Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  The crowd marvelled audibly at this. They would have burst into applause if they could, but they were so keen to hear the sequel.

  ”On the contrary, Leporello,” he continued, playing to the crowd. “It is you who will soon hang about.” This elicited a ripple of laughter. I glared at Angelina.

  ”I’m sorry,” she mouthed and looked at her lap, where her hands were wringing themselves incessantly. I was pushed back down into my seat as she recounted her version of our journey together. I could not believe what I was hearing.

  I had stolen the cart, apparently unaware of its cargo and the passenger who was keeping vigil over a deceased beloved servant. Then when I had discovered their presence, I had flatly refused to let them go, planning instead to extort money from the family’s estate – believing as I did that the dead one was the noblewoman. Only when we reached that fateful inn and Angelina had gained my trust did she make good her escape and save her noble neck from who knows what depravities I was planning to visit upon her.

  Most of the words spoken came from Cardinal Ignatius. With leading questions and pointed remarks he shaped Angelina’s account but she, for her part, went along with it, damning me with every nod of her head. No amount of sorrow in her eyes, whenever she glanced across to me, could atone for the wrong she was doing.

  Liar! I wanted to scream. Traitor! Deceiver!

  Why was she doing this to me? Why was she playing the cardinal’s game?

  Much as I bore in mind the long reach of the Inquisition, I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Angelina, Angelina as was, my Angelina, would do such a thing. I lost what little hope I had remaining. From that point I ceased to care what would happen to me. I just hoped this whole sorry business would be over quickly. Whatever Ignatius claimed me to be, he was welcome to hang me for a fool.

  Ignatius asked her to go over her account once again, just for clarification, to get the story straight in everyone’s mind. Angelina or Dorabella or Satan’s daughter or whoever she was, took another sip of water and began at the beginning. I shut my eyes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same with my ears.

  ”Psst!”

  My eyes flickered open. Beside me, the gaoler stood impassive, gazing straight ahead.

  ”Over here!”

  My master, standing behind Angelina, leaning casually against the back of her chair. He opened and closed his hand rapidly, mocking the movement of her lips. He affected to yawn in an exaggerated manner. It would have been funny in any other circumstance. He puffed out his cheeks and crossed his eyes. He made rude gestures that suggested Cardinal Ignatius was a leering idiot, rendered weak-minded by chronic masturbation. I had to bite my knuckle but it was no good; I was unable to suppress the giggle that shook my frame. Ignatius rounded on me.

  ”You find something amusing, then, in this good lady’s testimony?”

  Over his shoulder, Don Giovanni pantomimed a disgusted reaction to a massive and malodorous fart.

  ”Hah!” The laugh escaped me and I clamped both hands over my mouth, my eyes wide and watering. Cardinal Ignatius nodded slowly. He walked away from me but kept his finger pointing at my face.

  ”See! See! See for yourselves the contempt for decency, for morality, for this very court!”

  Members of the public, looking at me, were shaking their heads. They had never beheld such a monster.

  ”Hang him!” came a voice from the back.

  ”Yes!” chorused a few others.

  ”Burn him!” yelled a different voice.

  ”Yes!” There was more support for this option.

  ”Off with his gonads!” cried another.

  ”Yes!” chorused a larger number.

  ”Tear off his head and shit in his neck!”

  This one was met with silence. No wonder: it had come from Don Giovanni. He was skipping along the aisle, having the time of his after-life.

  Angelina-Dorabella was excused from the stand and she was ushered out through a side door. She didn’t look back. There was no further communication for me. At least, I’m reasonably sure there wasn’t. I couldn’t bear to watch her go.

  The spectators were all leaning forward, keen to see what Ignatius would do next. He called Donna Flavia. She bustled in, looking a little flustered and yes, a little more curvaceous than I remembered her. Being homeless and destitute was evidently being kind to her.

  ”Ding dong!” murmured Don Giovanni in my ear. I tried to shoo him away but he only laughed. “She’s filled out rather well, wouldn’t you say?”

  ”I have no opinion!” I snapped. Heads turned. I had snapped at him out loud.

  ”My dear fellow, “my master smirked at my side, “One must be more careful with one’s ejaculations.” This bent him double with mirth. Meanwhile I was squirming.

  ”The question was not addressed to you, sirrah,” Ignatius said coldly. The arcing of one of his eyebrows betrayed his surprise at my outburst. He returned his attention to Donna Flavia, who was looking increasingly hot and bothered with every passing minute.

  ”You recognise the accused.”

  ”Yes. Hello, Leporello.” She waved her handkerchief feebly. I did not return the greeting. This deflated her like a punctured bladder.

  ”Describe your relationship.”

  ”Well, at first I stayed at the inn but then, Ronaldo – he’s the blacksmith – took me in. We sort of hit it off right away and now we are betrothed.”

  ”Your relationship with the accused!” Ignatius smiled thinly. Donna Flavia clucked and shifted in her seat. She dabbed at her flushed cheeks with the handkerchief.

  ”Took up with the blacksmith, eh?” My master perched on an arm of my chair. “At it like hammer and tongs, I warrant you.”

  Despite myself, I laughed out loud. I clamped my hands over my mouth but it was too late. My master seemed to think this was an opportune time to tickle me. While unseen fingers rubbed my evermore prominent ribs, I wriggled and twisted in my seat, laughing, gasping for breath and pleading for it to stop.

  This caused some commotion among the public. Ignatius turned my display to his advantage. “See! See!” he extended his arm to point me out in case there was anyone who didn’t know where to look. “See how his conscience pricks him! See how he squirms in his guilt!”

  At this point I fell off the chair. The gaoler stepped forward to pick me up before I could roll off the dais. Ignatius waited for the kerfuffle to die down then continued with Donna Flavia’s testimony.

  He didn’t get much from her – rather, he fed her the information he needed. How I had finagled my way into her service and into her trust. How I had bided my time, gradually removing her valuables piece by piece until I had amassed enough booty to leave. How I had not been satisfied with deception and robbery. How destruction of property satisfied some perverse need within me.

  My master sighed. “Even I can see this is palpable nonsense and I’m not listening properly.”

  ”Ssh!” I hissed. Again, all eyes darted towards me.

  ”The accused wishes to interject?” Ignatius gasped, as if this was the worst of my supposed offences.

  ”No, no, that’s quite all right,” I muttered. “You carry on.”

  Donna Flavia was looking at me with such a pitying look I had not it within me to contradict her. I saw at last how it had been. She had disposed of her possessions piecemeal, selling them off to travelling entrepreneurs like Martello in order to keep her house. Staff had been laid off and her property had deteriorated from neglect. And now it was her pride that was keeping her from admitting this decline in her fortunes.

  ”Bollocks, man,” my master scoffed at my reticence. “She seems proud enough of her alliance with the blacksmith. The dirty mare.”

  ”You’re in no position to judge!” I snarled at him. What was the matter with me that I
should make all my responses loud enough for all to hear?

  The audience took in a collective breath.

  Ignatius’s face reddened as though I had slapped it. “You dare!” he roared. “You dare question my authority!”

  ”I wasn’t talking to you,” I explained, although my irritation with my late master coloured the tone of my voice more than was prudent.

  ”Oh? Then to whom did you address that remark, which we all heard so clearly? To the good lady here, whose situation you have single-handedly reduced to penury?”

  ”Penury...” Don Giovanni mulled over the word. “Always thought that sounds like it should mean something else.”

  ”Will you be quiet?! I’m trying to concentrate here.”

  This drew murmurs from the public, louder than before. They were beginning to look uncomfortable but, frankly, I didn’t care about them. I didn’t invite them.

  Donna Flavia was allowed to step down. She couldn’t get away fast enough, although not from shame at this blatant betrayal of her loyal and hard-working servant but out of a desire to get away from the babbling madman I was showing myself to be. She probably considered herself fortunate my disturbed mind did not manifest itself during my time beneath her roof – the roof I had patched up, incidentally. I was glad to see the back of her. Let her go fuck her blacksmith –

  I glanced around. No, it did not appear that I had called that one out loud.

  Even the other two cardinals – I’d almost forgotten they were there – were stirring in their seats. I started and recoiled from them. Their sudden movement from such perfect stillness was too similar – too much like that scene – the Commendatore –

  I yelped and sprang from my chair, keeping it between me and the living statues. My master laughed. Everyone else was in amazement. Ignatius signalled to the gaoler to put me back in my place. “Restrain him, if necessary,” he barked. The gaoler took this to mean “Strap him in at once!” and produced a couple of lengths of leather to wrap around my wrists.

  Ignatius consulted the other two – those moving gargoyles in red dresses – who whispered and mouthed without once glancing in my direction. I was in mortal terror of them.

  ”You’re being silly, Leporello.” My master was trying to calm me, while mocking me- an approach he often adopted in life. It never worked then, either. “They are men in frocks, nothing more. Remember what you yourself are currently wearing.”

  It was true. I was still wearing the shapeless black robe of the dead woman – Angelina’s duenna, it had turned out – although the bonnet was long gone. This attire added to my freakish appearance and with this latest display of irrationality, I wasn’t exactly doing myself any favours.

  Looking back on that day, I can’t say exactly what it was that reduced me to that state. Perhaps the weeks of poor diet and isolation had unhinged me. Add that to my continuing unease over my master’s unearthly disappearance, and it was no wonder I was testy, to say the least.

  When they were satisfied I was tightly held in place and posed no danger to anyone, they brought in Father Lorenzo. He smiled at me sympathetically and seemed genuinely concerned to see me brought so low, but that eel Ignatius knew exactly how to frame his questions and to twist the answers to strengthen the case against me. And so, Father Lorenzo confirmed that I had not entered his church since beginning service to Donna Flavia. He supposed I might have slipped in afterwards and gone up to the balcony but Ignatius stamped this out. “We do not deal in suppositions here. Only the facts!”

  I could see that all was lost. Frankly, my dear reader, I didn’t give a flying toss. I just wanted it over with. If I have led a sinner’s life, let what was to come to me come. I stared at the floor, willing it to shudder and crack open and swallow me whole. As it had taken my master, so let it take me. That was the only justice I was interested in, not this sham of a performance. I really did not care anymore.

  The matter of a missing collection plate came up. I was so detestable and vile I would steal petty cash from under Our Lord’s nose. Of course I was. I didn’t get chance to explain that I had secured the collection away from public view. I hadn’t really the strength to defend myself, even had I the opportunity. For his part, Father Lorenzo mentioned that the plate had been found, complete with the usual amount of money gathered from the congregation, which was never much in the first place. Ignatius dismissed this as a minor detail. I would have applauded his performance were not my hands strapped to the chair.

  ”Chin up, old boy!” My master was standing before me. “It will soon be over.”

  I looked at his look of concern. The familiar twinkle was in his eye. The ladies he seduced never saw it but I recognised it for what it was: the sign of an ulterior motive. Why would he be seeking to comfort me, the servant he would all-too-happily boot across the floor? Aha! The twinkle told me, soon we will be reunited. Reunited in Hell!

  I saw it all. My master’s return was to fetch me. He was my Commendatore. My eternal punishment would be to serve the man who had led me astray! I would never be free of him, never!

  I whimpered. His face contorted into a moue of concern but the twinkle never dimmed.

  ”Get away from me!” I screamed. “You grinning, simpering monster! I never liked you! I only stayed with you out of gratitude to your father for taking me in. Many times I thought about running away. How I wish I had!”

  Don Giovanni seemed taken aback by this. He shimmered and became transparent. Through him I could see Ignatius, practically rubbing his hands at my latest outburst.

  ”See how he consorts with Satan right here in this very court!”

  The public was in uproar. Several of them crossed themselves. Some fell to their knees in prayer. Oddly, the nuns did not move. You would have thought they’d be in their element.

  Ignatius raised his voice; something he had done sparingly throughout this entire travesty, so imposing was his presence. He announced the proceedings had reached their conclusion. He had consulted with his holy brothers and they were unanimous in their findings. I was declared to be in league with the devil and it would be the recommendation of the court that the civil authorities would sentence me to death by fire.

  There you have it: My life written off in that short paragraph. It was one of the stranger moments of my recent months. I was there but not there, if you can understand what I mean. I was somehow present but outside myself, observing the scene as though from above. What a pathetic figure I cast, in that tattered dress, my personal grooming all gone to cock – by which I mean my hair and beard were so unkempt and untamed I looked every inch the wild and dangerous man I was believed to be.

  The crowd cheered the verdict and applauded the sentence. They jeered as my straps were unfastened and I was led from the courtroom. A second tomato found its way to my hapless gaoler’s shoulder. Although he was invisible to me at that moment, my master’s laugher rang through my mind and I began to sob, “Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!”

  I kept this up all the way back to the cell. The gaoler shook his head at me before he locked the door. “Goodnight” he called, sarcastically, when the wood was safely shut between us.

  And I was left alone to spend the last night of my life in that filthy, slimy hole. It seemed fitting. How abject I was, glad only for the fact that in my final hours, the ghostly presence of my late master seemed to have at last left me in peace.

  ***

  Guess who couldn’t sleep! I would love to be able to report that I spent the hours, contemplating the error of my ways, making peace with myself and with Our Lord, and repenting my sins. The truth is I just sat there in a kind of waking sleep. I was aware of my surroundings, the cold stone, the dripping water, the fading stain where I’d squashed poor Ratty... but it was as though I myself was frozen in time, my mind suspended in aspic, the thoughts unable to form. This was for the be
st, I can now reflect. Shut up in that tiny space, I could easily have driven myself mad and taken running jumps at the wall until my brains were out.

  Time, as it is wont to do (you may have noticed the phenomenon yourself) passed. The faint sound of footsteps approached the door. The key turned in the lock. The hinges squealed as the gaoler pushed the door open.

  ”Visitor!” he barked. It took me a while to recognise the word and what it signified at that moment but as a figure in white swept into my cell, I scrambled to my feet. The movement was like a flint sparking my thoughts in the dry tinder of my brain.

  It was one of the nuns from the court room.

  Now, I don’t like to be rude, especially to guests, but I was in no mood for last-minute prayers and repentance. I didn’t need a blessing either. My master had gone to his doom with none of these things and I, I realised, was willing to go the same way. My fate was inescapable. I would soon be joining Don Giovanni in Hell.

  ”Can’t a man get any peace in here?” I complained. The nun stepped forward and grabbed my hand in her two slender ones. “Get off!” I shook her away.

  Then she raised her hands to her headgear and took off her wimple.

  ”Hello, Leporello,” said a familiar voice.

  ”Donna Elvira!” I gasped. Of all people!

  ”Well, it’s Sister Immaculata now but yes, it’s me.”

  Ah, yes, that’s right. I remember her making some declaration the morning after my master fell. She would take holy orders and end her days in a convent – what better remedy for a failed marriage? I also remembered she was not the full doubloon. Clingy, my master had called her. Clingy and barking bloody mad. Well, perhaps her new devotions were bringing her peace, and I sincerely hoped that was the case. Whatever her faults, my master (and I, it has to be said) had treated her abominably- although it was also easy to imagine Our Lord ignoring her messages and pretending to be someone else whenever she craved his attention.

  ”What are you doing here? In town, I mean? I thought your lot kept themselves shut away.”