“Well then,” I say. “Let us know if you need us for anything whatsoever. We can be very thorough.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Kindness has nothing to do with it.”
Laura pats her hair, that nervous gesture I remember, and wavers further. “Is it that obvious?” she asks eventually, bitterness tinging her voice.
“Of course not,” I reply. “I have only assumed the problem to be your husband because that is so often the problem we find ourselves handling with the women who come to this office.”
“My husband is an expert at handling,” Laura says.
“Then you must be more expert We have a man in London who is a marvel at procuring the necessary evidence. If you write down the particulars, we shall be only too happy to pass along the information. With the utmost discretion, I assure you.”
“I believe you would,” she says.
Belladonna shuts her fan with a smooth click and Laura jumps. “You have one thing working in your favor,” Belladonna tells Laura, her voice flat.
“I’m sorry,” Laura says, “I don’t quite understand.”
“He doesn’t expect you to fight back.”
Laura gives a ghost of a smile. “No … no, he doesn’t.”
“In the meantime, how long are you staying in New York?” I ask.
“Another week or so.”
“And what are your plans? If you could do anything while you’re here, what would you really want to do?”
“What I really want to do? More than anything?” Laura is still befuddled by the strange twists of my questioning"I’d certainly be"but too well-bred not to reply truthfully. “I suppose I’d like to sing before a crowd of people who are all deliriously pleased to hear me.” She smiles coyly. “Isn’t that ridiculous? Leandro used to compliment me on my voice, and encouraged me to take voice lessons, so I did. I still do, actually.”
Her eyes nearly well up again, but a touch of weakness suits her. Under her brittle exterior she seems much nicer now that she was in Italy. That was years ago, after all. We’re hardly the same; we can’t expect her to be as she once was, either.
Yes, we have all changed. I am certainly more wonderful; my brother has found love. And Belladonna is her own creation. Sharper, harder, colder. La fata, the fairy princess locked in her tower. No longer is she a terrified woman with a little baby and two strange men, soaking up the bright sunshine by the fountain in Merano in a vain attempt to erase the memory of dark years. No longer is she a woman who could do no more than shut herself off in a tiled room in a Tuscan palazzo, pacing away her demons. Now she is mistress of the most famous club in the world. There is no similarity whatsoever between the masked marvel and the person Laura once glimpsed six years before.
I look at Belladonna and know her thoughts are exactly the same as mine. First Mr. B., and now this. It would almost be too much if it weren’t so sad.
“Would you like to sing here?” I ask. “As a matter of fact, we just had a guest soloist for our Italian forest fantasy, a lovely baritone, who’d also told us he dreamed of singing before an audience. He came one afternoon before we opened and rehearsed with the band. I can assure you that he was thrilled with his performance. We would be pleased to do the same for you.”
“You would do that for me?” Laura asks Belladonna, although I have been the one doing all the talking. “But why? You don’t know anything about me.”
Just like Mr. B.
“Because I can,” Belladonna says. It is what she usually says. Laura feels Belladonna’s bright green eyes boring into her, and her flush deepens. I would not like anyone to look at me like that.
Laura thanks us, and I show her out. She is still reeling; in fact, she hasn’t got a clue about why the conversation veered the way it did during this extraordinarily odd encounter with the mysterious masked creature.
Belladonna is taking off her mask and wig when I come back into the office. She looks very tired. Bereft, even. Depleted. If hearing Leandro’s name had that effect on me, how must it have been for her?
She disappears into her room at home, telling Bryony she has the flu so she will be disturbed as little as possible, and doesn’t come out until the afternoon of Laura’s rehearsal with the band. If Richard is surprised to see Belladonna hours earlier than usual, sitting in a dark corner, out of Laura’s sight line, already costumed and wearing my favorite wig of honey-colored ringlets, he doesn’t let on. Nor does anyone else. They’re professionals who maintain their silence. If Belladonna is there, they figure, there must be a reason, so the musicians keep playing and the waiters bustle around, whistling as they check their tables.
After Laura finishes singing “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You,” the band surprises her with a loud round of applause. She curtsies to them, and now I know what Leandro meant. Rich and surprisingly husky coming from such a fragile-looking blonde, her voice could melt a glacier.
She thanks the band and comes off the stage for a cup of chamomile tea that I have waiting for her.
“Thank you,” Laura says to me, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“You have a wonderful voice,” I tell her. “You’re going to be a big hit tonight.”
“I hope so,” Laura says, “and I needn’t worry about the dog barking.”
“You seemed to have no problem when you came here last week.”
“That’s true. I guess your dog likes me.” She laughs in pure happiness. “I can’t believe I actually sang with a professional band. And I didn’t make a fool of myself!”
“I can’t imagine you ever making a fool of yourself,” I venture to say.
“Oh, I have done,” Laura says. Still exhilarated, she’s let her guard down. “I have done indeed. And you know, talking about Italy the other day made me remember something. Or rather, someone. It was years ago, at Merano, that spa I mentioned. I met this ridiculous man there who paid me all sorts of flattery, and I was too dreadfully muddled to see what a buffoon he was. Leandro wrote me afterward that some of the guests had nicknamed him Mr. Nutley.”
Belladonna laughs, and Laura positively starts. She hadn’t noticed Belladonna sitting in the shadows. But as Belladonna continues to laugh"the divinely intoxicating sound that could enchant the deaf"I see much of the fear in Laura’s face melt away. The intense effect Belladonna has on people never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps they sense they can never have any approbation from this strange woman. Just who, exactly, is she?
A whiff of Belladonna is never enough.
10
The Steeling
of the Nerves
“Mommy, what’s a spy?”
Bryony, perfectly nonchalant as she picks up her fork to make a crater for gravy in her mashed potatoes, poses this question at dinner.
I try not to choke as Belladonna calmly says, “What do you mean, sweetie?”
“Jack and Tomasino were talking about spies. I heard them when I came back from school.”
“Where were they talking?”
“Here.”
“Here in the dining room?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Where was Rosalinda?”
Yes, where was her nanny at a crucial moment like that? And where was my brother? Busy at Annabeth’s apartment, I expect. Frankly, I can’t for the life of me remember talking to Jack about spies, not here in the house. Just because I’m naturally gifted with a prying disposition doesn’t mean I’m indiscreet, and certainly not around Bryony. Botheration. Perhaps we were talking about something else and she misheard us. That must be it, I tell myself.
“I wanted a cookie, and she was getting it from the kitchen, so I came in here to look for Sam.”
Double botheration. That transvestite doll is about to have Dr. Tomasino perform a Christine Jorgensen kind of sex-change operation on it. This must also mean that my ineluctable penchant for overhearing tasty tidbits is running in the family, if Bryony is already tiptoeing aroun
d grown-ups who are having conversations about boring grown-up topics. She doesn’t need to know what a spy is"she is one already. Just like Belladonna, Bryony seems to have an uncanny knack for sudden appearances. We are going to have to be much more careful as she gets older. Very careful indeed. My knee is starting to twitch. This is a bad sign"I can feel it, like the wind changing course over the river sparkling at the end of our street.
“A spy,” Belladonna says carefully, “is a person who watches people or places in secret, so no one knows he’s there watching.”
“Oh,” she says, making gridded patterns in her potatoes with the tines of her fork. “Are they good or bad?”
“Well, some spies are good, if they’re trying to catch bad people and that’s the only way they can do it. When people are very angry and go to war, they use spies. And some spies are bad, because they watch people so they can steal things away from them.”
“Were you a spy in the war, Mommy?”
“No, sweetie. I wasn’t.”
“Was Papa?”
“I don’t know,” Belladonna replies. “The war made a lot of people sad and hurt, and we didn’t like to talk about it. Besides, I didn’t know your Papa then. I met him after the war, when I was very sick, and he took care of me and made me all better, and then we had you.”
Well, that’s stretching the truth, but it’s close enough.
“Can I be a spy? A good spy?”
Belladonna smiles. “Why would you want to do that?”
“So I can be like Jack and Tomasino.”
I’m about to sputter that I’m not a spy, when Belladonna shakes her head almost imperceptibly.
“Stop playing with your mashed potatoes, and eat them up,” Belladonna says. “What do you think Jack and Tomasino do? Why do you think they’re spies?”
Bryony takes a bite and then says, “Jack works in a big office with the other spies.”
“Did he tell you that?”
Bryony shakes her head no.
“Did Tomasino ever tell you he’s a spy?”
Bryony shakes her head again, then looks at me carefully. “I changed my mind. Tomasino’s not a spy,” she declares. “He’s too fat to hide.”
Children can be such a nuisance sometimes. I stick my tongue out at Bryony and then pretend to start crying, until she laughs.
“You know it’s not polite to tell anyone they’re fat,” Belladonna tells her daughter. “So what do you owe Tomasino?”
“A ‘pology,” Bryony says, pouting. “Sorry sorry sorry, la de da de da de.”
“I was very sad when you said that,” I joke, “but now I’m not anymore.”
“Does Tomasino make you laugh so you won’t be sad?” Bryony asks her mother.
“I’m not sad, sweetie,” Belladonna says, leaning over to give Bryony a faceful of kisses, tickling her with her hair until she dissolves in laughter. “How can I be sad when I have such a delicious little girl?”
“Betsy’s mommy said you’re sad,” Bryony states. At least she’s moved off the spy kick for the moment. “Betsy said her mommy sees you pick me up from school, and she wants to know why you’re so sad. Is it cuz Papa’s dead?”
Not only are children a nuisance but they can be so damn honest you want to scream. No, this kid isn’t going to need any spy training at all, she’s so perceptive.
“Yes,” Belladonna says, “sometimes I do miss Papa a lot and it makes me sad. But then I see you and I’m happy again.”
“I know a song about spies,” I tell Bryony. “Do you want to hear it?” She nods yes so I start singing:
“Spies and spies and spies and spies and spies and spies and spies
Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of spies.
You can’t buy anything
You can’t do anything
Because there’s
Miles and miles and miles of spies and spies
Miles and miles of spies.”
“That’s a good song,” Bryony says. “Do it again.”
“But this isn’t just a song about spies. It’s about lots of things,” I say, and start singing:
“Flies and flies and flies and flies and flies and flies and flies
Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of flies"”
“I like spies better than flies,” Bryony says, giggling.
“How about pies? Blueberry pies and strawberry pies and apple pies. Let’s sing about pies instead of flies.”
“Okay,” Bryony says happily. “I want pie for dessert.”
“We’re having applesauce for dessert tonight,” Belladonna says, “but tomorrow you can have any kind of pie you want.”
Later that night, Belladonna sits down with me in her office before the club opens. “When is June arriving?” she asks.
“About ten days, I believe,” I tell her. “They’re coming for the Night in the Casbah Ball.”
“Fine,” she says. “Then you and I are going to Virginia tomorrow for a few days. I need a change of scenery, and I want to see the house. Tell Jack and Matteo.”
I try not to look surprised. We’d closed on the large plantation house about six weeks ago, but Belladonna hadn’t said a word about it since then.
“I need to know we can move down there quickly if necessary,” she adds, her voice flat. “I can’t risk Bryony finding out anything. This spying thing is too much. I know it’s not your fault, but what if she wakes up and catches us coming in from the club, or overhears something else that’s perfectly innocuous and asks more questions? What if someone finally gets clever enough to figure out what’s going on? What are we going to say to her then? I couldn’t bear it. Truly, Tomasino, I couldn’t. It’s getting too risky.”
“It’s more than that,” I say simply. Although she ignores me as she adjusts her wig, she knows I’m right. Besides, I’ve got to divert her from thinking we can pack up and move away, mainly because we can’t admit defeat. Not when we’re so close. Not when I’m still having such a good time lording over the Club Belladonna.
“I can’t make it so easy that women begin to rely on someone like me to solve all their problems,” she’d told me the day before, after her latest damsel in distress had left, glowing with happiness that she’d met the infamous masked woman. Did this lady give a thought to the scope of Belladonna’s generosity, or the price she herself paid for it? There sat Belladonna in her office afterward, sad and dispirited. “After each blow their hope manages to revive,” she added. “But where is my hope?”
“It’s coming,” I told her. “You have to believe it’s coming. Leandro once told me that creating something is the only truly godlike thing we can do, whether it’s creating a child or a sculpture or a loaf of bread for your dinner. Or creating a solution to a dilemma. And that it’s a compensation of sorts.”
“Compensation for what?” she asked. “Is my only calling to have created this creature, and be doomed to do nothing more than re-create it every night for the benefit of fools and desperate women? How many more nights can I endure, presiding over my table or walking around the room, anointing my guests as if I were la Santa Belladonna? How many more women can I face? How many more foundations can we set up? How much more money can I give away? The Lady Bountiful act is a farce, Tomasino, truly it is. Do you know, I take a wad of twenties with me whenever I go out for a walk, and some of the local bums are too embarrassed to take any more money from me. Can you believe that? Even they think I’m crazy.”
“No they don’t.”
“How do you know? Do you have any idea what I did the other day?”
I shook my head no. My knee was now throbbing with anxiety. Where is Matteo? I thought. Why isn’t he here? I can’t do this all on my own. I need my big brother to come in and do something. He can soothe Belladonna when I can’t. Anything to make her stop talking like this.
“I was out shopping for Christmas presents, and I saw a little boy ogling a train set in Macy’s, like the one we’d given to Alison Jenkins for
her son. Well, this mother said maybe Santa Claus would bring it, but from the look on her face I knew she couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t stand it, so I started talking to her, and I told her I’d overheard her son. I asked if she would please let me buy the train for him. Naturally, she was shocked and offended, but then I told her I wasn’t meaning to insult her, but that I’d had a little boy once, and that she’d be doing me a great kindness if she let me help her. She gave me her address just to shut me up and get away.”
“So you sent it to her house?” No one can refuse Belladonna, even when she is being least like her self-imposed persona.
“Of course I did,” she said. “But that’s not the point. I’m losing, Tomasino. Who can console me? Where am I to go?” She picked up a fan and left her office, slamming the door so hard my teeth rattled.
When Jack asks to speak to Belladonna a few days later, I assume it’s about final preparations for June and George’s visit. Yet I am only mildly surprised when he tells me he’d like to speak to her in private. No problem, I tell him, and promptly install myself in a hidden nook where I can snoop on the entire conversation.
“I need to ask you something, Jack, so I’m glad you wanted to see me,” she says when Jack sits down. “Were you and Tomasino talking about spies the other day, when Bryony came home from school and found you in the dining room?”
“Spies?” he asks, bewildered. “I can’t imagine we were. Certainly not in the house.” He frowns, thinking. “The last time I talked to Tomasino in the dining room, I think we were discussing applesauce, because Bianca was making some and the house smelled of it. Maybe we mentioned Northern Spies or some such.”
Yes, he’s right. Now I remember. Silly of me to have forgotten such an important conversation.
“I see,” she says, not mollified.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” she replies, but from her mood he can tell that something obviously is wrong.
“Belladonna,” he says, “can I ask you a personal question?”
Jack is nervous. I’ve never seen him like this before, and he’s much too much the pro to show it, but I can tell. Even though there’s not a hair out of place and his shirt is as crisp as ever, the agitation is rising off him in slow, circling waves. My heart does a flip-flop for the poor guy, churning with lovesickness. He’s savvy enough to know that his love is doomed to failure, but he’s desperate enough to need to try.
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