4 - The Iron Tongue of Midnight Read online

  My colleagues’ voices contrasted as sharply as their persons. As Romeo sang of Bajazet’s shameful defeat, his mellow basso throbbed with tragic swells, echoed by tremolos from Lucca’s violoncello. Like a slow-moving river of exquisite pathos, Romeo’s aria flowed over the gaily dressed ladies and gentlemen and drenched them in sorrow. Such an ill-treated captive! Such agony!

  The audience was enraptured. Women inclined their heads and pursed their lips in distress. Signor Luvisi was so overcome, he had to reach for a handkerchief to wipe his eyes.

  Emilio followed Romeo’s lament with an aria cantabile meant to comfort the now swooning prisoner, just the sort of lyrical piece that showed Emilio’s silvery soprano to best advantage. I was impressed with his trills, more so with his never-ending notes that seemed to echo off the starry dome above. Karl was pleased, as well; his profile displayed a grin as his fingers hammered the keys and his gaze bobbed between his instrument and the divine castrato.

  But when it came time for bows, who did the audience cheer to the skies? Romeo! For once, a basso scored a triumph over a castrato. Cries of “Bravo” swelled over the applause. Mayor Bartoli’s wife even tossed Romeo a nosegay of posies under her husband’s astonished eyes.

  As I stepped away from the window, a frisson of premonition ran up my spine. The many-headed monster of fashion had been fascinated with my kind for some time now. We castrati were the darlings of the public, the acknowledged princes of the stage. But nothing lasts forever. Were tastes about to change? Were more natural voices finally coming into their own?

  I had no time to consider the matter; Grisella and I were on next. As we waited at the door, Emilio blew past, then Romeo, all smiles.

  The audience welcomed Grisella and me with the same fervor as our two colleagues, and I was relieved to see my sister’s sullen expression change to joy. The air between us had been heavy with unspoken hurts and disappointments, but all tension dissolved as we took on the mantles of our characters.

  Grisella made a lovely Asteria. She had costumed herself more thoroughly than the rest of us, and I wondered if her ensemble had traveled with her from Turkey. Baggy trousers peeked from under a close-fitting white robe topped with a damask jacket stiff with brocaded silver flowers and accented with wide, drooping sleeves. A scarf of glossy white silk confined her bright curls and hung down her back. Metallic spangles glittered along the hem of the scarf, which was held in place with a golden band wound round her head.

  Grisella’s first aria presented her as a fragile creature, worried almost to death by the fate of her sultan papa. Her notes were true and brilliant, her acting wistful and tender. Every gesture, even the crook of her little finger, proclaimed her a captive princess.

  Which only made me seem all the more terrible as I threatened to make her father food for my scimitar if she refused to become my queen. The audience booed and hissed, but I wasn’t worried. They were hissing the evil Tamerlano, not my singing abilities.

  Grisella launched into her answering aria with flashing eyes and roulades so impassioned that several spangles popped off her costume. Beneath the princess’ wounded butterfly exterior lurked a steely resolve. Singing from the very front of the little stage, she let the audience in on her secret: she did intend to wed Tamerlano, but only so that she could stab him with a dagger smuggled into their wedding bed. In typical opera fashion, I had to stalk around in the background, stroking my trailing fake mustache while pretending I didn’t hear a word of her plan. Grisella outdid herself, ending with a crescendo di forza which brought the crowd to their feet. Flowers and excited cries of “Brava” rained down on the boards.

  My sister was a true prima donna. Without a particle of modesty, she retrieved her flowers, signaled Karl, and repeated the aria not once, but twice. I must admit that I got out of character sufficiently to join my own applause with the tempestuous clapping that greeted each of her encores. My time would come. In our next round, I had an aria that would also astound.

  When every last drop of praise had been milked from the crowd, we retreated back to the foyer and traded places with Octavia. Bursting with pride and excitement, I turned to offer my sister a congratulatory embrace. But Jean-Louis grabbed her by the elbow and whisked her into the salon, scattering her flowers across the terracotta tiles. I picked up one red rose and inhaled its sweet aroma. Feeling oddly jealous, I took up my place by the window once again.

  Octavia’s entrance occasioned uncertain smiles, raised eyebrows, and only fragmentary applause from the benches. I had a good view of her face as she turned toward Karl and nodded her readiness. Octavia wasn’t dismayed by the tepid welcome. On the contrary, her countenance shone with the classic signs of a stage-struck soprano. This middle-aged woman in the ridiculously low-cut gown was as infatuated with performing as any young nymph promoted from the chorus to her first solo role.

  Karl struck the keynote, and his paramour’s voice rose in determined song. This was Octavia’s stellar moment.

  But something was wrong. In the audience, heads turned away from the stage, men murmured, women tittered. As a wave, the assembly stirred and rose to its feet.

  Karl played doggedly on. Mario and Lucca scraped out a few dissonant chords, then let their bows fall silent and stretched up out of their seats to search for the cause of the commotion. As Octavia’s eyes bulged at the errant fiddlers, her voice also faltered to a halt. Karl’s hands finally sank away from the keyboard, leaving a silent void that glorious music had filled only a moment before.

  Insisting that we must see what was going on, Emilio jerked the door open. All of us, even Grisella and Jean-Louis, ran out to join Octavia.

  On the graveled drive, at the edge of the stage, stood a young woman. I recognized her at once. She was the little blonde who had peered at me from the front gates a few days ago. The soldier’s wife, if Signor Luvisi’s information was correct. She was dressed in the same drab cloak, and a little boy grasped her hand. In the crook of her arm she held a baby about six months old, a girl by the look of its pink filet cap.

  Under the amazed gaze of Octavia’s guests and the players on the platform, she dropped the boy’s hand and hoisted her petticoats. Climbing clumsily onto the stone lip of a flower bed and thence onto the boards of the stage, she made herself and her infant as much a part of the show as any of us. The boy scrambled after her, looking like he was about to burst into tears. The woman’s face was blank, her stare unblinking as she walked straight toward the harpsichord.

  Octavia ran forward and flapped her hands as if she were driving a goose back to its pen. “Go away!” our hostess cried, cheeks glowing brick-red in the torchlight. “Get off the stage! You have no business coming up here while I’m singing.”

  The expressions of my fellow performers showed varying degrees of bewilderment and curiosity. Except for Karl. He had risen from the harpsichord and was staring down at the keys as though memorizing the pattern of cracks in the ivory.

  Our diminutive intruder’s gaze never wavered as she moved her brood in the composer’s direction. A pink flush ascended from her neck to her pale face. “We do have business here,” she stated in a meek voice accented with German. “We have come to ask Maestro Weber a question.”

  The composer’s shoulders slumped even lower, and Octavia threw up her hands. Catching Vincenzo’s eye, she mouthed, “Do something.” Vincenzo hurried along the space between the stage and the audience. At the juncture where the woman had climbed up, he joined forces with Captain Forti and one of his deputies.

  Impending capture spurred the little woman to continue. In shaky, but perfectly audible tones, she asked, “Karl, mein lieb, how long are you going to let us starve and wither away in that horrible room?”

  Octavia shrieked out a question of her own: “Karl, don’t tell me you know this woman?”

  Whatever depths Karl’s spirit had sunk to in those few momen
ts, it now rose on wings tipped with starlight. The composer seemed to throw off his melancholy like a worn-out cloak. He ripped off his ridiculous wig, brushed his sandy hair from his brow, and straightened his narrow shoulders. Wearing the expression of an ancient knight setting out on a sacred quest, he strode to the woman’s side. His strong arm encircled her waist, and he spoke so all could hear: “Of course I know her. Signora Dolfini, allow me to present my wife, Frau Weber.”

  Octavia threw her head back and roared like a wounded lioness.

  ***

  Our audience had decamped in confusion, Karl and his family had been banished to the Post house in Molina Mori, and Octavia was in her room having hysterics. What was left of the opera company had gathered in the dining room to tuck into Nita’s buffet of delicacies.

  “I always thought Karl was hiding a secret,” I mused, licking a dollop of cream filling off my thumb.

  “You never said,” Gussie replied between bites of a shiny plum tart. “What made you think so?”

  “It was those letters he received and never seemed to answer. They made me curious. I meant to get to the bottom of them one day, but since I didn’t think they had anything to do with our murders…” I finished with a shrug of my shoulders and reached over the table for another pastry.

  My nose recognized the heavy scent of jasmine and musk a second before someone bumped me from behind. “Sorry, Tito,” Romeo said as we whirled to face each other. Despite his plate heaped with sweets, Romeo’s expression was as sour as vinegar.

  “So,” he continued, “I suppose the little mouse and her pups have put an end to our grand show. Who would have thought that Tamerlano would meet such a shameful defeat?”

  I nodded. “Not only shameful, but premature. Now we’ll never know what Venice would have made of it.”

  Emilio had been in earnest conversation with the Gecco brothers. Looking far from happy, he joined us, saying, “It’s one thing for a performance to be booed from the pit or ignored by the box holders, but to be denied even the opportunity to bring our efforts to the theater… maddening.” The castrato pacified his ire by popping several honeyed dates in his mouth.

  “What are you going to do, Tito?” Romeo asked.

  “Do? When?”

  “After Captain Forti finds Carmela’s murderer and releases us.”

  “Don’t forget about the first murder,” I said.

  Romeo shook his head doubtfully. “Surely the killers are one and the same. It’s hard enough to imagine one murderer in our midst, much less two.”

  Emilio’s hand fluttered to his lips. He plucked out a date pit with thumb and forefinger, then asked, “Two? Come now, Tito, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “It’s possible,” I replied carefully. “We still have no idea why the stranger and Carmela were murdered.”

  Emilio snorted, unconvinced. “What does it matter why? Both deaths occurred at midnight and both involved the clock. We obviously have a killer with a mania for timepieces.” He lowered his voice. “I haven’t wanted to say—after all, it’s no business of mine as long as he doesn’t come after me—but I favor Vincenzo’s valet.”

  “Old Alphonso?” I asked. “Whyever for?”

  “I’ve noticed him rooting around inside the clock several times.”

  “Alphonso knows clocks,” I replied. “He once valeted for a clockmaker, so Vincenzo relies on him to keep this one in good running order. The little man barely has the strength to carry a full laundry basket, much less heave corpses hither and yon.”

  Emilio gave a peevish shrug. “Well, when Captain Forti makes his arrest, don’t forget that I mentioned Alphonso first.”

  Romeo made an effort to smile. “I’m sure Captain Forti will get his man, whoever he his. My concern is the damage this infernal stay in the country has done to my career. Before I left Venice, Maestro Porta talked of reviving his opera Numitore. He dangled a small part for me, but I turned it down on the spot because I’d just been offered the role of Bazajet.” Sadness rushed into every crevice of the basso’s face. “Now my role of a lifetime has gone up in smoke, and I have no prospects in sight. Do either of you have any engagements lined up?”

  While Emilio boasted that he had “something quite astounding in the offing,” I paused in thought, momentarily perplexed by how completely life at the Villa Dolfini seemed to have swallowed up my past and my future. Giving myself a mental shake, I answered, “Nothing certain, but I suppose something will turn up. I never go without work for long.”

  “Yes, it’s different for you castrati,” Romeo answered sourly. “You don’t know what it is to worry about bread on the table.” His accompanying look clearly stated that despite my favorable prospects for employment, he wouldn’t be me for all the gold in the Doge’s treasury. “By the way,” he continued. “Do you think there will be any problem collecting our pay for the time we’ve already put in on Tamerlano?”

  Gussie had been listening to our conversation in silence. Now he smiled in sympathy. “I’m having similar doubts about my paintings. Octavia appears to want to turn her back on the opera completely. I wonder if Signor Dolfini will also give me the boot.”

  Emilio rolled his eyes. “Mario just told me Octavia threatened to plunge a dagger into any impertinent rascal who so much as mentions the opera.”

  “That’s all we need,” replied Romeo glumly. “One more murder and we’ll never get out of this villa.”

  “We shouldn’t worry overmuch,” I said. “Octavia will calm down eventually. She may never want to sing another note, but she’ll give us our fair compensation.”

  Emilio brought his face close to mine and said in a whisper, “The Frenchman isn’t so sure. He’s still talking of bringing suit if his wife’s contract isn’t honored.”

  I cast a glance toward Jean-Louis and Grisella across the room at the buffet. Earlier, I’d noticed that while she sipped at a coffee, Jean-Louis seemed intent on consuming the value of Grisella’s pay in cakes and pastries. Now he patted his midsection, and with a crook of his finger, summoned one of the footmen who were waiting to take the uneaten food back to the kitchen.

  “Is the fire in our room made up?”

  “Yes, Signore, it’s good and warm,” answered the youngest footman. Adamo, by name.

  “I’ll have a bath then, with plenty of hot water.”

  The boy’s dismay was palpable. At the end of this long day, with many duties left to be done, the last chore he wanted was fetching the tin bath and carrying pails of water to fill it. Grisella seemed to share my concern. She laid a timid hand on Jean-Louis’ arm, but he shook it off.

  “Get to it then,” the Frenchman said. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, Signore.” Adamo left the dining room with leaden steps.

  Jean-Louis ran a bilious eye over the offerings on the sideboard. He must have found an empty crevice in his stomach, for he reached for one more chocolate éclair. After giving it a lingering inspection, he put one end in his mouth and employed a forefinger to shove it in whole. Jaws working, he jerked his head at Grisella.

  Murmuring a few words, she took a step back and raised her coffee cup.

  Quick as the flick of an eyelid, Jean-Louis whipped the cup from her hand. Splashing a streak of brown liquid down her white Turkish robe, he poured the remaining coffee into the vase of belladonna lilies that decorated the sideboard.

  His words carried on a burst of irritation: “Now you’re finished. Come on.”

  ***

  I didn’t expect to see my sister again that night. The singers and musicians, accepting Gussie as one of their own, moved from the dining room to the salon. Keyed up from the evening’s surprises and no doubt feeling a little sorry for ourselves, we congratulated each of our concert performances with a series of liberal toasts from the brandy de
canter.

  I confess that I then grabbed centerstage by recounting several stories from my extensive travels. Never one to accept second billing, Emilio rose from the sofa and announced his intention to retire.

  I pulled him back down with a tug on the tail of his jacket. “Don’t rush off,” I said, “you’ll have your turn.”

  The castrato complied by allowing Gussie to fill his glass, but he stared moodily into the fire and crossed his arms as if he meant to block any and all convivialities. Romeo eagerly stepped into the breach with some scandalous gossip about the Papal Nuncio and a certain soprano who was well-known in Venetian circles.

  We were all reaching that muzzy, golden state where the cares of the day seem to evaporate like soap bubbles in the sun when Grisella entered.

  “Gabrielle, my pretty,” slurred Romeo. “How did you slip your lead?”

  My sister giggled like a child at a marionette show and whipped off her head scarf to let her brazen curls spill down her back. Smoothing out her coffee-stained robe, she dropped down beside me on the sofa and said, “Jean-Louis has been at the brandy, too. He fell asleep in his bath, and I wanted some company.”

  Emilio raised his glass. “A toast to Gabrielle. Never one to miss an opportunity.”

  “To Gabrielle,” we echoed.

  Mario fetched a glass for the only lady that remained in our dwindling company, and we whiled away another hour in reminiscing over our greatest triumphs and most spectacular failures. Grisella laughed, pink-cheeked, at the tales of the men and offered a few Parisian theater stories of her own.

  Why couldn’t it be like this forever, I thought. I could just conveniently forget all Grisella’s troubles in Constantinople, pretend that Danika and Count Vladimir Paninovich had never existed. Grisella and I could make a new start. We could sing together in Venice, at the Teatro San Marco. With our perfectly blended voices, we could make operatic history.