London, England, April 9, 1968
In the morning, Claude had still not returned. Felicity dressed and went to class, an aching band of weariness tight around her forehead. Between classes, the students relaxed in the lounge over cups of tea. Waiting for the kettle to boil, Sarah Stilwell, a large diamond adorning her left hand, inquired, “So who’s auditioning for the Royal Opera House tomorrow?” Several hands went up. “What are you all singing?” Sarah asked. “This is what I have.” She rattled off the names of several arias and others followed suit.
“Felicity, aren’t you auditioning too? You haven’t said what you’re doing,” said Sarah.
“I have a headache,” Felicity said.
“Do you need an aspirin?” asked Elsie, a contralto from Dublin.
Felicity didn’t want to feel better, so she lied and said, “I took one, thanks.”
“So? What are you singing?” asked Sarah, undaunted.
Felicity couldn’t remember why she had thought that this audition was so important. “‘Chacun le sait.’ ‘O luce di quest’anima.’ ‘Mein Herr Marquis.’ ‘Laurie’s Song.’ ‘Casta Diva.’”
Sarah asked, “What’s ‘Laurie’s Song’? And you’re really doing ‘Casta Diva’?”
“‘Laurie’s Song’ is from an American opera called The Tender Land,” Felicity said, as she had explained dozens of times.
“American?” Sarah said. “I don’t think they’re going to like American. Americans don’t know anything about opera.”
Felicity rubbed her forehead as Sarah went on, “And isn’t ‘Casta Diva’ a little advanced for college?”
Elsie said, “Sarah, she studies with Philip Cook. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”
Sarah retorted, “He can’t know as much as you think if he gave her ‘Casta Diva.’ That’s one of the most glorious, beautiful arias there is.”
Felicity roused herself to say, “He calls it a stretch aria.”
“A what?”
“An aria that’s a bit of a stretch, that shows where you might be headed vocally in a few years, that they can ask for if they want to hear it, if they’re curious.”
Sarah said, “It’s one of the most divine arias ever written! It’s not for a student.”
Franz cut in, “I would like to hear Felicity sing it.” Of Felicity, he asked, “Shall I get your tea?” Besides the scene work they did for the operas, Felicity had never talked much to Franz. Will, now in receipt of his diploma and back at the college as an apprentice pianist working on the operas, still spoke longingly of Franz, but years of the same had turned his words to white noise.
Franz brought the tea to Felicity and said, “I hope your headache goes away soon.” Felicity was almost relishing the miserable feeling. Maybe Claude would be there to tuck her into bed and rub her temples when she got home, all forgiven. She traipsed after the others to class, which might as well have been in Russian for all she made of it.
After class, Franz approached her again. “I’d like to hear ‘Casta Diva’ now,” he said. “If your headache isn’t too bad.”
“It’s a bit better,” Felicity fibbed. As upset as she was, she felt a stirring desire to sing. “It might not be so good without piano, though. We should find Will. Maybe he can —”
“I can play,” Franz said. “Not very well, but it will give me a sense of how you sing the piece. I just love that aria. I think it would be gorgeous in your voice. A true dramatic coloratura soprano is so rare.”
Felicity trailed after Franz to the practice rooms. She picked her favourite, the one on the end of the row with a window that looked out onto a large oak tree. Franz seated himself at the piano and flexed his fingers, then played a few chords. “May I have the music?” he said, his manner suddenly formal. Felicity walked over to the piano and placed her folder there. Franz began to play, without the ease and buoyancy of Will, but more or less the correct notes in the approximate tempo.
Her entrance was approaching, and she summoned her breath, gathered it into a ball right in the middle of her, and began to sing:
Casta diva, che inargenti
Queste sacre antiche pianche
A noi volgi il bel sembiante
Senza nubi e senza vel …
She was an ancient priestess, singing to the moon: Pure goddess, who silvers these ancient plains, you turn your beautiful face to us, without cloud or veil.
Any sighting of the moon was hours away. The skies were their London daytime grey. But Felicity had a vision of the bright beams piercing dark skies to illuminate feeble desires, weakness of the flesh, deeply held dreams, love, and artifice. As she sang, tears gathered in the corners of her eyes at the simplistic beauty of the melody in its silvery wash of sound. Sarah was right; she was not equal to singing something this beautiful. The tears came faster. She had said to Philip once, “Sometimes I get choked up when I’m singing and it’s really hard to get through the piece.”
He nodded. “Very common in temperamental people like yourself. It’s a gift. The trick is, if you feel like crying, just cry. Be vulnerable before your audience. Tears don’t hinder your voice. Trying to hold them in does.”
Felicity took his advice and let the tears slide out as she sang. Halfway through the aria, she became aware that Franz had stopped thumping his way through the accompaniment. She turned to face him.
“My playing does you no justice,” he said. “I see what Philip meant. You will grow into this aria and it will be just right for you someday. You have such a gorgeous sense of line. You —” He cleared his throat, noticing the tears. “Felicity, why are you crying?” he said. She dropped her face into her hands. “Your head is still hurting,” he stated. She nodded. He came out from behind the piano and put his arms around her. She at first resisted burying her face in his shoulder, but the closeness of another person, any person, was too much to bear without responding.
“I know something that can help a headache,” Franz said. Felicity knew what he had in mind. If only it could help a heartache. She allowed him to lead her into a corner of the room, watched as he opened his pants, and let him to flip her skirt up and pull her panties and nylons down. He wormed his fingers into the warm moistness of her. Felicity bit her lip as she groaned, despite a shadow in the back of her mind that was telling her to push Franz away and run home to Claude. She willed the shadow to leave and nudged her body closer to Franz.
“I’ve been watching you for a while,” Franz whispered in her ear. “You’re so beautiful and your voice is so lovely.”
She could still tell him. She could still invoke Claude’s name, a spell that would repel Franz, would stop this before any harm was done. But the words formed bubbles that fizzed and popped in her head as he began kissing her, his mouth covering hers roughly and sloppily. Felicity felt a flash of anger that this was happening, but whether she was angrier at Franz, Claude, or herself, she didn’t know. Franz entered her and she jerked fiercely in rhythm with him. “Oh my God,” Franz gasped. His breaths caught at the edge of hers, tearing in an uneven line. Felicity cried out as the circle surrounding them drew her closer to him, a circle within a circle binding them. At the moment of their release, she could see into his soul, past the glass pane of manners and pleasantries that normally separated them, right through to the dark place within him. As she shuddered, the door to the practice room banged open.
“I thought that was you, Felicity.” Franz flopped panting against the wall. Felicity turned in a daze to see Will standing in the doorway, his face creased in upon itself. He turned and left the room.
“Will!” Yanking her undergarments back up, she rushed out of the room. “Will, wait!”
Will held up a hand. “Don’t,” he said.
“Will, please, let me explain!” Doors flew open along the hall and students poked their heads out of the practice rooms, watching the unfolding drama.
“Dear me,” Will said. “Are we going to have a scene?” He turned to face Felicity. “Don’t bother,” he said. “La commedia è finite.” Felicity knew what those words meant. It was Italian, not Latin. The last words of the opera I Pagliacci. The comedy is over. Her friendship with Will was over. The purity of her relationship with Claude, maybe even the entire relationship, was over. But Franz was right. Her headache was better. She decided to go and see if Dr. Wells was in his office. Having transgressed already, she had nothing to lose, and she might as well pass Counterpoint. Music was all she was going to have left in this new world she had entered, the one where love was no longer enough.
When Felicity got home, sore in body and mind from her encounter with Dr. Wells, she found Claude in the living room reading Why We Can’t Wait, one of Dr. King’s books that they had read together. He closed the book, unsmiling. “Felicity, you look exhausted. Did you sleep last night?”
She raised one shoulder and he went on, “A lawyer found us, I don’t know how, and we got bail this morning. We kept the office closed and I slept all day. Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat. I’ll run down and get some takeaway. Fish and chips or Chinese? Or go round the corner for curry?”
“Fish and chips,” said Felicity. Sending Claude out would give her a chance to wash away the smell of recent sex. When he returned, he put the newspaper package on the table and brought plates and cutlery from the kitchen. “Claude, tell me what you’re thinking,” Felicity begged, but he motioned to her to sit. She tried to force a few chips down her throat as Claude attacked a big piece of cod.
After he finished, he said, “All right. I’ve been thinking of this for a while, but everything that just happened sped it up for me. It’s time for me to go back to Grenada and start preparing for the Revo. Neville thinks so too.”
“Of course he does,” Felicity said. The introduction to “Casta Diva” began playing in her head, not flowing the way Will played it, but choppy and heavy under Franz’s fingers.
Claude leaned across the table, the fire in his expression once again stoked as it had been when he was shackled to the Embassy gate. “Brother King died for what he believed in. I got arrested for what I believe in, but I’m not doing it where it matters most. There are lots of people who can stand outside South Africa House, but little Grenada has been forgotten. Bon jay, our people are suffering. My father says it’s getting worse with Tibbs. He’s killing anyone who opposes him. Neville has a plan to help Grenada, and he needs me. He has another friend, Mark Henry — I know him too, but he’s more Neville’s friend — and he’s been studying in the United States, getting a PhD in Economics, which we can really use. He’s almost finished, and he’s planning to go back to Grenada. So is Neville. That leaves me.”
“So Neville comes first.” The notes were louder, more insistent, drowning out Claude’s words. She shook her head, feeling the ache return, blinked as Claude’s face wavered before her eyes.
Claude pounded the table, and the knives and forks jumped. “Grenada comes first.” If an orchestra were playing “Casta Diva,” a flute would enter now. But instead of a patina of sweetness, the notes spiking through Felicity’s ears were fractured. Claude’s words spun after them, dropping into the great pool of darkness in her chest. Her fingers twitched in time with the phantom pianist. Sound squeaked out of her mouth, as plaintive as the notes of the flute.
“But what about us, Claude? I can’t move to Grenada.”
“No, you can’t,” Claude agreed. “You don’t belong there. You belong in a big city like London, where you can become a famous prima donna, just like you’re meant to be.”
Felicity hugged herself. “So then —” Her head ached. Her chest ached. Her ears ached. The moon was inside her, stretching, burning.
Claude said, “Truly, Felicity, I have adored my time with you. I love you dearly. But maybe this was something for us both to learn from before we fulfil our true destinies. I’m going to be part of the Revo that brings to power the greatest leader Grenada will ever have, and you’re going to be one of the best singers in the world.”
Felicity lowered her head to the table. A rush of fatigue battered her. “Tell me something. Is Marlene going back to Grenada too?”
“She wants to.”
Something had to break. Felicity didn’t want it to be her. She seized her plate from the table and flung it to the floor. As it shattered, Claude shouted, “Felicity!” She threw herself after it and landed shivering in a heap on the ground, moaning as a dark curtain trembled across her gaze. Her heart began pounding in her chest, too quickly for her breathing to catch up. She thrashed around, a fish out of water, certain that the world was ending.
“Felicity,” Claude said more quietly. He dropped to his belly and wriggled over to her, then put an arm around her waist. “My love. Cinnamon. It’s all right. It’s all right.”
Gasping for air, she lifted her head and turned towards him. Claude said, “You’re in the way of everything I’ve ever hoped for.” He rubbed slow circles on her back. “I’m not saying I’m leaving London right away. I was just trying to prepare you for the future. We’ve got some momentum at South Africa House and with the tourist season coming, we need to keep that up. I am going to go to Grenada, but not yet.” As his words soaked in, Felicity’s breathing slowed and she felt her trembling ease. “I’m not leaving yet, my love, I’m with you a while longer,” he repeated. “Come on. You have an audition tomorrow. I’ll run you a nice hot bath and then you need to go to bed.”
“I’m sorry, Claude.” Felicity couldn’t say why, but she could at least speak the words.
He wrapped his arms about her. “It’s all right,” he said, and she felt her blood squelch within her, thick with the knowledge that he would not forgive so quickly if he knew why she was really apologizing.