The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  “Then at least cancel your performance tonight. Do that much for me,” he urged her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Nothing will happen. If they grease the stage, I will have it cleaned. If they throw things, I will get out of the way. If they start fights, I will wait until everything is calm and then I will dance, even if the theater is empty. I won’t let them stop me.”

  “I just don’t understand it,” Alessandro muttered, I’ll get to the bottom of this. There must be some reason for this attack.”

  “Oh, yes, there’s a reason,” she said, stepping back from her bouquet to admire it. “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You, darling.” She went to him and put her arms around his neck. “You are the reason. Someone resents your attentions to me.”

  “What nonsense. This has nothing to do with me.”

  “Very well,” she said with a shrug. “Some priests were offended by my naked ankles.”

  “I can’t think why you’re not more disturbed by all this,” he said.

  “I can’t let it ruin my life. You know, not long after I moved in with de Planchet, something like this happened. One of the girls in her company was very jealous. She ripped up my costumes and cut up my slippers and knocked into me while we were performing, so that I'd look clumsy.”

  “What happened? How did you stop her?”

  “Oh, I believe in influential friends, as you know. I told de Planchet, who gave her a good talking-to and threatened to throw her out of the company. She stayed a while longer, then left of her own accord.”

  Alessandro said suddenly, “It wasn’t—Laura, was it?”

  Lia laughed. “Dear me, no! Poor Laura hasn’t the brains to manage all of this—even though she’s furious with me and is saying the most awful things about me. No, dearest, we are dealing with a much more devious and intelligent mind.”

  Alessandro hooked his forefinger under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “You know who’s behind this, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Don’t you?” She gave him her enigmatic smile.

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t believe me anyway. And perhaps I’m wrong. I have no proof—only suspicions.”

  “Then tell me your suspicions. The Barnabotti? They’re trying to discredit me. But why use such a twisted approach when a more direct one would suffice? If they want me out of office, why not just muster their forces in the next election and vote me out?”

  “Because it’s not you they want out, but me. You really don’t understand?”

  Alessandro scowled. “I thought you didn’t like playing games.”

  “It’s no game. Please, let’s forget all about it. I’ll make lovely love to you now,” she kissed the tip of his nose and loosened the white stock at his throat, “and later we’ll send out for some supper, and you can make passionate love to me. Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

  “I’m very fond of you, Lia,” Alessandro said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know. That’s why you buy me all those lovely presents, and why you’re worried more about me than about yourself. I’m fond of you, too, Alessandro. I’ll never regret what we’ve shared. I shall always remember you with respect, and affection.”

  “You needn’t talk about me in the past tense,” he smiled. “I have a few good years left, I think.”

  “Of course, but we both knew when it started that it couldn’t last forever. You have been good and kind and generous—the doctors for Aunt Rebecca, the repairs to my house, the expensive gifts. You’re trying to hard to persuade yourself that you’re in love with me.”

  “But I am,” he protested. “I don’t need to persuade myself of anything. Since I’ve met you, I’m a new person. You’ve shown me how to derive pleasure from giving. How to accept love. How to laugh at myself. I owe you a great deal, Lia. More than a few trinkets can ever repay. I know you don’t love me—”

  “Can’t you feel it, Alessandro?” she asked. “It’s ending. Not because of us, but because someone out there is working against us, to destroy what we share. It was inevitable, I suppose. I’m not surprised. Only that it happened so soon.”

  A few nights later Alessandro attended a reception for a visiting dignitary. The castrato Benelli sang, and later, after supper, donned the red robes of a Senator and sang a light-hearted love song while the dwarf Flabonico, dressed as a tiny ballerina in a Grecian tunic and kid slippers, pranced around him. As Flabonico cavorted, grinning and leering grotesquely, he entwined Benelli in yards of ribbon and shouted, “So does the dancer ensnare the great and the near-great!”

  Everyone stole sly looks at Alessandro, and whispered and laughed. He went quite pale, and walked out midway through the charade. In the Senate the next day they were still laughing at the parody.

  When he saw Lia that night, Alessandro was still furious.

  “How dare they! How dare they make fun of us! I want to know who put those two freaks up to this. You know. I insist that you tell me!”

  “I told you that I wasn’t certain,” Lia said.

  “Tell me!” he barked.

  She sighed and twirled the ring on her finger. “Your wife, of course.”

  Alessandro was speechless for a whole minute. “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it?” she looked at him shrewdly.

  “She doesn’t care about me, about my love affairs. It’s absolutely ridiculous! Why would Fosca engineer such a campaign against you? The very idea is absurd! ”

  “Perhaps. But if you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask her?”

  He and Fosca had not exchanged a word since the night of her birthday débâcle, and he braced himself for a confrontation. He found her with Paolo in the music room. They were sitting at the piano and trying to get through a Mozart duet, but they made more laughter than music. When they came to the end of the piece, Alessandro coughed to announce his presence.

  Paolo ran up to him. “Did you like it, Papa? I played the top!”

  “You were brilliant, my son,” he said approvingly. “Why don’t you run along and play for a few minutes? I want to talk to your mother.”

  He waited until they were quite alone, then said softly, “Are you responsible for these attacks on La Gabbiana?”

  She was pale but composed. She folded her hands in her lap and said, “Yes, I am.”

  He was unprepared for her ready admission of guilt. “I don’t believe it. Why?” He shook his head uncomprehendingly and walked to the window. He turned and said more strongly, “Why, Fosca? What has my relationship with this woman to do with you?”

  “You are making a fool of yourself and disgracing the name of Loredan,” she said steadily.

  He gaped at her, then gave a shout of bitter laughter.

  “You chastise me for disgracing the Loredan name? You, who tried your best to cover it with muck and slime? I don’t believe it!”

  “Signor, ordinarily I do not concern myself with how you comport yourself, or with whom. But the Loredan name is my son’s now, and any shame you bring to it will reflect upon him. You have stooped so low—this association with a dancer, a harlot!”

  “She is not—”

  “I know what she is!” Fosca snapped. She rose and crossed the floor to the fireplace. She picked up a fan that was lying on the mantelpiece and toyed with it. “That would be bad enough. But when you start spending money on her, selling things that should go to my son so that you can give her gifts, then I must interfere. I will not let you do to him what my father did to my brother and me. I will not let you leave him a pauper, do you hear? You wanted him for your own. You gave him your name. But I swear that he will have more than just that name. He will have this house and everything in it. I have not endured shame and humiliation for six years so that I could watch you squander my son’s inheritance on a trollop, a drab from the theater! I sold him to you, in exchange for my p
romises of good behavior. But if I saw you mistreating him, those promises would mean nothing. And they mean nothing now. I don’t care what you do to me. Throw me into the madhouse. Chain me up. But before you do, I will put a stop to this disgusting liaison, this farcical love affair!”

  The fan in her hands snapped with a loud crack, punctuating the conclusion of her outburst.

  Alessandro didn’t say a word for several moments, then he chuckled. Fosca jerked her head around. Her nostrils flared.

  “Oh, the extraordinary machinations of the female mind,” he sighed.

  “Don’t you mock me!” she snapped.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear wife. I am merely expressing my astonishment at the processes of logic whereby you have managed to convince yourself that you are undertaking a noble crusade against immorality in order to save your son from the indignities of poverty, when all the time you are just another jealous woman trying to get rid of her rival.”

  “Rival?” she repeated derisively. “For your love? Don’t make me laugh!”

  “No, not for my love. For Leopardi’s. I am not unaware of Gabbiana’s connection with him, and her affection for him. She saved his life, you know. He has a lot to thank her for. Men are simple creatures at heart. They like to pay their debts.”

  “She was also responsible for putting him into prison in the first place,” Fosca reminded him. “She betrayed us to your spy!”

  “Actually, 1 rather think that you had more to do with his imprisonment than she. If you and he had never met, he would have gone around spouting his naive revolutionary cant, no more a menace to society than any of the Barnabotti. He might have received a warning from the Inquisitors. He might even have earned himself a few days in the Leads. But he would never have been condemned to death and thrown into the Tombs. That was your doing.”

  “And yours! You were spiteful and vindictive.”

  “No, Fosca. I admit that I was happy enough to see him there, but it was really the Inquisitors’ decision to punish him for debauching the wife of a noble. Such things are terribly destructive to the order of society. Yes, they were harsh, but with a purpose: to warn others that the order of the whole is more important than the individual’s gratification of his senses.”

  “I might have known you’d find a way to lay the blame for the whole thing at my feet,” she sneered. “Of course I am always at fault, and she is blameless, as you are! You think me jealous of her? That’s utter nonsense. He could never love her, a common jade like that. Never!”

  “She has qualities that you could never appreciate. For one thing she is not wholly self-absorbed and selfish, intent on her own pleasures, thinking nothing of the consequences. She is caring, and generous. Not demanding, not exhausting. I suspect that after you, Leopardi found her as coolly soothing and refreshing as a woodland pool is to a man who has been parched by harsh desert winds.”

  “That’s a lie!” Fosca cried, her face flushed with rage. “He loves me, me! He would never forgive her for what she did! He hated her for it!”

  “They spent over a week together after his escape,” Alessandro said softly. “Can you imagine any man, particularly one fresh out of prison, resisting her beauty?”

  “It’s not true!” Fosca blinked back tears. “He wouldn’t have betrayed me with her. Never!”

  “He is only a man, Fosca,” Alessandro reminded her with a sigh. “We are all of us only men.”

  “You’re all fools!” she rasped. “Traitors! Throwing yourselves at women—common, horrid, dirty women—you think they love you? What a laugh! They’ll use you, drain you, take what they can, and then leave you, the way that woman did to my father! ”

  “Ah, so you’ve found out about that, have you?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “You think that you could have rescued him from her clutches?” Alessandro looked sorrowful. “Oh, Fosca, you were only a child then.”

  “He said he loved me! He betrayed me with her!”

  “You were his daughter. A man has simple needs that have nothing to do with those he loves. Your father was no different. He was a bit of a fool, no doubt. But he was only looking for a little love.”

  “Love!” she cried. “Love! What does any man know about love? Traitors! Beasts!”

  Sobbing, she threw herself into a chair. Alessandro watched her silently for a moment, then said, quietly.

  “She is very dear to me. I won’t give her up. You are confused, Fosca, I am not your father, and I will not share his fate. He was a weak man. Shrewd when it came to politics, but unable to control his desires. I promise you, this affair presents no threat to your—to our son. I forbid you to interfere any further in our lives, is that clear?” He walked out of the room.

  That night she dreamed about Raf and Alessandro and her father, all circling like doomed moths around an incandescent Lia, who smiled triumphantly and smugly.

  Two nights later, Lia and Vestris performed at the Fenice. There were no disturbances that night, or any time after. The furor over the immoral dancer gradually subsided into memory.

  Fosca decided that the only way to stop La Gabbiana from ruining her son’s life was to confront her in person, and reason with her. Paolo was, after all, Raf’s son, and Lia loved Raf, didn’t she?

  One afternoon she donned cloak and mask, and went to the Teatro La Fenice, where Vestris’ company was rehearsing a new ballet. She asked one of the workers backstage to summon Signorina Gabbiana, and he told her she could wait in Lia’s dressing room. Fosca looked around. Dancers stood in groups in the wings, ready to go on. Some were bending and stretching, warming up. Beyond them Fosca could see Lia and Vestris going slowly through the movements of a pas de deux. They were breathtaking, soaring, but her deep anger and bitterness persuaded her that the ballerina was ugly and that Vestris was just another clumsy eunuch. She went to the dressing room and paced nervously.

  Half an hour later Lia, panting and perspiring, came in. She seemed startled to see the masked woman and said, “Yes, Signora? Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Will you close the door, please?” Fosca asked.

  Lia considered the request and obeyed with a shrug. When she turned around again she saw that her visitor had removed her mask: Fosca Loredan, looking pale and pinched. It was the first time the two women had seen each other since the day that Fosca and Raf had run away together.

  “I’ve been wondering when we’d meet,” Lia said. “I suppose I should be flattered: the great lady seeking out the humble dancer. But this isn’t a social call, I’m sure. Well, what do you want?”

  “I want you to leave my husband alone,” Fosca blurted out.

  “You—what?” Lia stared at her and then burst out laughing. “Your husband! Dear lady, I know very well that Alessandro hasn’t been your husband for years! By what right do you come here and give me orders? Don’t you think you’re being rather a dog in the manger? After all, you certainly don’t want him for yourself. Why won’t you let me have him?”

  “Because you intend to ruin him, to disgrace him and his name, to destroy my son’s happiness,” Fosca said rapidly. “You think that you can win Rafaello’s love by destroying Loredan. You can’t fool me. But you can’t force Raf to love you out of gratitude. He loves me!”

  “Really?” Lia smirked. “I suppose he’s written you hundreds of sweet little notes over the years, telling you so?”

  Fosca felt a stabbing pain in her head, behind her eyes. “He—he doesn’t have to write,” she said defensively. “Our love will last forever, we both know that! When he comes back, everything will be as it was!”

  “And if I get Loredan out of the way for you, why should you complain?” Lia wondered.

  “You’re the same dirty little spy you always were,” Fosca said. “Spying on Loredan for Raf as you once spied on Raf for Loredan. What a turncoat! What a disgusting little opportunist! But Raf will see through your game. He despises you fo
r what you did!”

  “Does he?” Lia walked to her dressing table and smiled into her mirror. “Just because you don’t know how to forgive, Lady, doesn’t mean that everyone is like that. Yes, he despises me. He despises me so much that he sends me messages through the Jacobin agents here. Don’t you wish he hated you like that?”

  “You’re a liar,”Fosca hissed. “He’s never sent you a word!” But deep in her heart she believed it: Raf loved this witch and he wrote to her.

  Lia shrugged. “Believe what you like. You know, I’ve been taking care of his aunt, the old woman you saw at the house that day. He’s very fond of her. He likes to know that she’s safe and well.”

  “You are a fiend,” Fosca said. “Using that old woman as bait!”

  “Why not? I use what I must, and so would you. But you have nothing to give him. You never did. All you did was take, and you never thought about the consequences—to his safety, his family. That affair was just a game to you. You liked the danger and the thrill of hiding and dodging spies. And it’s the same now. You don’t love your husband. But you’ve heard that I’m bleeding him of money and you don’t like that, do you? You’d like to be rid of me. That would solve all your problems. You’d like to be sure that I’m not here when Raf gets back, because you know that you’ve lost him to me.” She sighed dramatically. “I really don’t know what they see in you, either of them. Poor Alessandro, after all these years. He’s a fine man. Too good for the likes of you.”

  “Don’t you dare preach to me,” Fosca snapped. “I know what kind of man he is.”

  “You don’t know him at all!” Lia whirled around. “You never gave him a chance. I’m not sorry I met him. He deserves some happiness, after being married to you for so long.” She gave a sharp little laugh. “Isn’t it interesting? The two men who have loved you the most—and you’ve managed to drive both of them into my arms! You may be Fosca Loredan, rich and noble and beautiful, but you can’t hang on to a man.”

  With a shrill scream, Fosca threw herself at Lia, who managed to lift her arms just in time to ward off a killing stranglehold. The two women grappled with each other. Lia wondered where the other woman got her strength. She tore at Fosca’s hair and Fosca clawed at her face, drawing blood. They fell to the floor and wrestled together like a couple of dirty-faced urchins in a back alley. Lia scratched and kicked, and tore Fosca’s gown off her shoulder. Fosca sank her teeth into Lia’s arm and bit down hard, until she tasted blood. Lia squalled loudly.