Finding the Beauty Underneath

II

The day of the auditions had arrived and I was still committed to my plan. After very carefully extracting Father's violin from his room as he slept, I prayed the old fool would stay asleep for a while. I took the "Do Not Touch" note off of the violin and discarded it in my room. I took an old cap of Father's from the hall closet and put all of my long hair into it. I wore a loose-fitting shirt, men's slacks, and took the smallest pair of Father's shoes that I could find.

I quickly prepared a breakfast for Father and left it on the table with a note telling him I would be away at the market for a while. I hoped that it didn't sound too suspicious as I had gone there barely yesterday with Gabrielle.

Because my stomach was in knots, I took only an apple to eat for breakfast on my way to the Opera Populaire. With the violin case in hand, I started walking with my head low before I could talk myself out of doing this. Thankfully, no one paid any attention to me. I slowly ate the apple as I walked.

Once I reached the opera house, a cacophony of sounds greeted me and there was chaos everywhere. I had never seen the Opera Populaire so busy before. People were running around and some were yelling. I threw the apple core away and looked around. As I tried to figure out where I was supposed to go, a tall, older woman with a cane suddenly walked up tome.

"What are you here for?" she asked in a monotone voice as she looked me up and down with suspicion. I then realized that this was Madame Giry, the instructor for all the dancers here at the Populaire. I had met her only once many years ago with Father and had stayed away from her ever since.

"Oh, I-" I cleared my throat and deepened my pitch. "I, uh came to audition today. . ." I held up the violin case, hoping that explanation would suffice.

"I see. . ." she said. I tried to avoid eye contact. "Your name?"

I faltered as my mind suddenly went blank. Why did I not think of a name beforehand? "Um, R-Renard. Claude Renard," It was the first name that came to my mind. I quickly bowed my head slightly.

"You look awfully young to be auditioning to be in the orchestra. The Populaire only accepts the best, you know."

"I may be young. . .but I am confident in my playing, Madame."

She arched an eyebrow. "I suppose we'll see how skilled you are when you perform, then."

I cleared my throat awkwardly before saying, "Um, where do I go to audition?"

She lifted her cane and pointed with it towards the right side of the stage where there was a crowd of people. "Musicians go there."

"Merci, Madame," I gave a curt nod and promptly walked away from her and towards the crowd.

There, I was greeted with dozens of other musicians who were loudly tuning their instruments and talking amongst themselves. I looked around and saw Monsieur Reyer, the conductor whom I had met with once or twice over the years. He was currently talking to two men I had never met before. Monsieur Reyer then walked up to the assemblage of musicians and clapped his hands a few times until he had gained everyone's attention.

"Attention, please! For those of you who do not know, I am Monsieur Reyer and I conduct all of the performances here. These two gentlemen here are Messieurs Firmin and Andre. They are the new owners of the Opera Populaire and they will be assisting me with the auditions. You will all audition one at a time on the stage. Now. . .who's first?"

The auditions crawled by slowly. One by one, each musician walked up to the stage, stated their name, age, what instrument they played, and proceeded to perform their piece. Most of them were quite good while, admittedly, some played poorly. I just hoped I wouldn't stumble under the pressure. I tuned the violin several times to keep myself occupied. I was too afraid of giving away my true identity to speak to anyone. I warmed up and tried to calm myself as best I could before it was my turn to perform. I was one of the last musicians to audition.