Glorious Ones (13 page)

The next evening, Isabella came to my tent with a huge flask in each hand.

“Fuel for the memory,” I said, pouring a glass for each of us. “Let’s see if mine is warmed up yet.

“Isabella,” I began, a few moments later, “the sad fact of the matter is that I started out as a prostitute. I had no choice. By the time I was twenty, I had twenty boyfriends behind me. Who would marry me?

“But I was at least a thousand cuts above the other whores in Parma. For, in the fifteen years I walked the streets, I never had to work very hard. I wasn’t a common whore, one night at a time. I was too smart for that. I entertained more than anything else—I charmed, joked, and flattered, much like I do on stage.

“And that was why the other whores began to call me Columbina—because I smelled so sweet, like a flower. I wasn’t like them, always reeking of dead fish.

“Yet flowers don’t last forever, Isabella; that was the trouble with being a courtesan. It’s not a lifelong profession, it’s not something you get better at, with time.

“One night, I forgot to pull the shades when I went to bed. When I awoke, I saw myself, in the harsh, morning light. I saw the stretch marks on my belly, the thick veins on my breasts, the rolls of fat around my knees.

“ ‘Get smart, Columbina,’ I said to myself. ‘Time’s running out.’ Right then, I knew what I had to do. I decided to find one more wealthy lover. I’d take him for all he was worth, then retire, for good.”

“And Flaminio was your last lover,” interrupted Isabella. “Bad choice.”

“That’s the playwright in you talking,” I said. “Always knowing the final scene. But you’re right. Flaminio Scala was my last lover, and the choice couldn’t have been worse. But I didn’t know it at the time. His acting was too good.

“It
must
have been good, Isabella. I was a whore, I’d had ten thousand lovers. You’d think I’d have known the ways of the world. And yet I let Flaminio Scala convince me that he was richer than Midas and Croesus put together.

“I sat there like a teen-age fool, listening to him talk about his Arabian emeralds, his Chinese silks, his Indian spices, his Persian rugs. Each morning, when I asked for my money, he’d tell me about the rubies he was going to bring me that night. Somehow, though, he always forgot. Something had come up, he said, his money was tied up. But I shouldn’t worry; he’d have it for me, within the week.

“And I kept on believing him, listening to his excuses, letting him come back…”

“But why?” Isabella asked. Of course, she couldn’t understand. She was thinking of Flaminio as he’d become by then—poor old Flaminio, the cringing hound. She couldn’t believe that someone could ever have loved him. “Why?” she repeated. “Why did you let him get away with it?”

It was a long time before I could answer her. “Isabella,” I said at last, “they say that women who do it for money have no hearts. They say we have cashboxes in our loins. When we do it with a man, we feel nothing more than if we were dropping a coin into a bank.

“And I suppose it’s true. It was that way for me, through most of it. But Flaminio—there was something about Flaminio which made me feel a little more than that. He made me nervous.

“I wish I could say it was Flaminio’s big heart, or his generous spirit. But both of us would know I was out of my mind.

“I could never tell the truth to a respectable married woman like you, Isabella, if I didn’t feel myself growing a little sentimental, even now. And that tear in my eye seems to make it all right, as if to say, ‘Look: I’m a good woman.’ For the truth of the matter is this.

“It was something about the way Flaminio touched me, as we lay together on the flea-bitten mattress. There was something that crackled in the air, something that happened inside my own body. It made me nervous, Isabella, it did.

“It seems so long ago, it’s hard for me to remember. And sometimes now, as I watch Flaminio slink around the stage like a mangy old dog, it’s hard for me to believe that it ever happened at all.

“Even at the time, I couldn’t believe it. ‘Flaminio,’ I used to say, ‘what can a rich young man like yourself see in a tired old whore like me?’

“ ‘I love you for your wit,’ ” he’d say, with his deep, booming laugh. “ ‘You’re smarter than the princesses of the realm.’ ”

“And that was how it happened. That was how I became a moon-woman, like the girl in your play. I was just as crazy, just as distracted. I daydreamed constantly, I didn’t know if I was coming or going. But, instead of worshiping the moon, I worshiped the man who shared my bed each night.”

“I suppose that’s healthier,” said Isabella.

“Don’t kid yourself,” I told her. “It’s no healthier, just different. Of course, the moon never speaks, never comes close, never responds. But no matter how close he seems to come, a man like Flaminio Scala never tells you the truth. You can’t get satisfaction from a man like that.

“But it took me a long, long time to learn it.

“One night, as I lay in bed, drifting off to sleep, Flaminio shook me awake. ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he said.

“I held my breath. ‘There’s bad news in his voice,’ I thought.

“ ‘It’s time for me to move on,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow, early in the morning.’

“ ‘Well,’ I told him, ‘goodbye and good luck. I suppose you want me to forward your bill, so you can pay me later, when you get your hands on all those rubies?’

“ ‘I want you to come with me,’ he said.

“ ‘As your woman?’ I asked him. I was trembling, that’s how crazy I was. I could hardly speak. “ ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not in the script. Remember, you’re Columbina, the wise woman, the one men admire and fear for her wit. But you’re not the one they love, Columbina, not the one they marry. That’s someone else’s part.’

“ ‘Script?’ I shouted. ‘Part? What are you talking about, Flaminio? Have you lost your mind?’

“Right then, he told me about The Glorious Ones—though, at the time, it was just Flaminio and a few worthless friends. Right then, I knew: all that good love-making had just been his way of recruiting me into his miserable troupe.

“ ‘Go to hell!’ I screamed at him. ‘You can be the star performer, at Satan’s ball!’

“But that night, I discovered something which I already knew: I just couldn’t sleep in a bed I’d once shared with a lover. All night long, I tossed and moaned. I talked to myself out loud, to drive Flaminio’s ugly face from my brain. And, in the morning, I got up and joined The Glorious Ones.”

“And Flaminio?” asked Isabella. “How did he treat you? How do you feel about him now?”

I was drunk, but not too drunk to sidestep her first question. “I feel the way we all do,” I said. “I’m sorry for him.”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I realized my mistake. I
was
too drunk, my tongue had gotten so loose that it had slipped.

Because it was her fault that we all pitied Flaminio, hers and Andreini’s. They were the ones who’d changed him, broken his will. Day after day, I watched the Captain shrink, until he was no more than a shadow. And it was all the Andreinis’ fault.

So it must have sounded like I was accusing her. “Don’t misunderstand me,” I said, in the uncomfortable silence which fell between us. “That’s the way these things go.

“And you?” I said at last, trying to change the subject. “How did
you
happen to join The Glorious Ones?”

“It was just as Francesco said,” she declared, staring straight at me, hard as a diamond. “He rescued me from a convent.”

“Isabella,” I said, too foggy to pursue it, “why are you always so clear-headed? Why do you never drink as much as me?”

“Because I haven’t lived as long,” she replied. Then, she got up and walked out of the tent, leaving the half finished bottle behind her.

So that was our friendship. We were friends up to a point, but no further. And that point was Andreini. Her first loyalty was always to him; he’d tricked her well, just like the others. She loved him so much that, between the two of us, the truth had no meaning.

But the fact is: I wasn’t so honest with her myself. It wasn’t that I lied, when I said that I felt sorry for Flaminio. It was just that there was more to it than pity.

My ties to him went deeper. Of course, I didn’t love him any more, I wasn’t even sure I liked him. But somehow, I always felt my life was bound to his, in some way I didn’t understand, and didn’t really like. Maybe it
was
because I’d been in love with him; maybe it was because he was the only one of them who’d known me when I was young. Or maybe it was this:

Aside from Pantalone, Flaminio and I were the oldest ones in the troupe. And, in those last years, when success swooped down on us like a whirlwind, we were the only ones for whom it came too late.

Despite his seventy years, Pantalone loved it; his pouch had never been so full of gold. Brighella was ecstatic, the Doctor was more full of wind than ever. Even Armanda was happy, for suddenly, hundreds of cute young men came out of the woodwork, dying to make love to a famous freak of nature.

But I had nothing to spend the money on; I couldn’t buy myself a lover, a child, or a new body. And Flaminio had been cheated even worse. The Glorious Ones had been taken from him; even with all that money, he was poor.

And so Flaminio and I moved over to take Pantalone’s place at the sidelines. Like two homely girls at a dance, we stood and watched, ignoring each other’s presence. We watched thousands of noblemen drool over Isabella’s hand. We watched three trips, to Spain, to France, to England. We watched the testimonials, the tributes, the parades in our honor.

But we were only watching. It was as if all The Glorious Ones were on stage, and Flaminio and I were alone in the audience.

So what I felt for him went deeper than pity. There was some leftover love in it, of course. And there was also some hate, for all those times he’d joked with me like some clever man, and refused to admit I was a woman.

Yet, in the end, it was obvious that no one would talk to him but me. Even Armanda was too busy with her new boyfriends; she’d forgotten him. So I let him come close, in a way I never would, if I’d still been in my prime.

It was hard, being friends with both of them at once. Sometimes, he’d arrive at my tent just as Isabella was leaving. And, though she never insulted him outright, like Andreini did, she always gave him such a mean look that he’d wind up shaking, trembling, stammering for five minutes before he could talk.

“Columbina,” he’d whisper. His booming voice had become a bird-croak, he never laughed any more. It was a pity to hear him. “Columbina, they are destroying me. They are taking away my power, the loyalty of the others, everything I have. They are ruining all my dreams of fame and immortality. Because of them, I’ll die obscure, unknown. All my work will have been in vain.

“How could he do this to me—Francesco, whom I loved like a son? After all I did for him, how could he turn on me like this, and stick his sword between my ribs?”

“Now you sound like Pantalone,” I said, “complaining about his daughter’s treachery.”

“And her!” cried Flaminio, too upset to see that I was teasing him. “What have I ever done to Isabella? We’ve hardly spoken. What have I done, that she should treat me this way?

“She’s a curse on me, I know it. She is a curse from the past, a curse sent down to punish me!”

“You deserved to be cursed,” I told him, “for all the women you’ve mistreated in your life.” I was hoping to flatter him, by reminding him of his amorous career. But Flaminio was beyond flattery in those days. He responded to my little joke with a pained look, as if I’d stuck him with a pin.

“Columbina,” he’d whimper, “what shall I do? What shall I do to save myself?”

At last, one night, I lost my patience. I was sick of him treating me like he always did, asking for my wise advice, never loving me, never giving me anything in return. So I spoke my mind:

“Flaminio,” I said, “you’re wallowing in self-pity, just as you’ve always wallowed in everything. Listen: you should see yourself acting lately. You creep around the edge of the stage as if you were terrified of the audience’s noticing you. It’s disgusting to watch.

“Maybe the Andreinis have stolen your power. But they haven’t stolen your skill. You can still act as well as either of them, Flaminio. If you don’t do it, it’s your own fault.

“If you want to keep your fame, here’s how to do it: act circles around them. If Francesco is being outrageous, be twice as outrageous. If Isabella is intense, be three times as intense. That’s how you’ll get your fame back, Captain—as an actor, not just as the manager of The Glorious Ones.”

Now, as I look back on that advice I gave Flaminio, my heart hurts. I cringe. I think I should have kept my mouth shut. For, if Flaminio took my advice, does that mean I was responsible for what happened next?

Naturally, I’d prefer to think not. I’d prefer to think that, in those last years of his life, Flaminio was in no shape to take anyone’s advice. I’d prefer to think that he was going crazy, and that his craziness was the cause of that last tragedy.

He must have been crazy. Why else would he have done it at a time when it couldn’t possibly have made him famous—off season, when there was no one in the audience but street trash?

It was early in the fall. All over the continent the aristocrats were busy moving from their summer palaces to their winter palaces, doing whatever it is that keeps aristocrats busy. They were too busy to give parties, watch plays, or sponsor performances of The Glorious Ones. So we went back to the plazas, where, to tell the truth, I’d always liked it better anyway.

We’d been in Turin for almost a week when I began to notice a peculiar thing about Flaminio Scala.

His acting was improving. His voice had gotten resonant again. His jokes were funnier, his boasts grander, more convincing. He strode across the stage, slashing the air with his sword. When he bragged about the battles he’d fought, the ten thousand pygmies he’d strangled with his bare hands, even I almost believed him.

Everyone in the troupe noticed it; it was just like the old days. Andreini’s mouth dropped open. Isabella kept asking me what had gotten into the Captain, for she’d never seen him act like that. And, when she spoke to Flaminio, her face no longer wore that nasty look.