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her
passionate playing. Her eyes were downcast, their color still a mystery. James
was strangely moved to see that she did indeed have freckles, as he had
imagined. They were as fine as a sift of cinnamon, and he found himself wanting
to count them, to lie with her in a sunny patch of garden and touch them one by
one, tracing the contours of her cheek, letting his finger drift down to her
lips.... He saw she was biting her lip.
Drinking in his first close sight of her, James already knew her
better than any of these others did. He knew from her diary that if she was
biting her lip, it meant she was having one of her bad days.
He had imagined himself, fancifully, to be half in love with the
writer of the mysterious diary, but now, seeing her, that vague fancy was swept
away by the exhilaration of actually falling in love with her, not by
halves, but fully and profoundly. His heartbeat pulsed in his hands with the
desire to reach out and touch her.
She looked up suddenly and saw him. She saw the naked look in his
eyes and her fingers faltered on the keys. The jarring of the
90
music turned all heads and everyone at the party witnessed that
first fused stare. James couldn't look away from her. Her eyes were pale gray
and they were lonely, and haunted, and hungry. She slowly released her lower
lip from between her teeth as she stared back at him.
She was feeling, under the vivid gaze of this soldier, that she
had stepped out of a fog and been seen clearly for the first time.
91
FIVE The Caged Bird
In her diary she had written:
Most days I believe in the curse with all my heart. I believe that
1 might kill with no more effort than it takes others to sing or pray. Those
days are easy. My voice sleeps and I have no terrible impulses to speak. But
some days I wake with doubts and worse, spite, and every moment speech
trembles on my lips so that I have to bite them. I look at the faces all around
me, my parents, that horrid old chaplain, all the others with that tippling
flush in their cheeks too early in the day, and I think I will burst into song
just to see the flash of terror in their eyes before we know, all of us and at
last, if it is true or not. If I can kill them all with a word. Those are the
bad days.
So far, I have managed to forbear and doubtless I will go on
forbearing. But sometimes when they treat me like an idiot child, talking loud
and in short sentences, with that smug sense of their own charity -- how good they
are, to speak to the idiot girl!-- I can't help but amuse myself deliberating,
if I were to kill them with a word, what should that word be? Hello? Listen? Oops? But I rather think it wouldn't be a
92
word at all, but a song, that they might hear the voice I
sacrifice for their sake every single day.
I am always sick with guilt after such wicked thoughts, and the
guilt drives the wickedness out.
Her name was Anamique, after a Flemish soprano her mother had
heard sing the role of Isolde once at Bayreuth. Anamique had been singing
Isolde in her head since she was twelve and her mother had ordered the libretto
for her older daughters' singing lessons. Inside herself, where she sang,
Anamique's voice was far more beautiful than her sisters' voices, but she was
the only one who knew it. She was the only one who would ever know it.
Years of warnings had built up in her. Her ayah believed the curse
and so did the rest of the servants, even the stern old Rajput whose job it had
been to guide her around the garden on her pony, Mackerel, when she was small.
The servants had always implored her to keep silent, and they prevailed. Even
while her mother commanded her to speak, her ayah was there whispering in
Rajasthani in her other ear, "Hush, my pearl, keep quiet. You must keep
your voice in its cage, like a beautiful bird. If you let it out, it will kill
us all."
Anamique believed her. One couldn't help believing things
whispered in Rajasthani.
To her family, she wrote notes on a small tablet she
passionate playing. Her eyes were downcast, their color still a mystery. James
was strangely moved to see that she did indeed have freckles, as he had
imagined. They were as fine as a sift of cinnamon, and he found himself wanting
to count them, to lie with her in a sunny patch of garden and touch them one by
one, tracing the contours of her cheek, letting his finger drift down to her
lips.... He saw she was biting her lip.
Drinking in his first close sight of her, James already knew her
better than any of these others did. He knew from her diary that if she was
biting her lip, it meant she was having one of her bad days.
He had imagined himself, fancifully, to be half in love with the
writer of the mysterious diary, but now, seeing her, that vague fancy was swept
away by the exhilaration of actually falling in love with her, not by
halves, but fully and profoundly. His heartbeat pulsed in his hands with the
desire to reach out and touch her.
She looked up suddenly and saw him. She saw the naked look in his
eyes and her fingers faltered on the keys. The jarring of the
90
music turned all heads and everyone at the party witnessed that
first fused stare. James couldn't look away from her. Her eyes were pale gray
and they were lonely, and haunted, and hungry. She slowly released her lower
lip from between her teeth as she stared back at him.
She was feeling, under the vivid gaze of this soldier, that she
had stepped out of a fog and been seen clearly for the first time.
91
FIVE The Caged Bird
In her diary she had written:
Most days I believe in the curse with all my heart. I believe that
1 might kill with no more effort than it takes others to sing or pray. Those
days are easy. My voice sleeps and I have no terrible impulses to speak. But
some days I wake with doubts and worse, spite, and every moment speech
trembles on my lips so that I have to bite them. I look at the faces all around
me, my parents, that horrid old chaplain, all the others with that tippling
flush in their cheeks too early in the day, and I think I will burst into song
just to see the flash of terror in their eyes before we know, all of us and at
last, if it is true or not. If I can kill them all with a word. Those are the
bad days.
So far, I have managed to forbear and doubtless I will go on
forbearing. But sometimes when they treat me like an idiot child, talking loud
and in short sentences, with that smug sense of their own charity -- how good they
are, to speak to the idiot girl!-- I can't help but amuse myself deliberating,
if I were to kill them with a word, what should that word be? Hello? Listen? Oops? But I rather think it wouldn't be a
92
word at all, but a song, that they might hear the voice I
sacrifice for their sake every single day.
I am always sick with guilt after such wicked thoughts, and the
guilt drives the wickedness out.
Her name was Anamique, after a Flemish soprano her mother had
heard sing the role of Isolde once at Bayreuth. Anamique had been singing
Isolde in her head since she was twelve and her mother had ordered the libretto
for her older daughters' singing lessons. Inside herself, where she sang,
Anamique's voice was far more beautiful than her sisters' voices, but she was
the only one who knew it. She was the only one who would ever know it.
Years of warnings had built up in her. Her ayah believed the curse
and so did the rest of the servants, even the stern old Rajput whose job it had
been to guide her around the garden on her pony, Mackerel, when she was small.
The servants had always implored her to keep silent, and they prevailed. Even
while her mother commanded her to speak, her ayah was there whispering in
Rajasthani in her other ear, "Hush, my pearl, keep quiet. You must keep
your voice in its cage, like a beautiful bird. If you let it out, it will kill
us all."
Anamique believed her. One couldn't help believing things
whispered in Rajasthani.
To her family, she wrote notes on a small tablet she
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