The Complete Short Stories

Merrill struggled to make sense of this. ‘Wait a minute, Ray. You mean she’s actually going to appear — she’s going to sing- in the middle of Opus Zero?’ Alto nodded grimly. Merrill threw up his hands and slumped back. ‘It’s crazy, she can’t. Who says she will?’

‘Who do you think? The great LeGrande.’ Alto turned to Mangon. ‘She must have raked up some real dirt to frighten him into this. I can hardly believe it.’

‘But why on Opus 4ero?’ Merrill pressed. ‘Let’s switch the premiere to the week after.’

‘Paul, you’re missing the point. Let me fill you in. Sometime yesterday Madame Gioconda paid a private call on LeGrande. Something she told him persuaded him that it would be absolutely wonderful for her to have a whole hour to herself on one of the feature music programmes, singing a few old-fashioned songs from the old-fashioned shows, with a full-scale ultrasonic backing. Eager to give her a completely free hand he even asked her which of the regular programmes she’d like. Well, as the last show she appeared on ten years ago was cancelled to make way for Ray Alto’s Total Symphony you can guess which one she picked.’

Merrill nodded. ‘It all fits together. We’re broadcasting from the concert studio. A single ultrasonic symphony, no station breaks, not even a commentary. Your first world premiere in three years. There’ll be a big invited audience. White tie, something like the old days. Revenge is sweet.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Hell, all that work.’

Alto snapped: ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be wasted. Why should we pay the bill for LeGrande? This symphony is the one piece of serious music I’ve written since I joined V. C. and it isn’t going to be ruined.’ He went over to Mangon, sat down next to him. ‘This afternoon I went down to the rehearsal studios. They’d found an ancient sonic grand somewhere and one of the old-timers was accompanying her. Mangon, it’s ten years since she sang last. If she’d practised for two or three hours a day she might have preserved her voice, but you sweep her radio station, you know she hasn’t sung a note. She’s an old woman now. What time alone hasn’t done to her, cocaine and self-pity have.’ He paused, watching Mangon searchingly. ‘I hate to say it, Mangon, but it sounded like a cat being strangled.’

You lie, Mangon thought icily. You are simply so ignorant, your taste in music is so debased, that you are unable to recognize real genius when you see it. He looked at Alto with contempt, sorry for the man, with his absurd silent symphonies. He felt like shouting: I know what silence is! The voice of the Gioconda is a stream of gold, molten and pure, she will find it again as I found mine. However, something about Alto’s manner warned him to wait.

He said: ‘I understand.’ Then: ‘What do you want me to do?’

Alto patted him on the shoulder. ‘Good boy. Believe me, you’ll be helping her in the long run. What I propose will save all of us from looking foolish. We’ve got to stand up to LeGrande, even if it means a one-way ticket out of V. C. Okay, Paul?’ Merrill nodded firmly and he went on: ‘Orchestra will continue as scheduled. According to the programme Madame Gioconda will be singing to an accompaniment by Opus Zero, but that means nothing and there’ll be no connection at any point. In fact she won’t turn up until the night itself. She’ll stand well down-stage on a special platform, and the only microphone will be an aerial about twenty feet diagonally above her. It will be live — but her voice will never reach it. Because you, Mangon, will be in the cue-box directly in front of her, with the most powerful sonovac we can lay our hands on. As soon as she opens her mouth you’ll let her have it. She’ll be at least ten feet away from you so she’ll hear herself and won’t suspect what is happening.’

‘What about the audience?’ Merrill asked.

‘They’ll be listening to my symphony, enjoying a neurophonic experience of sufficient beauty and power, I hope, to distract them from the sight of a blowzy prima donna gesturing to herself in a cocaine fog. They’ll probably think she’s conducting. Remember, they may be expecting her to sing but how many people still know what the word really means? Most of them will assume it’s ultrasonic.’

‘And LeGrande?’

‘He’ll be in Bermuda. Business conference.’

Five

Madame Gioconda was sitting before her dressing-table mirror, painting on a face like a Hallowe’en mask. Beside her the gramophone played scratchy sonic selections from Traviata. The stage was still a disorganized jumble, but there was now an air of purpose about it.

Making his way through the flats, Mangon walked up to her quietly and kissed her bare shoulder. She stood up with a flourish, an enormous monument of a woman in a magnificent black silk dress sparkling with thousands of sequins.

‘Thank you, Mangon,’ she sang out when he complimented her. She swirled off to a hat-box on the bed, pulled out a huge peacock feather and stabbed it into her hair.