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.