Page 112 of Our Strange Duet

Ubaldo paced in front of the music stands, going over and over his lyrics in a vain attempt to zip through them before Monsieur Reyer had the chance to stop him.

“No, no, no, no! It’s impossible! There are too many syllables and not enough notes!” the tenor cried, smacking his fingers across an open palm, trying to sort through the tempo. “See? See!”

Maestro Messenger shook his head. “It works if you attack the phrase here…” He clapped out the music. “Like this…”

Again and again.

We worked through every beat of the duet, picking it apart until my bodice was damp. My feet ached, and I felt as if I couldn’t see straight. Erik’s notes danced before my vision, even as I scrunched my eyes tight with frustration.

I wanted to scream.

I feared I would cry again.

And I wondered if Erik was somewhere near, watching on unseen as his music devastated and humbled us all.

After another hour of slow and grinding progress, Marceau called for the end of our morning session.

“Two hours for lunch,” he instructed, looking as wrung out as the rest of us. “And back at—”

“No,” Maestro Messenger intoned, and the single word sliced like a meat cleaver. “No more. I will only see the chorus tonight. You two,” he barked at us, “take the evening and look over everything. I will not have tomorrow be a repeat of today.”

Feeling like a chastened schoolgirl, I nodded, and Ubaldo and I silently packed up our things before turning tail and fleeing the rehearsal room.

“Would you want to keep working on this together?” I suggested hopefully as we all but staggered down the stairwell. I’d never spent much time alone with Ubaldo, but it now seemed as though we were comrades in arms, having been through a war of attrition together.

“Not right now,” he said, wiping at the sheen of sweat dotting his brow. “The only thing I can manage is a drink. Many, many of them. Will you join me?”

Downing a glass—or several—of wine was tempting, but Maestro’s sharp recriminations haunted me. “Another time. I think…I think I should go home and study all this.” I raised my copy of the score. It had never felt so heavy.

Ubaldo let out a bitter laugh. “Study it or don’t. The show will open, the show will close, and we will never have to think of it again. This is just three weeks of our lives. All we have to do is survive them.”

I was horrified. “You don’t think it our duty to do our best?”

“I’ve been doing my best for this company for nearly a decade, Miss Daaé. I think I’m allowed one flop.”

But I’m not, I thought, alarms going off in my mind.

We said goodbye, and Ubaldo headed for the exit, loudly whistling Tannhäuser’s “O Du, Mein Holder Abendstern,” as if purposely trying to provoke the Opera Ghost.

I paused, watching him slip out into the gray afternoon. It was snowing again, fat flakes that looked wet and heavy. I imagined trudging home and curling up with the score and a pot of tea as the snow showered outside my bay window. It seemed like a perfectly cozy way to spend a dismal day.

Only…

I didn’t need cozy.

I needed to work.

And I wouldn’t get anything done, not truly, in my apartment, where distractions were many and the lure of rest was strong.

I bit the corner of my lower lip, weighing my options.

A café sounded heavenly, warm and lively, and I could get something stronger than tea, an espresso to revive my flagging energies.

But…there I’d only be able to study the lyrics, not actually sing them.

The opera had a fleet of practice rooms, small windowless closets only big enough to hold a decommissioned upright and an inevitably lopsided music stand. They were the perfect place for true, deep concentration, but I wasn’t certain I’d work well in one. They were so isolating, so solitary. And this was a duet…

I sighed and glanced down the hall toward my dressing room. I hadn’t returned to it since the night of the Il Muto disaster and didn’t know what state it had been left in through the restoration and repairs.