‘Today I am not feeling much expertise,’ the composer replies as Bess enters his room, head down. ‘My work is not coming on so well, you see. Even an early walk could not get things moving. As you see.’
He gestures towards the piano, where she observes a mess of papers and an overflowing ashtray. They stand on either side of the piano-stool with the box between them. Strangers on a platform waiting for the same train. Then Puccini reaches into the carton and removes the metal horn.
‘I recalled you have a phonograph. Hoped you might assemble this.’
‘Ah, a practical task,’ says Puccini. He has placed the burning cigarette between his lips so he can use both hands to remove parts from the carton. ‘A practical task for an impractical man. More satisfying for me this morning than further scribbling on paper.’
‘You don’t mind?’
‘This is my great pleasure. A different kind of music making. Now, you must sit.’ He gestures behind him. It seems improper to rest on his bed, the covers of which are rumpled, but it strikes her as even less appropriate to seat herself at the piano. So she sits at the end of his bed, watching him.
He lays out the pieces one by one on the side table alongside his Edison machine, which he pushes away to make more space. The smaller pieces are unwrapped then gently placed, one by one, on the smoothed-out paper. He removes the packet of recordings, acknowledges what it is, then replaces it in the carton. Instructions are quickly scanned, then put aside.
‘You don’t need them?’
The composer glances up before returning his attention to the parts.
‘This is not so different to the machine I have – a turning-table for the discs rather than a cylinder, but the rest is of a similar design. I have a mind for mechanical things. In my home-town I was the first to own an automobile. And I have hunting guns to take apart and assemble again. Music is like a mistress that can never be touched. I need to feel things with my fingers to understand them, to know how they come together.’
He grunts with satisfaction as the crank-handle slots into a hole in the side of the main apparatus and clicks home. Bess resolves to say no more until the job is completed. A tingling sensation is creeping over her. She knows this feeling: it comes upon her whenever she sees someone expertly performing a methodical task; doing something well. She first experienced this sensation as a young girl shopping with her mother at a store on Flatbush Avenue, when a shop-assistant wrapped a length of cloth in brown paper. Bess slipped into a kind of ecstatic trance watching the way this woman sliced the paper with one sweeping motion of her open scissors, turned over each corner neatly, then secured the package with a criss-crossed pattern of twine. She wished for her mother to buy something else – anything. But she didn’t. Walking away felt like breaking a spell.
Bess has also known this feeling watching her husband familiarise himself with a new type of handcuffs: sensing the weak spot in the mechanism; probing with a slim metal pick to find the trigger-point for the spring release; slipping them over his knuckles like a fine new pair of gloves. And she felt it one night on the Malwa, eating alone in the ship’s dining-room because her husband was seasick again, when a waiter prepared crepe suzette at her table. She was left weak with pleasure by the way he had briskly whisked the batter with a fork in a metal bowl, tipped it into a dainty pan over a single blue flame, then lit the brandy-soaked sauce with a match that hissed and turned orange when he placed it in the fire.
Now she experiences the same sensation as Puccini assembles the phonograph. She knows she must neither speak nor move to prolong this moment. He works, deep in concentration, cigarette between his lips. Only when a drooping column of grey ash threatens to fall into the machine does he even seem to notice it. He works like a painter considering colours on his palette before applying them to the canvas: picking up a part; turning it over in his fingers to assess where it should go and how it will fit in; closing his eyes slightly if something seems to puzzle him. Just twice – first when securing the horn to the apparatus, then with a round piece in his hand that he finally fits to an arm connected to the horn – does he study either the instructions or his Edison machine for guidance.
She doesn’t know how long it takes. Time has been suspended. Then all that is left on the table is a small metal box. He opens the lid, careful not to disturb the contents.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘I know these. The pins that find the music.’ And he places one in the disc at the end of the arm. It resembles a pared-down toothpick.
‘Now, let us see,’ he says, looking directly at Bess for the first time since he began his task. He places his left hand on the machine, using his other hand to turn the handle quickly three, four, five times. He releases the handle then slides a lever to the left. There is a whirring sound. The circular top starts to spin. Puccini gently brushes his thumb against the sharpened piece on the arm. A scratching sound is heard through the horn.
‘So,’ he says with a satisfied smile. ‘We have something to play?’
The tingling sensation is ebbing away. ‘The package inside,’ Bess says.
‘Of course,’ the composer replies, retrieving it from the carton near his feet. He lets the three recordings slide out; holds them at arm’s length so he can read the labels. He flips over the first two without comment. The third, the one with the crimson label, causes him to stop.
‘This is yours?’
‘These recordings all came together as you saw them.’
‘Your husband gave them to you?’
‘It’s puzzling. The carton was in the room when I woke up.’
‘Another Houdini box mystery,’ Puccini replies. ‘Like your performance yesterday: something where there was nothing before. But here it is.’
‘Your music.’
‘With the words by Giacosa and Illica, whom I angered with my many changes. Made into something magical by Caruso and Madame.’ He studies the disc again. ‘It is strange, this recording being here. I told Mr Audran I did not have a copy myself. Perhaps he is the one responsible.’
The composer fiddles with the Champion’s controls again and gives the handle two more turns. But he does not put the recording with the crimson label on the turntable. He selects one of the other discs. The lever is slipped on, the end of the arm is lowered on to the spinning black circle. Puccini steps back as the sound of a piano is heard, louder than expected. Then they both hear a male voice, somewhat out of tune:
‘When you and I were young, my dear,
‘When you and I were young …’
Puccini lifts the arm off, causing an ugly screeching noise.
‘That is enough of you, Henry Burr,’ he says. ‘The machine is working.’
Bess is still seated on the bed. The composer stands close to the table. After he changes the record and starts the Champion again, he pulls a slim metal case out of a pocket in his trousers and extracts another cigarette. But he doesn’t light it, for the music starts playing and Puccini barely moves.
There is a very brief piano introduction. Then Caruso is singing, his tone rich but plaintive.
‘O soave fanciulla, o dolce viso di mite circonfuso alba lunar …’
Bess does not understand the words. She does not need to. The sound and emotion are all that matter. There is another voice – no, it is an instrument, a woodwind. Then Melba joins in, her voice coming over the top of Caruso’s, yet fitting in perfectly. The two become one. Bess finds herself staring at the opening to the metal horn, from which the music is escaping. There is a rhythmic scratching, as if something is not quite right with the machine or the recording. But these are no more distracting than muffled coughs in an opera audience. Caruso pauses; Melba sings alone for a little while. As long as the disc spins their voices are separate, yet entwined. After a brief harp interlude the voices merge again. They surge and swell and conclude with Melba sounding a note, high and clear and pure as the freshest water, that pierces the air in the room and makes Bess shiver. She must close her eyes for a few moments. When she opens them again she hears the scratching sound. The music has finished but the record continues to revolve. Then she sees that Puccini is still standing; his cigarette unlit. He is facing her, weeping. There is no sobbing, no shuddering, no noise at all. But both cheeks are lined with tears welling over from his eyes.
He attends to the machine but does not remove the record. When he turns to Bess his expression is still anguished.
‘Forgive me,’ he says softly. ‘I had almost forgotten. This is not mine, you see. The music these two have made is far beyond me. More than human, I would say. Something miraculous.’
He rubs his left hand against his eyes, searches for a handkerchief.
‘Please,’ she says, getting up and approaching him. ‘Let me.’
She reaches up and uses the frilled ends of her sleeves to wipe one cheek, then the other. He allows her to do this, docile as a child. But when she is about to let her right hand fall, he reaches up, places her fingers against his lips, then places the fingertips inside his mouth.