At the sight of the familiar sheet music, the Kim brothers were delighted. Then they noticed that this arrangement was for a soprano. For the second week in a row, a woman got a solo.
Charles fiddled with the CD player. There had never been a CD player in the choir room. Without an introduction, he played the song. Mr. Jun used to talk so much that the choir expected a forty-minute rehearsal and an hour and twenty minutes of lecturing as well as his own vocal demonstration of the different parts.
The recording began with a cello playing solemnly, then the soprano sang the first line in English: “Ah, turn me not away.” The singer’s incantatory sound mesmerized them. When she hit an impossibly high note at the refrain, “I pray Thee, grant me pardon,” many of them stopped breathing, feeling the soprano’s infinite reach. They could hear the hymn’s potence. Its sanctuary. When Charles turned off the recording, a bass sitting way back shouted in approval, “Ah-men!” Others thundered in agreement. None of the men were in the least bit intimidated by the new director’s silent governing.
In a soft voice, Charles asked the accompanist to play the refrain. He pointed to the altos, and they sang their parts. It went this way for some time, with him saying little, the different sections being led by the point of his baton, and their singing voices moving about the room like a freight train. Under his focused direction, the singers sat up straighter, becoming more thoughtful of the quality of their sound. The choir felt proud of their voices, but Charles’s disdain grew. They would take a great deal of work, far more work than he wished to do for eight hundred and fifty dollars a month.
Charles tapped his baton against the music stand.
“This would be a good time to bring in the solo. Deaconess Cho, please begin with the first line. It should begin andante—” He read his score, not bothering to look at Leah or at anyone else in the choir. He missed the confused glances.
Leah shook her head slightly. He had to mean her. Didn’t he? Deaconess Cho was her church title, and the only other Deaconess Cho was an alto. But how could he mean her? She’d sung a solo the week before. She’d never had more than four solos per year, and that was the most anyone ever had. Kyung-ah had had three. Mr. Jun rotated the solo schedules from male to female—from tenor to soprano and back again, with an occasional minor part sung by a solo bass or alto. Mr. Jun was also fond of duets.
The accompanist played, but no one sang.
Charles looked up. “Andante—” Leah appeared lost.
“Sloooo-wly,” he said, then turned to the accompanist, who started from the top.
Leah did not sing.
Charles tapped his baton again, his irritation unhidden.
“Are you ready?” He looked straight at Leah. “Is something wrong?”
Leah was terrified but had no idea how to protest. With his baton, Charles motioned for her to rise.
“Please come here,” he said quietly, and Leah took a quick breath before getting up.
When she stood next to the accompanist, Charles said, “Shi-jak.”
Leah wouldn’t start.
“Shi-jak,” he said again, this time in a much louder voice.
Leah began to sing, keeping in mind what she’d just heard on the recording, repeating the first two lines with greater feeling. She concentrated on her friend Kyung-ah, who’d bitten her upper lip and smudged her scarlet lipstick on her lower set of teeth.
For the next hour or so, Leah sang weakly. At nine o’clock, one of the mothers with younger children raised her hand to say she had to leave. In the following half hour, the others seemed itchy to leave. Charles tried to understand these pedestrian concerns. At nine-thirty, he let them go after saying, “On Sunday, please arrive precisely at seven-thirty a.m.”
Mr. Jun normally dismissed the choir by acknowledging their efforts, saying, “You worked very hard today,” or some equivalent, but Charles said nothing of the kind.
The choir trickled out, and Leah thought it might be safe to go. She was still fixed to the same spot near the piano.
“You can stay for half an hour to work,” Charles said to her with only the mildest inflection of a question.
Leah stood there, watching the accompanist put on her jacket. She also had small children.
Kyung-ah marched to the front of the room and smiled at Charles, who nodded coolly at her. She was wrapped in a black cashmere shawl fastened by a large jade-and-gold stickpin.
“Do you want to go out with us?” Kyung-ah asked Leah, pretending Charles couldn’t hear her.
“She has to practice some more,” Charles answered for her.