Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  ”My Ottavio!” she cried and took his hands in hers. “My own!”

  ”If he doesn’t seize her right now and do her on the grass, there’s no hope for him,” my master sneered.

  Well, Don Ottavio didn’t exactly follow my master’s prescribed course of action to the letter but it turned out there was still hope for him after all. He dropped to one knee, and I winced for my white breeches, and proposed marriage to her for the umpteen-thousandth time.

  ”Of course!” Donna Anna squealed with delight as if this had never happened to her before. “Of course, I will!”

  ”You say that, you always say that, but when?” The petulant tone was creeping back into Don Ottavio’s voice. He would blow this if he wasn’t careful.

  ”Um...” Donna Anna made a show of thinking it over. “Is tomorrow too soon?”

  Don Ottavio jumped to his feet, laughing in happiness and disbelief. They embraced, called each other a hundred sweet names of increasingly nauseating tone then arm in arm went indoors.

  ”My darling, my own one,” Don Ottavio was repeating himself now.

  ”My love,” Donna Anna put a finger to his lips as they reached the doorway. “I promise to cast off these mourning weeds if you promise me one thing.”

  ”Anything, my heart! Name it!”

  ”Promise me,” she said, glancing back across the garden with a grin,” you will never try to explain why there is a naked man in my shrubbery.”

  ***

  Well! That was just fine and dandy! For them! Meanwhile, there was I, without a stitch on, shivering in a shrubbery with the ghost of my late master tittering at my side.

  ”Never mind them!” he made an impolite gesture towards the villa. “What’s next for us? We can’t stay here.”

  ”Us? We?”

  ”We’re a good team – no, a great team!” My master punched me on the shoulder. “Look at what we’ve accomplished! We’ve got those two priggish ninnies off the fence, for one thing.”

  ”And?”

  ”And, um... we’ve managed to keep you alive, Leporello. You must be delighted about that.”

  I glanced down at the flock of goose pimples that had colonised the entire surface of my body and wasn’t too sure. First things first: I needed clobber. Where could I find it?

  ”You do realise,” Don Giovanni was drawing a circle in the dirt with the toe of his shoe, “my own house is not far from here.”

  ”Yes, I am well aware of that!” I snapped. There was no way I was going back in there after what happened.

  ”You have clothes there!” he wheedled. “You can have the pick of my outfits – anything you fancy!”

  ”No! I’m not going. You go, if you like.”

  He closed his mouth. I realised then he couldn’t go anywhere without me. It was part of what made him whatever he was. If he was a spectral entity, he was somehow tied to me. If he was a figment of my addled brain, then obviously he was reliant on me for everything.

  I fashioned a rudimentary cover for my privates from a couple of branches of the least prickly plant and then, like Adam expelled from the garden, I climbed over the wall – except of course, Adam never had a ladder nor did he leave the woman with someone else. Oh, and my master of course would be the serpent.

  ”You’re not focussing, Leporello,” my master jogged alongside me. I’d stashed the ladder back in its bush and was marching along the street at a considerable pace – one, because of my unclothed state and two, in a futile attempt to get away from him. “Go to the house, get some fine clothes then you can continue your pursuit of this Martini fellow.”

  ”Martello!” I barked.

  ”Ah, yes, that’s the right one. Think about it, man! You know I’m right.”

  The fact was, he was. Right, that is. A second fact was I was already bending my joyless footsteps in that direction, as if my legs were heading for home out of instinct. Already I was trying to talk myself into going in. Perhaps if I didn’t enter the dining room... I could nip straight up to my master’s closet, grab some things and stuff them in a travelling bag and be on my way.

  It seemed straightforward enough.

  ***

  And there it was: the mansion in which I had spent most of my life! My heart did a somersault when I saw it. The dear old place! I hadn’t set eyes on it since the start of this story and I felt sorry for having left. For all that had happened ever since – well, not meeting Angelina, of course. I could never regret that.

  ”The dear old place!” my master sighed, giving voice to my thoughts in an uncanny manner. People were always wont to tell us we often thought alike and indeed impersonating each other had never been a problem. “Bugger and fuck it!”

  ”What’s the matter?”

  I saw what he saw. There was a light on in the house.

  Someone was in!

  ***

  Don Giovanni strode up the drive and it was my turn to move quickly to keep up with him. He was muttering dreadful oaths and imprecations, among them were a few curses at the length of the drive. I ran behind in an ungainly fashion, struggling to keep my bits covered with my leafy, makeshift codpiece.

  He dissolved right through the front door without missing a step. Then his head reappeared and he asked me if I was coming or not. I pointed out that the front door was probably locked, even though I had just abandoned the house all those months ago and headed to the church. I tried the handles. It was locked. Whoever was in residence now was more security conscious than I had been.

  ”I wonder who it is,” Don Giovanni mused, “the cheeky blighter who has stolen my house.”

  ”Perhaps it’s the Commendatore,” I sneered, enjoying the look of alarm that flashed across his face. “Perhaps he uses it as his holiday home and invites all his friends from Hades up for dinner.”

  ”You’re not funny, Leporello,” my master affected nonchalance, “and you never were. I honestly don’t understand why you try.” But I had rattled him, I could tell. “Shut up and get knocking.”

  ”Is that wise?”

  ”Offence is the best form of attack – or whatever the saying is. Or you could go around the back and break in through the kitchen but I think you’ve got enough criminal charges laid against you, don’t you?”

  ”Sheep as a lamb,” I offered, but this truncated proverb only elicited a quizzical look from him. Without telling him so, I reckoned he was right I reached up for the massive knockers and announced my presence.

  ”You’re a poor itinerant – no, wait! You’re a victim of highway robbery, that’s it! Your Don Alfonso has been set upon by cutpurses and you’re calling at the home of a fellow nobleman for aid and succour.” He spat all this out very quickly, mindful that someone would soon be coming to answer the knocking. He had forgotten how far it was from most of the rooms to the front door and I remembered how he had never had to answer the door himself.

  Presently, the door opened by just a crack and lantern light trickled out. A shadowy face appeared above the lantern.

  ”Leporello!” gasped a female voice. “Thank goodness!”

  Zerlina!

  “What is she doing in my house?” Don Giovanni railed.

  “Shut up for a minute and I’ll ask her!”

  “Leporello?” The peasant girl opened the door wide and beckoned me in. “What happened to you? You’ll catch your death.”

  She led us along the hall. Most of the house was in darkness, the furniture covered. There were a few blank spaces on the walls and gaps where valuable objets had once stood.

  ”What’s happened to my stuff?” my master whispered. “Where’s all my stuff? What’s she done with my stuff?”

  ”Give me a moment and I’ll ask her.”

  Zerlina looked over her pretty shoulder at me and frowned. Not only was I
bollock naked I was apparently talking to myself. When we reached the kitchen she indicated a stool by the stove and fetched me a coarse blanket of the kind you might wrap around a poorly hound.

  ”There must be some of your old things still here, in your quarters,” she said, with forced cheeriness. “Help yourself. When you’ve got warm, of course.” She was twirling a tress of her hair, indicating that beneath the welcome and the smiles she was in a very agitated state. She put some water on to boil.

  ”You live here now?” I asked, cupping my hands around the, um, cup of warm milk and water she gave me.

  ”Well, um, yes, um, no, not really, I suppose.”

  ”She’s as empty-headed and as foolish as ever she was!” Don Giovanni grunted, having eyed her up and down and from all angles first.

  ”Well, which is it? Do you live here or no?”

  ”The master lets us stay here in return for our labour,” she explained, although her explanation gave rise to more questions.

  ”The master?” both Don Giovanni and I gasped in perfect unison.

  ”Who the fuck is that?” Don Giovanni continued.

  ”Oh, Leporello, I’m in so much trouble!” Zerlina’s pretty face crumpled into sobs. She sat on the bench and threw her upper body across the table. I found it a pitiful sight but my master rolled his eyes with impatience.

  ”Always the melodrama!” he sighed. “Why these women can’t give a man a straight answer, I’ll never know.”

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I go over and comfort her? Should I surrender the dog blanket? All I did was to wait for the tide of tears to ebb. She sat up and dabbed at her face with a dishcloth. I noticed for the first time, the thin band of gold on her finger. It reminded me of her husband – which I believe is the purpose of these things.

  ”And Masetto? Is he around?”

  She let out a wail and nodded sadly. “The master works him so hard. Keeping him out until all hours. I barely see him.”

  I blushed. At that moment in time she was seeing me barely. How would it look if her husband, a brute of a man if memory serves me, were to walk in and see me in this state of undress and his young wife in tears?

  It took her a couple minutes but Zerlina calmed herself enough so she was able to string some sentences together. Wiping her face on last time, she told me her tale.

  ***

  After their turbulent wedding day – during which my master had tried to seduce the bride on more than one occasion – Zerlina and her hubby Masetto had, rather cheekily, decided to spend their honeymoon in the abandoned house of Don Giovanni. It wasn’t clear what had become of him, the other servants had all done a bunk, and they knew I had gone for good, so they thought it could do no harm if they could have a couple of weeks in the lap of luxury.

  Don Giovanni gave a facial shrug. He had to admire their cheek.

  The couple of weeks had extended to a month – they had parties for their friends and families – they thought their happiness would last forever but, as is in the very nature of happiness, it came to an end, and an abrupt one at that.

  ”One day a man arrived. He asked if he could rest his horse and perhaps purchase some refreshment. I said of course he could and wouldn’t hear of taking any money off of him and in he come and said what a nice place I’d got here and he was asking all sorts of questions and I told him I was married – happily married- to my Masetto who is a big bloke and all, so he didn’t get the wrong idea and of course I couldn’t let on that it wasn’t really our house – I think it was my pride what was preventing me and I don’t know for sure but I think he saw through me right from the start but he plays along with me and he’s calling me a fine lady and what a fine house it was and full of fine things and then his face sort of clouds over, like, and he’s all quiet and I says what’s the matter with him and would he like more sherry and he says No it wasn’t that, although he did accept the sherry and said it was the best he ever had and then he says he’d like to help me, on account of me being so kind and hospitable and all that and how would I like to make the place absolutely perfect for my big husband who I obviously loved very much?

  ”Well, I says of course I would – what woman wouldn’t? – and he then puts forth his proposal and he says what will make this house absolutely perfect would be, out there in the courtyard, a statue! Well, I was taken by surprise as I wasn’t expecting that. A statue! A statue of my Masetto and he asks me to imagine the look on my husband’s big face when he comes home and I unveils the statue and there he is, large as life, or larger than life if I could afford it, made from the finest marble. Well, I was quite dazzled by this as people can always talk rings around me if I’m not careful and before I could think straight I was agreeing to it and he said he’d need a down payment so’s he could go off and commission an artist and all the rest of it. Well, of course, I had no money, of course I didn’t, so I wrung my hands a bit then I goes upstairs and I takes the jewellery from the master’s – the old master’s I mean to say – from his closet and he says that’ll do nicely thank you very much.”

  Don Giovanni’s face went a ghostly white – quite ironic when you think about it. “My mother’s jewels!” he groaned. I’m sure he would have throttled Zerlina on the spot if he could have managed it.

  We had both recognised early in her story the identity of the villain. The bastard Masetto was up to his usual tricks: hence the gaps on the walls and the spaces on the shelves. Portraits and knick-knacks had all found their way into Martello’s pockets or onto the back of his horse, all to fund the statue that would never appear.

  Apparently, Zerlina had only paused for breath. She had not reached the end of the story.

  ”This man, this Martello for that is his name, decided I wasn’t paying fast enough so he comes in and he says he’s going to take over the house as it will make a convenient centre for his operations and he knows full well Masetto and me can’t say nothing against it because we shouldn’t have been living here in the first place and then he says we can stay on and keep an eye on things and work for him and he wouldn’t turn us in.”

  ”The arrogance!” Don Giovanni was in amazement.

  ”Hang on,” I interjected. “What made him so sure you wouldn’t turn him in to the authorities?”

  ”Well, we was at a wassitsname, wasn’t we, a stale mate sort of thing. We had nowhere else to go and he sort of had us over a barrel with all the stolen goods and pictures and I don’t know I got so confused about everything and now we’re stuck.”

  At this juncture, she broke down into unintelligible sobs. My master beckoned me to a corner with a jerk of his head. I went over to confer with him. We had struck lucky, walking into Martello’s very lair. We had to plan our next move with care.

  ”The temerity of the swine!” Don Giovanni was pacing around. “Conducting his illegal activities from my house! You must beat the fellow severely, Leporello. No, you must slit his throat like the swine that he is.”

  I demurred. I’m not one for violence, having invariably been on the receiving end of it.

  ”I want him out of my house!” my master was gesticulating wildly. The fancy boot was on the other foot now, wasn’t it? How many houses had he barged into and claimed things (and women) as his own?

  And then it struck me. I knew exactly what had to be done. It all fitted into place: the course events had taken, ending up back here – here where that terrible scene had played out and my master had met his end. A statue had been involved on that fateful night and, it seemed to me, just, right and proper in a poetic sort of way, for a statue to bring about the downfall of the bastard Martello.

  ***

  When she heard my plan, Zerlina was both aghast and excited. I had retrieved a set of clothes from my old room and so felt more comfortable standing before her and expounding the details of my plan. She clapped her hands and decla
red Masetto would be highly amused when he heard about it. Behind her, my master made frantic gestures of negation but I had already decided that it would suit our purposes better if Zerlina’s big lug of a husband remained in ignorance – he was practically a native there, from what I remember.

  Zerlina revealed we had two days to make preparations. Martello was not due to put in an appearance until then. My master deemed this too long an interval; he wanted the bastard evicted right away.

  ”Perfect!” I said, for his benefit as much as hers. It was an overstatement but I was satisfied there would be time enough to put everything in place.

  Masetto, we were informed, was travelling with the bastard. He would often be called upon to stand behind him and flex his muscles in order to facilitate the flow of money from the marks’ hands into Martello’s.

  The drawback to the plan – well, one of them – was it would have to be executed in the dining room, the very site of my master’s horrific fate. I had promised myself I would never enter there again and my master didn’t appear very keen either but he recognised there was nothing else to it. It would have to happen there in order to have the maximum impact.

  Martello, Zerlina told us, had been fascinated to hear of the house’s recent history – it had been the talk of the neighbourhood for weeks after it happened and now was couched in legend and was no doubt embellished in the way that these stories often are. He took pride in taking his meals at the head of the table in that ill-starred room, proving he was fearless, although Zerlina pointed out, his cutlery often clattered against the chinaware when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  There was nothing for it: my master and I had to go back in.

  ”It’s worse for me than it is for you,” I told him as we approached the dining room door.

  His eyebrows shot upwards. “And how do you figure that?”

  “Well, you’re already dead, aren’t you?”