In the neutral section, we saw Martin Lake and his lover Merrimount take their seats, surrounded by the remnants of the New Artists, all looking rather tattered and downcast. (Their day was done. No opera could resurrect them.)

Martin and Merrimount had chosen to wear half evening gown, half formal suit, and I could almost smell the aggressive cologne that had become Martin’s “signature smell,” even though his sponsorship of it gained him no monies during the war. (You make it sound like an actual ceasefire, this opera. Janice, we were all armed to the teeth, like pirates sailing down the River Moth looking for a ripe place to build a city. You couldn’t move through the hallway toward the restrooms without bumping into someone’s concealed bulge of a gun or knife, or worse. And when you did get to the men’s room, it was full of spies exchanging information.)

We took the sadly amateurish hand-printed playbills off our seats and sat, Lacond still occluding all sight of Mary on the other side. In the expectant green light, the muted chatter of people still entering the opera house, the pauses in conversation as three or four times it appeared the opera was about to begin, I had a glimpse, an echo, of my former life. For an instant, sitting there, my buttocks rapidly beginning to ache from the hard seat, I had the illusion that I had conjured up the resources, out of full-on ruin, to create an opera. For just that period between taking our seats and curtain rise, I felt powerful again. An awful feeling. I could see Edward’s slack face in the insane asylum, feel the ribbon of red rising from my wrist. I did not want that life back, not really.

Besides, the illusion was ruined anyway by a brief encounter on the way to the bathroom before the opera began. Narrowed and wrinkled by the years, Merrimount’s jester face suddenly came into view.

He nodded and said, “Did you have anything to do with this opera, Janice?”

“No,” I said. “Not me.” Caught. Accused.

“Ah, right,” he said. “I thought maybe you had.” A pause, and then, “Do you think this is what the New Art has all been leading up to? An insane opera performed during wartime?” His smile was all teeth, and then he was gone.

I hated the elation that made my face flush, brought out a little shiver of happiness. Merrimount had talked to me. (Very sad, sister.)

I told Duncan about the encounter, across Sybel’s thin chest and Lacond’s broad belly, and before he could respond, out of the darkness I heard Mary say, “If so, it’s been a waste. Everything leading up to this one performance. They should have saved it up for after the war.”