Bel Canto(86)

It is not such a long piece and when it was over Cesar barely took in breath. He went ahead because what if this was his only chance to sing? He hadn’t meant to exactly, but when he saw that she wasn’t coming down, that everyone was waiting, the notes welled up in his throat like a wave and nothing he could do would have held them down. How brilliant it was to sing! How wonderful to hear his own voice now. He went on to the aria from La Wally. He could only sing the pieces that were Roxane’s favorites, the ones she sang over and over again. Those were the only ones whose words he could be absolutely sure of, and if he faked the words, made some sounds that were close but might mean something else entirely, then everyone would see him as a fraud. Cesar did not know that only four people in the house spoke Italian. It would have been easier to sing something that they didn’t all associate with her, because how could he not fail by comparison? But he had no choice, no other material to chose from. He didn’t know that there were songs for men and songs for women, that different pieces were tailored to the abilities of different voices. All he had heard were the parts for soprano, so why should they not be his parts? He did not compare himself to her. There was no comparison. She was the singer. He was only a boy who loved her by singing. Or was it singing he loved? He could no longer remember. He was too far inside. He closed his eyes and followed his voice. Somewhere far away he heard the piano tailing him, then catching up, then leading him ahead. The end of the aria was very high and he had no idea if he would make it. It was like falling, no, like diving, twisting your body through the air without a single thought as to how it might land.

Mr. Hosokawa was standing at the piano now in a confusion of sleep, his hair disheveled, his shirttails crumpled behind him. He simply didn’t know what to make of it. Part of him thought he should stop the boy in case he was being disrespectful, but it was all too remarkable, really, he loved La Wally. Still, there was something unnerving about watching this boy who now folded his hands over his heart the way Roxane did; what came out of his mouth was not her but so oddly reminiscent, as if it was only a poor recording of her voice that he was hearing. He closed his eyes. Yes, there was a considerable difference. There was no mistaking it now, but somehow this boy brought on the rocking sensation of love. Mr. Hosokawa loved Roxane Coss. Perhaps the boy wasn’t even singing. Perhaps his love was capable of turning the most ordinary objects into her.

Roxane Coss was standing among them listening. How was it that no one saw her coming down the stairs? She had not stopped to dress and was wearing a pair of white silk pajamas and the Vice President’s wife’s blue alpaca robe even though it was too warm for this weather. Her feet were bare and her hair was loose down her back. After so many months her roots had grown out and it was easy to see that her hair was in fact a duller shade of pale brown and thatched with shimmering silver. The boy was singing. His singing had drawn her out of such a deep sleep. She would have slept for several more hours but the singing woke her and she followed it down the stairs in a state of confusion. A recording? A cappella? But then she saw him, Cesar, a boy who had done nothing to set himself apart until now. When did he learn to sing? Her mind was racing in every direction. He was good. He was excellent. If someone was to run across such raw talent in Milan, in New York, the boy would be bundled off to a conservatory in a minute. He would be a star, because now he was nothing, not a minute of training and listen to the depth in his tone! Listen to the power that shook his narrow shoulders. He was careening towards the end, towards a high C that he could not be prepared for. She knew the music as well as she knew her own breath and she rushed towards him, as if he were a child in the road, as if the note was a speeding car bearing down on him. She grabbed his wrist. “Detengase!Basta!” She didn’t know Spanish, yet those two words she heard every day. Stop. Enough.

Cesar stopped his singing dead but sadly left his mouth open, shaped to the last word he had sung. And when she did not say, “Begin again!” his lips betrayed the slightest tremor.

Roxane Coss was touching his arm. She was speaking so fast and he didn’t understand a word of what she was saying. He stared at her blankly and he could see that she was frustrated, panicked even. The more panicked she became the louder and faster her senseless words came out and when he still didn’t respond she called out, “Gen!”

But the whole room was watching them and it was too awful. Cesar felt the trembling everywhere now, and even though she was standing right beside him, touching him, he turned away and ran out of the room. They all stood there in embarrassed silence, as if the boy had run out suddenly naked. It was Kato who thought to put his hands together and the Italians, Gianni Davansate and Pietro Genovese, who called out, “Bravo!” And then everyone in the room was clapping and calling for the boy, but he was gone, out the back door and up into a tree where he often kept watch of the goings-on of the world. He could hear them, the dull buzz from inside, but who’s to say they weren’t mocking him terribly? Maybe she was in there now doing her own imitation: pretending to be him pretending to be her.

“Gen!” Roxane took Gen’s hand. “Go after him. Tell someone to go after him.”

And when Gen turned around, there stood Carmen. Always there was Carmen, her bright dark eyes turned up to him, ready to help him like a person whose life you’ve saved. He didn’t even have to say it. That was how they understood each other. She turned and then she was gone.