The Black Opera

by Mary Gentle

  Luigi Esposito looked down with distaste at the mud that smeared the tunnel floor, and muttered something, audible only to Conrad, that might have been, Charmed, I’m sure.

  “Sewers,” Luigi added, with a lopsided smile, “Wells. Old aqueduct junctions. Ossuaries. Burial mounds. Catacombs—ideal rehearsal spaces. You may get complaints that the audience are unappreciative…”

  Conrad gave that the quietly profane answer it deserved, and followed the other men into the gloom.

  “…I’ll show you your quarters,” Luigi finished.

  Tullio, who had automatically moved ahead, surveyed the slanting tunnel. “We’re living under Naples now?”

  “There’s been activity by the Prince’s Men. Separate lodgings and rehearsal rooms above-ground can’t be adequately protected. We sorted out which sectors of the underground network could be isolated by the use of fewest guard-points, and truly made safe.”

  Away from the entrance, now, the tunnel walls were smooth rock. A cool but not cold gloom was lit up by intermittent lanterns—few enough that they would not significantly eat up the air. Between the shadows, Conrad saw odd sigils carved here and there into the rock-face.

  The messages of miners to each other, eighteen hundred or two thousand years ago?

  “Bloody waterways!” Tullio Rossi muttered, shaking one of his boots.

  Conrad guessed that the stream running down the channel carved in the rock-floor meant this part of the maze was an underground aqueduct; one of the Roman ones that still supplied the public fountains in the city.

  He walked forward briskly, catching up with Major Mantenucci. “Say we’re Prince’s Men—How likely it is that we could already be in occupation under Naples?”

  “We’re Prince’s Men? I’d say we hate the Chief of Police and his officers.” Enrico’s lips quirked, under the grey moustache. “Colonel Alvarez’s rifle troops, too. If it helps, we rounded up two separate mundane smuggling gangs, both with connections to the Camorra. We questioned them intensively. None had knowledge of other men besides their rivals using these underground tunnels; not for the past year or more.”

  By the steel in Mantenucci’s tone, there had been no squeamishness in the questioning of those men.

  “Wherever it was possible there might be other ways into this part of the underground system, we collapsed them with blasting powder. We can open up more mines here if you need more room. It only remains to ask, is this is sufficient for your rehearsals? I guarantee it free of enemies.”

  Conrad nodded. “We’ll need to keep the place warm. Well-lit. Oil lamps, not candles: smoke won’t help the singers’ throats… I suppose a bullet in the back will help them less. If this is a prison, at least it’s a spacious one.”

  Mantenucci and Luigi Esposito shared almost identical wry smiles.

  The square-cut passages drove down under Naples with mathematical precision. From time to time Conrad saw that side-chambers led off, and there were carved steps descending further. The atmosphere smelled here and there of wet stone. Lanterns diminished down a slope ahead, and Conrad felt a constant shift of air. It would at least be impossible to suffocate.

  Along with the air, he detected sound beginning to move in the tunnels. It was as if argumentative Naples had not been left in the world above. Voices resounded, both raised and singing. Conrad picked out the rough yells of men working—hammers—running footsteps—the slow click of a woman’s heeled boots—laughter—and one violin playing phrases of music recognisable from the Conte di Argente’s score.

  I’m back in Naples!

  “This is one of the main rehearsal areas.” Enrico Mantenucci waved a hand as they walked out onto great beams and boards. They formed a stout floor above shattered stone debris that filled the bottom of the great cavern. Conrad recognised Angelotti’s work.

  Oil lamps glowed. The stone roof narrowed as it went up high into darkness, sloping into an immense bottle shape. Conrad visualised miners hanging down on their ropes, hacking out the tufa rock by oil lamp, seventy generations ago…

  One clear note sounded.

  “Uomo perfido!”

  Giambattista Velluti’s voice flew up in brilliant, effortless trills, soaring from alto to soprano, his larger chest cavity giving more power behind the high notes than any woman could achieve. The sound of a boy’s unbroken voice grown to manhood without changing thrilled through the cavernous mines: Fernando Cortez, denouncing the Aztec Lord General Chimalli—

  “Perfidious man, you betray your land of

  Obsidian mountains and the scarlet bird…”

  In the centre of the cavern, a dozen figures stood around Spinelli’s forte-piano.

  Conrad automatically lowered his voice so as not to interrupt the rehearsal. “How did they get that underground?”

  Mantenucci shook his head, amused. “Not easily…”

  “Corrado!” a voice exclaimed. Conrad turned.

  Passages led out of the main cavern. Off these, there were smaller chambers and caves, furnished incongruously with desks and chairs from above ground. In the nearest, Luigi Esposito had his hand on Paolo’s shoulder, pointing her at Conrad.

  Tullio Rossi stiffened.

  Isaura sprang up—visibly (to Conrad’s gaze) recalled herself as “Gianpaolo Pironti”—and ran out of the chamber, grabbing Conrad’s hand and wringing it like a brother would. “You’re back!”

  “I told you he would be.” Luigi sat himself elegantly down on the corner of Paolo’s desk. “The wind was in the right quarter.”

  The rock-walled chamber with the desk and many oil lamps made a surprisingly homely place. Paolo’s desk was piled with unfolded sheets of paper. There was a tell-tale chessboard set up on the far side.

  Conrad embraced Paolo and put her back at arm’s length. “How are things going now?”

  Paolo threw up her hands. “The principal singers can’t remember their lines, the chorus rehearsals are dreadful—they’re imbeciles!—half of Signore Angelotti’s stage crew don’t even speak the language, the costumes are late, the set designs need a Leonardo to complete, and the orchestra! Don’t even talk to me about the orchestra!—”

  “In other words,” Luigi put in, “about as one would expect.”

  Paolo grinned at the police captain. Her eyes were far too warm.

  Conrad became conscious of a gap where for the past few days he had been used to find Tullio. His ear brought him the older man’s footsteps stalking off across the smooth-hewn boards.

  Enrico Mantenucci gave Conrad a nod. “I’ll let Captain Esposito and your cousin show you your own quarters.”

  Conrad didn’t get two steps before Sandrine pounced on him.

  JohnJack Spinelli (whose fingers had been moving in the eternal manipulation of a man telling his beads) abandoned the sacred for the secular, and barrelled through the crowd.

  What looked like a delegation from the tenor section of the chorus joined the crowd.

  Conrad was submerged in loud demands to correct this, that, or the other verse in the unfinished libretto. The twenty-seventh day of February, he reminded himself, as he took their scribbled-over scripts. Sixteen days to deadline.

  And there’s one thing I have to do, very soon. Because this isn’t the normal opera, where there’s time for the librettist to compose the whole script and send it to the composer to set, in advance of deadline. Not even one of those occasions when the composer squeezes the libretto out of the poet by post, a verse or a scene at a time. Time’s so short that this will have alterations and additions and subtractions going back and forth, right up to the finish.

  And therefore I have to speak to Roberto Capiraso, Conte di Argente.

  For the first time since I was in jail.

  Catching up with where the counter-opera now stood took a surprising amount of time. Nothing changed, underground. That it advanced on midday was indicated only by the clocks.

  Tullio—still sniffy about the police captain’s presence—brought a meal fro
m outdoor food sellers, vouched for by Fabrizio Alvarez’s soldiers. Conrad shepherded JohnJack, Sandrine, and Velluti out of his own side-cavern (which was presumably a dry cistern), and took advantage of their absence to eat.

  He found it disconcerting to discover old furniture from the lumber rooms of the Palazzo Reale set up so closely resembling his lodgings above ground. Isaura had mentioned that she did it, with Luigi Esposito’s help, to give some aura of familiarity, and hopefully enable Conrad to bear the underground location better.

  Tullio Rossi cursed under his breath as he finished unpacking their travel-cases.

  “Don’t suppose he knows she’s not a boy,” Tullio grumbled. “—Don’t suppose he cares!”

  Conrad put his knife down, and rested a sympathetic hand on Tullio’s shoulder. “If we’re really unlucky, there’s somebody devout from the crew or chorus watching, who doesn’t realise Paolo’s a girl. And if they’re still going to confession… and happen to mention the possibility of sodomy…”

  The older man straightened. “Bollocks! The Inquisition again!”

  “We could ask Paolo to just let the company know,” Conrad suggested.

  “—Or she could just stop flirting with that whore Esposito!”

  Conrad bit the inside of his lip. It enabled him to use a serious tone. “She’s twenty-five, marriageable, and in opera; you can’t expect her to live like a nun.”

  Tullio stalked out past the hanging curtains that partitioned off their “rooms,” sounding very much as if he missed the ability to punctuate his departure with a slamming door.

  Conrad finished his cheese and olives, and made his way through the lantern-lit maze of tunnels to his cousin’s chambers. There was nothing to knock on. “Paolo?”

  “Come in, Corradino!”

  He swept aside the faded green velvet curtain. Her chambers also looked as if they had been furnished from the palace lumber-rooms and attics. Conrad glanced at the lamps—four in number. “You miss windows.”

  “Oh yes. And balconies. Breakfast outside on the balcony…” She shot a grin up at him. In dark trousers and unbuttoned waistcoat, her white shirt and stock picking up the lamplight, she looked a dissolute young man-about-town. The room only lacked the abandoned stockings and forgotten garters from ladies of leisure.

  His own words came back to him with violent impact: You can’t expect her to live like a nun.

  I want to protect her! But…

  Isaura-Paolo sank into one chair, and shoved another his way with her foot. Reaching down, she rescued a bottle of wine from some corner of the floor.

  Conrad sat and rested his elbows on the table. He couldn’t help smiling affectionately at her. “If I act the older brother with you, you’ll hand me my head, yes?”

  “I thought you were going to hand me mine!” She seemed to collapse into a relieved smile. “I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do while I was at the Conservatoire, and I haven’t been told to behave as a woman for three years… I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”

  “I’m not sure I would, if I hadn’t met you wearing trousers.—What?” Conrad shrugged at her expression of pique. “It’s true. You don’t look like a girl.—Not that you aren’t perfectly attractive as a woman—I mean—That is—I’m sure men who aren’t your brother will tell you that!”

  He continued over her snicker:

  “In fact, that’s close to the problem…”

  Isaura-Paolo showed more than male intuition. “This is about Luigi? And Tullio?”

  “I do wish I believed in a deity,” Conrad muttered. “Because now, of all times, I’d like to be able to say, Dear God, why do I have to be involved in conversations like this!”

  Paolo laughed affectionately.

  Conrad raked his fingers through his hair. “I was beginning to think you had a partiality for Tullio. Now there’s Luigi. He’s a philanderer—But he might change, people do. Or Tullio might be better suited to another woman… And I’m talking gibberish!”

  Isaura poured wine into two chipped cups, and grinned with the expression of someone taking pity on him. “Corrado, I’m not planning to get married yet!”

  “Oh, thank God!” Conrad stopped. “—You made me say that!”

  “I’m a bad influence.” She sobered. “Corradino, I love you dearly, but when I do decide about someone… I’m not sure I’ll come to you for advice.”

  That stung.

  Conrad passed it off with a sardonic comment. “Given that I’m in love with a married woman, I don’t think I’m the person to give you advice…”

  “Oh, that gilded parasite!” Paolo slumped back with an exasperated huff. “If it’s her you want, spending all her time painting her face to go to teas and dances and salons—you’ll end up as her poodle!”

  It hurt enough that he winced.

  Almost as fast as that reaction, realisation came.

  “Paolo?”

  The woman looked up from under her shaggy short hair, face set. “What?”

  “You—” A glance beyond the green curtains showed them isolated for the moment. “—Will always be my sister. You will never come second in my family affections. No matter who I may otherwise love.”

  Shock momentarily gave all her emotions place on her features—jealousy, shame, hope, fear.

  Conrad added, “I’m sorry I never came for you.”

  It hurt him that this realisation was new.

  “I shouldn’t have left you to get out of the Catania house on your own. You’d think meeting independent businesswomen in opera would make it all clear to me, but I… forgot… you might not like staying at home with Mother.”

  “I missed you—even though I wrote to you—you didn’t know it was me—!” Paolo-Isaura scrambled up out of the chair, all elbows and knees, and threw her arms around him, holding him far too tightly to be a brother. Conrad hugged her as hard, patting her short hair as she shed tears that soaked into the lapel of his coat.

  “I’m sorry!” She awkwardly fell into the chair next to him, as he manoeuvred them to sit at the table. Conrad kept his arm around her shoulders. There were dark smudges under her eyes, as well as the red rims from weeping; it was obviously how hard she must be working.

  Quietly, Conrad added, “Nora’s no parasite. She was one of those singers who lived as independent businesswomen. If she’d lived, Nora would have been better than Maria Malibran—”

  Isaura raised her head, sounding dumbstruck. “If she’d lived?”

  “Cazzo! Well… It’s not a secret as such, I suppose—Leonora is Returned Dead. So it’s hardly her fault if she can’t have the singing career she was working towards.” Conrad pushed memories away, but couldn’t escape. “She was working so hard…”

  “I’m sorry.” Isaura was white. “I didn’t know. Losing it all like that and being left here. Oh God. Poor girl. I’m so stupid!”

  “It’s forgiven.”

  “But, Conrad—”

  “Forgiven,” he emphasised firmly.

  They sat together for some time, Conrad feeling the rock-hard muscles of his neck and spine gradually relax. He realised he had forgotten the comfort a sibling could give—When we’re not screaming at each other, or having tantrums, he thought wryly. Who’d imagine that would continue outside of childhood?

  “I won’t abandon my sister just because I have a lover,” he repeated, hoping that would drive it home. “Do I worry about you and your beaus?”

  Isaura banged her forehead on his shoulder before she looked up again. “I keep putting my foot in my mouth… I didn’t mean I wouldn’t ask for your advice, Corrado. Of course I will! I just meant, I won’t ask the family’s permission to get married. If I get married, and don’t just take lovers.”

  Conrad glanced down at her in the curve of his arm. So close, she felt a very slight, small figure.

  With utter determination, she said, “I’ll make up my own mind about who I want.”

  Conrad brushed her shaggy hair out of her eyes with
his free hand, and couldn’t help a smile. “Given that you don’t seem Sapphic, I suppose I can take it that will be a man?—”

  He took advantage of her muttering about how he hardly knew her well enough to say that, to add:

  “—In which case, I’d be obliged if I can put it about to the company that you’re not in need of the Church’s strictures against perversion?”

  “You mean, tell them I’m a woman?”

  Isaura tilted her head on one side, considering.

  He saw the moment that she seized on an idea with the design of amusing him.

  “Why don’t you just get Sandrine to put it about that I’m not a sodomite? And I’ll run a book with Captain Luigi on how long it’ll take one of them to guess why?”

  Conrad had the impulse to throw his hands up dramatically, after the fashion of Barjaba. “No wonder Signore Rossini says that every impresario in Italy is bald by the age of thirty! If they didn’t tear their hair out, it would fall out from worry! You have definitely been in bad company—and don’t tell me the police are the custodians of public virtue; Luigi Esposito wouldn’t know a virtue if he found one on the bottom of his shoe!”

  Isaura snuffled back a giggle. She leaned out of his hug, across the table, fetching the wine bottle. “Since Luigi’s a friend of yours, I suppose you ought to know!”

  She sighed, and was as suddenly serious.

  “Corradin, can I help you, at all? I’d like to. I… know you and il Superbo don’t get on—for very obvious reasons—but you have to work together now. Can I do anything?”

  Conrad raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say il Conte has actually spoken to his first violin?”

  Paolo-Isaura grinned crookedly, and then sobered. “He’s come down here almost every day, adjusting the score when we rehearse. We still call him ‘Superbo,’ but… it’s become less unkind.” She hesitated. “I think he may have been trying to make up for his bad behaviour. He’s working himself into the dirt on L’Altezza, like the rest of us. I know he was a swine to you, Corrado, and I know the situation you’re in, but—he’ll work professionally with you if you let him.”

  “Hn. Maybe.” Conrad shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help. But thank you. And for reminding me I can’t put it off much longer, if The Aztec Princess is going to be finished.”