I stopped then pressed it again. The clear note rang out and I let it fade.
I pressed the first and second then, and then the third until I was repeating it and then began again when I was done. It was nearly like pressing his finger to mine—near enough. His hands, the ghost of them, making this.
When the time came for me to prepare my voice before leaving for the theater, I had spent the day this way, and so I sang the theme as my vocalize.
Wherever it is he was, wherever he had been in the last decade apart from me, he was writing for me. Ten years away from me, with this, his long dream of me. This opera that began as the theme he played to cover our conversation.
This was the one way I could keep him with me then, no matter the rest. If I learned his music, I would never lose him.
§
That night the tenor came by my dressing room. He remarked it had been published that the soprano had fainted at the end. Did you faint? he asked. If so, I didn’t notice. Apologies if I left you alone in a faint.
Of course not, I said. I refused to appear in the later curtain calls.
The moment of trouble with my voice had not returned, but I decided against exposing myself to even the suggestion of an encore.
The crowds around the theater tripled at the rumor I’d fainted, however, and now the audiences came in at the beginning, seated and silent with waiting.
Each night as Carmen, I threw a rose to the soldier Don José, the one man who didn’t whistle and jeer at me as I passed him by. Each night he kept the rose to show me later, to prove his devotion. Each night he murdered me.
The spell works, she tells him. Le charme opère. Keep it, she tells him, and he doesn’t hear her, and each night it leads, circumstance by circumstance, to Carmen’s death under Don José’s knife. As the soldiers passed me nightly, I found I held the flower before throwing it. The gesture, as rehearsed, was meant to appear like careless coquetry. My hesitation soon deepened.
Five
REMEMBER FOR NOW Carmen’s rose. See it float in the wind to land at the feet of the young soldier. Her song to him as he turns to her, about the rebel heart, how it obeys no rules.
This flower with the power to turn strangers into lovers, lovers into murderers. He picks it up.
§
Félix wrote to say he had made me a gown, a gift, he said, to thank me for a glorious season. I wasn’t sure I would hear from him after the scene with the Comtesse had so foully exposed me. He seemed to care not at all.
I was, of course, delighted.
At his atelier, as he fitted me for it, he described a dream of Carmen, naked in the river, washing off the blood of her stab wounds, alive again. She turned to him and smiled, and the river filled with roses that left on the current.
Paris was under a siege of dreams.
You must wear it when you celebrate the end of Carmen, he said. Perhaps another ball? And it must be thrown for you by someone in love with you. Who is in love with you? Anyone? There must be at least a few, or have you lost all your skill at these things?
I laughed as I swatted him.
You’re in love, he said then. Or you would have thought of it already. I wouldn’t even be speaking of it.
I gave him as much of a mocking glare as I dared for having struck me to the quick.
Does he love you also? Is he very rich? He should be very rich. The place should be very grand, with a staircase appropriate for your entrance.
He pushed at my waist to smooth a piece of cloth there.
He’s poor, isn’t he? he said, for I had said nothing, stunned into silence.
He drew a deep breath. Is he the one you’re said to be marrying?
No, I said, very quickly. No, no. And I’m not marrying.
He unlaced and unhooked me, the fitting was done, and sent me behind a screen where his femmes stripped me bare. As they did their work, he said, over the screen, Don’t marry poor. But perhaps don’t fear to love poor. Better to be wise than a coward, yes? This was my mother’s advice to my sisters.
I was soon in my own dress again. Are your sisters very happy? I asked.
Yes, I believe so.
When you know the room, he said, we’ll go and see it and prepare accordingly. You must be stunning, a goddess. He must be very handsome, he said.
He was, I said finally.
Well, then it’s better, he said. You won’t love him too much.
I came from behind the screen at last, and he saw my face and everything there.
Except you do, of course, already. You already do, don’t you? It’s what the dress is for, isn’t it?
We had never once exchanged even the slightest affection, and he gave me the very lightest kiss.
Ah, dearest one, there, there, he said. It was going to happen eventually.
Six
I SENT NO OTHER messages, received no more music. Finally, a note.
You will receive an invitation to Rouen.
This will be from a friend, to her salon there. Bring the ring, and if you are still intent on returning it, you can present it to me there.