Bel Canto Chapter Six Summary & Analysis

Summary

The narrator says that before Roxanne began singing every morning, the hostages felt sad. They saw death everywhere, they missed their families, and they were under the generals’ control. On the morning Roxanne sings for the first time, the house is transformed. The generals lose some control, but they don’t really mind; they don’t have any reasonable plan for how to end the siege, so they are partly happy to give up some power. Roxanne practices every day for three hours in the morning and sometimes again in the late afternoon.

Hosokawa compares his old life, in which he was able to listen to opera for just an hour or so a day, and his new life, in which he listens to Coss sing in person. He recalls the hard times of his childhood: his mother’s death when he was ten years old, his father’s prolonged sadness. He thinks of his wife. He and she coexist well together, but now he wonders if he knows her at all. Hosokawa thinks about the fact that his wife reads mystery novels, but he has never thought to ask her about them, and she has never talked to him about them either. He wonders if he has ever made her happy.

When Beatriz asks Watanabe if it’s time for her soap opera yet, Watanabe gives her his watch. He finds that in this situation, where there is nowhere to go and no appointments to keep, the watch only bothers him. Watanabe begins to teach Beatriz how to tell time.

Viktor Fyodorov approaches Watanabe and asks him for a favor: he wants to speak to Coss. Watanabe agrees to help, but Fyodorov says that there is no rush; they can do it another day. The narrator explains that Fyodorov wants to declare his love for Coss, which Watanabe does not know. Watanabe stands at the window and watches Carmen. He is beginning to fall in love with her.

The same day Coss begins to sing, the government sends in boxes of raw foods instead of the prepared foods they have been sending. To Iglesias, this is a sign that the outside world may be forgetting about them. There is also a more immediate worry: who will prepare the food? Iglesias, who has taken up the responsibility of keeping the house neat and tidy, finds that he enjoys housekeeping and is better at it than he was at being vice president. But cooking food is a different matter. Iglesias decides to ask Coss for advice. He doesn’t expect the diva to help him cook, but he assumes she can at least offer him some advice. Coss is at first slightly offended that he would think to ask her but decides that it is a problem of cultural differences, and she tells him politely that she knows nothing about cooking.

Watanabe and Iglesias poll the men to find out who can cook. Thibault, an experienced cook, agrees to make the meal. He is faced with another question. How will they prepare the food if none of the hostages are allowed to have knives and all the knives from the kitchen have been confiscated? General Benjamin agrees to let Carmen and Beatriz chop the food for the dinner. General Benjamin asks Watanabe if he plays chess, and Watanabe says that Hosokawa is a good chess player. The general asks Watanabe to ask Hosokawa to play with him sometime.

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