“I’ll see about it,” Messner said, and tipped his head, but he didn’t get up to leave right away. “Is there anything I can get for you?” He indicated nothing directly but he was wondering about the shingles, which every day seemed to cast their coarse red net another millimeter across the General’s face and would soon be dipping their fingers into the cool water of his left eye.
“There is nothing I require.”
Messner nodded and excused himself. He preferred Benjamin to the other two. He found him to be a reasonable man, possibly even intelligent. Still, he worked hard to prevent any feeling of real fondness for him, for any of them, captors or hostages. Fondness often prevented one from doing the most effective job. Besides, Messner knew how these stories usually ended. It seemed better to avoid much personal involvement.
But no sensible rules applied to Roxane Coss. Most days there was something she wanted, and while the Generals could care less about the requests of the other hostages they were quick to give in to her. Every time she asked for something, Messner would feel his heart quicken slightly, as if it was him she wanted to see. One day it was dental floss, one day a muffler, then some herbal throat lozenges that Messner was proud to note came from Switzerland. Other hostages had gotten into the habit of asking Roxane when there was something that they needed. When she asked for men’s socks or sailing magazines, she never blinked.
“Have you heard the good news?” Roxane said.
“There’s good news now?” Messner tried to be rational. He tried to understand what it was about her. Standing next to her, he could look down on the place where her hair parted. She was just like the rest of them, wasn’t she? Except, perhaps, for the color of her eyes.
“Mr. Kato plays the piano.”
At the mention of his name, Kato stood up from the piano bench and bowed to Messner. They had not been introduced before. All of the hostages greatly admired Messner, both for his calm demeanor and his seemingly magic ability to go in and out of the front door at will.
“At least I’m going to be able to practice again,” Roxane said. “On the off chance that we ever get out of here, I still want to be able to sing.”
Messner said he hoped he would have an opportunity to hear the rehearsals. For a brief, disquieting moment Messner felt something that was not unlike jealousy. The hostages were there all the time, so if she decided to sing first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night, they would be able to hear her. He had bought himself a portable CD player and as much of her music as he could find. At night he lay in his two-star hotel room paid for by the International Red Cross and listened to her sing Norma and La Sonnambula. He would be lying alone in his uncomfortable bed looking at the spidery cracks in the ceiling and they would all be there in the grand living room of the vice-presidential estate while she sang “Casta Diva.”
Enough, Messner said to himself.
“I’ve always had closed rehearsals,” Roxane said. “I don’t believe that anyone is entitled to hear my mistakes. But I doubt there would be much point in trying to arrange that here. I can hardly march them all up to the attic.”
“They could hear you in the attic.”
“I’d make them stuff cotton in their ears.” Roxane laughed at this and Messner was moved. Everything in the house seemed more tolerable since this new accompanist had stepped forward.
“So what can I do for you?” If Gen had been turned into a secretary, then Messner had become the errand boy. In Switzerland he was a member of an elite arbitration team. At forty-two he had had a very successful career with the Red Cross. He had not packed a box of food supplies or driven blankets to a flood sight in almost twenty years. Now he was scouring the city for orange-flavored chocolate and calling a friend in Paris to send an expensive eye cream that came in a small black tub.
“I need music,” she said, and handed over her list. “Call my manager and tell him to send this overnight. Tell him to fly it down himself if he thinks there could be any problem. I want this by tomorrow.”
“You might have to be a little more reasonable than tomorrow,” Messner said. “It’s already dark in Italy.”
Messner and Roxane spoke in English, with Gen discreetly translating their private conversation into Japanese. Father Arguedas sidled up to the piano, not wanting to interfere but wanting very much to know what was being said.
“Gen,” he whispered. “What does she need?”
“Sheet music,” Gen said, and then remembered the question had been asked in Spanish. “Partitura.”
“Does Messner know who to speak to? Does he know where to go?”
Gen liked the priest and didn’t mean to be annoyed but Mr. Hosokawa and Kato clearly meant to follow what was being said in Japanese and he was falling behind on the conversation taking place in English. “They’ll contact her people in Italy.” Gen turned his back on Father Arguedas and returned to the work at hand.
The priest tugged at Gen’s sleeve. Gen held up his hand to ask him to wait.
“But I know where the music is,” the priest persisted. “Not two miles from here. There is a man that I know, a music teacher, a deacon in our parish. He loans me records. He has all the music you would need.” His voice was becoming loud. Father Arguedas, who had devoted his life to doing good works, was nearly frantic for the want of some good works to do. He helped Ruben with the laundry and in the morning he folded all the blankets and stacked them with the pillows in neat rows against the wall, but he longed to provide assistance and guidance of a more profound nature. He couldn’t help but feel he stayed just on the edge of bothering people rather than comforting them, when all that he wanted, the only thing that mattered, was to be helpful.
“What is it he’s saying?” Roxane asked.
“What are you saying?” Gen asked the priest.
“The music is here. You could call. Manuel would bring it over, anything you need. If there was something he didn’t have, and I can’t imagine it, he would find it for you. All you need to say is that it is for Se?orita Coss. You wouldn’t even have to say that. He is a Christian man. If you tell him you need it for any reason, I promise he will help you.” Her eyes were dazzling in their agitation. His hands leapt in front of his chest as if he was trying to offer up his own heart.
“He would have Bellini?” Roxane asked after listening to the translation. “I need songs. I need to have entire opera scores, Rossini, Verdi, Mozart.” She leaned towards the priest and asked for the impossible straight on. “Offenbach.”
“Offenbach! Les Contes d’Hoffmann!” The priest’s pronunciation of the French was discernible if not good. He had only seen it written out on the record.
“He would have that?” she said to Gen.
Gen repeated the question and the priest replied, “I have seen his scores. Call him, the name is Manuel. I would be most grateful to place the call if I were allowed.”
Because General Benjamin was locked in a room upstairs holding a heating pad to his inflamed face and could not be disturbed, Messner made the request to the Generals Hector and Alfredo, who granted it with bored indifference.