13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [43]
“By God, turn around,” Louise says.
The girl obliges, and Louise admires a row of small round satin buttons that follow Garance’s spine. She imagines those buttons open, Garance reaching clumsily back there with her long pianist fingers to fasten them, calling for someone to help her in her partially unclothed state.
“You’re going to be cold,” is all Louise finds to say. “Don’t you have a coat?”
“I’m much too excited to be cold! You’re sure the dress is not too much?”
“I am telling you, you look very, very pretty tonight. But you are going to catch your death out there, you ridiculous coquette. Let me get you a shawl, at least.”
As Louise grabs her black coat off the rack by the door, she also takes a heavy white wool shawl for Garance. It looks jarring, almost homely, against the glossy magnificence of the dress. Louise does not care: the girl must be shielded against the bite of the November night, as mild as she may think it is.
THE SKY IS BLACK, and the two women walk fast down the avenue de l’Opéra together. Louise lags back for a moment, letting Garance get a few steps ahead. She looks over the girl’s upswept blond hair and her back, at the borrowed shawl slipping off her shoulders, her bare skin glowing white against the shocking red of her dress.
“Are you sure you’re not cold in this getup?” Louise shouts after her.
“I’m telling you, I can’t be cold this evening!” The girl laughs over her shoulder without slowing her pace and without so much as looking at her teacher, who is hustling to catch up to her imperious stride.
IT IS A WONDERFUL production. The sets are grandiose and lovingly detailed. They sweep in and out of existence between scenes with dizzying speed, on smooth and silent runners behind the heavy velvet curtains. Carmen is a black-haired beauty with a small, pursed red mouth and a profile that almost forms a straight line from her forehead down to the tip of her nose. Her skin projects a golden heat under the stage lights. They must have cast a genuine Spaniard for the part. Her voice is rich and ringing, and she moves sinuously through the story in a downright lewd way that transfixes the audience. When she throws the red flower to the fascinated Don José, the slow arc of her arm is serpentine and suggestive.
L’amour est enfant de bohème,
Il n’a jamais, jamais connu de loi.30
The children’s chorus is a pack of well-choreographed, cherub-faced boys who move in arabesques around the stage. They are all wearing identical pink stockings. When Louise closes her eyes, she can still see the little pink legs prancing about to their jaunty song, Nous marchons la tête haute, comme des petits soldats.31
Garance leans slightly forward in her seat during the entire show, her back erect in her corseted top. Louise sees the girl’s chest heave during the last scene, her lower lip quiver at the swell of the music. Louise looks away toward the stage just in time to see Don José plunge his knife swiftly into Carmen’s body. At the penetration of the blade into the chest, Louise starts, feeling that Garance’s moist heated hand has suddenly found her own, gripping tightly. The girl is pressing her hand, squeezing for dear life, and a blast of liquid heat bursts through Louise’s heart and up into her blood-flooded cheeks. She thinks the girl mustn’t know what she’s doing; she must be overwrought by the emotional climax of the production. She does not pull her hand away from Garance’s warm grasp. She completely misses the final moment of the opera.
Ô ma Carmen, ma Carmen adorée!
Arrêtez-moi, c’est moi qui l’ai tuée!32
When Louise gets home, it is nearly midnight and her body is drained as if it has gone through some trial. Thinking that perhaps her husband is in bed already, she sidles into the apartment as quietly as she can, but when she hangs up her coat, she hears laughter coming from the kitchen.
Apparently Henri is still up, and he’s brought Pierre home with him. They must not