Love Story

  When she saw me crying, she stroked my cheek with the backs of her fingers, and that finished me off.

  It was one of Claudio’s gestures.

  43.

  The show was going to start soon. The hall was noisy with impatience and anticipated pleasure. At the center of the dress circle, in a box, a seat on an elegant banquette was empty next to a man of about sixty: white hair, broad shoulders, elegantly dressed.

  He didn’t stop turning around, watching out for someone’s arrival. The man was Jean Roman and he was waiting for me.

  “In the dress circle, please,” I had asked of Claudio in New York.

  I verified it on the plan of the theater. You couldn’t be better placed.

  And completely visible to everyone else.

  This ticket contained a trap: who knew if, right now, Claudio was trying to find, through the narrow opening of the curtain, she whose place was reserved next to his father’s?

  He wouldn’t find me there.

  But I promised.

  Only one person was capable of getting me another seat: Mathilde, at The Agency. She knew all the tricks. I dared to call her.

  “It’s going to be difficult. And if I manage, there’s every chance you’re going to be in the corner somewhere,” she warned me.

  I was, in fact, in the corner, high up, second balcony, on the side. The Champs-Élysées Theater held 1,901 seats. I may have been that last little one. That was OK with me.

  Mathilde had the tact not to ask me any questions, but we bet that it would prompt lots of gossip at The Agency.

  I wore my outfit for galas, the one I wore when I escorted my star, always the same one since Auxerre.

  You’re wearing velvet? Claudio had asked me when his hand caressed the royal blue fabric of my bolero to make me squeal. And I squealed to make him laugh. A real laugh, which was so rare.

  A young couple sitting next to me wasn’t hiding their happiness to be here. If I understood, the girl studied singing and her companion was also a musician. They were good-looking and well suited. They seemed to love each other.

  The hall was red. The tapestries on the walls depicted bunches of grapes and vine leaves. The lighting was indirect, discreet. No chandeliers with six hundred bulbs as in Nice; a large dome.

  The lights dimmed, there was silence.

  The orchestra began.

  The music is sad and melancholy, music of memory, regret. Death prowls, and already the heart is rent. Then, on the last notes, the curtain opens and the party bursts forth.

  Violetta is receiving guests.

  The guests press into her brilliantly lit living room, women in long dresses of every color, men in suits. The music is lively and brisk. The singers celebrate pleasure and the wine in their glasses.

  Dressed in white satin, with a deep décolleté and some camellias in her hair, Hélène is splendid. She goes from one to the other on the arm of Baron Douphot, her lover.

  I live on parties and pleasure.

  The translation of the opera, sung in Italian, runs along the top of the stage. I’ve heard it so often, I feel like I know the words by heart.

  I know at exactly which moment Alfredo will appear. I can hardly breathe; I wait only for him.

  And when he enters the living room, accompanied by his friend, Gaston, who is going to introduce him to the lady of the house, it’s as if my chest explodes.

  It’s Claudio and it’s someone else. The light in his new eye gives something more resolute, more painful to his features, as though his soul, having finally found its way out, burned his face. And when he takes a sure step forward, without holding his hands in front of him, it seems that only then do I understand that he really has recovered his sight.

  “God, is he handsome,” my neighbor whispers into her companion’s ear.

  Better than that. He has become himself again, completely himself, and I see him for the first time.

  Violetta laughs. Gaston just confided to her that Alfredo thinks of nothing but her. She holds out a glass of champagne. They clink glasses.

  Then, without worrying about the jealous baron, Alfredo declares himself in front of everyone:

  Since these eyes go straight to my heart, let’s relish love.

  Love that makes kisses burn.

  His voice has also changed: it’s deeper, more vibrant. You who liked to give colors when you didn’t see, which would you choose?

  Alfredo says, “love,” Violetta answers, “pleasure.” The chorus punctuates their words. Applause greets the end of the duet.

  Now they are alone. Behind the muslin of a curtain, you can see the guests drink and dance.

  Leaning toward Hélène, Claudio kisses her hands.

  I loved you without knowing

  Of this love that makes the entire universe throb.

  I close my eyes. In his garden in Neuilly, an icy night, a night of distress, Claudio had shouted these words. I was the only one to hear them, and I didn’t know what to do to help him; I would have given my life.

  His lips meet Violetta’s. She takes a camellia from her hair and offers it to him: the promise to see him again.

  Again applause erupts.

  The guests have left. Violetta extinguishes the candles of the candelabras one by one. She doesn’t believe her heart. She marvels and is alarmed at the same time.

  It’s the first time that she has loved, but she has tuberculosis and knows that her days are numbered. She had decided to live in luxury and pleasure for the rest of the time left to her. To love is to suffer. Is she going to leave her baron for Alfredo? What will she choose?

  Hélène’s voice is admirable, now plaintive, now rebellious. The woman next to me wipes her tears. I hold mine back.

  Invisible from the outside, Alfredo responds to Violetta:

  Secret love,

  Love that makes the entire universe throb.

  He broke it off because of you, David said.

  David is crazy.

  Violetta chooses love.

  For several months, she lives in the country with Alfredo. Dressed in riding clothes, on a large veranda full of plants and flowers, he sings his happiness.

  Far from her, there is no joy for me.

  Near to her, I feel myself come alive again.

  Learning from Annina, Violetta’s servant, that Violetta is ruining herself by paying the rent of their new lodgings, Alfredo decides to go to Paris to raise money.

  But unhappiness awaits. Alfredo’s father, Germont, who just met the young woman, decides to convince her to renounce his son so as not to destroy his career and to allow Alfredo’s sister’s wedding to go on as planned, as it had been compromised by Alfredo’s liaison with…a courtesan.

  Germont’s voice is dark, strong, convinced, convincing. It’s the voice of a good man. Good versus evil. Heaven’s judgment.

  Violetta tries to resist. Is it a sin to love? Didn’t she sacrifice everything for Alfredo? She has nothing but him.

  And what does Germont reply?

  One day, when desire has fled with time,

  Boredom will be swift in coming.

  What will happen then?

  My chest feels like lead. Aren’t those words meant for me? One day, when Claudio will see me and no longer desire me, what will happen to me?

  The curtain comes down for a change of scenery. In the dark hall, the audience rustles, sighs, breathes, tries to defuse the tension.

  The young man near me puts his arm around his companion’s shoulders. He consoles her, smiling at her tears.

  “But it’s not for real…”

  In his garden, speaking of Alfredo as though it were “for real,” Claudio had shouted: And this bitch who sees nothing. I had been tempted to laugh. He had taken my hand and placed it on his chest. Alfredo is here, prisoner.

  Tonight, isn’t it rather Claudio who is Alfredo’s prisoner?

  Of a dream.

  Violetta breaks with Alfredo.

  At the costume party given by he
r friend, Flora, she is dressed in black on the arm of her baron. Alfredo is there.

  Drunk with rage and pain, believing that she no longer loves him, he’s going to humiliate her in front of everyone, destroy her.

  Mortally wounded, Violetta doesn’t try to defend herself. She’s content with these few words:

  The time will come when you will know

  How I loved you.

  Generous, oh generous, Germont had said, when she had given in to his request.

  Not yet.

  Only after she makes Alfredo believe that she prefers her imbecile of a baron.

  The curtain closes on applause. The lights come up. It’s intermission.

  Her imbecile of a baron…That jerk Alfredo…I don’t know where I am nor who I am.

  Bravo, Laura! That’s just what you need: to mistake yourself for Violetta.

  44.

  I left my seat, went down the marble staircase, crossed the atrium. At the door, they gave back the ticket that would allow me to return after the intermission.

  Would I come back?

  Night had just begun to fall on the avenue, a tender and fragrant June night. Under the new leaves, the light from the streetlamps diffused an air of confidence. I closed my eyes and took a long breath: here was life, truth.

  What happened behind these walls was just theater, acting, as was indicated in the neon letters on the pediment of the building, ornamented with bas-reliefs representing gods invented by men to reassure themselves of themselves and their fates.

  I had let myself become trapped in a too-beautiful story that had nothing to do with my own.

  Other members of the audience joined me outside, mostly smokers. Everyone was rapturous about the tenor: that fire, that youthful interpretation, that newness in his voice.

  “Didn’t you hear him on television? He was simply incredible,” one woman said. “You didn’t know who was speaking, him or Alfredo.”

  “It’s that he had always dreamed of playing that character,” another said. “He said so himself.”

  Alfredo or Claudio: which one had just proclaimed his love, his suffering?

  He will not be able to be happy until he sees you, David had said.

  Speaking of the devil…

  The agent appeared at the theater door. He stood at the top of the stairs and, standing on his tiptoes, looked for me.

  Even if he hadn’t seen me in the dress circle, he shouldn’t have doubted my presence there: hadn’t I promised?

  I hid myself behind a tree. Ridiculous. But I didn’t feel strong enough to face him. And if I had promised to come, I hadn’t committed myself to staying until the end.

  He went back into the building.

  A hand fell on my shoulder. I thought I was going to die.

  “And how is the ‘little sister’?”

  Dr. Leblond smiled at me from behind his glasses. He was accompanied by Dr. Miller. Of course, Claudio had invited them, his saviors.

  “OK.”

  Both of them were very elegant: navy blue blazer, garnet red tie. A uniform? I had only seen them in hospital clothes, the white coat. They seemed less handsome like this, less themselves.

  “When I think that I had to come to Paris to find you again,” Miller said with his contagious laugh.

  Leblond pointed to the poster, giving me a complicit smile.

  “Without you…”

  The bell rang, announcing the end of intermission. It rang in my heart too. Miller had taken my arm. Framed by the two men, I was taken, despite myself, back inside the theater. Despite myself? They had orchestra seats.

  “Will we see you later?” Leblond asked.

  I said, very quietly, “I don’t think so.”

  “Then you have to promise to come see me in my office. I have something to tell you.”

  His look was insistent. I promised nothing. The doors to the outside were already shut. I ran to the stairway.

  Violetta is going to die.

  Day is breaking in her bedroom, the day of the carnival in Paris. All is white: the furniture covered with dust sheets, her bed, her nightgown, the handkerchief she holds by her lips. Her face.

  Violetta is waiting for Alfredo.

  He is en route to the capital. His father revealed the truth to him: that he is the cause of the split between the two. Violetta never loved anyone but him. She sacrificed herself believing he was her happiness. She hasn’t more than a few hours to live.

  Will Alfredo arrive in time?

  To see him one time before she dies is all Violetta asks. But what a sight she is.

  She looks at her face, destroyed by her illness, in the mirror.

  All hope is dead.

  Good-bye, beautiful dreams.

  Her voice is tearing, the music crushes your heart. Warm applause greets the end of her solo. I join in.

  Now the carnival singers sing in the street. Violetta leaves her bed, drags herself to the window.

  But here is her servant, the loyal Annina, bringing good news: Alfredo just arrived.

  With thunder and lightning, he bursts into the room, rushes to Violetta, gathers her into his arms.

  Oh Violetta, my loved one.

  The cry, wild and carnal, freezes the audience. Alfredo’s face explodes with real pain.

  He takes her to her bed, sits behind her, envelops her in his arms, calls for and implores hope.

  Your health will bloom again.

  You will be the light of my life,

  The future will smile on us.

  He sings; he looks far away. Violetta responds, her eyes closed.

  I search for the new color in his voice, that of a black diamond pulled, burning, from his chest, that of pure suffering. It’s him, me, you, us, all of us in our refusal to see love die.

  A swell of emotion rolls over the audience. I can hear sniffling, repressed coughs. At the end of the duet, some inclinations to applaud are stopped cold by sshhs, as though no one wants to leave the climax or the music, the voices that are carrying us away.

  To die so young,

  After having so much suffering,

  To die so close to dawn.

  Is this what beauty is? An instant of perfect, universal truth that silences you?

  My life, my breath,

  My heart’s love,

  I have never needed you so much.

  Tears run down Alfredo’s cheeks.

  He’ll be singing only for you, David said.

  Violetta’s last moments have come. The doctor is there, as is Alfredo’s father, asking the lovers to forgive him.

  Death’s approach eases Violetta’s suffering. She rises.

  As the three men, dressed in black, watch, frozen, she, as white as a dove, takes a few steps across the room, her soul carrying her body.

  Ah, I’m returning to life.

  Then she falls while speaking her last words:

  Oh joy.

  It’s over.

  Alfredo stands. Facing the audience, he cries:

  “Violetta!”

  And I know that he’s calling for me.

  45.

  Laura hadn’t heard his call; she didn’t come. The seat next to Claudio’s father had remained empty.

  Nonetheless, the ticket had been picked up from the box office the day before; but the note that accompanied it, in an envelope bearing her name, wasn’t given to her.

  When Claudio learned this, early in the afternoon, he had made a scene. The employee didn’t know where to hide.

  “But no young woman, no Laura Vincent, came,” she had said in self-defense.

  If David hadn’t been there, the singer would have happily strangled her.

  “She’ll come,” David had assured Claudio. “If not, why would she have taken the ticket?”

  Before the opera began, his heart pounding, he had looked at the hall through the gap in the curtains, but she still wasn’t in the dress circle, on the seat next to his father’s. Claudio had alerted his father that she would be coming
: as a way of reassuring himself by forcing fate?

  He had hoped until the end.

  If, as David said, Laura feared that he would be disappointed when he saw her, she would certainly have arrived at the last moment.

  During the first act, he had managed to contain his distress. From the lighted stage, he could barely make out the audience, but each sentence of love was destined for her. And when, in the second act, during the party at Flora’s house, anger drove Alfredo against she who, he believed, had betrayed him, it was again Laura whom he addressed.

  And himself too: this imbecile who hadn’t been able to understand at the time that she loved him.

  At the intermission, he had sent David to find out any news. Jean Roman was sorry to say that he hadn’t seen her.

  She wouldn’t come now. Claudio had lost her.

  There was a rule: the show must go on. But during the last act, Claudio couldn’t contain his pain. It was Laura whom he held in his arms, Laura whom he forbade to die, to leave; Laura, his sparrow, flown away forever. And tears flowed despite himself.

  Did Hélène notice anything? Of course. That didn’t stop her from singing as never before, mostly with her eyes closed, as though she refused to see that he was singing to someone else.

  She had decided that this opening night would be her triumph. It was.

  Their triumph.