Glorious Ones

by Francine Prose

  IV Francesco Andreini

  LADIES 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.”

  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.”