by Donna Leon
‘Do you think the Maestro was aware of this?’
‘Do you mean did he know how bad we sounded?’
‘Yes.’
‘He must have. You don’t get to be the best conductor in the world and not hear what your orchestra is doing, do you? But it was more like he was thinking about something else most of the time. Like he wasn’t there, just not paying any attention.’
‘How about the night of the performance? Did you notice anything unusual?’
‘No, I didn’t. We were all too busy trying to keep together, so it wouldn’t sound as bad as it might have.’
‘Nothing at all? He didn’t speak to anyone in a strange way?’
‘He didn’t speak to anyone that night. We didn’t see him except when he came to the podium, down in the orchestra pit with us.’ He paused, chasing at memory. ‘There was one thing, hardly worth mentioning.’
‘What?’
‘It was at the end of the second act, right after the big scene where Alfredo throws the money at Violetta. I don’t know how the singers got through the ensemble. We were all over the place. Well, it ended, and the audience—they haven’t got ears—they began to applaud, and the Maestro, he gave this funny little smile, like someone had just told him something funny. And then he set his baton down. Didn’t toss it down on the podium, the way he usually did. Set it down very carefully, and then he smiled again. Then he stepped down from the podium and went backstage. And that’s the last I saw of him. I thought he was smiling because the act was over and maybe the rest would be easy. And then they changed conductors for the third act.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing you were looking for.’
He reached down for his violin, and Brunetti said, ‘One last thing. Did the rest of the orchestra notice this? Not the smile, but the difference in him?’
‘A number of us did, those who had played with him before. For the rest, I can’t say. We get so many lousy conductors here, I’m not sure if they can tell the difference between them. But maybe it’s because of my father.’ He saw Brunetti’s confusion and explained. ‘My father. He’s eighty-seven. He does the same thing, looks over his glasses at us as if we’ve been keeping a secret from him and he wants to know what it is.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘I’ve got to go. It’s only ten minutes until the curtain.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Brunetti said, though he wasn’t sure what to make of what the musician had just told him.
‘Sounded like a lot of useless gossip to me. Nothing more. But I hope it can help.’
‘Would there be any trouble if I stayed in the theater during the performance?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No, I don’t think so. Just tell Lucia when you leave, so she can lock this room.’ Then, hurriedly, ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Thank you again.’
‘It was nothing.’ They shook hands, and the musician left.
Brunetti stayed in the room, already planning that he would take the opportunity to see how many people walked around backstage during a performance and during intermissions and how easy it would be to go into or out of the conductor’s dressing room unnoticed.
He waited in the room for a quarter of an hour, grateful for the chance to be by himself in a quiet place. Gradually, all the noise that had filtered through the door stopped, and he realized that the singers would have gone downstairs to take their places onstage. Still he lingered in the room, comforted by the silence.
He heard the overture, filtering up the stairs and through the walls, and decided it was time to find the conductor’s dressing room. He stepped out into the hall and looked around for the woman who had let them into the room, but she was nowhere to be seen. Because he had been charged with seeing that the room was locked, he walked along the hall and glanced down the stairway. ‘Signora Lucia?’ he called, but there was no reply. He went to the door of the first dressing room and knocked, but there was no reply. Nor at the second. At the third, someone called ‘Avanti!’ and he pushed the door open, ready to explain that he had left and the dressing room could be locked.
‘Signora Lucia,’ he began as he entered the room, but he stopped when he saw Brett Lynch sprawled in an easy chair, book open in her lap, glass of red wine in one hand.
She was as startled as he but recovered more quickly. ‘Good evening, Commissario. May I help you in any way?’ She set her glass down on the table beside her chair, flipped her book closed, and smiled.
‘I wanted to tell Signora Lucia she could lock that other dressing room,’ he explained.
‘She’s probably downstairs, watching from the wings. She’s a great fan of Flavia’s. When she comes back up, I’ll tell her to lock it. Don’t worry, it’ll be taken care of.’
‘That’s very kind of you. Aren’t you watching the performance?’
‘No,’ she answered. Seeing his response, she asked, ‘Does that surprise you?’
‘I don’t know if it does or it doesn’t. But if I asked you, then I suppose it does.’
Her answering grin pleased him, both because it was not the sort of thing he expected from her and because of the way it softened the angularity of her face.
‘If you promise not to tell Flavia, I’ll confess to you that I don’t much like Verdi and I don’t much like Traviata’
‘Why not?’ he asked, curious that the secretary and friend—he left it at that—of the most famous Verdi soprano of the day would admit to not liking the music.
‘Please have a seat, Commissario,’ she said, pointing to the chair opposite her. ‘Nothing much goes on for another’—she glanced at her watch—’twenty-four minutes.’
He took the seat she indicated, turned it to face her more directly, and asked, ‘Why don’t you like Verdi?’
‘It’s not exactly that. I do like some of the music. Otello, for example. But it’s the wrong century for me.’
‘Which do you prefer?’ he asked, though he was sure of the answer he’d get. Wealthy, American, modern-minded: she would have to prefer the music of the century in which she lived, the century that had made her possible.
‘Eighteenth,’ she said, surprising him. ‘Mozart and Handel, neither of which, for my sins, Flavia feels any great desire to sing.’
‘Have you tried to convert her?’
She picked up her glass and sipped at it, set it back down on the table. ‘I’ve converted her to some things, but I can’t seem to tempt her away from Verdi.’
‘I think that must be considered our great fortune,’ he answered, slipping easily into her tone, which implied far more than it said. ‘The other must be yours.’
She surprised him by giggling, and he surprised himself by laughing with her. ‘Well, that’s done. I’ve confessed. Now perhaps we can talk like human beings and not like characters in a cheap novel.’
‘I’d very much like that, Signorina.’
‘My name is Brett, and I know yours is Guido,’ she said, using the informal second person and thus making the initial step toward familiarity. She got up from her chair and went over to a small sink in the corner. Beside it was a bottle of wine. She poured some into a second glass, brought it and the bottle back, and handed the glass to him.
‘Are you back here to talk to Flavia?’ she asked.
‘No, that wasn’t my intention. But I’ll have to talk to her, sooner or later.’
‘Why?’
‘To ask what she was doing in Wellauer’s dressing room after the first act.’ If she found this at all surprising, she gave no sign of it. ‘Do you have any idea?’
‘Why do you say she was there?’
‘Because at least two people saw her go in. After the first act.’
‘But not after the second?’
‘No, not after the second.’
‘She was up here, with me, after the second act.’
‘The last time we spoke, you said she was up here, with you, after the first act, as well. And she wasn’t. Is there any reason I should belie
ve you’re telling me the truth now, when you lied then?’ He took a drink of the wine. ‘Barolo, and very good.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘Why should I believe that?’
‘I suppose there’s no real reason.’ She sipped at her wine again, as though they had the entire evening before them for discussion. ‘But she was.’ She emptied her glass, poured a little more into it, and said, ‘She did go to see him after the first act. She told me about it. He’d been playing with her for days, threatening to write to her husband. So, finally, she went back to talk to him.’
‘It seems a strange time to do it, during a performance.’
‘Flavia’s like that. She doesn’t think much about what she does. She simply acts, does what she wants. It’s one of the reasons she’s a great singer.’
‘I would imagine it’s difficult to live with.’
She grinned ‘Yes, it is. But there are compensations.’
‘What did she tell you?’ When she didn’t understand, he added, ‘About seeing him.’
‘That they’d had an argument. He wouldn’t give a clear answer about whether or not he had written to her husband. She didn’t say much more than that, but she was still shaking with anger when she came back up here. I don’t know how she managed to sing.’
‘And did he write to her husband?’
‘I don’t know. She hasn’t said anything else about it. Not since that night.’ She saw his surprise. ‘As I said, she’s like that. When she’s singing, she doesn’t like to talk about anything that bothers her.’ She added ruefully, ‘She doesn’t much like to do it when she’s not singing, either, but she says it destroys her concentration if she has to think about anything except the music. And I suppose everyone has always let her get away with it. God knows, I do.’
‘Was he capable of doing it, writing to her husband?’
‘The man was capable of anything. Believe me. He saw himself as some sort of protector of human morals. He couldn’t stand it if someone lived in violation of his definition of right and wrong. It maddened him that anyone would dare. He felt some sort of divine right to bring them to justice, his justice.’
‘And what was she capable of doing?’
‘Flavia?’
‘Yes.’
The question didn’t surprise her. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think she could do it like that, not in cold blood. She’d do anything to keep the children, but I don’t think ... no, not like that. Besides, she’d hardly be walking around with poison, would she?’ She seemed relieved to have thought of this. ‘But it isn’t finished. If there’s a trial or some sort of hearing, then it’ll come out, won’t it, what they argued about?’ Brunetti nodded. ‘And that’s all her husband will need.’
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Brunetti said.
‘Oh, come on,’ she snapped. ‘This is Italy, the land of the happy family, the sacred family. She’d be allowed to have as many lovers as she wanted, so long as they were men. That would put the father, or a sort of father, back into the house. But the instant this became public, she’d never have a chance against him.’
‘Don’t you think you’re exaggerating?’
‘Exaggerating what?’ she demanded. ‘My life’s never been a secret. I’ve always been too rich for it to matter what people thought of me or said about me. But that didn’t stop them from saying it. So even if nothing could be proved about us, just think what a clever lawyer could do: “The soprano with the millionairess secretary.” No, it would look like exactly what it is.’
‘She could lie,’ Brunetti said, suggesting perjury.
‘With an Italian judge, I don’t think that would make any difference. Besides, I don’t think she’d lie. I really don’t think she would. No, not about this. Flavia really does think she’s above the law.’ Instantly, she seemed to regret saying that. ‘But she’s all words, only talk, just like on the stage. She’ll shout and rage at people, but it’s all gestures. I’ve never known her to be violent, not to anyone. Just words.’
Brunetti was enough of an Italian to believe that words might easily change to something else when a woman’s children were involved, but he kept that opinion to himself. ‘Do you mind if I ask you some personal questions?’
She sighed wearily, anticipating what was coming, and shook her head.
‘Has anyone ever tried to blackmail either one of you?’
This was clearly not the sort of question she had feared. ‘No, never. Not me, and not Flavia, or at least she’s never told me.’
‘And the children? How do you get on with them?’
‘Pretty well. Paolo is thirteen and Vittoria’s eight, so at least he might have some idea of what’s going on. But again, Flavia has never said anything, nothing has ever been said.’ She shrugged, openhanded, and in that gesture ceased to be in any way Italian and became entirely American.
‘And the future?’
‘You mean old age? Sipping tea together in the afternoon at Florian’s?’
It was rather a more sedate picture than he might have painted, but it would do. He nodded.
‘I have no idea. While I’m with her, I can’t work, so I have to decide about that, about what I want.’
‘What is it you do?’
‘I’m an archaeologist. Chinese. That’s how I met Flavia. I helped arrange the China exhibit in the Doge’s Palace three years ago. The bigwigs brought her along because she was singing Lucia at La Scala. And then they brought her to the party after the opening. Then I had to go back to Xian; that’s where the dig is, the one I’m working on. There are only three of us there, three Westerners. And I’ve been away for three months now, and I have to go back or I’ll be replaced.’
‘The soldiers?’ he asked, memory still bright with the image of the terracotta statues he had seen at that show, each one perfectly individualized and looking like the portrait of a man.
‘That’s just the beginning,’ she said. ‘There are thousands of them, more than we have any idea of. We haven’t even begun to excavate the treasure in the central tomb. There’s so much red tape with the government. But last fall we got permission to begin work on the treasure mound. From the little I’ve seen, it’s going to be the most important archaeological find since King Tut. In fact, that will look like nothing once we start to take out what’s buried there.’
He had always believed the passion of scholars to be an invention of people who wrote books, an attempt to render them more recognizably human. Seeing her, he realized how wrong he had been.
‘Even their tools are beautiful, even the small bowls the workers used to eat from.’
‘And if you don’t go back?’
‘If I don’t go back, I lose it all. Not the fame. The Chinese deserve that. But the chance to see those things, to touch them, to have a real sense of what the people who made them were like. If I don’t go back, I lose all that.’
‘And is that more important to you than this?’ he asked, gesturing around the dressing room.
‘That’s not a fair question.’ She made her own broad gesture, one that took in the makeup on the table, the costumes hanging behind the door, the wigs propped up on pedestals. ‘This sort of thing isn’t my future. Mine is pots and shards and pieces of a civilization thousands of years old. And Flavia’s is here, in the middle of this. In five years, she’ll be the most famous Verdi singer in the world. I don’t think there’s a place for me in that. It’s not anything she’s realized yet, but I told you what she’s like. She won’t think of it until it happens.’
‘But you have?’
‘Of course.’
‘What will you do?’
‘See what happens here, with all this.’ She gestured again, this time encompassing the death that had taken place in this theater four nights before. ‘And then I’ll go back to China. Or I think I will.’
‘Just like that?’
‘No, not “just like that,” but I’ll still go.’
‘Is it worth it?’ he
asked.
‘Is what worth it?’
‘China.’
She shrugged again. ‘It’s my work. It’s what I do. And, in the end, I suppose it’s what I love as well. I can’t spend my life sitting in dressing rooms, reading Chinese poetry, and waiting for the opera to end so that I can live my life.’
‘Have you told her?’
‘Has she told me what?’ demanded Flavia Petrelli, making a thoroughly theatrical entrance and slamming the door behind her. She swept across the room, trailing behind her the train of a pale-blue gown. She was entirely transformed, radiant, as beautiful as Brunetti had ever seen a woman be. And it wasn’t a costume or makeup that had made this change; she was dressed as what she was and what she did. That had transformed her. Her eyes swept around the room, taking in the two glasses, the amiability of their postures. ‘Hasshe told me what?’ she demanded a second time.