Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  This desperate course of action was soon denied me as a shadow fell across me and Angelina began to hammer the lid in place. The sound of her hammering brought a couple of men from outside. I could hear a dog sniffing around. It gave a few short, sharp barks.

  ”Beggin’ pardon, Miss,” came a deep voice.

  ”Extra insurance!” Angelina replied. I imagined she was talking about the nails. Perhaps she was holding one or two of them up as illustration. “Don’t want the old girl falling off the cart and popping out of her box, do we?”

  ”No, Miss, I reckon we don’t.”

  The men seemed satisfied with this but the bloody dog wouldn’t leave well alone. It yelped and growled. I could imagine it straining against its leash. It was probably a large, gangly wolfhound-type creature with shaggy hair and slavering jaws. It could just have easily been a wiry little terrier, the kind you send down rabbit holes to chase out your dinner. Whatever its size or pedigree, its unwarranted attention brought the men back into the barn.

  ”Pay him no mind, Miss.” The tone was apologetic. “Only they do say as how they can sense it. Animals. Death.”

  ”Yes,” said Angelina. “Although I’m pretty good at sensing death too when I’m standing next to a casket.”

  This got the men laughing. It was all I could do not to force my way out of my confinement and embrace her on the spot.

  ”I don’t suppose you two could be absolute darlings,” she continued. I imagined she was twirling a lock of her hair and batting her eyelashes. “But could you perhaps assist me in getting the box onto the cart?”

  Of course, when women say “assist me” they mean “do it for me” but I had to marvel at her boldness.

  ”Course we will, Miss!” The men seemed inappropriately cheerful in the presence of a corpse. I felt the sensation of being lifted and, what was worse, the other occupant of the crate shifting behind me. The impromptu pall bearers were grunting with exertion and surprise.

  ”Damnation, Miss! Like her food, did she?”

  ”I’m sorry?” Oh, come on, Angelina. Stay on the ball! You’ve done brilliantly so far.

  ”Her in the box. Fan of eating, was she?”

  ”Oh, oh, yes! Couldn’t get enough. Pies, pastries, cakes, fancies. Pheasants. Swans...um, biscuits.” She was running out of foodstuffs as I was being jolted against the wood. The journey from the barn to the cart, waiting in the yard, seemed interminable. I nearly cried out twice. Once when a lurch in our progress caused my nose to collide with the casket side, impaling my nose on a splinter; the second time when my travelling companion rolled against me, her arm coming free of the straw and landing on my hip, her hand brushing my nethers. I shuddered in revulsion while trying to choke down my cry of pain.

  At long last, we reached the cart. The casket was put down with a jarring thud and then shoved into a more secure position. It was altogether a nauseating experience and I considered myself lucky for not having had breakfast because I was certain at that point it would have made its reappearance and thereby making this horrendous experience even worse.

  I heard Angelina thank the men and them in return wishing her a safe journey. One asked if she was going far. Her response puzzled me at first. She told them she was taking her late mistress back to the family seat in Madrid. The men whistled to hear of such an undertaking.

  Madrid? I thought we were bound for Cadiz!

  It took a while for it to sink in. She was laying a false trail. If anyone thought to follow us they would be heading in completely the wrong direction. Once again I marvelled at her quick-thinking and considered how I had never met her equal.

  There was quite a crowd gathered now. I suppose I should be so flattered to attract so large a lynching party. I wondered if Donna Flavia was among them. No doubt, she would have been sheltered at the inn. I wanted to speak to her, to tell her I had had nothing to do with the fire that had eaten her home – not merely to save my own sorry (and splinter-prickled) skin but to put her mind at ease; to tell her she could still trust people, that she could still believe that not all people are rogues and traitors. What would become of her? I couldn’t help thinking as a tide of compassion and anxiety for her welfare surged within me.

  The sound of Angelina geeing the horse tethered to the cart brought me back to myself and thoughts of what might become of me.

  ***

  The physical sensations of bumping along with a dead body in a crate on the back of a cart jolted me from the sadness and regret I felt for Donna Flavia. The horse was plodding along at a steady pace. Part of me (my perforated nose, for example) wanted the beast to go faster. While this would increase my discomfort, this would be a short term ordeal, and the journey would come to its end all the sooner. The rest of me was glad of the lack of speed. I could protect myself somewhat by holding the palms of my hands against the wood, but I could not prevent the old woman from rolling against me at every turn in the road. We should have packed her more tightly, I thought, considering the undoubted misery of my continuous sneezing would be in every way preferable to the current terror of my situation.

  My experience of the dead, especially recently, has been that they go away. My master certainly went away. No funeral for him. Not even a memorial. The man he murdered got a statue put up pretty damned sharpish but that wasn’t enough for him. Oh, no! He had to come back, didn’t he? Come back and consign my master to the flames of Hell.

  I could picture the face, which should have been at the back of my knees but was somehow leering over my shoulder, contorting into a rictus of a grin. I could hear her voice cackle, “I’m still here, Leporello. I’ve stayed to take you with me.”

  I gasped and came to myself. I must have nodded off. The dead woman’s voice was nothing but the creaking of a cartwheel. All the same, I wanted to be out of the casket more than ever. You might say before I went out of my box!

  ***

  We must have travelled several leagues before Angelina brought the horse to a halt. She rapped the casket lid with her knuckle, making me jump.

  ”Anyone home?” She laughed. I wasn’t in the mood for jokes right then but I would have liked to have seen her smile.

  ”Let me out!” I called out, knocking the lid myself.

  ”Piss break!” she announced.

  ”Oh, good!” I replied. “I am bursting.”

  ”Not for you, for me!”

  Her voice was more distant and I realised she had left the roadside to attend to the demands of her bladder behind a bush or somewhere. Of course, as soon as the subject had been broached, my own innards decided they required attention as well.

  I strained my ears – to hear her return to the cart, nothing else! I could hear her talking to the horse, feeding it, giving it water. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the vicinity.

  I risked a rap on the lid. ”Hoi!” I knocked again. “Hoi!”

  ”Will you be quiet?” Her voice hissed at me through a gap in the slats. “You’ll just have to wait!”

  ”I can’t wait! I shall burst!”

  ”Don’t you dare! Show some respect!”

  ”It’s no use you laughing. This isn’t funny in the least.”

  ”It is from here.”

  ”It’s all very well, you laughing it up, having emptied your bladder. I am not afforded the same luxury. I dare not so much as titter.”

  This gave rise to a peal of laughter from Angelina, a lusty, full-throated laugh that cheered me to hear. How I longed to see her holding her sides, wiping her eyes, or whatever she was doing at that moment.

  ”I’m not opening the casket until we’re under the cover of darkness. It’s too risky.”

  She was right, of course. Through all my complaining and resentment I could see that.

  ”How much longer?” I whined like a petulant child.


  ”Not long,” she said, giving the lid a pat. “Sit tight.”

  ”Sit? I would love to sit!”

  This got me a chuckle from her and a “Hush now”. I heard her resume her seat at the dashboard, make a clicking sound at the side of her mouth and we were on the move again.

  The sun was higher in the sky now and I had to screw my eyes tightly shut whenever its rays penetrated a chink in the casket. Not made for comfort, these things, I considered. I was glad my master wasn’t boxed up within one.

  ***

  We continued at that steady and not to mention uncomfortable (oops, I just mentioned it) pace as the morning wore on. It was getting hot out there but especially in there in the box. My fellow passenger was beginning to whiff too. I don’t know how long she had been dead (don’t get me wrong: she still was) but the confined quarters and the baking heat of the day, together with my racing imagination made conditions most unpleasant indeed. And getting unpleasanter – which isn’t even a word.

  Angelina was not so foolhardy as to press on during siesta. It was probably concern for the collection of hair and bones, the gluepot-in-waiting that was pulling the cart that made her seek shade and shelter for the beast and for us.

  We came to rest at the side of the road.

  ”Let me out!” I hissed. I pressed my eye against a gap between slats. I caught a glimpse of Angelina’s pretty dress and of her black hair as she moved around the cart. I felt the cart beneath me wobble a little as she climbed on board.

  ”I can’t!” she hissed. She must have been almost prostrate across the lid.

  ”If there’s no one around –”

  ”There isn’t –”

  ”Well, then –”

  ”I can’t!”

  ”You can! You must!”

  ”You’re not listening. I CAN’T.”

  ”I’m not stopping you. And if you’re worried about any reservations my fresh bed mate here might have –”

  ”I can’t. As in I cannot. As in I am unable. “

  ”What?”

  She explained that we had neglected to bring any tools along with us. We had nothing in the way of a jemmy with which to pry off the lid. I muttered an imprecation that I would not usually employ in the presence of ladies, quick or dead. I explained that I couldn’t possibly stay cooped up in the crate during siesta or she would find herself with more than one funeral to arrange.

  ”Ho, don’t you worry about that. I shall just leave you in a ditch.”

  ”You’re not funny. Now, please: Get me out!”

  ”Hmm.” She fell silent for a couple of minutes. She was probably casting her eyes around the scene. I could hear the running of a stream and a sudden thirst gripped me that would have rivalled our nag’s. She patted the casket. “Be back soon!” she sang out in a cheery tone. I felt her jump down from the cart and before I could respond, she was gone.

  Several moments passed and I wondered if I should be left there to expire from too much heat and too little water. We would be found, my cold companion and I, together in death’s embrace: an old woman and her young paramour. Some kind of suicide pact, people would surmise. The old bird had popped her zapatas and I, broken-hearted youth, had been unable to go on in a world without her. We would be interred in the same plot, our bodies resting together forever like welded spoons.

  This disturbing reverie was shattered by a sudden crashing on the lid above me.

  ”What the – “

  A second crash. The lid began to crack. After a third, sharp shards of wood were pointing in towards me. Light poured in.

  ”Hello!” said Angelina cheerily. She puffed out her cheeks, tucked away a stray tendril of hair from her forehead and raised a heavy stone in order to strike again.

  ”Wait, wait!” I managed to cry out despite the dryness of my throat. “What on Earth do you think you’re doing?”

  ”Getting you out of there. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  ”More than anything in all the world. But I don’t want to get my brains bashed in at the same time.”

  ”Hah! For that eventuality to come about, you would have to have brains to begin with.”

  ”Oh, well, in that case, pray continue.”

  She raised the stone again. Bloody hell, she was going to do it.

  ”That was sarcasm - that was sarcasm! Please stop! Put the stone down. Move away from the stone.”

  ”Really?”

  ”Yes. Really.”

  With some display of reluctance, like a child commanded to put away its toys at bedtime, Angelina let the stone drop to the ground. “I was only trying to help,” she was pouting now and was altogether too adorable. This gave me fire and I pushed against the damaged lid with all the force I could muster in my ungainly position. After a considerable expending of energy on my part, a couple of the planks yielded and I was able to push them away. I squeezed out into the fresh air, my upper half hanging over the side of the crate, like a bather panting in too hot a bath tub. I drank in huge lungfuls of the cool air and glanced around at our surroundings.

  Angelina had driven the cart off the road and under the shade of some broad and ancient trees. I don’t know what type of tree they might have been. There was no fruit suspended from them to offer any clue. I had missed our lesson on trees and such when my master had managed to seduce yet another governess and I was obliged to keep watch out in the corridor.

  The horse was drinking from the stream and I envied the beast enormously. This spurred me to wriggle from the casket like a worm from an apple. I landed shoulder-first on the flatbed of the cart, my feet liberated last of all. I clambered down and lumbered to the stream, hurling myself into the water with abandon as though I could drink it all up with every pore of my body. The reviving power of the cold water was instantly intoxicating. I splashed around, laughing wildly, scooping handfuls and gulping them down, drinking and washing at the same time. A few feet away, the horse sent me a bored look and then continued to ignore me.

  Angelina stepped towards me, her face clouded with anxiety. ”Perhaps you should keep the noise down,” she offered, with an apologetic pout. She had to repeat this suggestion with her voice raised to a level bordering on irony before I could catch her drift. I froze and looked around, instantly alert.

  There was no one around, apart from me, Angelina, the horse and the dead woman in the luggage (unless she had legged it – not entirely improbable, given recent experiences).

  ”Passing traffic,” Angelina explained, jerking her head in what I took to be the direction of the road. “We don’t want to draw attention.”

  Quite so. All I was interested in was drawing breath and drinking draughts of this delicious cool water. I calmed down the splashing about until, satiated, I crawled from the stream and joined Angelina as she sat by a tree trunk.

  ”What’s the plan?” I asked, running both hands through my wet hair.

  ”To get a plan,” she shrugged. “I’m heading back to Cadiz, as you know. I think we’re far enough from your home for you to be safe from those vigilantes. I can drop you off anywhere you like. As long as it’s on the way to Cadiz, that is.”

  I had peeled off my stockings and was wringing them out. I hadn’t stopped to undress before my impetuous bathing session. I hung them on a nearby bush. The fierce sun in siesta time would soon dry them out. I considered removing more of my garments but modesty and respect told me I had better not. Angelina, it appeared, was thinking along the same lines.

  ”You should get out of those wet things,” she advised. “Or your death will catch up with you despite our efforts to evade it.”

  ”I’ll dry out in no time,” I shrugged but I could feel my sodden shirt clinging to my shoulder blades.

  ”If you’re shy, I shall turn away. In fact I shall turn away if you’re bol
d. I have no interest whatsoever in – “Her words trailed off but the twinkle in her eyes lent her face a flirtatious expression.

  ”Alas, all my other clothes went up in the fire,” I sighed in mockery, but then it struck me for the first time. I had truly lost everything. The clothes I was dripping in were all that was left to me of my former life – oh and the nightmares, of course. These were the last of my master’s hand-me-downs and I was ruining them with my reckless behaviour.

  Angelina, who had not yet averted her gaze, saw the sadness that clouded my face and went over to the cart. “Perhaps there is something here...”

  She rifled through a trunk and pulled out a sombre, featureless frock identical to the one modelled by the corpse.

  ”You’re kidding me,” I accused her.

  ”Perhaps a little bit. But think about it, Leporello! Wearing this and a few other accoutrements I can provide, you wouldn’t have to hide in the box anymore.”

  The prospect was indeed an enticing temptation. I thought it over. Was I not accustomed to donning disguises and fancy dress in my old life with my master? And not only would this latest masquerade save my life, it would link me back to those happier times when my master and I –

  My line of thinking was brought to an abrupt end as the heavy fabric of the frock hit me in the face.

  ”Put it on,” Angelina said, “while I give Dobbin his nose bag.”

  Even so, I went around a tree to disrobe and re-robe. The material was rough against my skin. That old lady must have been hardier than she looked. I hung my wet things from nearby branches and joined Angelina at the water’s edge.

  ”Is his name really Dobbin?” I asked. I didn’t get an answer because the lovely creature before me (by which I mean Angelina, of course, and not the bloody horse) turned and saw me in my new attire, and enriched my world with a new music: the sound of her collapse into helpless laughter.

  ***