The Girl with the Painted Face Page 6

  Agostino draws in a long, long, shuddering breath, closing his eyes and pushing his fingers up into his hair. Beppe flips the walking stick up vertically into the air and catches it one-handed as it falls back down.

  Pointing at his actors with an accusatory finger, but smiling as he does so, Agostino says, ‘Go on, get yourselves dressed then! We start when the church clock chimes two.’

  There seems to be a new purpose to the jostling of the crowd, Sofia thinks. Having spent the morning wandering through the great piazza, gazing at the riotous and colourful stalls, listening to the vendors and purchasers arguing and haggling, she has been pushing to the back of her mind, over and over again, the fears that have lurked like hooded intruders in the shadows of her consciousness since her flight from Modena. She has just spent two of Alberto’s precious coins on a slice of cooked pork, an apricot and a small flagon of ale, and has been sitting for several minutes on a stone ledge at the bottom of one of the piazza’s long colonnades to eat her purchases. She is cold again, and her finger aches; she wants to unwrap Signor Zanetti’s binding and see how it is healing, but has so far resisted temptation, afraid of not being able to refasten it once she has inspected the damage. Pulling the binding outwards at the top end and peering in at her fingertips, all she has been able to establish is that the finger is darkly bruised, and still considerably swollen. The tuft of wool smells quite strongly now – Sofia sniffs at it and pulls a face.

  She watches the bustle of people moving through the piazza, everyone now seemingly heading out towards the north-eastern corner. Men and women are talking and laughing together, sounding excited, happy. Getting to her feet and brushing crumbs from her skirt, she begins to walk with them, listening to the jumble of conversations around her.

  ‘I saw them last summer – yes, right at the end of the summer, I think it was. Early September. I know it wasn’t as warm as it might have been.’

  ‘A little like today, then. What did you think?’

  ‘Marvellous. Cara, you were with me, were you not?’

  ‘I most certainly was. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’

  ‘To be quite honest, I’d say they’re as good as the Gelosi…’

  ‘You’ve seen the Gelosi? Lord, you are lucky indeed! When?’

  ‘Oh, God knows… two, three years ago? They were superb.’

  Sofia walks in step some two or three paces behind these conversationalists: four fashionably dressed women, animated and eager, each clearly relishing the prospect of whatever it is they are preparing to do.

  Who or what, she wonders, are the Gelosi?

  One of the women laughs then at a remark Sofia has missed. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure she was delighted. The Coraggiosi’s inamorato has to be quite the most beautiful man I think I’ve ever seen!’

  ‘He’s adorable, isn’t he? I can’t wait to see him again today.’

  Much taken with the idea of seeing this paragon for herself, Sofia quickens her pace.

  The Piazza di Porta Ravegnana is already teeming with people when she arrives there. She stares around her. Dominating the square are the Two Towers: close together, impossibly tall and narrow and decidedly mismatched. One of them leans drunkenly out to one side and they loom over the burgeoning crowd like a pair of giant, inebriated stilt-walkers.

  And, out in front of the towers, is a stage. The size of a large room, with a busy street scene painted on a cloth at the back, it stands at chest-height above the cobbles, and curtains hang down from it right to the ground; several dozen people have already grouped themselves in front of it, and, even as Sofia watches, another twenty or so join them. Up on the stage itself, three chairs have been grouped to one side as though a small house party has recently broken up and the guests have just departed, and a broom stands propped against a painted archway.

  More and more people are arriving now, and the piazza is becoming almost uncomfortably crowded. Sofia edges her way through towards the front, determined now to find herself a place where she will be able to see the action of the play when it begins. Finding a spot some ten feet from the front edge of the stage, she gazes about her, happily infected by the general air of enthusiastic anticipation.

  ‘Hey! Signorina! Signorina Genotti!’

  Shocked at hearing her own name, Sofia spins around. The voice came from the crowd to her left. She stares towards where she thought she heard it and it comes again. ‘Over here! Signorina!’

  6

  Turning further around, she sees him. In his tall black hat, smiling broadly, Niccolò Zanetti, the little apothecary, edges his way through the crowd towards her, saying, ‘Oh, my dear, how pleased I am to see you.’

  Sofia tries to speak, but finds she cannot – her words just stretch out into a smile.

  ‘You disappeared so quickly back in Modena, I didn’t have an opportunity either to bid you a proper farewell, or to offer you my… well, perhaps “hospitality” is too grand a word for it, but I had intended to ask you if you would care to ride out of town with me in my little cart, and there was to be a blanket for you to wrap yourself in for the night. I had had an idea, you see, and…’

  Sofia puts her hand in front of her mouth.

  Niccolò Zanetti says, ‘You ran off so fast. But what have you been doing since that day?’ He hesitates. ‘Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, my dear, but I think it’s safe to say that, looking at you now, these past few days cannot have been easy…’

  Sofia feels herself reddening. She stares fixedly at the ground, seeing, as though through Signor Zanetti’s eyes, her filthy dress and ruined shoes, and her tangled, dirty hair.

  Niccolò Zanetti takes her hand and lifts it, touching the stained binding around her fingers. ‘Listen, child, I —’

  He breaks off. Sofia looks up. The crowd’s loud murmuring dies to a hum, and then to silence.

  Zanetti whispers, ‘We’ll talk later. They’re about to begin.’

  Sofia stares up at the stage.

  Two women slip out from behind the painted backdrop, followed by a stocky man in a baggy white suit and hat. The man’s face is painted white; his head bobs back and forth like a chicken’s as he walks and his elbows splay out sideways. One of the two women is strikingly beautiful; she is, Sofia sees now, dressed in a richly embroidered red gown, her hair is piled high in a mass of complicated curls and braids, and jewels glitter at her throat and on her fingers. The other woman – smaller, plumper, quicker in her movements – is dressed more simply. A servant, perhaps.

  Although not as starkly white as the chicken-walk man, both the women’s faces are clearly much paler than nature intended – paler certainly than their hands – with enormous eyes and reddened lips.

  The beautiful woman pulls her companion aside and, jerking her head back towards the man, she hiss-whispers, ‘He’ll be asleep soon.’

  ‘Let’s hope so!’ the little servant girl says, peering over her shoulder. ‘With the amount of potion I’ve just given him, I’m amazed the fat fool’s still on his feet.’

  Even as she speaks, though, the man begins to sway and stagger, yawning widely and stretching his arms out sideways. A laugh slithers through the crowd.

  ‘As soon as he drops, go and find Oratio! Be as quick as you can!’

  ‘Oh, I will – I’ll run like the wind, signora!’

  Sofia stares up at the stage, entranced.

  Behind the backcloth, a few moments later, Beppe is listening to the lines being spoken on the stage, where Vico and Angelo are deep in conversation: just a minute or two until his entrance. Staring up at the cloud-heavy sky, he breathes slowly and deliberately. He stretches and flexes his fingers, his arms, rolls his shoulders, crouches and stands again several times, bends each leg up in turn and hugs it against his belly. Bouncing gently on the balls of his feet, he touches the fastenings of his mask and adjusts the position of his black hat, pushing it to sit a little further back on his head.

  He checks the gilt-framed board, running his finger d
own the various scraps of paper – the canovaccii – on which are written the instructions for every scene in the play. Finding the one he needs, he reads it, although he already knows by heart what it contains, then he taps it with a finger as though dismissing its services.

  Agostino, in his baggy white suit, climbs up to stand behind Beppe; he smiles, and Beppe gives him a swift grin in return. Reaching out for his ladder, Beppe picks it up and tucks it under his arm. As Vico and Angelo come back out, Beppe pauses for a second, then, crouching slightly, edges the end of the ladder out through the gap in the cloth and steps onto the stage, each foot raised high at each step, eyes wide behind the mask, peering around him fearfully.

  The crowd murmurs.

  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 dishonourable “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 old
er 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.