6 - Whispers of Vivaldi (14 page)

***

I wandered aimlessly, stung by Tedi’s mysterious decampment and puzzled by Rocatti’s poaching of Vivaldi’s composition. If someone had asked me where I was headed, I wouldn’t have been able to say. The weather was fine, and the air held a whiff of autumn. Eventually, I found it pleasant to ramble alone with my thoughts, which had inexplicably turned away from sorrowful confusion to settle on the happier times I’d shared with Maestro Torani. Such is the way our minds seek to protect us.

A few squares east of the Calle Castangna, I passed the Greek church whose campanile listed almost as severely as the more famous tower in Pisa. Then I crossed several wooden bridges and wound through one quiet calle after another. Outside many doors, men occupied broken-down chairs, taking an after-dinner break. Their women gathered on balconies above, almost enveloped by curtains billowing out from open windows. At last I found myself on the pavement in front of the lofty, columned façade of the Church of the Pieta. The institution alongside the church was the Ospedale where Vivaldi had instructed his young female charges and where Signor Rocatti now held the same position.

I drew close enough to see the porter at the gatehouse, drowsing with his feet propped up on the counter. I could wake him. He would stretch his arms, rub his eyes, and inquire which young lady I wished to visit.

The residents of the Pieta were not all orphans, you see. Many were the natural daughters of aristocrats and their mistresses. In a society where only the oldest son of an illustrious family was encouraged to marry, the by-blows of the younger sons did tend to accumulate. While true foundlings were handed over to the nuns through a square window with nothing but their swaddling clothes, the noble daughters were consigned with generous donations to support the Ospedale and were generally acknowledged and visited by their families. Little stigma was attached to being a flower in the Pieta’s garden. If their bloodline was illustrious enough, many of the girls went on to make good marriages.

Of course, it was Rocatti I would demand of the porter, not one of the girls. I stood there for some minutes, making up my mind. I finally decided to move along and confront the young composer later, once I’d had some questions answered. What did I know of Rocatti’s background, after all? I’d especially like to know if the young composer had pirated just one aria for
The False Duke
—forgivable, perhaps—or the entire opera.

Borrowing a tune as an homage to your mentor was one thing. Presenting another composer’s opera as your own, note for note, was quite another.

I strolled west along the Riva, pausing to take in the view of San Giorgio Maggiore. Across the sparkling, rippling waves of the Basin, the island’s spires and domes could have been an immaculate stage set created by our talented Ziani. Continuing on, I came to the rose-pink arcades of the Doge’s palazzo and the square beyond. The Piazzetta’s pavement blazed in the afternoon sun, and I was glad of the stiffening breeze that whipped flags and banners into a flapping frenzy.

Fruit sellers were set up between the pair of columns that overlooked the Basin and the ships moored at its jetty. A trio of old women crouched on stools under a particularly huge umbrella that appeared in danger of toppling in the wind. In return for helping them anchor their protective shade, they offered me the pick of their wares: melons, figs, and apples. Ripe apples! They must have come from over the Alps—Italy’s wouldn’t be ready for picking for another few weeks. The sight of that heaped, shining fruit, red-striped over a delicate green, reminded me I was famished. I’d had nothing to eat that day, only a gulped cup of chocolate many hours ago. I accepted one apple for my mouth and one for my pocket.

The juicy fruit only whetted my appetite. I continued along the pavement until my feet followed old habit and turned away from the water, toward the Teatro San Marco. I called in at the first café I passed. A spindle-shanked scarecrow in a greasy apron served me a salad so fresh it could have leapt onto the plate directly from the garden. He followed that with a simple dish of macaroni browned in butter topped by a filet of perfectly grilled fish. My stomach sang!

If my mood hadn’t been mellowed by a full belly and fond reminiscence, I would’ve had the sense to avoid Peretti’s, the coffee house frequented by musicians and theatrical folk. Men only—the single woman allowed in Peretti’s was the ancient beldame who tended the steaming copper urn.

I deposited a soldo in the admission box and passed through the glassed doors. It took but a moment to realize my mistake. As I glanced up and down the long tables, news-gazettes abruptly rose to cover their readers’ eyes. Pipes suddenly went out, necessitating a great folderol of tobacco and tinder boxes. Snuff cried out to be taken. These activities occupied my acquaintances who were embarrassed to encounter one of their number who was suspected of killing the revered maestro of the San Marco.

More forthright men—the sensation-seekers and morbidly curious—merely stared open-mouthed, as if I’d grown an extra nose.

For the space of a heartbeat, I stood frozen. I saw none of my particularly trusted friends and couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. Suddenly, fiery coals of anger burst into flame beneath my soles and impelled my steps toward my usual seat. By God’s grace, I had as much right to take coffee at Peretti’s as any other man! Struggling to maintain a dignified mien, I removed my hat, sank down on the bench, and called my order to the boy.

He dashed over to the urn, returned with the cup clattering in its dish, and pushed it at me with bulging eyes. I sent him a wink, which only served to make him go white as a sheet.

Sigh.

I’d taken only a few sips of the stimulating brew when the two men I least wanted to see in this world entered the steamy coffee house and headed straight toward me. Lorenzo Caprioli eased his bulk down on my right and Emiliano, his primo uomo, squeezed in on my left. I felt my jaws tense, my stomach flutter. After ordering a cup of coffee each, the scoundrels from the Teatro Grimani propped their elbows on the plank table as if they meant to settle in for a good talk.

Thus bracketed, I could only say my buongiorno through clenched teeth. More than the beverage distinguished coffee house from tavern. It was the fast rule of every coffee house from London to Rome that discourse remain sober and civil, all the better to foster brotherhood and free exchange of new philosophies.

There were other reasons to keep my demeanor in check. At least fifty pairs of eyes were watching. I hardly wanted to give Peretti’s clientele a fiery show that would be talked about all over the city. That would seal my reputation as a volatile monster for good.

Chapter Fourteen

Caprioli slapped me on the back as if we were boon companions, hard enough to make my chest start throbbing again.

“I have to thank you, Tito,” the impresario said with an evil grin. “You’ve given my
Venus and Adonis
an astounding advantage. If anyone even goes to see…ah, what do you call your opera? I can’t seem to recall.” He touched two fingers to his forehead. “
The Pretend Prince
?
The Counterfeit Count
?
The Misbegotten Marquis
?”

“
The False Duke
,” Emiliano supplied. The hefty castrato was eating marzipan candy from a tin enameled with flowers and bows. He licked his fingers and held the tin out invitingly. “Tito?”

“
Grazie
, no.” I could barely contain myself.

“Yes,” a very self-satisfied Caprioli continued. “Anyone who takes a box for
The False Duke
will see an under-rehearsed mess sung by a second-rate prima donna and a so-called primo uomo with a slit beneath his breeches where his lonely, limp rod should hang. After the audience has a good laugh, they’ll run back to the Teatro Grimani and stay there.”

“
The False Duke
is a masterly piece of work,” I stated flatly. “Venetians will recognize it for the true jewel it is.” I inhaled deeply, and added in a quiet but firm tone. “They also recognize shit when they see it.”

My insult pricked Caprioli’s bubble of conceit. He bristled, sitting tall and tugging jacket sleeves over food-stained lace cuffs. After a moment he said, “That’s brazen talk for a man who’s one step ahead of Messer Grande’s long reach.”

“You know I didn’t kill Maestro Torani,” I shot back loudly enough for the entire coffee house to hear. I glanced around. No man was making a pretense of reading his paper now.

“Actually, I tend to believe you.” Caprioli paused for a slurp of coffee. “But the Savio obviously doesn’t. He’s put Niccolo Rocatti in charge of
The False Duke
.”

Rocatti! “Wha—” I began, before I could stop myself. Though Rocatti was the composer of record, I was certain that Signor Passoni would call on Giuseppe Balbi to direct. The violinist was so much more in tune with Teatro San Marco’s ways.

“You haven’t heard?” Caprioli stabbed an elbow on the table and propped his fleshy chin in his hand. “We had it from Majorano, didn’t we, my good Emiliano.”

The castrato nodded, gobbling another marzipan.

“No, I hadn’t heard.” I cleared my throat. “But Rocatti…he is the composer, after all.” I wouldn’t publicly deny Rocatti his laurels until I was certain that he didn’t deserve them. “He should be able to whip
The False Duke
into shape.”

“Poor Rocatti is a tolerable composer, I’ll grant you that. But a man who finds it difficult to organize the giggling misses at the Pieta won’t be able to bring a rebellious opera company to heel.”

“Rebellious?” I repeated under my breath.

Emiliano slid his candy tin back in a deep pocket. “Majorano isn’t happy—not happy at all.” He paused to suck on his teeth. “Who would be, suddenly forced to play second fiddle to Angeletto? I don’t blame Majorano for arranging for a claque—I would do the same if I were in his place—and tell them to lay on plenty of rotten tomatoes and a few stones.”

I was reminded how much I truly disliked Emiliano. Everything about him was false—the cosmetics that accentuated his classic profile, the pads his tailor inserted to broaden his shoulders, the corset that kept his belly firm. I wiped a hand over my damp forehead. I needed to leave Peretti’s, but the two Teatro Grimani fools had me neatly wedged in, especially now that someone else had squeezed in behind me.

Caprioli grabbed the conversation back. “Can you imagine
The False Duke
suddenly bereft of its huntsman?”

“Are you planning to steal Majorano for your company?” I asked.

The villain laughed outright. “I don’t need that pretty boy, not when the Grimani’s subscribers worship Emiliano. No, here’s what I mean to say: If Messer Grande arrests Majorano for Torani’s murder, that would leave quite a hole in the company.”

“Majorano wasn’t even at the Ca’Passoni last night.”

Caprioli had dropped his air of false bonhomie. His piggy eyes glinted with malevolence. “He was. You just didn’t see him.”

“What?” I sputtered.

“Oh, yes.” The impresario nodded deeply. “I saw him. I came
en masque
. Didn’t notice me, did you?”

“Yes, I did.” Grateful for a small triumph, I stretched a point. “I recognized you by your ill-fitting turquoise breeches.”

“Well…” He worked his brows up and down, momentarily knocked off stride, then continued. “Majorano blundered through the front doors when most of the guests had either departed or hurried from the salon to view the late lamented Torani’s body. The boy was drunk as a sailor on his first night home, railing against Torani and Angeletto at the top of his prodigious lungs. He had a few choice words for you and Signor Balbi, too. He didn’t stop there—he’d like to see the entire Teatro San Marco sink beneath the lagoon!” Caprioli paused to pick at his teeth with a fingernail, then laughed and nodded. “With everyone else otherwise engaged, I had to help the footman get Majorano back outside and into a gondola.”

Emiliano sighed and stared into the middle distance. “I would love to have seen that. I should have put on a mask and accompanied you.”

“You were perfectly welcome. I told you.…”

“But it would have been embarrassing to be thrown out if the Savio had recognized me.”

“I told you not to worry.”

They were talking over me now, as if I’d suddenly disappeared. I gripped the edge of the table, unable to endure one more minute. I twisted around as far as I could and thrust an elbow into a belly covered with a linen waistcoat.
If this buffoon behind me would just move out of the way.…

The buffoon turned out to be Aldo, a most unlikely rescuer.

The San Marco’s stage manager placed a hand on my shoulder and announced loudly, “I’m glad I found you, Signor Amato. You’re wanted at the theater. We must go now.” He sent Caprioli a pointed look.

The impresario rose, his face cloaked by a puzzled expression. Emiliano followed suit. I was puzzled, too, but resolved not to show it.

I’d clambered over the bench and turned to follow Aldo when Caprioli spun me halfway around with a rough hand on my arm. In a caustic whisper, he said, “You won’t win, Amato. Whatever is going on here, the Grimani will end up with the Senate’s backing. I can’t fail—I hold the whip hand.”

I shook his hand from my sleeve. “I don’t see any whip.”

He snorted. “It wouldn’t be of much value if you could see it, now would it?”

***

On the crowded pavement in front of Peretti’s, still simmering over the conversation inside, I turned to Aldo. “I’m not really wanted at the theater, am I?”

The stage manager gave an exasperated grunt. “Oh, you’re wanted all right—by Ziani, the singers, the musicians, the dance master, the trash collector—by everyone except the Savio.”

“Does that include yourself?” I put in quickly.

Aldo pursed his lips like he smelled cabbage burning, but he nodded and said, “Yes. Me, too. Without you, the opera is in danger of becoming a shambles.”

“What’s gone so wrong? Rocatti has been the director for less than a day.”

“We need a quieter spot.” Aldo jerked his chin towards something behind me. I followed his gaze and saw Scarface, one of the bravos who carried Caprioli’s chair, leaning against the side of the building, regarding us with poorly concealed interest. An actor, he wasn’t.

“This way.” I headed up the pavement, away from Scarface and the once comfortable coffee house now poisoned by suspicion. In silence, Aldo and I passed a line of shops, some still shuttered for the dinner hour. We turned a corner at an apothecary establishment displaying a wickedly tentacled aloe plant in its window, and eventually stopped at a long quay where four or five untended gondolas bobbed. “Here?”

He nodded and we rested on a low granite wall enclosing a shallow flight of steps that dropped to the water’s edge. The damp, cool smell of low tide rose from the tangled fronds of green moss that flourished in the space between the water’s highest and lowest marks. On the pavement, women passed in bright shawls or an occasional black zendale, men in rough work clothes. We had passed out of the theater quarter. I was not well known here, and no one seemed to pay us any particular attention.

“What has happened?” I burst out. Though painfully curious, I was also uncomfortable in depending on the observations of a man who’d made it crushingly obvious that he didn’t care for me.

Aldo still hesitated. He must have been feeling the same. After a wry grimace, he began, “The Savio gathered us all at the theater this morning. After a few words about Maestro Torani’s death—and nothing said about you, as if you’d also ceased to exist—he introduced Rocatti as our new director. The Savio had to push the man forward. Literally push him with a hand to his back. Rocatti mumbled his buongiorno and started into a pretty little speech about how we’d all soon be fast friends.”

Aldo crossed a booted foot over his knee and threw his head back as if imploring Heaven to deliver him. With a deep sigh, he returned his gaze to me. “Can you imagine? Oriana giggled outright. And Majorano kept asking who was the fool the Savio had brought in.” Aldo’s gaze sharpened. “He looked a sheet or two to the wind, blinking and rubbing his eyes to keep himself awake…Majorano, I mean.”

“Still drunk? At that hour?”

The stage manager shook his head. “More likely the effects of drink the night before. I’m surprised he was able to stumble into the theater. But Tito, that wasn’t the worst of it. Angeletto and his entourage arrived while Rocatti was still trying to learn everyone’s name and connect them with the parts they sing.”

An image leapt to mind—Angeletto being carried onstage by his troop of sisters like a plaster saint borne aloft in a feast-day procession. Apparently, I wasn’t far from wrong.

Aldo described the scene: “The Vanini women just kept coming, the old mother in the lead and the others following like a gaggle of geese. Then the mother cackled her orders and they all scattered. She started in on me with a steady stream of demands. Carlo must have the biggest dressing room, with at least two windows, and plenty of candles—and a pitcher of fresh water to be on the table at all times lest his precious throat dry up. I’m to furnish his sisters with everything they need. There’s one to mend his costumes, one to iron them, one to fetch his dinner—” Aldo threw up his hands. “One to wipe his butt after he takes a shit, for all I know.”

“Was Maria Luisa with them?”

“The horse-face with the spectacles? Looks like she’s forever doing sums in her head?”

“That’s her. Did she have her own set of stipulations?”

Aldo puffed out his cheeks and exhaled noisily. His gaze lit on a passing water carrier, a pavement goddess with a straight back and sleeves rolled above muscular forearms bearing buckets. Thus burdened, she still managed to twitch her hips at him. Aldo grinned before switching his attention back to me. “The sister didn’t have any orders for me. She stationed herself in the wings—stood there waiting and watching for some time. Not much gets by her, I’d guess. Once Angeletto was escorted to the costume workshop, this…Maria Luisa?”

I nodded

“Well, Maria Luisa made a frontal assault on Signor Rocatti—a daring piece of work since he was in conversation with the Savio and Ziani. The Savio had demanded to see how his cursed shipwreck was progressing—Ziani was demonstrating how he’d rigged the deck to split in half at the finale’s crescendo. The Savio was impressed, but he wanted it even bigger and grander. ” Aldo danced his hands one around the other to signify the inflated trumpery of Signor Passoni’s orders. “Anyway, Maria Luisa strides right up, tears Rocatti away, and draws him into the corner by the stairs. She was shaking her finger, laying the law down about something. I couldn’t hear, but poor Rocatti looked even more unhappy than he had all morning.”

Poor Rocatti
. Aldo was the second person to employ that phrase within the past hour. I asked, “Has any rehearsal been accomplished today?”

“Only because Balbi pulled himself out of his doldrums. He’s taking the old man’s death hard—I’ve never seen him so affected. He sat in the orchestra pit with his head in his hands for nearly an hour. Finally he removed his violin from its case and had his musicians strike up the overture. The singers naturally drifted onstage. Then Balbi suggested that the company run through the opera as it stands so Rocatti could form a clear picture of what needs to be done.”

“Was Signor Rocatti pleased with
The False Duke
?” It must be a treat to see your music sung well in the proper setting, sheer torture to see it mangled. But then, if it wasn’t really your music, how would you feel? Embarrassed, guilt-ridden, afraid of being found out? Or perhaps Rocatti was one of those men who possessed a stone cold heart that felt nothing. No, I thought forcefully, last night Rocatti greeted Signora Passoni with true warmth. He feels something for her.

Aldo was slowly shaking his head, fingering his lower lip. “Hard to tell what Rocatti thought. He and the Savio watched from the Doge’s box without comment or interruption. When they came down to the stage, the Savio quickly released everyone for a late dinner break, promising that Rocatti would deliver his impressions when we resume.” The stage manager consulted a watch connected to a long, hand-woven fob. “Which should be in about ten minutes.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and massaged his lids, then he looked at me sidelong. “I loved the old maestro as much as you did.”

“I know.” I recalled the many times that Torani had urged me to cultivate better relations with the stage manager, but Aldo had never responded to my overtures. I’d decided that he was jealous of the musical bond he could never share.

“Did Torani ever tell you how we met?” Aldo cocked his head.

I shook my head.