The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [36]
The late-afternoon sun angled down through the west-facing windows and reflected off the gilt rococo, an effect that seemed to turn her eyes to marble. “And did you ask your father for help?”
“Not exactly,” Lucien admitted, obdurate for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. “I did look through some of his books.”
“Imagine,” Codruta mused, “the son of one of France’s most accomplished scientists refusing to ask his father for help.” She focused on Lucien. “What’s the problem here?”
“I’m not sure,” Lucien began unsteadily. “I wanted to ask him—I really did—but then it was due and I knew he would be angry because I waited until the last second, and then …” He trailed off as Codruta beckoned toward one of her domestics to fill her cup.
“Lucien, please—I’m not your teacher or your father,” she said. “I understand you don’t want to follow in his footsteps, and I wouldn’t recommend it if you did.” She paused to dip a slice of pineapple into a warm bath of chocolate sauce. “This kind of adolescent sabotage is not becoming of a young man of your abilities—and I don’t just mean for singing.”
Lucien felt his cheeks flush as he fixed his gaze on a cluster of jade grapes that served as the centerpiece on the table. “I just wish he understood what it’s like for me!”
She nodded. “I don’t blame you—as we’ve discussed, academic studies were never my forte, either—but you have to view the situation from his perspective. His concern is for your long-term welfare, and while countless others share your love of the opera, only the very best can expect anything resembling a civilized existence in return.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Lucien insisted. “As I said to him—”
“Please don’t upset yourself,” Codruta interrupted. “It’s your father’s passion for music that makes him suspicious. He loves to hear you sing, of course, but as a scientist, he is inclined to want an objective validation, which as we both know doesn’t exist.”
“Shouldn’t your opinion count for something?”
“You flatter me, but no—my opinion here counts for nothing.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
She waved at a domestic, who lowered the blinds a fraction of an inch, effectively eliminating the glare while allowing the room to maintain a most pleasant shade of amber. “I am not a miracle worker,” she said, “but I have a plan, which—assuming you’re amenable—may prove suitable to us all.”
EXACTLY ONE WEEK later, Lucien arrived at 3 Place d’Aurifère, the home of Manuel García, who was probably—as Madame de Vicionière had remarked the previous spring at Codruta’s mercredi—the leading voice teacher in Paris, if not in all of Europe. Codruta had arranged the audition for Lucien on the condition that if the professor felt anything less than certain about his prospects, Lucien would return to lycée in the fall. It was a deal Lucien had accepted with something approaching glee but that he now considered with some terror, given what was at stake. With close to an hour to spare, he peered over the stucco wall into the mansion’s courtyard, where boxwood mermaids posed seductively above reefs of flowering azaleas and hawthorns, but this occupied him for less than two minutes and led him to cross the street into the Bois de Boulogne, where he sat on a bench to watch the cherry blossom petals drift down like snow flurries. He watched a couple smile at each other as they strolled past, their hands discreetly locked together, and felt jealous; everything and everyone around him seemed to have given over to the fervor of spring, while he was left with nothing but questions.
A few days earlier, at an outdoor café on the Boulevard St.-Michel, a girl with high cheekbones and curly golden hair had smiled shyly at him from her table, where she was sitting with an older couple, probably her parents, and though he could easily have taken a seat nearby and flirted with her—she had essentially issued an invitation—he had ignored her.