The True Adventures of Nicolo Zen (26 page)

Six months later, Adriana and I were married. The Archbishop performed the ceremony in the cathedral. Master Vivaldi himself conducted the choir and afterward played a violin solo. The Duke invited all manner of people, including the Duke of Parma and the Crown Prince of Sardinia, the Count of Messina, the papal ambassador, and the general staff of his army. I had my own small guest list, all the Venetians who had helped me immeasurably when I was a poor boy in desperate straits: Bartolomeo Cattaglia and his sister, Signora Botello; Signora Gramani, the dressmaker; and Signora Capelli, still a resident of Mazzorbo, who saved my life and nursed me back to health after my family succumbed to malaria. Bartolomeo wore his old naval uniform, with all the medals he had been awarded for bravery, and Signora Capelli nearly fainted when she found herself seated behind the papal ambassador. Emmerich Hoyer traveled all the way from Vienna. And Adriana and I also invited Massimo Magnifico but, to our disappointment, received word that he was on tour, currently in Rome, and would be unable to attend the wedding.

The Duke declared a week of celebration, and there were banquets and parties, dances and concerts, at the court and around the city. Adriana and I attended a great many of these, but none was so memorable as the last, which the Duke told us was a special surprise. It was at Modena’s opera house, whose recent renovation
the Duke had personally overseen. It was a full house, and there was a great deal of anticipation. Adriana and I were seated in the royal box with the Duke. We were expecting another concert, or perhaps one of the Master’s latest operas, so we truly were surprised when Massimo Magnifico, resplendent in a red cape and gold turban, came out from behind the curtain with his primary assistant, our old friend Julietta. With a great flourish, and a broad smile, he bowed to our box, and proceeded to put on a show such as Modena had never seen before, according to the Duke.

It began with Julietta, attached to invisible wires, and beating long white wings, gliding to the ceiling of the opera house, where a dozen doves flew out from the folds of the wings. Julietta appeared as cool and calm as Meta once had, and assisted Massimo in nearly every feat he performed: transposing the members of the audience in the first and last rows; filling the pockets of all the men sitting on the aisles with copper coins; hurling six unlit candles into the air in quick succession, which Julietta, standing at the front of the stage, caught—burning now—and twirled until they exploded softly into silk banners. For a finale, Massimo stepped into one of the Chinese booths I had first seen at his villa and reappeared moments later at the back of our box, with a bouquet of orange roses for Adriana.

Many things have happened in the years since our wedding. I continued to perform in foreign cities, always traveling with Adriana, taking the opportunity to explore Paris and Madrid, Prague and Budapest, and venturing as far north as Saint Petersburg and as far south as Palermo. I accumulated a fortune of my own, and inspired the use of the clarinet in many far-flung ensembles, but
after a while tired of the long trips and demanding performing schedules, and spent nearly all my time in Modena.

Enjoying access to the Duke’s vast library, I read all the books of history, philosophy, and literature I could lay my hands on—Herodotus and Livy, Plutarch and Lucretius, Giovanni Boccaccio and Dante Alighieri, and of course Virgil, from whose epic the Duke could recite long passages. I learned Latin and perfected my French and German. And it was because of this eclectic, but expansive, education that I acquired the skills and knowledge that enabled me to write the book you hold in your hands.

On our first anniversary, the Duke conferred upon me the title Prince of Mirandola, Modena’s principality to the north, which included extensive landholdings and a spacious villa with a large garden that Adriana preferred to the palace in Modena. It was in Mirandola that she and I founded an orphanage for boys and girls, overseen by Bartolomeo and Signora Gramani. I used my influence, and Adriana her patronage, to bring a staff of fine musicians from every corner of Venetia to join us in teaching the children all the musical instruments necessary to form a small orchestra. Eventually this orchestra matched in quality, and rivaled in reputation, the
privilegiate di coro
at the Ospedale della Pietà.

I had no trouble getting used to being the husband of a Duchess, for I loved Adriana the same way after our marriage as I had before our arrival in Modena. But it did take time to accustom myself to being addressed as
Principe
by everyone I encountered, from people in the street to the Duke’s royal acquaintances, but I expressly forbade Bartolomeo to ever call me that.

Massimo Magnifico, however, insisted on addressing me as
Principe
. As you might expect, he took a sly, somewhat wicked, delight in doing so. Every summer he visited us and put on an outdoor show for the children of the orphanage, who had never encountered anyone like him before. He brought with him a menagerie of monkeys trained to juggle, a dancing fox, a dog that sang in the key of G, and a flock of mechanical birds that flew in circles over his head.

During one such visit, after he had entertained the children and they in turn had played him several pieces of music, he and Julietta dined with us in our villa. By this time, Julietta was not just Massimo’s assistant, but his wife, having married him in a seaside ceremony on the island of Rhodes. Joining their retinue this time was an old crow that perched on Massimo’s shoulder throughout the performance and at dinner sat on the window-sill watching us and waiting patiently for Massimo to retire for the night. I asked Massimo if the crow’s name happened to be Téodor, and smiling, he gestured unconvincingly and said no, he had given him the name Carlo after he flew through his window one snowy night in Salzburg and remained with him ever since.

Massimo and Julietta were not only performing in Europe now, but had recently traveled to Istanbul and Baghdad, and then taken their tour clear across Asia, on the Silk Road, as far as Siam. They had many tales to tell. Especially riveting were the ones about the various wizards, sorcerers, and necromancers they encountered in the East, many of whom shared the secrets of their trade with Massimo and even performed alongside him. Enticed by the prospect of learning spectacular feats unknown to other European magicians, Massimo and Julietta had often followed these men into the remotest corners of these distant countries:
mountain hideaways in Circassia, desert caves in Egypt, and a bamboo fortress built upon stilts in a jungle river in India.

The most amazing of all, according to Massimo, sipping from a goblet of black wine, was an underground compound outside Baghdad, where all the buildings were glass, and the sole inhabitant, a one-hundred-year-old shaman who looked not a day over thirty, played a flute very much like my clarinet that made all the glass vibrate in harmony with his music. Massimo and Julietta planned to return there the following spring, and they invited Adriana and me to accompany them. We were sorely tempted to see and hear such wonders.

But that is a story for another day.…

I would like to thank my editor, Nancy Hinkel, for her encouragement and dedication, and my agent, Anne Sibbald, for all her support over the years.

Nicholas Christopher is the author of six novels:
The Soloist
,
Veronica
,
A Trip to the Stars
,
Franklin Flyer
,
The Bestiary
, and
Tiger Rag
; eight volumes of poetry, including
Crossing the Equator: New & Selected Poems
; and a nonfiction book,
Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir & the American City
. Over the years, he has been a regular contributor to the
New Yorker
,
Granta
, the
Paris Review
, and other magazines. His work has been widely translated and published in other countries, and he has received numerous awards and fellowships, from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among other institutions. A professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, he lives in New York City.