Rondo Allegro (21 page)

Anna peered over their shoulders, curious to see how the Neapolitan
princess she had known in childhood appeared. Now married to Prince Ferdinand,
the heir, she looked sulky and heavy; Anna wondered if the princess was
pregnant or merely ill.

The royal prince looked like a dullard in his diamonds and
silk, and Anna backed away from the curtain, reflecting on how they both had
been married off summarily.

As least I am well rid of mine, Anna thought, looking at
that pouting prince.

The signal was given to take their places. The curtain
opened, the violins wailed . . . and the company nerved
themselves to the best performances of their lives, suitable for royalty.

Unfortunately this exalted company was far more interested
in their own conversation than yet another dramatic presentation. The queen
chattered to the Prince of Peace, the royal prince scowled from under heavy
brows at anyone who addressed him, his wife whispered behind her fan to the
ladies behind her.

Only the king seemed to be interested in the performance,
but when they took their bows, he confined his enthusiasm to an idly lifted
hand.

As the company made their way back through the long
corridors of the palace, M. Dupree muttered, “At least we can say we played
exclusively for them. I shall use their names with profligate
indiscrimination.”

By the next morning, M. Dupree had recovered his spirits. His
new plan? “We shall travel southward to Badajos, and thence to Toledo,
everywhere there are wealthy grandees. And we can resurrect all the great
aristocratic operas on which we were all trained.”

They reached Toledo before the height of the simmering
Spanish summer. Here, the French women acquired beautiful lace mantillas with
which to protect their heads from the relentless sun.

In every city, Parrette’s first purpose was to obtain
English newspapers, if she could get them, and
Les Costumes Parisiennes
in order to stay
au courant
.

They continued to adapt to local custom, designed to keep
one as cool as possible in the dry, blazing heat. Parrette and Anna swiftly
picked up Spanish.

The only point on which the women were adamant was their
adhering to French fashion. Though they liked the mantillas, and put a great
deal of energy into acquiring the exquisite cashmere shawls that in Paris could
only be afforded by the likes of Madame Bonaparte, little else about Spanish
fashions appealed. French fashions in gowns were still regarded as the
smartest.

Some of the wealthy Spanish ladies who came night after
night to fill the boxes sent their maids to request patterns, and Parrette
earned substantial sums on the side, dress-making for the wives of grandees.

Sometimes Parrette earned more than M. Dupree did. While
their performances were generally well received, some grandees apparently felt
that it was reward enough to be permitted to perform before their blue-blooded
selves and relatives. All they got was the loan of a stage, perhaps a meal, and
florid speeches of gratitude.

o0o

At the end of summer, M. Dupree gathered his company. “We
shall go west,” he said.

The oppressive heat made it nearly impossible to respond.
Dull faces stared back at him as he said, “We are desperately short of money.
West is where French soldiers are being brought in.”

Paul said heartily, “Of course! We must surely have a
greater success among our French brethren!”

The republicans all agreed, and Marsac curled his lip.

Success in the west became as sparse as the countryside. The
massive influx of Spanish and French soldiers resulted in a scarcity of horses,
food, water, and patience. The peasants, bearing the brunt of the insatiable
appetites of many thousands of soldiers and sailors, did not welcome the
prospect of more French people, and as the towns and villages got poorer, so
did their reception.

One blazing October morning, they woke up to discover that
their guides—paid to take them all the way to Badajos—had absconded with their
horses and mules.

When M. Dupree went to find someone in authority to
complain, he discovered a strange, hostile silence. The women clustered
worriedly inside the rough
posada
,
the typical Spanish inn. Some of the men remained with them, others stood
outside, oblivious to the glare-bright sun, as they argued about what had
happened, what they ought to have done, and what was to be done now.

The French voices rose on the somnolent air, Spaniards
nowhere to be seen. Local headmen wouldn’t speak to them.

Anna had been sitting disconsolately at a worn table into
which some long ago patrons had carved initials, and here and there idiomatic
phrases. She was too dispirited even to use her new fan, carved from aromatic
wood. All it did was stir the hot air, without cooling or refreshing.

She looked about wearily, until she noticed a sympathetic
glance from a young girl, daughter of the innkeeper. The girl peeped out from
the low door leading to the kitchen.

She got up and went to the door. The girl peered up at her,
and in an excited whisper, “Mamacita says, you must go straight to Don
Alejandro, who is nephew to the Duke of Medinaceli, Don Luis Fernández de
Córdoba y Gonzaga.” She said the name softly, as if so exalted a personage
could hear from a great distance, and pluck her straight to prison for not
speaking with respect.

Then she took a step closer, so that Anna could smell the
fresh olive oil that the maid had been cooking with in her mother’s kitchen,
and whispered, “It is said that the English dogs have destroyed our treasure
ships. There is going to be a terrible war, Papa says.”

Anna thanked her and ran outside, where she discovered M.
Dupree, his head red and shiny, his arms waving as he exclaimed passionately,
arguing with a stone-faced Spanish man armed to the teeth, whom he had found
approaching the nearby stable.

“For that price, I could buy the coaches, yes, and all the
horses too! It is unconscionable!”

“That is the price. Take it or leave it, Frenchman. I advise
you to take it.”

M. Dupree turned away, groaning. Then he spied Anna. “What
is it, Mademoiselle?”

Anna told him what she had heard.

M. Dupree did not speak until they were all shut inside
their airless, superheated chamber. “That explains the insults I’ve heard. They
are angry with us, their allies. How could we have known the
roas’biffs
would turn pirate? Why do
they blame
us
?”

They all stared at each other, stunned, horrified as only
people can be who have woken up and found themselves regarded as criminals
without having done anything to warrant it, while upstairs the baby wailed
fretfully, in the grip of another fever.

“I suspect it is because they see us as foreigners,” the
clarinetist said morosely.

“Surely they can tell the difference between us and the
English, who everybody knows are all mad?”

A violinist nodded. “My cousin, who used to trade in wool,
said that your Spaniard hates everybody, French, English, Italian alike, and
the Portuguese worse than all three.”

“I refuse to go to Badajos,” Madame said fiercely. “If it is
just thieving, brawling, stealing soldiers, it is the worst of the revolution
all over again, but in another land where we are the foreigners. They are not
going to give us a theater, and gold. I demand we go directly to Cadiz, and
seek the first ship for France!”

“If I may respectfully demur,” Jean-Baptiste interjected,
with an elegant gesture toward Madame that emphasized his aristocratic training.
“I believe we would do best to seek this marquis, if you wish to avoid soldiers.
And Cadiz being also filled with war ships, there might not be even a rowboat
for hire.”

M. Dupree looked around the peeling plaster of the walls,
the shutters closed tightly against the heat waves wavering off the tiled
square, and finally to the crucifix over the door, as if any of these sights
would offer an answer. Except that he had his answer in Marsac’s commanding
gesture.

Aristocrats had power. And in Spain, at least, they loved
theater. “We shall go to this duke.”

o0o

The next day the entire company either rode upon donkeys,
or in donkey-pulled carts, as they wound up ancient trails, past ruins ranging
from Roman to medieval times. The dust was thick, obscuring low, tenacious
plants dotted with bright pink or purple heron’s beak, and partly obscured by
occasional stands of scrubby oak. Around them rose the scent of the spiky sharp
cedar, none of which afforded shade to speak of.

Anna dutifully noted the countryside as their guide pointed
things out, but she rode with her mouth covered by her handkerchief, and her
pretty lace mantilla covering her bonnet so that her skin would not blister in
the sun, though sweat trickled down the back of her head to pool at the base of
her spine.

By nightfall they reached a fine walled city of the sort
they were becoming used to, at its center a plaza with a cathedral and opposite
it a beautiful palace. Pierre, who had learned a great deal of Spanish by now,
was sent to request an audience with the don.

A very short time later he returned, a splendidly dressed
young man with impressive mustachios with him. “A French opera company, in truth?
And played before the king? The very thing to cheer us, after so treacherous an
attack by those cowardly skulking English . . . my friend Lucien
Bonaparte—his brother soon to be crowned Emperor, did you know . . .”

Talking volubly in accented but clear French, the don
grandly invited them all inside, and within a day they found themselves housed
around a small plaza at one end of the vast palace. The theater was nearly a
stone’s throw away.

Life had taken an abrupt turn for the better, Anna thought.

She had forgotten all about her paper-husband, but no more
than he had forgotten her.

While she stepped onto yet another Spanish stage, he and the
fleet were tacking wearily in form, one after the other, off of the coast of
Spain.

Christmas found the Company Dupree in Merida, playing in
the splendid Roman theater.

From there, they proceeded to Zafra, where they stayed in an
Austrian-style palace as guests of another noble Medinaceli relation, and from
thence to Seville, site of operas by the great Rossini and of course by Mozart.

By now Pierre had become as fluent as Anna, and expert at
finding lodgings better than the ubiquitous
posadas
.
He had learned to scour the inner city for pieces of paper tied to the edges of
balconies, which was the Spanish way of advertising that a house was to be let.
In Seville he discovered a fine house near the theater, built around a central
patio.

The company had become adept at moving their things into new
quarters and swiftly making them homelike. Anna followed the servant carrying
her trunk, but instead of going into the room she had been assigned, she paused
in the patio, and looked from the handsomely carved doors to the cool tile
floors to the shady trees and roses in pots. There was even a fountain, which
could be seen from the gallery running all around the upper story.

She knew there would be a little time to explore before they
were expected to gather in the theater to rehearse, a prospect she faced with
no particular joy.

She bent over the fountain, gazing down into the ripples of
water sparkling in the sun, and considered her emotion: there was no joy in the
prospect of singing. When had that happened?

She began to walk around the patio, and thought back. It
seemed to have been vanishing bit by bit, ever since . . . Caen?
Was it because she had not become a second Billington?

No, that was not it. Anna knew she was good . . .enough.
Would genius make her any happier? She splashed her fingers in the water, then
cupped them to watch the droplets cascade down. She had heard stories enough
about Mrs. Billington’s sicknesses, her tantrums, to wonder if the joy had gone
from singing for her, too.

Anna poured out another handful of water. For the first
time, she thought past today’s rehearsal and performance to tomorrow, and next
week, and next year. The next
ten
years. She contemplated the idea that she must do this every day, or most days,
and was appalled at the emptiness in her heart.

Not long ago, she had overheard Madame Dupree saying to
Lorette, “When we return to Paris, I shall retire, and never sing another note,
unless I wish.”

Anna had attributed that to the heat, to the dreariness of
travel. Perhaps to Madame’s age, for she was six-and-thirty. But now she
understood the real emotion.

She scolded herself mentally. She knew she was lucky, for
she had witnessed both starvation and desperation as the results of war.

Anna turned away. Yes, she was lucky. She would not be
forced to travel back to Italy and attempt to beg for a place in a world that
was pretty much indifferent to her existence. She had made a place among these
people. It was not the ideal place, but it was good . . . enough.

And that gave her an idea.

She touched her wet hands to her cheeks to cool them, and
walked up to her room, where she found Parrette busy unpacking Anna’s gowns to
air them. She let out a squawk of disgust as she picked up one of the coarse blouses
the dancers wore in the farces. “Anna! You are not lowering yourself to the
farces again!”

“Naturally not!” Anna heard the sharpness in her own voice,
and bit her lip. She tried to breathe out her exasperation: Parrette knew very
well that the last farce Anna had danced in had been before they reached Lyons.
She forced her voice to a lower tone. “It must have slipped in there with the
other things drying in the sun, before we packed.”

“Good. That was such an act of madness. You could have—”