by Laura Lebow
She sat in silence, staring down at her hands. Across from me, the large clock ticked loudly.
“Yes,” she finally said.
I handed her the earring.
“Where did you find it? Near his body?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, in the nearby bosquet.”
Her hands trembled. “I sent a message to Valentin that morning,” she said. Her voice was so low I had to lean forward to hear. “I told him that I was anxious to see him, to finish what had been interrupted the night my father was murdered.”
“Mademoiselle—”
She held up her hand. “Please, let me tell you. I cannot keep it to myself any longer.” She took a deep breath. “I asked him to meet me at the summer estate, in the garden, at eight that evening. I ordered the servants to tell Richard that I was ill and did not wish to be disturbed. I went to my room and put on a simple dress. Marta had returned my earrings that afternoon. I put them on. I was so tired of wearing this drab mourning garb.”
She swallowed. “After Richard had come home and then gone out again, I made sure the servants were not about. I left the house, went to the stables, and saddled my riding horse.”
The clopping of horses’ hooves sounded in the courtyard below. Christiane paid them no attention. She stared down at a spot at the edge of the chair and continued.
“I arrived at the Belvedere a half hour before I expected Valentin. There is only one staff member out there now, the watchman. I’ve known him all my life, enough to know that he is overly fond of drink. While he was walking about the buildings making his rounds, I went to the wine cellar, took a bottle of apricot brandy, and brought it over to the watch house.”
I heard voices in the courtyard. The salon had grown warm. Sweat trickled down my side. The clock ticked.
“Valentin arrived just as it was getting dark.” She stood and went to the window, her back to me. “I met him at the door to the lower palace and led him out to the gardens. We went into the bosquet. He began to kiss me. I must have lost the earring then.”
I stared at her back. She lifted her head and straightened her slim shoulders. Her voice rose. “I pulled him out of the bosquet and over to the statue. He undressed me.”
A soft click sounded at the door behind me. My eyes remained transfixed on Christiane’s back.
“When we had finished, he fell asleep. I had hidden my father’s hunting dagger behind the shrubs near the statue. I cut his throat while he slept. Then I carved the letter into his forehead, so it would appear that my father’s killer had attacked again.”
I must have gasped involuntarily, for she hesitated for a moment.
“I took my clothes and the dagger into the house,” she continued. “I washed and dressed, then buried the dagger in the garden scrap heap. I rode home. Richard was still out. No one saw me come in and return to my room.”
“But why did you kill him?” I asked. “Because he raped you?”
She turned around and looked at me, her violet eyes wide. She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “No, no. He didn’t rape me. I let him do what he wanted to me. I even begged him at times.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. You are a man. You all think we women are no more than vessels for your desire—that we have no yearnings of our own.” She sank back into the chair. “Ever since Valentin arrived back in Vienna, I have wanted him. I’ve been obsessed with him since the day we met. I tried so hard to banish him from my thoughts, but I could not. When Richard kissed me, I imagined Valentin’s lips on mine. I wanted to know what it was like to be with him.”
A groan came from near the door.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you kill him?”
“Don’t you see?” she cried. “I couldn’t have him there, next door, while I lived here as Richard’s wife. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see Valentin all the time and not long to touch him, to have him touch me. But I love Richard. He will be my husband. He is such a good man. He foolishly believes that I am as good as he. I must make him happy. But as long as Valentin was alive, I knew I could not.”
She buried her face in her hands. I sat rooted to my chair, shocked.
“But now I realize I was wrong,” she said, raising her pale face to me. “We can never be happy, Richard and I.” She stared with loathing at her quivering hands. “Look at me. I am dying. It is what I deserve.”
“No! No!” I started as Benda rushed from his place by the door and fell at her feet. She leaned forward and put her arms around him. He clutched her skirts. Together they began to weep.
Forty-three
I closed the door behind me and hurried down the stairs, through the courtyard, and into the Freyung. There were no cabs about. I cut behind the palais and ran down the Herrengasse toward the Michaelerplatz. The large plaza was filled with people strolling in the fine morning. I pushed my way through a crowd of chatting soldiers and hurried past the theater door. Ahead of me I saw a driver leaning against the door of a cab outside St. Michael’s Church. I waved at him and started toward it.
“Da Ponte!” A voice called from behind me. It was Salieri. I stopped and turned.
“Where are you scurrying to?” he asked.
“I must get home,” I said, gasping.
“What is wrong with you?” Salieri gestured toward the theater. “Come inside. I’d like to discuss an idea for a new opera. It just came to me as my friseur was powdering my wig this morning.”
I shook my head, trying to catch my breath. “I cannot, signore. I must get home right away. It is an emergency. Please, can we speak about this tomorrow?”
He stared at me, confusion in his eyes. “Yes, well, I suppose so. Come by at—”
But I did not stay to hear his words. “Thank you, signore!” I called as I rushed toward the cab. A finely dressed merchant waddled toward it from the direction of the pastry shop. I quickened my pace, shouted my address to the driver, and jumped into the cab. He clambered up to his seat. “Please hurry!” I shouted from the window. As the vehicle lurched forward, I saw the startled expression of the merchant. I sat back and tried to steady my breathing, and then prayed that I would arrive at my lodgings before it was too late.
* * *
The cab wended through the archway, around the back of the Spanish Riding School stables, and into the thick crowds in the Neuer Market, where cooks from nearby houses sampled the vendors’ wares. I turned my head away from the sight of the fountain where I had almost lost my life. A moment later, we entered the Himmelpfortgasse. I sat back in the seat and closed my eyes. Please, God, do not let her leave, I prayed.
I held on to the seat with both hands as the driver made a rapid left turn toward the Stuben gate. A moment later the cab halted. I poked my head through the window. “What is it?” I shouted to the driver.
“They’re moving some cannon through the gate, sir,” he called back. “It looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
I dug in my coat pocket for some coins and jumped out of the cab. “I’ll walk,” I said. I tossed the coins to the driver. “As you wish, sir,” he said.
Ahead of me, teams of oxen were pulling wide, long carts through the city gate. I ran over and looked through. There was a two-foot-wide space between the edge of the cart and the stones of the gatehouse. A guard approached. “You’ll have to wait, sir,” he said. “No one can go through until the last cart comes in.”
I hurled myself into the narrow space. “Wait!” the guard called. I bolted through the gate. I pounded over the wooden span and the pathway, and then over the river bridge and down the street. When I reached the corner near my lodgings, I stopped and bent over, resting my hands on my knees, gasping for breath. I looked down the street to the house. I exhaled. She was there.
Forty-four
She was dressed as she had been the first time I laid eyes upon her, in her simple traveling cloak, her soft hair neatly tucked up inside her little hat. Her valise sat a
t her feet.
She looked up as I approached.
“Oh, Lorenzo, I am glad you are here,” she said. “I did not want to leave without saying good-bye.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m taking the mail coach to Trieste. When I reach there, I’ll send word to my uncle. I hope he will send me funds to return to Venice.”
“And what will you do there? Return to your uncle’s house?”
“No. I will join one of the convents. I think that would be best.”
I took her hand. She did not pull it away. “Marta, please,” I begged. “Everything I said—I am so sorry. Please stay with me.”
She looked into my eyes. “Oh, Lorenzo, I cannot.”
“But why not?”
She chewed on her lip. “I was lying to myself, Lorenzo, when I decided that I no longer cared for Valentin. Although he betrayed me and deserted me, I still felt something for him.”
“But—”
“Pity? Love? I don’t know.” She looked away. “Even now, when he is dead, he still is in my heart.”
A wave of weariness washed over me.
“I must go home,” she said.
“Then let me come with you. Please, I need you.”
She placed a finger on my lips. “Hush, Lorenzo. You know you cannot return.”
“I’ll do anything—I’ll talk to Casanova, see if he can give me an introduction to someone in the government. I’ll do anything they ask of me. I’ll become a spy.”
“No, Lorenzo, I cannot let you do that. You are a good man. I cannot let you go against everything you believe in for me.”
A cab turned into the street.
“But I love you.”
She shook her head. “I am sorry, Lorenzo. I cannot stay.”
The cab pulled up and the driver descended. He tipped his cap. Marta pointed to her valise. He opened the door and placed it inside, then held the door open for her.
“You would spend your life chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon?” I asked, grasping her hand.
She smiled ruefully, pulled her hand from mine, and then reached up and touched her dry lips to my cheek. She turned to the driver. He helped her up into the cab and closed the door. He climbed up to his seat and shouted to the horse. The cab pulled away. It turned and made its way slowly down the street and around the corner.
I stood looking after it, my heart flooded with misery, abandoned.
Epilogue
Friday, May 16, 1788
Two weeks later
The audience sat quietly as a loud banging sounded at the door at the back of the stage. Francesco Albertarelli, playing the role of Don Giovanni, threw the door open, while Benucci, as the manservant, huddled under a table. Francesco Bussani, dressed as a statue of the old man Giovanni had killed at the beginning of the opera, slowly made his entrance.
“‘Don Giovanni,’” he sang. “‘You invited me to dine with you. I have come.’”
The intrepid libertine nodded a welcome, and ordered his servant to fetch another plate for the stone guest. Unearthly trombones accompanied Bussani as he explained in his deep bass voice that having dined at the table of heaven, he had no need for mortal food.
I sat alone in the box reserved for the composer and librettist. This was the fourth performance of Don Giovanni. Mozart had begged off attending tonight, citing a lodge meeting. The opera had not been received as enthusiastically as he and I had hoped. Although the applause at each performance had been polite, I had already heard mutterings around the city that the music was too complex for the singers. But I was determined to ensure that our work be heard often, so that audiences would become accustomed to it, and I was pleased that more performances were scheduled for the upcoming weeks.
My life had slowly returned to normal over the last two weeks. A few days after I had had my terrifying encounter with Urbanek, I had reported all my findings to Troger. A few days later, I had received a note from him, informing me that Benda and Christiane had left Vienna for the count’s estates in Bohemia. Christiane was very ill and not expected to recover, so Pergen had decided not to charge her with the murder of Valentin von Gerl.
The emperor and his troops remained outside Belgrade, waiting to invade. Michael Richter continued to protest the war. Just this afternoon I had noticed that he had moved his crate into the Michaelerplatz, where he could shout his opinions directly into the windows of the Hofburg.
At my lodging house, Strasser was cool toward me. Last week I had invited him out for a glass of wine, hoping to make amends for my suspicions, but had been rebuffed. Sophie and Stefan had announced their engagement a few days ago, much to the relief of Madame Lamm. Here at the theater, I had thrown myself into my next project, Il talismano, a libretto for Salieri. Yet all the hours of work could not assuage my yearnings for Marta. Although I tried to turn my thoughts away from her, she often crept into my mind, and I was left wondering where she was and what she was doing.
Down on the stage, the stone guest had invited Don Giovanni to come dine with him, and had offered the libertine his cold marble hand. As he demanded that Giovanni repent for his sins, I slipped from the box. I had had enough applause over the last three performances, and could do without it tonight.
A tall figure loitered in the almost empty lobby. I approached him.
“Ah, Lorenzo, I hoped you would be here,” Casanova said as he embraced me. “I wanted to say good-bye. I’m headed back to Dux tomorrow at first light. I don’t know why the count cannot wait until a more civilized hour.” He peered into my face. “How are you?”
“I suppose I’m all right,” I said.
“Come for one last drink.”
I shook my head. “I should go home. I’ve been working too hard the last few weeks. I’m tired.”
He stood looking down at me, concern on his face.
“You’ve been through an ordeal, my friend,” he said. “But trust me, things will be better. And in the meantime, you can find solace in knowing that you’ve avenged Alois’s death. He will rest in peace now.”
I nodded. “Yes, I know that.” But I felt no satisfaction.
“Have you had any word from Miss Cavalli?” he asked.
“No.”
Inside the theater, the audience began to applaud.
Casanova pulled on his cloak. “There will be another woman for you,” he said.
“I want that one.”
We moved outside as the crowds poured out of the theater. Casanova gave me a final embrace. “I hope we will meet again soon,” he said. “Perhaps in Venice!”
“Perhaps,” I said, although I knew it wasn’t likely.
Casanova turned and walked toward the Herrengasse. I followed the throng down the Kohlmarkt into the Graben. The night was warm, and people were standing about the large plaza chatting gaily with friends, as they used to do before the war started. I cut through the Stephansplatz. As I passed by the north side of the Stephansdom, I forced myself to look at the spot where Alois had died. I missed him so much. And I longed for Marta.
I took a short street down to the Wollzeile, and joined the crowd of people headed toward the Stuben gate. Perhaps Casanova was right. Life would be better. Soon I might look back at my experiences and feel content. But for now, I just felt numb and empty, all alone in a dark place.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
By 1788, when Don Giovanni premiered in Vienna, Emperor Joseph II and his supporters had grown disillusioned with the results of his aggressive program of enlightened reform. They had believed that allowing a free press, breaking down class barriers, modernizing education, and eliminating medieval superstitions from religious practice would create a new kind of society, one in which reasoned debate was the common currency and in which individuals took action only after considering the public good. Instead, a materialistic culture arose, in which everyone pursued their own interests and desires.
Joseph reacted to this turn of events by reasserting his autocr
atic authority. He reinstated censorship of the press and revoked many of his reforms. As dissent and unrest continued to grow both in Austria and its far-flung territories, he created a secret police force to protect the state from threats.
Into this political setting came Mozart and Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni, full of ambiguities about morality, judgment, religion, and societal control of the individual. Is Giovanni a hero or villain? After he accepts the stone guest’s invitation, the rest of the cast sings that those who do evil always come to an evil end. But what exactly are the crimes he has committed? Opera lovers, writers, and analysts are still debating these questions today.
The embodiment of the libertine in the eighteenth century was Giacomo Casanova—writer, adventurer, entrepreneur, spy—who was famous throughout Europe for his escape from the prison in the doge’s palace in Venice in 1756. He became friends with Lorenzo Da Ponte in 1777, when the two met at the Venetian home of Count Pietro Zaguri, for whom Da Ponte worked as secretary. The two men corresponded with one another and met several times during their twenty-one-year friendship.
My decision to use Casanova as Da Ponte’s confidant in this book was prompted by a historical mystery surrounding him and the composition of Don Giovanni. In the early twentieth century, draft verses of a replacement scene for the opera were found among Casanova’s papers in Dux. It is not known whether he wrote the scene for his own amusement, or at Mozart’s request (Da Ponte having been recalled to Vienna before the Prague premiere). In fact, we do not know if Casanova was even acquainted with Mozart. But many scholars believe that he attended at least one of the performances of Don Giovanni in Prague in the fall of 1787. He was not, however, present in Vienna in the spring of 1788; I placed him there for my own purposes.
As Da Ponte mentions in the epilogue, Don Giovanni enjoyed a modest success in Vienna. It was repeated fourteen times during 1788, and then was not produced there again in its original Italian until 1798. It became popular among writers in the nineteenth century, who seized upon the don as a romantic hero rebelling against an oppressive society. Today, of course, it is a staple of theaters around the world, most of which perform a pastiche of the Prague and Vienna versions, including both tenor arias and the scena Da Ponte and Mozart created for Caterina Cavalieri. The burlesque scene Da Ponte and Mozart wrote for Vienna is seldom performed today, but can be found on some recordings, most notably John Eliot Gardiner’s 1994 Archiv production.