So it did seem strange to find himself actually feeling a kind of fondness for this bag of bones that lay in the corner of his room, breathing so quietly that she never could be heard, even from close by. Strange to suppose that she might be with him, nevertheless, at any moment of the night or day, observing, and judging, like a bonafide guardian angel.

14

Marcella, being a season subscriber, continued to turn up at the Metastasio every Tuesday. Finding that Daniel had become an usher, she couldn’t resist seeking him out at intermission or (after he’d been transerred to the Dress Circle) lingering out on 44th Street to waylay him after the show. “Just to say hello.” What she wanted was gossip about the singers. Any little scrap she accepted with the reverence of one being initiated into solemn mysteries. Daniel thought her a fool, but he enjoyed the role of high priest and so continued to supply her with crumbs and tidbits about her demigods. After a while he took to sneaking her into a good seat that he knew to be standing empty. These attentions did not go unnoticed by his colleagues, who affected to believe him smitten with Marcella’s very deniable charms. Daniel went along with the joke, praising her in the gross hyperboles of libretto verse. He knew that despite their banter the friendship did him credit among his fellow-ushers, all of whom had a friend, or set of friends, whose adulation and envy was a principal source of their own self-importance. That Daniel had his Marcella showed that for all his airs he wasn’t above such quotidian transactions. Indeed, his involvement went beyond merely basking in the false glory of an unmerited esteem; Marcella insisted on expressing her gratitude to Daniel by bringing him five-pound cannisters of Hyprotine Nutritional Supplement, which she “shoplifted” from a deli where she had established an understanding with the clerk at the check-out counter. What a world of mutuality it was!

One evening, after Daniel, with the collusion of Lee Rappacini, had managed to get her into the orchestra to see the last two acts of what was billed as Sarro’s Achille in Sciro (though, in fact, the score was Mrs. Schiff’s creation from first to last, and one of her best), Marcella accosted him at the corner of 44th and 8th with more than her usual urgency. Daniel, who was wearing only his uniform and freezing his shapely ass off, explained that tonight was out of the question, since he was on his way to a dinner at La Didone (with, once again, the constant Mr. Carshalton, whom nothing, it seemed, could discourage).

Marcella, insisting she needed only a minute, reached into a duffle-sized handbag and took out a box of Fanny Farmer chocolates with a big red bow around it.

“Really, Marcella, that’s going too far.”

“Oh, it isn’t for you, Ben,” she said apologetically. “It’s a Thanksgiving present for Ernesto Rey.”

“Then why don’t you give it to him? He’ll be singing tomorrow night.”

“But I’ll be working then, you see. And anyhow I couldn’t. I really just couldn’t. And if I did get up the nerve, he probably wouldn’t take it, and if he did take it, he’d probably throw it away as soon as my back was turned. That’s what I’ve heard, anyhow.”

“That’s because there might be poison in it. Or something unseemly. It’s been known to happen.”

Marcella’s eyes began to glisten. “You don’t think because I’ve said a word or two in praise of Geoffrey Bladebridge, that I’m part of some clacque, do you?”

“I don’t think it, no, but Rey doesn’t know you from Adam. Or Eve, for that matter.”

Marcella wiped her tears away and smiled to show that her heartbreak was of no account. “That’s why—” she snuffled, “—if it came from someone he knows, it wouldn’t be so futile. You could tell him the chocolates are from someone you know. And trust. And that they’re just my way of thanking him for the pleasure of so many beautiful performances. Would you do that for me?”

Daniel shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

If he’d stopped to think he might have answered that himself and been spared what was to come. The wise thing to have done would have been, as Marcella suggested, to dispose of the box of chocolates as soon as she was out of sight, or to eat them himself, if he dared. Instead he did as he’d promised and gave the chocolates that same evening to Rey, who was also dining at La Didone, with his agent Irwin Tauber. Daniel explained the situation, and Rey accepted the gift with a nod, not even bothering to ask him to thank his benefactress. Daniel returned to his escargots and Mr. Carshalton’s descriptions of the Vermont wilderness, and he thought no more about it.

The next evening a stage-hand delivered to Daniel a hand-written note from Rey, who was singing Norma. The note read: “Do thank your friend on my behalf for her box of sweets and her so friendly letter. She seems entirely charming. I don’t understand why she is so shy as not to approach me directly. I’m sure we’d have got on!” Daniel was miffed at Marcella’s smuggling a letter into her box of chocolates, but as Rey’s reaction was so cordial, what did it matter?

He genuinely forgot the whole thing — and so never connected it with Rey’s altered manner towards him, which didn’t amount to much more, at first, than common courtesy. When he called on Mrs. Schiff and found Daniel at home, he remembered his name — for the first time since they’d been officially introduced seven months before. Once, at Lieto Fino, when Daniel, having come with another party, stayed on to have coffee at Mrs. Schiff’s table, Rey, who was maudlin drunk, insisted on hearing the story of Ben Bosola’s life, a sad and unlikely tale that Daniel felt embarrassed to be telling in front of Mrs. Schiff, who knew the sad, unlikely truth. At Christmas, Rey gave Daniel a sweater, saying it had been a gift from one of his fans and didn’t fit him. When Rey asked, during one of his coaching sessions, if Daniel could act as his accompanist (Mrs. Schiff having burnt her hand making tea), Daniel accepted this as a tribute to his musicianship, and even when Rey praised his playing, which had been one long fumble, he attributed this to good manners. He wasn’t being disingenuous or willfully blind; he believed, even now, that the world was his shepherd, with a natural instinct for providing green pastures and attending to his wants.

In February Rey asked Daniel to dinner at Evviva il Coltello, an invitation he delivered in such carressing tones that Daniel could no longer evade his meaning. He said no, he’d rather not. Rey, still purring, demanded a reason. He couldn’t think of any except the true one — that if Rey should demand that instant capitulation that all stars seemed to think was their due, his refusal might well prompt Rey to retaliate by putting Daniel on his black-list. His job would be in jeopardy, and his arrangement with Mrs. Schiff as well. At last to avoid explanations he consented to be taken out: “But only this once.”

All through dinner Rey talked about himself — his roles, his reviews, his triumphs over enemies. Daniel had never before been witness to the full sweep of the man’s vanity and hunger for praise and still more praise. It was at once an awesome spectacle and a deadly bore. At the conclusion of the dinner Rey declared, flatly and matter-of-factly, that he was in love with Daniel. It was such an absurd non sequitur to the past two hours of self-aggrandizing soliloquy that Daniel nearly got the giggles. It might have been better if he had, since Rey seemed determined to regard his polite demurs as shyness.

“Come, come,” Rey protested, still in good humor, “let’s have no more pretenses.”

“Who’s pretending?”

“Have it your way, idolo mio. But there was that letter — that can’t be denied — and I shall continue to keep it—” He laid his many-ringed hand on the handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket of his suit. “—here, next to my heart.”