Veritas (Atto Melani) (32 page)

“He must have been Turkish too,” sneered Dragomir. “Their women dress so dreadfully that your radiant beauty, Monna Cloridia, must have literally blinded him.”

I saw my wife cheer up a little at this unexpected compliment.

“But you hear so much about their harems . . .” protested lame Penicek, who had probably approached very few women in his life.

“Right, because you get taken in by their boasting; the Ottomans are great at inventing cock-and-bull stories about the supposed wonders of their country. But have you ever entered a
harem?”

“Well, not yet . . .”

“It’s nothing more than a filthy den, all darkness and confusion, pestilential and full of smoke. Imagine black, peeling walls, wooden ceilings with great cracks, everything covered
in dust and cobwebs, greasy torn sofas, tattered curtains, candle grease and oil stains everywhere.”

Turkish women, went on Dragomir, have no mirrors, which are rare in Turkey, so they put on all sorts of frills at random, unaware how ridiculous they look. They make excessive use of coloured
powders, for example putting blue intended for the eyes under their nose as well. They help each other to put their make-up on and, since they’re rivals, they give each other the worst
possible advice. They dye their eyebrows with so much black that they paint huge arches on their forehead from the bridge of their nose right up to their temples, or, even worse, draw a single long
line right across their forehead.

“The effect of all this make-up, combined with their idleness and filth, makes Turkish women quite revolting,” remarked Populescu with a grimace.

“Just when did you become an expert on Ottoman harems?” said Koloman Szupán in surprise.

As if that were not enough, continued Populescu without answering him, every woman’s face is made up in such a complicated way that it is considered a work of art that is too difficult to
wash off and redo every morning. The same for their hands and feet, painted in shades of orange. So they never wash, fearing that water will cancel the rouge. What makes the harems even dirtier are
the numerous children and the maidservants, who unfortunately are often negresses, who live there with them.

“The negresses rest on the same divans and armchairs as their mistresses, with their feet on the same carpets and their backs resting against the same wall-hangings! Ugh!” exclaimed
Dragomir.

“Do you find negresses so disgusting?” sneered Koloman. “I’m amazed you have such a delicate palate . . .”

“I’m not like you, who would go with a monkey,” retorted the Romanian.

Populescu added that as glass is still a novelty in Asia, most windows are closed with oiled paper, and where paper is hard to get they solve things by doing away with windows altogether and
make do with the light that comes down the chimney, more than enough for smoking, drinking and beating rebellious children, the only pastimes Turkish women engage in during the day.

“The harems, in short, are hermetically sealed, artificial caverns, heated by stifling cast-iron stoves, and full of unkempt women and badly behaved children!” concluded Populescu
with a coarse laugh, clutching his neck with both hands to mimic the sense of suffocation.

“There’s nothing to laugh about,” put in Cloridia unexpectedly, having listened in silence to Populescu’s whole description. “There’s no air in the harems,
it’s true, but the poor women don’t realise it, and actually stay for hours in front of the fire: the poor things are locked up the whole day, hardly ever moving, and they always feel
cold. My mother was Turkish,” she revealed calmly.

This unexpected information cast a sudden damper on the spirits of the jovial crowd.

“Anyway, you have all my compassion: I didn’t know you were a eunuch,” added my wife, turning a broad smile on Dragomir. “You know, don’t you, that entrance to the
harems is strictly forbidden to all men, at least those worthy of the name . . .”

At this point, she got up and left, leaving them all crestfallen.

When the meeting was over, I rejoined Cloridia and our son at the convent, where I subjected myself to the torture of the German lesson, which had been brought forward since the next day was
Sunday. My wife and I did not do too badly, although our minds were on quite other matters. That evening the subject we were dealing with was travel.

“Good sir, I am here to apologise, for in my departure I did not acquire a licence from your good self.”

“Good sir, where no offence was intended, no apology is needed.”

“Truly, good sir, I am greatly obliged for the honour.”

And so on. Ollendorf made us repeat a series of formulas that were as elegant as they were of dubious utility to a chimney-sweep and his family.

The orchestra had struck up the introduction to Alessio’s aria. The main part was played on the lute by Francesco Conti, a good friend of Camilla de’ Rossi, who
wove his arpeggios against the background of a dark melancholy murmuring of strings.

We were inside the Hofburg, in the Most August Caesarean chapel, at the rehearsal of
Sant’ Alessio.
The notes had the power to relax my sweet wife and to calm her fears after the
unpleasant encounter at the Savoy Palace.

With just a few eloquent gestures of her forearm the Chormaisterin contained the threatening mass of the violas, softened the impassioned violins and opened the way to the timid lute. Then
Alessio intoned the wise verses with which he tried to console his former betrothed, whom he had abandoned many years before, and who now, having found him again, still did not recognise him.

While the touching melody softened our hearts and minds, I thought back over the events of the day. Ever since Atto Melani had arrived in the city, even before I had met him or
even merely learned of his presence, my calm and satisfying Viennese life had become chaos: first of all, the adventure among the lions of the Place with No Name and its absurd Flying Ship, then
the arrival of the ambiguous Turkish embassy, which clearly harboured dark designs (starting from Ciezeber’s awful plan, to chop some poor wretch’s head off). Then the arrival of Atto
himself, who wanted to involve me in an international espionage plot against Eugene of Savoy (the Serene Prince who was so generously employing my wife Cloridia!). And should I call him Eugene of
Savoy or Dog Nose? Had Atto let that nickname slip out accidentally or on purpose?

After eleven years I had just re-encountered Abbot Melani and I was already quietly cursing him.

Finally there had been the discovery that Ciezeber possessed disturbing magic powers, which he employed in obscure and bloody rituals. As if that were not enough, the dervish
was engaged in shady business with some individual who was supposed to bring him somebody’s head and who seemed to be menacing Cloridia. Even in my family something new and strange had
occurred: my wife, who had never said a word about her past and about the Turkish mother who had brought her into the world, had suddenly opened up and begun to talk about these matters. To the
point of proffering extremely useful information on dervishes and their powers.

Meanwhile the voice of Landina, Conti’s soprano wife, who was singing the role of Alessio’s fiancée, responded to her betrothed without knowing it was he:

What would have happened, I wondered, if in the wood of the Place with No Name Ciezeber had discovered that Cloridia and I were trailing him? Given his powers, I could only
shudder and imagine some tragic and gory finale. And if I did not lose my head through some sorcery of the dervish’s, I was likely to end up being tried and beheaded for plotting against
Eugene, supreme commander of the imperial army – and, what was worse, acting in league with a French secret agent, even if he was blind and decrepit. On calmer reflection, there was no
guarantee that the letter in which Eugene sold himself to the French would have the effect Atto hoped for: had not Ilsung and Ungnad, the two treacherous counsellors of Maximilian II, remained
coolly in their posts even after the Emperor had discovered their imposture? All things considered, the encounter with Mustafa, the old lion of the Place with No Name, had been just a mild
foretaste of the mortal dangers I would encounter in the days to come.

“Master Chimney-sweep, you look pale and thoughtful today.”

“Who’s there?” I turned round with a jerk, my heart in my mouth.

The voice that had made me start so violently was that of Gaetano Orsini, Camilla’s jovial castrato friend, who sang the role of Alessio.

The orchestra had paused for a break, Orsini had come over to exchange a few words and I, absorbed in my dark apprehensions, had noticed nothing.

“Oh, it’s you,” I sighed in relief.

“I should have said: pale, thoughtful and very nervous,” he corrected himself, patting me on the back.

“Forgive me, it’s been an awful day.”

“Yes, for everyone. Today we had to rehearse for hours in the afternoon as well; we’re all very tired. But you just have to grit your teeth, or on the day of the performance
we’ll make fools of ourselves in front of the Nuncio. And the Emperor will give us all a hiding, hee hee.”

“Including poor Camilla,” I added, struggling to match Orsini’s good humour.

“Oh, not her, of course. No, definitely not,” he added with a curious little laugh.

“Oh no? Special clemency for the Chormaisterin of Porta Coeli?”

“Don’t you know? Our friend is a very close confidante of His Caesarean Majesty,” he said, lowering his voice.

I fell silent for an instant, exchanging a bewildered glance with Cloridia.

“So far Camilla has composed an oratorio per year for the Emperor,” Orsini went on. “That makes a total of four oratorios, and she has never wanted to be paid. It’s a
real mystery why, all the more so since His Caesarean Majesty spares no expense when it’s a matter of the court chapel. He’s kept on all 76 of his father’s players and has even
hired several others, especially violinists, so that there are now actually 107 of us, something unheard of in Europe. Not to mention the opera theatre that was inaugurated three years ago. After
the Ottoman siege 28 years ago, Vienna never really had one worthy of the name.”

Under Joseph I, Orsini went on, Vienna had become the capital of Italian opera, both serious and light, and also of harlequinades, pantomimes, ballets, shadow puppetry, marionettes,
tightrope-walkers
et cetera et cetera
. Opera, in particular, was of a higher quality than anywhere else in Europe: fourteen or more performances a year, all featuring the most famous names
among singers, composers and instrumentalists.

“All strictly Italian,” Orsini said with pride.

This gave some idea of the artistic heights achieved thanks to the magnanimity and exquisite taste of His Caesarean Majesty. He himself was as skilled in the musical arts as he was in those of
war, and during his leisure hours, when there was no urgent state business, he would sit down at the harpsichord or pick up the flute or try his hand at graceful compositions. These included a fine
Regina Coeli
for solo soprano, violin and organ and a number of virtuoso operatic arias in the style of the Italian Alessandro Scarlatti. The personal talent of our young and beloved
Caesar, together with the great number and high quality of his performers, encouraged every kind of experiment, so that the instruments were often used in new and surprising ways. In this way the
Josephine Chapel, as the chapel of the Caesarean court had been renamed in honour of the Emperor, was famous for its innovations, unparalleled elsewhere in Europe.

“But despite all that, our mysterious Chormaisterin has never wanted a florin from the Emperor. Even before entering the convent she always found a way to make a decorous and honourable
living.”

“Oh yes, it’s true,” Cloridia and I both nodded, pretending to know what Orsini was referring to.

“She travelled through all the small towns of Lower Austria, healing hundreds of invalids, in accordance with the dictates of the Rhineland abbess, St Hildegard. Even the priests who had
been called to administer extreme unction would consult her. They would have her hurry to the bedside of a dying invalid, she would indicate the most suitable treatment – always based on
spelt, I believe – and in less than two days there would be a miracle: the dying man would eat, walk and leave the house on his own two feet.”