by Donna Leon
She shared the stage director’s opinion of the baritone singing Scarpia but was far better than he in disguising it. The director had decided to have Tosca stab him in the stomach, not the chest; and repeatedly. When the baritone had begun to object to such an indignity, the director had explained that the brutality of Tosca’s behaviour must be provoked by equal brutality on his part in the first two acts: thus he would have the opportunity to create a dramatic and vocal monster and push his dramatic skills even further than they had been tested in the past.
Flavia had seen the smug expression on the baritone’s face when he realized that the director was creating a chance for him to upstage Tosca, but she had also seen the wink the director gave her behind Scarpia’s back as he embraced the idea with both word and action. She hadn’t killed many people on stage, but to murder him, and then to look forward to killing him three more times, was honey and nectar both.
Cheered by these thoughts, she started to climb the steps, ignoring the handrail and appreciating the breadth of the staircase, perhaps created to allow wide-skirted women to pass one another going up and down or to walk arm in arm. She reached the landing and turned right towards the apartment.
Her mouth fell open. In front of the door lay the largest bouquet of flowers she had ever seen: yellow roses, of course – though why did she think that? – five or six dozen arranged in an enormous glowing mass that, instead of providing the delight such beauty should create, filled Flavia with something close to terror.
She looked at her watch: it was after midnight. She was staying alone in the apartment; whoever had left the flowers had entered through the downstairs door. They could be anywhere. She stood and breathed deeply until she felt her heart return to its normal rhythm.
She pulled out her telefonino and found the number of the friend who was lending her this apartment. He lived on the floor above, but she had enough presence of mind to realize that a phone call would be less threatening at this hour than the ringing of the doorbell.
‘Pronto?’ a man’s voice answered on the fourth ring.
‘Freddy?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Is that you, Flavia?’
‘Yes.’
‘You locked out?’ he asked. His voice was warm, almost paternal: there was no hint of reproof.
‘Are you still up?’ she asked instead of answering his question.
‘Yes.’
‘Could you come down?’
After the briefest of hesitation, he said, ‘Of course. One minute. Let me tell Silvana,’ and replaced his phone.
Flavia backed across to the wall farthest from the door and from those flowers. She busied herself by trying to think of something to which the size of the bouquet could be compared. A hula hoop came to mind, but that was too big. A beach ball was too small. The tyre of a car: that had the proper circumference. The flowers were massed together into one mushroom-shaped bouquet, but a mushroom gone mad, like something in a horror film, blasted out of control by atomic radiation, the sort of film she used to see in the cinema and that, still today, she remembered with glee.
No sound from upstairs. Which was more menacing, that still bouquet, beauty gone perverse because of setting, or the atomic mushrooms? Absorbed in these stupidities, she did not have to think about the meaning of the roses or ask herself how someone had managed to enter the palazzo. Or about what in hell was going on.
She heard a noise from above and then voices, a man’s and a woman’s. Steps descending the stairs. She glanced through the banister and saw the slippered feet, the pyjama bottoms, the hem and then the belt of a red silk dressing gown, a hand from which dangled a set of keys, and then the comfortable, bearded face of Marchese Federico d’Istria. Her friend Freddy was her former lover, reluctant best man at her wedding, reluctant not from jealousy, she was later to discover, but because he knew the groom too well but, honour-bound, could say nothing to her – and curse his silence.
He stopped on the last stair and looked from her to the enormous bouquet lying at the bottom of the steps. ‘You bring them home?’
‘No, they were here. Did you let anyone in?’
‘No. Silvana neither. No one’s come.’
‘The people upstairs?’ she asked, raising a finger and pointing, as if he might not know where ‘upstairs’ was.
‘They live in London.’
‘So no one came?’
‘Not that I know of; Silvana and I are the only people here at the moment.’
Freddy moved down from the final step and approached the flowers. As if they were a drunk asleep on his doorstep or a suspicious parcel lying there, he prodded at them with his foot. Nothing happened. He looked at Flavia and shrugged, then bent and picked them up. He was all but invisible behind them.
‘Yellow roses,’ he said unnecessarily.
‘My favourite.’ As she spoke, Flavia realized this was no longer true.
‘Do you want me to take them inside?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘I don’t want them in the house. Give them to Silvana. Or put them out in the calle.’ She heard the note of panic rising in her voice and leaned back against the wall.
‘Wait here,’ Freddy said, passed in front of her and started down the stairs. She listened to his diminishing steps, then a different sound as he crossed the entrance hall, the door opening, closing, and then his returning steps.
‘Will you come in with me?’ she asked. Seeing his surprise she added, ‘And have a look around. I want to be sure . . .’
‘That the downstairs door was the only one they opened?’
She nodded.
‘Has this happened before, Flavia?’ he asked.
‘A few times, but in theatres. Flowers tossed on to the stage, and tonight dozens of bouquets in my dressing room.’
He looked at her empty arms. ‘You left them there?’
‘I didn’t want them. Don’t want them,’ she said and heard the horror in her own voice. She looked at him, motionless, considering, and she exploded. ‘For God’s sake, help me, Freddy.’
He walked across the landing and put an arm around her shoulders, and then both arms, and then she was leaning into his chest and sobbing. ‘Freddy, how did he get in here? How does he know where I live? Who is he?’
He had no answers to give her, but the familiar feel of her body against his brought back the turmoil of emotions he had once felt for her: love, jealousy, anger, passion, as well as the ones that had not been burned up by her abandonment of him: respect, friendship, protectiveness, trust. He both loved his wife and was in love with her, but he had never lost the power to think about anything but her. Now Flavia had two almost-adult children, and he had three, as well as a wife: their well-being was the central focus of his life.
He pulled back a little, careful to keep one arm around her. ‘Give me a minute, Flavia, and I’ll go in and check,’ he said, then added, ‘If the flowers were outside the door, it’s not likely anyone’s inside, is it?’ He smiled at her and shrugged. The bodyguard in the silk bathrobe, she told herself: perhaps he can take a slipper off and hit them with that.
She moved back from him, and he found the right key and turned it four times, hearing the bolts pull back from the steel frame. If someone were inside, then he’d locked himself in, she thought. Freddy pushed the door open and reached in to switch on the lights. He took two steps into the hallway and stopped. Flavia went in behind him.
‘I thought you wanted me to look,’ he said, almost as if he feared her presence would compromise his courage.
‘It’s my problem,’ she said.
‘It’s my house,’ Freddy answered, long familiarity with the feeling of the apartment telling him there was no one there.
Flavia surprised him by starting to laugh. ‘We’re together again five minutes, and we have a fight,’ she said.
Freddy turned to face her, as if wondering if this was another example of her dramatic skill. But there were still tears on her face and she still had t
he frozen look of a person who has had a shock. ‘Stay here,’ he said, ‘and don’t close the door.’
He went from room to room, even ducking down to look under all of the beds in the three bedrooms. He opened the closets, looked into the guest shower, and opened the door to the terrace. There was no one, nor was there any sense of the presence of another person.
When he returned to the hallway, he found her leaning against the wall beside the door, head back, eyes closed. ‘Flavia,’ he said, ‘there’s no one here.’
She tried, but failed, to smile. ‘Thank you, Freddy, and I’m sorry I shouted.’
‘You have every right to shout, Flavia. Now come upstairs with me and talk to us for a while and have something to drink.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then you come back down here and go to sleep.’
‘Why? Don’t you want me sleeping in your apartment?’
His glance remained warm, affectionate, and he shook his head in feigned exasperation. ‘I expect better than that from you, Flavia. You have to come back down here to sleep or you won’t be able to sleep here again.’ He walked to the door and pointed to the lock. ‘If you lock it from inside, even the firemen couldn’t get in, and they can open almost any lock in the city.’ Before she could speak, he barrelled ahead. ‘And there’s no way anyone can get to the terrace. Not unless they want to rappel down from ours, and I don’t think that’s very likely.’
Flavia knew everything he said was true, knew she was overreacting because she was exhausted by the stress of performance and by the savage rush of fear she’d felt when she saw those flowers lying there. She’d known fear in the past, but there had been a logic in what she feared: she’d known what it was about. These flowers made no sense: they should have been a compliment to her talent, sent in appreciation of a good performance. Instead, she felt in them menace and something even stronger than that, something approaching madness, though she had no idea why she thought this.
She took a deep breath and looked at Freddy. ‘I’d forgotten what a good man you are, and patient,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. ‘Thanks for the invitation, but I think I’d like to go to sleep now. It’s been too much: first the performance and the flowers at the end, then seeing all those people, and now this.’
She ran her hands across her face, and when she took them away she looked even more exhausted. ‘All right,’ he said. You’ve got my number. Put the phone by your bed and call me if you want. Any time. If you hear something or think you do, call me. All right?’
Flavia kissed him on the cheek, the way old friends kiss one another. ‘Thank you, Freddy.’
He turned to the door. In a voice entirely devoid of drama, he said, ‘Lock it when I’m gone.’ He patted her arm. ‘Go to bed.’
She did, pausing only to get undressed and pull on an old T-shirt she’d stolen from her son. She and Mickey Mouse were almost asleep when she remembered she had failed, for the first time after a performance, to phone her children. That guilt remained with her as she plummeted into sleep.
5
Flavia woke with what felt like a hangover, or with the feeling she associated with having drunk too much, though this had not happened for years. Her head ached, her eyes felt gummy when she tried to open them. Her back and shoulders were stiff and tight when she stretched her body under the covers. She had no idea that stress could do this, until she remembered the jump and fall she had made from the roof of Castel Sant’Angelo the previous night: hurling herself forward on to a pile of foam mattresses, where she had landed tilted to one side rather than on her stomach. She’d felt the asymmetry at the moment she landed, but the rush of applause from the other side of the curtain had driven it from her mind.
Hoping that heat would drive whatever it was from her body, she took a long shower, as hot as she could bear it, letting the water batter at her head and then at her back. Wrapped in an immense towel, another turbaned around her hair, she went into the kitchen and made coffee, which she drank black and without sugar. Barefoot, sipping at her second espresso, she wandered into the living room and over to the windows that opened on to the balcony. In the front rooms, she could hear passing vaporetti, although they were barely audible at the back of the apartment, where the bedrooms were. Another limp grey day glowered back at her, and she suspected that, if she opened the windows, stepped out on to the terrace and stuck her hand out over the water, she would be able to grab a handful of moisture and bring it back inside with her.
She stood at the window for a long time, watching the boats chug along in both directions. From where she stood, she could see the imbarcadero of Santa Maria del Giglio down to the right on the other side of the canal; she stayed there long enough to watch two boats dock. If only her mind had just two directions, she caught herself thinking, and went back into the bedroom to see what time it was.
The clock next to her bed told her it was almost eleven; the phone next to the clock told her that Freddy had sent her three messages, the last one saying that, if he didn’t hear from her by noon, Silvana would come down and ring the doorbell, he being in his office and unable to do so.
She tapped in an SMS, asking him to call off the dogs, then backed up and erased the message, replacing it with one saying that she had slept until just now and felt worlds better. Though a telefonino was hardly the proper medium, she thanked him for his help and patience the night before and told him he was a friend beyond price.
Within moments, his reply appeared. ‘So are you, my dear.’ Nothing more, but it cheered her immeasurably. She dressed quickly, pulling on a brown dress that she had had for years and refused to part with and a pair of low brown shoes comfortable enough to wear for hours of standing through a practice session.
She stopped at the bar on the left of the calle leading to the bridge and ordered a brioche and a coffee, no sooner ordering them than asking herself if she were mad, trying to sabotage the practice session by arriving there with a caffeine and sugar high. She called to the barman and changed her order to a tramezzino with prosciutto and mozzarella and a glass of orange juice. Someone had left a copy of Il Gazzettino on the counter, and she paged through it idly as she ate, enjoying neither the newspaper nor the sandwich but proud of herself for having resisted sugar and more coffee.
When Flavia got to the theatre, she found the porter in his glassed-in cubicle and asked him to tell her more about the men who brought the flowers, but he could recall only that there were two of them. In response to her question, he said that, yes, they were Venetians, though he couldn’t remember either of them ever having delivered flowers to the theatre before.
As Flavia turned away, the porter called after her and asked if what Marina had told him was true: she didn’t want the vases or the flowers. In that case, could he have some to take to his daughter, please? No, his wife had left him and gone to live with someone else, but his daughter – she was only fifteen – had insisted on staying with him – no, she didn’t want to live with her mother and the new man, and the judge had said she could stay with her father. She loved beautiful things, and he’d asked Marina if he could take her one of the vases and some flowers, and Marina had said only if the Signora said it was all right because she’d said they were for the dressers, but only two of them worked with the Signora, so perhaps she could keep them until the Signora told her she could give them to him.
Again, Flavia wondered what quality people saw in her that made them want to talk, or was it merely that any sign of interest or curiosity brought forth this torrent of information, regardless of who the listener was?
She smiled and looked at the clock above his desk and gave great evidence of surprise at seeing how late it was. ‘Tell Marina you spoke to me, and I said you can have whichever you like.’
‘Your pianist isn’t here yet, Signora,’ he said as a return courtesy. ‘He lives in Dolo, so he’s late a lot of the time.’
‘But Dolo’s just there,’ she said, making a vague pointing
gesture in what she thought was the direction of the mainland.
‘It’s only about twenty kilometres, Signora. But he doesn’t have a car.’
How did she get sucked into these things? ‘But, surely, there’s the train, or a bus.’
‘Of course. But the trains don’t really run much any more, at least not in the morning. And the bus takes more than an hour.’
More than an hour? Had she been transported to Burkina Faso in her sleep? ‘Well, I hope he gets here,’ she said. Pulling free of the conversational quicksand, she turned towards the elevator.
Upstairs, she found one of the cleaners, who told her that most of the flowers and vases had been given away, though two vases were still downstairs in Marina’s locker. Before the cleaner could begin to tell her more, Flavia gave her watch the same wide-eyed glance she’d given to the porter’s clock and said she was late for a meeting with her pianist.
To avoid giving the impression that she was escaping, Flavia walked downstairs slowly, running her memory over the two arias she and the pianist had agreed to work on that day.
From verismo to bel canto in one month. Finish the run here, spend a week on vacation with the kids in Sicily, then to Barcelona to work with a mezzo whom she admired but with whom she had never sung. It would be her first appearance in Spain since her divorce, her ex-husband being Spanish and wealthy but also violent and well-connected. It was only his remarriage and transfer to Argentina that had opened the doors of both the Liceu and the Teatro Real, where she’d be able to sing roles she had longed to sing for years: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Anna Bolena, both of whom lose their heads, though for different reasons and to different music.