“O. K. What else?”
“Now we’ll make you up.”
She showed me how to put the foundation on, how to apply the color, how to put on the whiskers with gum arabic, and trim them up with a scissors so they looked right. They come in braids, and you ravel them out. She showed me about darkening under the eyes, and made me put on the last touches myself, so I could feel I looked right for the part. Then she had me put on the costume, and inspected me. I looked at myself in the mirror, and thought I looked like the silliest zany that ever came down the pike, but she seemed satisfied, so I shut up about it. “These whiskers tickle.”
“They will until the gum dries.”
“And they feel like they’re falling off.”
“Leave them alone. For heaven’s sake, get that straight right now. Don’t be one of those idiots that go around all night asking everybody if their make-up is in place. Put it on when you dress, and if you put it on right, it’ll stay there. Then forget it.”
“Don’t worry. I’m trying to forget it.”
“Around eight o’clock you’ll get your first call. Take the hat and muffler with you, and be sure you put them in their proper place on the set. They go on the table near the door, and you put them on for your first exit.”
“I know.”
“When you’ve done that, read the curtain calls.”
“To hell with curtain calls. If I ever—”
“Read your curtain calls! You’re in some and not in others, and God help you if you come bobbing out there on a call that belongs to somebody else.”
“Oh.”
“Keep quiet. You can vocalize a little, but not much. When you feel your voice is up, stop.”
“All right.”
“Now I leave you. Good-bye and good luck.”
I lit a cigarette, walked around. Then I remembered about the vocalizing. I tried a ha-ha, and it sounded terrible. It was dull, heavy, and lifeless, like a horn in a fog. I looked at my watch. It was twenty to eight. I got panicky that I had only a few minutes, and maybe couldn’t get my voice up in time. I began to ha-ha, m’m-m’m, ee-ee, and everything I knew to get a little life into it. There was a knock on the door, and somebody said something in Italian. I took the hat and muffler, and went down.
They were all there, Cecil and the rest, all dressed, all walking around, vocalizing under their breaths. Cecil was in black, with a little shawl, and looked pretty. Just as I got down, the chorus came swarming in from somewhere, in soldier suits, plaid pants like mine, ruffled dresses, and everything you could think of. They weren’t in the first act, but Rossi lined them up, and began checking them over. I went on the set and put the hat and muffler where she told me. The tenor came and put his hat beside mine. The basses came and moved both hats, to make more room on the table. There had to be places for their stuff when they came on, later. I went to the bulletin board and read the calls. We were all in the first two of the first act, Cecil, the tenor, the two basses, the comic, and myself, then for the other calls it was only Cecil and the tenor. On the calls for the other acts I was in most of them, but I did what she said, read them over carefully and remembered how they went.
“Places!”
I hurried out on the set and sat down behind the easel. I had already checked that the paint brush was in place. The tenor came on and took his place by the window. His name was Parma. He vocalized a little run, with his mouth closed. I tried to do the same, but nothing happened. I swallowed and tried again. This time it came, but it sounded queer. From the other side of the curtain there came a big burst of handclapping. Parma nodded. “Mario’s in. Sound like nice ’ouse.”
From where you sat out front, I suppose that twenty seconds between the time Mario got to his stand, and made his bow, and waited till a late couple got down the aisle, and the time he brought down his stick on his strings, was just twenty seconds, and nothing more. To me it was the longest wait I ever had in my life. I looked at the easel, and swallowed, and listened to Parma vocalizing his runs under his breath, and swallowed some more, and I thought nothing would ever happen. And then, all of a sudden, all hell broke loose.
Were you ever birdshooting? If you were, on your first time out, you know what I’m talking about. You were out there, in your new hunting suit, and the dogs were out there, and your friends were out there, and you were all ready for business when the first thing that hit you was the drumming of those wings. Then they were up, and going away from you, and it was time to shoot. But if you could hit anything with that thunder in your ears, you were a better man than I think you are. It was like that with me, when that orchestra sounded off. It was terrific, the most frightening thing I ever heard in my life. And it no sooner started than the curtain went up, except that I never saw it go up. All I saw was that blaze of the footlights in my eyes, so I was so rattled I didn’t even know where I was. Cecil had warned me about it a hundred times, but you can’t warn anybody about a thing like that. Light was hitting me from everywhere, and then I saw Mario out there, but he looked about a mile away, and my heart just stopped beating.
My heart stopped, but that orchestra didn’t. It ripped through that introduction a mile a minute, and I knew then what Rossi had been trying to get through my head about speed. There’s a page and a half of it in the score, and that looks like plenty of music, doesn’t it? They ate it up in nothing flat, and next thing I knew they were through with it, and it was time for me to sing. Oh yes, I was the lad that had to open the opera. Me, the lousy four-flusher that was so scared he couldn’t even breathe.
But they thought about that. Mario found me up there, and that stick came down on me, and it meant get going. I began to sing the phrase that begins Questo Mar Rosso, but I swear I had no more to do with it than a rabbit looking at a snake. That stick told my mouth what to do, and it did it, that was all. Oh yes, an operatic conductor knows buck fever when he sees it, and he knows what to do about it.
There was some more stuff in the orchestra, and I sang the next two phrases, where he says that to get even with the picture for looking so cold, he’ll drown a Pharaoh. The picture is supposed to be the passage of the Red Sea. But I was to take the brush and actually drown one, and it was a second or two before I remembered about it. When I actually did it, I must have looked funny, because there was a big laugh. I was so rattled I looked around to see what they were laughing at, and in that second I took my eye off Mario. It was the place where I was supposed to shoot a Che fai? at the tenor. And while I was off picking daisies, did that conductor wait? He did not. Next thing I knew the orchestra was roaring again, and I had missed the boat. Parma sang the first part of his Nel cielo bigi at the window, then as he finished it he crossed in front of me, and it was murderous the way he shot it at me as he went by: “Watch da conductor!”
I watched da conductor. I glued my eyes on him from then on, and didn’t miss any more cues, and by the help of hypnotism, prayer, and the rest of them shoving me around, we got through it somehow. What I never got caught up with was the speed. You see, when you learn those roles, and then coach them with a piano, you always think of them as a series of little separate scenes, and you take a little rest after each one, and smoke, and relax. But it’s not like that at a performance. It goes right through, and it’s cruel the way it sweeps you along.
I remembered the hat and muffler, and when I came off she was back there, smoking a cigarette, ready to go on. “You’re doing all right. Sing to them, not to Mario.”
She rapped at the door, sang a note or two, put her heel on the cigarette, and went on.