and she had to take a very obvious breath in an unaccompanied passage.

  It was the same with each E afterward: break after break after break. Her high B and C, even her high C-sharp were perfect, her sixths in the descending passage were easy and crystal clear, but the E kept slipping. Her final trill—E again—refused to materialize: she felt an unbudging gurgle come out of her mouth.

  Her ears were filled with roars and hisses and boos.

  The next day’s reviews were murderous. With uncanny penetration the critic for Le Figaro touched her deepest fears.

  There is no denying that, at this moment in what was once a spectacular career, Madame Kavalaris is losing her voice. Occasionally the phrasing, the attack, the pitch are the perfection we remember; but in the very next phrase, she is a stumbling amateur. It is perhaps time for this beloved artist to renounce the stage and consider teaching.

  The review could not have come at a worse possible time. She was scheduled to sing two performances of the Verdi Requiem the following week—one at La Scala, and the other, for a large audience including His Holiness the Pope, at an outdoor concert in the Milan Duomo.

  Magazines, television, the international press would be covering the outdoor concert. She was counting on the publicity, for more and more it seemed to her that only publicity could keep her alive.

  When the Scala representative phoned to ask if he might call at her suite at the Georges Cinq, Ariana assumed it was to discuss her dress at next Wednesday’s performance. Though the Verdi Requiem was not liturgical, color would, of course, be inappropriate. She did not need to be told this and as she let Mr. diFilipi into the suite she wondered what sort of an idiot he took her for.

  “To get to the point,” she said, “I’ll be wearing white.”

  He was a short, stout man of about fifty, with bushy black hair, and he seemed not to understand what she was talking about. She led him into the bedroom and opened the closet. She stripped tissue paper off the dress like bark from a tree.

  “As you can see, it’s simple, unruffled. There’s an extra panel to allow for the diaphragm, but it’s hardly decorative.”

  The Scala representative’s face made an effort as if he were not used to smiling at dresses. “The Scala management will let you keep the deposit.”

  “Of course I’ll keep the deposit. Why bring that up now?”

  “Because if Madame Kavalaris wishes, she may withdraw from the performances of the Requiem.”

  Ariana carefully put the dress back in the closet. “So, my Rigoletto reviews frightened you.”

  “Scala is willing to pay half your fee, even if you cancel.”

  “Signore, listen. I signed a contract. I keep my contracts.”

  “Scala is willing to pay your entire fee even if you cannot perform. We only beg that you let us know now. For your own sake, we suggest that Madama consider taking a short rest.”It took all her self-control to master the anger that flashed through her. “Signore, I must sing the Verdi Requiem. I will sing it, I can sing it. For La Scala and for the Pope.”She landed at Milan airport Tuesday night, avoided reporters, had the limousine take her straight to the Principe di Savoy.

  She spent the day of the performance in her suite. No interviews, no phone calls. Her head throbbed, her stomach was tight, she was certain she was going to be sick.

  She arrived at La Scala two hours before the performance.

  The wood-paneled dressing room gave her the comfort of an old friend seen after too long a separation. She prayed, warmed up, got into her white dress, and led the other soloists onto the stage.

  As she bowed to the applause, she felt a wave of coldness sweeping from the audience. It was as if they were ready to assess her performance microscopically, like doctors examining body tissue for signs of decay.

  Through the opening orchestral and choral measures she tried to ignore the uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. She negotiated her first “Kyrie,” with its rapid climb to a fortissimo high B. Her throat was tight and the tone felt strident, but at least she hit the notes.

  In the “Salva me” section of the “Rex tremendae” she had her first real trouble: an ominous break in line as she was reaching for a piano A-flat above the staff.

  The passage was covered by the other soloists and orchestra, but as the phrases lengthened and the melody climbed to a high C she felt her breath giving out early; she was pulling up strength instead of tone. Before her octave drop she took an extra breath, just a tiny one, and the friendly acoustics of the house lent just enough resonance to cover—though the mezzo soloist shot her a glance.

  She had no trouble with her G above the staff, but as the melody dropped back to E—an easy note, well within the range of any singer—the same astonishing thing happened. The breath wasn’t there, the note wasn’t there. She touched it, and suddenly it was gone.

  The acoustics couldn’t help this time. Verdi had scored the chord for vocal quartet, and she was the melody note. There were wind and string doublings, but no one was fooled.

  The other soloists threw her questioning looks.

  A whisper swept the darkened house.

  But the real disaster did not come till near the end, in the “Et Lux Perpetua” of the “Libera me.”

  One of the most affecting moments in the whole requiem, it was scored for soprano solo floating above a cappella chorus. She had loved the passage since childhood; she had sung it at her father’s funeral, at her audition for DiScelta, two dozen times since. It summed up for her the meaning of the work, the spirit of mercy and forgiveness overcoming wrath and terror and death.

  She tried to project that spirit as she sang the beautiful phrases that Verdi had marked dolcissimo, a
s gentle as possible. But as she reached the final “requiem” with its astonishing quadruple piano and its upward octave leap to a high B-flat, she lost control of her throat muscles: the sound turned stringy and shot up too quickly, ahead of the chorus, thinning into a batlike squeak.

  There was no way to recover, no way to hold the note. The conductor had to cut the chorus short.

  Before she could even continue there were cries of “Vergogna!”—“Shame!”—and “Basta!”—“Enough!”

  The choral fugue and her final recitative senza misura passed in a nightmare. When her turn came to bow, she was hissed. Somehow, with Roddy’s help, she got through the jeering crowds back to her hotel.

  The newspapers crucified her the next day, calling her an insult to Verdi, to music, and—not least of all—to God.

  The afternoon of the following day the sky was piercingly blue, without a cloud. Ariana told herself that was an omen. But under the arching glass of the Duomo, Milan’s great enclosed arcade, the light was a toneless gray.

  She told herself that was not an omen.

  A platform had been set up for the musicians, bleachers for the reserved seats, a special section for the Pope and his retinue. As she took her place before the orchestra she saw that herds of reporters and paparazzi had swollen the crowd.

  In deference to the solemnity of the occasion, there was no applause.

  Her eye caught His Holiness smiling and then the gunmetal glint of a camera in the front row. She looked quickly away, down at her hands pressed white in her lap.

  The conductor gave the downbeat. Muted cellos sighed out the first descending figure.

  As the music spun out in pianissimo, she was aware of the sheer physical bulk of orchestral and choral sound. For the first time in her career she wondered if her voice would be strong enough to cut through.

  Blood began pounding through her arteries. She waited through the short choral fugue on “Te decet hymnus,” through the modulation back to A-major that was her signal, with the three other soloists, to stand.

  She stood. She felt her knees turning liquid.

  The tempo quickened slightly and over repeated string chords the solo tenor sang the first “Kyrie.” The bass replied with the first “Christe,” and then it was Ariana’s turn.

  She breathed in, organizing strength for her “Kyrie.” She had sung the entrance dozens of times, yet today had all the foreboding of a first time. As the sound gathered in her lungs she was aware of an extraordinary time lag between thought and execution.

  The notes inched their way up her throat, rising by sheer force of will until they shot out of her, far too loud, almost shrill.

  On her fifth note, the G-sharp above the staff of “Eleison,” she lost control of her voice and skidded into a scream without finishing the word.

  Panic dropped on her like a net.

  She stretched out a shaking hand toward the conductor, entreating. He lowered his baton. The music stopped.

  She turned toward the Pope. “If His Holiness will forgive me, I cannot continue.”

  She left the platform. There was something absolutely terrifying about the silence of the crowd. It was as though they were screaming Burn her! Burn her!

  She pushed her way through them, and a moment later she was running alone up the dazzling avenue with only one thought in her head: to put an ocean between herself and her disgrace.

  A figure in white detached itself from the crowd. It came quickly up the center aisle, swerved to kneel an instant before the Pope’s chair, and continued directly to the platform where the Scala orchestra, the conductor, and three soloists stood like bewildered refugees in a stranded lifeboat.

  A wind of whispers swept alongside her. “La Rodrigo!”

  “Brava la Rodrigo!”

  Clara Rodrigo dropped her white sable coat on the chair that only a moment ago had been Ariana Kavalaris’s. She was wearing a simple white gown and a single strand of pearls. She had lost weight. Under her right arm she clutched a score of the Requiem.

  She embraced the conductor and allowed him to kiss her on both cheeks.

  Applause broke out.

  La Rodrigo, smiling serenely, sat in her newly claimed chair. The soloists sat. The orchestra sat. The conductor once more raised his baton.

  The audience fell silent.

  The Pope smiled.

  Verdi’s Requiem began, again, with the pianissimo falling sigh of muted cellos.

  They were in line at the boarding gate when Ariana noticed. “You’ve booked us on Alitalia.”

  “You said you wanted the first flight to New York.”

  “I can’t fly Alitalia. They’ll crash the plane. Book us on another line. I won’t fly with a Catholic pilot.”

  Roddy grimaced. “Your luggage is already on board.”

  “Splendid—they can take revenge on it.”

  She stepped out of line and planted herself in a chair in the lounge. She sensed whispers around her, heads turning. In less than two hours, the scandal had already reached the Milan airport. She adjusted her kerchief and her dark glasses. She sat quietly, doing nothing but dying.

  A half-hour later Roddy returned waving two reticketed folders. “Will El Al do?”

  29

  THE PLANE REACHED JFK on schedule. At first Ariana thought she was safe in the sea of travelers embracing their families, but then she saw the reporters waiting, hungry to carve her into a mass of raw skin.

  “Nothing to declare,” she told the customs inspector.

  She strode forward. There was a clicking of shutters, and then a storm of questions and flashbulbs and mikes thrust into her face.

  “Miss Kavalaris, why did you walk out on the Pope?”

  “I did not walk out on His Holiness.”

  “What do you think of Clara Rodrigo stepping in for you?”

  A voice cut in resonantly: “Miss Kavalaris has no comment and wishes you all a good day.”

  She spun around. She hadn’t seen or even thought of Giorgio Montecavallo for over two years, and here he was with his arm thrown protectively around her in the middle of the El Al terminal.

  “Monte, what in the world are you doing here?”

  “Meeting you, cara.” He was wearing a three-piece suit of tan tropical worsted, a boldly striped shirt and a wide flowered tie. He was gorgeously overweight and she covered him with kisses.

  “Is there a new love in your life, Miss Kavalaris?”

  Monte raised a hand. “Miss Kavalaris and I are friends.” He bullied a way for them through yelling newsmen. They reached the limousine. A chauffeur held the door.

  Ariana settled into the back seat. She smiled fondly at Monte as they crawled through expressway traffic. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Monte. My oldest, dearest friend. Of all of them, the only one who’s lasted.”

  Two hours later she stood in the living room of the Sutton Place townhouse looking out over the garden and the East River.

  “Something to drink?” Monte was at the bar.

  “Nothing for me. I’m going to bed.”

  “Good idea. You’re overtired.”

  She turned. “I know you’ve a million things to do, Monte. But would you stay with me? Just be in the house till I fall asleep?”

  Monte tucked her into bed. Her eyes shut immediately. She was breathing heavily. There seemed to be an enormous weight on her chest.

  He unhooked the gold chain and set her locket on the night table.

  “Yes,” he heard her mumble. “Take it off. Just for a while.”

  He stayed for the next two days while she tossed in gnarled dreams. He held her hand when she screamed, showed the cook how to make a decent minestrone for a convalescent, personally took charge of everything from doctors to phone calls.

  “Carlotta? Yes, cara, she’s in a terrible state. The doctor says it’s exhaustion.”

  He appointed himself Ariana’s guardian and bulldog. When reporters laid twenty-four-hour siege to her front door, it w
as he who ushered them five at a time into the private garden, offered drinks, and explained the crisis. “You can’t quote me.”

  “Naturally not,” CBS-TV assured him.

  “It involves His Holiness the Pope.”

  Ariana opened her eyes drowsily. Through planes of shifting fog she could make out jungles on fire. A voice spoke of America bombing Vietcong supply routes in Cambodia. She realized she was staring at a TV set.

  There was a rich, resonant pop. Monte set a silver ice bucket by the bedside. A fizzing, foil-necked bottle rested on a bed of ice.

  “Champagne?” she said. “What’s the occasion?”

  He handed her a bubbling glass. “Look. Listen.”

  The image on the TV changed. A woman in black sable with dark glasses was rushing down the corridor of an airline terminal, barely managing to stay ahead of a pack of pursuing reporters.

  “It’s me!” Ariana reached for her glasses. “I don’t look bad, do I?”

  “You look splendida!”

  A microphone shaped like a hornet’s nest had bobbed into the picture. The woman in black was swatting it aside. “No comment. Please leave me alone.”

  “Thursday’s evening news,” Monte said. “I taped it for you.”

  “I have a good speaking voice, haven’t I?” Her eye flicked back to the screen, where a newscaster with too much makeup was reading from a teleprompter.

  “…because of Vatican objections to Madame Kavalaris’s friendship with tenor Giorgio Montecavallo, a man whose civil divorce is considered invalid by the Roman Catholic Church.”

  She burst out laughing. “They think—oh, good God, they think I stopped singing because I argued with the Pope over you?”

  He nodded.

  She jumped out of bed.

  “Ariana, be careful. You’re weak.”

  She flung open the closet doors. Her hand rifled down the row of fifty-seven evening gowns.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for my reddest, most low-cut, most vulgar gown. Monte, phone La Côte Basque. We’re going to make a scandal.”

  Photographers were waiting outside the townhouse as they stepped into the limousine. Photographers were waiting on Fifty-fifth Street as they stepped onto the sidewalk. They refused to kiss for the cameras but consented to hug. “We’re just friends,” Ariana said. “Not all the gossip you hear is infallible.”