6 - Whispers of Vivaldi (7 page)

Tedi hesitated again.

“Go on,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

“Of course, you’ve guessed. She was a woman from the opera. ‘A trifle,’ said Grillo, ‘who should’ve been flattered.’ Flattered that he’d even bothered with her. Her name was Carla Vanini, and she was hiding a terrible secret—she supported her entire family by pretending to be a castrato singer.” Tedi pressed her lips into a thin line. “I’m sorry, Tito.”

I took a deep breath. I shifted my gaze from Tedi to Torani.

The maestro didn’t appear nearly as outraged as I expected. In truth, he seemed more exhausted than anything. He studied me solemnly, leaning back against the window sill with arms crossed. “If that story is true,” he said after a moment, “our bacon is well and truly cooked.”

“It’s not true.” The words tore out of me without conscious thought.

“Are you certain?”

“I wouldn’t have engaged Angeletto if I weren’t.” I meant those words. During the journey from Milan, I’d thoroughly dismissed Gussie’s assertions and stuffed them into a cobwebbed niche in a remote corner of my mind.

“All right. I trust your judgment.” Torani nodded deeply, crinkling his eyes. “If you are certain, Girolamo Grillo must be lying. The question is—what are we going to do about it?”

Tedi spoke up in an ominous tone. “The Savio will soon hear of this. He wasn’t at the reception, but word spreads quickly among the foremost families.”

“Let’s see,” I rose and began to pace the small office. “We have a known charlatan and adventurer claiming that he has personally enjoyed Angeletto’s…er…womanly charms. We also have at least one person who would love to see
The Duke
fall flat on its face.” I whirled around to question Tedi. “Did Grillo make a point of his conquest being the one and the same Angeletto who will soon head our cast?”

“Yes, several times,” said the soprano. “He painted the Teatro San Marco as the butt of a huge jest, and called our new opera an outright farce. His friends were drinking it in.”

“Someone put him up to it, I’ll be bound. Grillo is merely a tool being used to discredit us. We can’t blame Beatrice Passoni. She may have overstepped her bounds where the news of Angeletto’s hiring is concerned, but she certainly didn’t invent this story for Grillo to spread.” I tapped my chin. “We know our enemy, don’t we, Maestro?”

“Lorenzo Caprioli.” Torani made no attempt to cover his contempt in his tone. “Making a puppet of Grillo, using his scandalous escapades as a weapon against us, that would be precisely Caprioli’s style.”

“Exactly.” I nodded slowly.

Tedi regarded me plaintively. “But what do we do, Tito? How can we fight him?” She shot a quick glance at Torani.

Framed by the dark wood of the window embrasure, the maestro seemed to have aged ten years. His expression was perplexed. His head bobbed like a boat on the waves, and the loose folds of his neck trembled as he repeated Tedi’s question, “Yes, Tito, what do we do?”

My gaze slid from one to the other. And back again. Maestro Torani had always provided wise and worldly advice, not only about music, but about the prudent conduct of a castrato who was by his nature detached from conventional society. Angels to some and monsters to others, castrato singers could never slip through a crowd unnoticed. For years the maestro had been at my back, guiding me past the traps of fame and the despair of isolation. Now Torani was begging advice from me. It was an unsettling feeling.

I took a few more fitful paces, then said, “First, we must shut Grillo’s mouth. And quickly.”

“How do you propose to that?” Torani asked.

“I’ll find a way,” I answered quietly.

A knock on the door saved me from further discussion.

“Avanti,” Torani called.

The door creaked open, and Aldo’s head poked through the gap. “Signor Balbi has assembled the orchestra, Maestro. He’s awaiting instructions.”

Torani straightened. “Tell him Tito will be there in a few minutes.”

Ah, yes. We had an opera to rehearse. No matter what other trials lay before us,
The Duke
had to be ready to open, note perfect, in just over three weeks.

Chapter Seven

As Aldo withdrew, a sudden glimmer of sunlight shot through the churning clouds. Every surface—walls, ceiling, and floors—shimmered in watery light reflected off the canal through the diamond window panes.

The resulting dispersal of gloom seemed to lighten all our moods. Torani reclaimed his wig and kissed Tedi on the cheek. Then the maestro went over to his desk. He pulled out the long middle drawer, but instead of placing Angeletto’s contract inside, he closed it again. He winked, and after folding the papers longwise, tucked them under the blue blotter that was just visible beneath the mess on the desktop.

“We’ll keep the business details to ourselves, Tito. If Majorano finds out how much we’re paying Angeletto, he’ll demand the same.”

Tedi ran her fingers through her loose chignon. She murmured something about having her maid redress her hair before rehearsal, and slipped through the door.

“Walk me out, Tito,” Torani said as he grabbed his cockaded tricorne off a wooden peg.

“You’re not coming to rehearsal?”

He shook his head. “You can handle it; I have business elsewhere. We ran through Scene One yesterday. Except for the duke’s arias, of course—they’ll have to wait for Angeletto’s arrival. When will that be?”

“A day or two, I expect.”

“That will do. I told everyone we’d do Scenes Two and Three today. The copyist is hard at work delivering the scores as we go—faster that way. Now Tito,” he touched my arm, “it’s early days yet, but don’t allow Majorano to go overboard with posture and stance. He still wants to act the prince, even though he’s playing a lowly huntsman.”

I merely rolled my eyes.

As we navigated the maze of corridors that wound from backstage toward the water entrance, I was pleased to see that the maestro seemed to have shaken off his worries. He was the Torani I was accustomed to: aged, yes, but also brisk, confident, anticipating every detail.

“How did you get along with Signor Leone?” Torani trotted along. Tapping his stick no more than every third step, he outpaced me in the narrow passage.

“Leone was very helpful, but I regretted taking his hospitality. His household is so poor.”

“Poor?” Torani guffawed. “My friend Leone keeps a locked chest full of ducats in his storeroom. He insists on saving them for the rainy day that never comes.”

“While his wife and children live little better than paupers?”

“You’ve heard the old proverb about the ant and the grasshopper.” The old man shrugged. “Leone is the industrious one who lays up stores for the lean days of winter.”

“Then who’s the squandering grasshopper?”

“Me, of course.” Torani sighed. “I’ve always been a fool where money is concerned.” His steps slowed and his stick’s taps grew farther apart. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you, Tito.” Tap…tap. “How did you come by Rocatti’s score in the first place?”

The passage widened into the lobby, and I lengthened my strides so that we were walking shoulder to shoulder. “That was a curious thing, Maestro. Rocatti seemed very hesitant when he asked my opinion of the work.”

“Where did he approach you? Peretti’s?”

“No, that was another odd thing. I’d gone to the Ghetto with Liya. While she visited with her mother, I planned to bend Pincas’ ear at his shop.”

A sidelong glance told me Torani understood. As a witness to my family’s tangled history, he knew that Signora Del’Vecchio and I were sworn enemies. I couldn’t stand to breathe the same air as that viper of a woman, and she never tired of telling me—capon, she called me, never Tito—what a poor, damaged scrap of a man I was. Liya’s father, Pincas, was another story. The used clothing dealer and I got along very well.

“Pincas happened to be out,” I continued. “So I strolled up the calle to the Spanish Synagogue where a concert was taking place.”

Torani stopped. He wrinkled his brow. “I know that Christians often attend afternoon lectures and concerts in the Ghetto. But I’ve never heard you mention that particular activity.”

“No. It’s the kind of thing I always mean to do but rarely find the time for.”

“What happened?”

“Not much, really. The Hebrew orchestra was good, but nothing special. During the intermission, a good-looking young gentleman approached me and introduced himself as Niccolo Rocatti. He recognized me from the opera and prevailed on me to take a look at a score.”

Torani leaned on his stick and harrumphed loudly. “I get scores shoved at me every time I sit down at a café. If I reviewed all of them, I’d never get any work done.”

“Yes…” I thought back to the thin-faced man, about my own age. At first I’d taken Rocatti for a fop, but his intelligent, deep-set brown eyes belied the superficiality of his exquisitely curled wig and festoons of Alençon lace.

I went on, “I suppose I accepted the score because the composer wasn’t paying court like the usual lickspittles. Rocatti was shy, almost diffident about what he’d written. He carried only the first scene, pocketed in a tight scroll. Of course, I fell in love with the music. I soon called in at the Pieta, and he gave me the entire score.”

Torani sent me an odd look. “You had no qualms about the way you stumbled on
The False Duke
?”

“Well…” I chuckled uneasily, then blurted out a question that had been on my mind. “I actually thought you might have known of the opera beforehand and put Rocatti up to following me with it.”

His jaw dropped. “What put that absurd idea into your head, boy?”

“I don’t know, Maestro. Forgive me. These days, I find myself wondering about everything—look how I misjudged Leone’s situation. I’ve been feeling as unsettled as…” I threw up my hands and glanced toward the glassed entry doors, “as unsettled as the skies that can’t decide whether to rain or shine.”

The clouds had opened again. It was pouring.

“Yes.” He consulted his watch, clicked it shut, and shoved it deep in his waistcoat. “I must hurry on.” His tone implied that my suspicion had not only puzzled him, but also wounded his trust.

I accompanied Torani out onto the portico, alarmed that he was taking off in such weather. He waved my concern aside impatiently and snapped his fingers at Peppino. Torani’s off-and-on gondolier had been lounging in a relatively dry corner, swathed in an oilskin cape. Off-and-on, I say, because Peppino was an inveterate loafer. He’d perfected the intertwined arts of doing absolutely nothing and disappearing when any burdensome task loomed before him. I was thoroughly surprised that Peppino had waited instead of seeking the warmth of a nearby tavern. Why the old man put up with him, I never knew.

Perhaps Torani’s loyalty had something to do with the uncanny gondolier’s instinct that had led Peppino to affix the boat’s cabin before the rain settled in. Inside that cabin, the old man would be as safe and dry as a tortoise inside its shell.

Taking Torani’s arm, Peppino hustled his master down the steps, through the downpour, and into the waiting gondola. Then the boatman donned his wide-brimmed beaver hat, unlocked his oar, and kicked away from the stones.

There was no reason to stand under the portico with damp seeping into my bones and drips from the eaves staining my jacket. I shivered. The wind had picked up and it was growing colder. I should have gone in, but as Peppino steered down the canal toward more highly traveled waterways, something kept my feet rooted to the spot. Deep in my gut, disquiet uncurled like a snake waking in the warmth of a summer morning.

I tried to shake the feeling off. The company was waiting. Balbi would be quieting his musicians’ complaints. The singers would be drifting around the stage, gossiping or threatening to retire to their dressing rooms. Majorano would be devising heroic poses that I’d only have to make him unlearn.
Get to work, Tito
.

I’d turned to re-enter the theater when a flash of movement caught my eye. A second gondola darted out from under an arched bridge fifty yards or so up the canal—a two-oared gondola with boatmen fore and aft pushing their oars like mad. I ran down the steps, ignoring the needles of cold rain.

The boat shot past the landing. Its sleek blackness, unrelieved by a coat-of-arms or identifying shield, was swiftly gaining on Torani’s gondola. It carried no passenger, only the pair of stout-shouldered boatmen. Their eyes were shaded by tilted hat brims, the lower half of their faces covered by kerchiefs.

Their malicious intent was clear. I ran along the pavement overhanging the canal, yelling at Peppino’s receding back. Despite the weather, he was oaring in his usual lazy strokes, but my warning fell on deaf ears, lost in the pounding of rain on stone, tile, and water.

I looked around frantically. The shops and homes along the pavement were shuttered—the rain had driven everyone indoors. Neither was help to be found across the canal where the houses came right down to the water. A flat-bottomed punt was moored at one house’s door, but I saw no sign of life within.

I ran on.

Through the slanting sheets, I saw Torani’s gondola draw near the intersection of a wider canal. The faster boat had nearly caught them. As Peppino angled to make the turn, the chasing gondola’s bladed, serrated prow bore down on Torani’s boat like a snapping dog leaps at a cornered boar.

It rammed the smaller gondola direct center. Wood splintered and cracked. The cabin toppled.

Peppino flew off his deck, mouth open in a scream. Where was the old man?

I sped the last few yards tearing off my jacket and waistcoat. Half-leaping, half-slipping from the edge of the slick pavement, I dove into the chill, salty water. It covered my head, but I quickly bobbed to the surface. Like every Venetian boy, I’d learned to swim soon after I could walk. In a city crisscrossed by waterways, it was a necessity.

Peppino was splashing in the water amidst the wreckage. “Where’s Torani?” I yelled. He shook his head before disappearing behind the floating cabin hood.

A blow to the back of my head caught me by surprise, an invisible hammer swinging out of the mist above the roiling canal. A burning swallow of saltwater stung my throat. Had the bravos in the chase boat come about to launch another attack?

I whirled around. It was Torani! Thrashing and flailing in a desperate attempt to keep his nose above water, the old man had clonked me. I clutched at his white collar, a visible target in the dark water, but it slipped through my fingers. We struggled. The old man was in a panic, resisting the very efforts that would save him. Finally his head went under and didn’t come back up.

With a huge breath, I ducked under the surface. It was too dark to see, but after several terrible seconds I made contact with a limp arm. I pulled mightily, fighting to find solid footing amid the refuse on the canal bottom. Impossible! Weighed down by his drenched clothing, the maestro was as heavy as a baleen whale.

My lungs were near bursting when Torani’s body suddenly lightened. Peppino had found us. He sent me a triumphant grin as we broke the surface with Torani between us. I tipped the old man’s chin back; Peppino pointed toward the pavement. A few men had gathered there. We floundered toward them, and strong hands pulled us from the water that lapped and sucked at the mossy stones.

Trembling, heart pounding, and as weak as the proverbial kitten, I could only sit with my arms around my knees as a sturdy, white-aproned barber applied his knee to the middle of Maestro Torani’s back. When the maestro’s head rose from the pavement, coughing and sputtering, I knew he would survive.

Crisis averted, I began to feel the cold through my sodden shirt and breeches. I was suddenly very tired. The hubbub caused by the gondola crash seemed to recede into the distance, as if a giant’s hand had scooped me up and set me down on the next campo. Shivering, I found myself hunching forward, hugging my neck with my right arm. Though my throat was no longer golden, the instinct to protect it remained. I was barely aware of someone—Peppino?— throwing a cloak around my shoulders.

More than anything in the world, I wanted to close my scratchy eyes and forget this flagrant attack—along with the bewildering events of the past few days. Instead, I twisted around to survey the intersecting canals.

The wreck of Torani’s gondola had come to rest at a landing across the wider canal. The oaken ribs showing through its lacquered, crumpled hull put me in mind of our Christmas goose once most of the meat had been stripped from the carcass. Several sbirri were inspecting the stricken boat, poking the black frame with long rods. The constables turned to each other with puzzled frowns and impatient gestures, then started questioning the small crowd that had gathered. The men and women immediately backed away, shook their heads, and spread their hands. Even beyond earshot, their message was clear: “We saw nothing.”

The rain continued to fall, lighter now, but miserable just the same. All was drizzle, haze, and fog. The marauding gondola had vanished into the mist.

***

The Savio alla Cultura was quickly informed of Torani’s accident—the gazette’s eventual and totally misguided term for the brazen attack—and named me interim director of the Teatro San Marco on the spot. I wanted to wait to see how Maestro Torani fared, but Signor Passoni insisted. While I was still in my dripping clothing, he graced my palm with a pouch containing twenty gold ducats and told me he expected great things for our coming season.

Receiving unexpected purses from the Passoni family was becoming a habit.

Torani set about his recovery without serious consequences, but the ordeal left him rheumy and weak. Doctor Gozzi confined the old man to bed and called in every day to see that his orders were followed. Each time I visited, I recalled an old porter who’d swept my boyhood campo and run errands for its inhabitants since time immemorial. My elderly Aunt Carlotta would point to his stooped frame and declare, “That
facchino
is nothing but gristle, bone, and leather, but he’ll be pushing his broom long after I’m gone.”

Torani was much the same. Tough. I expected to be interim director for a short time only.

There was no official inquiry into the incident, even though I reported what I’d seen to the sbirri. Once Torani was settled at his lodgings under Tedi’s watchful eye, I’d gone to the guardhouse on the San Polo side of the Rialto Bridge, a turreted pile of brown stone that housed Venice’s peacekeepers. The uniformed sergeant at the reception counter gave me scant consideration.