Glorious Ones (8 page)

In the end, however, my heart and mind always came to the same conclusion. The fault lay not just with Flaminio, or Vittoria, or the improvisation. Something else was missing—The Glorious Ones needed something else, something elusive, mysterious, passionate, spiritual. Both of them agreed; but, at that time, neither knew what it was.

By the last days of that trip to France, I knew all the lies in Flaminio’s dream, all the ways it had to be changed. Several times I tried, and failed. I tried in that freezing cave, again on the journey home. But I couldn’t do it. My heart was working against me. And I didn’t have the power.

And then, on the night after that absurd performance in the girls’ orphanage, Flaminio himself offered me the power like a swig from a jug of wine.

Things were strained between us then, after my two abortive rebellions. But neither of us could admit that all the closeness had ended. And so, though there was little money for wine, Flaminio would occasionally manage to squeeze a few extra cents out of Pantalone, and would invite me to the cafe for a friendly drink.

Perhaps even wily old Pantalone was somewhat befuddled by the strange events of those days; on the night I am remembering, Flaminio’s pockets were bulging with silver. I had not been drunk in a long time; it was a good feeling. After we had been in the tavern for almost an hour, I felt free enough to ask Flaminio the question which had been plaguing me all evening.

“We have been friends for many years, Flaminio,” I began, in that way you can say such things only when you’re very drunk. “Like that,” I said, putting my two fingers close together.

“By now, I’ve learned that an old devil like you often has his own sly secret reasons for doing things, reasons quite different from the ones you tell the troupe. So I am wondering about the real reason you adopted that mangy little orphan, Armanda.

“I can’t quite believe that the answer lies in those nasty little jokes you made about her ugliness, Flaminio. Certainly, we’ve seen thousands of uglier girls in our travels. Nor do I believe what you said to the others, later, about the adoption being your ultimate act of repentance; if you were really serious about the repentance, one visit to the confessional and two thousand Hail Mary’s would do just as well. So tell me, Flaminio: what is it? Why did you do it?”

Flaminio draped one arm around my shoulders, just as he used to do in the meadows by the camp. “I will tell you, my son,” he said, in that familiar, slurred, drunken way of his. “You know what an upright, honest man I am, what a true Christian, what a brave soldier of morality. You know that I have fought injustice wherever I saw it, fought to expose untruth and hypocrisy whenever I found it.

“Well, that is what moved me, my boy. I took one look at those hypocritical nuns, trying to hide that unfortunate little girl. One look at those brides of Christ, trying to disown His ugly child. And, right then, I resolved to adopt the poor little thing—to make them recognize her, acknowledge her, even if only to deliver her to me.” Flaminio paused dramatically, to let his words sink in.

“One thing I know about you, Captain,” I said, “is that you are a shameless liar. Go on, have another glass of wine. Maybe it will make you tell the truth.”

We drank silently for a few more hours, each involved in his own thoughts. I assumed that I would hear no more on the subject. And then, just as the tavernkeeper was beginning to scratch his head and yawn loudly, Flaminio Scala began to tell a story which at first seemed to have no relation to my question.

“Many years ago,” he said, “when I was the most dashing, the most handsome, the most sought-after young man in Europe, I had occasion to travel from Florence to Perugia. As I boarded the coach I noticed that the only other passengers were two nuns, robed completely in white. They were seated next to each other, perpendicular to the window.

“I sat down across from them, and stared at them with the prurient curiosity which healthy, normal men always have about nuns. But their heads were lowered; they were silent, as nuns traveling from place to place usually are. Thus, as the coach got under way, I soon forgot their presence, and began to regard them as dispassionately as I might have regarded two white sacks of flour.

“You can imagine my surprise, then,” said Flaminio, “when, for no apparent reason, the nun seated nearest the window began to shriek at the top of her lungs.

“ ‘Saint Eulalia’s bloody breasts!’ she screamed. ‘Saint Sebastian shot full of arrows! John the Baptist’s headless stump! Saint Theresa Whore of Jesus! Mother Mary’s womb!’

“Jumping and thrashing about in her seat, she went on in this way for what seemed like an eternity. All the while, her companion murmured soothing syllables, stroked her arm gently, did everything in her power to calm her.

“What a spectacle it was, Francesco,” said Flaminio, grinning as he leaned towards me. “What a show! I could hardly keep from howling, I nearly choked.

“The only thing which prevented me from exploding was the fact that the nuns’ cowls had fallen back in the course of the commotion. And, for the first time, I could see their faces.

“I saw that the screaming nun was a woman of about forty. Her features were almost handsome, her eyes were black and wild. But the muscles around her mouth had that slack, toneless quality which so often disfigures the faces of madwomen.

“Her companion, however, was a perfect angel of no more than eighteen. And, though the crazy woman initially engaged my curiosity, it was the other to whom my eyes kept returning, again and again.

“Like all young, beautiful nuns, she became somewhat nervous under my scrutiny; but she did not speak until the elder one had fallen silent.

“ ‘She has been a good nun for many years,’ she began, as if apologizing for her sister’s behavior. ‘For that reason, our abbess does not wish to put her in an asylum. But she is too much for us, in the city, and we are hoping that the mountain air will do her good. That is why I am taking her to Perugia.”

“ ‘A sad case,’ I nodded sympathetically, and the pretty nun again bowed her head. But I continued to stare at her, thinking how typically inhuman of the church it was to send such a delicate young thing on such a frightful mission.

“Suddenly, the old nun began to scream again.

“ ‘Stop leering at that girl!’ she yelled, glaring at me. Then, as her hard, bright eyes seemed to widen with recognition, she stared into my face and screamed even harder.

“ ‘As your mother,’ she cried, ‘I command you to stop leering at that girl!’

“Needless to say, Francesco, I was somewhat embarrassed. ‘Whatever you say, Mother Superior,’ I whispered, thinking to humor her private delusions of authority and grandeur.

“ ‘I’m not any Mother Superior!’ shrieked the nun. ‘I am your real mother, your physical mother, who bore your ungrateful body twenty-five years ago!’

“Of course, I realized that even a crazy woman could easily have guessed my age. Still, I was anxious to hear what she had to say. There is some brave, daring strain in me which has always hungered after thrills of that sort, even if they must come at the expense of an uncomfortable scene.

“ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked her.

“ ‘Twenty-five years ago,’ she began, straight out like that, ‘I had a lover who looked exactly like you. Two eggs from the same chicken could not have appeared more similar.’

“She had stopped shrieking, and her voice was quiet and controlled. ‘I was still a girl,’ she continued, ‘younger than this young one beside me. When my parents learned about the love affair there was a scandal, and they arranged to have my lover exiled to a distant province. Nine months later, when I gave birth to you, I was packed off to a convent—a terrible place, where we were forced to sleep in cold, stone coffins, lined with moss. And you were sent to be raised by my married sister and her husband.
Now
do you believe that I am your mother?”

“ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘You could have told that story to anyone. There is not a shred of proof anywhere.’

“ ‘Well tell me, then,’ she continued. ‘Do you look anything like the man you assume to be your father?’

“ ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But such things are extremely common.’

“ ‘Tell me this, then,’ she went on, her voice growing slightly louder. ‘Have you never had the feeling that your mother and father were not your real parents?’

“ ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘All children have such fancies at one time or another.’

“ ‘Then why do you refuse to admit that I am your real mother?!’ she demanded.

“ ‘Because it is not the truth,’ I answered, trying to stay calm.

“ ‘It
is
the truth!!’ she screamed. ‘I am your mother! Why will you not acknowledge me? Do you want me to tell you how you felt inside my womb? Do you want me to describe the pains, the blood that flowed at your birth, the sac of water bursting inside me? Do you want to know how you nearly ripped me apart, how you strained and tore my body in the labor? What must I do to make you believe me?!’

“ ‘There is no way,’ I said. And, though I was the most courageous young man in all Europe, I trembled a little beneath the force of her rage.

“ ‘I have an idea!’ she cried. ‘Let us take off our clothes, right here in the carriage, and compare scars and birthmarks until we find one that matches!’

“At that point, the younger nun became terribly alarmed, and again tried to soothe her companion. But the madwoman would have none of it.

“ ‘All right then!’ she shrieked, in a final burst of fury. ‘If you will not accept me, I will curse you! You will come to a frightful end, my son, you will perish in obscurity! You will have a miserable fate, which will haunt you all through eternity! And the instrument of that fate will be a woman from the convent, like myself! My sisters will avenge me, my son, you will live to regret this, you will see!’

“And that was the last thing she said to me,” sighed Flaminio Scala, exhaling his sour, alcoholic breath in my face. “She was silent for the rest of the journey. The coach reached Perugia, the nuns and I walked off in opposite directions, and never met again.”

After Flaminio had finished his story, I stared into his eyes, for a long time. Then, I spoke.

“Do you think she might really have been your mother?” I asked, very softly.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “There was no evidence to support her claim. And I would hate to think that I have been cursed so harshly by my own mother.”

Flaminio laughed, as if to show me that he took it as a joke. “But the fact is,” he continued, growing serious again, “as I looked into the crazy nun’s face, I saw that her features looked so much like my mother’s that she could very well have been her blood sister.”

At that moment, Francesco Andreini understood why the Captain had taken Armanda into the troupe.

In adopting a girl from the convent, he was opening his arms wide to embrace his worst fate. He was challenging his mother’s curse.

Of course, he was hedging his bet. Why else would he have chosen such a pathetic little creature, who could do him so little harm? He did not want to take too much of a chance. Still, he was tempting destiny at one of the weakest points of his life. And Francesco Andreini admired him for it.

But Andreini also knew that Flaminio Scala had given him the power to destroy him.

That night, after we returned to the camp, I lay on my mattress, trying to sleep. And the whole scheme came into my head, from beginning to end.

I saw it all. Naturally, there were chances, risks; things might not go as I desired. But I was a man of great practical experience, I knew the consequences. If my plan succeeded, I knew that I would win.

The next day, I began those little tricks with Vittoria; later, at Perugia, I showed my hand. She was so easy to twist and turn, poor Vittoria. I feel sorry now, that I had so much power over her, that I could not understand how she was suffering on my account. But, at that time, everything was in my control. Her experience was one which I had not yet had.

Flaminio, on the other hand, was a difficult one to deceive. It is a tribute to him, how hard I had to
work
in order to trick him. Perhaps I would have failed, had I not had his own dreams and madness working on my side. And certainly, I would never have succeeded, had I not seen the end so clearly.

For already, I had found the woman to take Vittoria’s place.

Isabella was hardly a woman then. She was sixteen years old. Francesco Andreini had first seen her leaving her house in Venice; and, because he was still such an adventurous young man, he arrived on her respectable doorstep that evening. He presented her parents with a hand-lettered card, introducing himself as Count Francois of Grenoble, and stating that he had come to court their lovely daughter.

Luckily for Andreini, the girl’s family had never met a genuine French count. And the five languages he had learned in his travels permitted him to carry off the charade by muttering to himself in French, while speaking Italian with an accurate and perfectly charming Southern French accent.

Believing him completely, Isabella’s parents allowed him to pay formal court to their daughter. He visited her regularly, sat and chatted politely in the main parlor. And, whenever the troupe went on tour, he invented some excuse, some aristocratic business which required him to be absent from Venice.

Andreini was charmed by Isabella. Never had he seen such an intelligent, beautiful, graceful girl. When he was away from her, she was often on his mind. He would remember some clever thing she had said, and burst out laughing.

But at last, after his suit had dragged on for almost two years, Isabella’s parents grew concerned, and felt obliged to press him concerning his intentions. Andreini, who always saw the consequences of things, knew that his casual game could no longer continue. And, in a typical act of high-mindedness and nobility, he decided to explain himself to poor Isabella, and to stop ruining her prospects for a decent marriage.

One night, after her parents had mercifully left them alone for a few brief minutes, Francesco took Isabella’s trembling hand in his. “Isabella,” he whispered, “I have a confession to make. I know that this will come as a terrible shock to you, but I am not Francois, Count of Grenoble.”