Читать книгу The Wonder Singer - George Rabasa - Страница 12

The regal one was a sight. She had wrapped herself in a black-and-gold lamé caftan, punctuated by her tomato-red hair, her strands of amber and pearls and gold coins, fingers ringed with diamonds and rubies and emeralds, her small feet bunched up into silk pumps with three-inch heels. And all the time she sat, smug and queenly, and stared at her ghostwriter with a mix of suspicion and amusement.

“When was the last time you sang, Señora?”

“Just last week. A little of the Brahms ‘Lullaby’ for my neighbor’s granddaughter. Her name is Esther. She is ten months old but already quite discriminating. I sang very, very softly, so that only she could hear me.”

“In public, Señora. The last time you sang before an audience.”

“Darling, don’t get pushy.”

“It’s just that there are certain things your book must talk about. We can’t go on and on about trivia for five hundred pages. People will expect to get something of substance for their $29.95. Actual events in your career.”

“That story has been told a hundred times.”

“I haven’t heard it.”

“Every performance has been documented, reviewed, analyzed, praised, or lambasted in the world press. Get thee to a library.”

“We use the web now, Señora. But that’s not the point.”

“And what would the point be?”

“That this book is your own story. In your words.”

“We are talking in circles.”

“Only because you don’t want to go forward.”

“I do, Mark. It’s you who wants me to look at the past. Let’s talk about the future. I may not be up to a full production of Tosca, but even now I’m making plans for a series of recitals. I have contracts and proposals on my desk. They want me for master classes at Juilliard. The Japanese need me to inaugurate their new concert hall in Hokkaido. There is a recording of Catalan folk songs being planned.”

“Your first Tosca at La Scala. You were twenty-two.”

“I was so scared, my stomach kept churning. Imagine that, a Floria with belly rumblings. Are you going to put that in? I truly hope not. I’m telling you just for your understanding.”

“You were cheered.”

“I was hissed. I was replacing Callas of all people.”

“You won them over. From ‘Vissi d’arte,’ the hisses had turned to bravos.”

“It’s a grim play, isn’t it?”

“You sang it beautifully.”

“How would you know?”

“All the papers said so.”

“There. That proves my point. I don’t need to talk about all this. You can go to your computer and get the facts.”

“I need your words,” he insisted.

“Turn that thing off. And please, please go home now. I need to think.”

“Writing is not about thinking, Señora. If it gets thought but not written, it’s as if it never happened. The hired gun is the purest kind of writer; he places another’s head over his own, lets another’s heart beat within his chest.”

“You give yourself too much importance,” she said.

“But look,” Lockwood might say now, if Mercè Casals were still alive. “Read this sentence, this passage. It’s about you. It sounds like you. I am speaking in your voice.”