Marcella, being a season subscriber, continued to turn up at the Metastasio every Tuesday. Finding that Daniel had become an usher, she couldn’t resist seeking him out at intermission or (after he’d been transerred to the Dress Circle) lingering out on 44th Street to waylay him after the show. “Just to say hello.” What she wanted was gossip about the singers. Any little scrap she accepted with the reverence of one being initiated into solemn mysteries. Daniel thought her a fool, but he enjoyed the role of high priest and so continued to supply her with crumbs and tidbits about her demigods. After a while he took to sneaking her into a good seat that he knew to be standing empty. These attentions did not go unnoticed by his colleagues, who affected to believe him smitten with Marcella’s very deniable charms. Daniel went along with the joke, praising her in the gross hyperboles of libretto verse. He knew that despite their banter the friendship did him credit among his fellow-ushers, all of whom had a friend, or set of friends, whose adulation and envy was a principal source of their own self-importance. That Daniel had his Marcella showed that for all his airs he wasn’t above such quotidian transactions. Indeed, his involvement went beyond merely basking in the false glory of an unmerited esteem; Marcella insisted on expressing her gratitude to Daniel by bringing him five-pound cannisters of Hyprotine Nutritional Supplement, which she “shoplifted” from a deli where she had established an understanding with the clerk at the check-out counter. What a world of mutuality it was!
One evening, after Daniel, with the collusion of Lee Rappacini, had managed to get her into the orchestra to see the last two acts of what was billed as Sarro’s Achille in Sciro (though, in fact, the score was Mrs. Schiff’s creation from first to last, and one of her best), Marcella accosted him at the corner of 44th and 8th with more than her usual urgency. Daniel, who was wearing only his uniform and freezing his shapely ass off, explained that tonight was out of the question, since he was on his way to a dinner at La Didone (with, once again, the constant Mr. Carshalton, whom nothing, it seemed, could discourage).
Marcella, insisting she needed only a minute, reached into a duffle-sized handbag and took out a box of Fanny Farmer chocolates with a big red bow around it.
“Really, Marcella, that’s going too far.”
“Oh, it isn’t for you, Ben,” she said apologetically. “It’s a Thanksgiving present for Ernesto Rey.”
“Then why don’t you give it to him? He’ll be singing tomorrow night.”
“But I’ll be working then, you see. And anyhow I couldn’t. I really just couldn’t. And if I did get up the nerve, he probably wouldn’t take it, and if he did take it, he’d probably throw it away as soon as my back was turned. That’s what I’ve heard, anyhow.”
“That’s because there might be poison in it. Or something unseemly. It’s been known to happen.”
Marcella’s eyes began to glisten. “You don’t think because I’ve said a word or two in praise of Geoffrey Bladebridge, that I’m part of some clacque, do you?”
“I don’t think it, no, but Rey doesn’t know you from Adam. Or Eve, for that matter.”
Marcella wiped her tears away and smiled to show that her heartbreak was of no account. “That’s why—” she snuffled, “—if it came from someone he knows, it wouldn’t be so futile. You could tell him the chocolates are from someone you know. And trust. And that they’re just my way of thanking him for the pleasure of so many beautiful performances. Would you do that for me?”
Daniel shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
If he’d stopped to think he might have answered that himself and been spared what was to come. The wise thing to have done would have been, as Marcella suggested, to dispose of the box of chocolates as soon as she was out of sight, or to eat them himself, if he dared. Instead he did as he’d promised and gave the chocolates that same evening to Rey, who was also dining at La Didone, with his agent Irwin Tauber. Daniel explained the situation, and Rey accepted the gift with a nod, not even bothering to ask him to thank his benefactress. Daniel returned to his escargots and Mr. Carshalton’s descriptions of the Vermont wilderness, and he thought no more about it.
The next evening a stage-hand delivered to Daniel a hand-written note from Rey, who was singing Norma. The note read: “Do thank your friend on my behalf for her box of sweets and her so friendly letter. She seems entirely charming. I don’t understand why she is so shy as not to approach me directly. I’m sure we’d have got on!” Daniel was miffed at Marcella’s smuggling a letter into her box of chocolates, but as Rey’s reaction was so cordial, what did it matter?
He genuinely forgot the whole thing — and so never connected it with Rey’s altered manner towards him, which didn’t amount to much more, at first, than common courtesy. When he called on Mrs. Schiff and found Daniel at home, he remembered his name — for the first time since they’d been officially introduced seven months before. Once, at Lieto Fino, when Daniel, having come with another party, stayed on to have coffee at Mrs. Schiff’s table, Rey, who was maudlin drunk, insisted on hearing the story of Ben Bosola’s life, a sad and unlikely tale that Daniel felt embarrassed to be telling in front of Mrs. Schiff, who knew the sad, unlikely truth. At Christmas, Rey gave Daniel a sweater, saying it had been a gift from one of his fans and didn’t fit him. When Rey asked, during one of his coaching sessions, if Daniel could act as his accompanist (Mrs. Schiff having burnt her hand making tea), Daniel accepted this as a tribute to his musicianship, and even when Rey praised his playing, which had been one long fumble, he attributed this to good manners. He wasn’t being disingenuous or willfully blind; he believed, even now, that the world was his shepherd, with a natural instinct for providing green pastures and attending to his wants.
In February Rey asked Daniel to dinner at Evviva il Coltello, an invitation he delivered in such carressing tones that Daniel could no longer evade his meaning. He said no, he’d rather not. Rey, still purring, demanded a reason. He couldn’t think of any except the true one — that if Rey should demand that instant capitulation that all stars seemed to think was their due, his refusal might well prompt Rey to retaliate by putting Daniel on his black-list. His job would be in jeopardy, and his arrangement with Mrs. Schiff as well. At last to avoid explanations he consented to be taken out: “But only this once.”
All through dinner Rey talked about himself — his roles, his reviews, his triumphs over enemies. Daniel had never before been witness to the full sweep of the man’s vanity and hunger for praise and still more praise. It was at once an awesome spectacle and a deadly bore. At the conclusion of the dinner Rey declared, flatly and matter-of-factly, that he was in love with Daniel. It was such an absurd non sequitur to the past two hours of self-aggrandizing soliloquy that Daniel nearly got the giggles. It might have been better if he had, since Rey seemed determined to regard his polite demurs as shyness.
“Come, come,” Rey protested, still in good humor, “let’s have no more pretenses.”
“Who’s pretending?”
“Have it your way, idolo mio. But there was that letter — that can’t be denied — and I shall continue to keep it—” He laid his many-ringed hand on the handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket of his suit. “—here, next to my heart.”
“Mr. Rey, that letter wasn’t from me. And I have no idea what it said.”
With a coquettish glance Rey reached into the inner pocket of his suit, and removed a folded and much-frayed paper, which he placed beside Daniel’s coffee cup. “In that case, perhaps you’d like to read what it says.”
He hesitated.
“Or do you know it by heart?”
“I’ll read it, I’ll read it.”
Marcella’s letter was written on scented, floral-bordered notepaper in a schoolgirlish script embellished with a few cautious curlicues meant for calligraphy. Its message aspired to the grand manner in much the same way. “To my most dear Ernesto,” it began. “I love you! What more can I say? I realize that love is not possible between two beings so different as you and I. I am but a plain, homely girl, and even if I were as beautiful in reality as I am in my daydreams I don’t suppose that would make much difference. There would still be a Gulf between us. Why do I write, if it is useless to declare my love? To thank you for the priceless gift of your music! Listening to your godlike voice has given me the most important, the sublimest moments of my life. I live for music, and what music is there that can equal yours? I love you — it always comes back to those three little words, which mean so much. I… love… you!” It was signed, “A worshipper from afar.”
“You think I wrote this glop?” Daniel asked, having read it through.
“Can you look me in the eye and deny it?”
“Of course I deny it! I didn’t write it! It was written by Marcella Levine, who is just what she says, a plain homely girl with a thing for opera singers.”
“A plain homely girl,” Rey repeated with a knowing smile.
“It’s the truth.”
“Oh, I appreciate that. It’s my truth too, the truth of my Norma. But it’s rare for a young man of your nature to understand such riddles so clearly. I think you really may have the makings of an artist in you.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake. What would I be doing—” He stopped short, on the verge of an irretrievable slight. It wouldn’t do to declare that no one in his right mind would write mash notes to a eunuch, when Rey evidently took such attentions for granted.
“Yes?” Rey folded the note and replaced it, next to his heart.
“Listen, what if I introduced you to the girl who wrote the note? Would that satisfy you?”
“I am curious, certainly.”
“She has a Tuesday subscription, and you’re singing next Tuesday, aren’t you?”
“Sono Eurydice,” he said, in melting tones.
“Then if you like, I’ll take you to her between the acts.”
“But you mustn’t prepare her!”
“It’s a promise. If I did, she might get cold feet and not show up.”
“Tuesday, then. And shall we come here again after, for a bite?”
“Sure. The three of us.”
“That assumes, caro, that there are three of us.”
“Just wait. You’ll see.”
On Tuesday, at the intermission, Rey appeared in the lower lobby of the Metastasio, already decked out in the costume of Eurydice and seeming, even close up and without the lights assisting, a very sylph, all tulle and moonlight — albeit a sylph of the court rather more than of the country, with enough paste jewels to have equipped a small chandelier and enough powder on his face and wig to have sunk a thousand ships. Being so majestical, he moved with the freedom of a queen, parting the crowds before him as effectively as a cordon of police. He commandeered Daniel from his post at the orange juice stand, and together they mounted the grand staircase to the Grand Tier level, and then (to everyone’s wonder) went up the much less grand staircase to the balcony, where, as Daniel had been certain they would, they found Marcella at the edge of a group of the faithful. Seeing Daniel and Rey advancing upon her, she stiffened into a defensive posture, shoulders braced and neck retracted.
They stopped before her. The group at whose edge Marcella had been standing now re-formed with her and her visitors at its center.
“Marcella,” Daniel said, in a manner meant to assuage, “I’d like you to meet Ernesto Rey. Ernesto, may I present Marcella Levine.”
Marcella dipped her head slowly in acknowledgement.
Rey offered his slender hand, dazzling with false diamonds. Marcella, who was sensitive on the subject of hands, backed away, pressing knotted fists into the brown velvetine folds of her dress.
“Daniel tells me, my dear, that it is to you that I am beholden for a letter I lately received.” You could almost hear the clavier underlining his recitativo, so ripe was his delivery.
“Pardon me?” It was all she could manage.
“Daniel tells me, my dear, that it is to you that I am beholden for a letter I lately received.” His reading of the line did not vary in any particular, nor could you tell, from his regal inflections, whether this statement portended thanks or reproof.
“A letter? I don’t understand.”
“Did you, or did you not, give this charming young man a letter for me, enclosed in a box of chocolates?”
“No,” she shook her head emphatically, “I never.”
“Because,” Rey went on, addressing the entire crowd that had gathered about them, “if it was your letter…”
The long blonde braid wagged wildly in denial.
“… I only wanted to say what a very kind, and warm, and wonderful letter it was, and to thank you for it, personally. But you tell me that you didn’t send it!”
“No! No, the usher must have… confused me with someone else.”
“Yes, that’s what he must have done. Well, my dear, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Marcella bowed her head, as though to the block.
“I hope you enjoy the second act.”
There was an approving murmur from all the onlookers.
“And now you must all excuse me. I have my entrance to make! Ben, my little trickster, I shall see you at eleven.” With which he spun round in a billow of tulle and made his way, royally, down the stairs.
Daniel had changed out of his uniform into a ragtag sweater and a pair of jeans and would not have been allowed into Evviva il Coltello if he hadn’t been accompanying the great Ernesto. Then, to compound the offense, he told the waiter he wasn’t hungry and wanted nothing more than a glass of mineral water.
“You really should take better care of yourself, caro,” Rey insisted, while the waiter still hovered in the background.
“You know it was her,” Daniel said, in a furious whisper, resuming their conversation from the street.
“In fact, I know it wasn’t.”
“You terrified her. That’s why she denied it.”
“Ah, but you see I was looking at her eyes. A person’s eyes always tell the truth. It’s as good as a lie detector test.”
“Then look at mine and tell me if I’m lying.”
“I’ve been looking for weeks now — and they are, all the time.”
Daniel replied with a subdued Bronx cheer.
They sat in silence, Daniel glowering, Rey complacently amused, until the waiter came with wine and mineral water. Rey tasted, and approved, the wine.
When the waiter was out of earshot, Daniel asked: “Why? If you think I wrote that letter, why would I go on denying it?”
“As Zerlina says: ‘Vorrei e non vorrei.’ She’d like to, but she also wouldn’t like to. Or as someone else says, I forget who exactly: ‘T’amo e tremo.’ And I can understand that. Indeed, with the baleful example of your friend before you, Bladebridge’s innamorata, I can sympathize with your hesitations, even now.”
“Mr. Rey, I’m not hesitating. I’m refusing.”
“As you like. But you should consider that the longer you resist, the harder the terms of surrender. It’s true of all sieges.”
“Can I go now?”
“You will leave when I do. I don’t intend to be made a public mockery. You will dine with me whenever I ask you to, and you will display your usual high spirits when you do so.” As an object lesson Rey splashed wine into Daniel’s glass until it had brimmed over unto the tablecloth. “Because,” he went on, in his throatiest contralto, “if you do not, I shall see to it that you have no job and no apartment.”
Daniel lifted the glass in a toast, spilling still more of the wine. “Cheers, Ernesto!”
Rey clinked his glass with Daniel’s. “Cheers, Ben. Oh, and one last thing — I don’t care how else you choose to pass your time, but I don’t want to hear that you’ve been seen in public with Geoffrey Bladebridge, whether alone or in a group.”
“What’s he got to do with anything?”
“My sentiments exactly.”
The waiter appeared with a new tablecloth, which he spread deftly over the one stained by the spilled wine. Rey informed him that Daniel had regained his appetite, and Daniel was presented with the menu. Without needing to look he ordered the most expensive hors d’oeuvre and entree that the restaurant offered.
Rey seemed delighted. He lit a cigarette and began to discuss his performance.