Mozart’s Blood

by Louise Marley

  The room Gilda gave her was barely as wide as her outstretched arms, but it was enough. The bed was clean, if a bit hard, and there were a ewer and basin on a rickety marble-topped stand. There was no wardrobe, but Teresa had so few clothes it hardly mattered.

  Gilda’s cooking showed her Limone roots. She made pasta with braised onion sauce, fish from the Lambro fried in butter, salads of arugula and fennel, and carpaccio of veal with sliced beets and grilled tomatoes. At first Teresa found the traditional Milanese green olive bread too salty for her taste, but she soon learned to savor it, dipping thick slices into olive oil.

  Ippolito, the man Gilda so jealously guarded, was a stubby creature with the veined nose and reddened cheeks of a drinker. He said little, but he ate a great deal, and washed everything down with sour red wine. Teresa sat at table with the two of them for lunch and dinner, sitting as far as she could from Ippolito, studiously keeping her eyes on Gilda. She offered to help in the kitchen, but Gilda, it developed, was as jealous of her recipes as she was of her husband.

  The couple had had a daughter who died in infancy. There had been no other children. When he worked, Ippolito was a stonemason. Gilda informed Teresa that Ippolito was between jobs because there was little construction in Milano at the moment. She spoke without a hint of irony, giving no indication that she heard the constant hammering and shouts of builders on nearly every street of the city.

  Ladies came daily to the little house, carrying bolts of cloth. They stood on a wooden stool in Gilda’s salotto, gossiping cheerfully while she measured and pinned and cut.

  Teresa borrowed Gilda’s soapstone iron. She heated it on the wood stove, then pressed her best dress. She washed her hair in cold water in the basin in her room and scrubbed her cheeks until they were pink. She put on the dress and wound her hair up as neatly as she knew how. She took her mother’s music book in her arms for luck and started out of the house, intending to go straight to the theater.

  Gilda stopped her in the hall. “Where are you going?”

  Teresa bit her lip. “I’m—going to look for work.”

  “What work, in that dress? Do you plan to be a charwoman?”

  “No, signora. A—a singer.”

  Gilda’s eyes widened, and she stared at the girl for a long moment. Her mustachioed lip pursed. “Well,” she said. “I suppose singers have to come from somewhere.”

  Teresa started again for the door.

  “No, no, no!” Gilda cried. “You can’t go like that!”

  Teresa stopped in the little hallway, her hand on the latch. “Cosa? What is it?”

  “Your dress!” Gilda said.

  Teresa looked down at herself. Her gown, if such it could be called, was of brown muslin. She had sewed it herself with inexpert fingers. The petticoat was also brown, but there had not been enough muslin, and so the sides and back, where the over-skirt hid them, were of pieces of leftover beige cotton. The bodice had no boning, but Teresa was slender and not overlarge in her bosom, and she had hoped it would not matter. Still, the whole effect was rather cheap looking, and she knew it.

  She sighed, remembering the elegant gown of the lady who had shared her coach. “This is all I have.”

  Gilda clucked her tongue and crooked a thick finger, drawing Teresa into the living room. Before Teresa knew what was happening, she was standing in her shift and Gilda was dropping a different dress over her head, muttering to herself as she pulled the laces tight on the bodice, as she bent to check the length of the hem and to tweak the overdress into place over the petticoat. The whole ensemble was in shades of blue, the bodice the blue of a midnight sky, the skirt that of a robin’s egg. The petticoat was even paler, an ice blue for which Teresa had no name. The skirt was not nearly so wide as that of the lady from the coach, but it draped beautifully over the petticoat, and the bodice was stiff with whalebone and topped with a fall of creamy lace. Teresa stood very still, hardly daring to move in the lovely creation.

  “Gilda!” she breathed, not realizing she had used the aunt’s given name. “What fabric is this? Whose dress?”

  “It’s mostly silk damask,” Gilda said shortly. “The petticoat is satin. And it was to be for the wife of the doctor in the next street.”

  “Why did she not—”

  Gilda snorted. “She died. Not much of a doctor, do you think?”

  Teresa shivered. It was not a good omen. But it was a lovely dress, and only a bit too big in the waist. Even as she thought about it, she felt Gilda’s strong fingers tugging at the laces, adjusting the skirt. “Did she pay you?” Teresa asked after a moment.

  “Half in advance,” Gilda said. “She still owes me the other half.”

  “I will pay you for it,” Teresa said. “I promise.”

  Gilda gave a rough laugh. “You do that, ragazza,” she said. She stepped back, nodding appreciatively. “You’re much prettier than the doctor’s wife was, anyway,” she said, and her unexpected smile broke out. It softened her dark face and made her look years younger. “Just tell everyone who made your gown.”

  For three days straight Teresa presented herself at La Scala. The first day she could not even get in the door. The second day she managed to get in through the delivery entrance, but was promptly ejected by an officious man in a frock coat who flourished a cane at her as if she were a bothersome dog. By the third day, after standing beside the stage entrance and approaching every single person who passed her, she knew there would be no straightforward way to win an audition. The singers laughed, and the orchestra members averted their faces, out of embarrassment for her, she suspected. The director, it seemed, did not use the stage entrance.

  As she trudged back toward Gilda’s home, lifting the skirts of the blue gown to keep them from being muddied, she felt something close to despair. She couldn’t afford a voice teacher who might have a contact at the opera. She didn’t have an accompanist. She had not attended any of the conservatories, which might at least lend her petition credibility.

  She walked slowly, her head down, her music clamped under her arm, hardly knowing where she turned or which street she was taking. When she heard the strains of an organ, she stopped. She lifted her head and looked around, hoping she wasn’t completely lost.

  She found herself on Via Falcone, opposite a small, rather odd little church with a circular wall and a soaring bell tower to her right. The music was unfamiliar, but she thought it might be Bach, or perhaps Handel. She had just started across the street, thinking she would go into the church, sit down for a time, and listen to the organ, when she heard a sweet and rather eerie voice rise to join the organ.

  Teresa caught her breath. What was this? It was certainly a soprano voice, but it was like nothing she had ever heard in Limone. She hurried, afraid it would stop before she could find its source. She had to circle all the way around the little church before she found the entrance on Via Torino. There was a niche with a figure of the Virgin set into it, and a plaque beneath that said Santa Maria presso San Satiro. Teresa scarcely glanced at these as she hurried in through the wooden doors. She crossed herself automatically as she entered the nave.

  It was a lovely place. She glanced around, surprised at how large it seemed once she was inside. It took her several moments to realize that the church’s spaciousness was an illusion. Whoever had designed it had created a trompe-l’oeil effect by painting vaulted arches on the walls. A Mass was in progress, with worshippers standing in the pews and the priest chanting the ordinary from the altar. The music—that glorious voice, with the reedy tones of the organ underlying it—wound through the resonant space, slender and full at the same time.

  The singer began a long melisma, figures of eighth-and sixteenth-notes, winding up the staff and then down again. Did the singer never breathe? The passage seemed to go on an impossibly long time.

  Teresa sidled into a pew, crowding next to an old woman in a black scarf. She peered over her shoulder into the organ loft to try to find the singer.

 
Around her, as the Sanctus came to an end, the worshippers knelt, but Teresa had lost track of the liturgy. She could see the singer now, and she still stood, distracted by his voice and form. She had heard about such creatures, of course. There were singers of this ilk in Roma, and in Napoli and Venezia. She had not thought to hear such a voice in a Milanese church.

  Someone tugged at her skirt, and she realized she was the only person standing in the nave except the priest. Abruptly, she sank to her knees, hoping the floor wasn’t too dirty. Still she kept her head turned toward the organ loft.

  When the Amen began, she bent her head and closed her eyes, listening with the purest admiration. The Mass went by in a blur, Teresa simply waiting for each part the musico would sing. His artistry stunned her. Some objected to the knife, claiming it was unnatural and cruel. Teresa, at that moment, was not so sure. If it was mutilation that created such singers, would it not be worth it? Would even she, given the chance to sing those long melismas, those piercing high notes, accept it? She just might, if it would do her any good.

  As the congregants filed out of San Satiro, Teresa went in search of the stairs leading down from the organ loft. She stood in the shadows, waiting. When he came down, he had doffed the dark robe and was dressed in a modest suit, only his height and his long arms and neck assuring her that it was, in fact, the castrato.

  She stepped forward. “Sir,” she said softly. “Your singing is magnificent.”

  He had a fleshy face, with a shock of black hair springing up from a high forehead. He started to smile at her, his round, beardless cheeks creasing, when someone behind her hissed, “Capon!” and thrust past with a sharp elbow that sent Teresa staggering into the wall.

  The musico’s smile faded. He stood very still, his cheeks flaming, his eyes downcast. The man who had insulted him swept through the doors and out into the gathering evening.

  Teresa regained her balance and tucked her book of music securely under her arm again. She repeated in a clear voice, “Magnificent, sir. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

  The tall castrato smoothed his lapels. “Thank you, signorina,” he said. His voice was high and fluting, rather like an adolescent boy’s, but richer and more resonant. “It’s strange that men such as that one gather in the opera house to hear my kind sing, yet hate to come face-to-face with us when we’re not in costume.”

  Teresa took a step toward him. A seed of hope began to germinate in her breast, nearly stealing her breath. “Sir,” she said. “Did you say—do you indeed sing at La Scala?”

  Now the musico’s grin reappeared. “When they need someone with long breath and fast notes, I do,” he said. “And they don’t mind my other—hmm—let us say, shortcomings.”

  His smile encouraged Teresa. She began to smile, too, and she put out her gloved hand. “I am Teresa Saporiti,” she said. “Your newest and most ardent admirer.”

  He took her hand and bowed over it. “Signorina. Vincenzo dal Prato, al suo servizio. And I never have enough admirers.”

  13

  Mi par ch’oggi il demonio si diverta…

  It seems to me that today the devil is enjoying himself…

  —Don Giovanni, Act One, Scene Two, Don Giovanni

  Ugo was no stranger to pain. Beginning with that first, slashing pain that fully revealed his other nature for the first time, pain had pursued him.

  It wasn’t always his own. More often it belonged to others, and he was responsible for a fair amount of it. He took no pleasure in making people suffer. Even though his victims were invariably fools, of little use to themselves or anyone else, hurting them gave him no sense of satisfaction. What he mostly felt was resignation.

  Ugo had always found there was something musical about pain. It had rhythm and tempo and color. Different kinds of pain had different timbres, different sonorities. And like hearing a piece of music again and again, until it was as familiar as an old friend, there was yet something new in each experience.

  In the basement room, Domenico asked him one more time before the symphony of pain commenced. “Where are they?” he demanded. “Where do they hide their compound?”

  Ugo shook his head. “You don’t want to know this, my friend.”

  Benson, eager to begin Ugo’s torment, hauled him off the floor by one arm and shoved him onto the bare mattress. He pulled a nasty-looking pair of pliers from his case, and he brandished it, grinning, showing an expanse of gum and crooked brown teeth.

  Ugo managed a shrug, though his gut quivered with a nauseous expectation. “I did warn you, my poor Benson,” he said. “I hope you’ll remember that.”

  For answer, Benson snarled something wordless and seized Ugo’s foot.

  Domenico headed for the door. He didn’t look back as he knocked and waited for Marks to let him out.

  Benson wielded the pliers, probing at Ugo’s toes, eyeing his victim for a response.

  “Such a cliché,” Ugo had said. “Nails? Surely you can think of something—” He broke off, grunting.

  This was a focused sort of pain, like the skree of an untuned violin. His stomach clenched as the nail gave way, and a burst of perspiration ran down his forehead and into his hair. The straps bit into his wrists as his body heaved. When the spasm released, he drew a noisy breath. “Something more original,” he finished, panting. Blood dribbled hotly over his foot. “Use your imagination.”

  For answer, Benson slapped him, making his teeth rattle.

  “Oh, yes,” Ugo crooned. “Subtle. Like your hairdo.”

  Benson slammed a fist against his cheekbone, a blow of sheer brute violence like the crash of cymbals, or the blare of a whole row of trombones.

  Benson twirled the pliers in his fingers and glared at Ugo. Blood spattered his muscle shirt, and his bald skull was slick with sweat. “All this can stop any time.”

  “And spoil your fun?”

  Benson leaned forward, pressing the nose of the pliers into the sole of Ugo’s foot. “Look, you little fag,” he snarled. “We get what we want, or you die. Simple as that.”

  “You think you want it, my dear Benson,” Ugo said wearily. “You would regret it.”

  “Regret living forever? Who could regret that?”

  Ugo managed a breathless laugh. “Who promised you that? You won’t live forever, Benson. Not you.”

  The pliers pressed harder, until Ugo felt the skin break and a fresh trickle of blood begin. “Why not me?” Benson snapped. “Not good enough for you?”

  “Esatto,” Ugo murmured. “Not good enough.”

  Benson swore and reached for a fresh tool.

  He proceeded through his case, trying this instrument and that, growing more and more desperate as the air in the room grew rank with the smell of blood and sweat and desperation. When he brought out the nipple clamps Ugo said, with a choking laugh, “Oh, my God, Benson. You’ve been visiting those sex shops again.”

  The barb elicited a kick that sent waves of pain through his ribs. Ugo writhed and swore in Italian, thinking of the forte passages of the big symphonies of Khachaturian or Mahler. Perspiration poured from him, soaking his shirt and his hair. When the spasm passed, he lay back and regarded Benson from beneath lowered eyelids. He said hoarsely, “Almost there, mio amico. Almost. But not quite.”

  Benson tried a cigarette lighter. The smell of branded skin filled the little room and drove Benson out. Marks came in his place and stood staring down at Ugo, shirtless now, bleeding from his chest and his toes and from a particularly nasty laceration of his navel.

  “Stinks in here,” Marks said.

  “Veramente?” Ugo answered. “I hadn’t noticed. It’s awfully hot, though.”

  In truth, he was burning with thirst, but he saw no point in saying so. At least being thirsty meant he wasn’t going to wet himself. Not that it would bother him, but the smell was already oppressive.

  His nostrils twitched hopefully. If his sense of smell was growing sharper, maybe…

  Before he completed th
e thought, Benson returned, and Domenico came with him.

  Ugo said through gritted teeth, “Domenico. My new friend. Where have you been? You’ve missed all the fun.” With difficulty, the straps making him awkward, he pushed himself upright, grunting at the agony in his ribs.

  Domenico, his face drawn and his eyes bloodshot, stood as far from the fouled cot as he could in the confined space. He looked as if he hadn’t slept any more than Ugo had.

  Ugo regarded the three of them, standing in a row like boys in a bad Gilbert and Sullivan. He wished, for a moment, that he could just tell them. It would be such a pleasure to watch the elders destroy them.

  But La Società would not like that. They wouldn’t like it at all.

  He licked his lips and swallowed, striving for some moisture to wet his tongue. “Come now,” he said. “If you can’t stand to watch this little display, dear Domenico, how will you ever have the guts to deal with the elders?”

  “I can stand it,” Domenico said. He grinned. “I’d do it myself if Benson didn’t enjoy it so much.”

  Ugo closed his eyes, assessing himself. His chest felt as if it were on fire. Benson had burned his hands, then his chin. His navel bled. His toes ached, and his ribs. He hurt, and he hurt a lot. But it was not yet enough.

  Closer, though, he thought. We’re getting closer.

  Benson’s eyes were hollow, and sweat streamed down his naked skull. “Anybody else would have given in by now,” he said.

  “Are you whining, Benson?” Ugo said. “But I’m the one on this cot. Domenico, my dear friend, surely you realize the elders would tear your heart out before they let a cretin like this into the society!”

  “Shut up,” Domenico said. He took a step closer. “Come on, Ugo, put an end to this. I’m tired, so you must be. And I’m not bleeding.”

  “You have all your toenails, too,” Ugo said. “Something happened to mine.”

  Benson dropped the pliers and reached into his case for something else. His lips pulled back in a forced grin, showing his expanse of pale gums as he held it up to show Ugo. It was an electroshock baton. The price tag still hung from the handle.