The Metropolis (14 page)

T
HE FOLLOWING
W
EDNESDAY
, as promised, Gina drove Maria to her first session at Kathy’s in Cedar Village, where she was living
with her parents until her wedding—she was engaged to a reporter for the
Post-Gazette
—which was scheduled for the fall. The Warrens had a neoclassical mansion complete with three Doric columns that made it look—as Maria would later realize—more like a bank than a house, but at this point in her life Maria was nothing but awed as she walked up a flagstone sidewalk lined with rosebushes and marigolds in matching beds carved out of a freshly watered lawn, which glistened in the dappled sunlight under a pair of towering pin oaks. A weather-beaten gardener waved hello, and she felt embarrassed, as if to acknowledge someone from her own social stratum might expose her as a fraud.

Mrs. Warren greeted Maria at the door. “Is that your mother?” she asked caustically as she looked at the car lurking at the base of her driveway.

Maria felt intimidated by this woman’s patrician nose and conch of ivory-colored hair. “Yes.” She smiled weakly.

Mrs. Warren eyed her. “Don’t you think I should meet her?”

Maria’s heart sank at the thought of Gina entering this domain of riches she alone had procured but, with no choice in the matter, she waved to her mother to stop and ran down to relay the invitation, which—of course, Maria bitterly noted—Gina accepted.

Gina made her own ascent up the Palatine Hill before stepping into the two-story entrance foyer with a direct view of a curving, marble staircase to the second floor. She took this in with eyes wide but hardly gawking, which did not prevent Maria in the next two minutes from dying of embarrassment as each innocuous syllable left Gina’s lips in the course of exchanging pleasantries with the formidable Mrs. Warren.

Fortunately for the skittish Maria, Kathy soon descended like Freia from Valhalla to escort her to some distant wing of the mansion,
while Mrs. Warren presented Gina with a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies. As they chatted about their daughters, Mrs. Warren gleaned that the Sheehans did not have a piano. “I’d be frankly overjoyed to give you our spare—it’s an upright—if you would arrange to have it moved.”

“You have
two
pianos?”

“Well … yes.” Mrs. Warren did not bother to hide a befuddled expression that seemed to be caused by Gina’s failure to grasp the meaning of the word
two
. “That’s why I’m offering you one. If your daughter is as talented as Kathy says, then she should have a piano.”

“I’ll talk to my husband tonight.” Gina beamed. “Now that Maria’s getting serious, I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Back in Castle Shannon, where the bald spots in the lawn and the shag carpet stood out in sharp contrast to the manicured landscaping and serene berber of Cedar Village, John—who wished to see nothing but a new color television being hauled into the house—was less certain that this was such a good idea. “You know, it’s not exactly cheap to move one of those things.”

“John, she’s giving it to us. They cost hundreds of dollars in the store!”

“If she’s a singer, why does she need a piano?”

Gina tried to remember how Kathy had phrased it. “There’s a lot of theory—music theory—that she should learn on the piano.”

John scowled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, John, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Singing is the one thing she’s ever done where someone besides anyone living here said, ‘Maria, you’re really good at that,’ and you may not care that much about music, but it’s important for her—it really is—even if she doesn’t have a professional voice. And if we can’t get a new
television until next year, that’s just tough. I know if she was a boy who was good at football or baseball, you’d be the first one lining up to get him all the right equipment.”

“Except the great thing about football and baseball,” John pointed out, “is that they don’t cost anything.”

Gina frowned. “If I have to ask your mother for the money, I will.” This was a serious threat, because Mrs. Sheehan was a barely functional alcoholic who spent her days playing bingo and her nights calling her children to deliver sherry-induced vitriolic diatribes about what worthless failures they were, something they all endured because of her habit, the following morning, of calling them back, not remembering a word but suffering from a huge hangover and a vague feeling of remorse, to announce her intention to purchase the victims of her assaults expensive gifts. Gina had discovered that this cycle tended to correspond with losing streaks by the Pirates of more than six games—which was why she read the sports pages almost as fanatically as her husband—and that she could influence her mother-in-law by dropping hints about how nice it would be to have a new hi-fi or electric mixer, or even a $150 chaise.

“Fine, get the movers.” John gave in, and the following week, the Warrens’ old piano was installed in the living room upstairs while, in a carefully negotiated compromise, the big television and couch were moved downstairs into the room next to the garage, so John could invite his buddies over to watch the game without having to worry about spilling pretzel crumbs on the carpet.

PARIS, 1860. Lucien stepped in front of a mirror in his bedroom but after a moment of consideration shook his head and began to unbutton the white shirt he had chosen, with a thought to replace it with one that was black. The evening ahead promised to be exciting in many respects: Codruta had invited him to a reading she was hosting for Richard Wagner, after which he planned to go directly to the Pérégrine, a new music hall in Montmartre to meet his friend Gérard Beyle, a fellow stagehand at the St.-Germain. Now twenty-three, Lucien had finished his studies at the conservatory and—still on track for the operatic stage—was appearing in recitals around the city, including the recent Soirée d’Avril, where in addition to his impressing
tout le monde
with his voice, a young Russian countess was overheard to remark that he resembled less a typical Gaul than a young Greek champion of the javelin. His impressive physique—he was as tall as his father but wider in the chest—could in part be attributed to his job at the theater, where he had worked as a carpenter and stagehand since negotiating the compromise with Guillaume.

Though he was now used to the work, during his first season he sometimes feared he had made a mistake. He had started in August, and spending twelve or more hours each day in the sweltering heat, hauling around heavy pieces of wood, iron, and whatever else—not to mention breathing sawdust and paint fumes—left him exhausted. But with no desire to return to school, he persevered, and in October, the demands of the job diminished considerably and he was frequently needed for only a few hours, most often during the actual performance. Each subsequent year had followed a similar pattern,
which had given him plenty of time to focus on his musical training, even after he started at the conservatory.

There had been other benefits to the job as well, particularly in the early years, when he was so much less experienced in the ways of the world. Hardly a night passed that a crew of his coworkers—often joined by some of the singers—didn’t go out to a nearby bistro to
faire la fête
, and it didn’t take him long to learn to drink too much and vomit ferociously in the alley behind the bar, an experience he had found oddly joyful—at least until the next morning—as he stumbled home between the arms of two other men, with the lamplights of the new boulevards spinning through his vision.

Nor would he ever forget one evening that first April when—a few minutes after he had arrived at the theater for his shift—a soubrette named Cathérine Deville appeared in the hall and beckoned with a small curl of her index finger. “
Bonsoir,
” she said with a wink. “Do you think you could assist me with
une petite quelque chose
?”

“
Bien sûr, madame.
” Because Lucien had heard rumors about her, he was not completely surprised by the invitation, and in fact had already admired her small-waisted figure and ample breasts, which featured prominently in her stage costumes, and most of all her voice, which at its fluttery best managed to land squarely on every note with deceptive grace. At this point—in terms of love—he continued to be intrigued by all permutations offered by theatrical society, and he liked to imagine that he would need to try many before deciding which suited him best.

But his bedroom fantasies in no way prepared him for the reality of Cathérine Deville, so that when they arrived at her dressing room—not much bigger than a closet—and she turned to face him after shutting the door, close enough that he could feel every breath, he felt weak and thought he might faint as she traced one of her small fingers down the front of his shirt.

“Do I make you nervous?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m worried that you are, well … more knowledgeable than I.”

“That’s probably true,” she admitted. “Are you a virgin?”

He blushed. “I’m only sixteen.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You—sixteen?”

Lucien leaned back on the door and nodded; with a full beard and arms hardened from the better part of a year in the theater, he knew he looked older. He detected her skepticism and regretted that his curiosity had delivered him into such a tenuous predicament, in which he had to assume, like any performer taking the stage without adequate rehearsal, his humiliation could be the only outcome. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I should leave.”

“No,
mon chère
, stop—
viens.
” She reached out for his belt and pulled him a few steps forward, enveloping him in the fragrance of her hair, the top of which reached only to his chin. “
Dis-moi,
” she continued sotto voce, “do you find me attractive?”

“I think so.” Lucien immediately regretted the sound of this and quickly added: “Your voice is … superb.”

“Do you really think so?” She flounced her hair in a gesture that conveyed a mix of sarcasm and perhaps—he hoped—appreciation. “Of course, you know I didn’t invite you here to listen to me sing—”

“I didn’t mean just your voice.”

“You’re very sweet, but I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed with your first time.”

He tentatively placed his hands over hers as she steered him onto a small stool next to her dressing table. She ordered him to unbutton his trousers, which he did, and led her to note with approval that his nerves had not prevented him from functioning in the expected manner. She then took his hand and placed it under her loose-fitting
chemise, resting it on the velvet folds of her stomach for a few moments and then moving up to a breast, which she told him to caress gently. This, too, he did, before she escorted this same hand on a trip below her waistline, where his fingers undertook a brief exploration that, to his regret, raised as many questions as it answered before she extracted him with a smile that again made him nervous, at least until she bit the top of his ear and whispered that he was doing fine.

She removed her own undergarments and, in one fluid motion that caused him to gasp, stepped forward to straddle him on his lap. “Don’t worry,” she said and squirmed a bit as she leaned down into him, burying his face in her chest and clasping her thin arms around his neck. “
Ça va bien?
”

“
Ça va bien,
” he answered, though wedged between Cathérine and the wall, he felt a bit constrained and hoped that she didn’t expect a lot more from him.

She laughed and began to pant and thrust. “
Mon enfant
, stop thinking so much!”

Only then did he understand what the poets meant by the boundless rapture of being everywhere and nowhere at once, as waters rushed and fires raged; he exalted at being initiated into this magical rite and wondered how he could ever have had any doubt; he swore his everlasting gratitude and devotion to Cathérine Deville, whose every pleasure would henceforth be his only occupation. Except as he returned to consciousness in the same uncomfortable position and watched as she, too, opened her eyes—which only seconds before had trembled slightly under closed eyelids—to reveal a frank expression that contained no hint of love or everlasting gratitude but simply the perfunctory appreciation of one who had just received a kind assistance from a stranger, he wondered if the waters had been more a trickle and the fire but a tiny spark.

“What is your name again?” she asked, as she dismounted in an
efficient motion that made him feel like an actual horse and dispensed a quick peck to his forehead.

He felt a new and dispiriting ambivalence. “Lucien,” he answered petulantly and did not take pains to disguise the shattered pieces of his heart.

“Lucien, are you upset,
mon chère
?”

Her tone, he noted, held not a trace of earnestness, but that she had recognized and mocked his hurt made it seem ridiculous. He laughed at the child who had entered this room however long ago, who could not understand that what would occur could barely be considered more than the shake of a hand, and that to attach love or hate to such a little thing was preposterous. But then he felt deflated, as though he had opened a gift wrapped in gilded paper, only to find a book written in a language he did not understand. He looked at Cathérine, who in turn glanced at her makeup table—a show was scheduled, after all, and she needed to get dressed—and he understood that there was no need to explain any of this to her. “Why would I be upset?” he replied brightly.

She placed one hand on her chest and the other to the side as she performed a short arpeggio. “Good-bye, Lucien,” she sang and then remarked, “Thanks to you, I shall be in very good voice tonight.”

Lucien had barely a second to consider this as he backed into the hallway and there literally bumped into one of his fellow carpenters, a short, compact man with mischievous eyes and a mustache that looked like a push broom. He was new, but Lucien liked him, if for no other reason than that he had seen him laughing at the antics of some of the other members of the crew Lucien also found amusing. Lucien froze as he wondered if and how he should acknowledge the moment, and he was greatly relieved when Gérard—that was his name, Lucien remembered—simply stepped to the side and looked
back at the blushing Lucien, tipped an imaginary hat, and said, “
Bonsoir, monsieur
” in a low voice accompanied by a sly smile that told Lucien—well, of course, what else would he be doing in the soprano’s dressing room an hour before curtain?—he knew.