The Girl With the Painted Face (3 page)

‘That I have not, signore.’ Zanetti’s voice is calm and steady. ‘I’m sure I should remember someone of that description most particularly.’

‘Bastard whore stole a purse full of coins from me.’

Sofia hears Zanetti tutting his tongue against his teeth. ‘Despicable indeed!’

There is a long pause.

Then the heavy-bellied man says, ‘
Cazzo!
We’re a pair of bloody idiots! We’ve been wasting our time. Luigi!’

‘Signore?’ The servant’s voice.

‘We’ve been running around this damned city for nothing. God, I’m a fool! We don’t need to find her – we need the mistress. Luigi, go now, straight away, and find Signora… what was her name? The seamstress. Romano. That’s it: Romano.’

Sofia puts her hands over her mouth.

‘And tell her what a treacherous, thieving bitch her little needlewoman really is.’ There is a moment’s pause, then Sofia hears the man mutter, ‘I’ll show that filthy little
puttana
what happens to anybody who dares to treat me like…’

The big shadow moves away from the cart, fading and blurring as it goes, and Sofia misses the end of the sentence. A minute passes. Then a corner of the back flap is lifted and Sofia sees Niccolò Zanetti’s face peering in. ‘He’s gone,’ he says. ‘Quite gone. I saw him leave the piazza.’

Sofia climbs awkwardly out of the cart. Feeling sick, she stares around her for a moment, then looks at Niccolò Zanetti. ‘Thank you, signore. I’m very grateful to you for… I’m… but I’m sorry – I have to go.’

‘But —’

‘I’m finished in Modena, signore. This is it. You heard him – he’s going to tell Signora Romano that I’m a thief.’

‘But he’s mistaken. You are innocent. Will she not understand that when you tell her?’

‘No,’ Sofia says, shaking her head. ‘She won’t. She won’t understand. She’ll want to have me put away, or run out of town. I can’t stay. I have to get out of the city – straight away. At least for the moment. Till the fuss dies down. But thank you. Thank you so much.’ She reaches out and takes Niccolò Zanetti’s hand for a second, and then turns from him and begins to run once more, across the piazza towards the Porta Nuovo.

‘Signorina!’ she hears Zanetti’s voice calling behind her. ‘Stop! Listen! I have an idea. Why don’t you…?’

But her footsteps are clattering on cobbles now and his last few words go unheard.

2

A couple of miles outside Modena

A black-masked figure, barefoot, in untucked shirt and patched breeches, sidles out from a patch of shadow, carrying a ladder under his arm: half of it projecting out before him, and half behind. It is clear he is anxious about being overheard – each step is being carefully taken. He looks around him continually, eyes wide behind the mask, as though expecting disaster.

Another figure – noticeably older, shorter, stockier – creeps in step some paces behind him; this newcomer is clearly taking even more elaborate care than the first to remain undetected. This second man then drops something metallic, which clatters as it hits the floor. Startled, the masked man spins around, whirling the ladder, as the second crouches down to pick up the fallen object. The ladder skims above the head of the crouching figure, who then stands up. Coming around full circle, the ladder hits the second man hard in the backside. He falls forward onto all fours.

‘Yes, yes, that works rather well,’ he says, getting to his feet and dusting off the knees of his breeches. ‘But I dropped the key too soon, I think. Let’s just try it again before we stop for this evening. Once more, please, Beppe? And then, if it works, let’s run through that little piece of dialogue, too.’

Beppe puts the ladder down on the ground and pulls off the black mask. Rubbing his face, he pushes his fingers through already untidy, cropped black hair; then, yawning and stretching long limbs, he nods. ‘If you’d like to.’

‘Take it from where you come on. I need to give you a little more time with the creeping before I drop the key – build up the tension that little bit more.’

‘Mmm. If I stop and start a couple more times, then you can stop and start with me – exactly as I do – and then on the…’ He frowns, considering. ‘… on the fourth stop, that’s when you can do the drop. And I’ll spin.’

A woman’s voice calls from some way off to the left. ‘Agostino!’

The second man turns round sharply. ‘Agostino!’ comes the voice again. ‘How long are you going to be, you and Beppe?’

‘Not long,
cara
!’ he calls back. ‘No more than a few moments!’

‘Your soup’s ready.’

‘Thank you,
cara
. I won’t be long!’

‘Beppe, there’s enough for you too, if you want some.’

Beppe grins at Agostino. ‘Thank you, Cosima,’ he calls back. ‘I’d love some.’

‘You do know it will be unspeakable, don’t you?’ Agostino says, shaking his head. ‘She gets worse by the week.’

‘Better than no soup.’

Agostino raises an eyebrow. Beppe laughs. ‘Well, maybe not,’ he says. ‘It’ll fill your belly, though.’

‘Hmmm.’ Agostino shakes his head. ‘Let’s run through the
lazzo
again before we face the…’ Closing his eyes, he claps the back of his hand to his forehead in a gesture of exhausted despair. ‘… the Ordeal of the Soup. I want us to have this little piece absolutely right before our first performance in Modena.’

Beppe picks up his ladder. Holding it upright, as though it is leaning against a wall, he climbs up some half-dozen rungs, and stands there balancing. Then, as the ladder begins to wobble, he jumps nimbly backwards and lands back on the ground, pulling the ladder neatly with him.

Agostino laughs. ‘Oh, I like that, Beppe – use it somewhere. How high can you get?’

Beppe shrugs. ‘About six, seven rungs.’

‘See if you can make it to the top.’

Beppe shakes his head. ‘Too risky.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘With a shorter ladder I might get up and over the top, though. And down the other side. It’d seem as though the ladder were stuck to the ground.’

‘I’ll get Vico to make one for you. Say six, seven rungs high?’

Beppe bends and picks up his ladder again. He carries it off to the edge of the little makeshift stage, then once again creeps out from the shadows, staring around him fitfully, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. Agostino follows him. Beppe takes one big step and pauses, foot high. Agostino takes a much smaller step, but pauses in time with Beppe. Beppe gingerly puts his raised foot to the floor. Agostino copies him. Beppe shuffles a step. So does Agostino. Beppe takes three long strides. Agostino follows suit, with shorter strides – and then he drops the key. As he crouches, the ladder whirls over his head. He stands up, and is knocked to the floor once more. ‘Oh yes, much better,’ he says. ‘Dialogue now.’ He draws in a breath, leans dramatically forward from the hips and, peering myopically towards Beppe, says in a very different, higher-pitched squawk of a voice, ‘
Arlecchino! Is that you?
’

Beppe, hopping from foot to foot now, says, ‘
Yes, sir. Oh yes – it most certainly is. I told you I’d be here… and here I quite definitely… am
.’

‘
I want you to go and fetch my daughter
.’

‘
In a moment, sir, in a moment. I’ll have to hurry – she’s about to explode!
’

Agostino, who has been turning away from Beppe, whirls back round again, mouth dropping open into an O of surprise. ‘
Explode? My daughter?
’

‘
No, no, no! My pot of stew! She’s been on the fire too long
.’

‘
On the fire?
’ Agostino seems to wobble with bemusement and his voice becomes even more shrill.

‘
I don’t want her bottom to burn…’

‘
Her bottom? My daughter’s —?
’

Beppe puts his hands on his hips and doubles over for a second. Straightening up, he shakes his head violently. ‘
No, no, no, no! My pot of stew!
’

‘
Oh, you really are the most aggravating creature – get on with you! Quick!
’

‘
The quickest way is up the ladder, sir…’

Beppe breaks off. ‘Hey – tell you what, Ago, if I had the shorter ladder here, I could make quite a nonsense of trying to get up it, and keeping on finding myself back on the ground again because I’ve gone up and over without realizing.’

‘Yes – that could be marvellous. I’m sure Vico will be able to knock up the new ladder in time for Bologna.’

‘Good. Sorry – let’s get back to it. From
quickest up the ladder…’

Beppe repeats the line. Agostino’s stance changes again. Bending slightly, one hand now on his crotch, he leans forwards once more, screwing up his eyes and glaring at Beppe. ‘
Get on with you, you pestilential little… er… little…’

‘
Little what, sir?
’

Agostino glares at him. ‘
I have little patience with you, that’s what!
’

Beppe lays his ladder at an angle against a big wooden chest. Scrambling up and along it on all fours like a monkey, he squeals loudly when the ladder up-ends and seesaws him down towards the ground again on the other side of the chest. Rolling, head over heels, still holding the ladder, he somehow manages to stand upright with it again, and hurries off, away from Agostino.

Agostino claps his hands together a few times. ‘Thank you, Beppe, that was perfect. Now let’s gird our loins and stiffen our sinews. It’s… time…’ He shudders. ‘… for… soup.’

Laughing, Beppe leans the ladder up against the edge of the makeshift staging. He picks up his discarded mask, and, swinging it by its leather straps, jumps down from the stage and begins to make his way over rough ground towards where four covered wagons stand grouped together beneath a large oak tree. A fire is burning in a brazier some yards from the wagons, and an iron pot hangs above the flames.

Seated near the fire, staring into the flickering light, is a handsome woman, dressed in vivid red, with a bright parti-coloured wrap around her shoulders; her hair hangs down her back. She looks up and smiles as the two men approach; reaching out behind her, she picks up two wooden bowls, then ladles soup from the iron pot into each.

‘There you are,’ she says in a voice husky from tiredness, handing them their bowls and then big torn hunks of bread. ‘Eat up. Everyone else ate earlier. I didn’t like to interrupt.’

Beppe sinks neatly to sit cross-legged on the grass near the fire next to Agostino, and places his mask down by his side. He takes the proffered bowl, spoon and bread, thanks Cosima and, avoiding Agostino’s eye, begins to eat, trying not to grimace. As expected, the soup is thin and insufficiently seasoned; the vegetables and beans in it are badly overcooked. It does, however, as he had promised Agostino, fill his empty belly. A moment later, wiping out his bowl with his bread, he places it down on the grass beside him and lies back; fingers interlocked behind his head, knees crooked up, he stares at the stars. Someone – probably Vico – is playing a guitar nearby and Lidia is singing. Beppe listens for a moment, soothed by her lilting voice.

A dog comes near, sniffing Beppe’s face, its nose cold and wet against his cheek. Beppe reaches out and begins lazily to fondle its ears. The dog sits, pressing itself up against him.

Someone sits down on his other side.

‘Rain tomorrow.’ Cosima’s voice.

Beppe turns his head towards her. ‘Why do you say that? That’s a wonderful sky.’

‘It is, isn’t it? But see over there, Beppe – see what’s on its way towards us.’ She points westwards, where a thick bulwark of ugly, stuffed-looking cloud hangs menacingly low over the horizon.

Beppe rolls onto his side and peers in the direction Cosima is pointing. He swears softly. ‘
Merda
. Probably going to pour just as we start performing on Saturday.’

The dog thumps its tail on the ground and licks Beppe’s ear.

‘Might well do, but we’re in the Piazza di Porta Ravegnana in Bologna on Saturday, aren’t we? We can work under cover there.’

Puffing out his relief, Beppe sits up. ‘Oh yes. I’d forgotten. Thank God for that.’

‘Not often we get such a sheltered spot for the stage.’

‘Not often enough, that’s for certain.’

‘And then it’s the big Correggio house outside the city in October, don’t forget… what’s it called? Franceschina. That’s it – the Castello della Franceschina.’ Agostino leans forwards and claps a hand on Beppe’s bent knee. ‘Our venues are becoming ever more prestigious, are they not? The Coraggiosi will be performing in palaces every week within the year – you mark my words, Beppe, my boy.’

Beppe smiles and shrugs. ‘Maybe so. But you know me – I’m just as happy in a piazza.’

‘What? You have no ambition,
amico,
that’s your problem!’ Agostino shakes his head. ‘Look at the Gelosi – they’re being fêted and talked about wherever they go now!’

‘Oh, the Gelosi, the Gelosi. The bloody Gelosi – they are no better than we are!’ says Vico, sitting down on the far side of Beppe.

Agostino glances across at him. Dark and wiry, Vico is scowling. ‘Vico,’ he says, ‘your loyalty to the Coraggiosi is indubitably touching, but the vile and vitriolic vituperation you aim at our nearest rival troupe at every possible opportunity seems to me to be entirely uncalled-for.’