Ariana

by Edward Stewart

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve already taught her and we can pick up where we left off. Because teaching her will be the surest way of paying my debt to Ariana and freeing myself.”

  “Freeing yourself from what?”

  “From…what I’m caught in.”

  “Camilla Seaton is not worth your while. She’s a has-been.”

  “She failed because I failed her—just as I failed when Ariana failed me.”

  “I can’t believe you take that hocus-pocus seriously.”

  Vanessa’s voice was very even, very soft. “Boyd, I have a last chance to keep my promise. If I don’t, I’ll wind up in that madhouse again, and this time I won’t get out. Besides—I gave my word.”

  “To a madwoman. Ariana was on the knife-edge all her life.”

  “Mad people can know the truth! Sometimes that’s what makes them mad! My God, what do you call those tapes, if not evidence?”

  He paused. “Well, there’s undeniably something there—something extraordinary. But it’s hardly evidence.”

  “Omigod.” Vanessa was standing with her fist pressed against her mouth. “It just came to me.” She sat down next to him. “After that Traviata, Ariana lost her F, then her A, then E. Don’t you see?”

  He stared at her blankly. “See what?”

  “Solfège, Boyd.”

  Solfège, he thought, remembering the long-ago days when he had had to study that grabbag of musical fundamentals—rhythm tapping and sight-singing and calling the notes do-re-mi instead of C, D, E.

  “The solfège syllables for F, A, E are fa-la-mi,” she said. “Follow me. The voice was calling her.”

  Boyd drew in a long, slow breath. “Let’s just keep that little theory a secret between thee and me, okay?”

  “All right, Boyd, you don’t have to believe me. But if you’ll help me find Camilla, I’ll come back to the Met.”

  His gaze came around and took hold of her. “What role?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Isolde.”

  I can find Camilla, he thought. Someone will know where she is.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll do my best, sweetums.” He hurried out of the house and across the lawn to his car. He drove west, straight into the blinding November sunset. Hamlets and townships and potato fields and produce stands raced past. She’s crazy. All singers are crazy. But one thought kept coming back to him. Isolde. Billings.

  Boyd phoned Vanessa five days later. “Camilla Seaton is teaching autistic children at a special school in Bronxville.”

  “Have you spoken with her?”

  “Yesterday. She looks well—maybe a tad chubby, but it’s becoming—and she’s willing to meet with you. To tell the truth, I think she feels sorry for you.”

  “Good, I can use some sympathy. Can you bring her here next Tuesday? Ames will be in town and we’ll have the house to ourselves.”

  There was an instant when former pupil and former teacher might have kissed but the hesitation stretched a fraction of a second too long. “You look wonderful,” Vanessa said.

  “You too.” Camilla came into the hallway. “I haven’t been here in—what is it, two years? You’ve redecorated.”

  “Just a lot of new knickknacks from barn sales.”

  “It looks cozy. So—country and comfortable.”

  They went into the living room. Vanessa offered drinks. Boyd asked for a highball, Camilla asked if tea would be too much trouble. For a while they chitchatted, saying the unimportant, polite little things: Where have you been, what have you been doing with yourself?

  Vanessa sensed she would have to attack head-on. Nothing would be accomplished by evasion. “I want to teach you again.”

  Camilla put her teaspoon back into the saucer and set the cup back on the table. “I haven’t time for music. I work with brain-damaged children. I’m on call twenty-four hours a day. I don’t sing anymore. I don’t go to operas. The closest I get to the Met is the Saturday afternoon broadcasts when I have a weekend free.”

  Vanessa stared at the young woman. “Then why did you come here today?”

  “Because Boyd was on my back. Eighteen phone calls in three days. We’ve got to clear up a misunderstanding for once and all. You two think I’m still a singer. I’m not.”

  “I don’t believe a person with your gifts, with your promise, can just stop,” Vanessa said.

  “Opera doesn’t need me. The children do.”

  “I disagree.” Boyd sprawled back comfortably on the sofa with his legs loosely crossed. “Camilla, you’re here because music is still a part of you. You want to sing. You want to perform. You want to put your gifts to use. There’s a need in you and you can’t satisfy it by service to brain-damaged children.”

  Camilla’s eyes slitted. “Music is a luxury. I haven’t time.”

  Vanessa lowered her voice, made it conciliatory. “You’re angry at me. And with every right. I let you down. And now I’m asking you for forgiveness. I’m asking to make amends.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. I thought I could accomplish something in opera, I couldn’t. So I’ve turned to something that I can do.”

  Vanessa and Boyd exchanged glances.

  “I never was a singer,” Camilla said. “All I was was promising. Hundreds of people are promising. Little girls singing at birthday parties are promising. I had my chance. I didn’t have the stuff. It took me two years to accept that fact. Two years when I hated music, when I couldn’t stand records or radio or anything that reminded me of opera. And then, somehow, acceptance came. I admitted what I’m not. I found out what I can be. I’ve built a new life, I’m happy.”

  “You’re not happy,” Vanessa said.

  The green eyes bored into Vanessa. “Camilla Seaton opera star is dead. She was a bright flash of promise. Leave her in her grave. And leave me…in Bronxville.”

  “You belong on the stage,” Boyd said. “I knew it the minute I heard you phrase that ‘Mio superbo guerrier’ section two years ago.”

  “I phrased it the way Verdi marked it.”

  “No,” Boyd said, “you gave a wonderful lift on the A-flat. The tone floated. The whole phrase floated. In fact the whole duet floated, just because of that note. You took that scene from Otello and he knew it.”

  “No Desdemona takes a performance from Otello.”

  “You did. I wonder what the critics would have said if you’d been singing it at the Met.”

  “Well, I wasn’t singing it at the Met. And in time the critics said plenty. Besides which, not only haven’t I vocalized in over a year, I’ve lost any sense of pitch I ever had.”

  “I doubt that,” Boyd said. “What’s your bottom note, G below the staff, isn’t it?”

  “I used to be able to manage it.”

  “Your ear may forget, but the throat muscles never do.” Boyd rose and went to the piano, blocking her view with his back. He struck a note.

  “That’s not G,” Camilla said, “it’s A-flat.”

  Suddenly she was silent.

  “So much for no ear.” Boyd struck another note.

  “E above the staff,” Camilla said.

  He struck a chord.

  “B dominant seventh. All right, I still have an ear. But the voice is gone.”

  “I’m going to coach you,” Vanessa said. “The voice will return.”

  “I live in Bronxville. I can’t commute here, it’s three hours each way.”

  “I’m sure Austin Waters would let us use his studio,” Vanessa said. “And Manhattan’s one twenty-five minutes from Bronxville.”

  “I couldn’t bear—” Camilla stared down into her teacup. “I couldn’t bear to go through it all again, all the working and hoping and learning—and fail again.”

  “You won’t fail,” Vanessa said. “You never did fail. It was I who failed you.”

  “Adolf? It’s Boyd.”

  “Yes, Boyd. What can I do for you?”

  “No, sweetums. It’s what c
an I do for you. Closing night, Vanessa Billings singing Isolde.”

  “My dear Boyd, I’ve lived through too much in this job to go on believing in miracles.”

  “I have her letter of intent. And, Adolf, she’s in great voice. It’s going to be the high-voltage Isolde of the decade.”

  A thoughtful, hungry pause. “Of course Clara is already scheduled for closing night,” Adolf Erdlich said.

  “Clara can’t sing anymore.”

  “We know that, audiences are beginning to know it, but Clara has a great desire to be remembered as Isolde. On the other hand, she’s feuding with us over air conditioning and still hasn’t signed the contract.”

  “Ah! Vanitas vanitatum! Which of us has his desire in this world, or, having it, is satisfied? I say better four thousand happy subscribers than one deluded Clara.”

  “I agree.”

  “One stipulation, Adolf. It has to be kept hush-hush till the last possible moment.”

  Vanessa phoned the day after the contract was signed. “Boyd, I want Camilla to understudy me.”

  “I knew it, I knew there’d be a catch.”

  “Fix it with Adolf.”

  “After that abortion of a Tosca two seasons ago you think he’d let her near the Met?”

  “Boyd—arrange it.”

  50

  TWO WEEKS BEFORE THANKSGIVING Ames and Vanessa were having breakfast in the kitchen when she suddenly said, “I want to join Women for Recovery. It’s a self-help group of ex-mental patients. Mandy van Slyke told me about it.”

  “Do you think you need it?”

  “Can’t hurt, can it?”

  “Why don’t you phone and check with Dr. Sandersen?”

  The next day she said Dr. Sandersen had assured her it was all right to go to the group. “We meet in New York. Twice a week.”

  He gave her a look.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I can survive the Long Island Railroad.”

  On March 5 Clara Rodrigo returned to New York from a series of European performances. She found the Metropolitan Opera revised rehearsal schedule in her mail, forwarded by her accompanist.

  “Puta!” she screamed. “Coño!”

  The next morning she entered Adolf Erdlich’s office with the brisk air of a ruling queen. “Adolf, we agreed last May. The closing performance of the season is mine.”

  He stared at her. “Our contract hasn’t been signed.”

  “Because you haven’t fixed the air conditioning in my dressing room.”

  “Nevertheless, it hasn’t been signed.”

  “I have told managers I am singing that Isolde. I have told magazines. I have told friends. I must sing it. I will sing it!”

  Adolf Erdlich gave her a motionless look that held the shadow of a pitying smile. “There is no contract.”

  Clara’s black leather telephone book had three numbers listed for Billings: the first two were crossed out and the third appeared to be Long Island, with a 516 area code.

  A machine answered. She waited for the beep. “I’m going to fight you, Vanessa. You will not sing my Isolde.”

  Ames played the message.

  You will not sing my Isolde.

  He erased it before Vanessa could hear it.

  Once again, Clara made her way up the dimly lit stairs over the Chinese restaurant near B. Altman’s department store. She pushed through the beaded curtain into the hot, suffocating space.

  The huge dark woman reached to turn down the radio. Her milky eyes fixed unseeingly on her visitor. “Siéntese,” she commanded.

  Clara sat. “Soy yo—Clara,”—“It’s me—Clara.”

  “Te recuerdo.”—“I remember you.”

  Clara slipped the diamond ring off her finger and pressed it into the woman’s hand. “Now Billings wants to sing my Isolde.”

  “I warned you. It is too late. No power on earth can help you now.”

  “What shall I do? At least tell me that!”

  The old woman sighed and pocketed the ring. “All you can do is to accept what must be.” And, in terrifying detail, she went on to describe what resistance to the inevitable would entail.

  “Clara—cara!”

  She had summoned Giorgio Montecavallo to a 10:00 A.M. conference on her terrace. As he bent to kiss her, sunlight struck the tiny hairline scars of his recent face lift.

  “Two hundred thousand dollars, Monte?” She held the letter that had arrived three months ago outlining the request.

  “An investment, cara—not a loan.”

  “Tell me about this restaurant you want to open.”

  Monte described it. He had an option on a prime lot in Bergen County. The restaurant would serve the best fettuccine and saltimbocca in all New Jersey. And twice nightly Giorgio Montecavallo would sing favorite arias from grand opera.

  Clara was thoughtful. “This comes at a good moment. I’m thinking of semiretirement.”

  Monte’s face was very good at showing shock. “You, cara?”

  “It’s best to leave the stage while one is still at the height of one’s fame and power.” She poured coffee, thick rich-smelling espresso with three spoons of sugar in each cup. “The restaurant will be called Clara and Monte’s. We will sing arias and duets.”

  He nodded. “Yes, duets are popular.”

  “And I think—for publicity purposes—we should be married.”

  Ames could not get the phone message out of his mind.

  That Thursday, while Vanessa was with her group, he phoned the subscription department of the Metropolitan and asked if there had been any cast changes in upcoming productions of Tristan and Isolde. He was told Rodrigo would not be singing, but that a replacement had not yet been announced.

  Tuesday he followed Vanessa into New York.

  She went to an old Victorian apartment building on West Fifty-fifth Street. A younger woman was waiting for her. Ames recognized Camilla Seaton. The doorman let them go up.

  Ames went into the building and asked for Dr. Harry Woolrich.

  “No Dr. Harry Woolrich here, sir.”

  “Are you sure? This was the address my dentist gave me.”

  The doorman stepped aside to let him look down the row of buzzers. Ames caught the name that resonated: A. Waters. Vanessa’s old voice coach.

  He went to a pay phone and rang Austin Waters on Fifty-fifth Street. A man answered. In the background Ames heard Vanessa, unmistakably Vanessa with her high vocal filigree.

  He apologized. “I must have the wrong number.”

  He saw the women come out of the building together, talking with the animation of old friends catching up on years’ absence. They said goodbye on the sidewalk and Vanessa went to a garage on Fifty-eighth Street. A small chauffeured sedan was waiting for her.

  The sedan dropped her at the train station at East Hampton, and from there she drove back to the house.

  When Ames came through the door and Vanessa gave him a warm kiss and asked how his day had been, he said, “So-so. And yours?”

  She began describing how tiresome it was rapping for three hours with a bunch of crazy ladies.

  He cut her short. “I followed you.”

  Vanessa met his gaze. “Then you know Austin’s coaching me.”

  “I figured that out.”

  “You know I’m singing Isolde?”

  At that moment he felt the ground giving way beneath him, he felt her slipping back into that world of high C’s and mad Lucias. “I think you ought to talk to Dr. Sandersen about that.”

  “Ames, I’m through being a patient.”

  He could hear tidal waves roaring out of the orchestra pit and the whole Social Register in gowns and cutaways springing to their feet screaming bravas. He could feel her wanting that world more than she wanted recovery, more than she wanted Ames Rutherford, more than she wanted anything else on this earth.

  “Doesn’t it mean anything to you what we have,” he said, “what we’ve built in these last six months?”

  “What h
ave we built?”

  He couldn’t believe she’d said it like that, so calmly and matter-of-factly. “We’ve built a recovery,” he said.

  “Ames, I’m not what you think. Maybe I’m not even the woman you married. I know I’m not the case of delusional psychosis Dr. Sandersen’s got you believing I am.”

  “Dr. Sandersen never said that about you.”

  “Of course not. He didn’t need to. It’s self-evident that I’m a poor overworked madwoman with some crazy idea that she made a deathbed promise to her teacher. Well, let me ask you one thing. If I’m deluded, what was that phone call on your machine?”

  “Hey, will you calm down?”

  “No, I will not calm down. You played me the tape the week we moved out here. That voice on the phone telling you to meet me at Perry Street—it was her, Ames. It was Ariana using me just the way she used me onstage. Don’t you see? I wasn’t imagining!”

  His mind was spinning wheels. He remembered the phone message, remembered matching the voice to Ariana Kavalaris’s. But he’d been on a bender when he did that, he’d been drunk, crazy.

  Dear God, he prayed, don’t let Vanessa be mad, don’t let Vanessa be mad.

  “I only want you to be well,” he said.

  She looked at his entreating eyes, his sun-streaked hair, his trembling mouth, and something in her cried out to bridge the emptiness between them. She felt his aching fear.

  Yet she knew she had to stand her ground. If she yielded now she would be yielding forever.

  She went into the bedroom and began packing.

  Ames stood watching her from the doorway. “I’m not threatening, but you’d better face realities. You have no money, no property. Everything’s in my name.”

  She closed the one suitcase.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Ames, I made a promise. I have to keep it. Under the circumstances that obviously means I can’t stay with you. I’m sorry. I love you, but as you just got through saying, I have to face reality—only I’m facing my reality, not yours.”