Voice of Destiny

by JH Fletcher

  Lucia said, ‘My pleasure, Maestro. I was pleased to note that you were following my suggestion.’

  And swept out, nose in the rafters. Second rate, indeed! She’d show him.

  7

  Overnight she had become in demand. She could have filled her diary with engagements, but only at the less important opera houses. The major centres — Milan, London, New York — remained closed to her. Until she had conquered them she had no effective answer to Karajan’s gibe. She did what she could. She besieged them endlessly, enrolling support from other singers, conductors, anyone she could find who might be willing to help her. Nothing worked. The word had got out about her run-in with Karajan. Somehow, in the retelling of the incident, it was she and not the conductor who had been blamed for the incident. People were saying she was unreasonable, difficult, impossible. Karajan was questioned about it; his suave answer did not attribute blame, neither did it exonerate her. The story was that the great houses, who could be as choosy as they liked, were wary of a woman who some people said might be more trouble than she was worth.

  Then came another incident. Teresa Sciotto, back from the United States and sensing a challenge from her old enemy, took steps to stir up more trouble.

  Interviewed on Italian radio about her tour of the Americas, she confided that she had been relieved that her itinerary had not included more South American engagements.

  ‘To sing in some of those countries whose systems of government remind me so much of our own past would have made me acutely uncomfortable. Anyone who suffered during the fascist years, as so many of us did, would have felt the same. I think someone like Lucia Visconti would be better suited than I to performing under those sorts of regimes. And — who knows? — it might give her a chance to catch up with her old friend — what was his name? — Colonel Strasser, of the SS.’ She laughed deliciously, agreed to sing a brief aria for the benefit of the listeners, and that might have been the end of it.

  It was not.

  ‘I’ll kill the bitch!’ Lucia vowed.

  Who could blame her? But how to do it without ruining herself? As Marta Bianci had warned, Teresa had taken full advantage of Lucia’s absence in Australia. She was flavour of the month with the top opera houses; an attack on her might be construed, most dangerously, as an attack on them.

  It was a puzzle and for the moment she did nothing.

  Then Teresa repeated her accusations, or something like them, on Turin radio, and two weeks later, singing Amina in La Sonnambula at the Catania Opera, Lucia was booed for the first time.

  She didn’t know what to do. To go on ignoring the allegation wouldn’t serve; emboldened, thinking Lucia afraid, Teresa’s attacks would only become worse. A simple denial wouldn’t serve, either. That wouldn’t stop Teresa, and the extra publicity caused by the denial might give greater credibility to the original accusation. All her instincts demanded she fight, but how? She could not think what to do for the best so, for the moment, she sat tight and hoped the scandal would pass.

  It did not. The aptly named Il Letamaio — The Dung Heap — was a rag that had built a huge circulation on the basis of sleaze and outright lies. Now it decided to get in on the act. It sent what it called an investigative journalist to Montegallo to dig out what he could. A month later his findings were blazed all over its front page.

  VISCONTI’S FASCIST LINKS REVEALED!

  It included an interview with Signora Vertecchi, the woman whose uncle had been killed during one of the Repubblichini’s raids

  — wouldn’t have hurt a fly, and that bitch was in the village the very next day to gloat, it’s a miracle to me the partisans never got around to sorting her out, we should’ve done something about it ourselves but what could we do with all our men either dead or deported by the Germans?

  They had dug out eyewitness accounts of how Lucia had sung at the dedication of the war memorial at Redipuglia

  — standing right there at Mussolini’s side, mind you, bold as brass, I saw her myself, of course everyone knew her mother was having it off with him, why not, she was screwing everyone else, what about that fascist bastard our boys executed at the end of the war, they had to drag him out of her bed, for God’s sake, they should have shaved her head, and what about that SS gangster, Strasser his name was, they were pretty close, why she even sang for the SS in Parma …

  All in all it made a satisfying story for those who enjoyed believing the worst of everyone.

  While Teresa denied all knowledge. She refused an interview with Il Letamaio. To the Corriere della Sera she said: ‘My reference to Colonel Strasser was because it was common knowledge that Visconti had been close to him, and a lot of senior SS officers did end up in South America, after all. As for the rest … I would prefer not to comment. I think we should all try to turn our backs on those terrible times.’

  Having lit the fire, Teresa was content to stand back and watch it burn.

  8

  Marta — true, loyal Marta — did what she could. On Lucia’s behalf she wrote to all the leading papers to deny the accusations. She contacted her friends throughout the opera business, she laid the blame squarely on Teresa Sciotto’s shoulders for having started what she called a deliberate, malicious campaign to discredit a singer and rival of whom she had every reason to be afraid.

  When she met Teresa in public she cut her dead, as dramatically as possible.

  It helped, to some degree, but Il Letamaio was read by thousands, and people believed what they wanted to believe. Then Il Gazzettino published an interview with Arturo Nelli, the tobacconist who had been a partisan leader in the Montegallo district.

  All this talk of Lucia Visconti helping the Fascists is rubbish. She was responsible, at considerable danger to herself, for giving us the tip-off that resulted in the execution of the Repubblichini guards officer Eduardo Grandini. Lucia Visconti is a true patriot and anyone who says anything else is a liar.

  Suddenly Teresa was back-pedalling for all she was worth. Cornered by the media, she said: ‘I never believed for a moment that Visconti betrayed her country.’

  Of course that sort of retraction never makes as good a headline as the original accusation but it helped, especially among those who understood the ways of the world and of opera singers. While Il Letamaio, no longer interested, had discovered more promising sewers to investigate.

  Teresa Sciotto and Lucia met publicly for the first time since the furore began and, for the benefit of the cameras, made a demonstration of their undying devotion.

  They hugged and hugged, beaming ecstatically, as such friends should.

  ‘Bitch!’ whispered Lucia, slowly grinding her sharp nails into the soft flesh of Teresa’s shoulders.

  ‘Slut!’ said Teresa, smiling so much that Lucia hoped she might dislocate her jaw.

  Such touching sincerity! Such close and genuine friends! Slowly the affair died. For the present.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  1

  Lucia met Jacques Mazetta in July 1953 at a party in a mansion on the outskirts of Paris. The owner of the mansion was a financier whose contributions had made him a figure of importance in the world of opera, which was the only reason Lucia was there at all. It was the type of party she hated. She hated the over-furnished rooms and the obsessive concern with which the twittering mob of guests treated her, as though she were a hand grenade primed to go off at any moment; most of all she hated being a celebrity because of the burden of graciousness it placed upon her. Everywhere was the shriek of what passed for conversation, most of it inane. From the first it had been a disaster. On arrival she’d been cornered by a man with a face and beard like a moth-eaten goat, an academic who cast lascivious glances at her cleavage while assailing her with opinions gleaned from the latest trendy magazine.

  ‘Loulou Chantemps was saying that opera’s no more than the exhalations of a doomed and privileged society.’

  He beamed at her, inviting her to join him in his orgy of self-admiration.

>   She smiled and smiled, and said: ‘I’ve never met anyone who mocks that kind of pretentious nonsense as effectively as you do. And with a straight face, too. Irony is such a wonderful gift; I can’t tell you how much I admire you for it.’

  And slid away while he was still trying to work out whether she’d insulted him or not.

  There were little dishes of this and that. Finger foods were all the rage but Lucia had never learned how to balance a plate in one hand, a glass of warm wine in the other, keep a firm grip on both handbag and temper and carry on snippets of mindless conversation with complete strangers. She slopped her glass and swore, not quite beneath her breath.

  ‘It’s not enough to be an opera singer. You’ve got to be a juggler to survive this,’ someone said behind her.

  She turned. A man was smiling at her. He carried neither plate nor glass nor even handbag, which made a change from some she’d seen here this evening. Indeed, he didn’t seem the sort of person who frequented parties of this kind at all. He was tall, lean and hard, with a deeply tanned face and close-cropped dark hair. He was wearing faded blue jeans, a blue woollen open-necked shirt with long sleeves and buttoned cuffs. In this company of Dior gowns and paunchy millionaires, he looked like an eagle in a pigeon loft. Lucia noticed all this in the second it took her to answer him.

  ‘It goes with the territory.’

  ‘Don’t you ever get sick of it?’

  ‘When things get too much I find a bolt hole somewhere. A week or two of peace and quiet soon sorts me out.’

  ‘Where do you go? Italy?’

  ‘Usually. It’s convenient and I like it.’

  ‘And you’re Italian, after all.’

  ‘Only on my mother’s side.’

  He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Lucia Visconti?’

  ‘That’s my trade name, the name the world knows. My real name is different but only my closest friends use it.’

  ‘Another bolt hole.’

  It was not a question and she did not answer it. Instead she had a question of her own.

  ‘Do you have any connection with the theatre?’

  ‘I’m a journalist with Le Travailleur.’ It was a Paris paper, well known for its left-wing views, but his accent was not Parisian.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘The desert south of Algiers. I’m a French Algerian. What they call a pied noir.’

  ‘You’re like me, then, with two countries. Do you ever get back?’

  ‘Sometimes. My father’s a country schoolmaster. Now there’s a bolt hole, if you like. Nothing but the desert, and the mountains far away.’

  ‘What brings you here tonight?’

  ‘You. I’ve lots of your records. And our host is a director of the paper I work for. I wanted to meet you, so I asked him.’

  Lucia was used to people wanting to meet her but she already sensed this man was not like other men.

  ‘Why did you want to meet me?’

  ‘I’ve a million things to ask you.’

  She saw that his eyes were the same colour as his shirt. He gestured at the room about them and said: ‘I hate these things. Any chance of slipping away?’

  ‘Not for me, I’m afraid. I’m the guest of honour. I’m amazed they’ve left us alone as long as they have.’

  She saw their host powering his way towards them, a supertanker through a fleet of dinghies. ‘I think we’re out of time. I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Jacques Mazetta. Are you staying in Paris?’

  ‘At the Grand Charles.’

  ‘May I phone you?’

  She hesitated, then smiled. ‘Why not?’

  2

  Jacques didn’t phone; he turned up at the hotel at eleven o’clock the following morning, while she was in the bath. She left him to cool his heels in reception while she finished getting ready, then phoned to invite him up to the suite. Her maid let him in. Lucia sat, half swallowed by the softly cushioned settee, and studied him in silence. He stared back at her, accepting and returning her scrutiny. Today he was wearing navy blue trousers and a white shirt, very smart, but still with no tie. She said: ‘I thought we agreed you would phone me.’

  ‘This way was easier.’

  She raised an eyebrow. He corrected himself. ‘More enjoyable. I can watch and listen at the same time.’

  He seemed remarkably self-possessed, yet not offensively so. She seldom met a man who was neither over-assertive nor deferential; the novelty pleased her. Maria, the maid, brought them coffee. Lucia stirred her cup and looked at him across the low table that separated them.

  ‘You said you had a million things to ask me. What are they?’

  He lifted his cup and drank, taking his time about it. He grinned. ‘All of a sudden I can’t think of a single one.’

  ‘Then you’ve lost your chance. I’m due at the recording studios in an hour.’

  ‘Ever get time off?’

  ‘Occasionally. Why do you ask?’

  ‘If I could remember all the questions I wanted to ask you, maybe we could spend some time together.’

  ‘I don’t think that excuse will work twice.’

  ‘You could come anyway.’

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  ‘I’d like you to. And I think we might be good for each other.’

  Maria had brought croissants with the coffee. Lucia spread one with cherry jam and ate it slowly while he looked at her. When she had finished, she wiped her fingers and mouth carefully with her napkin. She knew how foolish it would be to agree. She said: ‘I would like that.’

  3

  They took a riverboat down the Seine. Lucia had never made the trip before but it was not the novelty alone that excited her. To be surrounded by ordinary people who didn’t know or care who she was gave her a sense of freedom that she had forgotten existed. Time, no longer an enemy, became something of infinite grace. There was time to look at the buildings on either bank, to go ashore at a wooden jetty, drink an aperitif and laugh; time to regain her sense of communion with a world from which she had been too long apart. Time, later, to go back to the hotel with him and be tempted and resist temptation, if only for the present. Time, finally, to play mind games, imagining days and nights with this man who had sprung so extraordinarily out of nowhere.

  ‘What’s your real name?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because you are the person I’m interested in, not the famous singer.’

  ‘Is the singer not real?’

  ‘Fame distorts everything. It’s impossible to see past it to the real person.’

  ‘Even for me?’

  ‘For you most of all.’

  He waited, smiling faintly, head on one side.

  ‘Lucy,’ she said eventually. ‘Lucy Fisher.’

  ‘Lucy …’ He tasted the sound of the name on his tongue. ‘I like it. I’ll call you that in future. If I may.’

  ‘In future? You believe in a future?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He was very confident; she hoped he was right but had her doubts.

  4

  She sang Norma at Covent Garden, five performances in eight days. Each night the tumultuous crowd besieged her with its love. She went back to the hotel prostrate with exhaustion. She was ready to weep, tear strips off the world. Why do I do it? Why?

  And answered her own question, sweeping with brilliant smile through the hotel lobby in the theatrical entrance that had become as much a part of her legend as the performances themselves.

  I have no choice.

  Because this was her life: the meticulous preparation, the step-by-step entry into the character, the rehearsals and performance, artifice concealed by technique, the emotional giving of herself, even the exhaustion. She had come to believe this was all there was. No more; she marvelled she could have been so deluded. The performances anguished her as much as ever but now all was well. In place of the emptiness she had known in the past, the sense of being left alone
in a high, cold place, there was peace and security and warmth. Because Jacques, on a London assignment for his paper, was there. Jacques as friend and consolation. Her strong arm. Her rock.

  Not yet her lover.

  She told herself, and him, that it was too soon, that she was not ready. It caused strain between them. Within herself, too. Her body demanded what her emotions were unready to give. She could not do it.

  ‘Why?’

  She understood his frustration but could do nothing about it. She shook her head, unable to explain even to herself. She needed a holiday. An image came of tranquillity and rest. From London she was flying to Paris, where she was contracted to sing Elvira in I Puritani, then on to Verona for a performance of Aïda in the vast open-air amphitheatre. She said: ‘I shall take a break after Verona.’

  Three blessed weeks of peace. She’d find somewhere quiet in Tuscany, Siena perhaps. She would have the chance to escape into green forests, to ride on horseback beneath the spreading latticework of trees. She would read, swim, sleep. She would become one again.

  Jacques said: ‘I’ve some leave owing to me. I’d thought I might take some time off, too.’

  Her raised eyebrow spoke volumes. ‘In Italy?’

  ‘Where else? I thought, if I managed to find a quiet villa, then perhaps …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wondered if you’d come with me.’

  She felt a slow unclenching of her heart and breath. She said: ‘Don’t you feel that might be a foolish thing to do? For both of us? Given the nature of our careers?’