Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  Martello came to collect their deposit and rode off with their design tucked under his arm – Paolo alone had handed it over and it fell to him to handle all further transactions. Martello came to collect instalments every two or three months and would provide updates on their statue’s progress. If Paolo said the villagers had struggled to meet the designated amount, Martello would jolly them along with accounts of how the sculptor was working miracles, how a living, breathing horse appeared to be leaping from the block of marble. If Paolo handed the instalment over without complaint, Martello would sigh and look downcast and admit there were problems: an unexpected frost had cracked the marble; it had had to be scrapped and started anew – in granite. The granite was being shipped in especially for so important a project but a wheel had come off the cart and the block had tumbled off a mountain pass and smashed to smithereens in the valley below... The stories and delays and obfuscations were endless, as were Martello’s demands for more and more money.

  At long last, the villagers had realised something was up but only when Martello failed to turn up – probably realising he had milked their particular well dry. Accusations began to fly that there had never been a deal with Martello and Paolo had been squirreling away their cash for himself. Only the presentation of the real Martello, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, would clear Paolo in the eyes of his friends and neighbours.

  I suddenly felt a kinship with the little brown fellow. He, like me, had had his reputation and good name stripped away by the bastard Martello. Pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place while he told his tale. I saw that Donna Flavia had been similarly duped. Martello must have fleeced her too with the promise of some commissioned art work, a portrait in oils, perhaps, or a statue for her garden. No wonder her house was so devoid of valuables and decent pieces of furniture! She had sold them to meet his demands.

  A flush of guilt swept through me. Had I somehow, however indirectly, brought Martello to torch Donna Flavia’s house? Had he seen the improvements I had made and thought she was deceiving him when she claimed to have no more money? Had he, realising he’d drained that cow dry, tried to kill her so she could not alert the authorities to his larceny?

  Oho, the bastard Martello had a lot to answer for. and answer for it all I would see that he would! (Apologies for the clumsiness of that sentence but my heroic resolve got in the way of my grammar.)

  I gave Paolo every assurance that the rogue would be brought to justice. The little fellow’s eyes welled up with gratitude and he clasped my hand in both of his. I didn’t tell him that I had a vested interest in catching Martello. I made some reassuring noises and said I’d be on my way.

  My master leapt from the rafters and applauded me so resoundingly I thought it would wake Don Ottavio. “Bravo, Leporello! Bravissimo! Deceiving the little people! Making them think you’re their friend! You make your old master very proud.” He wiped a non-existent tear from his eye. I sent him the filthiest look I could but this was intercepted by Don Ottavio who believed it was intended for him.

  ”I am sorry, old thing,” he yawned and stretched and pulled straw from his ridiculous wig. “Have I overslept? Oughtn’t we be orf?” He waddled over to a corner and pissed in it.

  Damn. I had forgotten about that fellow. I had vowed (to myself at least) to help him with his love-life. Much as coincidence has played its part in my life story, I knew it was too much to hope for a two birds/one stone scenario to fall into my lap.

  Poor little Paolo was almost in tears as he waved us on our way. My chest swelled and I sat high in the saddle – partly to keep up appearances but also because I felt heroic. I was a knight on his trusty steed, setting off on a noble quest to rescue the oppressed and exploited from their, um, oppressor and exploiter. Don Ottavio, my Sancho Panza, was annoyingly chirpy, extolling the virtues of his beloved without stopping to breathe.

  I have met Donna Anna. She is not all that.

  ***

  The late afternoon darkened gradually into early evening. I reckoned we would reach our destination before it became too dark to travel – although we could have travelled to Hades guided by the love light in Don Ottavio’s eyes.

  ”Does he ever shut up?” my master complained, seated behind me. “Or change the bloody subject at least!”

  Eventually, the shadowy figure of Donna Anna’s villa hove into view, looming large against the darkening sky, a mansion-shaped hole among the stars. The place was black and silent. No light shone from within.

  ”Oh dear, what a shame, she’s not in.” I was keen to drop this oaf from my company and get on with my self-appointed quest, but, like horse apples on the shoe, he was not got rid of so easily.

  ”Alas, she is within. Her windows are covered, you see. She is still in mourning, you see. You may recall her father was brutally slain.”

  At my back, Don Giovanni bristled but what emotion moved him, I cannot say.

  We reached the tall, wrought iron gates. These were enough to keep anyone out – anyone except my master, of course, aided and abetted by me and my trusty ladder. Memories of that ill-fated night came flooding back. The part I played in assisting my master and his insatiable appetite had led to the murder of a highly respected man – well, even a fellow of low degree deserves respect – I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I had been complicit in a great wrong and perhaps, by helping the victim’s daughter on her way to happiness, I could perhaps make atonement. Even if that happiness involved the oaf Ottavio.

  ”These gates are an insuperable barrier,” Don Ottavio sighed, having dismounted and tethered his horse to a railing.

  ”Milksop,” my master muttered. He strode over to Don Ottavio and flicked him sharply on the nose. Don Ottavio felt nothing.

  ”Not so, my good man,” I declared in my Don Alfonso voice. My descent from the saddle lacked the swagger and grace I would have liked. My foot caught in a stirrup and I almost landed on my face. After a considerable amount of fumbling, grappling, grunting and swearing, I extricated myself and regained some of my heroic posture. “What we require is a ladder or a length of rope. We shall scale the garden wall, for stony limits cannot keep love out.”

  Don Ottavio repeated this line. “Ooh, I like that. Stony limits... That’s very good. Is it yours?”

  I dismissed the notion with a wave of lace but did not deny it out loud.

  ”But,” his flabby face fell, “ where in blue blazes are we to acquire a ladder?”

  I made an expansive gesture.

  ”Get on with it!” Don Giovanni urged. He was as keen to be rid of this buffoon as I was.

  ”Er...” I cast my eyes in both directions along the length of the wall. Then I stepped across to a dense bush, a privet hedge or some such, and retrieved from under it, slimy and colonised by fungus from its year in hiding, the very ladder my master had used to gain access to Donna Anna’s window way back when.

  ”I say! Fancy that!” Don Ottavio gasped, incredulous. “However did you -?”

  ”I reckoned, from what you told me, the murderer wouldn’t have had the opportunity to abscond with his ladder and it has lain here forgotten all this time.”

  ”You’re a clever old bean, Don Alfonso!” Don Ottavio clapped his hands. “Not a quality of which I usually approve but in your case, I gladly make exception.”

  ”Oh. Good.”

  My master was shaking his head. Neither of them assisted me in placing the ladder against the wall.

  ”I say,” Don Ottavio placed a hand on a rung then recoiled, rubbing his fingers together. “It’s filthy. Cast about, see if there’s another!”

  ”Ladders don’t grow under bushes, you know,” I said, endangering the goodwill he felt towards me with a little too much sarcasm. “They’re not human babies.”

  This puzzled him, but distracted him from his complaint. While he tried to work it out, I ga
ve the lower rungs a wipe with my handkerchief then offered to hold the base of the ladder steady while he ascended.

  ”I say!” he giggled when he was up far enough for his backside to be level with my face. “This is rather exciting, isn’t it?”

  ”I say you leave him stranded on the top of the wall and go and alert the Watch,” said Don Giovanni.

  ”I’m seeing this through to the bitter conclusion,” I told him, “and if you had a shred of decency – what am I saying? - rather than standing there making snide remarks, you would offer to help me.”

  My master eyed me up and down. Previously he would have beaten me for my outspokenness but that night he just nodded and gave me a smile. Usually I can read him like a cheap novel, but he was becoming increasingly inscrutable to me and this was unsettling. More unsettling, in fact, than conversing with a dead man!

  Don Ottavio, making little yelps of disgust, reached the top of the ladder. He sat astride the wall, dreading what the moss was doing to his precious breeches. He waited until I climbed up before expressing his reservations about the whole enterprise and suggesting we should perhaps climb down again and go away.

  I told him returning would be as tedious as going o’er, or something, impressing him again with my throwaway quotations, but not impressing him to the extent that he helped me to haul the ladder up and over the wall so we could climb down the other side.

  ”What a plum!” said Don Giovanni, walking through the wall to join us. “Come on! This is her window.” I followed, carrying the ladder by myself, of bloody course.

  ”This is indeed her window!” marvelled Don Ottavio. “How did you know?”

  ”How did you know?” I countered. He had no answer to that.

  ”So what next?” He rubbed his hands together and gazed up expectantly at the window, which like all the rest, was shuttered fast. I jerked my head towards the ladder.

  ”You must go up to her and claim her. You must say, To the devil with this shilly-shallying, seize her by the waist and demand that she marry you at once!”

  Don Ottavio giggled. “People don’t really do that sort of thing, do they? How marvellous!”

  ”Prick,” opined Don Giovanni. “I say we leave him to it.”

  ”And I say we don’t!”

  ”You don’t?” Don Ottavio blinked. “Or do you mean we don’t? We noblemen, that is.”

  ”Don’t what?”

  ”Do this sort of thing! Oh, I could tell you stories of a rogue that lived around here. All sorts of carryings-on. Fact is, ‘twas he who butchered the Commendatore, my beloved’s father. I swore I’d have my vengeance upon him but well, I may have told you how that turned out.”

  ”Oh, only about eighty times.” I muttered and made sure the ladder was firmly planted. “It is said that the best revenge is to live well. So, up you go!”

  Don Ottavio made that “Who, me?” gesture people do when they are singled out in a crowd. The pillock. I pointed out that it was no use me going up there, she wasn’t my beloved. He saw the logic of this and, reluctantly, began a slow climb.

  ”When he’s at the top, kick the bloody thing out from under him!” Don Giovanni urged me with a sharp dig in the ribs. I don’t know how he could do it when to all extents and purposes he was incorporeal but it didn’t half hurt.

  After what seemed like an inordinately long time, Don Ottavio reached the top. He looked down, quivering – a mistake – he gasped to see how far he had climbed and hugged the ladder to him. His head banged against the shutter. I winced almost as much as he did. Then the fool wailed and rubbed his forehead.

  ”Ssh!” I implored him but to no avail. Dim light appeared at the cracks in the shutter, then the shutter was thrust open, to reveal a silhouetted figure, with her face illuminated from below by her candle. Don Ottavio saw none of this. The opening of the shutter pushed him and the ladder away from the house and he flew in a perfect arc across the garden to land in the pond.

  Don Giovanni threw back his head and roared. He held onto me for support as he bent double, gasping with laughter. I had no time to enjoy the comedy because a voice from the window called me to my senses.

  ”Who’s there?” called Donna Anna, peering out into the night. She cried out in surprise and, yes, wonder, when she saw me, a figure in gleaming white on her lawn. My spiffy suit reflected the moonlight and then I realised what was going on. For all she knew, this was still Don Giovanni’s spiffy suit. She was mistaking me for him. She was mistaking me for the man who had assaulted her and murdered her father in a swordfight.

  Things were not exactly going to plan.

  ”No! No!” Donna Anna cried, but she did not withdraw.

  ”She still wants me,” said Don Giovanni with a smirk.

  ”What do I do now?” I asked him from the side of my mouth.

  ”Think, man! What would I do?”

  My face darkened. “Before that!” he continued. “Think, man!”

  I thinked... Think, think, thinketty think... Then the thought hit me like a slap in the face – and I know what they feel like, it has to be said.

  ”But I can’t sing!” I protested.

  ”You’d be surprised.” He took position beneath the window even though Donna Anna couldn’t have seen him if he’d sat on her face – er, perhaps I should rephrase that. Anyway. He stood there so he’d be in my line of vision and I wouldn’t appear to be talking to myself.

  Through all of this, Donna Anna sought to compose herself and was fanning her face with a black fan. Everything about her was black. Her face was like the moon at midnight. As for Don Ottavio, only Our Lord knows what he was up to in the pond during all this time. Perhaps he’d managed to drown himself and save us all a lot of bother.

  ”Imagine that is not Donna Anna up there but the woman of your dreams, the one and only woman you will ever truly love. Sing from your heart and the music will come. Trust in the song, Leporello, and she will be putty in your fingers.”

  Fine time for him to be giving me a master class in his techniques! Had he just revealed something he had kept hidden all his life? Had there been a woman he had truly loved? Had he imagined her face on the thousands who had followed? Is that why he had been with so many? Was he trying to capture the one true love he had had and lost? I was beginning, at this late stage in the game, to see my master in a new light.

  Or perhaps he was just a randy bastard and that was all there was to it.

  ”Who are you? What do you want?” Donna Anna called down in the strident voice I’d heard her use on Don Ottavio when he was showing signs of stepping out of line.

  ”That’s your cue,” whispered Don Giovanni. “One deep breath and off you go!” He nodded encouragingly as I sucked in air like it was going out of fashion. I adopted a theatrical stance. My master considered this a little too much and modelled a different pose for me to copy.

  I looked up at the face, flickering in the candlelight, and in the eye of my imagination the features dissolved like the wax of the candle and reformed themselves into the image of Angelina. I opened my mouth and –

  I heard the most beautiful song. A voice, high and plaintive, rang out across the garden. It sang of love and duty, of promises and hope, of devotion and eternity.

  The voice of course was not emanating from my poor lungs. From a shrubbery behind me, Don Ottavio was belting out his serenade. The effect on Donna Anna was like lightning bolts repeatedly hitting her and transfixing her to the spot. For my part, I tried to move my mouth to keep up with the words, although I’d never heard the bloody song before. He was extemporising and doing a good job of it. I threw in some extravagant gestures to support his lyrics before sweeping my upper body down in a graceful bow.

  He hadn’t finished. More verses poured out of him so I had to straighten up and resume the pantomime. Despite my bumbling effor
ts, even Don Giovanni was moved. He dabbed at his eyes and applauded Don Ottavio enthusiastically. Above him, Donna Anna was biting the back of her hand, trying to contain her emotions. I milked the moment for all it was worth, bowing and nodding, mouthing thank-yous to my appreciative audience.

  ”Ottavio! My idol!” Donna Anna was in danger of swooning and defenestrating herself. “I shall dress and come down at once!”

  She withdrew into the room, leaving the shutter open. Don Ottavio emerged from the shrubbery, looking not unlike a plant himself. His clothes were drenched and adorned with algae. There was a lily pad on his head. Panic gripped him.

  ”What can I do?” he paced to and fro, squelching with every step. “She can’t see me like this! Oh, the mood is ruined, I tell you. All is lost!”

  He looked on the verge of crying, the big baby.

  ”And he’s back!” sighed Don Giovanni. “I knew it couldn’t last.”

  ”Oh, man up, man!” I seized Don Ottavio by his sodden shoulders. I wasn’t sure I liked how much like my master, I sounded. “Here.”

  I began to disrobe. The action rendered him confounded until I explained I intended nothing untoward. “She thinks you’re the figure in white who serenaded her, yes? That’s who she’s expecting to see when she comes down. “

  The penny dropped. He tore off his wet things. I found it preferable to avoid them than to put them on, and so, naked, I ducked into the shrubbery. Don Giovanni joined me, laughing. I covered myself with my hands. He laughed all the more.

  ”I do enjoy a good scrape,” he mused. “A scrape is only any good if someone ends up starkers.”

  Don Ottavio, now in the clothes of whom he thought was his mate Don Alfonso, adopted a stance similar to mine and stood in the centre of the lawn to await his beloved.

  Eventually, a door opened and Donna Anna swept out into the garden, having exchanged her black night attire for a voluminous layered frock, heavy shawl and mantilla with veil all in, you guessed it, black.