Kyra Read online

  “Me too,” I laughed. Maybe we all were. That night it seemed clear that we each had our own lives, and we would work together. Maybe it was less fraught than I had feared. The opera was a story, it was only a story, and perhaps it was important to remind people how easily people can be trapped, how easily freedom can be lost. The glow on his face from skiing matched the calm I had found on Nashawena. When he dropped me in front of my apartment building on Dana Street we kissed on both cheeks. Friends.

  The next morning, rehearsals started with a collective warm-up. We were in the large reception hall of the church, above the theater. Andreas was across the room from me. He had told me to wear loose clothes, said I would be expected to participate. Mika, the voice coach, led us—her hair in a buzz cut, black and white strands standing straight up on her head. With her turned-up nose, she reminded me of a porcupine. Her earrings were dangling strands, streaked red and blue, hanging from silver stars, dazzling. We gathered in a circle. She started with breath.

  “Let the breath fall in,” she said. She scanned the room, her eye exact. “Listen to the words I say. I didn’t say breathe. I said let the breath fall in.” She moved through the room, placing her hand on bellies, waiting for the muscles to release. “Your body knows what to do. Trust it.” My muscles tensed. Her hand was on my stomach, her gaze steady, patient. Let the breath fall in. My belly expanded. The muscles had relaxed under her hand. Air rushed in. I suddenly felt dizzy. “It’s the oxygen,” she explained,

  “you’ll get used to it.” She moved off, her authority easy, sure. The warm-up continued. She added sound to breath, we rolled up and down our spines, vertebra after vertebra. Suppleness rippled through my back. “And now, a totally pleasurable sigh of relief.” Sound filled the room. My concentration settled. Vowels came next, each with its distinctive coloring, the room awash with the sound of emotion. It felt like a perfect way to start the day.

  At the end of the hour, following the pee break, Andreas took over. The cast moved into theater exercises and games. I retrieved my sweater and sat on one of the folding chairs against the wall, a fleeting regret at being outside the circle. I had liked the sensation of relinquishing control to Mika. Let the breath fall in, I repeated the mantra, my eyes surveying the cast. Tali, the tall Israeli soprano in loose gray pants and a fuchsia shirt, Alice, the Asian soprano, energy coiled in her body, releasing into the room, her movements precise, like a dancer. Dan and Paul, two of the tenors, also a study in contrast. They passed gestures from one to the other, adding rhythms and sounds, reversing directions. One of the Scarpias, Steve, asked a question. A rule was proposed: do first, try the exercise, discussion afterward. I made a mental note, do this with my students.

  I stayed for the first part of the read-through. They were taking the score—both text and music—at face value. I found it hard to leave, but I had to get back to school. There were no classes in reading period, only office hours and committee meetings, scheduled for the most part in the afternoons. I was bridging two worlds, the South End and Cambridge, theater and university. In the committee meeting that afternoon, I practiced my breathing; I wondered if anyone noticed. It was a dangerous place to let go of control.

  Anna came to a rehearsal one day when they were well into the work. I wanted her to see Andreas again. In some way I couldn’t articulate, I wanted her to watch him working, to see how he worked with the singers.

  The pianist was playing through the music when we came in. I recognized the melody of the gavotte, delicate, lilting. We sat down quietly near the front. Andreas noticed us and explained they were starting with Act Two. He turned back to the singers who were scattered around the stage. They formed a group around him. “Why is it that in this opera every time someone comes close to someone else, it’s fatal?” he asked. “Here is where you really start to sense it, at the beginning of Act Two. You know the theme, the Scarpia motif—the three descending chords, E major, D major, B-flat major. But then something new happens, something you haven’t heard before.” He turned to the pianist. “Would you play just the three chords for us.”

  The room seemed different. Maybe it was Andreas’s question: why in this opera is intimacy fatal? A shudder ran through me. I turned to Anna. She felt it as well.

  Andreas nodded to the pianist. “Now if you would start at the beginning again and just go on, ignore us. Scarpia”—he motioned to Steve, round, sweet face above a too-big body—“you begin.” The rest of the cast moved to the edge of the stage. I watched an invisible circle form around Andreas and the baritone.

  “Tosca is a good falcon,” Steve sang.

  “Good, continue…”

  “Surely by this time my hounds have fallen on their double prey. And tomorrow’s dawn will see Angelotti on the scaffold and the fine Mario hanging from a noose.”

  I whispered to Anna: “Angelotti is the escaped freedom fighter Scarpia is hunting, and Mario is Tosca’s lover. Mario has hidden Angelotti in his villa.”

  “All right. Let’s stop here.” The piano stopped. Andreas moved closer to Steve. “Can you picture them, Angelotti and Mario, as you say the words double prey?”

  Steve closed his eyes. Andreas motioned to the singers playing Angelotti and Mario. They stood. He turned back to Steve.

  “Now look at them. You have played on Tosca’s jealousy. She had seen another woman’s face in her lover Cavaradossi’s painting of the Magdalene. You have fueled her suspicions. You suspect that Cavaradossi is hiding Angelotti, the political fugitive. You want Tosca to lead you to them. She is your falcon, they are your prey. Tosca,” he motioned to Alice, “come and stand in front of Scarpia. Now, Steve, look at Tosca and say it. ‘Tosca’s my good falcon.’”

  I felt intensity mounting, the concentration seemed palpable.

  Steve tried again.

  “Much better,” Andreas said. “I can see them now, feel them.”

  I could feel Andreas moving in.

  “Falcon?” he asked Steve. “What is a falcon?”

  “Watch this,” I whispered to Anna.

  “A bird of prey.”

  “Have you ever seen a falcon?”

  Steve shook his head.

  “They are very fast and powerful. They can catch birds as they fly. Now think about prey. In English, the word has two meanings.”

  I glanced at Anna. She was riveted.

  “Prey as in bird of prey, and pray.” He steepled his hands. “The opera opens in a church. We are in Rome, near the Vatican. We see Scarpia first in church. He was praying. And now he is preying. Can you feel the alliance of church and state closing in? There is no sanctuary, no escape.”

  He glanced at the pianist. “From the beginning again, please.”

  Steve, the round-faced choirboy, disappeared. Scarpia had taken his place.

  I saw Andreas let out his breath.

  “It’s so explicit,” Anna whispered, “calling her his falcon. And the double meaning of prey. Why are they doing it in English?”

  “It’s like translating the Bible into English, so people can understand it for themselves, bringing it into a language they speak every day.”

  Andreas turned to us and said, “Please.” We stopped talking.

  He turned back to Scarpia.

  “What do you do next?”

  Steve cleared his throat.

  “Forget the music for now.”

  Anna sat forward in her seat.

  “I ring for my assistant,” Steve said.

  Andreas picked up his score. “I’ll read the assistant Sciarrone’s part for now. You begin, Scarpia.”

  “Is Tosca in the palace?” Steve says.

  “A chamberlain has just gone to look for her,” Andreas replies.

  “Open the window. It is late. The Diva’s still missing from the concert, and they strum gavottes.”

  “Okay.” Andreas stepped back. “Now we need to hear the music.”

  The pianist plays the gavotte, the music we heard when we came in.

&n
bsp; “What happens to you when you hear this?” Andreas asks.

  “Listen for a moment, take it in.”

  “I think of Tosca,” Steve’s voice as Scarpia, almost inaudible.

  The other Scarpias lean forward, straining to hear.

  “As your falcon?” Andreas asks. There’s something about his manner that allows him to move in like this without crowding, a curiosity, a questioning so genuine it contains no judgment. He has the pacing of a musician, as if he were conducting beat by beat, but it’s the emotional rhythm he’s following. I was seeing something in this man that I had not seen before, a passion checked, coming out in art. I saw him turn now to the other Scarpias, his face taut, his absorption total. “I want you to stay with him here. I want to feel you feeling this with him, and later, you’ll do it yourselves.”

  “What do you feel in this moment?” Andreas says to Steve.

  “It’s a question. See what you find. Take your time.”

  The muscles in Steve’s face twitch. He shakes his head. Lets out a long breath. “I feel…” He stops. Swallows hard. “I feel desire.”

  The room is still.

  “I want to be her lover.”

  Andreas stays with him. “What do you do?”

  “I instruct Sciarrone to wait for her, to say that I shall expect her after the concert. Then it occurs to me how I can make her come. I write a note, appealing to her love for Mario.” Steve covers his face with his hands.

  “And here,” Andreas said, “we descend into hell.”

  I looked at Anna, she looked at me. We had seen the descent with Anton. He had wanted our father to love him, not Simon.

  “What do you say?” Andreas continues.

  “For love of Mario, she will yield to my pleasure.”

  “So it isn’t really you she will come to. And the truth is, you know it. The psychology here is clearly spelled out. Go on.”

  Steve as Scarpia continues: “For myself the violent conquest has stronger relish than the soft surrender. I know not how to draw harmony from guitars, I crave, I pursue the craved thing, sate myself, and cast it by, and seek new bait.”

  “You, Scarpia, have become a falcon,” Andreas says. “And why? Because for a brief moment, you felt desire, maybe even tenderness. It’s in the music. Scarpia cannot bear to feel these feelings. So he will turn her into bait, not a person but a craved thing. This is what evil does. It goes after and tries to destroy what is most human in us. Now Scarpia will prey on Tosca’s love.”

  They took a break.

  “It’s incredible,” Anna said as we left. “So clear. As he said, the psychology is all laid out. You see how desire can create an unbearable vulnerability, which people then cover by trying to destroy the very thing or person who has provoked or inspired these feelings. And then they feel strong again in their own eyes, and invulnerable. It’s how a person becomes a monster, seemingly without feelings. No wonder people love opera.”

  I knew she was also thinking, What’s wrong with Kyra? Seeing Andreas working would have clinched it: he was amazing. She understood about Simon, how, feeling guilty about Anton, I felt responsible for what had happened to Simon, or the other way around, how, feeling responsible for Anton, I felt guilty toward Simon. We had been over and over this. None of it brought Simon back. It was like Jesse’s book about the dog and the wolf. “You have to live,” Anna would say. “You’re not a nun.”

  We had reached Huntington Avenue. Anna wanted to take the subway. It was cold, and she didn’t want to be late for her one o’clock patient. I wanted to walk. Maybe it was the image of the falcon. I wanted to move, to get away. I looked at my watch. If I walked fast, and if I was alone I would, I might have time to pick up some lunch and still get to my office before my first appointment.

  Low gray clouds hung in a fleetingly blue sky. The sun went in and out, but even when it was out, the light seemed strained. I passed Symphony Hall, the posters announcing upcoming concerts. I read the words without taking them in. He seemed to be everywhere.

  Across the street, Horticultural Hall—what was it doing in the middle of the city? A shelter for plants, plants in captivity. I pulled up the hood of my duffle coat, took my scarf out and wrapped it around to hold the hood. The street was crammed with delivery trucks, meter maids circled like sharks. When I reached the bridge, the sun came out steadily for a moment. The water looked completely opaque.

  I came up with three reasons to dismiss him. One was Simon. That spoke for itself. A commitment for life. Two, I had seen Andreas come forward and then recede, become self-enclosed. The third reason slipped my mind.

  I looked up into the sky, shading my eyes against the weak sun. Gulls were circling. How far up the river did they go? They looked so innocent. I was trying to clear my head, get rid of the falcon. Using a woman as a falcon? To capture her lover, his prey? Was it worse that Scarpia desires her? But then the falconer does love the falcon. In the opera, her prey is him. The falcon turning on the falconer. She kills Scarpia.

  The wind was behind me, carrying me across the river into Cambridge. I checked my watch. I could stop and pick up a sandwich and a cappuccino from the Italian store if I cut through Putnam Avenue. The thought of food was a relief. My mood brightened. I was glad to be away.

  Eva, the first student, knocked on my door as I unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. She was one of the talented ones; I liked the boldness of her work. Office hours had begun. “Come in,” I said through provolone and turkey.

  She entered, hesitant. “Are you sure you’re ready? I can wait in the hall.”

  I motioned her to one of the chairs next to the round table and picked up my sandwich and coffee to join her.

  “Do you mind if I eat my lunch while we talk?”

  “No, really, no,” she said. Well, really, what else could she say? She bent down to fish her notebook out of her book bag, her neck long, slender. She was taking my urban design studio and had brought a list of questions having to do with the development of her project. The students were each doing a design for the reuse of the High Line, the abandoned stretch of elevated tracks that run through Chelsea in lower Manhattan. Their projects would be juried the following week.

  “Would you like a little cappuccino?” I asked.

  She looked at the cup.

  “I’ll get another cup and we can split it,” I said, going over to the shelf where several mugs and an electric kettle stood in front of a row of books.

  “Yes, I’d love some,” she leaned back, relaxed a little.

  I had brought a rocking chair into my office, like John F. Kennedy, I told myself, and a Danish sofa I had acquired from Felicia, covered in apricot corduroy. Shades of the sixties, one of my students said, vintage Howard Johnson, but they preferred it to the Harvard chairs. I actually liked those chairs—their sleek black arms, veritas embossed on the back. Speak the truth. They ringed the table, chastising equivocators.

  Eva came to the end of her questions, her face flushed. I encouraged the ambition of what she was attempting. It could be really good. She looked at me for a moment, as if uncertain. She was about to ask another question, but then changed her mind and left. The next student came in.

  Outside, the afternoon grew bleaker. I rode the caffeine high of the half-cappuccino until about four o’clock, when the energy suddenly drained out of me. I had a committee meeting at four-thirty. The subject was appointments, the fight would be bitter. I looked at the stack of pink phone messages on my desk. It was hopeless. I put on my coat. I would go for a walk. I thought of walking through the woods behind the American Academy, but instead I found myself heading for the river. The motion of the water, there would be more air.

  I passed the Catholic church at the intersection of Bow and Arrow streets, the sun behind the church, the front in shadow. A woman was sitting on the stone steps, wrapped in loose garments, holding a baby. “Please,” she said, “can you help me?” She shifted the baby to one arm and held out her hand. I reached into
my coat pocket and found a few dollars and some coins—the change from lunch. Her eyes were coal, the bones of her face sharply etched. “God bless you,” she said.

  At the committee meeting it soon became clear that the work of the meeting had been done before the meeting. The meeting itself was like a show trial. Three finalists for the faculty position had been culled from a long list of applicants: Kristin, the insider, the darling, the protégé of one of our colleagues, and two who had come from afar to give their talks. Our former student was by any “objective” criterion the star, the winner of coveted prizes in fierce competitions judged by names that gave everyone pause. It was her undoing.

  Somewhere, sometime before the meeting, an agreement had been arrived at. Anyone but her. The motivation wasn’t hard to fathom. Envy was involved, but also resentment. Her mentor was already too powerful, his work the focus of media attention. Hiring Kristin would slant the department in the direction of his work, a move my colleagues abhorred. The other two finalists, both competent, posed no threat.

  Ballots were cast, votes were counted. With few exceptions, they split between the two not-Kristins. On the spot, a motion was made to hire both. I was stunned when it passed. Was the budget suddenly no consideration, had a windfall landed on the table? Someone said something about classes being oversubscribed, but the intention in hiring both, I suspected, was to deflect attention from the limitations of either one. “You would think,” I began, and then stopped myself. I was about to say it was obvious what had happened. I looked around the room. No sign of a falcon. Outside the window, light slanting against roofs.

  The meeting ended with a cheery collegiality that belied what had just taken place. Kristin had been sacrificed, in the name of seeking excellence. Nobody made eye contact. The two students on the committee looked confused.