6 - Whispers of Vivaldi (17 page)

Andrea turned a page, then another and another. He scratched his head, grunted, and turned to regard me soberly. The fact that I’d tried to suppress the score didn’t seem to bother him one whit. Instead of berating me, he asked, “What do you make of this, Tito? I never learned to read music. I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

I explained that the tattered music manuscript in his hands and
The False Duke
were one in the same, note for note.

Messer Grande rocked back on his heels, staring into the dimmest corner of the room. “This is something that Maestro Torani didn’t want publicly known.”

“Apparently—he certainly went to a great deal of trouble to hide the Vivaldi original. Though at the Savio’s reception, I overheard him tease Signora Passoni by asking if she didn’t hear the whispers of Vivaldi in the selections I’d given Oriana to sing.”

Messer Grande’s head swiveled abruptly. His dark eyes blazed. “And did Signora Passoni agree?”

I shrugged. “His comment seemed to upset her terribly—she left the salon in unseemly haste.”

“Accompanied by the faithful Franco?”

I nodded. “I didn’t see Signora Passoni again until after Maestro Torani was dead. I didn’t see Franco again at all.” I heard a throb of urgency take possession of my voice. “This original opera may well be the decisive clue that solves Maestro Torani’s murder. Signora Passoni, Franco, Rocatti, and even Lorenzo Caprioli—they all have possible ties to the opera, and they were all there at the reception. With the overflowing crowd, it would have been easy enough for one of them to persuade Maestro Torani to speak in private without being noticed by anyone else. Don’t you think so?”

Andrea rolled up the score, stowed it in a deep pocket, and yawned behind the fist clutching his black gloves. “Ah, Tito,” he said, with his heavy features set in a sympathetic expression. “I make it a point never to come to conclusions in the small hours. That’s when hags ride out on their night mares, invading men’s dreams and confusing their wits.”

I dropped my chin, closed my eyes, and rubbed my scratchy lids with forefinger and thumb. Messer Grande had often praised the French
philosophes
and advised me to follow the rational principals of these men of letters. He didn’t believe in the bogey story of the night hag any more than I did. It was only his facetious way of saying that a rested mind is sharper than a tired one. He spoke wisely. I was so exhausted, my thoughts were going round in circles.

When I dropped my hand and looked up, a dark hole existed where Messer Grande had stood only a moment before.

“Let’s go home,” Gussie whispered, looking a little shamefaced.

“Lead on, my dear fellow,” I shakily replied.

***

Morning came much too soon—a dull gray morning that beat against our bedchamber’s balcony doors in gusty, windy bursts.

“I feared this,” Liya said, after she’d peeled my nightshirt back and given my chest a practiced look. “An infection has taken hold. Suppuration will soon begin.” She felt my brow with the back of her hand and shook her head. Her manner was the same as if Titolino had made himself bilious eating too many sugared
frittoli
.

I reclined upon a stack of pillows, my mouth as dry as parchment and my head feeling too big for my neck. Gathering my wits, I pushed up on one elbow. The skin around the linear wound, I noted ruefully, was a puckered, angry red.

Liya had already dressed. She stared down at me with arms crossed over her apron. “I can give you something for the fever, but your wound requires a special balm.”

I rolled over towards her, wondering what time it was and if I was in danger of being late for Maestro Torani’s funeral. “What you used yesterday made it feel much better.”

“That was yesterday. Today, internal corruption has set in, and stronger medicine is required.” She reached out to trace her fingertips along my ribs. They seemed to burn more warmly than my skin. “The ingredients for the compound are…not easy to come by. I may be gone several hours.”

“Can’t you obtain the proper ingredients from the apothecary in the campo?”

She chuckled as she bent to kiss my cheek. “The last time I checked, he was all out of spider webs gathered from a north-facing cave, and his stock has never run to moldy bread.”

While I was still trying to decide if my wife was joking or not, she brought me a glass of milky, opalescent liquid and insisted that I drink it right down. I clamped my nose shut, certain the remedy would be foul. To my surprise, it tasted sweet and smelled faintly of fennel.

As Liya removed her thick red cloak from the wardrobe and rummaged drawers for her knitted gloves, she ordered me to stay in bed and drink plenty of water. “There will be no funeral for you—just as well—it would only end by making you angrier than you already are.” She went on to say that the kitchen girl would be up with a pitcher of fresh water, then fired several more dire admonitions at me. At each one, I smiled complacently and settled into my pillows like a man who intended to take a long, refreshing sleep.

I waved to my wife as she left the bedroom. In a few moments, the thud of the front door floated up the stairs. I made myself count to one hundred. Then my feet hit the floor.

Chapter Seventeen

After a cup of inferior chocolate prepared by the kitchen girl, I dressed myself. I chose a plain suit of loden-green broadcloth, a starched neckcloth, and a black cloak. In deference to my fever, I donned woolen stockings instead of silk and wrapped a scarf around my neck. No curls, no lace frills, no feather in my hat. Without Benito’s sartorial skill, I looked rather a sober, dull fellow. So be it. I was going to Maestro Torani’s funeral, and I was going alone. Last night, Gussie had offered to accompany me, but this was a duty best fulfilled on my own. I didn’t want him embarrassed if Signor Passoni felt the need to have me thrown down the church steps.

If truth be told, I’d found funerals particularly distressing ever since my days at the Conservatorio San Remo. Naples sat on unsteady ground. The roots of its smoke-belching, humpbacked mountain ran deep, burrowing under the vineyards on its sides and causing intermittent tremors that wreaked havoc on ancient buildings. On a schoolboy excursion, we’d once come upon some workmen removing broken coffins from the burial crypt of a church that had fallen in on itself. We boy singers had broken ranks, ignoring our maestro’s strident commands to reform our double line. I’d never forgotten kneeling on the broken foundation stones, peering over into the pit, and coming face to face with a human head lodged in the debris.

Its flesh was sunken in decay, pulled back from a mouth gaping in a silent scream. The nose had collapsed to one side, its eyes into cankerous depressions. A rotting veil held in place by gold chains swathed the skull, and shreds of that discolored cloth coiled through a tangle of gray-white hair. I popped up with a shriek and didn’t stop running until I’d reached the next campo. In a boys’ school, as you may imagine, I was never allowed to forget my cowardice. Even now, whenever I chance to encounter a gondola bearing a catafalque, a gloomy chill takes possession of my heart and fills me with despondency and foreboding.

The weather matched my mood. A Sirocco was coming, bound to bring an early
acqua alta
. I could smell it in the salty tang of the wind and see it in the shifting gray clouds that dirtied the sky to the southeast. Within days, the wind would turn ferocious, whipping the lagoon into waves topped with pea-green foam and flooding the piazza. Not an auspicious beginning for Carnival, or for the opening of
The False Duke
. I pushed my tricorne firmly down on my head, tried to ignore my light head and aching chest, and directed my steps towards the church of San Nicoletto where Maestro Torani would be laid to rest.

At its modest portico, I found a dozen or so facchini laboring as paid mourners. The men were putting on a grand show, weeping, moaning, and extolling Torani in fulsome terms. Their specialty was fastening themselves to the arms of passers-by who were obliged to give over a coin to be released from their supplications; thus the false mourners earned double pay. I’d hoped to arrive before the Savio’s party, and for once luck was with me. I entered the church untroubled except for being forced to shake off one particular industrious mourner.

I dipped three fingers in the vestibule font—freezing!—and whispered a prayer as I made the sign of the cross. Then I slid into an out-of-the-way pew beside a small side chapel and divested myself of cloak and hat. Aldo, Ziani, Giuseppe Balbi, and few others from the Teatro San Marco had already arrived. They knelt down front with bowed heads and folded hands. I followed their lead. In addition to my uncharacteristic clothing, burying my nose and chin in my tented fingers might save me from attracting notice, at least for a bit.

Over my mask of sorts, I surveyed San Nicoletto’s interior. It was considerably more impressive than its exterior, not an opulent cavern like the Basilica San Marco, but there was a fluid symmetry in the gilded arches that framed the three naves and a touching humanity in the painting of the Madonna behind the high altar. I inhaled deeply; traces of incense lingered, stale and sweet.

I was stalling, of course, but I couldn’t put the moment off any longer. By force of will, I turned my attention to Maestro Torani’s death box. Garlands of ivy and fall flowers girdled the coffin atop the black-taffeta-draped bier in front of the central nave, and at least a hundred tapers glowed in ranks to each side. I shivered, out of grief or fever or troubling memories. Or perhaps a mixture of all three. I couldn’t stop myself from picturing the empty, deteriorating shell of the vibrant Maestro Torani I had known. Never again would I have his wise counsel. Never again share a simple glass of wine. Never again see the warmth in his eyes when we talked of music, our shared passion.

My grief was shot through with guilt. On the Rialto, when we’d first talked of
The False Duke
, Maestro Torani had expressed a longing for a life without care, much like Vivaldi’s Duke who gave up a gilded existence to sport in a glade with his lovely milkmaid. I’d failed to realize how weary the maestro must have been, how drained from herding selfish singers and supporting a theaterful of workers, how weak from fighting off assaults by unscrupulous rivals like Lorenzo Caprioli. My dear mentor had actually carried the marks of a beating he’d received in his desperate quest for the life he craved, yet I had failed to see through his facile excuses.

I bowed my head. Not in prayer, but in shame. Once all Venice had reveled in my voice. I was the toast of any opera house where I chose to perform. I knew the dangers of fame and the difficulties of clinging to the pinnacle of my profession. Yet, I didn’t see that Maestro Torani was beset by similar evils. I’d failed him utterly.

Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped back to the present. Was I being dismissed from the service all ready? It seemed cruelly unfair to be shown the door when I’d taken pains to make myself so inconspicuous.

It wasn’t a Passoni bravo, only Oriana, sharp-eyed soubrette that she was.

Smiling a little too brightly for a funeral, she brushed her hat’s wind-whipped ostrich plume off her cheek. The feather was black, to be sure, but only Oriana would choose such a modish hat and fitted jacket when the weather and the occasion called for a cloak with a tightly drawn hood. “My goodness, Tito,” she said pertly, “what are you doing alone all the way back here? You must sit down front with us.”

I flapped my hand to shush her, but the soprano plowed on without even stopping for breath, “You know we all love you. Others may say what they like, but no one from the company seriously believes that you killed Maestro Torani.” She gave an exasperated sigh. “After all, who was closer to the maestro than you? The Savio was quite wrong to remove you as director—even though Niccolo is doing a manful job, it forces him to do double duty at the San Marco and the Pieta. He’s been so terribly busy.” She turned to beam at the man who accompanied her.

As I rose, I noticed her companion for the first time. It was Niccolo Rocatti, and Oriana was already calling him by his Christian name. She had never been one to let grass grow under her feet, where either men or casting were concerned.

“Signor Amato.” Rocatti made me a small bow, which I answered with a nod. He wore the same white wig and severe suit that he had at the reception—perhaps it was the only one he owned. The young violin master continued, “I’m so glad to see that all is being done fittingly. Signor Passoni has obviously spared no expense—the cost of those tapers alone could feed an orphan for a year.”

Suddenly I felt as sharp as a dagger and eager for an argument. “Ah, you must have known Maestro Torani before he gave me leave to produce…
The False Duke
.”

Rocatti sent me a curious look.

“To be concerned over his arrangements, I mean.”

Rocatti shrugged. A bit too obviously, I thought. He said, “We did have a slight acquaintance, but mostly I admired Maestro Torani from afar. You know how it is. One knows the greats better than they know you.”

I pressed on: “I thought perhaps you might have shown him a copy of your score before I saw it.”

“No,” Rocatti answered slowly, as if he were speaking from far, far away. “What made you think that?”

“Simply that the maestro took to it so enthusiastically—almost as if he were already familiar with it.”

“Did Maestro Torani say that?”

“No,” I said shortly. “It was merely an impression I formed. When did you first meet Maestro Torani?”

Rocatti looked airily around the church before his gaze met mine again. His cheeks grew pink. “You know, I don’t believe I recall.”

If that were true, I was the Bey of Constantinople. I passed a hand over my brow.

“Are you all right, Tito?” Oriana’s elegantly gloved hand was suddenly at my elbow. The floor had seemed to sway, but it righted when I gave my head a good shake.

“You don’t look well,” Rocatti added. “You’ve gone quite pale.”

“I’m fine,” I replied, mustering more confidence than I felt. Perhaps Liya’s warnings were more accurate than I wanted to admit. My head was swimming, and it took a great deal of energy to stay upright. “You two go on. I’m better off here.”

“If you’re sure…” Oriana said under her breath as her companion drew her away.

I sank gratefully to my former pose and hooked my elbows over the next pew. Presently, an organ sounded from the rear loft, low and velvety. It was a mournful tune befitting the occasion, but heavy, so heavy that the windy notes pressed upon me with palpable force. A pair of acolytes threw the main doors open, making the church even chillier, and a steady stream of congregants entered. Black gloves and arm bands, black-edged handkerchiefs and fans, and silk veils the length of shrouds were the order of the day. Though my city of pleasure tended to gloss over death, the twin scourges of age and illness could not be denied, and every person of consequence possessed a decent stock of mourning wear.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the luminaries of Venice’s musical world fill the pews. Majorano was one of the last. He hurried down the center aisle, dressed in a rumpled jacket of tan camlet, a decidedly informal costume for a funeral. With an irritated grimace, Giuseppe Balbi pressed shoulder to shoulder with Ziani to make room for the singer. The common workers from all the theaters except the Teatro Grimani came, too—the scene shifters, the seamstresses, the prompters, the curtain raisers—but they stood in back or filtered into the side chapels. Only a few individuals from both groups noticed me, sending reassuring nods or indignant scowls according to their lights. No one handed me an outright challenge until the Passoni party arrived.

The Savio entered first, with his lady wife on his arm, and proceeded slowly down the center aisle in time to the organ’s dirge. Long-faced, they both kept their eyes trained on the funeral bier. Franco followed closely behind, one arm hugging a purple and gold tapestry cushion that his mistress would kneel on during Mass. The castrato’s expression was downcast; his brows tightly knit. I felt a stab of sympathy for the man. He was so completely Signora Passoni’s creature. Really nothing more than a servant, even if he did dress in silk and live in luxury. Did Franco have his own dreams, his own ambitions? Or had he already fulfilled them?

Beatrice was next in the procession, lagging behind as if to distance herself from her parents and assert a small measure of independence. No dimples today! Her red-gold curls framed a sullen face before flowing down onto her green cloak. That cloak! The sight of it made me drop my hands and half rise. So that’s where Grillo’s cloak had got to. Beatrice must have removed it from the card room after I’d gone to tend my wounded chest at the water closet basin. How bold she was to display her lover’s cloak so obviously.

I plopped down quickly, but my sharp movements must have caught the girl’s attention. She stretched her neck to look over the bowed heads in the crowded center pew. Oh, yes, she’d spotted me. She raised the leather-bound missal she carried in piously folded hands and shielded her face. From behind the holy book wrapped with her silver-beaded rosary, Beatrice fixed me with a stare and stuck out her sharply pointed, pink tongue.

The little minx! I’d placed myself in jeopardy to keep her scandalous secret, and this is how she repaid me!

I took a dry gulp—I felt so hot all of a sudden—and watched the Passoni family and their retainers proceed to the front of the church. Their party included Angeletto, Maria Luisa, and old Mother Vanini, who’d unearthed a fusty widow’s gown that must have seen duty since the turn of the century. The entire party gathered around Maestro Torani’s coffin as if they were the dearest friends he possessed. Several minutes of head shaking and dabbing handkerchiefs to dry eyes ensued. Eventually an elderly priest lumbered out of the sacristy. After bowing to the Savio, he made a series of fawning, hand wringing gestures toward the front pews, clearly anxious to begin the service. While Signora Passoni used Franco’s long arm to steady herself onto her pillow, Beatrice plucked at her father’s sleeve. His noble profile swiveled her direction, and the girl whispered something behind her hand.

Then Beatrice pointed directly at me. The Savio’s gaze followed her finger, his dark glare as heavy lidded as a lizard’s. Our eyes met, and the air between us seemed to vibrate with antagonism. Tedi Dall’Agata had taken Beatrice’s measure correctly. This over-indulged girl was beyond mischievous; she was a troublemaker of the first water. I grabbed my things and made my feet move toward the church doors before Signor Passoni could send his bravos marching down the side aisle.

I didn’t mind leaving—truly not. Prayers for Maestro Torani’s eternal soul were all very well, but I could leave those to the priests. I meant to fasten my mind on the living, on the shadowy one who’d taken Maestro Torani from us. On the villain who roamed Venice while my mentor’s body slowly rotted in the crypt. Finding justice for Torani was the last gift I could give him, and that goal could be better served by asking questions instead of kneeling in church. It was just that my legs were so unsteady and my thinking so clouded.

“Has Tito taken to drink?” I heard someone whisper as I lurched toward the vestibule. Dio mio! I tried to quicken and straighten my steps at the same time. I had to get out of San Nicoletto’s smothering atmosphere and breathe fresh air.