by Kit Brennan
True to his word, soon after my arrival Ventura introduced me to a dancer from the Italian opera company. Her name was Donatella and she excelled in traditional dances from the Mediterranean. “All sorts,” she explained. “From Greece and Turkey, Italy, of course, to Spain, and a tiny bit from Morocco.” How had she learned all this? She laughed with her head thrown back. “My father came from Greece and his father was Turkish. My mother’s from the south, near Naples, her mother is from Andalucia. And the Moroccan? A man who came through my life. Like a swallow to a pool—a few playful dips, a gleeful cry, and then gone.” She smiled ruefully and added, “Just thinking about him makes me talk like he did: words of love and no substance.” She shrugged, “I am a mixed bag. We’ll concentrate on the Spanish. That’s what you want, sí?”
For several afternoons over several weeks, I spent time with Donatella, practicing in a large empty room close by the Cruz, where her company was performing. She was an excellent teacher, and her disciplined, flexible splendour as a dancer filled me with despair. I felt as if my feet became hooves in her presence. Hooves filled with lead. But I persevered. One day she mentioned the tarantella, asked me if I knew anything about it. “Though it’s from Italy, of course, not Spain. From the town of Taranto, south of Naples.”
“What is it like?”
“A folk dance. But exciting. I notice you like to move your body, and you have a strange natural rhythm. This might suit you. It’s like a trance. Of course, the real thing is a trance, but we dancers, we can recreate such things and not go crazy ourselves.” She threw back her head and laughed again, and I laughed with her. The dance sounded peculiar and therefore worth seeing.
She began it almost flamenco style, heels clicking and vibrating as she circled the floor. Very quick, light steps and a teasing kind of swaying, like a woman flirting with a man, then becoming faster, larger. I could see that the steps themselves, the repetition of them, brought on a kind of inebriation, and Donatella kept it up for a very long time, finally bringing the dance to a halt with a little cry of fatigue. I was extremely taken with it, the notion of tiring oneself out in such an arrestingly sensual way, which Donatella said was indeed the case. She fanned herself mightily, declaring we must go for a half carafe of wine or she would not be able to live.
Over a glass, she told me what she knew of the origins of the dance. Two hundred years ago, Taranto had been the seat of a strange affliction: Some inhabitants believed they had been bitten by a tarantula, and the only way they could cure themselves was by sweating the deadly poison out through frenzied dancing. The fear caught on and spread through the town, so all the townspeople danced until they dropped down insensible or maybe half dead, and then their bodies’ extreme fatigue (or the remnants of the poison) caused them to writhe and shake on the ground. For some reason, this annual madness reoccurred year after year—a spooky transference of soul, a manic joy. Over time, the frenzy had dissipated, became mythic and celebrated, and evolved into this tarantella. “Isn’t that fascinating?”
In the meantime, Ventura began organizing a masked ball to be held in opulent, rented rooms on a date to be decided, but not long after Christmas, to coincide with the pre-Lenten season when the theatres were closed. This had been another moneymaking scheme of Grimaldi’s, and Ventura, strapped for reales, was hoping to cash in again. Grimaldi’s balls had attracted up to two thousand disguised souls at a time, and while they were chaotic and a nightmare to organize, all of Madrid lusted for tickets and spent a great deal to obtain them. “I think, also,” Ventura told me quietly, “that the event will serve our needs.” I had no idea what that meant, but nodded anyway. A masked ball sounded wonderful. What costume should I come up with?
All the while, I kept looking around for Ventura’s Jesuit brother, who’d warned me his eyes would be everywhere. On the contrary, he was never anywhere (¡gracias a dios!), and little by little I began to forget about him.
And then, about a fortnight after my arrival at the Príncipe, the night arrived for which my associates and I had been waiting and planning: the night the princesses came to see La pata de cabra. A night like no other.
I was nervous, standing backstage: I had to steal their young hearts. If I didn’t, our plan would go awry before it had even begun. Ventura was sure that Luisa Fernanda, the littlest one, would be captivated. Her love for any magical creature, and particularly fairies, was well known, so we’d sewn sparkles on my stinking costume, added antennae to my hair, and heightened the makeup around my eyes so that the whites would catch the footlights.
The play began. I peeked through a small hole in the stage-left curtain to glimpse the infantas in their box. The elder, Isabel, the almost queen, was eating chocolates. Luisa Fernanda was playing with her hair, a very pale blonde; she looked like her mother, Cristina. Isabel seemed darker, her features coarser; but then, she had her hands to her mouth the whole time so I couldn’t be sure. I awaited my entrance. It came, I swished out, and I managed to steal a tiny glance over at the royal box. The youngest saw my dancing steps and twinkling antennae and leaned forward, arms on the rail.
By the time I flew to the young lovers in my faux carriage, I could tell that Luisa Fernanda was entranced. My athletic levitation in Act III caused her to jump up and down in her chair, until a royally appointed adult at her side remonstrated with her. As I danced my little fandango and then swooped up into the fly tower just before final curtain, I saw her clapping deliriously and felt very pleased. She would ask to meet me afterwards; everything we hoped for would come to pass, I knew it.
The ropes hurtled me skywards, accompanied by the usual gasps from the audience and sounds of appreciative applause. The roof of the stage house approached at speed, dark and shadowy, full of dust and the smell of hemp, and the human sounds faded away. My feet reached for and landed on the platform high above the stage. Below me, the action continued: actors moving to and fro, lit from beneath, colours flickering in and out of the footlights. I sensed the fly man, just a shadow in the darkness off to my right, as I reached up to unhook the harness, still recovering my equilibrium and catching my breath. I was about to move to the ladder in order to descend when I smelled something odd, and that shadowy figure reached out, grabbed my arm, twisted it painfully behind my back, then gave my body a mighty shove! I had no time to even make a sound; the propulsion whirled me around and I lost my balance, cascading over the edge of the platform! Cast off into black spinning space!
From sheer instinct I flailed out and grabbed at something, anything! A rope—it burned through my palm, but I hung on and grabbed at it again with the other hand and broke my descent. I was dizzy, disoriented, not knowing if I was right side up or upside down. Somehow, against all odds, I’d stopped my fall and—again, instinctively—I kicked my legs frantically, entwining myself in a second bewildering rope that descended, snakelike, through the blackness towards the far away stage, where the actors carried on, oblivious.
At the very same instant that all of this was happening, a large, heavy object flew off the platform above, barely missing my head, and after an interval of some fraught, silent seconds, crashed onto the stage floor below. Screams and scurrying—chaos! People fleeing in every direction! Dangling there in the ropes, high above, I realized: The fallen object, now splattered and broken, was me. Could, by a whisker, have been me. A vision of Clotilde flashed before my mind’s eye: In that horrific moment, too, there had been no sound. Just a whoosh of displacement, a sinister double splash, then her small head, propelled by the chin, towed into the channel to certain death. No mercy. And no warning.
Far below me, the object lay. It was one of the sandbags from the fly tower’s platform. My limbs began to shake and lose all strength as I clung to the ropes between my legs and my juddering, bleeding hands, remembering again the sudden grip on my arm, up on the platform. Remembering the sinewy hand on Clotilde’s throat and the stinking one that had grasped my neck and then covered my mouth in the Paris streets. I hadn’t
seen the hand that had just sent me cascading off the platform, nor its owner—but its fingers were hard and bony and long. They were . . . oh merde, oh dammit. Were they the same? They looked and felt—and smelled!—the same. Pedro Coria, the glass-eyed bodyguard? As I hung there, twisting, in the ropes, the possibility hit me: Had he followed me, for some reason? Was he insane? I peered into the darkness above. How long a span of time had passed? How many eternities? Was he up there—the it, the fiend, whatever such a brute can be called—cutting at the ropes, sawing away? If he was, as they frayed and split and finally snapped, I would fall.
And then I saw that three of the fly men were leaning down, arms held out to me, their eyes popping in desperation. “Señorita, por favor!” I was dangling several feet below their reach. They wanted me to reach for their hands. But I could not! How could I trust them? What if it was one of them?
Then, from the corner of my eye I glimpsed a long shape, slithering down the iron ladder with horrible speed and agility. I couldn’t see the face as it scurried, like a spider, into the darkness below and thence to the stage floor. “There, look!” I managed in a croak. “The ladder, quickly!” but they were uncomprehending, their entire focus intent upon lifting me up, to them, to safety. Dimly, I heard the orchestra strike up again—the play was going on, the actors were back in formation, summoning up the denouement, the happy ending. My head began to spin; I was losing strength, beginning to slip, and my mind couldn’t fathom my body’s betrayal!
One of the men from above had the good thought of pulling the rope my hands were still clutching, which raised me slightly and allowed the others (a fourth shocked fly man had appeared from somewhere) to get a grip of my arms. They hauled me aloft. I lay there between them, on my back on the platform, their hands patting my hair, my skirt. They were trembling also. “Did you see him?” I groaned, and they looked confused. “Who was that, up here?” I tried again, my throat dry and voice cracking. They didn’t know what I meant. They saw nothing but the result of my fall. A girl in the ropes. They’re glad they were not responsible for a death; their voices were still shaking slightly, as they patted me. “We must get you down, señorita. Have you the ability?” They deployed themselves: two to remain for the final curtain drop and raise, and two to help me.
I wasn’t sure I could keep myself on the ladder for all those many, dizzy steps down, even though there was an anxious man below me and one above. The combination of fear, lightheadedness, and the shakes, while trying to descend a tiny iron ladder sixty feet above a stage floor, in virtual darkness, convinced that a clawlike, powerful hand will somehow grab your ankle and rip you off at any moment—well, it was one of the bravest things I’ve ever done. By the time I tottered onto the boards backstage, I thought I would throw up. I put my hands on my knees and breathed deeply. One of the fly men said, “Brava, señorita. And you’re even in time—curtain’s coming, look.” The cast was onstage, the curtain down and then raising again (unevenly, as the two remaining fly men toiled away), and the bowing began. Where was the monster? Was it still down here, waiting?
Ventura, in the wings, came dashing over. “Where in hell were you?”
“I . . . up there . . . I almost—”
“Get on, get on! Stay out of Antonio’s light, but get on! Let the infantas see you!”
I staggered out and away from the darkness and took my place. I curtsied and smiled in the direction of the royal box. I could see the youngest was standing to clap. Could this possibly still be the princesses’ night? I had lived and died a hundred years. Isabel’s hands were still in the chocolate box. I curtsied again. The curtsies made me feel better, made me remember that I was onstage, doing what I loved, drinking in the sound and the smells, living and breathing (¡gracias á dios!) my dream.
When the curtain came down for the final time with a dusty thump, I wobbled over to Ventura. The fly men were clustered around him.
He turned to me with angry eyes. “You knocked the sandbag. It could have killed someone.”
“I was pushed up there, Ventura! I nearly fell!” And in that moment, even more than when I was dangling high above the stage, I knew that if I had fallen I would have broken every bone in my body. And if I had somehow lived, I would have wished I hadn’t.
He took my chin, looking into my eyes. “My God, is that so?” And to the men, “Why wasn’t it secured as it should have been? If I find you’ve been careless—”
“No.” Now I was furious. “You’re not listening. There was a man, I’m sure of it. He ran down the ladder and he’s gone. No one else saw anything. He really meant it, Ventura, he wanted me to die.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said, and hugged me. The other actors were chattering and gesticulating, still animated from the mishap. “Come, Rosana,” Ventura went on, “you must change and be ready. We’ve sent an invitation to the royal box, inviting them backstage. Quickly, quickly. We’ll deal with this later, I swear it.”
My fingers shook as I flew through my preparations; the dresser had to slap my hands away because they were bleeding from the ropes. I was bandaged, my hands slipped into gloves, then I was laced into my finest new court gown, breasts high and saucy, ready for my official audience with the young Bourbon-Two Sicilies. As I gingerly removed my stage makeup, a rotund, anxious-looking man with a cast on his leg entered the dressing room. There were happy screams: “Emilio! Darling, how are you?” He’d been in the audience that night; he’d seen my performance. Emilio had a cast on his leg. He couldn’t possibly have beetled down that ladder with such speed and dexterity. But wait, I thought, could he have arranged it? Could he hate me that much for usurping his role? I told myself not to be foolish. But as I watched my fellow artists and felt them excluding me, quite deliberately, I knew that to them, I had not earned my way. And that is a cardinal sin in the theatre.
Just then, the infantas arrived with their chaperones and guards. The dressing room had that afternoon been hurriedly filled with flowers, after the official royal consent to attend had been received, and now became the scene of much bowing and scraping. The little girls took this in their stride; the youngest, Luisa Fernanda, offered her small hand many times, and everyone bent over it with soft words of fealty. It was obvious that Isabel, the thirteen-year-old, disliked this ritual. She nodded her head and bestowed stiff smiles instead. She was an unprepossessing looking person: fat as a little porker stuffed into her gown, with a raw, red face and hands, and an extremely turned up nose, which unfortunately did not mitigate her porcine impression.
Suddenly the youngest spotted me and rushed over, her young face gleaming with pleasure. “Cupid!” she cried, “I love you!” Ventura bowed himself into a fever at this, others in the company looked sour, and Emilio’s pudgy face seemed about to shatter.
The sweet little one reached up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “I think you are beautiful,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “I hope you will come to stay with us.”
I could hear an audible gasp of joy and surprise from Ventura, behind me.
“Majesty,” I murmured, “I would be most grateful. An honour.”
“No. I hope it will be fun,” she said.
So there it was. I had done it, against the odds. Courageously, strongly! The Príncipe, its tattered company, unsafe conditions and even its treacherous make-believe fly man could go hang: I’d shown them! I’d done it! Part one, accomplished. Part two, about to commence.
Life changed quickly after my introduction to royalty. I moved out of my rooms near the theatre district and into the royal palace, into the most glamourous bedchamber I had ever seen. More people to look me up and down with disdain, thinking I hadn’t earned it: lady’s maids and tiring women, Spanish grandees with pencil-thin mustaches, skinny calves, and leathery skin. Pooh on them all! I felt like a conqueror. Waking late in the morning, after my performance had tired me out the night before. Being served breakfast in bed, whatever I wanted, by a maid who was told to ensure I was happ
y, even if she disapproved of me with every ounce of her tight-lipped being. “More coffee,” I’d say, holding my cup out just to annoy her, “black as the ace of spades, por favor.” Once I was up, I’d wander down insanely majestic hallways and peek around imperial doorways, openmouthed at the opulence. The littlest princess had told me proudly, “There are twenty-eight hundred rooms in the palace,” so I was trying very hard not to get lost! Once I’d found the princesses each morning, I’d lounge about with them, doing what they did: going for drives in coaches-and-six, playing games in a variety of incredible gardens connected to the palace, swanning up and down during lengthy and tedious appearances before their courtiers (what do all these overdressed people hang around for, anyway?), and sitting in the background, out of the way, while they were receiving their education from the tutor.
Yes, the tutor. There he was at last: Arguëlles, focus of my main assignment. Cristina and Grimaldi had made me fear him as some sort of radical, cerebral giant; they professed themselves terrified of the unsettling effect he was having upon the girls. From what I could see, the infantas carried on blithely being the rather spoiled children they were. The man certainly worked hard at changing their compass, and he was full of frighteningly extremist ideas (from a monarchist point of view). But the most dire problem was one they hadn’t warned me about: Arguëlles was one of the ugliest men I had ever set eyes on, and the thought of having to seduce him was abhorrent.
With one glance, the task had taken on Herculean proportions. Large, pendulous lips that flung spittle around when he grew animated, which was often. Breath that would stun a boar at ten paces. Thin, greasy hair sitting on top of the largest, roundest head I could imagine. Making up for the hair he lacked on his head, he had meaty hands with dark fur around the knuckles, fur which extended all the way up the backs of his hands, fluffing out around his cuffs, and no doubt getting thicker and hairier all the way up (and down, ¡mierda!). A barrel chest with a globular stomach. No ass—completely flat. And thin shanks which he (for some reason) loved to display, thinking as he did that they were his finest feature. Big paddle feet joined to these desiccated shanks—truly a work of art. Coupled with his appearance, he possessed an unlikable personality of immense aggrandizement. He was intelligent, this is true. From a poor peasant family (as most of these Spanish up-and-comers seemed to be), he had trained under the Jesuits and, through their teachings, developed his mind and political acumen. He was ambitious and ingratiating. Delicate work. Almost as delicate as the work I’d been commissioned to accomplish. We were like two agents on opposite sides, tunneling away to destroy the other’s side.