2 - Painted Veil (23 page)

***

Later that evening, well after Liya’s departure had pervaded my heart with a longing emptiness that I was doing my best to ignore, I reported to the theater.
Cesare
would not resume performance until the following night, but Maestro Torani had called a few of us in for an extra rehearsal to perfect a piece of stage business that had not been thrilling the audience as it should.

A scene in the second act found Cleopatra’s scheming brother Ptolemy imprisoning her in his palace. Defeated, and desolate because she believed her lover Caesar had drowned, Cleopatra prostrated herself before the statue of a falcon-headed Egyptian deity. With mist rolling in through the grated prison windows, Cleopatra prayed for divine intervention. The heavens answered her prayers as the life-sized statue disappeared downward through one of the stage’s five trap doors and Niccolo, costumed as the god, crawled through a slit in the drapery at the back of the statue’s alcove. Once in place, he slowly uncurled himself to full height and sang to the queen cowering at his feet.

The illusion of the statue coming to life was one of Torani’s more ingenious effects, but the scene involved too many different components. The counterweighted platform to lower the statue, the fog machines behind the grates, the backstage lanterns that heightened the eerie atmosphere, Niccolo’s entrance, and more besides—all had to be aligned in perfect timing for the magic to succeed. Aldo had drilled the crew and repositioned the lights and the mechanisms several times but, so far, the living statue had drawn more laughter than amazement. Morelli wanted the scene cut, but Torani wouldn’t hear of it. The dogged director was determined to perfect the illusion before the next performance.

Rosa and Florio had not been called in, and I really shouldn’t have been needed for this session either. My character of Ptolemy had a duet with Cleopatra, affixed chains to her wrists, then exited before the transformation began. But Torani had insisted that my presence was required, so there I was, standing on stage between Emma and the black square of the open trap door listening to Niccolo’s litany of complaints.

“The passage from the wings is too narrow and there are some nails down at the end that keep catching on my costume. But that’s not all. My last entrance was late because my spear got tangled up in the drapery.” The tenor carried a falcon mask with a long curving beak. Though black in color, the mask was an unsettling reminder of the menacing face that Dr. Palantinus had chosen to present to the world. “Besides,” Niccolo continued, “I can hardly breathe in this thing.”

Torani reached for the mask and examined it while he called—the third time—for the stage manager. “Aldo, where the devil are you?”

Aldo’s round head popped up from the open trap. “Below stage, Maestro. One of the gear wheels has sprung some teeth. We’re putting on a new one, but we need some time.”

“How long?”

“Half an hour should do it.” Aldo didn’t wait for Torani’s response, just ducked his head back into the gaping hole. I leaned over to take a look at the apparatus. The platform and its statue were resting on the floor of the understage about eight feet below. Luca’s successor had painted the papier-mâché figure to resemble highly polished basalt. Its falcon head was turned sideways like the paintings on Egyptian tombs, and it carried an upright spear as tall as itself.

Torani was unhappy about the delay. While we awaited his instructions, he made a circuit of the stage, pausing here and there to visualize some effect that must be going through his mind. Carpani had been hovering downstage, making the inevitable entries in his notebook. When our distracted director backed right over him, the clerk squealed and his notebook went flying. For once, Carpani wisely fastened his lips and made a quick retreat. Niccolo failed to profit from his example. The tenor resumed his complaints in a whining tone.

“Maestro, do I have to carry this spear? It must weigh a ton.”

Torani whirled and barked from halfway across the stage, “Are you supposed to be an exact replica of the statue?”

“Well, yes.”

“Does the statue carry a spear?”

Sulky now, Niccolo again answered, “Yes.”

Torani bore down on our group. “Then show some professional discipline and quit bothering me with nonsense.” The director ran a hand through his frizz of gray hair. “Perhaps we can salvage some of this time. Niccolo, take your mask to Madame Dumas’ workroom. She didn’t make the mask, but she can surely make the breathing holes a little larger. Emma, stay in position. We’ll work on the fog and the lighting, but I’ll need a word with the backstage crew.”

Torani strode offstage. He had not given me any specific instructions, so I stayed where I was to chat with Emma until the scene recommenced. Only a few footlamps glowed to illuminate the murky prison scene. The shadowy surroundings and the relatively small number of cast and crew spread throughout the theater created an air of intimacy. Emma gave me a subdued smile. “Have you heard of any companies that are hiring, Tito?”

“What? Has Florio decided to stay on? Should I be looking for another job?”

“Not for you, silly. For me.” She lowered her voice. “
Cesare
will be my last opera at San Marco.”

I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”

“Come next season, Maria Banti will be
prima donna
.”

An elusive memory finally dropped into place. “Maria Banti is the woman that the Savio has been squiring around. I heard her sing at a local festival in Pistoia a year or two ago. I knew I had seen her before, but couldn’t place where. She will be joining the company?”

Emma nodded. “Torani came to see me yesterday. The Savio’s new mistress is in and I am out.”

“But that’s not possible. Unless her voice is substantially improved, La Banti is not up to top roles. Her embellishments are labored and her top notes not at all reliable. Besides, this company may not survive for another season.”

Emma removed a handkerchief from her sleeve and touched it to her nose. Behind the backdrop there was a clang of metal and a few muffled oaths. She sighed. “That’s the point, you see. I believe that Torani agrees with your assessment of La Banti, but he must bow to the Savio’s dictates. As long as Maria Banti is
prima donna
, the Savio will make sure there are many seasons to come. Maestro is just thrilled that the Teatro San Marco is no longer under threat of closure and that he will still have a job. It’s almost laughable. After all the fuss about the theater not paying its way and all the work we’ve done to make
Cesare
a runaway success, in the end it took only a quiver of the Savio’s manhood to save the day.”

Thin wisps of fog began to snake through the grated windows. Torani would be coming back to check the effect any minute. “Emma,” I began, but stopped when I realized that the soprano had turned away from me. Her maid was signaling her from the downstage wing.

“Now what does she want? Will you stand in my place for a minute, Tito?” Emma murmured before hurrying into the wings.

I don’t know why I didn’t sense the next disaster brewing. Perhaps because I felt as much at home in the theater as I did in my house on the Campo dei Polli, I was not on the alert for a violent attack. As the stage filled with mist, someone called my name, softly, in hardly more than a whisper. Once more, urgent and pleading, the summons came from behind the drapery that formed the statue’s alcove. Had Niccolo finished with Madame Dumas and gotten himself hung up in the narrow passage again? Carefully skirting the open trap, I stepped up to the pleated fabric.

“Niccolo?” I called.

A sharp blow struck me squarely in the abdomen and knocked me off balance. Doubling in pain, arms flailing, I sailed backward, straight into the black hole that housed the Egyptian deity on is movable platform.

My plummeting fall allowed time for two fleeting thoughts: “Tito, you are a prize fool” and “Is that damned spear on the right or the left?”

Chapter 24

“He’s coming to,” announced Emma’s voice.

I had a panicky moment when I opened my eyes and saw nothing but blackness, then realized that Emma was bathing my face with a large, damp cloth. I pushed her hand out of the way and tried to sit up. Waves of dizziness engulfed me as twin shafts of pain pierced the left side of my head and my right ribcage.

“Here, get that rag out of his face.” Benito, clearly itching to tend to me himself, inserted himself between Emma and me. “Master, are you all right? Do you know where you are?”

I looked up at the semicircle of concerned faces. Benito knelt at my side, hands fluttering from the bloodied cloth wound around my head to the soft cover that someone had thrown over my body. Emma stood behind him clutching a handkerchief and twisting a thumbnail between her teeth. Torani and Aldo looked on from the foot of my dressing room sofa with Niccolo hovering in the background.

My side ached when I drew breath, but I spoke anyway. “I think I’m all right. How long was I unconscious?”

Aldo answered. “Only a few minutes. The boys and I moved you from under the stage once the worst of the bleeding stopped. The statue’s spear grazed your temple. Luck was with you. If you’d fallen more to the right, it could have pierced your heart.”

Emma and Benito began chattering at once, but Torani broke in with his authoritative tones. “How did you happen to fall, Tito?”

“I didn’t fall. I was pushed. Someone was hiding behind the drapery in the alcove.”

“Impossible,” Torani countered quickly.

I gingerly raised up to one elbow. “I may be mistaken in many things, Maestro, but not in this. I was pushed by unseen hands.”

Torani’s face was pale and grave. “I can’t believe it. You hit your head. You must be more confused than you realize.” He peered into the others’ faces. “Emma, did you see what happened?”

“No, Maestro. I was in my dressing room. My maid called me to change to a different headpiece. She was helping me pin it on. She said you sent her to fetch me so you could see how the larger crown would look in the transformation scene.”

“Ah, yes. So I did. Niccolo?”

“I wasn’t anywhere near the stage. I was still in Madame Dumas’ workroom getting my mask fixed.”

“Aldo? You always know what is going on backstage.”

“Not this time, Maestro. I was below, helping the boys with the gear wheel. I didn’t know anything was amiss until Tito came crashing through the trap.”

I spoke quietly, firmly. “There are only two ways to get behind those draperies. No one entered from the stage, so whoever attacked me had to pass through the tunnel passage from the wings.”

Torani gazed at me as if I were an exotic species of animal on display during Carnival. He ran his tongue over his thin lips. “Of course. I’ll make inquires among the crew. I had stopped in my office to retrieve some notes, but perhaps one of them can shed some light on this.”

Aldo had another idea. “Let’s see where Carpani’s got to. He was fussing around backstage.”

Emma nodded vigorously. “His prying eyes might prove valuable for once.”

Torani pursed his lips thoughtfully. The light from the oil lamps on my dressing table threw his profile into a distorted shadow on the wall. The black outline held a menacing air, but the director’s manner was all concern. “I’ll question Carpani, too. Don’t worry, Tito. I’ll get to the bottom of this. I won’t stand for anyone else getting hurt at this theater.”

His eyes held mine for a strained moment, then turned back toward the doorway as Madame Dumas’ accented voice announced the arrival of the doctor. Torani grabbed at the opportunity to head back to the business of rehearsal. He hustled Aldo, Emma, and Niccolo out of my dressing room before the doctor could even get his spectacles onto his nose. As Torani passed the length of my sofa, I couldn’t help but notice that the seat of his breeches had developed a hole. The fabric had been torn into a small triangular flap—as if it had been caught on an errant nail.

***

The doctor’s diagnosis was plain enough: a bruised rib, a shallow laceration to the temple, and a mild shock to my system. If I stayed in bed and did as I was told, I should be able to sing the next night. I don’t suffer inactivity well, but by the time I had limped in my front door, been clucked over by Annetta, and endured Benito’s application of a poultice to my ribs, I was more than ready for my bed.

The next day brought another surprise, of a more pleasant variety. I was propped up in bed, drinking my second chocolate of the morning, when Benito ushered in an unexpected visitor. The manservant drew the room’s only comfortable chair close to my bedside and asked my visitor if he would also take some chocolate.

Francesco Florio acquiesced with a short nod. He inspected my lumpy armchair, then perched on the edge of the cushion with his plump legs spread before him and both hands poised at the top of his silver-headed walking stick.

“I’ve already been to the theater,” he said with a timid smile very unlike his regal stage persona. “I heard about your accident. You seem to be having more than your share of bad luck.”

“I believe we make our own luck, Francesco. I’ve been attracting misfortune because I’m engaged in a protracted duel with a devilish scoundrel.”

Florio cocked his head questioningly, but Benito distracted him by fetching a small table and pouring a cup of fragrant chocolate. While the singer sipped at the sweet beverage, his eyes roamed my chamber. He watched Benito tidy the room and took in all my mementos: books, opera playbills, a statue of an exotic Persian deity that Alessandro had smuggled past the pashas, even a battered toy boat that I had saved from my boyhood years. He pointed to a miniature of my mother surrounded by an oval frame set with tiny pearls.

“That is a pretty thing. Who is the woman?”

“My mother. She died when I was a young boy.”

He gazed at the portrait for another moment. “I have nothing like these things,” he said with a slight shake to his voice. “I possess only what my man can pack in my trunks.”

“You must receive a number of gifts. I heard that when the Prince of Wales heard you sing in London, he removed his diamond shoe buckles on the spot and had them sent down to the stage.”

Florio rolled his eyes. “Thank the good Lord for such generous gestures. People think I must be wealthy, but they don’t understand how much it takes to travel all the time. I don’t keep the gifts, you see. All the rings and buckles and snuffboxes must be sold to cover expenses. Ivo, my manager, takes care of all of that. He seems to think I rack up an uncommon amount of expenses.”

“Don’t you have a family home, somewhere that you could send the things you’d like to keep?”

He shook his head so violently that his chocolate cup rattled in its saucer. “I don’t go home. When my father delivered me to the music lover who guaranteed to perfect my voice, he thought he was sealing his fortune with my future income.” He snorted. “Today, my father is fortunate in only one respect. He still lives. I could cheerfully strangle him for having me butchered. And my mother, too, for encouraging him. But I haven’t. I just… don’t go back.”

I nodded slowly, inching farther up on my pillows. “I’ve always envied you, Francesco… sailing high above us on a cloud of glory. But I’m beginning to think those elevated realms must be terribly cold and lonely.”

“You are very wise for such a young man.” He smiled bleakly. “You say you envy me. I could say the same about you. You have everything that makes a man truly happy. A real home, loving family, friends, even the admiration of your fellow singers. You can sing your colleagues at the San Marco right into the ground, yet you retain their goodwill. How do you manage it?”

“I don’t know. I just go from day to day, doing the best I can.”

He raised a dubious eyebrow and chuckled a bit. “I expect there’s more to it than that. But I won’t press you, not in your present state.”

“I’m all right.” I sat forward, suppressing a wince of pain. “I must rest today, but I’ll be on stage tonight.”

“I was afraid you’d take that attitude. That is precisely the reason I’m paying you this visit. I hate to see you punishing your voice. If you take care, your vocal instrument could someday be the equal of mine, but if you push too hard, you will find yourself in the back row of the choir in some country church. So I decided to share something with you—a talisman that will speed the healing of this latest injury. It has certainly kept my throat in top form during my stay on this low-lying, pestilential island.” He began to unwind the yellow scarf around his neck.

“Francesco, did you ever think that your throat remains vigorous because you have the constitution of a coach horse?”

He put his hand to his heart. “My dear Tito, you have no idea. I have always been inclined to a malign concoction of humors that leaves me susceptible to all manner of ills. It is only this wondrous artifact that has allowed me to sing
Cesare
without falling victim to Venice’s noxious airs.”

As Florio gently shook his long yellow scarf, a square of silk fell out of its folds. “Here it is, Tito, a true miracle.” He held up an imprint of Liya as the Blessed Virgin. “This treasure is the actual veil that the mother of our Lord wore at his crucifixion. By divine intervention, the marks of her terrible grief were transferred onto the silk. See here, how her tears fall over the swell of her cheek. I keep it around my throat at all times.” The singer’s voice was soft and reverent as he draped the fabric over one hand and extended it to me. “It is my most precious possession, but you may touch it if you say a prayer first.”

Benito had come to the foot of my bed and looked as if he might burst into giggles at any moment. I gave him a small shake of my head. To Florio, I asked, “How did you come by this veil?”

“Can you imagine it? The precious thing had come into the hands of a filthy Jew, a dealer in rarities and relics. It didn’t come cheap, I assure you. But I would have given my last ducat for such a worthy treasure.”

“What makes you think the cloth is genuine?”

“The Jew provided a certificate which gives its history and proves its authenticity. It is written in Latin, but he told me what it says. The Madonna kept the kerchief with her until she rose to meet her heavenly son. It was then entrusted to an apostle who soon divined its miraculous properties. Down the centuries, the veil was worshiped under close guard at a monastery high in the Vogelsberg Mountains. Some years ago it was stolen by a lay servant who needed money to get his old father out of prison. Since then, the veil has changed hands many times, always bringing good health and prolonged life to everyone who reveres it and keeps its secrets.”

“Francesco, I hardly know how to tell you.” I sighed, then plunged ahead. “This veil is a fake. You have been duped.”

Florio gazed at me in horror. When he spoke, there was an edge of anger to his voice. “Are you one of those modern men who reject the notion of miracles?”

“Not at all. God has graced me with several over the years, but this veil is not one of them. I know it for a false relic, a cloth crafted to deceive.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said brusquely. “I should have known better than to offer to share my treasure with anyone.”

Benito had guessed my intent. He had already retrieved the veil I had found in Luca’s lodging. He handed the folded cloth to me and I unfurled it on top of my bedcover.

Florio’s face was a study in loss and disillusionment. He rose from the deep armchair and laid his veil beside mine, then bent to examine both closely. To give him more light, Benito opened the window draperies as far as they would go.

Florio’s voice quavered. “I don’t understand. I paid the Jew a king’s ransom. He had a certificate.” A hopeful light sprang to his eyes. “Perhaps yours is a copy. Mine is the true veil and yours is a fake.”

I shook my head. “I knew the man who sold you the veil. He and the painter who was murdered at the theater had devised quite a scheme.” As I recounted the ingenious process that Luca had used to make the relics, Florio sank back into his chair. A dull film covered his eyes and his cheeks seemed to deflate. He said, “So the Jew who spun such a convincing tale wasn’t a dealer in antiquities at all.”

“I’m afraid not. Besides forged relics, Isacco Del’Vecchio dealt in used clothing.”

Florio’s eyebrows shot up. “He was not the Jew who was mobbed and hanged for the painter’s murder?”

“The very same. His cousin makes the headdresses and masks for the theater.”

“I hadn’t realized. Ivo told me he’d found a dealer in rarities. I thought… oh, never mind. What a fool I’ve been.” Florio’s voice trailed off and he gave the twin veils a vacant stare.

I smiled gently. “If you would come out of your dressing room now and again, and mix with the company a bit, you might know more about what is going on.”

Florio returned my smile and nodded. He seemed to be contemplating my words as if they had come from the lips of a learned philosopher instead of a singer who lacked the sense to stay away from open trap doors.

He finally said, “Perhaps I do need to change my ways. People really don’t like me very much, do they?”

I shrugged apologetically. “I know you can be kind. You should try showing that kindness more often.”

Florio gathered his Madonna veil in one plump fist. With a sigh, he pushed the fabric deep into his coat pocket, then sank back into his chair and remarked, “Suppose I begin by asking about this violent duel that landed you in a tangle with the Egyptian statue?”

“It is a duel of wits, actually.” Before I could elaborate, my door resounded with a cadence of sharp raps. Benito attempted to admit Florio’s manager, but the man insisted on hovering at the doorway. “Signori, you must pardon my intrusion. Signor Florio is expected at the residence of the French ambassador. We should be getting down to the boat.”

Florio frowned and said, “I’ve changed my mind, Ivo. I won’t be dining with the ambassador. I’m going to spend the rest of the day with my friend Tito. Make my excuses. You know how to invent something.”