2 - Painted Veil Read online

  “Maestro, can’t these other singers be given something to do?” The clerk’s high, nasal voice carried from the floor of the auditorium up to the figures on the stage.

  Torani turned and answered with a fixed smile, “Do, Signor Carpani? I don’t understand. They are doing what they need to be doing.”

  “But they are wasting time. Signor Florio is holed up in his dressing room complaining of a headache. Signor Amato is sitting here with his feet up. And I have just come from downstairs. One of the women is knitting.” He made this last observation in astonished tones more appropriate to announce that the bronze horses above the doors of the Basilica San Marco had jumped from their perch and were galloping around the Piazza.

  “I suppose filing wills and court documents didn’t prepare you for theater work.” A pent-up sigh escaped the director’s lips. “But you must understand, Signor Carpani, singers can’t sing all day. Their throats won’t take it. I’ll get to the others in due time. Meanwhile they may study their music, learn Niccolo’s aria along with him, or simply rest their voices.”

  Carpani harrumphed, and his shoulders gave a frustrated twist. He might have gone on, but Torani had already snapped his fingers and commanded Niccolo to “take it from the beginning, once more, con molto spirito.” As the tenor complied and filled the auditorium with a martial tune, the wiry black-clad clerk prowled back and forth with his hands behind his back. After a few minutes, he settled into a chair with a lap desk balanced on his knees and a pair of spectacles perched at the end of his long nose. Copious notes poured from his quill. I was glad he had chosen a seat far enough from mine to make conversation inconvenient.

  Niccolo’s aria was melodic and rousing, and the tenor managed to produce a few interesting embellishments, but my mind began to wander on the third run-through. I stretched my arms above my head, stifled a yawn, and looked around the opera house, my second home. Carpani and I were sitting on the floor of the auditorium, facing the stage. Its elegant proscenium arch was formed by double columns on each side and above by symmetrical swags of plasterwork which met at a huge cartouche bearing the lion of St. Mark. The orchestra pit, set slightly lower than the rest of the auditorium, curved out from the stage and was connected to it by a short flight of stairs at each end. The auditorium itself was embraced by a horseshoe of luxuriously appointed boxes rising tier upon tier. The wealthy aristocrats and merchants who engaged these boxes for the season gazed down on the stage and also had a bird’s eye view of the populace who could afford only a soldo or two for their night at the opera. Those striving to sound elegant would use the French term and say that the poor watched the opera from the parterre, but most Venetians used the more descriptive word—the pit.

  The theater had recently ordered benches so the rabble could sit rather than stand or mill about. Backless and roughly made, the benches had been designed to be moved aside for cleaning. That morning they were stacked against the walls; Carpani and I had settled in comfortable chairs borrowed from an unlocked box.

  During performances, I’d learned to keep a sharp eye on the pit. Especially the gondoliers. No one enjoyed the opera as enthusiastically as Venice’s boatmen. They didn’t simply listen; they strained forward, swaying to the tune and drinking the music in with every pore. If they were pleased, applause was nothing. They stomped, yelled, and demanded endless encores. But if we failed to entertain, out came the hard candle stubs and soft tomatoes. Even the most talented singers among us soon grew adept at ducking.

  Of course, in song as in dining, one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so it was inevitable that fistfights between the supporters of rival singers would break out. Then the beautifully dressed aristocrats would show their true colors. With card games and intimate suppers abandoned, hisses and catcalls would spill out of the boxes. One great lady had even been known to overturn her chamber pot on the brawlers in the pit.

  I turned my attention back to the stage. After some work on his intonation, Niccolo finally managed to produce a rendition of the aria that satisfied Maestro Torani. The director released him and announced a scene from Act One. That was my call. I left Signor Carpani to his notes and ducked under the Doge’s box and through a door that led backstage. The scene we were to rehearse took place in Caesar’s encampment. A military tent of yellow and blue striped silk was planned for upper stage right. For now, the stagehands were positioning a pair of benches to denote its place. A row of officer’s tents that was supposed to stretch into the distance on the backdrop existed only in the mind of the missing Luca Cavalieri.

  As I came through the wings, Florio approached from the back corridor. He was flanked by his manservant and his manager, Ivo Peschi. Ivo looked after the star’s travel arrangements and business interests. He was a middle-aged man with a blue-gray wig that stood up like a brush and ended in a rat’s tail tied with a limp bow. His creased face wore a frown. Florio’s valet, a wispy fellow with a perpetually hangdog appearance, carried Caesar’s battle helmet as if it were a tureen of hot soup. Except for the colors of the plumes, the helmet was a duplicate of the one Benito had deposited in my dressing room earlier that morning. I sighed. Something told me that not much singing would be accomplished in what was left of the morning.

  Florio and I came out of the shadowed wings and stepped into the glow of the footlamps at the same time. Torani, manfully trying to ignore the obvious, was ready with stage directions.

  “Ah, Signor Florio, if you would be so good. As the curtain rises, Caesar stands before the entrance of his tent. In a short recitative, he voices his suspicions of Ptolemy’s scheming character, then sings his aria vowing to frustrate the prince’s evil designs.” Torani indicated Florio’s mark with a determined smile, but the singer didn’t budge.

  A flurry of low, excited whispers swirled behind me. In the wings opposite, workmen laid down their tools and moved closer to the stage. The old theater hands could smell a scene brewing and didn’t want to miss any of the action.

  Florio wore a coat of plum-colored taffeta. Though the day was not particularly cool, he had wrapped a long scarf of yellow silk several times around his throat. As usual, he stood with one foot turned out to show off a muscular calf encased in an immaculate white stocking. All eyes were on his colorful figure as he faced Torani’s wilting smile.

  “The aria will have to wait, Maestro.”

  “Wait? But our rehearsal schedule is particularly tight today.” Torani’s smile disappeared completely.

  “I have discovered an unfortunate matter which requires immediate attention.” Florio indicated the plumed confection in his valet’s hands. “My man tells me that Caesar and Ptolemy’s battle helmets are virtually identical.”

  “Are they now?” Torani said slowly, before turning to me with an apologetic look. “Could we have a look at yours, Tito?”

  Someone must have alerted Benito. He was already bringing my headgear onto the stage.

  “Look, Signor Florio, the colors are different. The helmets match your costumes. The audience will have no difficulty in telling your characters apart,” Torani observed.

  “That is not the issue. Ivo?” Florio sniffed delicately and took out a handkerchief that he waved toward his manager before pressing the linen square to his temple.

  Ivo Peschi launched into a diatribe more worthy of a court advocate than a singer’s nursemaid. “I have Il Florino’s contract here,” he said, unfolding a bulky sheaf of paper that he had been harboring in an inside pocket. “It clearly states that his ‘helmets, swords, and similar accoutrements will not be eclipsed in majesty or dignity by those of any other player.’”

  Torani nodded as the recitation of clauses and stipulations droned on. Finally, the manager stopped to draw a breath.

  “Well, what would you like me to do, Signore?” Torani addressed the singer.

  Florio measured my height with his gaze, then came to stand right in front of me. He put his hand flat to the top of his head and kep
t it level as he moved it toward mine. His bejeweled fingers stopped in the middle of my forehead. “You are at least two inches taller than I am,” he said accusingly. Then to Torani, “I’ll need five or six inches added to my helmet. More plumes, taller plumes. Blue ones, I think. Blue always shows up well under the lamps.”

  Torani’s face was turning red, but he kept his voice even. “Certainly. We’ll just order another one. There’s still plenty of time. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Now, let’s get back…”

  A shrill voice interrupted. “No, Maestro, absolutely not. Those helmets have been bought and paid for. They cost four ducats each.” Signor Carpani ascended to the stage, shaking his finger at Torani like a nursemaid admonishing a naughty child. “Further expenditure is out of the question.”

  Florio whirled furiously. “What? Is my contract not to be honored? Am I to be treated like some unknown, some unknown…” He flapped his handkerchief uncertainly, then caught sight of Niccolo. “Like some unknown tenor?”

  “There is no money in the budget for further costuming. The helmet will have to be worn as is, by Signor Florio or someone else,” Carpani replied firmly.

  The singer’s jaw dropped. “I was employed to bring the highest level of distinction to this production. The Savio assured me that only an artist of my caliber could make this opera an occasion fit for the marriage of the Doge’s daughter. Are you telling me my services are no longer required?”

  Carpani shrugged, Torani mopped his perspiring brow, and Ivo Peschi shuffled papers. The wings and the catwalks above were filled with stage crew regarding the impasse with mounting excitement. Then, there came a shifting movement in a group upstage and a slender, skirted figure pushed through the workmen. I recognized Liya Del’Vecchio, a daughter of the Jewish family that crafted headdresses and masks for several theaters in the city.

  Many of my countrymen favored a singularly Venetian type of beauty: dainty features, hair bleached to a red-gold, form sleek and plump as a sparrow, manner demure yet accommodating. There was something in that, but Liya, with her exotic looks and forthright demeanor, attracted me more than any other woman I’d met at the theater. Or anywhere else, for that matter. It didn’t hurt that the Jewess displayed a fertile intelligence behind her quick tongue—I found women who offered only flirtation and gossip as tedious as a concert on a poorly tuned violin. To my sorrow, I had to admit that Liya had never been particularly attentive to me, but nevertheless I had always followed her doings with the greatest interest. What was she up to now?

  Seemingly calm and unaffected by the tense atmosphere and numerous pairs of staring eyes, Liya crossed the wide stage. Her dress was drab and utilitarian, but her fine dark hair was done up in plaits wound with a red scarf and held in place by an array of gold pins. The striding heels of her neat boots resounded through the silent theater. She ignored Florio, spared a brief glance for the feathered helmet in his manservant’s arms, then greeted Torani with a graceful nod. Before taking my helmet from Benito, her expressive black eyes sent my valet a decidedly irritated look.

  “There’s no need to order a new helmet, Maestro. I can make an adjustment to Signor Amato’s,” she said, carrying my helmet over to Torani. “You see where these ostrich plumes are tacked down. I can remove the feathers and replace them with a row of dyed horsehair. That would remove about six inches of height from Ptolemy’s helmet and make Caesar’s appear taller by comparison.”

  “Horsehair?” I spoke for the first time. Horsehair was a poor material for a principal singer. The trainbearers and spear carriers had to make do with those common bristles, but must I? Had my value sunk that low?

  “Yes. We have some back at the shop. I’ll bleach the hair and get a sample of your costume fabric from Madame Dumas. After it’s dyed, the crest of horsehair will match your costume and stand up about so.” She ran her hand over the top of the helmet. “I can make it look right.”

  I was seething. I kept telling myself that it was only a helmet and it shouldn’t matter so much, but it did. Florio already had the lion’s share of the crowd-pleasing arias and I had been left with precious little music that would stir the gondoliers and their followers. Did the expensive star have to upstage my wardrobe as well? I realized that my answer lay in the question itself. Too many ducats had been spent to bring Florio to Venice and too many people were anticipating his performance for me to imagine that his contract stipulations would be ignored. If Torani did not indulge Florio’s vanity, then Ministro Morelli or his superior, the Savio, would find a director who would. I swallowed hard. I saw I would have to accept the change, but nothing could make me like it.

  Carpani adjusted his spectacles and inspected the helmet as if he had just been appointed Savio in charge of millinery. “You won’t be paid any more,” he cautioned the seamstress. “In fact, since you are replacing valuable ostrich plumes with an inferior material, the theater should request a partial refund.”

  “The replacement will involve a good deal of labor.” The girl spoke as firmly to Carpani as the clerk had to Florio. “My mother and I can ill afford the time. We have a large order of masks to finish for the new comedy at the Teatro Sant’Angelo.” Carpani frowned as the girl went on. “But because this theater has been such a loyal customer, we will undertake the job at no extra charge.”

  Torani spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Surely, Signorina Del’Vecchio presents the perfect solution. Let’s have her take this cursed helmet back to her shop and get on with rehearsal.”

  Carpani handed her the helmet with a sharp nod. As he passed in front of me on the way back to his notebook, he muttered under his breath. Several phrases carried: “What can you expect if you deal with Jews? Cut-throat dogs the lot of them.”

  “Signor Florio?” Torani asked with a tentative smile. “Will these arrangements be suitable?”

  The haughty castrato glanced at his manager, who still clutched the thick contract in his sinewy hands. After receiving a judicious nod, Florio acquiesced with surprising cheerfulness and moved to his rehearsal mark as if nothing remotely unpleasant had just occurred. It was as if he had been playing the scene for dramatic effect, just a bit of fun to enliven an otherwise boring rehearsal.

  “Tito?” At least Torani had the grace to ask my permission, even if the alteration was a foregone conclusion. I agreed with a great show of amiability, sternly reminding myself that one costume was not worth getting upset about. After all, I had other things to think about. I had a wandering painter to find.

  Chapter 4

  True to his word, Torani released me with plenty of time left in the day to search for Luca Cavalieri. The theater sat at the confluence of two narrow canals, midway between the Piazza and the Rialto. Of all the open spaces in the city, only the vast square before the glittering, domed Basilica and its soaring bell tower enjoyed the designation of Piazza. Any other square, no matter how many homes and shops might enclose it or how grand a church might adorn it, was only a campo. Along with the Doge’s palace and the Senate’s headquarters, the Piazza San Marco boasted a number of cafes and taverns, but I remembered Luca mentioning a favorite drinking spot in the warren of alleys and campi that made up the commercial district of the Rialto.

  I went out by the stage door and turned left toward the marketplace to look for the tavern called The Four Winds. After enduring several weeks of cool, rainy days, the populace welcomed the sun with buoyant spirits. The porters and messengers who haunted gondola landings hoping to pick up a bit of work had rolled up their sleeves and lounged against bridge railings with their faces turned up to the clear, azure sky. Gondoliers without fares sang snatches of tunes or bantered with water girls who passed by swinging their hips, shouldering wooden yokes with copper buckets suspended from each end. All along the narrow walkway by the canal, people loitered in shop doorways, too infatuated with the gentle sun and the warm, southern breeze to go inside and see to their work.

  Presently, the pavement dumpe
d me onto a broad campo with an ornately sculpted well at one end. The water girls clustered around its steps, drawing up bucket after slopping bucket. As an island surrounded by the undrinkable salt water of the lagoon, Venice relies on these public wells for its cooking and drinking water. The incomparably pure, sweet water is a gift of the sky and untouched by human hands. It comes from rain that falls into grills set in the paving stones and filters through a bed of sand into the deep, cool cisterns that underlie every campo. Throwing refuse into a well is punished as a major crime; even habitually neglecting to replace the wooden cover can earn someone a hefty fine. Every campo has a troupe of girls who earn their bread by delivering their liquid cargo to neighboring houses and shops. Four lire buys a daily supply of water for the month and releases a housewife, or her maid, from the never-ending chore of water hauling.

  Expecting to find The Four Winds on the opposite side of the campo, I skirted around the water carriers, likewise the woodmen offering bundles of kindling for stove fuel. Halfway across, a crowd gathering before the church steps blocked my way. A mustachioed man in a coat of balding purple velvet was clambering onto an upended barrel with the help of several women. The speaker was short, potbellied, and totally unprepossessing, but his voice had a commanding ring.

  “Come one, come all,” he shouted from his makeshift rostrum. “Prepare to be amazed. See the marvel that has thrilled princes and sovereigns throughout the length and breadth of Italy.”

  The showman had the swarthy complexion and jet black hair of a Sicilian but spoke in the Venetian dialect. He had chosen his place with care. The wide arch of the church’s paneled doors provided an impressive backdrop, and a shaft of sunlight threw his dramatic gestures into full illumination. By contrast, most of his onlookers stood in the shadow of a tall building to the left of the church. I had no time for this mountebank, but the swelling crowd herded me inexorably toward him. I ended up in a raised doorway with a good view of the speaker, but on the opposite side of the square from where I wanted to be.