Roger Zelazny
Recital
The woman is singing. She uses a microphone, a thing she did not have to do in her younger days. Her voice is still fairly good, but nothing like what it was when she drew standing ovations at the Met. She is wearing a blue dress with long sleeves, to cover a certain upper-arm flabbiness. There is a small table beside her, bearing a pitcher of water and a glass. As she completes her number a wave of applause follows. She smiles, says "Thank you" twice, coughs, gropes (not obtrusively), locates the pitcher and glass, carefully pours herself a drink.
Let's call her Mary. I don't know that much about her yet, and the name has just occurred to me. I'm Roger Z, and I'm doing all of this on the spot, rather than in the standard smooth and clean fashion. This is because I want to watch it happen and find things out along the way.
So Mary is a character and this is a story, and I know that she is over the hill and fairly sick. I try to look through her eyes now and discover that I cannot. It occurs to me that she is probably blind and that the great hall in which she is singing is empty.
Why? And what is the matter with her eyes?
I believe that her eye condition is retrobulbar neuritis, from which she could probably recover in a few weeks, or even a few days. Except that she will likely be dead before then. This much seems certain to me here. I see now that it is only a side symptom of a more complex sclerotic condition which has worked her over pretty well during the past couple of years. Actually, she is lucky to be able still to sing as well as she can. I notice that she is leaning upon the table - as unobtrusively as possible - while she drinks.
All of this came quickly, along with the matter of the hall. Does she realize that she is singing to an empty house, that all of the audience noises are recorded? It is a put-on job and she is being conned by someone who loved her and wants to give her this strange evening before she falls down the dark well with no water or bottom to it.
Who? I ask.
A man, I suppose. I don't see him clearly yet, back in the shadowy control booth, raising the volume a little more before he lets it diminish. He is also taping the entire program. Is he smiling? I don't know yet. Probably.
He loved her years ago, when she was bright and new and suddenly celebrated and just beginhing her rise to fame. I use the past tense of the main verb, just to cover myself at this point.
Did she love him? I don't think so. Was she cruel? Maybe a little. From his viewpoint, yes; from hers, not really. I can't see all of the circumstances of their breakup clearly enough to judge. It is not that important, though. The facts as given should be sufficient.
The hall has grown silent once again. She bows, smiling, and announces her next number. As she begins to sing it, the man - let us call him John - leans back in his seat, eyes half-lidded and listens. He is, of course, remembering.
Naturally, he has followed her career. There was a time when he had hated her and all of her flashy lovers. He had never been particularly flashy himself. The others have all left her now. She is pretty much alone in the world and has been out of sight of it for a long while. She was also fairly broke when she received this invitation to sing. It surprised her more than a little. Even broke, though, it was not the money she was offered but a final opportunity to hear some applause that prompted her to accept.
Now she is struggling valiantly. This particular piece had worried her. She is nearing the section where her voice could break. It was pure vanity that made her include it in the program. John leans forward as she nears the passage. He had realized the burden it would place upon her - for he is an aficionado, which is how and why he first came to meet her. His hand moves forward and rests upon a switch.
He is not wealthy. He has practically wiped himself out financially, renting this hall, paying her fee, arranging for all of the small subterfuges: a maid in her dressing room, a chauffeured limousine, an enthusiastic theater manager, a noisy stage crew - actors all. They departed when she began her performance. Now there are only the two of them in the building, both of them wondering what will happen when reaches that crucial passage.