The Pacific and Other Stories (4 page)

But, no, a soprano, accompanied only by a guitar, was singing somewhere, and the song floated across the air and through the open windows of the Accademia. As I looked up at these windows and at the warm and motion-filled light that bathed them, the song grew stronger. Singers on the streets are often students with neither experience nor promise. This was different. She was different. She was obviously young, not entirely polished, and not entirely sure, but the quality and power of her voice were of the first
rank. I had not heard an unrecognized voice of this quality since the moment forty years before when first I heard Rosanna.

I ran through the Accademia like a merchant in pursuit of a thief. I wasn’t quite sure of where the song came from and did not want, in searching the side streets, to lose it. People don’t run in the Accademia. Well, perhaps American children, but not Italians of my age. Someone like me is rarely seen at a run in any circumstance, anyway, so I attracted the attention of the guards, who insisted that I submit to a search. They took me aside, patted me with their hands, and made sweeping motions with their electronic wands. “Forgive me, signore,” one of them told me, “but you have the air of someone who has stolen a painting—not to sell it, but out of love.”

“Obviously I don’t have a painting,” I said, breathing hard. It was hot and I was lightly dressed, with neither coat nor cape. The guard knowingly shook his head from side to side. “In this field of maneuver, they cut with a knife, and roll the canvas. It fits neatly down the thigh or inside the front of the jacket. Sometimes, but not always, they leave the knife behind.”

“Oh.”

“But you’re all right. Why were you running? Late for an appointment? You must be a lawyer.”

“No, I’m not a lawyer. The singer outside—I don’t want to miss her. I have to find what street she’s on. She might go away. It’s very important. Let me go.” I started off.

“Don’t worry,” the guard said, “she’s been here every day for a month. They’re on Foscarini, right in front of the Bancomat.”

“The Bancomat.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” I said, and gave him ten thousand lire. Then I rushed off.

“She stays there all day,” he called out after me, “no need to run.”

Only a great voice could sing, all day, as beautifully as that, only a great voice.

O
N THE WHITE STONES
of the Rio Terrà Foscarini just before the Calle Nuova Sant’Agnese, in front of the glass windows of a bank, in which the huge,
rough walls of the Accademia were reflected, was a young woman of about twenty-five, who was singing. To her right, on an expensive folding chair, was a man of approximately the same age accompanying her on guitar. The guitar case on the sidewalk in front of them—of heavy grade, to protect an instrument worth perhaps seven or eight million lire—was held open to receive donations that appeared to be about twenty-five thousand lire for the morning. I calculated almost automatically that for singing that long Rosanna would earn no less than two hundred million lire and, depending upon the arrangements, possibly a billion lire, not to mention expenses that might easily be a hundred million or more.

And there I was, in a position perfectly illustrative of the essence of arbitrage, able to reconcile two rashly conflicting valuations. For her voice, though not as polished and confident as Rosanna’s after decades of performance, was a touch more beautiful, and would ripen with experience and time. I could bridge the irrational discrepancy in valuation, and take my share for doing so. As I have said, my reaction was almost automatic, and had been since I had started to run in the Accademia, but I was not comfortable. A counterweight to my obvious desire was pulling me back. I was in considerable distress, and had no idea why. I tried to ignore it. I tried to calm myself and, by listening intently and looking closely, take control of the many contradictory currents that had been set in motion within me.

Though a dozen people who had paused to listen formed a semicircle about the two performers, many more passed indifferently in both directions, as if they were busy with things of paramount importance, or were deaf, or viewed the soprano and guitarist as beggars. It was hard to tell the nationalities of those who had gathered. There are so many foreigners in Venice, especially around the Accademia at this time of day, and these days clothing is so universal that Eskimo children (in summer) dress like the youth of Palermo. It was women, mainly, who were watching, and, except for me, not one man unaccompanied by a woman. Only a few people of the twelve or so had cameras, and only one, an Englishman in a blue blazer, with blond hair and that masterful English bearing that Italians find entertaining even though they consider the same quality in Germans insufferable, was in the process of taking a photograph. He was next to his wife and
daughters, who were truly beautiful and as tall as giraffes. Otherwise, the cameras remained sheathed.

The guitarist had a weak chin but strong eyes. His hair was pulled back, and rested at the base of his neck. It was so evenly dark that I thought it was either wet or dyed. If he had been there all morning it couldn’t have been wet—it didn’t look wet—but why would so young a man color his hair, unless he were not as young as I thought, and was perhaps considerably older than she, who surpassed him in promise and in youth. He wore black pants and a white shirt open at the collar, with the sleeves rolled up just beyond his elbows. A superb musician, he was playing from music set before him on a chrome stand. Deeply intent, he appeared to be suffering immensely, and never looked at the crowd, although he graciously acknowledged the few contributions tossed into the guitar case.

As a longtime impresario, I could see at a glance that he was a fine fellow who would treat me like a snake. I knew beforehand the full spectrum of his suspicion, anger, contempt, rage, helplessness, resignation, and grief. If things went the way all forces pushed them, he would come against me and fight hard until he realized that I was the representative of both inevitability and his own desires. For, after all, what were they hoping for on that street corner if not to be discovered by an impresario of La Scala? They were not singing just for bread and wine. In that regard, I noticed that they had no bottled water, and though they were in the shade, it was very hot. Everyone in Venice that day was drinking water from plastic bottles, and they had none. It made me wonder what people did in the previous ages of man. Not so long ago, it was possible to exist in the summer without carrying around a plastic bottle full of water, but perhaps people were unhappier then, though I know that I myself was not. (We used to drink from fountains and taps, and we didn’t get typhoid. Well, some of us did.)

If she had not been beautiful, she would have been beautiful nonetheless. I don’t know how she would be judged by common standards. For me it was impossible not to be enthralled as she sang an aria from
La Clemenza di Tito
, the first performance of which occurred in September of 1791, three months before Mozart died, and which was undoubtedly one of the many songs that carried him aloft. I am constructed so that when I heard her singing this, I
reacted very strongly, which was unfortunate for me and for my fortunes, but fortunate in a far greater sense. It did, however, complicate things. A lifetime has taught me not to fall in love with a woman just because transcendent music is flowing from her breast. The men who fall in love with Rosanna this way are such idiots, and I’ve always been in a position to see this clearly. Perhaps I’m an idiot, too, for to add to the many difficulties I was experiencing in regard to this singer, I now was in love with her in the way that old men can briefly be in love with youth, which is like standing on the platform as an express train that doesn’t stop at your station goes by at full speed. It’s exciting, the wind comes up, your clothes whistle in the air, you awaken, and then it’s gone, without even having seen you.

Let me describe her, for in my infatuation I burned into memory every detail, and for a woman I have never touched (she made sure, for his sake, not even to shake my hand), it is as if I have slept next to her for decades. First, she was, for a singer, very slight. I could easily have lifted her into my arms. Doing that with Rosanna would be as inconceivable as tossing a hippo across the English Channel. But this beautiful singer was, at the same time, full, so that, though I might easily have lifted her, I could not have held her effortlessly or for long. She was not a delicate, weightless creature, all bone; she was, although trim and strong, a woman. The strength of her singing had to be more than just spiritual. Her body, though not overbearing, was alluring. Physically, she was dense and substantial, quick, self-possessed, and sexually willing. I knew that. How I knew, I don’t know.

I never remember what anyone is wearing, even I myself. My wife will sometimes command me to close my eyes. “What am I wearing?” she asks. I cannot say. “What are
you
wearing?” I cannot say that, either. But, strangely, I am able to remember what everyone there was wearing, not least the soprano. She stood in black sandals, and her toenails were painted. This shocked me, for I think it is barbaric and makes women look like the rhinoceroses in the Babar books. Why would such an angelic and unparalleled person stoop to such vulgarity? I immediately thought of Rosanna, who hires experts to buff and paint the nails on her feet, and suspected that this rhinocerine practice might somehow correlate with divine song, though why would it?

She wore pants that, though tight enough to show her perfect figure, were loose enough and black enough so that as she stood with her legs together it seemed as if she were in a sheath skirt. Her sleeveless top with narrow shoulder straps was black as well. It embraced her tightly, accentuating her firm and attractive bosom. Because the shoulder straps were so narrow, her brassiere straps, also black, had escaped their bounds and were visible on both sides. She was slightly sunburned, and on her left wrist she wore a cheap Japanese watch with a silver band. The face of the watch was rectangular and its diminutive blue dial against the black of her clothes was ravishing.

Her chestnut hair, though not colored, was pulled back and had the same quality as his. That is, it seemed wet, though it was not. And then I realized that—in Venice, in peak season—they could not afford a hotel room. They were probably living on the street. A woman who, with a season of apprenticeship to learn techniques of the stage and how to live richly, would, or, rather, could be one of the two or three highest-paid sopranos of the world, whose talent was equal to, if not finer than, that of Rosanna Cadorna, the highest-paid singer in existence, was, for all her beauty and majesty, living on the street.

I have mentioned that she was beautiful, and she was. Her face was as sharp as a hawk’s, and as strong. And her eyes were the strangest eyes I have ever seen. Unless she looked directly at you—and as she sang she looked either at her feet or up at the high walls of the Accademia—you could not see them. It was as if she were blind or they were hooded like a hawk’s, neither of which was the case. Much as he would not engage his audience, neither would she, but whereas he was obliged to look at the music, she could not, and here the highly unusual eyes served to protect her privacy. Perhaps she was ashamed of singing and living on the street. But when she sang, the shame vanished. Perhaps it was this that gave her the ability to sing for so long, that her singing was the only thing that kept them in the light and warmth of the world.

When she finished with the aria, some people tossed a few thousand lire into the guitar case. It appeared that she would rest a few minutes, so I took my time in removing from my wallet my card and some money. I wanted to
put them up immediately in the finest suite of the Celestia. It would have been perfectly appropriate, and though it might have made them slightly grandiose in negotiation, it would have made them feel indebted to me and thrown them off balance. But something told me this was not right. You give a starving soprano soup, not roast oxen and cake. And, although I didn’t know why, I didn’t want them to feel indebted to me, even though I knew that no matter how little I helped them, they would.

My card announces me as an impresario of La Scala and the sole representative and manager of Rosanna Cadorna, Philippe Juneaux, and Lèandra Busoni. I gave it to them, to him—the proper etiquette—rather than putting it in the guitar case, with ten one-hundred-thousand lire notes, all freshly printed. He read the card, felt the money, and almost had a cardiac arrest. Seeing this, she came over to look, and followed suit. They couldn’t talk. They looked at me, as I knew they would, as if I had risen from the dead.

“I would be very happy,” I said, “if you would join me for dinner tonight at the Celestia. Please meet me in the lobby, at eight.”

They didn’t understand Italian very well, so I said it in English, which they did understand. All they could say was “Thank you, thank you …,” which I interrupted by asking how long they had been in Venice.

“We arrived last night on the train,” he offered as precisely as if talking to a magistrate.

“But the guard at the Accademia told me you’ve been here for a month,” I said.

He looked puzzled. Then he moved his hand in a kind of backward, hitchhiking motion, thumb pointing to the bank. “The people in the bank gave us coffee,” he said, “and thanked us. They said that African drummers were here for ten days. They liked it, at first.” He smiled.

Duplicating his gesture but with my thumb pointing to the Accademia, I said, “In there, they’re not musical, but visual.” This put them at ease.

“You represent Rosanna Cadorna and Lèandra Busoni?” she asked, as if it could not be true.

“Yes.”

“We just got here,” she said. What she meant was what my late friend Federico, a cellist, meant when he told me that, on his first trip to England,
in the nineteen thirties, half an hour after exiting the station he found himself standing on a Whitehall street corner next to Winston Churchill. It was true: Federico was an absolute literalist and could not lie.