Mercy Read Online Free PDF

step. Sleep with one eye open.’
    She grins at the girl sitting on her other side as if I’m not right there. Like anyone would want to jump your
    bones . It’s clear to me what they’re thinking.
    ‘Well, thanks for the info,’ I reply coolly, staring down the other girl who looks away uncomfortably.
    Bet Carmen’s never given her the evil eye before. It feels good doing it. I stare down a few more of the others for good measure and the St Joseph’s sopranos suddenly look everywhere but at me, their eyes scattering like birds.
    ‘Consider it a community service,’ Tiffany laughs, oblivious to Carmen’s odd steeliness or its weird effect on her posse. Well, she wouldn’t.
    ‘And can you believe they roped in extra students from Little Falls and Port Marie for this musical
    “soirée”?’ she adds. ‘It’s still going to sound like shit .’
    Mr Masson makes us all jump by abruptly turning 40

    on the assembly hall’s ancient sound system loud enough to split our heads open. The vast swell of a massive pipe organ is followed by the sounds of a giant, pre-recorded orchestra and it’s suddenly a mad, page-turning scramble to get to the opening bars of … uh, oh, yes, Hymnus: Veni, creator spiritus . Know it? I’m right with you. The score looks as unfathomable this morning as it did last night. And where did the choir come in again?
    I glance sideways at Tiffany and she’s looking straight ahead at Mr Masson, poised to sing. Always ready, always pulled together. Something Carmen wishes she was every minute of her waking life. People want funny things.
    I follow Tiffany’s flying finger to the point where her manicured nail leaves off the page and her voice takes over and suddenly, my eyes narrow in shocked recognition. I have seen what I should have seen last night: Part 1 of Mahler’s Symphony No 8 is not in French, or German, or Italian. Languages that casually litter the margins of the score, with which I have little affinity, knowledge or patience.
    I should have focused on the title of the opening hymn.
    Like the title, the hymn is in Latin . Untranslated 41

    Latin.
    As the girls of St Joseph’s Chamber Choir begin to blow away the competition with their incredible singing, I realise that I understand every single word they are saying as if it is the language in which I think, in which I dream.
    They sing:
    Veni, creator spiritus
    mentes tuorum visita
    Come, Creator Spirit
    visit the minds of your people
    Creator Spirit. The words send a lick of lightning down my spine, the repeating crash of the organ causing little aftershocks in my system.
    And the music? It’s like there are seraphim in the room with us. Forget about the hair spray, the injudicious use of mascara, face whitener, concealer, eyeshadow, pout-enhancing lip venom. Shut my eyes and I could be sitting amongst angels. The sound is tearing at my soul. It’s so joyous, so sublime, so incredibly fast, loud, complex.
    Beautiful. If I’d ever heard this music before in my entire 42

    benighted existence, I’m sure I would have remembered it.
    The girls of St Joseph’s have long since split into two distinct bodies of voices, two choirs, clear, bright and pure, but, stunned by my new comprehension, I do not open my mouth or attempt to keep up. Neither does most of the room. A few brave souls do their own interesting jazz interpretations of Mahler beneath the main action but these are largely lost in the maelstrom of organ, orchestra and Tiffany, whose voice soars, higher, louder, purer than all of them. Heads are craning to get a look at the source.
    ‘She’s incredible!’ someone shouts behind me.
    I see the music teachers of four schools single out Tiffany approvingly with their eyes as she preens a little and amps up the volume even more.
    Poor Carmen. If this is some kind of contest, we are losing it together. I don’t remember how to sing, or even if I can. Silently, I turn the pages with trembling fingers and wonder what else