Mozart’s Blood (13 page)

Now the
musico
's grin reappeared. “When they need someone with long breath and fast notes, I do,” he said. “And they don't mind my other—hmm—let us say, shortcomings.”

His smile encouraged Teresa. She began to smile, too, and she put out her gloved hand. “I am Teresa Saporiti,” she said. “Your newest and most ardent admirer.”

He took her hand and bowed over it. “Signorina. Vincenzo dal Prato,
al suo servizio.
And I never have enough admirers.”

Ugo was no stranger to pain. Beginning with that first, slashing pain that fully revealed his other nature for the first time, pain had pursued him.

It wasn't always his own. More often it belonged to others, and he was responsible for a fair amount of it. He took no pleasure in making people suffer. Even though his victims were invariably fools, of little use to themselves or anyone else, hurting them gave him no sense of satisfaction. What he mostly felt was resignation.

Ugo had always found there was something musical about pain. It had rhythm and tempo and color. Different kinds of pain had different timbres, different sonorities. And like hearing a piece of music again and again, until it was as familiar as an old friend, there was yet something new in each experience.

In the basement room, Domenico asked him one more time before the symphony of pain commenced. “Where are they?” he demanded. “Where do they hide their compound?”

Ugo shook his head. “You don't want to know this, my friend.”

Benson, eager to begin Ugo's torment, hauled him off the floor by one arm and shoved him onto the bare mattress. He pulled a nasty-looking pair of pliers from his case, and he brandished it, grinning, showing an expanse of gum and crooked brown teeth.

Ugo managed a shrug, though his gut quivered with a nauseous expectation. “I did warn you, my poor Benson,” he said. “I hope you'll remember that.”

For answer, Benson snarled something wordless and seized Ugo's foot.

Domenico headed for the door. He didn't look back as he knocked and waited for Marks to let him out.

Benson wielded the pliers, probing at Ugo's toes, eyeing his victim for a response.

“Such a cliché,” Ugo had said. “Nails? Surely you can think of something—” He broke off, grunting.

This was a focused sort of pain, like the skree of an untuned violin. His stomach clenched as the nail gave way, and a burst of perspiration ran down his forehead and into his hair. The straps bit into his wrists as his body heaved. When the spasm released, he drew a noisy breath. “Something more original,” he finished, panting. Blood dribbled hotly over his foot. “Use your imagination.”

For answer, Benson slapped him, making his teeth rattle.

“Oh, yes,” Ugo crooned. “Subtle. Like your hairdo.”

Benson slammed a fist against his cheekbone, a blow of sheer brute violence like the crash of cymbals, or the blare of a whole row of trombones.

Benson twirled the pliers in his fingers and glared at Ugo. Blood spattered his muscle shirt, and his bald skull was slick with sweat. “All this can stop any time.”

“And spoil your fun?”

Benson leaned forward, pressing the nose of the pliers into the sole of Ugo's foot. “Look, you little fag,” he snarled. “We get what we want, or you die. Simple as that.”

“You think you want it, my dear Benson,” Ugo said wearily. “You would regret it.”

“Regret living forever? Who could regret that?”

Ugo managed a breathless laugh. “Who promised you that? You won't live forever, Benson. Not you.”

The pliers pressed harder, until Ugo felt the skin break and a fresh trickle of blood begin. “Why not me?” Benson snapped. “Not good enough for you?”

“Esatto,”
Ugo murmured. “Not good enough.”

Benson swore and reached for a fresh tool.

He proceeded through his case, trying this instrument and that, growing more and more desperate as the air in the room grew rank with the smell of blood and sweat and desperation. When he brought out the nipple clamps Ugo said, with a choking laugh, “Oh, my God, Benson. You've been visiting those sex shops again.”

The barb elicited a kick that sent waves of pain through his ribs. Ugo writhed and swore in Italian, thinking of the
forte
passages of the big symphonies of Khachaturian or Mahler. Perspiration poured from him, soaking his shirt and his hair. When the spasm passed, he lay back and regarded Benson from beneath lowered eyelids. He said hoarsely, “Almost there,
mio amico.
Almost. But not quite.”

Benson tried a cigarette lighter. The smell of branded skin filled the little room and drove Benson out. Marks came in his place and stood staring down at Ugo, shirtless now, bleeding from his chest and his toes and from a particularly nasty laceration of his navel.

“Stinks in here,” Marks said.

“Veramente?”
Ugo answered. “I hadn't noticed. It's awfully hot, though.”

In truth, he was burning with thirst, but he saw no point in saying so. At least being thirsty meant he wasn't going to wet himself. Not that it would bother him, but the smell was already oppressive.

His nostrils twitched hopefully. If his sense of smell was growing sharper, maybe…

Before he completed the thought, Benson returned, and Domenico came with him.

Ugo said through gritted teeth, “Domenico. My new friend. Where have you been? You've missed all the fun.” With difficulty, the straps making him awkward, he pushed himself upright, grunting at the agony in his ribs.

Domenico, his face drawn and his eyes bloodshot, stood as far from the fouled cot as he could in the confined space. He looked as if he hadn't slept any more than Ugo had.

Ugo regarded the three of them, standing in a row like boys in a bad Gilbert and Sullivan. He wished, for a moment, that he could just tell them. It would be such a pleasure to watch the elders destroy them.

But La Società would not like that. They wouldn't like it at all.

He licked his lips and swallowed, striving for some moisture to wet his tongue. “Come now,” he said. “If you can't stand to watch this little display, dear Domenico, how will you ever have the guts to deal with the elders?”

“I can stand it,” Domenico said. He grinned. “I'd do it myself if Benson didn't enjoy it so much.”

Ugo closed his eyes, assessing himself. His chest felt as if it were on fire. Benson had burned his hands, then his chin. His navel bled. His toes ached, and his ribs. He hurt, and he hurt a lot. But it was not yet enough.

Closer, though,
he thought.
We're getting closer.

Benson's eyes were hollow, and sweat streamed down his naked skull. “Anybody else would have given in by now,” he said.

“Are you whining, Benson?” Ugo said. “But I'm the one on this cot. Domenico, my dear friend, surely you realize the elders would tear your heart out before they let a cretin like this into the society!”

“Shut up,” Domenico said. He took a step closer. “Come on, Ugo, put an end to this. I'm tired, so you must be. And I'm not bleeding.”

“You have all your toenails, too,” Ugo said. “Something happened to mine.”

Benson dropped the pliers and reached into his case for something else. His lips pulled back in a forced grin, showing his expanse of pale gums as he held it up to show Ugo. It was an electroshock baton. The price tag still hung from the handle.

“Oh, a brand new toy,” Ugo breathed. “Lucky boy.”

Benson's grin wavered. Domenico came closer. “You idiot, ignore him!” he snapped. “Use the damn thing!”

An hour passed, and the crescendo of pain swelled. Ugo tried to give himself up to it, to hurry things along. He made no effort to hold back his moans or the gasps that burst from him. But he was still himself when Benson, with a curse, flung the shock baton on the floor.

“It's no good!” he spat. “The guy's not human!”

Ugo saw Domenico's fist clench. Benson saw it, too, and took a swift step backward, out of reach. “Of course he's not human,” Domenico hissed. “That's the whole fucking point.”

Benson's lips opened, but it seemed he had no answer.

Domenico leaned over the bloody cot, his hair dark with sweat. His breath was sour with fury and urgency. “I want to know how to find them,” he said. “And you're going to tell me. I won't stop until then.”

He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a small, flat object wrapped in white paper. He kept an eye on Ugo as he tore off the paper, revealing a small, gleaming knife.

Ugo felt the itching begin on his chest, and he kept his face still to hide his rush of satisfaction. Through dry lips, he croaked, “Oh,
bravo,
my friend. A scalpel. I hope you didn't harm the doctor.”

“Surgical supply,” Domenico grated. He held the blade out as he approached the cot. “Get his pants off, Benson,” he said.

Benson said stupidly, “His pants?”

“His pants!” Domenico shouted. “Damn it, what do you think the scalpel is for? We'll see what he thinks about losing a testicle!”

Ugo began to laugh.

During a break in the staging rehearsal, Octavia slipped away from the little group sipping
cappuccino
in the canteen under the ellipse. She paced the corridor, twisting her scarf between her hands, and counted back the days since her infusion in New York. It was only five. She should be all right. She should be able to make it ten days with ease, though it had been a long time since that had been necessary.

Before Ugo's coming, thirst was always her greatest worry. It was not only in San Francisco that Hélène had gotten in trouble. She had been dismissed from a cast in Chicago for missing a performance. There had been other near things, and not only for Hélène. Teresa, sailing on a private yacht from Naples to Venice, had not dared to use the tooth on board. By the time she disem-barked, she was desperate. When she fed at last, in the shadows of the Ponte di Rialto, she took too much. She never forgot her victim's woebegone face as his breath faltered and his heart ceased to beat.

Indeed, she remembered the face of every person who had not survived the tooth. Those faces haunted her sleep. Her perfect memory resisted all attempts to edit them out.

But now, with fond nostalgia, she was remembering Vincenzo del Prato. The
castrato
's plump, sweet features were as fresh in her mind as the day she met him.

She wandered out of the ellipse, through the stage door, and into the empty theater. She stood for a moment in the orchestra, looking up at the
loggione
far above. Just so she had stood that very first day she had been allowed at last to enter La Scala, vouchsafed by Vincenzo. The restoration of the old theater was so faithful that it hardly seemed possible her old friend was not still here. She thought if she turned, just so, she would see him standing center stage, winking at her during his bows as he had done the last time she saw him alive.

She sighed and tipped her head up to gaze past the soaring façade of four balconies to the sculpted trompe l'oeil ceiling with its splendid chandelier. There was a hidden passageway there, in the rafters of the theater, where compassionate Milanese had stowed Jews to save them from being sent to the internment camps. In 1943, the Allies had inadvertently bombed La Scala, smashing its roof and the upper levels to dust. Yet now it was restored to its glory, its history retained. The theater's memory was even longer than Octavia's.

Impulsively, she strode up the aisle toward the lobby, winding her scarf around her neck as she walked. She ran lightly up the stairs to where the
palchi
ringed the first balcony. She wanted to step into one of the boxes. She thought if she could simply sink into a plush chair and gaze out into the theater, she would feel calmer. She tried several doors to the boxes, but they were all locked.

She wandered along the marble corridor, glancing into the reception room, trailing her fingers along the wall. She had been in Australia in 1943. Vivian Anderson was at the Theatre Royal in Sydney, and she and the rest of the cast had heard the account of the destruction of La Scala on the wireless. Vivian bought a
Times
and pored over the newspaper, trying to find out how bad the damage was.

“Vivian,” someone asked her, glancing over her shoulder. “Have you sung in Milan?”

She bit her lip and folded the newspaper hastily. There had been nothing in it. It was hard to get news out of Italy during the war. “No,” she said. “I've never been there. It's just so sad. That beautiful old theater!”

“Oh, I know,” the other singer had said. “We all feel connected to La Scala.”

“Miss Voss?”

Octavia whirled, startled out of her recollection by the approach of one of the opera house tour guides. “Yes?” she said, more sharply than she intended.

The guide, a pretty young Frenchwoman, blushed. “I'm sorry, I just—it looked as if you wanted to go into one of the boxes.”

Octavia took a breath and managed a smile. “Actually, I did. You probably have keys, don't you?”

The girl's blush subsided, and she stepped forward, pulling a ring of keys from the pocket of her blazer. “I do. Which one would you like? The double box is lovely.”

“That would be so nice,” Octavia said. “Thank you, Miss—”

“I'm Francine,” the girl said, her blush rising again. “Just let me know when you leave—I'll be over there.” She pointed to the pillared reception room on the other side of the corridor.

“Thank you, Francine,” Octavia murmured. “I only have a few minutes before the rehearsal starts again. But this will be so restful.” Francine nodded, as if this were perfectly natural. She unlocked the door and held it wide for Octavia to pass through.

Octavia closed her eyes as the door clicked gently shut behind her. She waited in the silence for the space of a breath or two. When she opened her eyes again, the sensation that swept over her was one of stepping into a different century. Of coming home.

The perfection of the recreation of the double box stunned her. Its blue and white ceiling appeared unchanged since it had been painted in 1813. The fireplace looked as if at any moment a maid might come in to lay a warming blaze. The floor was the original marble, the brass fittings and velvet draperies a perfect revival of the early days.

Octavia leaned forward to look out into the theater. It was bigger now, of course. The stage was twice the size it had been, and the seating had been expanded. But the silk damask curtain, the towering proscenium, and the tiers of seats basked undisturbed now in the afterglow of two hundred years of music. They seemed to be waiting, secure in their elegance, for the magic to begin again.

Teresa had stood in the center of the stage of La Scala, with Vincenzo watching from the wings after murmuring instructions to the accompanist. The director and his assistant sat in the middle of the house, their heads bent together, talking. As the accompanist played the opening bars to Amore's aria from
Orfeo,
their voices rose, as if having to sit through an audition was an inconvenience.

Her voice faltered on her first phrase. They didn't notice. They were not even listening.

The accompanist, a plump man with a powdered queue and a reddened nose, scowled at her over the harpsichord. Teresa took a deeper breath and lifted her chin. She took a long step forward, to the very edge of the stage, and fixed the director with an icy stare. She began to sing again, and her voice rose into the theater, finding the resonance of the curving walls, the wooden seats, the high dome of the ceiling.

And now, at last, they stopped talking. The director and the assistant turned to her, straightened, and listened. The assistant's mouth opened, and stayed that way. The director put a hand to his powdered wig, and then to his cravat.

Teresa let her gaze rise to the
loggione
as she finished the aria. She sang the final cadenza to her imagined public, the listeners who would come, who would hear her and remember.

Octavia remembered that day with a clear poignance that made her heart ache. She knew, now, that she had not sung with technical perfection, or even showed her voice to best effect. The aria was too limited in its range for that, with none of the dramatic, sustained notes that would later become her hallmark. She had been only seventeen years old, after all. But she had made music, and the walls of La Scala had rung their response.

Octavia put her chin on her hand and closed her eyes again. They were all gone, of course. Long gone. The director, and his silly, foppish assistant. Vincenzo. Mozart.

Only she, of all that time, was still here. And Zdenka Milosch. And, of course, Ugo.

Oh, Ugo,
she thought, with a fresh pain in her breast.
Che successa, mio amico?

She heard a door open and close far below, and she startled, opening her eyes, coming abruptly to her feet. She shook herself. She knew better than to dwell in the past like this! And Ugo must surely come back soon.

But as she left the box, the unease that had been building in her for the past days made her legs tremble. Something was wrong, or he would have sent word. Ugo was as tough as they came, and smarter than most. He must be in terrible trouble, and there was nothing she could do to help him.

 

Giorgio ran Octavia and Peter through their blocking for the first scene of act one, and then gave them a break while he started on act two with Nick Barrett-Jones and Richard Strickland, the Leporello. Octavia and Peter sat in chairs at one side of the rehearsal room, sipping bottles of water and watching Nick and Richard work.

Richard was as jolly as he was plump, the sort of singer who kept everyone laughing with his asides and antics. He was the perfect Leporello, Giovanni's servant and sidekick. He had performed the rôle dozens of times, and he slipped into the blocking easily.

But Nick Barrett-Jones was even slower now than he had been earlier in the week. Peter groaned as Giorgio repositioned him a third time beneath the window for his “Deh, vieni.”

Octavia leaned close to Peter and whispered, “Our Nick doesn't look too well today.”

Nick's hair was still damp from the shower he had evidently taken during the lunch break, and his eyes were reddened. His voice sounded rough, as if he hadn't slept.

“Must have been out on the tiles last night.” Peter snickered.

The singers tried again, and Octavia felt sorry for Brenda, who kept coming forward, ready for her entrance, and then having to step back as Giorgio struggled with Nick. Richard slapped his round stomach and rolled his eyes at his colleagues, who covered their mouths to hide their laughter.

Massimo Luca stood to one side, waiting for his part of the scene. Octavia felt his eyes on her, and she turned. He looked a little tired, too. He lifted one hand in greeting and smiled. She smiled back and wished Nick could get on with it so she could hear Massimo sing again.

At last Brenda had her moment, beginning her duet with Nick in which the lovestruck Donna Elvira gives in once again to Giovanni's wiles. Octavia nodded approval at the easy flow of Brenda's dark soprano. She didn't sing full voice, but not quite
mezza voce,
either. Nick began to force his own voice, covering Brenda's tone.

“Too bad,” Peter murmured when this happened. “Brenda sounds so lovely.” Octavia nodded agreement.

The scene went forward, with Giovanni putting the hapless Leporello into his clothes to pretend to make up to Donna Elvira. When they reached Massimo's entrance, Giorgio called a halt. He turned to Peter and Octavia. “You two might as well go,” he said with a little sigh. “We won't get past this scene this afternoon.”

Peter immediately excused himself, saying he and David were going to the Galleria to do some shopping. Octavia tucked her score into her bag and busied herself winding her scarf around her neck, lifting her hair out of her collar. She didn't look forward to going back to Il Principe alone, to face the empty suite, to spend the evening trying to assess how thirsty she really was.

But there seemed to be nothing else to do. She belted her coat and slung the bag over her shoulder. She had just reached the door of the rehearsal room when she found Massimo at her elbow.

He held the door for her and followed her out into the corridor. “Doesn't Giorgio need you?” Octavia asked.

He grinned down at her. His forelock, black and glossy, flopped charmingly over his forehead. “In a moment,” he said. “They went back to the duet again.”

“Good grief,” Octavia said. “Again? You'll be here forever.”

“I know. It's wearing, all this standing about.”

“It certainly is.”

They glanced back through the small window. Giorgio was putting Nick in position once again, and Brenda was mopping her brow with a lace-edged handkerchief.

“But I thought—” Massimo went on, turning back to Octavia. “You're at Il Principe, right? Not far. I have my car, and I thought we could have dinner.”

Octavia hesitated. It would be so nice to have company, so long as this charming young man didn't think…

He grinned and pushed back the lock of hair. “Just dinner,” he said. “A little
trattoria
I know in the Brera. They make a wonderful
cioppino,
and they'll be thrilled to meet you. Say yes, Octavia. Dinner, some wine…Nothing else. I promise.”

Disarmed, she burst into laughter. After all, if Ugo showed up, he could join them. And she wasn't yet so thirsty that there was any risk. “Yes, of course, Massimo. Thank you. I'd love to have dinner.”

 

She went back to Il Principe and took a long bath. She put on a pair of American jeans, with a white cashmere sweater and heeled boots, and she twisted her hair back with a silver clip. When Massimo called from the lobby, she took up a lambskin blazer and a long silver scarf and ran down the stairs to meet him.

His car, a beautifully maintained vintage Mercedes, had a deep, dark charm that suited Massimo Luca. The doorman opened the door for her, and she climbed in, settling back against the deep, well-worn leather seats. It was good to be going out. She had left a note for Ugo, in case, and she had her cell phone with her. She glanced over at Massimo as he took the wheel. Passing headlights illuminated his profile, the cut of his lean chin, the curved blade of his nose. He gave her his slow smile.

“I like the jeans. You look about twenty years old,” he said.

“Flatterer. I'm older than you are.”

“You don't know how old I am.”

She tilted her head, watching him as he negotiated the twists and turns of the streets leading into the Brera district. He wore a leather jacket and a white shirt, open to show his strong, smooth neck. “I'll guess,” she said. “Twenty-eight?”