The Girl With the Painted Face (8 page)

Sofia watches as the stocky man in the white suit, now apparently happily recovered from his earlier enforced sleep, creeps along behind the strange masked figure in the long patched jacket. Along with the crowd, she laughs as the masked man swings his ladder around too fast and whacks his companion in the backside, sending him sprawling.

‘That’s Arlecchino,’ Niccolò Zanetti says into her ear, pointing at the stage. ‘Played by my friend Beppe Bianchi – such a clever boy.’

‘Do you
know
the players, then, signore?’ Sofia whispers back, surprised.

‘Oh yes, I most certainly do. I’ve known them for years. You must come with me and meet them at the end of the show. I’ve a mind to —’

‘What’s the name of the man in the red doublet?’

Niccolò Zanetti raises an eyebrow. ‘Who? The one playing Oratio?’

Sofia’s face flames.

‘His name’s Angelo. Angelo da Bagnacavallo.’

The Arlecchino character scrambles up his ladder, which is now leaning up against a big wooden box. It up-ends and flips him downwards. Rolling head over heels along it, he pulls it with him and stands up again, looking bemused, with the ladder held upright in both hands in front of him.

The crowd cheers.

Sofia laughs, entranced by the acrobatics. ‘How on earth did he
do
that?’ she whispers to Zanetti as Arlecchino scurries off out of sight.

Niccolò Zanetti chuckles. ‘Oh, that boy can do just about anything,’ he says.

The red-doubleted Angelo strides back onto the stage holding a lantern, and at the sight of him, Sofia holds her breath. His name suits him. He is truly angelic-looking. And ‘Bagnacavallo’ – that just rolls off the tongue. He moves gracefully, too, she thinks, watching him holding the lantern high, leaning in towards where the beautiful woman in the red dress is huddled in conversation with another, taller, bearded man in a bizarre, long-nosed, strangely indecent-looking mask.

But suddenly, Angelo shakes the lantern and shouts at the bearded man, interrupting what seems to Sofia to be something of a love-tryst. The bearded man and the woman leap apart.

‘
Traitorous villain!
’ Angelo yells. ‘
Isabella is mine!
’

The bearded man spins round and draws his sword. Glancing out at the crowd, and lifting his chin in a gesture of defiant elegance, Angelo spits extravagantly onto the stage and draws his own weapon. The two men stand facing each other for a few long seconds, swords pointed towards each other’s chests.

And then the fight begins.

Several people in the audience gasp. The swords clash as the two men back-and-forth across the stage to whoops and catcalls from the crowd. Sofia holds her breath, her clasped hands in front of her mouth, hardly daring to look.

‘Remind me, in a second or two, when we’re on stage, not to give the self-opinionated little shit a good kick in the bollocks,’ Vico mutters in Beppe’s ear. ‘Otherwise I might just forget… and do it.’

Beppe raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. ‘Come on. Off we go.’ He, Vico and Lidia push through onto the stage, each holding high a small lantern. As Lidia, seeing the fight, stops dead, gasps, and holds up her hands in horror, Vico runs full tilt into the back of her. Lidia falls forwards onto hands and knees, dropping her lantern, and Vico somersaults over the top of her, rolling to land in between the two swordsmen, his lamp miraculously still held tightly in one hand.

Both swordsmen stop mid-thrust, mouths open, weapons in the air, both staring at Vico.

Vico sits up and grins at them, head swivelling from one to the other.

The crowd laughs.

Beppe, some two steps behind, pulls from his belt what looks like a narrow, two-bladed bat. Still clutching his lantern, he waves it above his head, gibbering nonsensically at Angelo and at Federico – Angelo’s bearded, long-nosed opponent. He charges forwards, leaping nimbly over Lidia, slapping the bat against his thigh. It rings out like a whip-crack and the crowd murmurs. The chattering tirade continues as Beppe dances around Angelo and Federico, waving his lamp at them, whacking his bat against his leg.

Lidia scrambles to her feet and pulls at Angelo’s sleeve. He shakes her off, pointing furiously towards a painted door in the backcloth. Lidia, hand over her mouth, scuttles away and slips off the stage through the gap in the hanging.

Beppe whacks his stick against his leg again.

Federico shouts at him, ‘
Oh, go to the devil, you ignoramus! Can’t you see that a woman’s honour is at stake here?
’

Glaring at him, Beppe points his bat at Federico and says stoutly, ‘
A woman’s honour at stake? Well… all I can see is a couple of
dis
honourable “steaks” here, who are “on a” hiding to nothing…’

‘Oh, Signor Zanetti, that was wonderful!’ Sofia says as the crowd begins to disperse. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘Have you not seen players performing before?’

Niccolò Zanetti sounds astonished, but Sofia shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I saw troupes passing through Modena on different occasions, but I never stopped to watch.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve seen them today. Come with me now, and we’ll meet them all.’ He hesitates. ‘You see, I have a suggestion for Agostino, my dear, something which occurred to me the day we met. Something which might…’ He tails off, frowning. ‘No, I won’t say now. I’ll wait and see what he…’

‘Who is Agostino?’ Sofia asks.

‘Agostino Martinelli. He runs the troupe. He plays Pedrolino – the silly one with the white face, in the baggy white suit. Agostino’s married to Cosima – the
inamorata
, that is, the beautiful woman in the lovely red dress.’

‘Married? The players are married to each other?’

Niccolò Zanetti laughs. ‘Of course – some of them are. Why should they not be?’

Feeling suddenly foolish, Sofia looks down at her dress, starting to fiddle with the cloth of the skirt. ‘I don’t know. I just didn’t think that…’

‘And no more should you have. Come on, come with me.’ He reaches out and takes Sofia’s good hand, adding as he does so, ‘And then we can have a peek at that finger of yours, and see how it’s progressing. You’ll be needing a new binding on it, if nothing else.’

Behind the stage, a confusion of bustling activity is under way. The performers are now hurrying back and forth between the stage and a number of large covered wagons. She stands and watches as they take it in turns to crouch and reach into a great space beneath the stage itself, bringing out lanterns and plates, chairs, bunches of flowers, the stuffed dog and the great plaster cake, carrying them off piece by piece towards the wagons.

The glitter and magic has vanished in the few minutes since the play ended, she thinks, watching the bustle. Most of the players have already changed out of their costumes and it seems to Sofia that, despite the daylight, it’s as though a candle has been snuffed out and the vivid colours of the performance have faded to grey. The men who were wearing masks have now removed them; their hair is damp and spiked, and to Sofia, their faces now seem small and squashed after the oversized features of the masks.

The servant girl, leaning backwards now against the weight of the big wooden box she is carrying, sees her staring and smiles. Sofia smiles shyly back, realizing that, close to, she is much older than Sofia first thought. This is more a woman than a girl – she has to be at least twice Sofia’s own age, if not even a little more. Close to, the woman’s pale face and heavily painted eyes, which are now smudged and sweat-loosened, look exaggerated, even grotesque.

Sofia scans from face to face, looking covertly for the red-doubleted Angelo, but he is nowhere to be seen. She catches the eye of the young man who, though now dressed in a tattered, untucked shirt, is still wearing his diamond-patched leggings – what was it Signor Zanetti said his name was? His short hair is standing on end – he has clearly run his fingers through it a number of times – and he looks tired, she thinks, but, on meeting her gaze, his eyebrows lift and he flicks her a brief smile. His eyes, she sees with a little jolt of her insides, now that the mask has gone, are wide and dark brown, and his smile is warm and broad and uneven, tilting up a little more on one side than the other.

‘Sofia, come here and meet Signor Martinelli,’ Niccolò Zanetti says then. Sofia, who is still watching the boy with the tilted smile, starts and turns towards where Signor Zanetti is standing next to a stocky man with grey hair and a now smeared and blurred white-painted face. His hair too is on end. The young man in the diamond-patterned leggings picks up a wooden box and moves away.

‘Here she is, Agostino, here she is! Signorina Genotti,’ Niccolò Zanetti says, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘Sofia Genotti. The seamstress-in-training I was telling you about.’

Agostino cuts across Zanetti. ‘This is the girl?’ He beams. ‘Oh, how entirely marvellous!’

Sofia blushes as Agostino continues, ‘Signorina, you might just be the answer to a particularly heartfelt prayer. We are sorely in need of a seamstress – see here…’ He turns away from her, lifting an elbow, and Sofia sees a long rent in the side-seam of his ballooning white smock. Poking his fingers into it, he spreads them out, making the rent gape. Sofia sees skin beneath the cloth and is momentarily embarrassed at the unsought intimacy.

‘Look at that!’ Agostino says, shaking his head. ‘Just happened tonight. And poor Cosima’s dress is almost in
pieces
– being held together with the barest
web
of threads.’ He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I have to admit that we are struggling to keep our costumes together. To my shame, we’re becoming more threadbare and shabby with every performance.’ Pausing, he adds, ‘None of us is gifted with a needle. Something simply has to be done.’

‘Agostino has complained about this often, and so, the moment I met you in Modena and learned your story, I thought —’ Niccolò Zanetti begins, turning to Sofia.

‘You did – and it was an excellent thought indeed!’ Agostino interrupts. He leans forwards. ‘My dear, Signor Zanetti has just told me all about you. He’s made me a suggestion, and so now I have a proposition for you. A preposterous but perfect proposition. Tell me what you think of it. We are here in Bologna for three or four days, so… so might you see your way to spending a little time with us here in the city and working on these damned costumes for us, getting them fit to be used? In return for a small remuneration, of course. We haven’t a great deal to offer, but will pay you what we can.’

Sofia’s mouth opens. She looks from Signor Martinelli to Niccolò Zanetti and from him to her bandaged hand. Poking at her broken finger, it is still hot and tight and sore. ‘Oh, signori – oh God, I’d like nothing better. I truly, truly cannot think of anything I’d rather do, but…’ She pauses, and despairing tears begin to prickle in her nose. ‘I’m not sure that I can. It’s my hand… I hurt my hand last week. My finger might be broken. And I don’t think I can…’

Agostino frowns. ‘Broken?’

Sofia nods.

Niccolò Zanetti clears his throat. ‘Let me take another look at it for you. If it’s a sprain, it’ll certainly be on the mend.’

Sofia swallows. ‘Now?’

‘Why not? Let’s see what state it’s in, shall we?’ He begins to unwrap the binding around Sofia’s fingers. The tuft of dirty wool falls to the ground from between the two fingers as the linen strip unwinds and dangles, limp and stained; the final few inches come away and the strip too drops to the ground to lie sadly on the cobbles.

Zanetti takes Sofia’s hand in his and examines it.

The sore finger is a greyish purple. Sofia turns her hand over; the bruising is darker on the underside, and the swelling more obvious. Slowly, holding her breath and grimacing against possible pain, she attempts to bend it.

‘Oh, this looks much better than I had feared it might, my dear,’ Zanetti says.

‘But it still won’t move properly and I… oh God… I don’t think I can sew with it yet.’ As the thought of the opportunity which is about to pass her by settles on Sofia like a sodden blanket, she bites the inside of her cheek, fighting tears, pressing the back of her good hand against her mouth.

7

Angelo da Bagnacavallo climbs out of the largest of the Coraggiosi’s wagons. They all seem preoccupied, he thinks, watching them clustering around the little apothecary and whoever that girl is. She’s pretty. Bedraggled and grubby perhaps, but very pretty, nonetheless. That mouth of hers is ripe and ready. Perhaps he should stay for a while longer, and find out more about her. Blowing out his cheeks, he puffs a soft breath, tapping his lips with a finger, staring back at the troupe, trying to decide.

Maybe it would be better to introduce himself to the girl before he goes? He ought to make sure that bastard Beppe doesn’t move in and attract her attention, apart from anything else.

But then – he has arranged to see Sebastiano before dusk.

He has to see him: after today, Sebastiano will be back at Franceschina, and the troupe will have moved on, and he, Angelo, will be literally tearing his hair from his scalp. He cannot wait. The Coraggiosi won’t be performing at Franceschina for several weeks. Even thinking about having to wait that long makes him itch. He cannot do it.