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glamour. “The important thing is that one must be a trouper. People say that prima donnas are temperamental creatures. Let me assure you, I’m so busy making certain that my gowns will be fresh for the next performance . . . or keeping scarves wrapped around my head to prevent colds . . . I don’t have the slightest energy left over for histrionics except onstage.”
    While seated in concert halls, Erika had never realized what a physically massive person Lillian Nordica was. Onstage she appeared the size of an ordinary woman, but in the intimacy of this solarium, seated on a Turkish sofa surrounded by potted palms, Madame Nordica appeared taller than Erika’s own father. The diva had wrists as thick as a man’s ankles.
    “What sort of advice would you give to a young woman who wishes . . . to further her operatic career?” Magdalena said, and moved her eyes meaningfully toward Erika.
    For the first time that evening, Madame Nordica shifted her knees and regarded Erika, who was seated next to her on the sofa. A thousand times before, no doubt, the diva had been asked to guide aspiring singers. Counsel flowed from her like lines rehearsed.
    “Go to Italy,” was the first directive she had to offer. “The first step, as I would advise anyone, is to get yourself to Italy . Select a reputable teacher, start studying repertory there.”
    Erika sat up straighter and slid closer to the sofa’s edge. Only to her voice teacher had Erika already confided the plan that had been taking wing in her own breast. For months now, she had been intending to leave Boston, to leave Peter and move permanently to Europe for the sake of bettering her voice and expanding herself professionally.
    “You wouldn’t consider a move to Paris?” Erika asked.
    “The French language ruins the voice,” Madame Nordica declared, the ostrich feather on her hat shaking for emphasis. “Italian is far easier for singing. Besides, the cost of living is lower in Italy than in France or Germany. Also, in Italy you have more than eighty small towns where opera is performed. In Italy, even poor farmers attend opera. To them”—she extended her velvet sleeves horizontally, with theatrical flourish—“opera is a necessity.”
    As a young girl, Madame Nordica had trained at the New England Conservatory, where Erika herself had studied. Among Bostonians, the story of Lillian Nordica’s ascent as an opera star had spread far. At twenty, Madame Nordica had journeyed to Milan, chaperoned by her widowed mother. In Italy, in a minor city, Lillian Nordica had sung in her first performance. On opening night, all her arias were encored. Eight curtain calls followed Act I. At the death scene, middle-aged men in the audience wept. The very next morning a hundred people swarmed in the street below her hotel room balcony, and they had cried, “Nordica! Grandissimo talento!”
    The three women paused to taste the walnut cream cake Magdalena had sliced. Madame Nordica drew the empty fork from her mouth and tilted her head dreamily as she chewed. In a generous gesture, she reached over and patted Erika’s knee.
    It dawned on Erika that Madame Nordica probably mistook her for a woman much younger than she actually was. Does she think I’m a sprite of eighteen? Erika wondered . A girl who can simply pack her bags and sail off to Italy without remorse or consequence to others’ lives? Without summoning up a terrible courage?
    Detractors said that Madame Nordica, now sliding toward fifty, risked losing her upper register. At her most recent engagements in Boston, however, the ovations had lasted fifteen minutes. The public had thrown carpets of blossoms at Lillian Nordica’s feet. Yet at this moment in Magdalena’s solarium (and who would have dreamed such a meeting could happen?), the three of them sat so close that as the soprano swallowed her tea, Erika could see the wrinkled skin move on the great diva’s neck.
    The three women had been conversing for an hour