Glorious Ones (15 page)

I was on stage, about to perform a new play. “How useful,” said my dreaming self, because sometimes whole plays came to me in dreams.

But soon, I knew that it was not going to be useful at all. For it was the kind of dream in which I’d never rehearsed, I didn’t know the lines, I’d never heard of the play. You know the dream I mean, Pietro; everyone has them.

As always, I felt my heart speed up; an alarm sounded in my head, like the noise I used to hear as a little girl, waking from a deep sleep to see ghosts in my father’s house. But, by the end of my life, I’d had that dream so many times that I’d learn to calm myself, to step back, like a member of the audience, to see what sort of play it would turn out to be.

In my fever dream, the drama was a strange one. I played a woman in labor.

All the time, I was aware of the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing. Yet the acting seemed effortless; my body contracted rhythmically. There was no blood, of course; it was only a pantomime. And I thought I was doing well, pretending to give birth.

But suddenly the audience began to hiss. They booed, shouted, then left the theater in disgust.

Immediately, the actors gathered around Francesco, to discuss the failure. “Childbirth is too serious,” he told them. “It’s not the sort of thing from which good comedy can be made.”

“That’s right,” they agreed, turning to me. “You’ll have to go, and take the baby with you.”

“But I want the child,” I said, confusing the play, the dream, real life.

“Then you have several choices,” The Glorious Ones told me. “You can be the Inamorata—unmarried, pregnant, desperate to conceal her disreputable condition. You can have the baby painlessly and magically aborted by the Doctor. Or, you can bear it and give it away; perhaps it will come back to you, a stranger, twenty years hence. And there is another possibility: you yourself can be the child, Pantalone’s rebellious daughter.

“But you cannot bear the child and keep it, Isabella. You can’t be a mother, a woman, for that’s not the stuff of comedy.

“So you must go away now, and take the baby with you.”

When I awoke from the fever dream, I understood why The Glorious Ones wanted me to die. They were sterile, all of them. It was as if they’d been bewitched, cursed; they made love, but nothing ever came of it. There was no room for a baby in their comedy.

“But what about Francesco?” you’re wondering. “Surely
he
wanted the child? It was his baby, his immortality!”

That’s the way you think, Pietro, I know. But you’re not Andreini. I knew what was in his mind, because I remembered a story he told me, long ago, a story he’d heard in India. It was about Shiva, the dark god, the destroyer and creator, the lord of sex and death.

After ten thousand years of marriage, Shiva’s consort, Parvati, the goddess of fertility, decided that she wanted a child. But Shiva refused to give her one. He loved his wife so much that he knew he would be jealous of the love she gave their own baby. Besides, as he saw it, there were already enough gods and goddesses; the people’s libations were hardly enough to go around.

But Parvati was determined. So she fashioned a fat little baby out of chick-pea flour. And one night, as her husband slept, she placed the figure close to his mouth, so that the god would breathe on it, and bring it to life.

Shiva was awakened by the baby’s cries. Immediately, he understood what had happened, and became so furious that he raised his razor-sharp sword, and lopped off the baby’s head.

Parvati began to weep. “I’m leaving you,” she said. “I’ll throw myself in the ocean, and swim around with the fish. Or I’ll jump into the fire, and dance with the flames. I don’t care what I have to do, but I’m leaving.”

Shiva knew his wife well enough to realize she meant what she said. “What can I do?” he asked her. “What can I do to make you stay?”

“I want a new head for my baby,” she mumbled through her tears.

Seeing that he had no choice, Shiva agreed. “All right,” he said. “I will borrow a head from the first living creature I meet.”

At that moment, a huge elephant stuck its long trunk into the god’s window, trying to steal some of the almonds stored in a silver bowl on the sill.

And that was the birth of Ganesha, the fat, elephant-headed god, who rides a rat, loves fruit, and helps people overcome the small obstacles of daily life.

I can’t remember when, or why, Francesco told me that story. Maybe it was in the beginning, when he was coming to my home, courting me with stories, telling me every one he knew. Or maybe it was later, maybe he was talking about something else. Maybe the story was meant as another comment on his great love affair with Flaminio.

But still, I remembered it. And I told it back to him, when I was pregnant, in the midst of an argument.

I was surprised at how angry it made him. For he was being very careful with me then. He was afraid that the pregnancy had unbalanced me, afraid that something terrible would happen, like when I first joined the troupe. So I thought I could get away with anything. But I was wrong.

“I
do
want it!” he screamed at me. “You’re the one who isn’t sure!”

It would never have made him so angry if it weren’t true. But only now, looking down from heaven, do I understand.

Francesco wanted the child, but he wanted the spectacle more. If he’d been given the choice, he’d surely have chosen the state funeral, financed by the King of France. A baby wasn’t his idea of immortality, it wasn’t part of his plan. But the funeral oration was.

How proud Francesco looked, stepping up on the black-draped podium, after the king had finished speaking. He stood very straight, and threw back his head. There were a few wrinkles in Francesco’s cheeks; that mass of bright yellow ringlets had begun to gray and fade. But he was just as tall, his limbs were just as long and sinewy, his hands were as large and graceful as ever. If anything, there was more magic in his body than on the first day I met him. If I hadn’t known him so well, my heart would have leapt at the sight of such a handsome man.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, in that perfect French which had always made him so proud. “You have heard your gracious king speak of my late wife’s genius, her incredible talent. But I alone can tell you about a side of her which no one else knew. I alone can tell you what it was like to be married to Isabella Andreini.

“It was a blessing from God, ladies and gentlemen. She was not only my wife, but also my friend and companion. She cared for me, nurtured me, inspired me. Never was there a more perfect mate. Sarah could not have been kinder to her Abraham, Penelope was no more loyal to her Ulysses. Never once did I need her help, and find it lacking; never once did I call out to her, and find her gone.

“And she was a model of virtue and piety, ladies and gentlemen. For, despite the ugly gossip which often surrounds the female members of our profession, I can assure you: a sister of the convent could not have been more faithful to her lord than Isabella was to me.”

Francesco was performing better than ever before. It was the crowning moment of his career. His voice soared, his body trembled with emotion. He could speak proudly, eloquently, because he knew that his words had the unmistakable ring of truth.

And my spirit, hovering over the dusty plaza, shriveled and darkened with misery.

“Francesco,” I thought, “why are you saying the very things which hurt me most?

“Francesco,” I thought, “did you ever love me? I never knew, I never came close enough. You should never have tried to play the Lover, Francesco. Because you were always Arlechino—the big, half-wild cat, the mystery. That was your proper role. You were split in half, black and white, like the patches on your costume. You were always having those conversations with yourself, between those two sides of you. But I could never come close.”

So, even after death, I didn’t know the whole truth: was it all part of Francesco’s plan? Could he really see the end so well? Did he know that I would lose the child and die, so that he and The Glorious Ones could perform at a magnificent state funeral, financed by the King of France?

Yet perhaps I am making a mistake, crediting him with so much power, believing that he had that terrifying foresight which he always insisted was his. He was a man, after all, not a god. He couldn’t see the future.

But we can have as much power as we allow ourselves to take—Francesco himself taught me that. And that is why I think he knew.

He knew that I would die. He knew he would be able to orate at my funeral. He knew that I’d remain faithful, so that he could honestly praise my flawless virtue. He knew that nothing would happen, on that day I went to visit Pietro Visconti in his tent.

Remember, Pietro? It was three months ago. We were camped in the south of France, on our way to Lyons. I waited until early afternoon, because I knew how much you loved to sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you. Then, I walked straight into your tent, without announcing myself.

You were lying on top of the bed. You were dressed, but your boots were off. I was afraid to sit next to you, on the bed. So I sat down on a pile of rags and old clothes, in a corner of the tent. I looked at you, but I didn’t speak.

“Is something wrong?” you asked me. (Did you suspect? You must have known, unless it was just my imagination.)

“No,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” you asked.

“Nothing.” I shook my head.

“Oh,” you smiled. “It’s the pregnancy. You’re not feeling well, are you, Isabella?”

“No,” I replied. “It has nothing to do with the pregnancy.”

But perhaps it did, more than I thought. For I could feel a cold chill, coming up from the earth, permeating the rags and old clothes, creeping up my back. And it bothered me, though such things had never disturbed me before.

So I got up, and began to pace back and forth. But the ceiling was too low. I couldn’t stand up straight, and I didn’t want you to see me like that, my head and neck bent like a buzzard’s. By the time I sat down again, I had no choice but to speak.

“There
is
something wrong,” I said. “But I don’t know what it is. Something’s making me restless, discontent. I can’t eat, I can’t concentrate. My mind wanders, even on stage. And it’s hard for me to sleep. I was up until five last night, staring at the shadows on the ceiling.”

“Till five,” you murmured sympathetically.

“Yes,” I said. “But I suppose insomnia’s an occupational disease among The Glorious Ones. Haven’t you heard them, Pietro? Pantalone cries in his sleep, Armanda sings hymns, Brighella blathers about God and His holy angels. And Andreini thrashes and shouts as if he were fighting off demons. Haven’t you heard them?”

Yet the moment I asked, I realized you hadn’t. You weren’t like the others; you slept soundly, every night. That was why I liked you.

“Yes,” I repeated, “till five.”

“Sounds like pregnancy to me,” you laughed. (But was there a strange look in your eye, as if you knew the truth? Was I, the woman famous for her imagination, just imagining it? It seemed important to me, to know.)

“Can’t you see it in me, Pietro?” I asked you. “The others notice it, I can tell. It’s making them wary of me, they’re standing back and watching. Columbina keeps asking me what’s wrong. And it’s scary, because it reminds me of my first days in the troupe, when they all thought I was crazy.”

“Why did they think you were crazy?” you asked. “Because you were so beautiful?”

So you thought I was beautiful, Pietro. You probably thought it meant nothing to me, hearing you say it. After all, you’d heard kings call me beautiful. You’d seen princes slobbering over me like children at a bakery. You’d listened to Andreini praise my beauty every time he introduced the troupe.

But
I
never heard it, Pietro. I never saw it, I never believed it. Listen:

The first time Francesco came to my home, he amused my family by drawing little caricatures of us all. The sketch he drew of me was not really unkind; after all, he was courting me. Yet still, I felt as poor Armanda must have felt, when Flaminio proclaimed her ugliness before the convent. And that night, when I looked into the mirror, I saw the face of a hideous brown toad, bug-eyed, covered with warts.

We never believe we’re beautiful, no matter how many times we hear it. We never believe it until someone says it in the right way.

Yet I believed you when you said it, Pietro. My knees felt weak; I couldn’t talk. Even here, in heaven, a spirit without a body, I can still feel the excitement.

“Why did they think you were crazy?” you repeated. “Because you were so beautiful?”

“No,” was all I could reply. “Not because I was beautiful. Because I was crazy.”

Then, I got up, and left the tent.

So that was what happened. Nothing. That was what I told you. Nothing. I wanted to say that I’d rather be there with you than anywhere else on earth. I wanted to spend time with you, to explain the truth about myself, from beginning to end.

And I didn’t say it.

But perhaps I can now. Perhaps there’s time. Sleep, try to sleep, and I will do my best.

I wasn’t born in a convent, the way Andreini always claimed. He only said it to scare Flaminio, to weaken the old man’s will by reminding him of some crazy witch’s curse.

How could any of them have believed it? How could I ever have learned the things I knew in a convent? How could I have mastered those hard-learned tricks, those skills, that ability to please and charm, had I not had so much practice, pleasing my parents?

As a child, I learned to sing, to dance, to play the lute. When guests came to dinner, I recited stanzas of terrible doggerel I’d composed myself. I was precocious, horribly spoiled, but my parents encouraged me. They knew that I needed those talents, in order to protect myself.

For there was something else in me which disturbed them more.

Every evening, my parents took me for a walk through the city, to display their newest jewel. In honor of these occasions, they dressed me in a green velvet gown. My mother put on her Chinese brocade cape. My father picked up his ivory-headed cane, and his Spanish leather pouch, full of coins.