Isabella had never had music in her house during childhood, and she knew nothing of opera. So she did not recognize that it was Rossini’s music that quickly woke the entire block, or that it was the Count Almaviva whom the tenor hoped to emulate that evening. But she did know the music was perfect for the moment, a moment that the singer across the street was just then describing as divine. His voice soared to a climax as the window he sang to filled with light, and he dropped to one knee as a woman’s silhouette came to fill it. In this way, on May 25, 1986, Pierre Alvio became engaged to Christine Alpert. Unfortunately, every mountain has a valley.
It was nearly twenty years later, to the very day, that Christine flew to Toronto. A cab arrived at 6 to take her to the airport. She had bought a new suit for the occasion, a jacket and pants set from Anne Taylor. She brought only two bags — a purse to accompany her on the plane and a larger, rolling case that she would check. Inside she had packed a change of clothes, two textbooks, nearly $50,000 in cash, and everything she would require for that evening. Her blond hair was up; an ivory chopstick pierced its bun. Nearly an hour in the bathroom had been required before she felt content with her appearance. The chopstick had finally made the difference.
The driver smiled as she slid into the backseat. He was a black man, probably in his early thirties, with a shaved head and a strange web of scars across the back of his neck. Even at this early hour, sweat poured off him, and his blue cotton dress shirt clung damply around the outline of his body.
“Good morning,” he said. “To the airport?”
“That’s right,” Christine replied. She found herself fully alert.
“Sounds good.” The cab sped through Richmond’s empty morning streets. “Domestic or international?”
“Toronto,” she said. “The center of the universe.” He laughed — a deep, easy sound that caused his neck to bounce, like a toy, atop his shoulders.
“I hate it there,” he said. “Too crazy. Too much noise, too many people. Too big. Reminds me of America, you know? You have some business there?”
“No, not this time. I’m going to meet my husband.”
“Romantic surprise?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to kill him.”
He laughed again. “That’s very nice of you. My wife finds it easy enough to do that at home. Almost every night, I think she tries.”
Christine exhaled a mock laugh in return, but didn’t say anything as the car turned briefly onto the highway before beginning a long, slow loop toward the airport plaza.
“It was the first place I ever knew in Canada, Toronto,” the driver said.
“Where are you from?”
“Rwanda. In Africa.”
“Oh,” she replied. Canadians, she thought, were so rarely from Canada. But she didn’t know anything about Rwanda, except that it was an unhappy place.
“I came here a long time ago, almost ten years. And Toronto is where they took us. Me and my brother.”
“Do you remember it?” Christine asked. She decided not to inquire about who “they” were — she imagined idealistic young college graduates, dressed in khaki and eager to ignore their parents’ concerns over money, relationships, real life.
“Oh, yes. Maybe, I think, the best day of my life. Do you know, I had never been on an escalator before. So I remember that, my first escalator. Stairs that moved! My mind had never even thought this was possible. Now, I think it sounds ridiculous. But I remember being so scared. To time it right, that first step. My brother pushed me, I think.”
Christine mock laughed again as the driver parked behind a police car, then helped her lift the rolling case from the trunk. It was heavier than it looked, and nearly toppled, but she grabbed the other end just before it crashed to the ground.
“Would you prefer a window or an aisle?” The Air Canada attendant had slender, creamy fingers, and nails that shimmered like oysters. This made Christine ashamed of her own, red-rimmed and bitten down to jagged nubs, and she drew her hands into fists after providing her passport.
“Window, if you have it, please,” she said.
She spent the hour before her departure at the gate, sitting with her legs crossed and watching the wanderings of the suits and bickering families that populate an airport in the morning. A stroller designed for three children wobbled by, conducted by a weary-looking young woman. Taking a turn, it fell, and Christine stood up to help before noticing it was empty. When she sat back down, she realized that her legs were shaking. Not just that — everything below her hips was convulsing, possessed by some violent, unknown force. She pushed her heels into the carpet of the departure lounge, then counted the rapid beats of her heart until the flight began to board. Finally, at somewhere just past 3,000, it did.
But the plane itself was even worse. A mild anxiety had shadowed her for the past week, ever since she first made her discovery. Now, trapped inside the small space, it began to balloon, swelling up and contaminating the captive air. Christine tried to measure her breathing, but it seemed that — even when she opened her mouth so wide that her lips felt stretched against her teeth — her lungs would not fill. She glanced around the business class cabin, worried that someone might notice her silent terror, but no one was even looking in her direction. An attendant came by with glasses of water, and she took one, then closed her eyes and, disgustedly, allowed her mind to wander to the only memory that eased its trembling. Pierre.
She had seen him perform many times, of course. Even before they met, before the dinners of homemade pasta and weekend trips to the island and lazy Saturday mornings spent watching Italian soccer matches in bed. Before she even knew his name, she had seen him on the stage, in his debut. Her twenty-fifth birthday. She had been eager to get out and party — her boyfriend at the time, a rugby player named Eli, a grizzly bear of a man, had arranged a boat cruise in celebration. But attending the opera alongside her father was her birthday tradition, one that extended back to childhood. She loved all music, but preferred opera to concerts, which offered too much time where you were just alone with your thoughts. Without a story to follow, she often found her mind wandering to its darkest corners, spaces filled with thoughts and impulses best left buried.
Pierre was a phenomenon, even from the beginning of his career. However, that first performance was not Christine’s favorite. Pierre was not yet familiar enough with the limits of his own talent. He sought to replace experience with furor, and chased opportunities before the music presented them, trampling the subtlety that would eventually form the hallmark of his style.
Nor did she imagine him as he performed now, reduced to supporting roles and celebrity appearances, obviously well into the twilight of his career. There were exceptions, of course — the odd, understated aria could still illuminate him, causing the entire audience to almost imperceptibly lean forward in their seats, straining to ensure they caught every note. But these moments only sharpened the contrast with his former self, underscoring how the ellipses of his moment in operatic history would not rival its prime.
It was nearly a decade ago, in Bologna, that he had given the performance that her memory anointed as his finest. His hometown, although he had never really lived there, having moved to Canada before beginning school. But when the Teatra Comunale invited him to lead their production of Falstaff, there had been no deliberation necessary. Christine was doing graduate philosophy work at the time, so her summers were open to adventure. A week later they were in Italy, at the beginning of three glorious months.