Bel Canto(10)

Mr. Hosokawa later claimed he did not close his eyes all night, but Gen heard him snoring sometime after four A.M.. It was a soft, whistling snore like wind coming in beneath a doorjamb, and it gave Gen comfort. There was other snoring in the room as people fell asleep for ten minutes or twenty, but even asleep they remained obedient and stayed flat on their backs. The accompanist had worked his way out of his suit jacket so slowly he never appeared to move at all and he made a little balled-up pillow on which Roxane Coss could lay her head. All night long the muddy boots stepped over them, between them.

When the guests lay down the night before there had been a great deal of drama, which served as a distraction to what might happen, but by morning fear had coated the inside of every mouth. They had been awake thinking over the alternatives, which did not seem good. The rough brush of beards had sprung up during the night and eye makeup had been smeared from crying. Dinner jackets and dresses were crumpled, shoes were tight. Backs and hips ached from the hard floor and necks were locked straight ahead. Without exception, every last person on the floor needed to use the facilities.

In addition to suffering what the others suffered, Mr. Hosokawa bore the terrible burden of responsibility. All of these people had come for his birthday. By agreeing to a party under what he knew to be false pretense, he had contributed to the endangerment of every life in the room. Several employees of Nansei had come, including Akira Yamamoto, the director of project development, and Tetsuya Kato, senior vice president. Vice presidents from Sumitomo Bank and the Bank of Japan, Satoshi Ogawa and Yoshiki Aoi, respectively, had also come, despite Mr. Hosokawa’s personal and repeated requests that they not attend. The host country had called them as well, explaining that it was a birthday party for their most valued customer and of course they wouldn’t want to miss a birthday party. The ambassador from Japan had made the call. He was lying on the doormat now in the entry way.

But the hostage that pained Mr. Hosokawa the most (and even as he felt this he knew it was wrong, to place a higher value on one life over another) was Roxane Coss. She had been brought to this dismal jungle to sing for him. What vanity on his part to think this was an appropriate gift. It was enough to listen to her recordings. It had been more than enough to see her at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan. Why did he think it would be any better if he could stand close enough to smell her perfume? It was not better. Her voice, if he could be very honest, was not flattered by the acoustics in the living room. It made him uncomfortable to notice the supreme athleticism of her mouth, to see so clearly her damp pink tongue when she opened up wide and wider still. The lower teeth were not straight. It had been an honor but nothing that would be worth the harm that could come to her, to all of them. He tried to raise his head just a half an inch to see her. She was almost near him, since he had been standing in the front of the room when she was singing. Her eyes were closed now, though he imagined she was not sleeping. It was not that she was a very beautiful woman, if one could see her objectively, lying on a living-room floor. Each of her features seemed a bit too large for her face, her nose was too long, her mouth was too wide. Her eyes, certainly, were bigger, rounder, than average eyes, but no one could complain about her eyes. They reminded him of the blue of the rindo flowers that grew near LakeNagano. He smiled to think of that, and wanted to turn and tell his thought to Gen. He looked instead to Roxane Coss, whose face he had tirelessly studied in program notes and CD inserts. Her shoulders were sloping. Her neck, perhaps, could be longer. A longer neck? He cursed himself. What was he thinking? None of it mattered. No one could see her objectively anyway. Even those who saw her for the first time, before she had opened her mouth to sing, found her radiant, as if her talent could not be contained in her voice and so poured like light through her skin. Then all that could be seen was the weight and the gloss of her hair and the pale pink of her cheeks and her beautiful hands. The accompanist caught sight of Mr. Hosokawa’s raised head and Mr. Hosokawa quickly returned it to the floor. The terrorists were beginning to tap some of the guests and motion them to stand and follow. It was easy for Mr. Hosokawa to pretend he had only raised his head to see about that.

By ten in the morning a certain amount of whispering had begun. It wasn’t so difficult to sneak in a word or two with all the noise that blasted in through the windows and the constant up and down of the guests being led into the hall. That was what had started the whispering. At first they all believed they were to be taken away and shot a handful at a time, probably in the garden behind the house. Victor Fyodorov fingered the package of cigarettes in his jacket pocket and wondered if they would let him smoke for a minute before gunning him down. He could feel the rivulets of sweat combing back his hair. It would almost be worth getting shot if he could have a cigarette now. The room was painfully still as they waited for the report, but when that first group returned, smiling, nodding, they whispered to the ones next to them, “Toilet, bathroom, WC.” The word spread.

Everyone was led away with one escort: for every guest, a dirt-smeared young terrorist sporting several weapons. Some of the young men merely walked beside the guests, while others held the upper arm with varying degrees of aggression. The boy who came for Roxane Coss took her hand rather than her arm and held it in the manner of sweethearts looking for a deserted stretch of beach. He wasn’t pretty the way the boy who held her hand earlier had been.

There were those who believed they would be killed, who over and over again saw the movie of themselves being led out the door at night and shot in the back of the head, but Roxane Coss thought no such thing. Maybe there would be a bad outcome for some of the others, but no one was going to shoot a soprano. She was prepared to be nice, to let her hand be held, but when the time was right she would be the one to get away. She was sure of it. She smiled at the boy when he opened the door to the bathroom for her. She half expected he would follow her inside. When he didn’t she locked the door, sat down on the toilet, and cried, great, gulping sobs. She wrapped her hair around her hands and covered her eyes. Goddamn her agent who said this was worth all the money! Her neck was stiff and she felt like she might be getting a cold, but who wouldn’t catch a cold sleeping on a floor. Wasn’t she Tosca? Hadn’t she jumped off the back of the Castle Sant’ Angelo night after night? Tosca was harder than this. After this she would only play in Italy, England, and America. Italy, England, and America. She said the three words over and over again until she could regulate her breathing and was able to stop the crying.