Should they do something, try to escape? There must be a way by now, everyone was lax. Hardly anyone was watching anymore. Gen asked her, his hands up under her shirt, feeling her shoulder blades flex beneath his fingertips.
“We could think about escaping,” she said. But the military would catch her and torture her, that’s what the Generals told them in training, and under the pains of torture she would tell them something. She could not remember what it was that she shouldn’t tell but that would be the thing that would get everyone else killed. There were only two places in the world to go: inside and outside, and the question was where were you safer? Inside this house, in this china closet, she had never felt so safe in all her life. Clearly, Saint Rose of Lima lived inside this house. She was protected here. She was rewarded for her prayers with abundance. It was always better to stay with your saint. She kissed Gen’s throat. All girls dreamed of being in love like this.
“So we’ll talk about it?” Gen said, but now her shirt was off and it stretched out like a carpet for them to lie on. They closed the angle between their bodies and the floor.
“Let’s talk about it,” she said, sweetly shutting her eyes.
As soon as Roxane Coss fell in love, she fell in love again. The two experiences were completely different and yet coming as they did, one right on top of the other, she could not help but link them together in her mind. Katsumi Hosokawa came to her room in the middle of the night and for the longest time he just stood there inside her bedroom door and held her. It was as if he had returned from something no one is meant to survive, a plane crash, a ship lost at sea, and he could imagine nothing more than this: her in his arms. There was nothing they could say to one another but Roxane was far beyond thinking that speaking the same language was the only way to communicate with people. Besides, what was there to say, really? He knew her. She leaned against him, her arms around his neck, his hands flat against her back. Sometimes she nodded or he rocked her back and forth. From the way he was breathing she thought he might be crying and she understood that, too. She cried herself, she cried for the relief that came in being with him in that dark room, the relief that came from loving someone and from being loved. They would have stood there all night, he would have left without ever asking for anything else if she hadn’t reached behind her at some point and taken one of his hands, led him there to her bed. There were so many ways to talk. He kissed her as she was leaning back, the curtains closed, the room completely dark.
In the morning she woke up for a minute, stretched, rolled over, and went back to sleep. She didn’t know how long she slept, but then she heard singing and for the second time she was struck by the thought that she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t that she was in love with Cesar, but she was in love with his singing.
It was like this: every night Mr. Hosokawa came back to her bedroom and every morning Cesar waited to practice. If there was something else to want she forgot what it might be.
“Breathe,” she said. “Like this.” Roxane filled up her lungs, took in more air and then some more, and then held it. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand the words she used. She stepped behind him and put her hand flat on his diaphragm. What she was saying was clear. She pushed all of the breath from his body and then filled him up again. She sang a line of Tosti, moving her hand back and forth like a metronome, and he sang it back to her. He was not a conservatory student who thought that to please was to be careful. He did not have a lifetime of mediocre instruction to overcome. He was not afraid. He was a boy, full of a boy’s bravado, and when the line came back it was loud and passionate. He sang every line, every scale, as if the singing would save his life. He was settling into his own voice now and it was a voice that amazed her. It would have lived and died in a jungle, this voice, if she hadn’t come along to rescue it.
It was a fine time, except for the fact that Messner didn’t linger anymore. He was thinner now. His clothes hung from his shoulders as if they were sitting alone on a wire coat hanger. He only dropped things off and then was in a hurry to get away.
Cesar had his lesson in the morning, and no matter how hard he begged them to go outside, everyone sat down and listened. He was improving so quickly, even the other boys knew that what they were seeing was more interesting than television. He didn’t sound a thing like Roxane anymore. He was finding his own depth. Every morning, he unfolded his voice before them like a rare jeweled fan; the more you listened, the more intricate it became. The crowd assembled in the living room could always count on the fact that he would be even better than he had been the day before. That was what was so astonishing about it. He had yet to show the slightest hint of finding the edges of what he was capable of. He sang with hypnotic passion and then with passionate lust. How impossible it seemed, so much voice pouring out of such an average boy. His arms still hung useless at his sides.
When Cesar released his final note, they were raucous, stamping their feet and whistling. “Hail, Cesar!” they called, hostage and terrorist alike. He was their boy. There was not a man or woman there who did not acclaim his greatness.
Thibault leaned over and whispered in the Vice President’s ear. “One must wonder how our diva is taking this.”
“With a brave face, no doubt,” Ruben whispered back, and then he put two fingers in his mouth and blew a long, high whistle.
Cesar took a few nervous bows and when he was through the crowd began to call for Roxane. “Sing! Sing!” they demanded. She shook her head several times, but they did not accept this. It only made them call out more. When she finally stood she was laughing, because who did not feel the joy in such music? She raised her hands to try and silence them.
“Only one!” she said. “I can’t compete with this.” She leaned over and whispered in Kato’s ear and he nodded. What was she whispering? They did not speak the same language.
Kato had transcribed the music from Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the piano and his fingers sprang high off the keys as if they were scorching to the touch. There was a time when she had missed the orchestra, the sweet weight of so many violins in front of her, but she never thought about it now. She stepped into the music as if it was a cool stream on a hot day and began “Una Voce Poco Fa.” The music sounded exactly right to her now, and she thought this was the way Rossini had always intended it to be. Despite what anyone might whisper, she could certainly compete, and she could win. Her singing was a meringue, and when she trilled past the highest notes she put her hands on her hips and rocked them back and forth, smiling wickedly at the audience. She was an actress, too. She must teach that part to Cesar. A thousand wayward tricks, and subtle wiles, I’d play before they should guide my will. They cheered for her. Oh, how they loved those ridiculously high notes, the impossible acrobatics that she tossed off as if they were nothing at all. At the end she made them dizzy, and then she threw up her hands and said, “Outside, all of you,” and even though they didn’t know what she was saying, they followed her command and went out into the sunlight.
Mr. Hosokawa laughed and kissed her cheek. Who could believe such a woman existed? He went to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea and Cesar sat beside her on the piano bench, hoping that his lesson might be extended now that everyone was gone.