The Pacific and Other Stories Read Free Page B

repertoire was so flawless that, like a diva who has been on the circuit for decades, she could without preparation take any part anytime. This was noticed as much as the inimitable quality of her singing, and it was why, a year and a half after her debut at the windshield-wiper opera in a warehouse, she went on stage at La Scala when Adriana Rossi could not sing on account of a high fever, to take the part of Amenaide in
Tancredi
.
    The moment she started to sing, the breathing of the audience was altered. And you could see them rise effortlessly in their seats. The light was suddenly clear and perfect, and there was not a cough or a shuffle as the whole world was put on notice that Rosanna had arrived. The magnificence and joy of her singing did to this refined—you might even say jaded—audience what it did to me when first I heard her at the laundry. She went from strength to strength, and that night it was as if the music had not come long before from Rossini, but was issuing suddenly from Rosanna.
    When the performance ended, the other singers, who, as you may imagine, were not a humble group, melted back from her in a crescent, and, half in envy and half in awe, applauded from the semidarkness of noncenter stage as if they, too, were the audience. Shouts of
“Brava! Bravissima!”
camefor twenty minutes, until Rosanna pulled and set the hook forever by storming off the stage, as only a true diva could, and shouting in dismissive anger,
“Basta! Basta!”
    They loved it more than I can convey, and from that moment our fortunes were assured in terms of opportunities offered, monies earned, praise lavished, oceans crossed in quiet airplanes, and distant respect tendered by millions.
    Rosanna’s success was so astonishingly quick partly because she was already in the semimonstrous state of disconnection for which most people require years of constant flattery, ready limousines, and obsequious retainers. She skipped her education in the cruelties of status, having had them from the beginning even in her laundress bones. Which is not to say that she had no regrets, but only that she would do whatever was needed to be done, instantly and in spite of them, as if they did not exist.
    Were it not for her beautiful voice, I never would willingly have come, once I had known what she was like, within a hundred kilometers of her. And I was never interested in her other than professionally. Although she must have a soul, someplace, loving Rosanna would be like—how shall I put it?—smoking an unlit cigar, walking a dead dog, swimming in an empty pool, or listening to the radio when it is off. One thing that has made her tolerable is that in return for my plucking her from her wet sheets, she has shared her considerable fortunes with me. One might even say generously, were it not for the original contract of representation and the half-dozen times she has tried to break, evade, or alter it. It was, however, very carefully worded. Don’t forget, I was a bookkeeper, whose eye was trained in harrowingly close textual analysis.
    She even proposed to me. Granted, it was because of a quirk in the law that would have dissolved the agreement upon our marriage, a marriage that quite apart from its nearly-impossible-to-express repulsive attributes, would have been quickly followed by divorce so as to render Rosanna a free agent.
    “Naturally I won’t marry you, Rosanna, and you know it.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because, as you know, our representation agreement would cease to govern upon our marriage.”
    “It would?”
    “What a surprise!” I said. “Last week you spoke to the lawyer, who. …”
    “What lawyer?”
    “DeMarco.”
    “Oh, him.”
    “Who told me that he had given you, at your request, a disquisition on this very subject. I was expecting you to ask me to marry you. But, Rosanna, even were all things equal, I couldn’t marry you, because of Lucia.”
    “What is she to you!?” Rosanna asked indignantly.
    “My