neat.”
So I would sit. Sara disappeared into her room or out into the day, but I remained perfectly still, to show her I could. When Ada happened by—ten minutes later, sometimes an hour—she would find me in my small wooden kitchen chair, practicing my mother’s frown. My hands would be laid out on the table in front of me, itching on the palms and starting to twitch impossibly, with my fingers each separated by the width of a cotton ball.
The first time she discovered me this way, Ada sat across from me and smiled as if we were playing a game.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t look up. It seemed important to maintain focus on my nails.
“I have to wait for them to dry. Otherwise I’m going to mess them up.”
Ada made a small aah and came over to me, picking up one of my hands in her own. “So when will these be dry?” she asked. “They look dry to me.”
I scowled. “You can’t tell by looking.”
“So touch one.”
“I’m not allowed.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well.”
We sat quietly together for some time. The beams of sun coming through the window traveled across the waxcloth on the table and crept up my wrists. At last Baba Ada stood up and stretched her arms, pressing her nails into her palms and then wiggling her fingers, balling her hands up and then extending them so her arms looked like wings.
“Sitting here is making me stiff, lalka . I’m going to go get a hot chocolate,” she said. “I was going to invite you, but I can see that you’re busy. So I suppose I’ll just have to go alone.” She walked out into the hall, still talking back at me as she put on her coat. “It’s too bad. A long way to go by myself, since I don’t have a book to read on the train ride. And I’ll be awfully lonely if I have to wait for a table. But there’s nothing to be done.”
Before she had fitted her key to the lock, I sprang from my seat and threw myself against the door. Ada came back in and wrapped me up against the wind outside, making sure that my scarf and hat matched the new grown-up color of my nails. Sitting pressed together on the train, rocking back and forth as we traveled towards a bus exchange, Ada told me about Greta’s home in Poland: about what had been and what was to come. I leaned into her on the turns and let the words seep beneath my skin, as the light had in our small kitchen.
I knew that Ada was trying to make me feel better about the fact that my mother had left me alone. What I didn’t understand was that once upon a time, my mother had heard these stories too. That she’d been petted and painted and made to believe she was whole, until one day she cracked open and out I came: a smaller doll with a sleeker voice.
Ada taught us both that Greta’s magic set our family line in motion: women who came from women, women who came with music. Each woman a better singer, a more perfect form. When I was a girl I couldn’t see that in these stories, Kara was implied by my very existence. That I was required to improve on my mother, and that the day would come to improve on me.
M y first major role was almost Mélisande from Debussy, and it was so boring that I cried the first time I ran through it with Baba Ada, who was at that point still my de facto voice coach. You barely need a soprano for the part, and I just think the libretto is ridiculous, with its all-too-fragile heroine and her darkly fated loves. I was an apprentice at the Lyric back then, allowed occasionally to fill in soubrette roles, like the Massenet, and pretend I wasn’t biting my fingernails to pieces every time a new show was being cast. So when they decided to give me a genuine debut, whispering the news in my ear and giving me a champagne toast, I was meant to be very grateful.
The only justification I could fathom for the casting was that I was young and knew how to hold back my sass onstage when the moment demanded it. They didn’t want a mezzo-soprano, they wanted someone really innocent,
So I would sit. Sara disappeared into her room or out into the day, but I remained perfectly still, to show her I could. When Ada happened by—ten minutes later, sometimes an hour—she would find me in my small wooden kitchen chair, practicing my mother’s frown. My hands would be laid out on the table in front of me, itching on the palms and starting to twitch impossibly, with my fingers each separated by the width of a cotton ball.
The first time she discovered me this way, Ada sat across from me and smiled as if we were playing a game.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t look up. It seemed important to maintain focus on my nails.
“I have to wait for them to dry. Otherwise I’m going to mess them up.”
Ada made a small aah and came over to me, picking up one of my hands in her own. “So when will these be dry?” she asked. “They look dry to me.”
I scowled. “You can’t tell by looking.”
“So touch one.”
“I’m not allowed.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well.”
We sat quietly together for some time. The beams of sun coming through the window traveled across the waxcloth on the table and crept up my wrists. At last Baba Ada stood up and stretched her arms, pressing her nails into her palms and then wiggling her fingers, balling her hands up and then extending them so her arms looked like wings.
“Sitting here is making me stiff, lalka . I’m going to go get a hot chocolate,” she said. “I was going to invite you, but I can see that you’re busy. So I suppose I’ll just have to go alone.” She walked out into the hall, still talking back at me as she put on her coat. “It’s too bad. A long way to go by myself, since I don’t have a book to read on the train ride. And I’ll be awfully lonely if I have to wait for a table. But there’s nothing to be done.”
Before she had fitted her key to the lock, I sprang from my seat and threw myself against the door. Ada came back in and wrapped me up against the wind outside, making sure that my scarf and hat matched the new grown-up color of my nails. Sitting pressed together on the train, rocking back and forth as we traveled towards a bus exchange, Ada told me about Greta’s home in Poland: about what had been and what was to come. I leaned into her on the turns and let the words seep beneath my skin, as the light had in our small kitchen.
I knew that Ada was trying to make me feel better about the fact that my mother had left me alone. What I didn’t understand was that once upon a time, my mother had heard these stories too. That she’d been petted and painted and made to believe she was whole, until one day she cracked open and out I came: a smaller doll with a sleeker voice.
Ada taught us both that Greta’s magic set our family line in motion: women who came from women, women who came with music. Each woman a better singer, a more perfect form. When I was a girl I couldn’t see that in these stories, Kara was implied by my very existence. That I was required to improve on my mother, and that the day would come to improve on me.
M y first major role was almost Mélisande from Debussy, and it was so boring that I cried the first time I ran through it with Baba Ada, who was at that point still my de facto voice coach. You barely need a soprano for the part, and I just think the libretto is ridiculous, with its all-too-fragile heroine and her darkly fated loves. I was an apprentice at the Lyric back then, allowed occasionally to fill in soubrette roles, like the Massenet, and pretend I wasn’t biting my fingernails to pieces every time a new show was being cast. So when they decided to give me a genuine debut, whispering the news in my ear and giving me a champagne toast, I was meant to be very grateful.
The only justification I could fathom for the casting was that I was young and knew how to hold back my sass onstage when the moment demanded it. They didn’t want a mezzo-soprano, they wanted someone really innocent,
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