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except it was all in Russian. Then I looked again. A single table had been
circled in red, and I didn't need to read Russian to understand it. It was a
plot of frequencies, and I knew them all too well.
At that moment, I did swallow. Hard. I'd been wondering why Dietre had sought
me out, but I wasn't wondering any longer. Now, I was just scared.
I almost missed the two names at the bottom of the page also typed in
manually. The one I didn't know was Yelensov.
We only had another week in St. Petersburg, and I hadn't the faintest idea of
how to deal with what stared me in the face, only that I needed to do
something and still get an oil agreement signed.
 Johan . . . are you all right?
 No. I'm not. I handed her the items in the newspaper and watched while she
read through them.
Finally, she looked up.  All this, I understand but the chart.
I bent forward and whispered in her ear,  Ghost formation energy
frequencies.
She turned almost as pale as I felt.
 What will you do?
 I don't know . . . yet.
Neither of us said more for several minutes, and I felt absolutely rotten for
dropping the Arctic Ocean on her after such a glorious concert, and she didn't
know the worst of it.
 Do not . . . she murmured, kissing my cheek.  It was not you.
Maybe not, but I felt like I had been the one who'd spoiled the euphoria of
her concert.
32
A FTER ALL THE excitement, despite my tiredness, I didn't sleepwell, and I had
to do my best not to toss and turn. The size of the bed helped keep me from
disturbing Llysette too much, but I was upwell before it even started to get
light on Friday morning.
The news summaries did contain a brief mention of the concert; at the end of
the summaries were two typed sheets with what were translations of what had
appeared in the St. Petersburg papers. I skipped over the comments about the
quartet and Thies, except for noting the quartet got polite mentions and Thies
was well-received.
Many foreign sopranos have been disappointing when they have performed at the
Mariinsky. Last night was no disappointment. It was a triumph for the
French-born Columbian soprano Llysette duBoise. Unlike some, she understood
she was in Russia, and all but one of the works on her program were by Russian
composers, although she sang several in French. Even so, her Russian was close
to flawless . . .
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I shook my head. Llysette would agonize over the phrase  close to flawless.
. . . and her delivery, soul, and musicianshipbeyond compare. Those at her
performance left the concert wishing she were Russian. So did this listener.
The great Russian soprano Arkhipova claimed that the Mariinsky would not see
the equal of duBoise for decades, if not generations. From what was heard last
night, she may be right.
That brought a smile. Of course, Arkhipova was right. How often was there a
singer who was a diva from two generations with the soul of two great
singers?
The second review was similar, except it noted that her encore performance of
the Gershwin piece was also a treat.
After that, I almost didn't frown at the headline in the Times of London:
austria closes persian gulf. The story was straightforward enough. Ferdinand
was claiming that New France and Columbia had closed the Caribbean to
international shipping to protect their energy supplies, and Austria was
forced to do the same.
I sighed and looked into the darkness outside the window that was fading into
gray.
As Llysette peered into the tiny kitchen, I couldn't help smiling. I stood and
thrust the translated reviews at her.  They thought that it would be
generations before another singer like you came to the Mariinsky.
 Johan . . . it is early. That good, they could not be.
I poured a cup of tea for her as she read through the reviews.
 My Russian . . . I told you . . . it was not good enough.
  Close to flawless is outstanding for less than six weeks of preparation in
a foreign language.
 You are kind. She sat down at the small table and sipped the tea.  Irina [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]