Anger (25 page)

Then at last a woman appeared with a sheaf of papers in her hand, evidently the president of the club. She had some announcements to make, apologized for keeping the audience even a moment from “the treat” ahead, and finally when Ned's exasperation had reached a dangerous point, launched into a prepared introduction of Anna Lindstrom which she read rather haltingly, but with emphasis. “We are indeed fortunate to welcome to Dallas this morning, the magnificent Anna Lindstrom.”

Where was Anna? The lady hesitated, then made her way to the wings, as the audience applauded, and only then Anna walked out onto the stage, followed by Dan. Ned breathed a sigh of relief. There she was indeed, her eyes shining, making several bows, her smile encompassing the whole hall in that magic way she had, then fading very suddenly as her eyes saw Ned. He had not meant to be seen, not meant to have the effect his presence clearly had. For Anna looked extremely startled, touched her forehead with one hand, turned and whispered something to Dan. When she turned back to the audience she was not smiling and seemed to Ned to be enclosing herself in some way, isolating herself. The audience was now silent. She nodded to Dan to begin the accompaniment. The Fauré songs were to open the program and during the prologue to the first one she closed her eyes.

Then at last her voice soared out and Ned himself felt the relief from tension she must be experiencing as she held together with her whole being the sustained line, without the slightest tremor. Ah, Ned was thinking, she has been learning … she has grown in a year. He was afraid the audience might applaud after the first song, but she quelled a small ripple with a glance and went right into the second one. And when the three songs were finished and the applause burst out, she gave Ned a dazzling smile much to his delight. So, after all, his being there had only thrown her for a second. And now he could simply enjoy.

The
Kindertoten lieder
were next. Anna had not left the stage and rather quickly created her silence. This is her element, Ned was thinking, this grave poignant music, and he was lost in its beauty when all of a sudden someone with a flash bulb stood up and began to take pictures.
“Augenblicke! O Augen!”
Anna's voice was just coming to a climax there, and broke. She walked to the apron, and Ned knew how angry she was because her eyes were black.

“Whoever has chosen to attack and destroy these exquisite Mahler songs with a flash bulb will please desist!”

Good, Ned thought, she is in control. But then she did not, could not leave it at that apparently.

“People who feel no reverence for music should not come to concerts. You can have no idea what such an interruption does to me, to the singer, as well as to the composer. You might as well have hurled an egg!”

“She's going a bit far,” the woman sitting next to Ned whispered. “After all …”

“We'll begin again,” Anna walked back to the piano, nodded to Dan who was wiping his face with a handkerchief and quickly put it back into his pocket. The silence was now very loud. We won't know, Ned was thinking, whether Anna has lost or won till the end of the songs.

Anna bowed her head for a few seconds, then looked out, far out above the heads of the audience and began the song again. When she came to
“Augenblicke! O Augen! O Augen!”
the tone was amazingly delicate and gentle. Anna had tears in her eyes, Ned saw with amazement, and from there the song rose in a long lament, as though all the anger had been transposed into this supremely disciplined art. That is what she could do, poise herself in the midst of acute conflict, and from there sing, he said to himself, like an angel.

The mystery of it! The strange being who could contain all this and give it out, who could be so passionate in her attack—and then so gentle. What was it all about? He hardly heard the next song he was so absorbed in what was happening to Anna herself. When the tempestuous last song ended, the applause broke out and seemed warm enough. The woman with the camera who had a center seat, pushed her way out and left the hall. Heads turned to watch her go while Anna was still acknowledging the applause. Then she and Dan walked off together.

A brief intermission, the program stated, would be followed by a performance of a Chopin etude by Dan before Anna's singing of two Mozart arias and the Brahms
Serious Songs
. Technically, Ned knew, this was the hardest part of the program. Should he go backstage now? No, he decided not to disturb her. She was still angry or in tears he imagined. It really had been a stroke of bad luck to be so startled out of a song, and Ned did not blame her for having been upset. But …

He was aware of a buzz of conversation all around him and decided to go out into the lobby and find out what the atmosphere was. The first thing he heard was a stout woman with flaming red hair saying loudly to a small knot of women around her, “Just plain arrogant! Poor Susie just adores her … she didn't mean any harm!”

“But it was an awful shock …” a gentler voice murmured. “People are so unaware …”

“I feel it was too bad … Easterners come to Dallas and think we are savages … and now Susie did behave without thinking in quite a savage way!”

“Savage, my dear? Come now,” said the woman with red hair. “Aren't you going a bit far?”

Ned moved to another part of the lobby, aware that people were looking at him and no doubt wondering what he was doing there. He leaned against the wall and surveyed the crowd. Well, he thought, Anna had certainly stirred them up!

“It's an amazing voice,” an older woman was saying. “It reminds me of Kathleen Ferrier.”

“But Ferrier would never have made such an outburst!”

“Who knows? Katharine Hepburn stopped the whole show when she was singing
Coco
, went right out on the stage and asked the person with a camera to leave the theater—and she got away with it!”

Ned devoured this last statement … I can tell Anna that when I go backstage.

“It's too bad,” another woman interrupted, “it's sort of broken the spell, hasn't it?”

“You can't blame Anna Lindstrom for that! Susie Dennis should have known better!” The older woman seemed quite cross now. “You have no idea, apparently, of the concentration it requires to sing like that … or to give what Lindstrom gives … did you see the tears in her eyes?” At that moment the warning bell resounded and they all poured back into the auditorium.

Ned knew by the way Anna sailed onto the stage after Dan's very sensitive playing of Chopin that she was challenging herself and the audience at the same time, that she was going into the second half of the program determined to surpass herself. Ned remembered that she had told him once that Caruso felt the audience was the enemy and he must go in and kill it like a bull … the image had not registered with Ned at the time. It had seemed farfetched. But he recognized it now in the way Anna bowed without smiling at the flutter of applause, and in the way she lifted her head. Not triumph, her whole stance suggested, but attack. The audience responded with absolute attention.

How does one attack through Mozart? It soon became clear that an artist such as Anna attacks by giving a superlative performance. There was no power in her voice except the power of interpretation, except the flawless purity of her tone. It was as though the emotion back of the notes only made it possible for her to project with a greater exactness what Mozart had written. She was absolutely concentrated and Ned thought “Bravo, Anna!” He was suddenly immensely proud of her.

Through the Brahms songs he was again able to give himself up to the music and to recapture his own enjoyment, oblivious now of the audience, alone with Anna's voice, with her beautiful presence. They haven't been able to spoil it, he thought. This is why I came. Not to be near Anna but to see her at a distance, to hear her sing, to find myself in her world, the world where she can be wholly herself and at the same time the servant of music. Not love, not passion inhabited Ned now, but a strange peace.

He was startled out of it by the thunderous applause and a few shouts of “Bravo” as Anna quickly left the stage, aware no doubt that she would be called back again and again, as indeed she was. The shouts were now “Encore! Encore!” For a second she hesitated, smiling and making deep bows, then she brought Dan out and sang Poulenc's brief delightful
“Carpe”
and left the stage finally in a ripple of laughter and applause.

Ned pushed his way backstage as fast as he could. She was still in the wings, surrounded by women, but when she saw Ned, she ran to him.

“Oh Ned!” The tone was one of despair, “Oh Ned, I wanted to be wonderful, for
you
—and then I went and wrecked it all.”

“You were marvelous, Anna. You know you were.”

“Really? Do you really think so?” She was looking him straight in the eye.

“Yes,” he said.

“But that awful woman!”

“I know, she should be shot at dawn.” And at last Anna laughed and hugged him hard.

“Oh Ned …” Then aware that they were surrounded, she turned to the president, “Mrs. Ware, I want you to meet my husband, Ned Fraser.”

“You must be proud of her,” Mrs. Ware shook his hand. “You'll join us for lunch, I trust?”

“I'm afraid not. My plane leaves in an hour.”

“Too bad you can't stay. Do you have to go back? You could change your flight.”

“I don't know how he got away,” Anna said.

“Are you a doctor?” Mrs. Ware asked, trying to imagine, no doubt, what profession he was in that would permit such a trip.

“No, I fiddle around at a bank.”

“He's president,” Anna intervened. “You know how Bostonians talk!”

“I really must go, Anna …” Ned was uncomfortable, out of place, and fled, leaving her to the tender mercies of the ladies. He wanted to keep what he had come for, Anna Lindstrom singing, keep it safe from the social amenities, keep it for himself alone.

Chapter XVII

At last, after the longest day, for it had seemed to Anna through the interminable luncheon and the interminable flight that she would never get home, at last she was in bed, lying in the crook of Ned's arm, like an exhausted swimmer back on earth.

“It's after midnight. We must get some sleep,” she murmured.

“Let's talk,” Ned said. Had he ever said any such thing before? “It's going to take a while for the buzz to die down, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

Having expressed the wish to talk, Ned was silent, as though waiting for something to come to the surface. He slid his hand into hers and held it tightly.

“I'll never never get over seeing you there in that audience—seeing your face.”

“Still crazy after all these years!” He laughed. “I was afraid for a moment I had thrown you off.”

“Only for a second.”

“Anna,” Ned was looking up at the ceiling, his eyes wide open. “On the plane I was with my father.”

“How do you mean?”

“Something helpless that needs help, the terrible in us … was that what you said?”

“I said it about anger … it's something Rilke said, actually.”

“Never mind. On the plane I let my father in. I thought about him, not myself. Oh Anna …” it was wrenched out and Anna held very still. “I mourned my father.”

“Something helpless,” she turned it over in her mind.

“Somehow I got in touch with the person he never could let out … you did it, Anna. You made it happen.”

“If only he could have done it—while he was alive.”

“Oh no, the vulnerability was too great. He couldn't.” Was Ned aware as Anna was that he was so connected with his father that he was now actually talking about himself? “If he once let the woe in he would not have been able to stop it …”

“But you've let the woe in,” Anna whispered. “Thank God.”

“Have I? Is that what this is all about?” Ned sat up and turned to look at Anna, a straight long look.

“Don't look at me like that, it makes me cry.”

He lay down again and Anna asked, “Why did you come to Dallas, Ned? It was so strange—you could have thought about your father here, after all? Did it need a plane to Dallas?”

“I don't know. It was all connected in some way, you, my father—I had to hear you sing the
Kindertoten lieder
… I wasn't in a very rational state, I have to admit.”

“Something happened when we had that talk—to me, too. I felt released. I went to Dallas free of my usual panic.”

“What did happen, Anna?”

“My enemy had become my friend,” the words jumped out. She had not realized the immensity of the change, but now she knew, and so she was able to say, “You were there and I wanted so much to be marvelous, to sweep you off your feet, and then I went and ruined it.”

“You recovered, you did, Anna.”

“I carried on, but you see I had let myself get in the way of the music. The recovery was only a kind of assault. I forced those last songs.”

“You're so honest, Anna.” Ned realized as she said it, that she was right. It had been a triumph of will, of a kind of force in her, determined to win. “You did stun them, though, in the end.”

“I got the applause, but no one was really moved. And that was my fault.”

“Well, that flash-bulb carrying woman could be blamed, too.”

“If you hadn't been there, maybe I could have handled it. I wanted something too much. I wanted to dazzle you, so I lost my balance when something beyond my control went wrong. That's bad,” she said, smiting now, “But, oh Ned, it's such a comfort that I can talk like this to you now, without any defenses.”

Fonzi, at the foot of the bed, groaned in his sleep, then gave a muffled bark.

“He's chasing a rabbit,” Ned said, “the dear old dog.”

Anna suddenly sat up, and for a second Ned wondered whether she was suffering one of those inexplicable changes of mood and was about to attack him.