Scarpia

by Piers Paul Read

  Already the followers of Teresa Bertinotti were furious that their diva should have been thrown over by Lorenzi. Now Lorenzi’s admirers were outraged that he had been spurned by Tosca. Tosca’s supporters took the line that she was free to love whom she chose. The different factions clashed in La Fenice. There were interruptions and catcalls; lemons were eaten in the front row. At the last performance of the run, the performance hardly progressed. Bertinotti’s party booed Lorenzi; Lorenzi’s party booed Tosca; Tosca’s party booed Lorenzi and shouted abuse at the supporters of the other two. Tosca was elated: she sang and acted as never before and suddenly the mockery in her eyes as she poured out her love for Romeo in the most exquisite sounds became intolerable for Lorenzi. He turned his back on his Giulietta and refused to join her in a duet. Tosca laughed. The conductor persevered, and the orchestra continued playing despite the cries, whistles and catcalls from the audience. The wretched impresario stood in the wings, wringing his hands – cajoling, threatening, begging, his words lost in the din from the auditorium. Fights broke out with fusillades of sweetmeats, crumpled programmes and rotten fruit. Some in the boxes left the theatre in disgust, but others joined in, yelling abuse and throwing anything that came to hand down into the pit – fans, spectacle cases, programmes, even opera glasses, which drew blood when they hit their mark.

  The performance hobbled on to the end, but when it came to the curtain call, as each singer stepped forward, the competition between the different factions to drown out the applause of one with the boos of another intensified; and finally Tosca, having curtsied to her admirers, turned to those who were abusing her, extended her graceful arm and with two fingers made the obscene gesture – the corne – that she had learned as a child in her village in the Veneto.

  The Lorenzistas and Bertinottians, enraged, surged forward, clambering over the pit from which the orchestra had retreated to climb onto the stage. The impresario, stage manager and members of the cast ran forward to protect Tosca. Police entered the back of the auditorium. Stagehands rushed in to wrestle with the vanguard of Tosca’s would-be assailants as they clambered onto the proscenium just as Tosca herself withdrew behind the line of her defenders and, picking up her cloak and her maid from her dressing room, slipped out through the stage door of the theatre.

  Out in the street she was still not safe, however: partisans of the different factions, who had either been at the performance or simply joined in the hullabaloo, were milling around outside and, seeing two women leave from the stage door, though their hooded cloaks disguised their identity, realised that one might be Tosca and gave chase. The two women hurried away, but Tosca, in her stage costume and high-heeled shoes, could hardly run. They went up a narrow alley but were seen, and turning right and then right again, found themselves at a point on the Grand Canal where those members of the audience who had been disgusted by the fracas were waiting for their own gondolas, or gondolas that were for hire. Glancing over her shoulder, Tosca saw that the crowd was upon her. With an elegant leap, she jumped onto a parting gondola. Her maid made as if to follow, but it was too late – the gondola was too far from the quay. Tosca turned, raised two fingers at her pursuers, waved to her maid, then drew aside the curtains of the enclosed gondola, went in and threw herself down, laughing, onto the banquette, face-to-face with a man who, in alarm at the intrusion, had half drawn his sword.

  ‘Now they will have to swim if they want to catch me,’ said Tosca, looking cheerfully into the man’s eyes.

  ‘They may follow in a gondola,’ he said, returning his sword to its scabbard.

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ said Tosca. She reached up with her right hand to a huge pearl at the head of one of the pins holding up her hair and drew out a thin blade around six inches long.

  ‘You won’t need to use it,’ said Scarpia. ‘I shall defend you.’

  ‘But you don’t know me,’ said Tosca.

  ‘Everyone knows Tosca.’

  ‘You were in the theatre?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She laughed again as she pushed the stiletto back into her hair. ‘What a fracas. Poor Antonelli.’

  ‘Antonelli?’

  ‘The impresario.’ Her face suddenly became serious. ‘Perhaps he will keep back my money.’

  ‘You were hardly to blame.’

  Tosca looked happy again. ‘You are right. It was Lorenzi and his terrible friends. I take it you are not one of them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And La Bertinotti?’

  ‘I have never heard her sing.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘I am sure.’

  ‘You are not a Venetian.’

  ‘No. I live in Rome.’

  ‘But you are not a Roman either.’

  ‘I am a Sicilian.’ He inclined his head. ‘Baron Scarpia di Rubaso at your service.’

  ‘I am Floria Tosca.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Of course. You were at the theatre.’

  ‘Where would you like to go?’

  ‘Will you take me home?’

  ‘Wherever you choose.’

  Tosca turned and, holding back the curtain, shouted instructions at the gondolier in her strong Veneto accent. ‘I shall go home to change,’ she said to Scarpia. ‘I cannot spend the rest of the evening dressed as Giulietta! And if you like, we will have some supper.’

  ‘It is late . . .’

  ‘Not for Venetians. They stay up until dawn.’

  *

  Tosca’s lodgings were not far from La Fenice, and when they got there they found that her maid had already returned. The rooms were not large, but they were elegantly appointed and, besides the maid, there was a young footman who seemed to be from the same village as Tosca: she spoke to him casually in their abominable dialect and, when she withdrew with the maid to change, he clumsily served Scarpia with wine from a decanter. Scarpia judged that he could not be more than sixteen or seventeen years old; the maid no older; and Tosca herself little more than twenty. He was, then, among children playing at the adult life.

  Yet Scarpia was in awe of Tosca. Such was her natural talent that she emanated a nobility beyond anything a title could bestow. He had gone to the opera because her name was on everyone’s lips, and he remembered hearing her ethereal voice when she sang before the Pope. Her role in Zingarelli’s opera was not ethereal, but the voice of an impassioned Giulietta had an equal effect. Scarpia had been in the stalls, and when the tumult had started he had left the theatre, not wanting to break the spell cast by Tosca’s singing. He had walked to the canal to hire a gondola, and, as it set off towards his albergo, he had sat back listening in his memory to the arias he had heard earlier in the evening. And then all at once, there she was – facing him, laughing and behaving as if she had known him all her life.

  That familiarity continued throughout the evening. Tosca insisted upon going to the Piazza San Marco, mixing with the crowd, walking under the arcades arm in arm as if he was her cavaliere servente, going into a café to drink an aperitif where she was recognised and acclaimed; then leading him to a small restaurant in an alley off the piazzetta where the owners greeted her as if she was the Doge’s daughter and seated them at a table placed discreetly behind a screen. She ordered the food in Venetian, which Scarpia barely understood, and, when it came, ate greedily without a trace of ladylike inhibition. ‘God, I was starving,’ she said. ‘I always am after a performance, but tonight, what a performance, what a fight!’ Her eyes shone as she relived the battle at La Fenice.

  ‘It was a contrast,’ said Scarpia, ‘to your recital at the Quirinale.’

  She sat back astonished. ‘You were there?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Did you see me tremble? I was terrified. Think, I had been shut up in a convent and now was singing for the Pope!’

  ‘You sang beautifully.’

  ‘You know, when I sing all my fears disappear. I love to sing. I have always loved to sing. God has given me a voice that is a joy. A
nd it is a joy to use it. Old Monsignor Tochetti used to tell the story in the Gospel about the talents, and how it was one’s duty to develop what talents you had been given by God, so to feel one is pleasing God by doing what one likes doing – that is good fortune, is it not?’

  ‘It is indeed.’

  ‘And with it comes admiration and gold and diamonds and beautiful clothes.’

  ‘And love?’ asked Scarpia.

  ‘Ah, love.’ Tosca’s expression changed from elation to a frown. ‘That is more complicated, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. It is more complicated.’

  ‘You can love one man in one way and another man in another way.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Lorenzi was nice enough and he was attractive and it was difficult not to enter into the role of his Giulietta. And there was the pleasure of stealing him from La Bertinotti. But then he became importunate and possessive and jealous and wanted me to be his wife! Me, a wife! That was too much. But when I said no, he became angry. He called me the most terrible things. So I returned the insults with interest! Yes, and so from being lovers we became enemies all in a flash!’

  ‘It has happened to others.’

  ‘To you?’

  ‘These things are often easier to start than to finish.’

  ‘Only for fools.’

  ‘Is no love eternal?’

  ‘The love of God and the Madonna, perhaps, but human love . . . Well, one has only to look around and you are as likely to find a pearl in the piazzetta as you are to find a couple who have remained in love throughout their life.’

  ‘And Romeo and Giulietta, had they lived?’

  Tosca laughed. ‘What do you think? It would have been fine for a year or two, but then she would have had babies and, well, that’s the course of nature, isn’t it? Having babies makes women ugly. It’s nature’s way of keeping families to a sensible size – unless you are the Queen of Naples, of course.’

  ‘So Giulietta at thirty?’

  ‘Finita! But Romeo, at thirty – well, I wouldn’t trust him, I can tell you.’

  ‘You cannot imagine meeting a man you would love forever?’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine it, of course. That’s what all the operas are about; unless they are about husbands deceiving their wives and wives their husbands. Look at Figaro.’

  ‘Don’t you think Figaro would continue to love Susanna? Or Susanna Figaro?’

  ‘Not a chance. Marriage is too dull. Have you ever come across a married couple who do not bicker? And why do they bicker? Because they are bored. So a woman has her cicisbeo and a man his mistress and everyone is happy. But lifelong love – it is something one just dreams of, and acts out in operas and plays, but never finds in real life. So why not just have some fun while you can? That’s what I told Lorenzi, but he didn’t understand.’

  ‘If I were Lorenzi,’ said Scarpia, ‘I would not want to lose you.’

  Tosca smiled. ‘How gallant you are, you Sicilians. But I am sure . . . well, here am I teaching you about love when you have lived longer than I have and must know much more. Tell me about love. Are you in love?’

  ‘I love my wife.’

  ‘Miracolo!’

  ‘Not in the way Romeo loved Giulietta, perhaps.’

  ‘You married for advantage?’

  It was now Scarpia’s turn to frown. ‘Yes . . . in a sense.’

  ‘And she?’

  ‘Not at all. I was a poor match.’

  ‘So she loved you . . . she was a Giulietta?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she will love you until death?’

  Scarpia hesitated, then said: ‘I am not sure.’

  *

  Tosca asked Scarpia why he was in Venice. He explained. Was he a spy? The idea seemed to amuse her. Scarpia said he was not after secrets but facts that were generally known. Musketry and munitions. Tonnage and cannon. Tosca’s eyes wandered. She yawned. Scarpia asked her about the morale of the Venetians. Would they fight the French? Tosca laughed. Fight the French? They were not mad.

  Scarpia’s mission in Venice was almost over. He had made an assessment of the armed forces of the Serene Republic and found them wanting. Venice was no longer the formidable naval power that had defeated the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto: its forces were barely sufficient to police and supply their garrisons in Dalmatia. If there was time, new boats could be built or bought and crewed by the tough workers from the Arsenale; and, because of the Venetians’ knowledge of the local currents and channels that led into the lagoon, they could defend Venice from a larger force from the sea. But where were the troops that could defend her on land? The best soldiers were scattered in garrisons in Istria and Dalmatia. Those in the Veneto were ill-organised and ill-equipped: their muskets were antique and their artillery obsolete. Their officers were mostly absent in the small gaming rooms, the casinos, dotted around the lagoons. Even when present, they were distracted by thoughts of lawsuits or amorous intrigues. A career in the army was considered the last resort for a penniless younger son.

  The state of the army and navy reflected the society from which they came. A century spent in pursuit of pleasure had made Venice the most agreeable city in Europe, and no Venetian could see any reason why his ancient republic should not last for another thousand years. But sybaritism is not a cause for which a man wants to risk his life: soldiering was for uncivilised brutes from the other side of the Alps. And Scarpia acknowledged there was a kind of logic in the pampered cowardice of the Venetians. It is not pleasant living in a belligerent state with so much shouting and bullying and regimentation. And why should men living peaceably together kill others for a cause? Even the poorest Venetians were flummoxed by the slogan Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, because there could be no greater liberty than living in a state where the laws are ignored; no greater equality than when men and women can make of themselves what they will; and no greater fraternity when men are so obliging and women so willing, as if all humanity were guests at the same unending party.

  Men fight, Scarpia concluded, who like fighting or strive for the superlative esteem of their fellow citizens that they call glory. Scarpia understood this: he withered in the palazzi and the casinos and flourished on horseback in the hills. He was one of those brutes who felt exhilaration when a musket ball flew past his ear; but he recognised that in Venice, as in Rome, the same exhilaration came not from facing death but from the turn of the cards in a game of faro; and triumph over a rival came not from seeing him bleeding at one’s feet but from enticing his wife or mistress into one’s bed. Decadent, debilitating, profligate the Venetians might be, but was there not something to be said when men fought over sopranos and contraltos rather than power or money or abstract ideas?

  *

  They strolled back to the Piazza San Marco: the pale light of the dawn came from the east, gently illuminating the facade of the basilica. The revellers had mostly gone. Would Scarpia fight for the diva now leaning on his arm? He was momentarily bewitched. It was not simply her voice or her beauty that had cast the spell but her gaiety, her simplicity, her ease with a stranger, but there was no suggestion in her manner that she might want him to return with her to her lodgings and make love, nor was there any move by Scarpia to do so. They reached the base of the campanile of San Marco where Tosca’s maid was waiting.

  Tosca turned to Scarpia. ‘Grazie, Signor Barone,’ she said with a curtsy – her face, despite her exhaustion, showing a gentle, ironic smile. ‘You saved me from, at the very least, a dunking in the canal.’

  ‘And you saved me from an evening alone.’

  ‘We will meet again?’

  ‘Unless I block my ears with wax, like Odysseus, I shall come whenever I can to hear you sing.’

  ‘And you will let me know? You will come backstage?’

  ‘If I can beat a path through the crowd of your admirers.’

  ‘Simply say your name. I shall come out to greet you, because we are friends, are we not?’
>
  ‘Yes, we are friends.’

  Nine

  1

  Upon his return from Venice to the Villa Larunda, Scarpia found Paola entertaining the Marchesa Attavanti. The marchesa was a year or two older than Paola, quite as beautiful though in a different way, with fair hair and blue eyes; and, though related to all the best families and always at the receptions of the Spanish ambassador, was neither within Paola’s circle of friends nor a member of that notional committee that decided what was or was not comme il faut. The reason for her exclusion from both was her reputation for free-thinking and, more significantly, the active republicanism of her brother, Cesare Angelotti. As a result Scarpia was at first surprised and then a little annoyed to find her drinking tea and toying with a macaroon in his house. Nor did he much like the look she gave him from beneath her long eyelashes – a look which on all previous occasions had been no more than a glance, but now lingered as if to say, ‘We may exchange words, but we both know that before all else I am a woman and you are a man.’

  ‘Ah, Vitellio,’ said Paola, rising to greet her husband. ‘You have made your entry at just the right time, because the marchesa has really come to see you and not me.’

  Scarpia gave a slight bow. ‘How can I be of service?’

  The look lingered a moment longer, but then she gave a little smile before adopting an expression of gentle pleading. ‘My dear Baron, my brother has been arrested. He is in the Castel Sant’Angelo. I was wondering if you could use your influence with Treasurer Ruffo to save him.’