Glorious Ones (7 page)

“Why are you doing this?” I cried. “You’re playing straight into Francesco’s hands. You’re helping him destroy the Captain! Is that what you want? Do you hate Flaminio so much? Don’t you know better than to play Andreini’s fool?”

Vittoria stared at me, her dull eyes brimming with sadness. Suddenly, I pitied her, because I knew that her love for Francesco was real.

“It’s the only way,” she said. “I’m desperate. He’s got another woman, somewhere in the wealthy part of town. Everyone talks about it, it’s common knowledge: he visits her once a week. If I don’t do something drastic now, I’ll never get him, I might as well give up.”

“Vittoria,” I said, “you could sleep with Flaminio in Francesco’s own bed, and he wouldn’t care. He’d thank you for it. You’d be helping him break the Captain down.”

“It’s the only way,” she sighed.

That night, on stage, she invited the Captain to her tent.

The next morning, when she came to see me, I knew at once that her little trick had failed. “I should have listened,” she said. “Francesco
didn’t
care. Flaminio and I walked right past him last night. I grinned in his face. But this morning, he treated me just as if nothing had happened. He kissed my cheek, and asked me how I’d slept.

“Pantalone,” she said, “I’ve given up hope.” Then Vittoria shrugged her shoulders in such a bitter way that I suddenly saw how she would look when she was very old.

“As for that pig Flaminio,” she continued, “I didn’t even get a good lay out of it. The old fool couldn’t do it. Flaminio Scala, the strongest of the strong—his thing flopped around like an overcooked noodle! All night, he tried and tried, rubbing himself against me like a flea-bitten dog. Just before dawn, our brave Captain put his head in his hands and cried.”

I knew that Vittoria was telling the truth; and it occurred to me that her story was a weapon which I didn’t want Andreini to have. So I tried to make a deal with her, in a way she could understand.

“Vittoria,” I began, “do you know what a premonition is?”

“Of course,” she replied, always proud when she knew the answer to anything. “It’s a warning from the future.”

“Well then,” I said. “I’ll tell you something. I’ve just had a premonition.

“If anyone else in this troupe hears that about Flaminio, if anyone else learns that he has been cursed in that way, a terrible spell will descend upon all of us. Our souls will fall under the power of the devil, who’ll control us like marionettes. Do you want that to happen, Vittoria? Can you understand that you must keep this a secret?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her big eyes wide with terror.

But I needn’t have worried; over the next months, Vittoria barely talked at all. She gained weight, became dull, slow on her feet. She spent most of her free time sleeping. Often, she’d go on stage without combing her hair. She stopped coming to see me. She was so melancholy, she no longer had the energy to join the others in taunting me.

Gradually, her Inamorata became less and less attractive. By spring, the audiences never applauded her. There was something in the way she looked at the Lover which was too disappointed, too unhappy, too real. It unsettled them, embarrassed them; they felt they were watching a part of her life which they shouldn’t have been allowed to see.

The rest of us worked our hardest to make up for Vittoria’s failure. But there was nothing we could do. The crowds grew thin, the cashbox empty; once again, we were on the edge of starvation. I was tired, hungry, forced to waste my energy convincing those fools that I couldn’t give them credit.

Of course, it was Andreini who finally brought it up, that night he called that awful meeting.

“As much as I love Vittoria,” he said, getting straight to the point, “I regret to say that I can’t play opposite her any more.”

Vittoria was sitting in a corner. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t bear to imagine what pain Andreini was causing her. I wanted to defend her. But I was watching, from the edge of things; it wasn’t my place.

“You’re right, Andreini!” shouted that bastard Brighella, who was never a great friend of Vittoria’s anyway. “We might as well put a lump of dough on stage, for all the popularity she’s earning us. And a lump of dough would eat less, that’s certain.”

Armanda nodded vigorously. I was surprised she didn’t chime in, for she’d always hated Vittoria. But the dwarf was in a strange state in those days.

“Vittoria’s been with us longer than you have,” protested the Captain. He knew that Andreini was right; but he was being torn in so many directions, he didn’t know what to do.

“I’m quite aware of that,” replied Francesco. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to look for some better setting in which to display my skills.

“Besides,” he added, “our sweet Vittoria won’t have to suffer. I’ve used all my influence to find her a job as a barmaid, at a local inn, where the owner’s wife is a special friend of mine.”

The decision had been made; there was no way Flaminio could object. “My apologies, dear lady,” he said to Vittoria. He went over to her, and offered her his arm. As they walked slowly away, leaning on each other, Vittoria seemed too numb to acknowledge me; and I couldn’t meet her eyes.

So that was how I lost my only friend, my only connection with the others, my small, inadequate portion of love. These days, I’ll admit, Armanda’s pleasant enough to me, Columbina’s kind. Isabella does her best to make me feel included; but she’s fighting against my nature, against impossible odds.

That night, when Flaminio returned after showing Vittoria to her new home, he was a changed man.

“It’s the beginning of the end for him,” I thought. “This time, there’ll be no sudden comebacks, no wondrous repentances, no miraculous reversals.

“Andreini’s won at last. He’s humbled the Captain, made him dismiss the woman he loves, made him change the casting of the troupe. He’s taken everything but the Captain’s title.

“He’s turned Flaminio into a eunuch,” I thought. “What else does that snake Andreini have in store?”

And I soon found out.

“Andreini,” said Flaminio, in a strained, tired voice. “We need to find a new Inamorata.”

“Just to prove that I have only the best interests of the troupe at heart,” replied Francesco, “I will take all responsibility for finding a new actress.”

The very next morning, he appeared in our camp with Isabella.

L
ADIES AND GENTLEMEN. WHEN
Francesco Andreini was a young man, he spent ten years traveling the world. He was captured by the Turks, sold into slavery at the Pasha’s court. He slept in the perfumed palaces of India, scaled the Great Wall of China. It would take another lifetime, ladies and gentlemen, just to tell the story of his adventures. But permit me this one indulgence.

Once, in the course of his travels, Francesco Andreini chanced to meet a wise old Jew. Not a miserly bore, like our Pantalone here, but a true patriarch—an Abraham, a Moses.

In theory, the patriarch was a hermit. In fact, however, his mud hut was always crowded with people, who brought him gold and flowers and traveled eighty miles across the desert to hear him tell the Bible stories which he made up out of whole cloth.

He was a stooped, shriveled old man, with a long, sparse beard. But, the moment Andreini entered his well-kept little room, he began to chatter away in a bright, clear voice.

“Tell me,” he asked, “have you ever heard the story of David and Absalom?”

“Of course,” replied Andreini. “Priests like nothing better than preaching Bible to boys like me.”

“Well, forget what they told you,” said the patriarch, scowling and waving his hand irritably. “Because it didn’t happen that way. Absalom wasn’t angry about a woman, or greedy, or malicious, or power-mad, or any of those other things which the Holy Book implies. Listen:

“Long ago, a few minutes past midnight, David rushed into Absalom’s room, and shook his son awake.

“ ‘Absalom!’ he cried. ‘I have just had a dream. I dreamed that our kingdom would last forever, that Solomon would build a temple which will stand in Jerusalem until the coming of the Messiah!’

“ ‘That is wonderful,’ murmured Absalom sleepily, trying to clear the fog from his brain.

“After David returned to his room, Absalom found himself unable to sleep. He lay awake, feeling truly happy for his father, hoping that his vision of the future would come true. But at last, Absalom drifted off, and had his own dream.

“He watched the temple of Solomon leveled by foreign armies. He saw the kingdom of David reduced to rubble and dirt.

“The next morning, when Absalom awoke, he knew that he had to change things, to take them into his own hands, because his father’s vision was a lie. And that was the day he began his unfortunate rebellion.

“ ‘Oh Absalom, my son my son, would God I had died for thee.’ Ah, what beautiful lines,” sighed the patriarch. “If only I had written them myself…”

“Why are you telling me this?” interrupted Andreini.

“Because,” replied the old man. “You are a boy looking for a father. That is why you are roaming the world, that is why you came all this way across the desert just to see me. And, if you ever find what you are seeking, you will do well to remember the story of David and Absalom.”

“A father is the last thing I am looking for,” muttered Andreini, and stalked out the door, furious at the patriarch for having wasted his time.

You are a clever audience, ladies and gentlemen. You know the connection, without my having to tell you. Of course, you are saying, Flaminio Scala
was
like a father to him, in those early days.

But if I never thought of the patriarch’s story, perhaps it was because Flaminio’s dreams seemed to be exactly the same as mine.

Sometimes, in the evenings, when the troupe was camped beside the road, Flaminio would lead me off for a walk in the meadows. Putting one arm around my shoulders, he would talk quietly, with none of that bragging he did in public. He would tell me about his hopes for the company, about the time when we would take our rightful place among the great artists of the world. And, whenever we rode into a new city and passed one of those gigantic equestrian statues they were always erecting in those days, Flaminio would spur his horse up next to mine, and point to the huge bronze soldier.

“Francesco,” he would say, “in ten years, they’ll tear down that monstrosity, and replace it with a monument to Flaminio Scala and his Glorious Ones.”

I believed every word of it, I swallowed it whole. I accepted Flaminio’s vision so completely that I was grateful, I was flattered just to play the acrobat, to dance and tumble while the great man acted. And it was within that dream that I flowered, that I developed my art, my talent, all the skills I was later obliged to use against him.

If that dream had come true, perhaps
I
might have been the one Flaminio’s ghost would have chosen to visit. Perhaps it would have been me, instead of that silly little Armanda, whom he would have entrusted with the survival of his soul.

But there was no way that things could have remained the same. For, at the time, I considered myself a young man of enormous experience. I was practical, worldly, I knew all the hands life had to deal. I thought ahead, I knew the consequences of things, I saw through dreams like panes of clear crystal.

And so the time had to come when I would see through Flaminio’s.

Let me suggest: Francesco Andreini always knew the consequences of choosing a man like Flaminio Scala for a father. Why else would he have bothered to hide his greatest talent? Why else would he have concealed his skill as a trickster and deceiver, if he had not known that he would eventually be forced to use them?

Let me suggest: Francesco Andreini did not
want
to know it, it took him years to admit the truth. But gradually, during that trip to France, during the time of Flaminio’s pitiful passion for Vittoria, Andreini came to understand that the Captain was not man enough to lead the troupe. Like Absalom, he began to realize that his father’s vision was a lie, and that he had to fight to change it.

The decision was a costly one, bought with sleepless nights, sweaty palms, long, tortured debates. Awake in my bed, I was still Arlechino, shifting my weight back and forth from one foot to the other.

I could hear the sound of my own heart. “He’s been kind to you,” it said. “He’s given you a trade, a home, a life, he’s taught you everything he knew.”

But my mind was cold, logical, unmoved. “That’s all very well,” it said. “But strictly beside the point. The important thing is that Flaminio Scala has no practical experience. You know his type: he was a rich boy, a mama’s boy, maybe even a college boy. Those people have never been out on the streets, they’ve never learned anything. You can hear the wind whistling through their empty heads. If Flaminio knew anything about men, he’d never have done so badly when he tried to bargain with those Huguenot kidnappers. If he wasn’t so inexperienced with women, he’d never have gotten involved with a woman like Vittoria. There are great things for this troupe to do on earth, Francesco. But nothing will ever be accomplished by a man with his head in the clouds.”

“But Flaminio Scala has made The Glorious Ones what they are.”

“Small time,” replies my mind. “He’s made you small time. And it’s all the fault of that damned improvisation. The season for that has passed, Andreini, and you know it. It’s not good enough any more. It’s not reliable enough, there’s too much room for error. In order to do the things you want, the plays must be written out in advance, scene by scene, line by line. And Flaminio will never agree to the change. He’s dedicated to the improvisation, his whole life’s an improvisation, he cannot see the ends of things.”

Not even my heart can find an answer to this.

“And another thing.” My reason is hammering away at me now, like a lawyer. “Vittoria must go. That dumb slut is the weak point of the whole troupe. She, more than anyone else, was responsible for our expulsion from France. That French Cardinal felt uneasy just being in the same room with those big breasts, that hot body. We need another kind of actress, Andreini—someone more refined, more delicate, someone who will make the churchmen lose their hearts despite themselves. We need someone who will drive the aristocrats so crazy with love that they’ll gladly risk excommunication just for the sight of her.”