Nerina

by Krista Lester
© 2006

 

            The doctor said I had six weeks to live, and I couldn’t decide if that was too many or too few.  Six more weeks to perfect the role of Violetta.  Six more weeks to read and reread the same crinkling pages from the blue volume of poetry, fading and baring its cardboard binding in the shallow drawer of my nightstand.

            My mother responded through sobs when I called from my room at the conservatory.  “How can it be?  Why you?” she asked.  “Your lungs should be healthier than anyone’s.  Opera singers have great lung capacity.”

“That doesn’t change anything, Mom.”

“I read that being an opera singer could increase your lifespan up to eight years based on lung capacity alone,” she said.  “Can you even still sing?  Why did this have to happen to you?  Why you?”

            She said, Why you, why you?  But I heard, Why me?  “I can sing on good days,” I said.

            “When are you coming home?”

            “I’m not.”

            “What do you mean, you’re not?  Where are you going?  You can’t stay there.  Who will take care of you?”

            “I’m going to Venice.”

“What?” she screamed.  She tried to say something further, but it came out as a frustrated whimper.

“It’s something I need to do,” I said.

            “This isn’t what daughters do to mothers, you know.  This isn’t the way it goes.”

            I reached to the nightstand for my beloved blue volume of Leopardi.  An ink-jet printed photograph of Davio marked the page of “Le Ricordanze.”  Page twenty-two.  The photo had a strange orange cast because he’d e-mailed it to me on a day when the ink in my printer had been nearly depleted.  But the image still consumed me, that smile of his, the hidden colors that sprang forth when I most needed vibrance.  “For once, I need to think of myself,” I said.

            She was still crying when I hung up the phone.

 

            The Opera Theatre of Venice planned to stage a production of La Traviata in the Piazza San Marco in a month.  When I called to tell him I was coming to Venice to audition, Davio mentioned how spectacular the production would be.

            “The papers say it’s going to be the most amazing production since the one at the Teatro San Benedetto.”

            “Do you have any idea what I’d do to get this role?” I asked, looking at his photo as we spoke.

            “You’re going to get it for sure,” he said.  “You deserve it more than anyone.”

            “Perhaps,” I said.  “But Lucietta Marchese is auditioning.  I don’t have much of a resume compared with hers.  She’s sung in every performance of Verdi they’ve done at La Scala in the last decade.  No, I’m doing this because I want to go to Venice.  I want an authentic Italian meal.  And I want to meet her.”

            “After all these years, that’s what finally brings you here?”

            “Don’t worry, you were part of the plan, too,” I said, laughing.

            “Sure, I was.”

            I tried to imagine his lips moving as he spoke, what his face would look like when he wasn’t posing for a camera, when he spoke to me, called me Nerina.  “I have to meet her,” I said.

            He sighed.  “It’s not like she’s just anyone, you know.  She’ll probably have bodyguards keeping the crowds away.”

            “I don’t care.  I need to see what it is.”

            “What what is?”

            “What it is that makes her famous.”

            “You’ve heard her sing, haven’t you?”

            “Hasn’t everyone?”  With a slight tilt of my hand, the photo folded in half along worn creases.  I returned it to its page in my favorite blue volume and placed it back in the nightstand, trying to imagine how many times I’d made the same exact motion before falling asleep.

 

            Twenty hours and three airlines later, I’d crossed the Atlantic and all of Western Europe.  I stood in Milan, desperately trying to keep my eyes open, until the train arrived to take me to Venice.  From the train, I watched as the sprawling green and yellow countryside flitted by, occasionally freckled with red-roofed houses, darkening swiftly as the sun set, the colors of rainbow sherbet descending on the horizon.  When I arrived in Venice, I’d never felt happier to be somewhere—anywhere, really—even though I hadn’t seen my luggage since London.

            I called my mom to let her know I’d arrived before I ventured to my hotel.

            “You went to see that boy, didn’t you?  That’s the reason for this, isn’t it?” she said, probably thinking she was very clever for figuring out my motives.

            That boy.  Like he was less than a man, less than a person because I’d met him on the internet looking for a way to practice my Italian, because he hadn’t come to save me when my car broke down on the side of the road, because it hadn’t been a cliché.  “He’s not a boy, Mom.  He’s thirty-three.”  I wanted to remind her that I was an adult, but the words sounded childish and impertinent in my head, so I kept them to myself.  That boy.  I shook my head.

            “Well, don’t do anything stupid.  Remember you’ve never really met him.”

            I hung up the phone, imagining the quirky smile lighting just the right half of his face, the guilty eyes peering shyly toward the camera.  This was a man I knew more completely than I knew my own mother, a man whose conversational Italian had convinced me to spend my final days in a city I’d never seen, longing for the moment when he would finally hold me in his arms.

 

            Broad glass doors led from the dull train station to the floating lanes of Venice.  I held my breath even though I knew I shouldn’t put any undue stress on my lungs.  But there was no way to prepare.  I let the door fling backward, nearly clipping the nose of an unsuspecting tourist, as I stepped onto the brick and concrete sidewalk, then down three steps to street level.

            The Grand Canal.

            Tourists bobbed in opposing directions as I stared in enchantment.  The Rialto Bridge arched over the canal to my left.  Narrow buildings in oranges and greens shared awnings and patios with one other.  Diners sat at tiny tables under gas-lit chandeliers.  Streets of water curved and widened to my right, opening into vast spaciousness like the countryside I’d traversed on the train.

            It was just water, wasn’t it?  Nothing extraordinary.  Humans are eighty percent water.  But I’d never been that stunning.

            I wished it were night, so I could see the vague stars of the Great Bear, the reflected light of the moon on the canal.  I felt the enchantment of Venice clinging to my arms with a sweet chilly breeze, washing through my mind with a hushed lapping of water against concrete trenches and wooden docks, the whispers of lovers holding hands as gondoliers ushered them through twisted passageways.  I felt the urge to approach the edge of the canal and dip my fingers in the water just to know what it felt like, that strange otherworldliness, those streets so entirely different from anything I’d known.

 

            At the hotel, I flopped on the bed and smiled at the yellowing wallpaper, the overwhelming brownness of the carpet, the bedspread, the chair, the little table, the headboard.  The tiny closet had no door, just half a dozen empty hangers, an extra pillow, a luggage rack, and a coarse gold blanket.  I hadn’t lain on the bed for more than five minutes before it was time to meet Davio.  We planned to eat dinner, perhaps check out the arrangement of the Piazza, what the stage set-up looked like.  I reminded myself that auditions began at 10:00 in the morning, and I couldn’t afford to ruin my voice by drinking too much wine or getting too little sleep.  Not when Lucietta Marchese was auditioning.

            I set out on foot, passing dozens of tiny shops.  Patches of red and purple and gold burst in front of my eyes, colors so excruciatingly vibrant, so intensely real that my eyes felt overexerted.  Masks with elongated noses, exaggerated smiles and frowns, hung from walls and windows, swinging in the wind, twisting on cords near wooden shop signs.  Hand-painted ceramics, beaded jewelry, and tiny blown-glass animal figurines stood prominently in every window.

            At 5:30, I stood atop the Rialto Bridge, holding a freshly cut lily so he would recognize me.  Despite the joy his photo had brought me, I had refused to give him one of myself.  Instead, I let him live merely on pathetic snippets of Italian conversation interspersed with English during our chat sessions.  An occasional phone call, the sound of my voice sleepy after a late dinner or a glass of wine, these were moments I thought he would cherish and adore without knowing what I looked like.  Surely, these moments created memories to outshine any photograph.

            When he arrived, he approached from behind and whispered in my ear.  “Nerina.  Bellisima Nerina.”

            I turned to face him.  He looked just like the photo, though less orange and faded, his high forehead shining in the sun, curly brown hair pushed behind one ear, hanging over one eye.  I smiled, the first real eruption of happiness I’d experienced since receiving word from the doctor.  Handing him the lily, I said, “Davio,” and let him kiss my cheeks.  Davio, fors’è lui.  Perhaps he could make my last few weeks truly worth living.

            When I told him my luggage had been lost and I had to find a gown for my audition, he suggested a place called La Coupole in the middle of the Calle Larga XXII Marzo.  On the way, we passed dozens of other shops peddling masks with ten-inch feathered plumes, gold-embroidered costumes, colored glass decanters with tiny cordial glasses and mirrored serving trays.  He held the door as I entered the shop to find racks and racks of gowns by designers I was surprised to recognize: Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani.

            Davio spoke exuberantly to the woman who greeted us as we entered.  She glanced at me, and began filling her arms with gowns.  “Queste colore?” she asked, pointing to the racks of dresses.

            I had no doubt as to the appropriate color for my audition.  “Rosso,” I said.

            After trying twelve different dresses in twelve shades of red, we finally agreed on an a-line Antonio Fusco with a corset bodice, a heart-shaped neckline, and a hint of a train—just enough to graze the ground behind my heels as I walked.  He insisted on buying the dress.  I refused to allow it.

            “But I must buy for you,” he said, tugging at the hanger I held.

            “No,” I said, yanking harder, beginning to get angry.

            “Please let me buy the dress,” he said.

            “Why?”

            “Te amo,” he said.  Just like that.  “Te amo.  Please let me buy the dress.”

            I smiled at his sudden declaration and said, “I love you, too,” between giggles.

            He let go of the hanger and stepped back.  “No,” he said.  “Non capisci.”  He motioned for the woman to come over and take the dress.  “Vorrei questa.”

            The woman took the dress to the counter and began to pluck keys on the register.

            Davio lowered his head to look at me, lifting my chin with his fingertips.  “I’m serious,” he said.  “It’s very serious.  Not like you say in America.”

            I watched him pay the woman at the counter, trying to decide if I should return his te amo.  Perhaps I could say I loved him.  But could I say it in Italian?

            When we left, he suggested dinner at Il Paradiso Perduto.  We ate lasagna and drank wine, occasionally alighting from our table to share a dance.  The waiter stopped offering wine, so we paid and stepped outside, where we danced on the sidewalk beneath the stars, listening to muffled music from a distant party.  I don’t remember what time I returned to my hotel, but the wine had filled my mind with static, and the taxis had stopped running.

 

            In the morning, I pulled on the red gown, took one glimpse in the mirror, and skipped breakfast to go straight to the Piazza.  The tenors were already finished when I arrived.  Lucietta Marchese was onstage, humming open-mouthed scales, ostensibly to herself, ostentatiously in front of the crowd.  Twelve hundred heads stretched and craned to see the famous soprano.

            She wore form-fitting black satin, cinched at the waist with a double string of pearls.  I wondered how she could breathe deeply enough to allow her lungs to expand for the length of phrase demanded in Violetta’s aria.  From where I stood at the back of the crowd, her lipstick overpowered every other feature of her face, a striking, unabashed red.  Her eyes were lined in black.  Fake eyelashes stretched absurdly far, tiny striped awnings above her cheeks.  Her shoulder-length, wavy platinum hair was pulled back from her face with rhinestone barrettes that sparkled when she moved.

            Voices in the crowd diminished, draining the volume to an expectant silence.  Lucietta Marchese tilted her chin to the left and raised her left shoulder, smiling and flitting her eyelashes.  When the crowd began to applaud, the smile dropped from her face so she could turn a fierce glare at the pianist until he gave her the first note of Violetta’s aria and she began to project phrases of music across the crowded piazza.

            Her voice carried flawlessly, effortlessly.  Where I had to ground my feet in the floor, bend my knees, and drag in every possible ounce of air to prepare for a long phrase and pray I didn’t cough, she simply breathed and released the air over each of Verdi’s thick, wet brushstrokes of music.  Verdi himself could not have asked for a better soprano.

            When she finished, I found it hard to catch my breath.  Tears—not quite of envy, perhaps a bittersweet hopelessness—rushed to my eyes.  Lucietta Marchese pinched the sides of her skirt to descend the stage, and I pressed through the shrieking, whistling crowd, through all the bravas and bravissimas, winding my lungs into a knotted mess, trying to get near enough to touch her, shake her hand, kiss her cheek.

            I threw myself in her path as she stepped down, the sun glinting off gold mosaics above the doors to San Marcos’ façade, circling her head, making it difficult to look directly at her.  She let bunches of black satin fall, allowed her hemline to drape around her ankles.  “Who are you?” she demanded, stopping.  Her lips curled up as she awaited a response.  Her lipstick had smudged her front teeth, and beads of sweat gathered above her penciled eyebrows.

            “Mi dispiace, signora.”  I stepped back in case she decided to spit on me.  “I just wanted to meet you.”

            Lucietta Marchese looked to the side, urging a man in green uniform and black sunglasses to hurry to her aid.  “I don’t have time for this,” she said.

            “Mi dispiace,” I said again.  “I’m sorry.  I just wanted to meet you.”  As the man approached, I thought I could see the beauty she must have held as a younger woman melt into an odd disconnect with her cheap, transparent cosmetics.  A single hair grew out of a brown mole on her cheek.  Dark roots showed at her scalp.

            The uniformed man arrived, wrapping a fat hand around my entire bicep, pulling me roughly out of her way.  Davio followed, shouting at the man, telling him I was dying.  Lucietta Marchese lifted her skirt and stormed off as the judges announced that there would be no further auditions for the role of Violetta.

 

            At dinner that night, we sat, pushing forkfuls of pasta around our plates.  Davio smoked.  I resolved to drink as much wine as it would take to help me forget the day.

            “I don’t know why you are so unhappy,” he said.  “She’s famous.  She can do whatever.”

            I sat breaking crusts of bread into crumbs, piling the crumbs in a heap on the tablecloth.

            “Do you have a word for that?” he said, nodding to my creation.

            I tried to smile, to cover the pain, the charade growing more difficult with every hour.

            “Listen,” he said, putting down his fork.  He reached to my pile of crumbs and brushed it aside, looking at me with that entreating look of his.  He took my hands in both of his.  “She’s beautiful.  Talented.  Famosa.”

            I tugged at his hands to tell him his words were hardly helping.

            “She’s got nothing on you,” he said.  The steadiness of his gaze accentuated the seriousness of his words.

            I rolled my eyes.  “That’s nice of you to say, but it doesn’t make anything better.”

            “What it is that bothers you?  She didn’t treat you like famiglia?  She doesn’t know you, doesn’t know what you’re going through.”

            My lungs started to cringe, tightening and pulling from my ribcage, tearing my organs away from their posts.  I felt the sensation that was beginning to feel all too familiar—an utter devastation, like I was creating a memory I wouldn’t live long enough to recall.  “I never wanted anything more than to be a famous singer,” I said, finally choking words through a swollen throat.  It sounded stupid and childish even to me.

            “You’re upset that you’re not famous?” he asked, incredulous.  “You’re jealous?”

            I wanted to reply, utter some vague dismissive phrase, pretend I hadn’t been hurt at all.  I controlled the tears and opened my mouth to speak.  But each time, before the words flowed, the tears welled again, and I had to force my mouth shut.  I feared the tears would never stop if they began to fall.

            “You wanted to be famous that badly?” he asked, his tone softening.

            I watched the white paper tablecloth spot twice with fat tears.  The spots spread outward, seeping into the blank dryness that surrounded them.  “It’s strange,” I said.  “È strano.  I thought my life would mean something if only I was famous.”

            He lifted my hands to his lips and kissed them.  “What can I do?”

            “No, wait,” I said.  “That’s not it.  It’s that I spent so long trying to be just like her.”

            When I looked at his face, his smile made my heart surge, then pause.  “What’s wrong with that?” he asked.  The palpitations steadied, then weakened.

            “I didn’t realize.  I didn’t know.  I didn’t know she was so….” I trailed off, uncertain how to explain it.  “Nothing,” I finally added.  “Solid nothing.”

 

            I called my mother while Davio showered in my hotel room.  I recounted the day’s events to her, making certain to describe them as accurately as possible.  When I finished, she said, “You should have gotten the role, honey.”

            “That’s not the point, Mom.”

            “If you’d gotten the role, I would have flown to Venice to hear you sing.”

            I thought of the expression on her face, the sheer pride she’d radiated when she hugged me after watching my performance in The Pirates of Penzance in eleventh grade.  For some reason, I couldn’t imagine a cruelty worse than dying before my mother saw me sing in a real opera.  When I hung up the phone, I crumpled into a ball on the bed and cried until Davio returned and wrapped his arms around me, kissing me on the shoulder, telling me everything was fine.

 

            I spent the next three weeks living off my Visa, taking Davio to expensive restaurants because the credit card meant I was a rich American, despite my empty bank account and the many thousand dollars in student debt.  He offered to let me stay with him, find me a job for my last few weeks.  But a job was not what I needed, one more thing to eat away at my time, to remind me of all the pleasures I’d found impossible to secure.  I resolved to return home to spend my last days with my mother.

            “Are you sure you won’t stay longer?” he asked at the train station.  “Your luggage just got here.  Don’t you even want to use it?”  The look in his eyes was sly and sexy, slowly changing to pitiful, desperate.

            I stopped on the steps to the station and looked back at the Grand Canal, breathing in the air and noticing how clean my lungs felt, how perfectly functional.

            I knelt on the ground, turning my rolling suitcase on its side to unzip it.  Fumbling between rolls of socks, unworn jeans and underwear, I finally found what I was looking for, pulled it from the suitcase, and handed it to Davio.

            “Your Leopardi,” he said, fingering the worn blue cover.  “I can’t take this.”

            “Open it,” I said.

            He flipped through pages until the stiffness of a photo opened the book to “Il Tramonto della Luna.”  Looking up, he traced his fingers along my cheek, then gazed at the photo in his hand for so long that I began to wonder if he found the photo more satisfying than me.  Finally, he leaned in and kissed me, let his lips linger, barely touching mine, his eyes closed.  My eyes were open, studying his face, trying to remember the sensation I’d felt looking at his picture back home.

            “I have to go,” I said, turning away.

            He may have tried to say something else, another protestation of love, but I couldn’t hear anything but his te amo in my mind.  It’s very serious, he’d said.

            I opened the door to the station and dragged my luggage behind me, waving goodbye without looking.  I tried to remember what Davio had been before I’d met him in Venice, before he’d become a man, a person, just another confused traveler, searching for the right destination when there was no real choice at all.

            On the train, I gazed out the window, watching as I left the countryside behind.  The events of the recent weeks jumbled together in my mind, crashing and heaving through my skull like a piano concerto by Schoenberg.  I tried to remember what it had meant to reminisce, to think fondly of memories.  There were too many for any use now, too many to keep.  I wanted to discard them, forget them, sweep them into a heap and burn them, all of them.  But there were far, far too many.