Ah, Vittoria. At moments like that, I almost liked her. For a moment, Flaminio’s eyes narrowed with cowardice. Then, they widened again, and began to glow with a peculiar light.
“What kind of man do you think I am?” he cried. “What good would it do me to be known as a great sinner? Why should I want that? Don’t you realize how serious I am, how I’d do anything on earth for a clear conscience, how desperately I hunger for spiritual peace?”
“The only thing you hunger for is Vittoria’s ass!” I shouted.
But I was the only one speaking. The others had fallen silent; and, as I followed their bug-eyed stares, I saw what had made them so quiet.
Even with my razor-sharp wit, I can hardly describe or explain it. But after it was over, and we discussed it, the actors agreed that we’d all seen the same thing:
The bright lights came on in Flaminio’s eyes, as if they were a theater. And there, on the stage inside those gleaming discs, we saw the Play of the Prodigal Son, with Flaminio Scala in the title role. We saw him squander his father’s money, break his mother’s heart. We saw him traveling, gambling, whoring, drinking, smoking opium. We saw the anguish which tortured him near the end, and the sweet smile of contentment which came over his face when at last his father pardoned him. And we heard the words of the Bible, “Forgive, that you may be forgiven.”
To this day, I don’t know if Flaminio Scala bewitched us that night, or if it was actually another miracle in my long career of wonders. But those other dimwits weren’t so concerned with fine spiritual distinctions.
By the time Flaminio went off to bed, he was their leader again. He’d reconquered them with the power of his vision. They were overjoyed, those idiots—delighted that everything was neat and tidy. Now, they’d never have to think for themselves. Even Andreini looked relieved.
The subsequent trip to the convent was so cheerful, it almost made me vomit. And there, when those sentimental fools saw their own stupid tricks bring such happiness to the orphans, they were as pleased as if they’d gone straight to Paradise.
But I was the only one who wasn’t fooled. All the while, I sulked and fretted, trying to figure out what was in the Captain’s mind.
I am as sharp and crafty as a gadfly, ladies and gentlemen. Still, when I reach heaven, I pray that the Lord will not give me the job of judge at the pearly gates. For even I, Brighella, the only one of The Glorious Ones with firsthand knowledge of holy things—even I have never been sure if Flaminio’s repentance was sincere. If he was just pretending, if it was all a plot to regain the company’s favor, then how did he make us see that vision? And what possible reason could he have had for adopting that repulsive little dwarf, if not as a act of charity and devotion?
Through the years, I’ve asked myself those questions many times. But I know there’s only one way I’ll ever discover the truth.
When the Lord finally keeps his promise, and I’m admitted into heaven, I’ll look all around me for Flaminio’s soul. And, if he isn’t there, if I can’t find him in any of the golden dwellings and lush gardens, men I’ll know that Flaminio Scala, the leader of The Glorious Ones, was a far better actor than I thought.
III Pantalone
“IF YOU REALLY WANT something done,” my mother used to say, “ask a woman who loves you to do it.” She was talking about herself, of course—but was she also making a prediction? Is that why I’ve never gotten anything done in my life, mother? Because I’ve never found a woman who loved me?
“Don’t kill yourself with self-pity,” I can hear her saying. And she’s right. But sometimes I can’t help it—lately, it’s been pricking me like a big thorn in the seat of my pants. Even poor Flaminio, I think, even poor Flaminio wound up one step ahead of me. Armanda Ragusa’s no bargain, I’ll admit—but the devotion of that pitiful thing is better than anything I’ve ever gotten. Now, as I watch her bustling among the actors, doing Flaminio’s bidding as radiantly as if it were Jesus Christ Himself who’d visited her in that dream, I choke with envy. If I want my memorial prayers chanted, I’ll have to sing them myself.
Perhaps I should never have expected more. I should have known better. I was no longer a boy when I joined the troupe. Already I’d worked twenty years as a tailor, and as my mother’s nurse.
Day after day, I’d stitch until my fingers bled; I’d run straight home to feed her tea with lemon until she fell asleep. And, late at night, as I thought about the miserable life I was leading, I began to realize what sort of man I was.
A kindlier person would have called me a student of human nature. But I wasn’t so kind to myself, I knew the truth.
I was the stranger, the observer, the spy, the one who stands outside of life, looking in. I was the sort of man whom others fear; because, watching from such a great distance, I could often see straight to the heart of people, and guess the secrets which they’d rather keep hidden.
It was true. Sometimes, I could read a customer’s mind so well that I could cut a coat to fit his most secret desires. But sometimes I was wrong.
I was wrong, for example, about Flaminio Scala. That first time he charged into my store, demanding a length of pink lace for a woman’s stockings, I misread him. I took one look at his broad shoulders, his healthy beard, his ruddy cheeks, and hated him on sight.
“This one moves right through the middle of life,” I thought. “This one has all the adventures, fights the ladies off his back, catches those showers of gold coins.”
I hated him so much I wanted to humiliate him, I wanted to rob him blind. And it was only my fear of him which kept me from cheating him more than I did.
Still, he noticed the slight—shall we say—discrepancy in our transaction. As I watched him counting and recounting his change, the needle trembled in my fingers, and I waited for his big, strong hand to reach out and grab me.
But I was misreading him again. Much to my surprise, he began to grin. He looked me up and down, gazing at my hooked nose, my pale skin, my stooped, thin body. He stared at the tufts of reddish hair which stuck out from beneath my skullcap like the feathers of a duck.
“Pantalone!” he cried at last. “My crabby old Jew!”
I had no idea what he meant. Nevertheless, I took it from him, just as I wound up taking it from all of them.
“What do you mean?” I asked, in a voice intended to be cold and haughty.
“I mean you shall travel with my acting troupe and be Pantalone,” explained Flaminio. “You will play the miserly Jew, the cuckold, the betrayed father, the old schemer whom everyone tries to mock and fool. You’ll lead the life of a great artist, my dear fellow. You’ll see the seven wonders of the world. You’ll win untold fortune, fame, glory. Women will throw themselves at your feet. Think it over. Tell me your decision tomorrow; I’ll be back at noon.”
After he left, my head was spinning. My mother had just died, so I was free to go with him. But I couldn’t make up my mind. On the one hand, my heart was full of doubt. I was afraid to leave my comfortable home, and I knew what abuse I’d be taking in that role, in that insult to myself and my race. On the other hand, I had visions—dreams of changing my life, of breaking through to the center of things, of finding thrilling excitement and wild love. And that seed of vanity which the Captain had planted in my soul had already begun to spread like a cancer.
So I shook my head: yes. I sold my store, and went with him.
As always, I should have listened to my doubts. They were the only things which never misled me. I missed my secure position in the shop. I got all the abuse I’d expected, and more. Led by that vicious Brighella, they taunted me constantly, joking about my religion, my appearance, my so-called stinginess, my obsession with money. And it was all because of what I was—the outsider, the watcher. I knew what was going on inside their hearts, and it made them uneasy.
As a matter of fact, I was no more obsessed with money than the rest of them. So what, if I was the only one who saw all that trouble with the church in terms of gold an
d silver? It wasn’t my church; I was the only one who didn’t feel that secret thrill of terror in his soul.
But, knowing how sensitive I was, they loved to torture me about it; they went out of their way to find new excuses to hurt me. That was why they made me the treasurer.
“Pantalone will be good at the job,” said Flaminio Scala one night, after a long day of drinking. “He is an expert at hoarding his own money. Surely, he can be trusted with ours.”
The others laughed uproariously. They were bored with each other again—there was nothing to do but pick on me. So they held a general election, and I was appointed to carry the cashbox, to keep the accounts, to divide the money, and settle the wrangling which went on as those dogs all scrambled after the same pitiful bones. It was also my job to foil them in their constant attempts to cheat me of my rightful portion; it was just as we played it on stage.
As it happened, I was good at the job. And, though they called me a greedy usurer, a lying cheat, a thieving Jew—still, my word was often the only thing which kept them from killing each other over pennies. I was good at it, all right, but not for the reasons they thought. It wasn’t that I was born with a talent for finance in my blood, with a neat stack of coins for a heart, with eyes that added and subtracted like wondrous machines.
No, the reason I handled the money so well was this: the money was all I had. It was my only raft in that vast sea of disappointment.
I hadn’t gotten any of the other things I’d hoped to find in Flaminio’s troupe. I hadn’t moved any closer to the heart of life. I was still the outsider, watching the others as if a needle and thread were always passing between us.
I’d wanted thrilling adventure; I’d gotten nothing but the great pleasure of being kidnapped, scared to death, almost massacred. I’d dreamed of wild love, but there was none of that for me. I suppose I could have had Armanda for the asking, and Columbina with a little effort, or any of those little girls who flocked to our tents after the shows. But that wasn’t what I wanted. Were I forty years younger, I might be persuaded to take on that Isabella; but there’s no chance of that on this earth. And on those rare occasions when I did meet a lady who appealed to me—a mature actress from another troupe, perhaps—something about me always seemed to drive her away. Maybe it was the fact that I was no longer a young man; I was foolish to have expected more.
Of course, it was love of a kind I got from Vittoria, but it wasn’t the kind I’d imagined. After those first times I played Pantalone to her Inamorata, she began to treat me as she did in the scenarios—as the old man, the trusted uncle. When she wasn’t too busy with her lovers, she’d often confide in me. I resented it, going straight from the role of the son to that of the father, with nothing in between; I’d wanted something else. And the truth was: I didn’t really like Vittoria and her coarse ways. I despised her when she joined the others in mocking me.
But I took what I could get. And so, for many years, I listened to Vittoria tell me the story of that strange struggle between Francesco and the Captain. I heard her version; but of course, I could have guessed those secrets just as well on my own.
She was right in the midst of it—my dumb, fat, loud, arrogant daughter. They tossed her around like a bean-bag, those two. She was nothing but a pawn to them; I told her so a million times.
“Don’t play the know-it-all old man with me,” she’d snap. “I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself.”
But I knew better, because I knew she hadn’t been a grown woman when it started.
“I was seventeen then,” she told me once. “I was a pretty girl, though by no means the prettiest in town, and I knew it. To make matters worse, my family was poor, there was nothing in my dowry. For those reasons, I was still single, though most of my friends had been married for years. I was desperate, Pantalone, believe me—I was so curious, so eager to lose my virginity.
“So when Flaminio and his worthless friends came to play in our city, they seemed like a good prospect. They were young, handsome enough; most important, they were strangers, who wouldn’t stick around to ruin my reputation.
“I took to haunting the marketplace whenever they performed. I picked out Flaminio as the easiest target, then mooned at him constantly with my big eyes. I’d lounge against the pillars in the plaza, my breasts stuck out, grinning at Flaminio with what I hoped was a wanton look.
And finally, late one night, I got up my nerve and went to his room at the inn. Flaminio, Brighella, and Thomasso—who was still with the troupe then—were seated on the bed, staring into space, passing around a huge flask of wine. They were startled by my knock; they gazed blankly at me as I entered the room.
“I’ve come,” I stammered, forcing a big, brazen grin, “because I so much admire your acting.”
“Do you admire it enough to take on all three of us at once?” asked that pig Brighella, thrusting at me with his hips.
Now, of course, I’d know enough to slap his face for such a remark. But you wouldn’t have recognized me then, Pantalone. I was so innocent, I wasn’t prepared. All I could do was look down at the ground.
“I can see we have ourselves a lady here,” said Thomasso, who always fancied himself a great gentleman. “Perhaps we should retire, Brighella, and leave Flaminio with his guest.”
“And that was how I spent my first night of love,” said Vittoria, spitting on the ground as she pronounced the word. “The next morning, I woke up and realized what I’d done.
“ ‘No one will every marry me now,’ I thought. ‘I’ve given up all my chances for this dumb sonofabitch Flaminio Scala.’
I began to weep big gushes of tears, until Flaminio couldn’t stand it any more.
“Get out of here,” he barked. “No one asked you to come, anyway.”
But, as my sobbing grew louder, he began to sweat a little; he was worried that I’d wake the neighbors, have him run out of town. “My dearest young lady,” he said, all sweetness and light. “Nothing terrible has happened, I assure you. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.”
“It won’t!” I cried. “I’ve destroyed myself, disgraced my family. I can’t stay in this city any more. Take me with you, I beg you. Let me travel with your troupe. Don’t leave me here to face the shame.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to look sincere. “Although you are certainly the most loveable young woman who has ever graced my bedroom, I regret to say that there is no way.”
“But I’ll kill myself,” I moaned. “I’ll go to hell, and reach up to drag you down with me.”
For a moment, Flaminio hesitated; then, he grew stern again. “That is your decision,” he said.
So I decided to try another tack. “Listen!” I cried. “I love you! I want to be with you! I’ll do anything, go anywhere. I’ll shine your boots, walk naked on the stage if you ask me. But I can’t stand the thought of being separated from you, even for an instant!”
Flaminio stared at me for a long time, knitting his brows in that ugly way he does when he’s thinking. “Perhaps our troupe could use a woman,” he said at last. “Our scenarios might take on another dimension. You could play the Inamorata, the girl half-crazy with love. I’d play Amante, your suitor. You could worship me and sing my praises to your heart’s content. The ladies in our audience will go wild over it; and their husbands will love to watch your breasts bounce and jiggle as you run across the stage in a lovesick frenzy.”
“That was my gallant invitation to join The Glorious Ones,” sneered Vittoria. “And, if I’d only listened well, I’d have known how that bastard Flaminio was going to treat me. I’d have stayed home, even if it had meant going into a convent.
“Oh, he was disgusting to me in those days. He acted like I was his footstool, kicked me around like some piece of garbage from the gutter. ‘Vittoria,’ he’d say, ‘get my cloak! I could teach a dog to fetch better than you! Vittoria, wash my hose. It’s the only job you’re suited for.’ ”
“Why did you put up with it?�
� I asked her. “Did you love him?”
“Love him?!” she replied. “Love that filthy pig Flaminio Scala?! Love him always jumping on me like I was a horse, riding me, in and out, in and out, off before I even knew what was happening?! That’s not love, that’s not the kind of thing that wins a woman’s heart. And I only let him keep on doing that until I was old enough to stand up for myself!
“No, I only took it because I had no choice. I knew that if I left the troupe, I’d have to work on my back, being ridden by more men than one. That was why I fetched Flaminio’s cloak—because the money for my supper was in his pockets!”
But I think Vittoria was fooling herself—unless, poor thing, she’d managed to forget the truth. Because I think she did love Flaminio once, with that peculiar love which women always have for their first man. And that old love was part of the web she fell into, that web Francesco and Flaminio wove around each other like maddened spiders.
For, if she never loved him, how could she have come to hate him so much?
“One morning,” she told me, “I woke up and decided I’d had enough. That afternoon, on stage, I listened very carefully to the applause I got; and suddenly I realized that Flaminio needed the Inamorata, the lovesick young girl. The audiences loved her like their own daughters, their sisters, themselves at an earlier age. They were so attached to her, they’d kill Flaminio if he tried to play their towns without the Inamorata.
“At that moment, I knew I was free. ‘Flaminio,’ I said, the next time he came to my bed, ‘go jerk off.’
“From that day on, I couldn’t stand the sight of Flaminio Scala. I couldn’t stand talking to him, or even being in the same room with him. It wasn’t some game I was playing to win his affection—believe me, it was the real thing. I’d been freed from his power; everything about him made my flesh creep. I forbade him to come near my tent; whenever I saw him, it was all I could do to keep from vomiting.
“It was such a great change in me, Pantalone, it had to affect my acting. I couldn’t even fake it anymore. I couldn’t pretend to believe that the light in Flaminio’s beady eyes was as sweet to me as the first burst of sun after a spring rain. How could I have said such a thing with a straight face? How could I have fooled the audience into thinking I meant it?
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