The Unfortunates (19 page)
“Bill is like a dog in only two respects,” Victor says, putting his hand on Bill’s shoulder. “Strong sense of past routine, zero ability to envision the future.”
Bill laughs. “I like the known knowns.”
“The rate Bill and I make decisions,” Victor says, smiling at Iris, “the first property we buy will be at the cemetery.”
“If this isn’t the time, it isn’t the time,” Iris says. “You have to feel right.”
“It’s true, Victor does keep me jumping into life.” She hears the pleasure in Bill’s voice. With his long arm he reaches down and scratches 3D under the ear. “And what about this dog? He’s a strange-looking fellow, isn’t he? I’ve heard a lot about you, yes, I have.”
“I’m going to step out and make a call,” Iris says. “Give you a minute. No, 3D. Stay with Bill, stay with Victor. Good dog.”
She ambles out to the mailbox and rests her hand on the curve of the aluminum. Mrs. Baldwin has vacated the bench. Iris looks up into the trees. She looks at her nails and listens for helicopters. She counts to one hundred and back down. She winds her way back to the house and opens the door.
“Here she is.” Bill rises out of the rocking chair. In three strides he crosses the room. He reaches out and wraps his cool hands around hers. “Okay. Okay, we’ll do it.”
To his own surprise, George sticks to his promise—a promise to a prostitute who had dismissed his most serious utterance, who turned her back on him, whom he’d never see again. How these last weeks Gita’s face has risen above him night after night in witchy derision, Iris sleeping soundly beside! “God has a glass eye,” Gita would say again, her glossy lips pursed. What did that even mean? It meant she thought little of him. The flick of her shoulder was what spurred him to secure the final loan he needs to keep up with the minimums on his other loans. A less reputable lender with a complicated and punishing interest rate, but all to the good. Most nights now he doesn’t sleep more than one hour, two. He hasn’t slept in weeks. He never sleeps! Though he feels fine, better than fine. That secret, stolen time when the world in darkness belongs only to him—he uses it well, expanding, perfecting his vision. When he gets tired at rehearsal or at Hud-Stanton he has several remedies on hand, the kinds prescribed to the attention-deficient and hyperactive. The pill Bob had given him was harmless, doctor-sanctioned, and beneficial to keeping focus, though George lied the tiniest bit to get a prescription. He failed to mention his youthful enthusiasms, his previous psychiatric history, his pitch into insomnia. No, he didn’t lie. He wasn’t asked. He’s also procured, for when his bouts of sleepless productivity become too much, an excellent sleep aid.
They will make their investment back once the reviews come in and
The Burning Papers
is picked up for a longer run. (Aleksandar, over a long evening of Stolichnaya, had agreed.) And even if they lose money, won’t it have been worth it? Maybe after a season in New York,
The Burning Papers
will tour. Nationally. Internationally! A commission for his next opera to follow. In that case, breaking even is only a matter of time. With George’s approval, Aleksandar has booked a small theater on Water Street called the Abbott, for rehearsals and the opening run. George has sent Vijay the finishing additions to the libretto, and the composer—at last!—has finalized the score. Four, five times a day Aleksandar calls George to sign off on various decisions, calls George takes with adulterous thrill at Hud-Stanton.
“There are visionaries and there are administrators and there are visionary-administrators,” Aleksandar says into the phone. “And you’re the first and I’m the last, and Lord knows this month we’re hiring out the middle.”
At the office, George keeps his door shut.
He approves—more than approves—the score. When he heard its rough incarnation a year prior, he knew that Vijay was worth his fee. But this is beyond what he hoped. The Met, City—of course those conservative marionettes turned him down. Good. This way he’ll be in charge, start to finish. They’ll be sorry, all right. Maybe he’ll let the Sydney Opera have it first. Or the Royal. His phone rings.
“Directors, the short list,” Aleksandar says, and within a week they narrow the choice to two—a competent veteran from the Buffalo opera circuit, Bernard Lieber, whose strawberry wisp-over and anxious shoulders bob in time with the music, or Anatole Stratolin, a brilliant philosopher-tyrant, bizarre and unpleasant, just out of jail for tax fraud. George wants Stratolin but heeds Aleksandar’s point that above all else a director must be a stabilizing and unifying presence. They hire Bernard.
“I am honored,” Bernard says.
“
I
am honored,” George says.
“I’m thrilled and bored and hungry and nauseous all at the same time,” Aleksandar says.
Within three weeks, Bernard and Aleksandar find a conductor and assemble an orchestra on retainer. Not first tier, George admits, but a solid group—a few retirees, a string section pulled from noteworthy private quartets. When George is introduced, the retirees blink at him impassively, and the string players’ ponytails make thin snakes over the black linen humps of their backs. They do not make small talk. He suspects they don’t yet understand the work. He is glad that early orchestral rehearsals will be off-site. Aleksandar recruits the rest—young regional talents yet to gain wide notice. Bernard brings in a choreographer and a rehearsal pianist, defectors from the New Orleans Opera he’d met online.
George, Aleksandar, Bernard, and the conductor—with counsel from the newly hired stage manager and dramaturge—cast the voice talent. An exciting process! In the dim theater, George sits at a card table, beside a fire extinguisher clamped to the wall. He says, “Thank you,” at the conclusion of each audition, blandly and clearly, just like in the movies. With a shiver of pleasure he watches each vocalist walk offstage. Aleksandar settles on a scenic designer, orders costume sketches, retains the best wigmaker in the business. When the cast and crew are assembled and a date for opening night is set, George dips into the budget’s miscellany fund to take everyone out for food and drink—everyone except Vijay, who suspects a sand fly of biting him and giving him Toscana virus—and seats them at a long wooden table under a dim chandelier on Mercer Street. The table grows loud and jovial. The voice coach and the lighting director are serenaded upon their late arrival. After four hours of Chianti and antipasti George stands heavily and asks, “Do we get a fight choreographer?” The vocalists featured in the battle scene vote “Yes!” and the vocalists not in the battle scene vote “No!” Until they are thumping their fists on the table to no particular end except their own merriment and on Aleksandar’s whispered suggestion George orders everyone ouzo. After this, George calls Iris. She says she’s proud of him and he sounds pretty shithoused and she won’t wait up, he should have fun and it’s fine if he gets a hotel instead of the train.
* * *
Today, Bernard is leaning on the wall of the empty orchestra pit, looking up at the stage, his hands on his pink head.
“Katya,” he says, “how can I impress upon you the importance of coming in on cue? It’s a little late in the game for you to miss an entrance. Sorry, everyone, go again. Katya, start at the top. Jill, please, right now you are a rehearsal pianist, no more poker on the phone.”
George is in his usual spot, second to last row center aisle, wearing his new uniform: jeans and sneakers and a sweater, muted and luxurious as Stanton’s; his hair shaggier, his belt buckled a notch tighter, feeling good as he did at twenty. Yes, the venue is not exactly regal. One hundred and fifty seats. The air-conditioning could be quieter and more effective. When they turn the lights all the way up, the floor is scuffed, the velvet on the seats worn. The stage is tighter than he’d envisioned and gummy with tape from the blocking of other performances. The pit’s cramped, the curtains slow and stuttering in their draw. But it has what Aleksandar calls “historical, historical, historical charm”—reputedly once a dance hall where Melville drank beer and felt the oyster shells crush under his boot. George doesn’t mind the theater’s shabbiness. It will vanish with the beauty of his production. Here he is, in a theater, his theater for a time!
The phone on Bernard’s hip blinks. He frowns, breaks rehearsal to take the call. He motions—
Ten minutes
—up to the tenor who’s replaced Katya onstage, then shambles up the aisle to the exit. George, engaged in his usual observation—clucking with pleasure, shaking his head as he takes notes, trying to control his new-old tic of bouncing his leg in a tight and constant spasm—knows he is not to interfere. Still, he waves to Aleksandar, eating pepitas and texting the publicist, in the sound booth. Aleksandar does not look up.
“Brian,” George calls to the tenor. “How about we speed up the tempo? With a more staccato clip of the consonants? Consonants are what separate us from the animals, Brian. Jill, would you take it from the last measure?”
Aleksandar appears by his side. “Fantastic suggestion. Edgy. So very.”
“Thank you!” George says.
Bernard sweeps briskly back up the aisle.
“But now I think—Bernard?”
“Yes, let’s move on and block scene three. We have the harem here in its entirety today, but only until four p.m. Thank you, George, we’ll remember that for next time. Harem, please.”
At Hud-Stanton, with increasing frequency, George claims his absences and half days are in the service of his mother’s care. After all, the Arts and Culture Fund practically files itself. At home, he’s suggested that Hud-Stanton is allowing him flexible hours, in full support of his endeavor. Often enough, he finds he is agreeably convinced of this himself. There are administrators and there are visionaries, he reminds himself. He dreams of quitting, but he needs the income, even if his income is a pebble in the shadow of a mountain. He won’t ask his mother, trade his freedom for the face she’d make, and if he quit Hud-Stanton—he doesn’t want anyone to know how much he’s devoting to
The Burning Papers
. Not until it’s opened, until its art has been revealed. He can’t bear how they’d look at him if he gave his notice and told them why, how they wouldn’t understand. And Stanton (Hud unavailable in Palm Springs)
had
conveyed that George should take all the time he needed, tending to an illness in the family.
“All right,” Bernard says to the harem, scattered in jeans and sweats along the edge of the stage. “This is a complex scene. Our Unnamed Hero is outside the gates of the city formerly known as Paris. The gates will be far stage left. The gates have been bombed. As you know, Unnamed Hero is about halfway through his quest to find his exiled father … Yes, Judith, in the strictest sense it would be unlikely for a Paris of the future to have city gates. But this is, this is—George?”
“I suspect I can be of help here. Judith, everyone. This isn’t just Paris. This is the Paris of our collective understanding. This is every Paris at the same time simultaneously. It’s the
idea
of Paris, if the
idea
of Paris were bombed.”
“Thank you,” Bernard says. “Powerful stuff. There you go. The city gates will be over there, and around the gates will be rubble and debris. We don’t know if we’re getting the turned-over tank yet, but keep in mind you may need to block around a tank. Unnamed Hero and Agent X—Brian, Eric, come on over—will stand in front of the gates. You are under the great dismantled crucifix and are conferring as to the dangers ahead. Sotto voce, as far downstage as possible.”
“I hate to interrupt,” George calls from the back, where he has resumed his regular post.
“Please.”
“Don’t forget we need a good amount of dust floating in the air around the gates, catching the light. To indicate the bombing is recent.”
“I think we discussed that with the voice coach? A few days ago? If we fill the air with dust, it will harm the voices. For singing.”
“But visually, it’s important.”
“George, it can’t be done,” Aleksandar shouts from the sound booth. “You’ll have to let it go. We’ll get a smoke machine. You’re taxing Bernard.”
“Oh, all right,” George sighs.
“Wonderful.” Bernard continues, “Yes, Eric, stand right there. Have we talked about the scrim splitting upstage from down? Upstage, behind the scrim, the Compound. Enslaved ladies of the harem, please recline in a half circle on your marks. You’ll be in semidark. Eunuchs on either side of wives. Unnamed Hero and Agent X and the Paris gates downstage in spotlight. With dust, if we can. Harem, you will be the chorus here. Chief eunuch and second eunuch, let’s try pacing inside the circle of wives. Ensemble’s not here today, but there will be, ah, Gypsies peering through the windows. Wives, you are unaware of them. But, eunuchs, how do
we
feel? We feel paranoid!… What’s this?… Thank you, Aleksandar. We have a note from George. Shall I read it, George? Yes?… ‘Should be brushing each other’s hair. More beautiful. Should be more like mermaids.’ Ah, okay, let’s try that. Tighten up so you can reach each other’s hair. Thank you. Let’s try the chorus please, starting at line 214. Jill, when you’re ready.”
In the confines of the harem, the women begin to sing, in a soft, murmuring round, of the faraway places they imagine the hero to be.
“They are all
brilliant
,” George whispers to Aleksandar. Aleksandar nods.
We love him so, s
ì
, s
ì
, s
ì
,
the women sing.
S
ì
is the only Italian in the opera—a linguistic compromise George and Vijay devised together. George feels his phone go off. His mother’s number at Oak Park
.
He sits on the phone to muffle it.
The principal wife steps out of the chorus to begin her duet with the hero, stage left, in Paris. They will sing together, unawares. She begins alone, with her dilemma: He may never return. How long can she remain faithful? She sings of the kindness and beauty of the eunuchs and wonders if, as harem rumor has it, one eunuch among them is an impostor. She recalls the hero’s extreme masculine vigor with longing, but as he joins her, singing of her beauty, she laments how her memory of him fades.
