5 - Her Deadly Mischief (8 page)

I stood, made my bow, and murmured apologies for my intrusion. Her frown turned to a smile at the very last moment. She said, “I don’t know why you’re so interested in Zulietta’s death, but you’ve got on the wrong track. I advise you to take a look at Cesare Pino. To prevent Alessio going astray, his father would have murdered the Doge himself.”

“I thought Cesare didn’t come to the opera.”

“He was here last night.”

“You saw him?”

She nodded. “On the main staircase, going up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. He wore no mask and his face is unmistakable.”

I stepped to the front of the box and cracked the curtains. The last ballerina was disappearing into the wings. The orchestra was silent, but I heard angry shouting and stomping at the back of the house.

A fight had broken out in the pit! Men raised their fists. Women stooped over, searching the floor for hard candle stubs or rotten fruit to use as missiles. What excellent good fortune! If the fight spread, it might afford me another five or ten minutes.

Returning swiftly to the courtesan’s side, I sank back in my chair and clutched her arm. “What do you mean? Unmistakable?”

La Samsona yawned, exposing a set of teeth a mule would have envied. She was toying with me, this infuriating woman. Life must be just one unceasing game for her.

“Please,” I cried, “this is serious. How did you recognize Cesare Pino and when was this?”

She shook her arm from my grasp and let her hand stray to pick at the flowers at her bosom, smiling all the while.

I had one more card up my sleeve. “Beautiful
signora
, if you truly enjoy my singing, let your answer be my reward.”

Her smile turned to another braying laugh, and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, very well. Fair’s fair, I suppose. Vittoria Busanti had just commenced singing when I spotted Cesare. And I recognized him because anyone would. He had an accident at his kiln some years ago—it damaged one of his eyes and made a horrible mess of his forehead.” She gave a dramatic shudder. “Now, aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?”

I certainly was, but I couldn’t help wondering what La Samsona had been doing out of her box when she’d observed Cesare Pino.

I posed that question aloud. It hung in the air unanswered.

“Lelio,” the courtesan drawled as she reached for a morsel of
mandorlato
. “You’d better see Signor Amato out before he misses his cue.”

***

As I pushed through the corridor crowded with servants removing the remains of suppers and latecomers rushing in from rival theaters, I was so intent on getting backstage for my entrance that I almost missed Pamarino. If the dwarf had not spoken first, I would have tripped right over him.

“Signor Amato,” he cried. “Aren’t you on the wrong side of the curtain?”

“For the moment, but…ah…” I stammered to a pause, surprised at the meeting, unsure what to say to the stumpy creature in the blue poplin jacket festooned with silver epaulets and military-style buttons. Benito was right—he did look like one of the wide-mouthed soldier figurines people give to children.

Pamarino relieved me of my discomfort. Tipping his chin back, he said, “I suppose you wonder what I’m doing at the theater tonight.”

“Well…yes.” I shrugged off my cloak and draped it over my arm, ready to throw it to Benito who would be waiting at the pass door with my helmet. My flimsy mask was already tucked inside my tunic.

“I couldn’t stay away. This was the last place I saw my mistress alive…” A spasm of grief passed over his face like a cloud scudding across the full moon.

I began to understand what Messer Grande had known all along. Absurd as it may seem, the dwarf had been in love with Zulietta. He was haunting the corridors, mourning his beautiful mistress.

Pamarino continued. “I last heard her laugh on the stairs over there…last felt her hand on my shoulder in the box above.” The corners of his mouth turned down; his brow furrowed.

“What will you do now that she’s gone?” The doors that would open for a dwarf must be few, indeed. If Pamarino had some acrobatic skills he might find work as an entertainer. Otherwise, he would be as useless as a castrato with no voice.

His reply was a forlorn whisper. “My mind is in turmoil. I can’t even think—”

A blast of trumpets sounded through the open doors of nearby boxes, my signal to run. “I must go,” I said, giving him a clumsy pat on his shoulder. “
Addio
and good luck.”

I’m ashamed to say that as I sprinted backstage, I spared no further thought for the sad little man. The aria that opened Act Three was the only thing on my mind as I bumbled into the wings, searching their dim depths for my manservant. But Benito was nowhere to be found. No time to wonder why. I spied my helmet on a handy bench and crammed it on my head. Under Maestro Torani’s baleful gaze, I took a deep breath and transformed myself into the hero Rinaldo as I passed from shadow to the glare of the footlights.

It was a technique I should try more often: my hurried entrance left no opportunity for the stage terrors that often sapped my strength and focus. Relieved of all constraint, I sang that aria with a heartrending power that was almost eerie. As I made my exit to cheers and applause, Maestro Torani stopped me by a bank of coiled ropes and sandbags, a scroll of music clutched tightly in his hand. He raised it like a schoolmaster’s cane, in mock severity.

“A triumph, Tito! But, by God, don’t ever cut it so close again. One more minute and I would have been forced to send the ballet girls back on.” He jerked his full-bottomed wig from his head. “Your and Emilio’s antics will put me in my grave one of these days.”

I hung my head, a rush of shame contending with pride over my performance. The last thing I wanted to do was cause Torani worry or discomfort. He had always been a staunch ally in misadventures both musical and not. And hearing him lump me in with the feckless Emilio—galling!

“I apologize most profusely, Maestro. You may—”

He cut me off by spinning me back toward the stage where flowers were accumulating and applause still reigned. “Save it. Give them the last bit once again and keep your mind on your business. If you ever needed any reminder that music should trump sleuthing, this should be it.”

***

When I finally reached my dressing room, Benito was ironing pleats into a neckcloth as if nothing had happened.

“Where were you?” I cried, tossing my helmet on the sofa and ripping at the laces and buttons of my costume.

“No need for that.” Several buttons bounced off the floor as my manservant sprinted to my side and brushed my hands away. “Madame Dumas will have both our heads if you tear this tunic, too.”

If I expected Benito to assume an air of contrition, I was sadly mistaken. Birth or early experiences had stamped his tempo mark as
moderato
; extreme passions were beyond him, and on the rare occasion when he was less than calm and collected, I knew something had to be dreadfully wrong.

While I was steaming, my delicate manservant hummed the melody from my last aria and removed my padded soldier’s armor. I began to calm down as he applied deft hands to the tunic and breeches beneath. Then he floated a dressing gown over my bare skin and sat me down at my dressing table. “Close your eyes,” he murmured.

I complied and felt the warm weight of my wig rising from my head. Benito released my own hair from its skullcap, and I was soon relaxing under the gentle pull of the brush through my locks.

“Are you ready to hear my story?” he asked.

I cracked one eye open. In the mirror, Benito’s reflection was solemn.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Very well. I was waiting at the pass door as you instructed when a woman came through. Not a gentlewoman, but a maid or companion—one tooth in her mouth, as old as God himself, and obviously no idea how to proceed. She was clutching a sealed message.”

“A note of assignation, I suppose.”

“Such was my deduction. She wandered about tripping over props, nearly getting herself felled by flying scenery, and enduring the curses of stagehands until she could stand it no longer. The poor old thing was actually crying when I reached her. Where is the castrato? I must see the castrato who sang so well in the last scene,’ she said. ‘Not here,’ I answered, ‘but he is my master. I’ll give him that note if you wish.’ She shoved it at me and scurried for the pass door like a frightened mouse.”

I bent my head to one side as Benito worked at a tangle. “What is so important about this note? We receive those confounded pleas by the boatload.”

“See for yourself. It’s right there.”

I reached for the folded paper resting against a bottle of lavender water. The wax seal had been broken in two. I raised an eyebrow.

Benito responded with a chuckling, sexless laugh. “I took the liberty.” He laid the hairbrush down and stepped away to smooth the folds of the costume I would wear in the fourth act.

Shaking my head, I quickly scanned the few lines penned in a slanting schoolbook hand.
My Thrice-Dear Emiliano
, they began,
Just addressing you under such secrecy makes my pen quiver
. The lady went on to praise my rival’s singing, express her longing to see him again, and set a time to see him on the morrow. She must be a very young lady indeed, or a wife more carefully watched than most; the best she had to offer was a coffee at a café on a small, out-of-the-way square in the San Barnaba district. The note was signed with a curlicued “M.”

“So, you took delivery by mistake.” I held the note up between two fingers. “You had better take this along to Emilio or there’ll be one very lonely lady at the Café Rosa tomorrow.”

“I thought you might want to go in Emilio’s place.”

“What?”

Benito moved to clasp my shoulders and regard me in the mirror flanked by wavering oil lamps. Bending, he placed his head so close to mine that our cheeks touched. “You missed me when you came backstage because I’d gone to track down the elderly maid. It took me a while, but I finally found her, sitting at the back of a very aristocratic box. Would you like to guess whose?”

“Oh, Benito.” I felt the blood course through my veins. “Could it be?”

He grinned. “It certainly could. ‘M’ is Maria Albergati.”

Chapter Seven

The next day dawned sunny and unseasonably warm. Liya and I welcomed it by taking our chocolate and rolls on the little balcony attached to our bedchamber. Bathed in the soft, golden October sunshine, we stretched and rubbed our eyes and lazily came to life.

My activities of the night before had driven Messer Grande’s impending visit from my mind. Now I must decide how I was going to row over to Murano, visit the ghetto, and take coffee with Maria on the other side of the Grand Canal within the space of several short hours. I was grumpy as an old bear until Liya coaxed me to talk of Titolino. The boy had recovered from his cough and was begging to see the menagerie of African beasts on display for Carnevale.

“Will you take him?” Liya asked, running her fingers through her sleep-tumbled tresses. “Since Gussie and Annetta left for England, he’s missed his playmate Matteo so very much. He would love to have an outing with you.”

“I suppose.” If my reply was less than enthusiastic, it was only because of my preoccupation, and perhaps because the traditional amusements struck me as frenzied and excessive of late. Casting restraint aside for a fortnight could be delicious fun, but our six-month celebration had changed my city for the worse.

Much of Venice had become dirty and foul-smelling, her beautiful buildings hung with a gaudy riot of banners and notice-boards, her pavements and waterways crowded with merrymakers made bold by the masks that hid their identities. I’d rather spend my leisure time in our quiet Cannaregio with its rows of neat houses, fresh lagoon breeze, and market stalls where familiar dealers sold melons and pumpkins to housewives who had no use for disguise.

I jerked up from my slouch to sit very straight. I was becoming my father, I realized with shame, the fastidious Isidore Amato who I’d often heard rail against the indecencies of the younger generation. The man who could never be bothered to cast aside the worries of his work as the Mendicanti’s organ master. Of course Titolino wanted to see the rhinoceros; everything was a wonder to his seven-year-old eyes. I answered in a hearty tone. “Yes, absolutely. I’ll take the boy down to the Piazza at the first opportunity.”

But my wife had gone on to fret about something else. “I wonder if Mama will come down to the shop,” Liya said, tearing off small bits of bread and rolling them between her fingers.

Ah, I expected my wife would bring up our ghetto visit sooner or later. I sank back in my chair. “Do you want her to?” I asked cautiously.

Liya pushed her plate away and turned to stare down at the thread of water that passed alongside our house. A gondola floated lazily by, its sides barely clearing the walls. It carried a corpulent man dressed entirely in black who stroked a small yellow dog on his lap. As if the dog sensed Liya’s intense gaze, it bounced up with ruffled fur and barked in furious displeasure. The boatman laid on his oar and bent his knee. Pushing his boot against the adjacent wall, he propelled the vessel forward into shadow.

“No, Mama can stay upstairs for all I care.” Liya grimaced. “Yesterday at the shop, Fortunata was as sweet as clover honey, and Papa almost so, but I know Mama’s ways. She never forgets or forgives, and I’m certain the years haven’t dulled her sharp tongue. I’d just as soon not face her…for now, at least.”

“You should have nothing to fear,
carissima
. You’re a grown woman with your own household. Her tongue can’t wound you unless you allow it.”

“Of course, you’re right.” Smiling now, she reached across the white tablecloth to squeeze my hand. “As you so often are.”

“What? Not always?”

She tossed her head, flipped my hand away, and again changed the subject. “The cards were very promising for our expedition.”

“What did they say?” I asked, tipping the chocolate pot to refill both our cups.

As Liya’s gaze lit on the curl of steam rising from her cup, her eyes took on the dreamy look they displayed when she was staring into her scrying pot. Her voice became husky and deep. “They described a man who hides his upright character behind a disguise…and a woman who does the opposite.”

Wonderful. Why did Liya’s oracles always have to be so obscure? If only they would hit upon some hard facts for a change. But I knew better to express open criticism. Instead, I merely cradled my warm cup in my hands and said, “I’ll be happy to simply learn more about Zulietta. I’ve always believed that people sow the seeds of their own misfortune. Perhaps something will come to light that will help us find her killer.”

Liya sent me a thoughtful nod, then noticed the maid hovering by the door. “What is it, Angelina?” she asked sharply. Liya had hired the girl only last month. Fourteen, shy, and so afraid of giving offense, Angelina was barely able to attend to her duties. She was the exact opposite of Todi, our cook, who bullied everyone from Benito to the kitchen cat.

“
Scusi
, mistress.” She twisted her fingers around a corner of her apron. “Visitors at the door.”

“Their names?” Liya asked, clearly annoyed at any interruption that would delay our promised errand.

Angelina’s thin face scrunched up in distress. “It’s Messer Grande. He has two constables with him.”

The moment I’d been dreading had arrived. And me with not the flimsiest idea of what I was going to do.

“Tito—” Liya began ominously.

I hurried downstairs with my dressing gown flapping around my calves. Mindful of the aristocratic doors that had been slammed in Messer Grande’s face, I invited him and his officers into the salon. When he refused to enter the house, citing the pressure of fleeting time, I was forced to explain my predicament on the pavement. I’d barely begun when a window grated open somewhere to my left. Ah, the wife of the silk merchant next door. Though she always turned her head away if she chanced to pass Liya or me on the street, the woman took an active interest in our affairs. Surprisingly, my conversation with the chief constable proceeded with ease. Signora Zeno wouldn’t be able to spread the gossip that I’d been carted off to the guardhouse this time.

“I understand,” Messer Grande told me after a throaty chuckle. “My wife often assigns me errands of great importance, as well. I find it saves time in the end to simply comply with her wishes and get them over with. Actually, this development may work to our advantage.”

Our
advantage? Somehow I had become an undeputized assistant to the chief of Venice’s constabulary. Not a post I had ever envisioned holding.

Messer Grande paused as he took in my expression. He gestured in the direction of the ghetto with an ingratiating smile. “I’ve already paid an official visit to the widow Grazziano. As you can imagine, the good woman gave me short shrift. Her daughter’s behavior has been a great embarrassment that she would rather not discuss, especially with an outsider. But…” Here he crossed his arms, hoisted his eyebrows up his high forehead, and regarded me as he had the juicy melons at the market. “You have a connection, my dear fellow, the perfect entrée to the widow’s apartment. As she’s over the first shock, the moment may be favorable to elicit her confidences. Let me see, is that your gondolier?” He gestured toward Luigi, who was dawdling on the quay across the tiny
campo
.

I nodded wordlessly. Within minutes I had been issued new marching orders: wrest all the information I could from Signora Grazziano, then have Luigi row me over to Murano where Messer Grande and I would have that delayed interview with Cesare Pino. Somehow I would also have to make time to meet Maria.

Was I the only one who remembered I had a four-act opera to sing that evening?

***

The stout wooden gates of the ghetto were flanked by Christian guards whose pay, Liya had once told me, fell on the shoulders of the Hebrew community. As we stepped through those open portals, we entered a city within a city.

This area, which had once played host to an iron foundry, was riddled with narrow passages overshadowed by tall buildings with scaling plaster and broken window shutters. The few open squares could barely contain the activity that swirled within. Every necessity of life had its own shop: bread, greens, fruit, wine, meat, and cheese. With space at a premium, much of life was lived outdoors. A profusion of accents and alien tongues met my ears as women bargained over goods spilling from doorways and men conducted learned discussions in tight, intense circles.

Since the ghetto’s inhabitants had landed there from all four corners of the globe, I wasn’t surprised to pass several proud descendants of Spanish Jewry speaking Castilian or catch sight of a fellow in caftan and turban following us down the alley. With a flap of his headgear drawn across the lower part of his swarthy face, he looked as if he could have been miraculously transported from the Holy Land. We also rubbed shoulders with plenty of my fellow Christians who had come to the ghetto to either leave an item in pawn, if their purse was empty, or get it out again if they were flush with coin.

With Liya in the lead, we crossed a small
campo
dominated by the plain stone façade of the Spanish synagogue and made several left turns to reach an even narrower passageway where the air was full of goose feathers floating like ragged snowflakes. We were getting close. I recalled that the poultry shop was just a few doors down from Pincas Del’Vecchio’s place.

Liya’s father was waiting in the doorway. I had last seen him before my ill-fated visit to Rome several years ago, when I was accustomed to dropping in at his shop to see if there was any news from his errant daughter. Once I’d found his wandering Liya and taken her as my wife, I’d been made to feel that I had stolen his greatest treasure and the friendly visits ceased. I was thus relieved when he hailed us with loud exclamations of welcome. No sneaking us past the neighbors. The eldest daughter of the house had returned, and Pincas wanted everyone to share his joy. In the crowded passageway, I saw faces turn toward us, many wearing smiles, some not.

“You look well,” he told me after he’d embraced Liya. Then he rose on tiptoe to kiss both my cheeks.

Somewhat surprised, I returned his greeting. “As do you, Signore. Business must be good.”

With pride, Pincas nodded toward the jackets and waistcoats hanging from a line tacked to the side of the building. Linen shirts and neckcloths were piled in baskets on either side of the entrance, and through the open doorway, I could see shelves and racks bulging with all manner of finery. As he always had, my jowly, rotund father-in-law wore a coat and wig in the style of the day before yesterday, preferring to save more fashionable wares for his customers. Unfortunately, he was also still using his oily, overly sweet-smelling pomade; it formed a cloying stew with the odor of simmering goose fat wafting from the poulterer’s. I slipped my scented handkerchief from an inside pocket and dabbed it to my nose.

Pincas asked if we required any refreshment, gesturing toward a tiny café at the end of the alley. I declined politely, citing our eagerness to interview the widow Grazziano and privately mulling how I could speed my first errand of the morning along. We’d turned to go back the way we’d come when our mission was immediately forestalled by Fortunata darting out of the shop, intent on saying her helloes. The doll-like girl that I remembered had grown into a beautiful young woman. How old was she now? Twelve? Thirteen? With her striking indigo gown and dark hair fastened up with gold pins, she reminded me of Liya when I’d first met her as she peddled masks and headdresses at the Teatro San Marco so many years ago.

As the sisters chattered, Pincas pulled me to one side and leaned a shoulder against the plastered wall across the way. At first I wondered why he had not invited us into the shop, but then I noticed the open window on the floor above and the curtain twitching despite the still, sultry air. Pincas may have stiffened his spine sufficiently to welcome his daughter, but I’d wager he was still very much under the thumb of his ungovernable wife who obviously wanted to observe her daughter and her capon of a husband without being seen. Yes, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the watchful figure garbed in black.

“It was shocking to hear of Mina’s death—so violent and in such a public place,” Pincas was saying in his slightly guttural accent. “But then, Mina Grazziano never did anything by halves.”

“Did you know her well?” I asked, trying to picture the woman I thought of as Zulietta Giardino existing within the stifling confines of the ghetto.

He nodded. “Her father was a friend of long standing. I remember when Mina was born—Davide nearly burst with pride and gratitude. He and Esther had been married for six years and despaired of ever having a child.” Pincas gave a short chuckle. “We always joked that when the Lord got around to sending us daughters, he kept his hand on the pump.”

“Liya guessed that Mina had five sisters.”

“That’s right. The youngest two are still at home, one married a man of the ghetto, and the others married a pair of cousins from Livorno.” He sighed and massaged the excess flesh above his frayed collar. “I always feared Mina would come to grief. Davide made a terrible mistake, you see.”

“Ye-es,” I replied in a tone that let him know he had my full attention.

“Perhaps because she was the answer to his prayers, Davide worshiped his little Mina. He put her on a pedestal and expected her mother and sisters to pay her the same homage. She was petted, indulged, given extravagant presents…” He shook his head sadly. “She ruled the household until a sudden attack of apoplexy carried Davide off. Then she had to fall back on those she’d always put in the shade.”

“How old was she when he died?”

“Sixteen. As sharp as a needle, handy with ruses, and already pretty enough to turn every man’s head.”

“Ruses?”

“Let me just say that Mina told the truth only so long as it was convenient. When the truth became tedious, she invented a story that was more to her liking, generally one in which she took center stage.”

“No wonder these walls couldn’t hold her.”

“It was more than sheer willfulness that led her astray.” Pincas frowned and pushed off the wall. “But the rest of the tale is best told by Esther. It’s time we go to meet her, don’t you think?”