The Volcano Lover (40 page)

The Cavaliere's wife uncovered her face and entered the cool cavernous church. It was between masses and very quiet, with a scattering of dark figures in prayer framed between the soaring columns. She dipped her fingers in the stoup, genuflected, and crossed herself, afterward kissing the tips of her fingers as people do here. Before penetrating farther into the church she hesitated, for she could not help expecting that she would be recognized, that people would rush toward her, as in the old days, and touch her dress and beg favors and alms from the second most powerful woman in the kingdom, the wife of the British envoy. When no one took notice of her, she was a little disappointed. A star, as opposed to an actress, always wants to be recognized.

In the last year in Naples she had come on many afternoons to San Domenico Maggiore, pretending to study the inscriptions on the old tombs of the Neapolitan nobility; in fact, to watch people pray and imagine the comfort of some kind of benevolent protective presence, always on call. Now she wanted to protect someone else. The hero was in pain, many kinds of pain, not just in his arm and eye. He spoke of a tightening around his heart, and in the middle of the night when she lay beside him and he was already asleep, he groaned so piteously. She had begun to pray silently for his health—she had never prayed as a child, but it comforted her to pray in this foreign religion—and the Madonna often came into her mind. She became convinced, lying beside him, listening to the ship's bell tolling the hours, that if she could visit this church again, and make an offering to this statue of the Madonna, her prayer would certainly be heard. She did not want protection for herself, she wanted it for the man she loved. She wanted to take his pain away.

She went to a side altar, set her flowers in an ornate gilt vase at the Madonna's feet, lit a bank of candles, knelt, and murmured a long effusive entreaty to the statue. When she finished, she looked up at the Madonna's painted blue eyes and imagined she saw compassion. How lovely she was. I suppose I am being very foolish, she thought, and then wondered if the Madonna heard what she said only to herself. She placed her offering of a large sum of money in a velvet pouch beside the flowers.

Though no one approached her, she now had a distinct impression that she was being observed. Yet the moment she turned and saw a broad-shouldered man with a fleshy mouth standing by a column at the rear, and recognized him, he was not looking at her. Perhaps he wanted her to approach him.

He smiled and bowed. He told her what a surprise it was to see her. He did not say: and here. Of course it was no surprise at all. Scarpia's spies on the
Foudroyant
had informed him of the impending visit ashore of the Cavaliere's wife. He had been at the port when she landed, and had followed her to the church. Though she could not appreciate the recent alteration in Scarpia's appearance, that he was no longer wearing his sinister black cloak but had reassumed his nobleman's finery, Scarpia did not fail to note the further changes in the woman who stood before him, this once great beauty who had managed to turn the gullible British admiral's head. There must have been a lot of guzzling in Palermo. But she had a beautiful face and beautiful feet.

Her ladyship's courage is admirable. Still, the city is not without its dangers.

I feel quite safe here, she said. I like churches.

So does Scarpia. Churches remind Scarpia of what attracts him in Christianity. Not its doctrines but its historic concern with pain: its palette of inventive martyrdoms, inquisitorial torture, and torments of the damned.

No doubt your ladyship has been offering prayers for the well-being of Their Majesties and the rapid restoration of order in this unfortunate kingdom.

My mother has been poorly, she said, annoyed that she found it necessary to lie to him.

Was she planning to visit her former home, Scarpia inquired.

Certainly not!

I have never cared as much for this church, so dear to the nobility, as for the one where I am a communicant, the Church of the Carmine, in the market square. There is an execution scheduled for two o'clock.

The church with the Black Madonna, said the Cavaliere's wife, as if she had not grasped what Scarpia was suggesting.

You can witness the just punishment of several of the principal traitors, Scarpia said. But perhaps your ladyship does not feel up to this spectacle, which so rejoices all Their Majesties' faithful subjects.

Of course she could watch, if she had to. Part of being brave was having to look at gore. What did it matter? She could look at anything. She was not squeamish. Not a silly, trembly, sentimental woman like Miss Knight. But she could not bring herself to accept Scarpia's dare.

Scarpia waited a moment. In the silence (which became her reply) a Te Deum had begun.

Or we can do whatever would give you pleasure, Scarpia continued in his taunting, ingratiating voice. I am at your ladyship's disposal for as many hours as you like.

The church is starting to fill, and they are being observed now.

It might be worth accepting this opportunity to spend an hour with Scarpia, thought the Cavaliere's wife. The Queen would be interested to have her firsthand assessment of the police chief. But she knew that even as she would be making a report on him, he would be making a report on her. All her instincts said: be careful! And, because she was a woman: be charming!

He dipped his fingers in the stoup and offered her some holy water. She nodded gravely, touched his fingers, and crossed herself. Thank you.

They walked out into the searing heat, and at a food stall in the square she bought a packet of grimy sugar cakes, which Scarpia warned her against. Oh, I have a very good digestion, the Cavaliere's wife exclaimed. Everything agrees with me.

He repeated his offer to escort her, and once again she refused. Perhaps she would have liked to do a bit of tourism, clandestine tourism, in the city in which she had spent one-third of her life. But not with him. Why was he always smiling? He must think himself very attractive. He did. Scarpia knew the effect he had on women, not because he was handsome (he was not), but because of his strong look, which made women turn away, then turn back; his hoarse, deep-toned voice; his way of slowly shifting his weight as he stood; the refinement of his apparel; and his perfect manners, flecked with rudeness. But the Cavaliere's wife was not attracted to blatantly virile men. She did not want to think of what he would be like as a lover. She also found it hard to imagine someone who, as she surmised, did not seek the good opinion of others, indeed cared nothing about what others thought of him. It must be true then, what people said of Scarpia, that he was very wicked. But she did not like to think about that either. Among the many things she preferred not to think about now, one was human wickedness. Evil is something like space. All the space there is. When you imagine reaching the end, you can only imagine it as a boundary, or a wall, which means there is something on the other side; when you think you have reached the bottom, there is always something knocking from below.

She wanted to get into the cool carriage and eat her pastries.

I cannot tempt you with my company?

No longer abashed, she said airily she must forgo that pleasure because—

You would disappoint one of your most faithful admirers?

—because I must regain the
Foudroyant
as quickly as possible, she continued evenly. They were standing next to her carriage.

How dare she rebuff him! But perhaps he could provoke her. Wasn't there a story about this vixen and Angelotti, that they had been lovers? Hoping to revive an unpleasant or embarrassing memory, he informed her that Angelotti, who had fled to Rome, had just been arrested.

I'm sure this news is gratifying.

Oh, yes, Angelotti, said the Cavaliere's wife.

It's not that she had forgiven Angelotti. But his insult has been buried under so many other emotions and events, so much triumph, so much happiness. The Cavaliere's wife prided herself on not holding grudges. If she wishes the death of all the conspirators, it is because the Queen wishes their death. Lack of sympathy (for Cirillo) was sympathy for someone else (the Queen). She is no more cruel than the hero or the Cavaliere. She seems the cruelest only because she is the most emotional—what women are expected to be. And emotional women who don't have power, real power, usually end up being victims.

As a flash-forward may serve to recall.

*   *   *

June 17, 1800. The Queen of Naples, who had continued to live in Palermo, never once visiting her first capital although it is almost a year since the restoration of royal government, has arrived for a short visit to Rome on the eve of what is expected to be a decisive engagement with Napoleon.

Tonight she was giving a party to celebrate the news, received that morning, of Napoleon's defeat by the Austrian forces at Marengo. This false good news (Napoleon had in fact won the battle) was followed in the early afternoon by a small piece of genuine bad news. Angelotti, who was about to be sent in chains back to Naples to be hanged—though not, as slander has it, for the delectation of the Cavaliere's wife, who is at this moment on her way back to England with her husband and her lover—Angelotti has escaped from the prison in the papal fortress of Sant'Angelo, where he has been held for more than a year. The Queen was furious with Scarpia, whom she had summoned from Naples and installed in one of the upper floors in the Palazzo Farnese. She expects infallibility in vengeance from her most trusted servant. Find him today or else, she said. Your Majesty, said the baron, it is as good as done.

The guard at the prison who helped Angelotti escape has already been identified, Scarpia told the Queen, and before he died (the questioning had been a bit peremptory) had revealed the fugitive's first destination, a church in which his family has a chapel. Although Angelotti had already left by the time Scarpia reached the church, evidence had been found incriminating a man who is probably an accomplice. Another patrician Jacobin, said Scarpia. But of course they call themselves liberals or patriots. This one is worse than the usual kind. An artist. A rootless expatriate. Not even really an Italian. Brought up in Paris—his father, who married a Frenchwoman, was a friend of Voltaire. And the son was a pupil of the French Revolution's official artist, David.

I don't care who he is, exclaimed the irate Queen.

Scarpia hastened to inform the Queen that the young painter is now under arrest. I guarantee we will know Angelotti's whereabouts within a few hours. Scarpia smiled.

The Queen knew what the police chief meant. Torture is still legal in the Papal States as well as in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, though reformers have succeeded in abolishing it elsewhere. It is no longer legal in the more civilized Hapsburg domains, nor in Prussia and Sweden. She regrets Scarpia's methods, though one must be realistic. In spite of her delight at the fate met by the Neapolitan rebels, the Queen would be shocked to learn that there are those who consider her a bloodthirsty woman. Though she is always for executions, she is against torture.

Angelotti must be recaptured tonight, do you understand?

Yes, Majesty.

Scarpia takes his leave to return to his headquarters upstairs in the palace, where the painter will be interrogated.

The Queen, having vented her fury on Scarpia, is resolved not to let this little piece of bad news spoil her party.

As they speak, the great Paisiello is bent over a keyboard somewhere in the palace composing a cantata in celebration of the victory, which will be performed this evening. The composer will conduct, and it will be sung by the sensation of the current season at the Argentina. The Queen has a weakness for women who sing. The opera star reminded her of her beloved friend, the British envoy's wife, who has an even more beautiful voice.

The opera star, like the Queen's friend, is also impetuous, warm, effusive, and knows how to give herself in love.

The diva arrived at the great ballroom where the party is in progress and made her reverence to the Queen. She has looked over Paisiello's score and feels confident (she never feels anything other than confident) about her part.

She hears the guests talking about politics. She doesn't know anything about politics, nor does she want to. All this talk about France, she barely understands it. Her lover had tried to explain it to her. He had tried to get her to read one of his favorite books, by Russo—something like that, but the writer was French, not Italian. She could make nothing of it, and wondered why he was pressing the novel on her. Although he has friends like the Marchese Angelotti, a Neapolitan aristocrat who was locked up for being one of the six consuls of the godless but short-lived Roman Republic, she knows her lover hardly cares about politics either. He is an artist, too. As she lives only for her art and for love, he thinks only of her and his painting.

She was watching the play at one of the gaming tables when her maid, Luciana, handed her a note. It was from Paisiello, who has not quite finished the cantata and requests that she distract the Queen's attention from this delay by beginning the evening's music without him. Of course, he hopes that she will sing an aria from one of his own operas; he had written nearly a hundred. Furious at being kept waiting, the diva began her improvised recital with an aria by Jommelli. Then the Queen requested another aria, remarking that this was one that her friend, the wife of the British ambassador, sang so beautifully. It is the mad scene from Paisiello's
Nina.
The diva, who had no intention of complying with the wish of a composer, can hardly refuse a royal command.

When Paisiello finally appeared with the score of his victory cantata, the performance was a great success. It was such a success that the Queen wanted her to go on singing. She sings and sings … about eternal love, and the stars, and art, and jealousy. She knows a lot about jealousy.