A Cadenza for Caruso (2 page)

At last young Doria—hardly more than a child—could bear no more … and took a lethal dose of poison. Elvira had literally hounded the girl to death. A life had ended, all because of a flirtation that meant nothing to Puccini.

“Shall we resume?” Barthélemy asked.

But it hadn't ended there. Doria's family had ordered an autopsy, and the examination proved the girl had died a virgin—whereupon the family brought charges of persecution and defamation of character against Elvira Puccini. Elvira was tried and convicted; but before the sentence was carried out, the composer had been able to buy Doria's family off, bribing them into withdrawing the charges. Only in that way had he been able to prevent his wife's going to prison.

Despair over this tragic sequence of events had driven Puccini to the brink of taking his own life. His music had saved him; he'd buried himself in work, orchestrating his private anguish into the new opera—including that achingly beautiful aria in the last act.

Caruso turned to Barthélemy.
“Ch' ella mi creda,”
he ordered.

Barthélemy gave him a lopsided smile. “Rico, you already sing that one perfectly. In your sleep, you can sing it perfectly.”

“So, I will sing it perfectly
now
. Play!”

The accompanist sighed in resignation, found the place in the score, and began to play.

Ch' ella mi creda libero e lontano. Let her believe I am free and far away
. Caruso sang full voice, holding back nothing—treating his neighbors in the Hotel Knickerbocker to a free concert. A short aria, but a touching one.

Applause greeted the conclusion: Martino was standing in the doorway, his face one big smile. “Bravo, Rico, bravo!”

The tenor bowed.

“A letter has arrived for you by messenger,” Martino said. “A letter with the most delicious scent of violets arising from it!”

“An answer to my invitation!” Caruso beamed. “Where is it?”

Martino handed him an envelope, addressed in a delicate spidery handwriting in lavender ink.

Dear Mr. Caruso
,

I want to thank you for the lovely American beauty roses you sent; they are my favorites. How did you know? Frankly, I am surprised you remembered me from last year; we barely had a chance to speak on that occasion. And yes, I would be most pleased to have dinner with you. If you care to call for me at seven this evening, I shall be waiting
.

Caroline N
.

“Ah, Ca-ro-
lee
-a,
bellissima!
” Caruso kissed the note and waved it in the air. “Martino! My dinner clothes—the blue!”

Just then Ugo walked in, covered with dust from head to foot. “Your dressing room is clean, Rico,” he grumbled. “Why do I always get the dirty jobs?” Martino hustled him out while Mario quickly sprayed the room with perfume.

But Ugo's unsanitary presence couldn't dim Caruso's anticipation of the evening. Nowhere was he so happy as in New York. He was surrounded by friends. Strangers came up to him on the street, full of praise and extravagant compliments. Charming young ladies wrote him notes saying
yes
. His career was at its peak, and his voice had darkened to the point where he could now sing heroic roles as well as lyric ones. The great Puccini had survived his ordeal and the result was a new opera in which he, Enrico Caruso himself, would create the lead tenor role, in the opera house he preferred to all others in the world.

No clouds on the horizon anywhere. Caruso was rich, famous, and loved. Not bad for a poor boy from the slums of Naples.

The next day Caruso dressed carefully for his visit to Puccini. After consulting with Martino, he'd attired his portly self in a fawn-colored suit, bright green checked waistcoat, curly-brimmed hat, gold-headed cane, and yellow gloves. There. That should do it.

He was a little nervous. The tenor hadn't seen Puccini for a while, not since the scandal of Doria's death had made every newspaper in Italy. But Caruso hadn't been completely comfortable with the composer even before that.

Puccini was a hard man to please. He'd withheld permission for Caruso to sing his
Bohème
for an insultingly long time. And he never hesitated to criticize a singer's performance—any singer, any performance. But when he was pleased—ah, when he was pleased, then he was most generous with his praise. He'd said some wonderfully ego-building things to Caruso on occasion. The trouble was, one never knew what to expect from him. The tenor would have liked to have the composer as a friend, but there had always been a distance between them.

The last Caruso had heard, Puccini was more or less reconciled with his wife; but the tenor didn't know whether Elvira had come with her husband to New York or not. A touchy situation. What was the proper behavior in such circumstances? Should he offer his condolences for the young servant girl's death, or his congratulations that Elvira did not have to go to prison? It didn't occur to Caruso not to bring the subject up at all.

“I am ready,” he announced to Martino.

The head valet looked him over carefully. “Yes, you are ready.”

Puccini's hotel, the Buckingham, was ten blocks away, too much for Caruso. Ugo was waiting on the street with one of the new taximetre motor cabs; Caruso rather enjoyed riding the horse trolleys and the electric streetcars, but automobiles were even more fun. He examined the one in front of him critically. “Ugo, do you think you could learn to drive a motor car?”

“I? Never!” the valet shuddered. “Those things are not safe.” Caruso shrugged and climbed into the cab. Ugo slammed the door after him. “When will you be back, Rico?”

“After lunch sometime. Tell Barthélemy we work then.” That was habit speaking; Barthélemy already knew.

Caruso's nervousness increased as the cab chugged up Seventh Avenue, and the driver's constant chatter didn't help. He paid the driver double the fare the man asked (carefully recording the amount in his notebook), and with something less than his usual swagger walked into the Hotel Buckingham. Outside Puccini's door, he took a deep breath, tried to count to ten but gave up at four, and knocked.

A stranger opened the door. “Well, Caruso, you are looking prosperous. Come in, come in.” Only when he heard the voice did Caruso realize the stranger was Puccini.

The tenor was shocked at the change in the other man. Puccini had lost a lot of weight. His tanned cheeks were hollowed and showed deep furrows. His once vigorous handshake was now flabby and uncertain.

“Puccini!” Caruso shouted. “You are ill!”

“Not any more,” the composer smiled sadly. “Come sit down, Caruso. Tell me what you have been doing.”

“You have a doctor in New York?” the tenor asked worriedly. “I can recommend one, a very strict man but a good physician.”

Puccini shook his head. “It's not that kind of illness. It is a sickness of the spirit. But that too passes.” He pulled out chairs for Caruso and himself. Much of the floor space was taken up by two unopened steamer trunks. “I am sorry I cannot offer you anything. I sent my valet out for wine over an hour ago and he is not yet returned. He is new, you see—he has never been in America before.”

“Eh, well, he is probably lost. New York can be confusing to a newcomer.” Caruso paused. “You do not look well, my friend.”

“He'll find his way back,” Puccini said, ignoring Caruso's last remark. “Now tell me, what else besides
Fanciulla
do you sing at the Metropolitan this season?”

But Caruso wouldn't let him change the subject. “Are you certain you do not need a doctor? They have medicine for everything these days.”

“Do they have a pill that can change the past?” Puccini snapped angrily. Then: “Forgive me, Caruso, I am not as even-tempered as I used to be.”

Caruso had never found him particularly even-tempered to begin with but politely refrained from saying so. He glanced into another room of the suite. “Is Elvira here?”

“No.”

Caruso's face fell. “I am sorry to hear that. I had thought you … she …” He floundered, not knowing how to finish.

“I did not want her to come,” Puccini said, “and she resents me for that, too. I just need some time away from her, you understand? Doria's death is still very much between us. And I am to blame! I!”

“You?” Caruso was surprised. “But it was Elvira who caused all the, the trouble!”

“Not entirely. I did not seduce the girl, as Elvira thought—but I am not guiltless in the matter.”

“But all married men have these little flirts,” Caruso protested. “Italian wives understand these things! It is nothing to break up a marriage over.”

Puccini shook his head. “Elvira is a very unhappy woman. She feels left out. True, I've not always been as discreet as I should have been—but I have always gone back to her! She knows I always come back!”

“Always, yes.”

“It is the relatives,” Puccini said bitterly. “Always the house is full of her relatives—to keep her company, she says, when I am away.
They
put her up to it. They like to make trouble. They see me exchanging a few pleasantries with young Doria and they tell Elvira we are sleeping together.”

“So it is really the relatives' fault!”

“No, I am the one responsible. Doria would be alive today if I had kept a proper distance and given no cause for suspicion.
I
killed her.”

“No no no no
no!
” Caruso cried. “You must not blame yourself! You did not make Elvira persecute the girl—she did that herself. With a little help from the relatives.”

“And from me,” Puccini added glumly. “We are all to blame for that girl's death. Doria was the only truly innocent one in the whole …” his voice trailed off. “Caruso! Do you know what you have done? You have made me talk about it!”

“That is good?”

“I do not know, I think perhaps it is. All I want to do is hide, bury myself in work. When the newspapers made headline stories out of what happened—eh, you know how I hate strangers intruding into my life. It has been like living in hell, with all the devils pointing their fingers at me! But now here I am talking to you about it, and it seems the most natural thing in the world!”

“Then that
is
good,” Caruso pronounced judicially. “What's done is done, and we must learn to live with it.” He was feeling grandfatherly and wise. “Look to the future. Look to December tenth! The tenth of December, nineteen ten—a date to remember!”

Puccini smiled tentatively. “Let us hope so, Caruso.” The tenth was the date of the première of
La Fanciulla del West
.

They talked of the new opera for a while, and Caruso was cheered to see Puccini begin to show a spark of his old enthusiasm. Then the tenor told the other man he was throwing a little dinner party for him that night at the Hotel Knickerbocker. Puccini tried to beg off, but Caruso wouldn't hear of it. “Only your friends will be there,” he told the composer, “old friends who wish you well.”

Puccini finally agreed.

“Now then,” Caruso said, pushing his luck, “why not come have lunch with me? I wish to introduce you to the Café Martin. They make such a nice oily spaghetti—the kind you rarely find away from home.” His mouth began to water.

“It sounds wonderful—but, alas, I have an appointment. Toscanini will be here shortly. We need to consult about the score.” The two men exchanged a wry look; they'd both locked horns with the Maestro before. But it was unthinkable that any other conductor should be entrusted with the new opera.

“Until tonight then,” Caruso said, not particularly eager to run into Toscanini just yet. He left the composer feeling slightly better than he had, and he knew it. Caruso was good at cheering people up.

Down on the street Caruso hesitated. Perhaps Puccini's turning down his luncheon invitation was a good thing. The oily spaghetti the Café Martin served was one of the things his doctor had warned him against—that same strict doctor Caruso had earlier tried to recommend to Puccini.
Eat less and exercise
, the doctor had said, and he'd said it in a way that made the tenor listen. Bravely Caruso started the ten-block walk back to the Hotel Knickerbocker.

What a strange man Puccini was! Blaming himself for what Elvira had done. Well, he knew more of what went on in his own household than Caruso did; maybe he was a little bit to blame at that. Puccini had actually thought of killing himself during that dark time, something Caruso hadn't quite had the nerve to ask the other man about. But he didn't seem suicidal now.
Everything will be all right
, the tenor told himself. And believed it.

Soon he was puffing and starting to sweat. He looked up at the street sign: he'd come two blocks. Two long blocks, though, not those nice easy north-south short ones. Caruso had always thought of himself as a solidly built man, but that doctor had kept using the word
fat
every time he saw him. Not
overweight
, but
fat
. Caruso's English wasn't all that good, but he understood the distinction.

He started walking again. The dinner party that evening was all arranged; he'd checked with Martino that morning. American steaks and lobster, and several kinds of pasta to make Puccini feel at home.

Pasta.

Caruso stepped to the curb and signaled a cab. “Broadway and Twenty-fifth,” he told the driver. “The Café Martin.” Some things you just can't fight.

“Caruso!” the driver cried when he recognized his famous passenger. “
Caro
Caruso!” Another Italian, which meant another fan. Driver and passenger chugged down Broadway, Caruso happily humming
Celeste Aïda
as he rode.

The dinner party did its job; Puccini's mood was lightening with each new course. In the corner of the Knickerbocker dining room, the big table set with white linen and gleaming silverware was ringing with laughter and rapidly spoken Italian. The composer's color seemed better, and his eyes had some life in them again. Caruso congratulated himself (and Martino) on a job well done.