The Girl with the Painted Face Read online

  Sofia’s hands are over her mouth.

  ‘They both fell to the ground and rolled over and over and that knife was flashing in the torchlight, and then it got dropped and picked up again, and I don’t know exactly what happened, but someone cried out – this terrible, animal howl – and I thought it was Papa. I thought he’d been stabbed. But it wasn’t. It was the other man, and Papa had knifed him.’

  Beppe swallows and draws in a long, trembling breath.

  ‘He died – that other man – died in a lake of his own blood. There in the castle kitchen. And they took Papa away and said that he had murdered him.’ He shakes his head. ‘But he wasn’t a murderer. He was trying to save his own life. I saw it all.’ His voice cracks as he adds, ‘And Angelo saw it too, and he knew what the truth of it was, and he could have spoken up – I still think he could have stopped what happened. I couldn’t do a thing, but him, with his father being who he is, he could have stopped it. He didn’t, though. He said nothing.’

  ‘Oh, Beppe.’ Sofia’s voice comes out as a cracked whisper. ‘What did happen?’

  ‘They locked Papa up. There was some sort of trial, I suppose, but it was all behind closed doors and I had no idea what was said. First I heard, they were talking about hanging him, but right up until the last moment, the rumours were rife that they were planning on commuting the term to banishment. A couple of other people had been banished instead of hanged, and I thought it would be the same for Papa. I had our bags packed and I was ready to meet him and leave the area. I didn’t know where we’d go – I just wanted to get us both away. But whether they changed their minds, or whether it had been planned that way all along, the moment came and… rather than release him, they hustled him out, past where I was standing waiting, to the outskirts of the city where they’d scrambled together a makeshift gibbet. And they hanged him there. In front of me. They didn’t do it very well… and he took most of the morning to die.’

  Beppe looks upwards and swallows. The undignified jostling of the howling crowd as they pushed and barged along the short road to the gibbet is as clear in his head as the day it happened: his father all but insensible with terror in their midst, panting and whimpering, his feet dragging in the dust. Beppe clutches the bags he has packed, watching helplessly from the side of the road. And then come those terrible, sickening jerks and twitches as his father hangs, pissing and shitting himself, his face darkening, his neck stretching out beyond the believable – on and on for what seemed like hours.

  ‘I struggled to reach him, pushing at the crowds, trying to get through. God, it sounds so terrible, but I wanted to tug down on his legs to finish it all quickly, but they fought me back, kept me away from him. I was only twelve – there wasn’t much I could do. I couldn’t bear to look but couldn’t make myself turn away. And Angelo was there. He stood there and watched it all. I saw him, a little way off. I know he could have stopped it. He could have gone to his father.

  ‘They left his body up on the gibbet… for nearly three weeks,’ he says to the sky. ‘Food for crows, they told me he’d be. An example to everyone. And they grinned at me when they said it. He stayed there until finally he was unrecognizable even as a human being, and then – only then – did they let me cut him down.’ He hesitates, trying to push from his mind the truly unbearable image – the worst one of all. This one he cannot describe aloud.

  Nausea is thick in his throat and he retches as he climbs onto an upturned barrel he has dragged from a nearby tavern. The body turns slightly in the breeze – this thing that was once his father – and the eyeless, shredded, dark red face glares at him for a moment, sighing out a smell of rotting meat. His breath coming in short, sickened gasps, Beppe screws his eyes shut and reaches up above the body, grabbing hold of the rope in one hand. He holds a short-bladed knife in the other, and with this he begins sawing at the rain-stiffened rope. It takes several minutes, longer than it might because he has to keep stopping and turning away to breathe, not wanting to inhale the foul odours of the body, but after what seems a lifetime, several strands of the rope give way at once and the body lurches downwards.

  Beppe smothers a sob.

  Crying openly now, he resumes his work with the knife; the final strands are severed and the body drops to the ground, flopping against the side of the barrel and almost knocking him backwards.

  He wipes his eyes and nose with the heel of one hand.

  ‘Poor Papa. He had many faults, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.’

  Her face now glazed with tears, Sofia puts her arms around him and holds him tightly. His cheek on her hair, they stand close-clasped for several minutes.

  ‘I had had to leave the castle, of course, as soon as my father died,’ Beppe says into Sofia’s hair. ‘There was no job there for me – God, I wouldn’t have stayed if there was! I couldn’t wait to get away from the place.’

  ‘What did you do? How did you live?’

  ‘I stayed nearby until… until… until they let me have the body. One of the castle groundsmen let me stay with him. Felt sorry for me, I suppose. I went every day to the podestà to ask if I could cut Papa down – I hardly ever dared go near the body, though. I’d look from a distance, feeling sick, apologizing to him, telling him I loved him. Then… after… I took myself back to Bergamo. We’d lived there before, and my mother’s parents were there and I went to them. I didn’t see Angelo again for years – not until the moment I realized just who our new and handsome inamorato really was when he presented himself to the troupe a couple of years ago. The recognition was as unpleasant for him as for me, I reckon.’

  Sofia’s mind is teeming with horrible images she cannot banish, and Beppe’s description of his father’s last appalling moments is ringing in her head. She says, ‘How long after your father… died… did you decide to be an actor?’

  ‘Not long. The Gelosi came to Bergamo that summer and that was the first time I’d ever seen a troupe perform. I’d always been able to tumble and juggle and that, and the moment I saw their Arlecchino, I knew that was what I had to do – who I had to be. It’ll sound strange perhaps, but after everything that had happened, I wanted to laugh. Wanted to make other people laugh. I needed to be funny. And – there’s another thing. I liked the fact that I would be able to hide behind that mask.’ He pauses. ‘I asked them straight out if I could join them, but they said no.’

  ‘Why?’

  Shrugging again, Beppe says, ‘I knew before I asked that they’d refuse. I didn’t want to play any other character than Arlecchino, so I knew there’d be no place for me.’ He smiles ruefully. ‘I asked anyway though, just in case their Arlecchino – he’s still with them: a brilliant man called Simone da Bologna – might have said he was thinking of leaving. But of course he wasn’t.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Nothing – till the following year. The Coraggiosi came to the town, and I went to three of their shows – followed them right out to Brescia in fact, pleading with them a dozen times a day to take me on.’ He huffs a short laugh. ‘I must have looked so pathetic: demonstrating my juggling and dancing and tumbling for them right there in the street, over and over again. I think they took me on to shut me up, in the end.’

  Sofia presses in against Beppe’s side, relishing the weight of his arm across her shoulders. ‘But what about their old Arlecchino? What did he think of you being taken on?’

  ‘It was a bit like with you and Lidia, I suppose. He was outgrowing the role, getting too old to manage all the lazzi, and I think he was really glad to go, in the end. He lives in Ravenna now; we see him from time to time when we pass through.’

  ‘But when Angelo turned up and you realized who he was, what did you think? What did you do? Did you tell Agostino about him? Why did Angelo stay when he realized who you were? Did you think about leaving?’

  Sucking in a long, long, shivering breath, and speaking through it as it sighs out again, Beppe stares back up at the sky. ‘I had no idea it was hi
m at first. We’d both changed so much since we had last seen each other – I’d only been twelve, and he thirteen or so when I left the Castello dei Fiori. He had already signed over his money to Ago before we found out each other’s names and he realized who I was. Lidia told me she’d heard him pleading with Ago to take him – he was so desperate to join a troupe and had apparently tried several, including the Gelosi, but no one had had room for him. We didn’t either, really, but we were so short of money it seemed like a godsend, Ago said later. I suppose after making such a fuss, Angelo would have felt ridiculous saying he wanted to leave again straight away.’

  Sofia nods, believing this. ‘Why didn’t you tell Ago though? Why didn’t you say what had happened?’

  Beppe pushes his fingers up into his hair. ‘You want the simple truth? I was afraid to. I hadn’t been with the troupe that long myself. I was afraid Ago might tell me to leave rather than the son of a cousin of the Duke of Ferrara, who had just given him a dirty great bagful of scudi. I could imagine him not wanting the scandal of a murder to affect the troupe’s reputation. So I said nothing.’ He pauses. ‘I’ve never told anyone any of this in fact.’

  Tears are slick on Sofia’s cheeks, and she is shivering. The night air is chilly. Realizing how cold she is, Beppe stops. Unfastening the laces of his old doeskin doublet, he takes it off and wraps it around Sofia’s shoulders. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘let’s go back. You’re frozen.’

  Relishing the quiet intimacy of the tree-lined pathway, though, Sofia is reluctant to return to the bustle of the tavern. ‘Do we have to? I’d rather stay out here with you.’

  Beppe stares at her. ‘God, I’m so glad you ran into Niccolò that day, little seamstress. I don’t know what I’d do without you now.’ He tilts his head sideways and kisses her, putting his hands inside the doublet, which hangs oversized, sleeves dangling. Sofia presses up against him, wrapping her arms tightly around him, and the doublet slips off her shoulders and falls to the ground. His mouth is on hers and he is stroking her hair, her neck, her shoulders, her arms, kissing her as though he cannot get enough of her – and then he slides one hand around onto the tightly laced, stiffened front of her dress. He stops. Looks at her. Runs a finger along inside the top edge of the bodice, pulling it gently outwards. He swallows. ‘We do really need that quiet corner I mentioned before,’ he says softly. ‘We can try and find somewhere when the others go to bed.’

  Sofia’s eyes widen.

  Vico and Federico are both smirking when Beppe and Sofia appear in the doorway to the tavern a little while later, their grins widening as the pair cross the tavern: she and Beppe have clearly been the subject of recent discussion. Sofia sees Lidia nudge Vico hard with her elbow and frown at him. Squeezing her fingers, Beppe says quietly, ‘Go and sit with Lidia and Cosima, will you? I’m really not in the mood for Vico’s jokes. We’ll find our private place later, when they all go to bed.’

  ‘Been taking the air, have you, amici?’ Vico says loudly, the tip of his tongue pushing a bulge out into the curve of his cheek.

  Beppe answers flippantly as Sofia edges in behind the far end of the table, and Lidia shifts along to let her sit down. She raises an eyebrow, and Sofia can feel herself blushing, but Lidia says nothing.

  The evening has stretched into night, the tavern fire is no more than cooling ashes and all but a couple of the drinkers have left the building. The Montalbano ale-man is wiping his tables with a grubby grey cloth and an air of detached fatigue. As the room has emptied, the Coraggiosi have quietened and their conversations are now little more than muttered asides. Giovanni Battista is asleep at the table, snoring, his grizzled head on his arms.

  Beppe is watching Sofia. She is leaning against Lidia, her feet curled up under her; her eyes are dark-rimmed and heavy-lidded with tiredness, and her cheeks have pinked up from the earlier heat of the fire. She has been watching him covertly ever since they came in from outside and every time she has caught his eye, his guts have turned over on themselves. She looks very young, very sweet and very pretty, he thinks – and he wants her very badly. Her tenderness as she clung to him after his terrible admissions earlier on has moved him, and his wish to wrap himself around her and make her a part of himself is becoming almost painful in its intensity.

  He cannot wait to be alone with her; he is longing for this endless evening to end and for everyone to leave the two of them in peace. The familiar jumble of bodies he knows there will be in the tavern rooms upstairs when they all go up will be unbearable to him tonight – like tight-pressed puppies in their dam’s nest, they’ll be at least three or four to a bed, breathing, snoring, rustling, fidgeting – and on top of that he doesn’t know in which room Angelo may already have settled himself. His company would be particularly unwelcome. He and Sofia will definitely have to search out some quiet space where they can be alone.

  He does not think he can wait much longer.

  In all the nights that Sofia has been with the troupe, as he told her after the show in Malalbergo, he has deliberately not lain next to her, wherever they have been staying, be that wagon or tavern or stable. To be in close proximity to her and not reach out for her, to feel the warmth of her body next to his and not respond: it would have been impossible. And so he has resisted, he has avoided temptation and kept away, not wanting to rush her, not wanting to make her anxious, not being sure how she felt until the other day. But now… now that they have kissed so intensely, now that he has learned what her small and pliant body feels like in his arms, now that he is certain that Sofia wants him as much as he wants her… that has made everything feel very different.

  It is getting ever harder for him to sit still – one leg is twitching, he has chewed the skin around his thumbnail until it is sore, and has shredded at least three pieces of bread into crumbs which now lie scattered across the table in front of him. Somehow managing to join in the various conversations which are still quietly buzzing, Beppe sweeps the crumbs up into little piles, scatters them again, re-forms them; then he swirls a shining pattern of spilled ale around them with his finger, glancing over at Sofia every few seconds.

  Finally, after what seems to him like hours, the troupe get to their feet, shrugging on doublets, hitching crumpled breeches and skirts, rubbing tired eyes and smothering yawns. Seeing Sofia watching him, Beppe raises his eyebrows at her and, with the smallest jerk of his chin, asks her to wait for him. He sees her nod once and, as she comes over to him, he strokes down the back of her hand, hooking her index finger up with his own. His heart thudding uncomfortably, he is about to tell her to go up with the others, and then to make some excuse to return back down here to the tavern room, when Vico, coming up behind her with Lidia, puts an arm around Sofia’s shoulders and scoops her away from him, starting to shepherd her towards the door to the stairs. ‘Come on, cara,’ he says, ‘we’ll find you a comfortable spot. Place like this, with decent beds, it’s always worthwhile getting up there quickly so that you can choose where you sleep. Isn’t it, Beppe?’ He turns to him. ‘Coming?’

  Breathless with flaring irritation, Beppe sees the smirk firmly in place on his friend’s face and notes the startled anxiety on Sofia’s. He hesitates. If he openly challenges Vico now, squashes him with a joke, as he knows he could; if he were to snatch Sofia away from Vico and tell him that the two of them are planning on finding a place to sleep elsewhere… alone… then he is almost certain that Sofia’s embarrassment will smother any desire she might be feeling: it would no doubt put paid to any… any intimacy they might have in mind. It will spoil everything. Bloody Vico. Fond as he is of him, Beppe would like nothing more than to floor his friend with a well-aimed punch right now, but, swallowing down his frustration, he manages a semblance of a grin and, reaching out, he takes Sofia’s hand. Squeezing it, in what he hopes will feel like reassurance, he says, ‘He’s quite right, cara. We don’t want to let Federico or Giovanni Battista take all the best places. Come on.’

  17

  Sebastiano da Corre
ggio stares down at Maddalena, who lies curled on the floor at his feet, her arms wrapped protectively around her belly. ‘You have to be mistaken.’

  Maddalena does not reply.

  Sebastiano kicks her hard in the hip with the flat of the sole of his boot. She cries out, but he takes no notice. ‘Get up!’ he says, his voice cracking. ‘Grovelling on the floor like a stricken bitch won’t achieve anything.’