The Metropolis (25 page)

“Don’t worry,” Linda reassured her. “My father triple-checked all of them.”

Maria nodded. “That’s all my grandmother has been saying to me for the past month.” It felt strange—and sad—to think of Bea so far away, but rather than express this, Maria decided it might be a good chance to let Linda know she was not the only one capable of improvising on the fly. “ ‘Maria,
faites attention,
’” she said, assuming the accent, “ ‘this city,
elle est assez dangereuse.
’”

Linda seemed at least interested, if not totally impressed. “She’s French?
Très chouette.
”

“Actually Belgian.” Maria nodded and felt a spark of pride at having initiated this exchange. “Where are your grandparents from?”

“Palm Springs.” Linda frowned and continued more hesitantly. “Anna told me about your parents, and I wanted to say I’m very sorry, and even though I don’t really know anyone who’s ever died, if you want to talk about it or anything, I’m actually a pretty good listener—”

“That’s okay—thanks.” Maria kind of hated Linda for bringing it up, but she also kind of admired her for the same reason. In any case, Linda no longer seemed to be made of plastic, and Maria detected an expressive quality in her brown eyes that made her curious
about her new roommate’s voice; presumably, she would be very good, and Maria wanted to know exactly how good.

While Maria unpacked, they spent a few minutes aimlessly talking about Los Angeles, where Maria had never been but which Linda assured her was not as exciting as New York. Maria showed Linda a picture of Bea she had brought with her in a small frame.

“Oh, she looks so tiny and cute!” Linda said. “Is she going to visit?”

“Maybe, but not anytime soon.” Maria shrugged. “She’s pretty old and way too afraid.”

“Well, we can take care of her—just looking at her makes me want to move to Europe!”

Maria took the frame back and placed it on her dresser. The photograph seemed so small and distant, and looking at it made her feel utterly alone; it was like one half of her brain kept asking what she was doing here, while the other half knew it was perfectly obvious. As Linda’s last comment continued to reverberate, it also didn’t seem fair to Maria that she should be rich and pretty, with two living parents—and four grandparents—and even though she understood why Anna had put them together, it seemed like a stupid, obvious choice that didn’t give Maria enough credit for what she had been through. But when she took her eyes off the frame and looked up, she was pleasantly surprised to find Linda already gone—as though sensing Maria’s need to be alone—and it again occurred to her that, like a Russian doll, there was more to Linda than she had initially thought.

T
HAT NIGHT
, A
NNA
took them out for Japanese—another first for Maria; but determined to shed her provinciality, she let Linda coach her through the basics and tried everything. As they ate, Anna
explained that both girls would be starting summer jobs the following week as administrative assistants in the fund-raising department at the Metropolitan Opera. To hear that she would be going to the Met, even in the context of a summer job, awed and intimidated Maria, which then made her feel embarrassed, given that this was only the smallest step toward where she wanted to go. It made her wish that she could be more like Linda, who seemed to take the news in stride, or perhaps even with a trace of derision, as if it were no better than any other summer job, which was probably true given that it was going to be a lot of photocopying and filing.

“Really—photocopying?” Linda asked with a raised eyebrow. “I thought I was going to be giving a master class with Leo Metropolis!” Linda had already discussed her admiration for the heldentenor, whom she had seen perform the previous spring in Milan but whom Maria—again to her chagrin—had never even heard of.

Anna smiled at Linda and responded in kind. “My understanding was that Mr. Metropolis was all set, but your agent skewered it by asking for too much money.”

As Maria observed this and other such exchanges throughout the meal, she began to understand that the conversation often worked on two levels, and perhaps even three, as Linda managed to acknowledge her subservience to Anna, to mock it—but lightly—and yet to draw Anna in, which made them seem more like equals, if only for a few seconds. Though Maria chimed in a few times, she felt that everything she said was a beat too late, and when Anna and Linda smiled at her, their smiles were rooted more in indulgence than in appreciation. It made her feel weighed down, and try as she might, she could not help brooding as she wondered if her past would inhibit her in ways she could not even predict. Several times she tried to laugh—to at least convey her understanding of a joke—and it got stuck in her throat, and she was always relieved when the waiter arrived to fill
their water glasses. As much as she wanted to join in, she found she could do little more than wrap her hand around the icy glass, as if to prevent her new life from slipping through her fingers.

A
S
THE SUMMER
progressed, she began to feel more comfortable—in her apartment, at her job, at dinners with Anna, and with Linda—or at least more able, so that after only a month in the city she looked back at the nervous girl who had frozen up at dinner with pity and disdain. Because New York was so different from Pittsburgh, her past began to feel more like a harmless callus than a malignant growth; she often felt as if she had died in the fire, and could now discuss her former self with a certain objectivity, a distance that sometimes made her wonder if she had ever lived there at all or was just now waking up from a bad dream. When the subject of John and Gina came up—as it invariably did, since she was introduced to many new people—she learned to explain that they had died some time ago in an accident, and for the uncouth who couldn’t resist pressing her, she made it clear that she didn’t feel comfortable discussing the details. She found that with practice—and she did practice, alone in the bathroom, in front of the mirror—she could convey the information without seeming too vacant or needy, like it really had happened to someone else.

She struggled more when classes started in September, particularly during the first few weeks, when she walked past the practice rooms and heard the muffled strains of a Paganini violin caprice, a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, a Rossini aria, and other offhanded feats of musical genius. Several times she found herself alone in her room, absently examining her father’s Indian-head nickel, thinking about nothing, just the way she had done during those months after the fire. She remembered what Anna had said to her about the musical language of her childhood, and how it required more work to understand as an adult, and she would feel motivated by the
diagnosis. She would set down the coin and stand up with greater awareness of her spine, the position of her head and neck, the way the air moved in and out of her lungs—or any number of other things about posture and technique that she had learned—and walk out of the room as if taking the stage, already transformed into who she wanted to become.

Of the new singers, Linda was the quickest to establish herself among the faculty, and moreover—in addition to having a gorgeous voice that sounded like it belonged to someone twice her age—she knew about all the big singers and had managed to see quite a few of them, not only in the United States but also in London, Paris, and Milan. If this occasionally made Maria jealous, it inevitably gave way to a fascination with and even admiration of her roommate. Maria was particularly interested in Linda’s ability to convey a hypnotic melancholy that seemed to have no relation to her sunnier personality, which led Maria to hope that, once she figured out exactly how to go about it, she could make the veritable wealth of sadness at her disposal that much more powerful.

She mentioned this idea to Anna at one of her lessons but in the next breath confessed a new fear. “I’m worried that I’ll never be able to do the same thing,” she confessed, “because—well—”

“Because you lost so much?” Anna suggested.

“Yes.” Maria nodded.

Anna took a few seconds before she responded. “First of all, I want you to remember that there’s never been a singer who has not spent decades learning how to breathe—with consistency—and you are just getting started. And right now, that’s all you should worry about; questions of interpretation can come later. Eventually your singing will need to be personal, but for now, it’s not a problem that you are so detached.”

Given that Maria had never told Anna about her episodes of
slipping away—when she would lie in bed absently rubbing her coin—it frightened her to think that her teacher could detect this in her singing.

Anna placed a reassuring hand on Maria’s elbow and spoke in a more consoling tone. “Try not to compare yourself to Linda. It’s a process, and eventually you’ll understand not only what it’s like to build up walls but how to knock them down, though not completely, because you always have to hold something back, too.”

Maria felt tears about to spill and knew she was on the cusp of something, though as much as it felt like a revelation, she feared it could just as easily be a breakdown. “Will it have to be my parents?”

“That will be for you to decide,” Anna replied, even softer. “It might be a boy you used to like, a lost love. It might be someone who was mean to you in elementary school, or even someone you were mean to.” She smiled. “It took me forty years before I learned how to tell my story.”

Maria nodded. It was such a simple concept to understand, and it even gave her a certain appreciation not only for what she had endured but also for what she would continue to face going forward. But the idea that she would regularly have to embrace her life like this made her uneasy; if experience was a bridge to her island, it felt increasingly rickety as it crossed over deep chasms she was just beginning to detect.

MUNICH, 1864. Lucien paced back and forth in front of the Hoftheater and tried not to be too nervous about his audition. It helped to think of Eduard, who while unable to join him on the trip but having been to Munich many times before, had gently derided the design of the opera house for its stilted resemblance to the Greek Parthenon. Lucien spent a few minutes absently watching Bavarians—including some very attractive young men in lederhosen—stream across the plaza before he checked the time and made his way to the Maximilianstrasse, the grand boulevard that ran adjacent to the theater. As he walked along the sidewalk, he dragged his fingertips against the rough stone foundation for good luck and tried to imagine doing this every day on the way to rehearsal, if only he could get the part.

At the stage door, he was greeted by Hans von Bülow, the Kapellmeister of the Munich Opera, with whom he had arranged the audition. As Bülow led him backstage, they talked about Lucien’s train ride, the beautiful weather—it was now June, and much of the English Garden was in bloom—and other innocuous subjects, all of which helped distract Lucien from the task at hand. After being escorted into a rehearsal room, he recognized Wagner, who jumped up from his seat and vigorously shook his hand. “Well!” he exclaimed. “If your voice matches your build, then we should be in luck.”

Although the composer displayed a leering, adolescent grin that might have bothered Lucien under different circumstances, at present it felt closer to a relief than an affront. It gave Wagner a pedestrian
quality that seemed absent in his music, and made Lucien think he could actually impress the man.

“You look familiar to me,” Wagner continued, examining him more closely. “Have we met?”

“Yes, maestro.” Lucien nodded. “I was at your reading in Paris—the one hosted by Princess Mil—”

“Yes, I knew it! How is La Codruta? Have you seen her?”

“Good, yes, I—”

Wagner interrupted him with a wink. “You wouldn’t know it to see her now, but in her youth she was—well—not to be ignored, if you catch my meaning.”

“I’m sure I do,” Lucien offered benignly. “I saw her last month in Paris, and she said to send her warmest regards.”

“I’ll make a note to write to her as soon as I have a minute to spare,” Wagner promised, but in an absent tone that made it seem as if the thought had already slipped his mind. “She was always a bright spot for me in that miserable city.”

Lucien resisted the temptation to agree with the composer and an even stronger one to disagree—it occurred to him that he was already being tested—and instead summoned the spirit of Codruta as he responded. “Maestro, I’m sure the princess would be most pleased to hear from you, just as she was overjoyed to learn about your recent success.”

“Very good,” Wagner replied. “But Herr von Bülow tells me you’re not living there anymore?”

“That’s right—I moved to Vienna a few years ago.”

“So that explains your German.”

“As with my voice, it’s been a subject of much study,” confirmed Lucien, pleased by the compliment.

There was a conspicuous throat clearing from Bülow—now at
the piano—and Wagner’s expression grew stern as he stepped back to direct the proceedings. After Lucien had warmed up with a few short songs and exercises, they turned to the third act. They worked for close to an hour, a process that to Lucien felt more like a rehearsal than an audition, particularly when Wagner barked at him to repeat something. A few times Lucien lost his bearings and was unsure of exactly what the composer wanted, but any confusion did not seem to hold them back for more than a few seconds. When they finished, they stood speechless for a few seconds, until Bülow and Wagner nodded at each other and Lucien discreetly wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Oddly, he felt more nervous now that it was done, and had to subdue his shaking knees and chattering teeth as he shook Wagner’s hand and allowed Bülow to escort him back to the stage door. As much as he longed for some affirmation, he refrained from asking, knowing that doing so would make him appear weak; instead, after Bülow pleasantly thanked him for coming and allowed that Lucien should expect to hear from them soon, whatever that meant, Lucien nodded back and firmly—but not too firmly—shook his hand and said in an equally pleasant tone that he hoped he would.