Serenade - James M. Cain [41]
There was a big roar from the Bowl that meant the first act was over. Sabini jumped in the car and snapped on the lights. I sat down in front of them and the Zuniga took the make-up kit and began making me up. He stuck on the coleta and I tried the hat. It fit. When the manager came back he had a young guy with him in evening clothes, the conductor. I got up and spoke. He looked me over. "You've sung Escamilla?"
"At least a hundred times."
"Where?"
"Paris, among other places. And not at the Opera. At the Comique, if that means anything to you."
"What name did you sing under?"
"In Italy, Giovanni Sciaparelli. In France and Germany my own, John Howard Sharp."
He gave me a look that would have curdled milk, turned his back, and beckoned to the Zuniga.
"Hey, what's the matter?"
"Yes, I've heard of you. And you're washed up."
I cut one loose they must have heard in Glendale.
"Does that sound like I'm washed up? Does it?"
"You lost your voice."
"Yeah, and I got it back."
He kept looking at me, opened his mouth once or twice to say something, then shook his head and turned to the manager. "It's no use, Morris. He can't do it. I just happened to think of that last act Mr. Sharp, I wish I could use you. It would pull us out of a spot. But for the sake of the ballet school, we've interpolated Arlésienne music into Act IV, and I've scored the baritone into it, and--"
"Oh, Arlésienne, hey? Listen: Cue me in. That's all I ask. Just cue me in!"
You think that's impossible, that a man can go on and sing stuff he never even saw? All right, once there was an old Aborn baritone that's dead now, by the name of Harry Luckstone, brother of Isidore Luckstone, the singing teacher. He had a cousin named Henry Myers, that writes a little music now and then. Myers had written a song, and he was telling Luckstone about it, and Luckstone said fine, he'd sing it.
"I haven't put it on paper yet--"
"All right, I'll sing it."
"Well, it goes like this--"
"God Almighty, does a man have to know a song to sing it? Get going on your goddam piano, and I'll sing it!"
And he sang it. Nobody but another singer knows how good a singer really is. Sure, I sang his Arlesienne for him. I got a look at his score after Act III, and what he had done was put some words to the slow part, let the baritone sing them, then have baritone and chorus sing them under the fast part, in straight counterpoint. I didn't even bother to look what the words were. I bellowed "Auprčs de ma blonde, qu'il fait bon, fait bon," and let it go at that. One place I shot past a repeat. The dancers were all frozen on one foot, ready to do the routine again, and there was I, camped on an E that didn't even belong there. He looked up, and I caught his eye, and hung on to it, and marched all around with it, while he spoke to his men and wigwagged to his ballerina. Then he looked up again, and I cut, and yelled, "Ha, ha, ha." He brought his stick down, the show was together again, and I began flapping the cape at the dancers. In the Toreador Song, on the long "Ah" that leads into the chorus, I broke out the cape and made a couple of passes at the bull. Not too much, you understand. A prop can kill a number. But enough that I got that swirl of crimson and yellow into it. It stopped the show, and he let me repeat the second verse.
Some time during the night I had been given a dressing room, and after the last bow I went there. My clothes were there, piled on the table, and Sabini's trunk. Instead of taking off the makeup first, I started with the costume, so he could get away, if he was still around. I had just stripped down to my underwear when the manager came in, to pay me off. He counted out fifty bucks, in fives.