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SEVEN
“Voi che sapete, che chosa è amor,
Donne, vedete s’io l’ho nel cor.”
(“You
ladies, who know what love is,
See if it is what I have in my heart.”)
–Cherubino,
“Le Nozze di Figaro,” Mozart
Maestro had
a beautiful half-acre spread on a bluff overlooking the sound, with a view of
North Seattle and a set of stairs down to the beach through piles of rounded
steel-blue boulders. Past a row of young
cedars on the north side of his property (the island’s old cedars had all been
logged out early in the century) was an overlook on Fay Bainbridge State Park,
a haven for young campers, old RV’ers and picnicking families who lined up for
campsites on weekend mornings and spent the rest of the afternoon combing the
shoreline for driftwood, flying kites and shouting their way through games of
volleyball and frisbee. Maestro didn’t
seem to mind the hubbub too much – partly because the cliff on that side of his
property defied traversal, but mostly because, in his words, “It brings
LIFE... to my house. I hear the SWEET... voices of children ALL... through the day.”
Gabriella
found me resting on Maestro’s back deck, blowing the steam from a cup of tea
while sizing up a stack of freshly purchased two-by-six planks.
“Are we
puzzled?” she asked, sneaking up on me.
“Gabriella!”
I said, with all necessary Italian flourishes.
“Bongiorno! And Si, Rosina, I am puzzled.”
She leaned
down to grant me a kiss on my cold forehead.
“I saw your fences out front.
They’re lovely! I felt like I was on the set of ‘Bonanza.’”
“‘La
Fanciulla del West,’ actually,” I replied.
“Maestro first saw them on the flats at La Scala – or so the story
goes. Soon after sailing in to San
Francisco, he took a trip to the country, saw the real thing on a ranch in
Sonoma County, and vowed to have some of his own someday. Do you know what split rail fences are made
of?”
Gabriella
perched on my stack of two-by-sixes as only a soprano can perch, gave me her
familiar squint and made the sarcastic reply.
“This is going to sound kinda radical, but – split... rails?”
“Yes!” I
said, exactly like Maestro, with a little touch of expelled air at the
end. “But tell me, did you ever fully
process that idea before? Whole lot of railroads in the West, lotsa extra rails
sittin’ around, whattya gonna do with ‘em? Hey, I know, let’s take an axe to
them suckers, split ‘em in two, drive a couple into the ground, stack the ends
brick-a-brack just like Lincoln Logs and Voila! Fences! And you don’t even need
nails.”
Gabriella
gave me a rainwater smile and beckoned for my tea. I surrendered my orange ceramic mug to her
eminence and she took a sip, letting it nestle against her throat. “Maestro was right. You did need some work. I can feel the energy shooting out from your
face. All pink and healthy.”
“It’s my
Scottish blood,” I said. “And the
setting doesn’t hurt, either.”
“Si,
Guglielmo.” She turned her gaze to a spot between the cedars, through which she
could see children in the park below, a half-dozen towheaded pre-teens setting
up a volleyball net over a spread of wood chips. “Maestro bought this place back in the
mid-seventies. Twenty thousand
bucks. Family named Newport, working
their way backwards from Alaska to Indiana.
So what’s he got you doing now?”
“Well.” I
knocked twice on the surface of the deck.
“You notice this little isle o’ wood we’re sitting upon.”
“Ja. I have spent many a half-hour here, waiting
for my lessons.”
“Il
Professore was having yours truly replace a few rotted-out planks and then
water-seal the thing – something that he should have had done years ago, by the
way – and it got to looking so nice, that he thought it would be wonderful, on
those rare occasions when it rains in these parts, to be able to come out to
this spot without trudging through the mud.
Quoth he – I dropped my jaw, raised a backward set of fingers and went
into my Maestro-voice – “On rainy days, you know... I like to WATCH... as the CHILDREN... play on the beach, and the BOATS... come by.
But I am an old man... you
know. I cannot get my FEET...” (here I
paused for a ridiculous amount of time) “WET.”
“Ooh,
that’s scary,” said Gabriella. “You
know, for a minute there, you just became an old Italian man.”
“Honey,
after I finish this project, I’m going to feel like an old Italian man. I mean, well, it’s like this: I have to take
those twenty or so concrete piers in the corner there, sink them into the
ground between here and the back door, level them, link them up with
pressurized four-by-fours, level those, then take those planks beneath your
derriere and nail them into place. And
because Maestro is an ARTIST, and has STYLE – he wants this little walkway to
curve back and forth like a Death Valley sidewinder. Which means I’ll have to take this rusty old
Skil saw of his and cut about half of these planks diagonally – end to end.”
Gabriella
released bright staccato leaps of laughter like she was singing “Gianni
Schicci” and someone had just put a hand up her dress. “Oh God, Billy. What have I gotten you into?”
“Work,” I
said. “Hard labor. Indentured servitude. It’s all right. It’s the least I can do to pay back the
kindnesses afforded to me by his prima donna.
And I sort of like it, you know? It’s right there in your hands. You can own this kind of work, you can look
at it afterwards, wave your hands in its general direction and say, ‘See?
Here. This is what I’ve done.’”
“I’m glad,”
said Gabriella with a smile.
“And the
pay is my favorite blackberry tea and, at lunchtime, turkey pesto sandwiches on
Dutch crunch bread. So what brings you
here? Lessons?”
“No. Meeting.
The publicity committee.”
“Hmmm. You actually do run this company, don’t you?”
“It seems
that way, sometimes. I can’t seem to
help myself.”
“You know
what you need?” I said. “You need
photos.”
“Really?”
“Yes. That’s what editors need most, you know. You really don’t have to knock them out with
how many times you’ve performed Mimi at The Met – but if you can give them
pretty pictures to make their newspaper look good, then you’re talking their
language. And as a reader, pray tell me,
what’s the first thing you look at when you open the newspaper?”
“Photos.”
“There you
go.”
Gabriella
heard a sound and cast her eyes toward the water; a small fishing boat was
chugging southward, cutting shaving cream slices into the sound. “You know a photographer who works cheap?”
I reached
out a hand and guided her face back my way.
“Yes,” I said. “You got a good
old-fashioned thirty-five millimeter? No autofocus or any of that other amateur
shit?”
“Maestro does.”
“Well. You got a photographer.”
“And an
umpire,” she said, and smiled. I would
pay many lira for that smile.
“And
apparently, a carpenter,” I said.
She rose
from her perch and shook down her peasant dress, a fabric salad of gray
curlicues and cinnamon roses, then gave me an appraising look, like a visual
tarp thrown over the whole of me. (I
could feel the Countess already gaining hold of her movements.) “Is there
anything you don’t do, Guglielmo?”
“Sing,” I
said. “I don’t sing.”
* * *
I asked
Rocky to blast every light he had while Gabriella assembled the troops
onstage. A couple of junior sopranos
(one the 16-year-old Asian girl that Gabriella had warned me about) caught me
near the back of the theater and pleaded with me to avoid several parts of
their costumes that weren’t quite done yet.
I promised to try, and shuffled over to a table next to Maestro’s
unoccupied throne to load in my film (unwilling to bet on Il Professore’s
antique flash, I was shooting 400-speed film and betting on the stage lights
instead). Gabriella swam by in a pink
period dress four times her natural girth, and asked if I was ready yet.
I hadn’t
seen “Figaro” for ten years (the Chicago Lyric, Ramey and von Stade), and was
actually a little fuzzy on the plot details, so I was grateful when Joe, a
burly, light-skinned black baritone who was playing the Count, took charge of
the cast. I noted that Joe was wearing
sandals, but, having no great urge to shoot his feet, anyway, made a mental
note to forgo making a mental note.
Although the troupe had not yet gotten past music-only rehearsals, they
appeared to be well-versed in the opera’s many tight situations and sharp
corners, and required little coaching to present some lively vignettes for my
lens: Figaro and Susanna exchanging loving fiancetic glances; the Countess
cringing under the Count’s accusing stare; the Count subsequently stealing a
kiss from Susanna; Marcellina and Bartolo presenting Figaro’s old marriage
contract, et cetera. Beyond an
occasional complaint regarding the sauna-like combination of bright lights and
big costumes, they were impeccably well behaved. And I had only to frame, focus and snap. Within a half-hour, I was nearing the end of
my roll.
It was only
during the more complicated arrangements of the full-ensemble shots that I had
occasion to notice Cherubino, swaggering her way into many a trouser-role squat
at the feet of her beloved Countess. She
was wearing the most complete outfit on the stage (which she’d brought
herself), a dashing royal blue silk waistcoat with long, sharp swallow tails,
lemon-yellow breeches and a white vest, Napoleanic tri-cornered cap and ruffled
lace cuffs bursting from her sleeves.
I knew
her. And I wondered why, and from
where. I ran a mental inventory, drawing
up pieces like a police sketch artist. A
shock of thick, straight coal-black hair.
Big, round, Lucille Ball eyes.
Thin nose and a slender, asymmetrical face, with modest, elastic lips
set into an unbalanced smirk that, much like Maestro’s deck, never seemed to
hit level. And all this in the span of
three seconds as Joe the baritone finished sorting out the troupe.
“Okay,
everybody,” I called out, one eye to the viewfinder. “Say, ‘Mozart should have written shorter
operas, dammit!’”
To a one,
they tried to repeat the whole thing through their stage smiles, and succeeded
only in cracking themselves up, breaking into loose-lipped, open-mouthed
laughter and giving me my best shot of the afternoon. When the film advance stopped halfway on the
next crank, I told them, “Thank you for coming.
We will notify you of the judge’s final decision,” and watched them
ramble offstage in groups of two and three.
And also took note of the pleasant curve of Cherubino’s small rump
framed in those yellow breeches (perhaps I was remembering what it was to be
male).
* * *
“Who is
your Cherubino, Gabi? Was she in ‘Barber’?”
Gabriella
cut her eyes back from a depth chart of the Puget Sound channels and clucked at
me in imperial fashion (more Countess).
“Of course
not, Guglielmo. Wouldn’t you know her if
she was? You only missed three performances.”
“But I do
know her. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Well in
any case, I think Jersey’s got a boyfriend back in New York.” She waited just a
beat before adding, “Alex is unattached.”
“Alex?”
“Susanna.”
I slapped
my ferry schedule against my thigh. “But
I don’t know Alex.”
“And you
don’t know Cherubino, either, so what’s the problem?”
“But I know
Cherubino. And she looked like she knew
me.”
Gabriella
peered out the station window, then came to my bench and gave me a hug. “That’s my boat. Thanks again for doing the photos; I’ll let
you know how they come out. Oh, and if
you’re going to ask out Jersey, Billy, keep it discreet, would you?”
“But that’s
not the... oh, forget it,” I
relented. “Have a nice crossing.” I
kissed her hand and watched her skip to the end of the walkway. At the very end, she stopped and called back
in my direction.
“By the
way! Maestro wants you to move in with him!”
Then she
disappeared. She does these things on
purpose, I thought. I picked up
Maestro’s photo bag and headed for the exit.
* * *
One week
later, I woke up in my new digs, a charming little cottage on Maestro’s back
forty that, years before, used to be a garage.
It was certainly a nice change from the hotel, where the constantly
fluctuating tenants made one feel a little numb and impersonal after a
while. It was also nice to stop throwing
away money that was more properly intended for young singers. I had already strayed far from my mission.
The rent at
Maestro’s, in fact, was completely cashless, a straight-ahead barter for
services rendered. I had completed the
walkway to the back deck, a pleasant assemblage of S-curves paying tribute to
my artistic instincts and my aching spine, and Maestro so enjoyed the results
that he assigned me to construct another one, this time from the back deck to
my own cottage door. The project was
progressing satisfactorily – I had managed to sink all necessary piers, and had
laid down half of the four-by-fours – but Saturday came with an impeccably
clear early-October sky and, feeling like I had contributed enough labor for my
week’s keep, I commandeered Maestro’s rusty old ten-speed for a long ride into
Winslow. After a hearty late breakfast
of Cajun sausage and scrambled eggs at the Streamliner Diner, I wheeled down to
the theater and, detecting some sort of movement inside, slipped in to check
out the action.
Accompanied
by the skinny pianist and the company’s new conductor, a short young Italian
man with a pencil-thin moustache, Joe the baritone was huffing across the stage
in jeans and black leather jacket, complaining to Susanna about having
discovered his page Cherubino in a compromising position with his housemaid,
Barbarina. He gripped the edge of a
sheet covering an armchair to illustrate to Susanna just the way he had
discovered the young scoundrel hiding under a tablecloth, and revealed,
naturally enough, Cherubino himself, this time hiding in the armchair. Cherubino grimaced and ducked his head in
anticipation of the coming blows.
Several
minutes later, Jersey strolled out of the entrance curtains at stage right,
dressed in brown cords, a white sweater, and her royal blue silk waistcoat – an
odd ensemble, by anyone’s standards. She
walked straight up the aisle and settled into the seat next to mine.
“I know
this sounds like a line, Bill, but don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“No, but I
know you from somewhere.”
She cocked
her eyes at me, and chuckled quietly.
“You too, huh?”
“Me, too.”
She waited
until the Countess finished the first phrase of “Porgi Amor,” then said, “Isn’t
this odd? Because I really haven’t, actually, met you before. But I do know you, don’t I?”
“Exactly,”
I said. “Doesn’t happen every day.” I
admired Gabriella sweeping across the stage, pretending to be wearing something
much larger than she was (“It’s sort of like kayaking,” she said. “You have to allow for about a five-foot
wake.”), then turned to find Cherubino, er, Jersey, admiring her also.
“She’s got
‘it,’ doesn’t she?”
“I think
so,” I answered. “But you’ve got some of
‘it,’ yourself. Plus maybe a little Red
Skelton.”
“And Harpo
Marx?”
“And Carol
Burnett,” I added.
“Ooh!” she
smiled. “She’s my favorite.”
“And that
first aria – what is it?”
“‘Non so
più.’“ she said. “‘Non so più cosa son,
cosa faccio.’ ‘I no longer know what I am or what I’m doing.’”
“That was
gorgeous. You have such a creamy-smooth
tone – and divine sense for dynamics.
That second repetition of the last line there, um... ‘Parlo d’amor...’”
“‘Parlo
d’amor con me.’”
“Yes, the
way you back down on that – mmm, beautiful.
And even early on, the same thing with the last line of the chorus,
‘Ogni donna mi fa... palpitar.’ (Every woman makes me tremble.)”
Gracious, Bill, that is so great that you notice
things like that; do you know how long I’ve worked on those two lines alone?”
“Hours, I’d
guess.”
“Days. Hmm.” She took a look at the stage and
adjusted the collar of her waistcoat.
“It’s time for me to do some more hiding. Been a pleasure meeting you again, Bill.”
She
extended a hand; I held it for a moment.
“Does Cherubino get any time off?”
“Tomorrow,”
she said.
“How’d you
like to go on a day trip?”
Jersey
smiled in several directions all at once.
“Love to. One catch, though.”
“Si?”
“Got a
husband.”
Considering
the brief span of real time that actually passed, I had an enormous amount of
mental time to consider all facets of this news. Ordinarily this situation would present one
of the great male dilemmas: would you really want to spend an entire day with
an attractive woman without the possibility (no matter how slim) of getting
laid? Or the opposite: would you really be willing to look like such a cad that
you would say no? The answer was surprisingly obvious.
“No
problem.”
“Bene. I’ll meet you at Pegasus. Nine o’clock.”
“Deal.”
“Ciao.”
And
watching the flaps of Cherubino’s glossy waistcoat float off to the entrance
like a half-man, half-woman, half-bluejay, I thought, of course. When you meet someone you already know, you
should always take the time to get to know them.
Photo by MJV
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