Beijing, China, Zhengyici Peking Opera Theatre
3 April 1912
9:23 PM, CST
The house is filled for tonight’s performance of “The Qingding Pearl”
The murmurs follow them as they stride down the crowded hallway, head down, arms pressed closely to her body, their music tucked under their arm. They learned to ignore them a long time ago in favor of focusing on the piece they’ll be performing tonight – there’s no use ruminating on what everyone thinks of them, it won’t make any difference.
When they reach the door that leads to the pit, Ariya pauses. Straightens their shoulders, lifts their head, fixes their starched collar and brushes the wrinkles out of their pants. They are poised as they enter, like royalty, heading for the first chair and ignoring the silence that seems to reign for a moment as the other musicians around all crane their necks around to watch.
Like there’s something different about the way they move to the front of the orchestra and stand in front of the yángqín, run their fingers along the polished wood and reach for the bamboo hammers. There’s not. There’s no superstition, no ritual to it, just what needs to be done, tapping the rubber heads of the hammers against the strings, testing the notes pulled from the air, tiny droplets ripping into the tightly woven silence. After a while, the other musicians return to their own warm-ups, their own conversations, as though nothing has happened. And it hasn’t.
They take a deep breath, Ariya, first-chair in the strings section, the youngest and least experienced yángqín player in the symphony. And the best. Everyone knows that. They whisper about it when they think they’re not listening, about how they were discovered at such at such a young age, still a teenager and already better than many of the other musicians who’d been playing for years. They call them “prodigy”, “genius”. “Child star,” only 18. As if everything comes natural, like there were born to play. Maybe they were.
Just maybe not the yángqín.
Ariya adjusts their stand, shuffling through the music for the first act. These notes are familiar, like well-worn treads in a wood floor. They can hear the buzzing murmurs of the crowd above, taking their seats. Ten minutes to curtain.
A deep breath. Calm. A few rows behind them, a dizi player whistles out a loud C5, followed by a chromatic scale –
Just breathe.
– do-ti-la –
You can do this.
– sol-fa-mi-re –
This is just another night.
– do-re-mi –
You’ve done this before.
– fa-sol-la-ti –
…oh god.
– Do.
The last note is like a shriek from a bird of prey, too sharp, too loud. Ariya tries not to wince. The dizi player adjusts her embouchure, tries again. Still sharp. This happens every time. She always plays with the mouthpiece too far in the mouth.
Ariya faces forward, eyes on the front wall of the orchestra pit. They barely need to glance at their instrument or the music. The notes are already there, fresh in theirr mind, like pomegranates ready to be plucked from the air and tossed to the crowd starving for the sounds and symphony of The Qingding Pearl. They’re been practicing for months, performing for weeks, this is just
“Ten to curtain!”
another
“Full house, tonight, everyone.”
night.
Eyes forward. The murmurs die down as the master conductor takes his place in front of the orchestra, baton in hand. There is a sudden rush of silence, the muffled heartbeats of every musician beating quietly in time.
Ariya inhales sharply as he raises his baton, as the wind section raises their instruments to their lips, the percussionists hold their sticks horizontally in front of their chest. Their hands are steady as they raise their own hammers, already poised above the proper strings.
It registers somewhere in the back of their mind how odd it is that it there would be a full house, all tickets sold out for the first time this week. This particular opera has always been popular, for sure, but given recent events, Ariya had been surprised that the company had chosen to perform this production in the first place.
Master Han counts off the first beats. One, two, three.
They hit the strings, lets the notes ring out and resounds in perfect tune with the other musicians around them.
The opera begins.
It isn’t until two and a half hours later, during intermission, that they’re aware of their body again. Their stinging fingers, their aching arms. They’d been lost in the music up until now, but are grateful for the much needed break. The various members of the orchestra stand, stretch, chat among themselves in hushed murmurs.
Ariya idly rearranges their music, tries to look busy. No one really talks to them, they’re not particularly close to anyone. They wish they were, but that’s completely different than reality.
Mm. Two more hours, and then they can go home, or at least to their hotel room. Sleep for a bit, then wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.
If only…
“Excuse me? Are you Ariya?”
They glance up sharply, heart beating fast at the sound of their name.
There’s an unfamiliar woman standing in front of them. Their first thought is of how this woman got into the orchestra pit, when the door is locked with a mechanism that can only opened with a distinct punch card. Their second thought is that this woman is obviously a foreigner, with fair skin, blonde hair, and distinct Western features. The stranger meets Ariya’s curious gaze with her own, with one normal bright blue eye and the other a prosthetic lens, an elegant contraption that curves over the right side of her face, over her cheekbone and fitting between her upper and lower eyelid. Her Mandarin is clearly accented, choppy at best, hence Ariya notices the presence of one of the opera’s translators beside her.
“…yes?” Their reply is hesitant, accented itself. Mandarin is not their first language either. They’re aware that they’re attracting some attention from their fellow musicians, who are eyeing the unfamiliar woman curiously. Some of the more conservative members of the orchestra regard prosthetics with suspicion – modern-day technology isn’t always as embraced as it should be.
The woman, however, seems undeterred by her less than warm welcome. She says something that Ariya manages to catch, in a language they haven’t heard in a long while, and realizes they don’t need the translator.
“This is Rebecca Baron. She’s an employee with SS Industries.”
“That’s okay, I’m able to understand.”
Oh. That name Ariya is familiar with. They’ve read the newspaper articles, about the Korean technological company’s merger with a Japanese shipping line, their latest project that was rumored to change the way the world viewed international travel forever. Something certainly far beyond their wildest dreams.
What someone with SS Industries could possibly want with a person like them, they have no idea.
“Nice to meet you,” they bow their head politely. Rebecca Baron smiles at the gesture, and bows back.
“I’ve heard quite a bit about your proficiency with the yángqín, and would like to know how long you’ve been playing.”
“Since I was young, since I was a child.” It’s said that the yángqín isthe “Chinese piano” – they’re not even Chinese, but that didn’t matter. Music was universal, so they said. Music could take them places.
Music has yet to take them where they really want to go, but that’s no matter.
“I would like to know how long you plan on staying with the symphony, if you have any plans to go back home once the production is over.”
“As long as they will have me, or until a different opportunity comes my way.” Which is unlikely, to tell the truth. Rebecca Baron must know that the industrial world in itself is difficult to maneuver, but the music industry is something else entirely. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Ariya has made it this far so young, and a part of them is terrified that perhaps someday their luck just might run out.
Nevertheless, the woman looks slightly pleased to hear that Ariya is open to new opportunities, as she produces a small slip of paper from her purse and passes it to the young musician. It’s a familiar full-color advertisement, one that Ariya has seen plastered on street corners in the city, the translated printed characters screaming loud and clear for anyone to hear over the carefully drawn image of a magnificently enormous and bright ship.
The Empress of the Sky, the SS Titanic
Largest Luxury Steamliner in the World
Setting Sail April 10
From Yokohama to San Francisco
Tickets are rumored to be anywhere from a few thousand yuan for the lowest passengers to as much as four hundred thousand yuan for the very elite. Certainly outside of Ariya’s meager musician’s salary, even as a performer in one of China’s top symphonies. They would bet only a few of the opulent patrons in the audience at the moment would be willing to pay that much, no matter how luxurious the journey may be.
Then again, sometimes it has nothing to do with luxury and all to do with desperation.
But these thoughts Ariya keeps to themselves, as they look up from the advertisement into the eye(s) of this stranger. “I apologize, but I’m afraid I cannot afford the price of the tickets at the current moment. Perhaps SS will have another voyage in the future.”
Rebecca Baron laughs at this, and Ariya can feel their face slowly begin to burn.
“I’m not here to solicit ticket sales,” she tells them. “I’m here to offer you a job on the ship. You see, SS wishes to collect the best musicians they can find to play for passengers during the trip. You’d be playing with some of the most skilled performers in Asia, compensated handsomely for your efforts, and travel for free on the Titanic’s maiden voyage.”
The advertisement drops from Ariya’s hands and flutters to the floor without a sound.
They can barely believe their ears. It’s unreal. Do things like this really happen in real life? Just the opportunity to come to China to play music had seemed like something out of a dream, and now this. There had to be some mistake, perhaps.
But no. The woman just continues to look at them expectantly, with a smile. The glass of her prosthetic eye is a very pretty, almost smoky sort of blue, softening her gaze in a way. She’s expecting an answer. Ariya can almost sense the rest of the orchestra craning their ears to hear, listening in as well.
What will they say? They glance back down at the floor, and the SS Titanic stares back up at them, the small colored picture an almost underwhelming contrast to the reality laid before them.
“I…” Struggles for words. Tries to think of how to explain what’s running through their head, a millions miles an hour, the emotions rising in their chest when they think about the places they might go, the world that is slowly opening itself up to them.
Where they could go, San Francisco. What’s in San Francisco, who’s in San Francisco.
He’s in San Francisco…
And with that thought, the answer is simple.
Ariya tells her, yes.
Next week: Business, as usual, in a shady corner of a yakiniku restaurant.
