I walked out with a small carefully wrapped box dangling from my index finger. The smell of tear gas was gone from the air and the traffic had once more begun its slow crawl. I crossed the street, weaving between out-of-date cars until I reached the opera steps. The heavy wooden doors were open and there was a man in uniform between them with a leather wallet round his neck. And as I mounted the steps I wondered why I’d never noticed it before. Because I had the philistine’s dislike of opera: warbling sopranos and pearl-fishing duets. Maybe, but the building had a lot to recommend it and I liked old buildings: looking at them, wandering through them, thinking about them. Two caryatids stood on either side of him, supporting the carved arch above the door.
No opera tour today, he said, though I hadn’t asked for one. And when I asked him why, he said, the demonstration. But if I paid the recommended contribution, I could walk around with an audio guide. So I walked inside, into the carved-stone interior, and paid the woman behind the glass cabinet the recommended fee.
There was another grand staircase before me with a carpet of a red so bright it almost hurt the eyes. It branched off, to the left and right, and the balustrades rose and drew the eye to a bewildering series of murals above. Overhanging trees, ivy, collapsing ruins and follies, nymphs, fauns and cupids with faded pink bodies, that all seemed frozen in the act of tumbling down towards me. There was a large decorative arch beneath them that led to what I knew must be the auditorium, so I climbed up to it and underneath and found myself among long rows of empty seats with gilded boxes rising above them in a semicircle, at the end of which was the empty stage with the huge red curtains drawn back. The only light in there was the sunlight, coming through the circular windows way, way above. So the seats seemed to vanish into a bowl of shadow that led to the stage and the dull gleam of theatrical flats.
I heard a bow scrape over an open string and knew the sound intimately, immediately. It continued on, into an operatic flurry. Someone was playing the cello in the orchestra pit.
I walked forwards, almost blindly, feeling my way by the satin-covered seats that led down the aisle. The cello played again, another operatic flurry, which confused me. I had become so used to Bach. Then the darkness must have softened somewhat, from the sunlight above, or else my eyes had grown used to it. I could see the red-satin covers to the seats, a balustrade at the end of them with a long cushion of red, and as I moved forwards I could see a serried row of music stands, each with a red backing. Was red the only colour that opera allowed? I wondered, and the cello continued and then I saw her, sitting on a gold-painted chair, alone in the orchestra pit, her head raised towards a score on a music stand, the dark hair masking half of her face.
I have to learn this, she said. It’s the cello solo from Rigoletto.
She must have seen me coming down the aisle, because she spoke without turning.
Act One. Played with the basses.
So your sabbatical is over?
I hope so. Soon. And you? What brought you here?
She looked round then, as she played. What light there was caught her face as the hair fell away from it.
The opera? Made you think of me?
Yes, I said. And I wondered whether it really had or not.
Come down here, she said. Turn the pages.
There was a small recess, an opening in the balustrade. I pushed it back and walked down the narrow steps. I was in the pit then, with the empty music stands and a view of the gilded boxes way up above.
I can’t read music.
When I nod, you turn.
And she nodded, so I turned the page of indecipherable squiggles and dots.
Do you know Rigoletto?
I shook my head.
It’s about a curse.
About how we’re all cursed, one way or another?
How did you know?
I didn’t. I just said it. Isn’t that what all operas are about?
No. Rhinemaidens come up from the water. Orfeo descends into the underworld. Mimi dies from consumption.
And Rigoletto?
He tries to protect his daughter from the Duke. But the curse outwits him. And you turn now.
So I turned the page again. And the wrapped parcel brushed off her cheek.
You bought me something?
I didn’t know what to say.
You bought your wife something?
And again, I said nothing. She played two double-stopped notes.
And then the baritone takes over.
baritone what?
The voice. Rigoletto. The dwarf.
She put aside her bow.
Can I see?
And she had the golden string off my finger in one deft move. She peeled aside the folded paper.
What are they? she asked.
Pearls, I said.
You bought pearls for me?
Black pearls, I said.
Are they bad luck? Are they cursed, like Rigoletto?
She had the pearls out now, and was twisting them around her wrist.
They have bumps on them. Not smooth.
No, I said. They’re Japanese. Uncultured.
Why black pearls?
Because, I said, helplessly, and I quoted the brochure, they’re a symbol of hope.
Hope?
For wounded hearts.
And tears suddenly sprang from her eyes, like a procession of wet jewels. I had never seen a reaction so immediate. We were in an opera house, I tried to reason, surrounded by the colour crimson. Operatic emotions only.
Thank you, she said.
And I wondered had I enough credit to buy another set.
Kiss me, she said. The way the Duke kissed Gilda.
How did the Duke kiss Gilda?
As if he would die for her.
You mean operatically?
Not funny, she said.
She brought her hand to my face and I kissed her. I felt the pearls against my earlobe.
There now, she said. We’re cursed.
By whom?
Not whom. What. We’re cursed by the love-thing.
Can we lift the curse?
Never, she said. And there was the sound of voices, doors opening way behind us.
You must go now. Orchestral rehearsal.
I can’t sit and listen?
No, she said.
So I climbed the wooden stairs and left her there. I walked back through the shadowed auditorium, past a gathering in the foyer of men and women with instrumental cases. There were more of them on the opera-house steps, smoking in the afternoon heat. I saw the one I had followed, carrying a battered cello case, and he stopped, as if to continue an interrupted conversation. But I excused myself and hurried on.
As I crossed the street, he stood by the wooden doors, staring at me. The rest of the orchestra pushed by him with their oddly shaped cases, as if they contained outsize varieties of vegetables: mushrooms, carrots and courgettes. He stood there, staring, with his battered case which looked like it enclosed a Jerusalem artichoke, until I had lost myself in the foliage of the trees on the other side.