Mephisto Aria by Justine Saracen Page A

Then it gets even funnier, when he starts switching back and forth between the sexes. He’s a boy, then a soldier, then a woman singing a boy disguised as a peasant girl.”
    “Yes, in every scene, Cherubino was all I looked at. He always came and went through the window, as if he lived in the air outside, not on earth. Frankly, I was smitten. You can imagine how thrilled I was when my mother took me backstage to meet the singer.”
    “That didn’t destroy the illusion?”
    “Not at all. Backstage was a magical place. Men carrying flowers knocked on doors with nameplates. When the doors opened, divine light seemed to shine out from the rooms.”
    “Oh my, you were smitten.”
    “I was so excited, wondering how this otherworldly being would look up close. Then the door opened. It was a woman, of course, but she wore slacks and a blue shirt, almost the same color as her costume. Her hair was shorter than the wig she had worn, but some of Cherubino was still there in her face. She seemed to look through me.”
    “Who sang that Cherubino?” Anastasia asked.
    “Claudia Martin.” I never saw her again after that performance.”
    “Oh yes, she was a good mezzo. Almost a contralto. She stopped singing early on and went to live in the country with her girlfriend. The Cherubino that stepped into her shoes was of course the American Frederica von Stade.”
    Katherina ignored the “girlfriend” remark. “Yes, I love von Stade, too. But the meeting with Claudia Martin changed my life. She asked me if I wanted to be an opera singer and at that moment, I knew with certainty I did. Strange, isn’t it? I was ten years old and I was ready to sell my soul. In fact, she warned me that I had to make sacrifices and asked me what I was willing to give up. I told her everything. And it was true. Something had happened to me that night and I was willing to abandon everything I knew and run away to ‘join the opera.’”
    “Not the circus?” Anastasia mocked gently.
    “Not even close. Anyhow, that was it. Just then my mother showed up to fetch me and we went home. I’m sure I babbled on and on about Cherubino, but my mother seemed to understand.”
    “The opera bug was from her side?”
    “From both sides, actually. My father loved opera and my mother was a singer. Of popular songs, like Hildegard Knef or Edith Piaf. She died when I was young and after that, there was just my father. But opera was always in the air, as long as I can remember.”
    “You lost your mother. In my case, it was my father. He was killed at Kursk.”
    “So many died in the war and in the hard years right after. There must have been millions of children on both sides raised by one parent, or none.”
    “That’s true, though I did have a second father for a while. My uncle Georgi, my mother’s brother. We heard that he had been lost at Stalingrad, but he showed up five years later at our house. He had two artificial legs, but he was alive.”
    Katherina shook her head. “The war, the purges. It all seems such an appalling waste. We had Hitler and you had Stalin. A hundred million dead. How many people did the Soviets lose? Twenty million? So much sacrifice and the Kremlin still is imprisoning its own people. It’s hard not be cynical.”
    “That’s so true. No sign of a god, but it’s very easy to believe in the devil, isn’t it?” Anastasia poured more coffee into both their cups. As if they were a couple, Katherina thought.
    “Well, there’s plenty of evil to go around, that’s for certain, but I think we make a mistake to see it only as something alien and absolute. We are sometimes its victims, but I think we carry it around inside ourselves too, and it stays docile only as long as the going is good and we’re not threatened.”
    “Let’s not talk about good and evil. You are far too somber today, and there’s no reason for it. Here, this is what you need.”
    She held up a cube of sugar for a moment and then dropped it into