‘I have seen her. Heard her,’ Bess exclaims. ‘The voice! Like nothing I ever experienced before. She has helped you come here?’
‘It is complicated. But no, she has not assisted me. Nor, I believe, is she aware I am here.’
‘She is absent,’ Audran interjects as he returns. ‘The Age this week reported she was in Adelaide. On her way to engagements in Europe.’
‘A good thing for me,’ Puccini says. ‘Casting for the new work is yet to be settled. Madame would insist on the role, I know this. She will want to be my Minnie. She would insist it is her right. Because she is still angry with me for not making her my first Butterfly six years ago.’
‘Her voice is so pure.’
‘We all know this. But only I know she is not my Minnie. Too old, I think, though she is younger than me by several years.’ He is still observing something happening outside. ‘And I will be older still by the time I finish my work. And unless I finish, there will be no opera for anyone. Not for Otto Kahn or Tetrazzini or Destinn or whoever is my Minnie instead of Madame. Caruso will say I should just choose whoever is the prettiest.’
‘Caruso will be in this new work?’
‘He is. We have our Dick Johnson, the outlaw. But, still, no Minnie.’
‘What is he like – Caruso?’
The composer turns to her. Bess sees that, for the first time, he seems amused. Though his dark eyes are still so sad.
‘Enrico? If he were here in this room he would kiss both your cheeks and be most charming. You would smell his cologne and admire his waistcoat; the colour of lavender. But at heart he is still a peasant from Napoli. You could offer him a dish with the finest French sauces and he would choose, instead, spaghetti with clams. He is a practical joker, too. Has played a trick on Melba herself on stage in Boheme. Yet still he can sing. It is a marvel that a voice so wonderful comes from within a container so crude. And he must always be the centre of attention. I have had to remind him this work is the Girl of the Golden West. Not the Man. The heroine is always at the heart of my operas. And always she is flawed, adored, and doomed. Though perhaps not this time. I am not sure how it will end, if it ends. Minnie is elusive. I have hoped I can find her in Melbourne.’
He is looking at her. For the first time, she is conscious of a clock ticking.
‘Does anybody know where you are?’ she asks.
‘Very few people,’ Puccini replies. ‘The manager here and Otto Kahn at the Metropolitan. Not Caruso, for certain. He loves to talk. I am content for him to think I am locked away in my Tuscan villa, composing and shooting at ducks and gazing at the sky at night.’
A polite cough reminds them of the manager’s presence.
‘The Maestro comes for the sky here, too,’ he tells Bess. ‘A special star.’
‘No star. A comet,’ Puccini replies. ‘You have heard of Halley’s Comet?’
‘Read of it,’ she says. ‘Though I know little about stars. My husband has studied the spirit world and the supernatural, but not the heavens.’
‘This comet is real, and very beautiful. Maybe, sometime, we can look for it together.’ She cannot see his face as he says this, because he is addressing her over one shoulder as he again fiddles with the Edison machine, adjusting some levers and winding its handle. He stands back after lowering one end of the horn apparatus on to a spinning black cylinder. Audran is considering the crease in his trousers.
She hears a crackling sound, then the slaves’ chorus once again. Even in the same room it seems to be coming from some distance away. The recording ends after just a few minutes, but Bess waits until Puccini has attended to his hissing machine before declaring the music to be magical.
‘Enrico would shrug and say: “a chorus number”,’ the composer replies. ‘“Pretty tune, but just a chorus: lots of slaves on stage at one time.” He has done well for himself, making many recordings for these machines.’
Puccini removes the cylinder and returns it to a cardboard container.
‘This chorus was sung at the memorial service for Verdi in Milano nine years ago,’ he says. ‘I was one of so very many walking behind the coffin of this man I never met. And I still feel like I am walking far behind him.’
With the phonograph silent, Bess is again conscious of the clock.
‘And now, madam, perhaps you will be less curious about any music you hear,’ Audran says. ‘For the maestro will play his machine and not even put a sock in the horn to soften the sound, as I have suggested.’
‘I must have my music,’ Puccini says with a shrug. ‘But we cannot have you roaming the corridors again late at night like Lady Macbeth. You know her? Verdi also. He wrote so many operas. But it is always so slow for me – slower still when I have interruptions. Some more welcome than others.’
It seems to Bess this meeting may be over. Yet still she has a question.
‘Mr Audran said I should ask directly. Can I tell my husband about this?’
‘For now, signora, I believe not,’ Puccini says. ‘Unless this will cause you awkwardness. No doubt your husband is a man of great honour. But he works with others. And it can be hard not to speak of things you know.’
Bess nods. The idea of keeping a secret thrills her.
‘I understand. He will be away often, too. Leaving me here … waiting.’
‘Just like my Butterfly.’
Audran is guiding her to the door.
‘May we talk again sometime?’
The composer approaches and takes her hand again.
‘I hope so. And you will not need to wait three years.’
16
Dimanche 20 Février 1910
Always there are English in our way. Nelson. Wellington. And now this man in this dusty place. Ralfbanks, he calls himself. Like the rosbif the English eat, though there is none in this paddock where a man must sleep in a tent like a Bedouin.
