Mozart’s Blood (41 page)

San Giovanni in Conca dated from the fourth century. It had been destroyed and rebuilt over the years, consecrated and deconsecrated, given to the nuns of the Carmelite order, then taken away from them. Teresa had visited the church of San Giovanni in Conca at a time when it was the private chapel of one of Milan's noble families, when she could still participate in the Mass. Whenever she passed it, she felt a twinge of loss, not only because it had been torn apart again, but because of that other, great loss that never ceased to trouble her.

Massimo disdained the bench that ran around the inner side of the old wall. He steered Octavia around to the back, where a little iron fence blocked the stone steps leading down to what was left of the crypt beneath Piazza Missori.

Octavia could have resisted him. Perhaps he was so angry with her that he meant to do her harm. Perhaps he meant to take from her what she had taken from him, and leave her bleeding and weak in the dark. She didn't care. She submitted to his intent, following where he led. She would accept—she was even eager to accept—whatever he had in store for her.

As he helped her over the iron fence and down the cold, rough stairs to the crypt door, a sort of eagerness came over her. She was ready to have it over, whatever it might be. And despite everything, she was glad to be with him, glad to feel the strength of his hand, the height of him next to her. She felt as alive as she had ever felt, skin and bone and blood. She felt as if she were poised on the brink of something, and whatever it was to be, she welcomed it.

The crypt was closed and locked, open to the public only a few days a week. In the doorway, below the reach of the headlights of passing cars, Massimo turned to her. His eyes were like coals in the darkness. They burned like coal, too, a spark of fury she recognized. Just so had she glared at Zdenka Milosch, those long years before.

Octavia said, “I'm sorry.” The Countess had never said those words to her. Indeed, Octavia felt certain Zdenka Milosch had never felt regret about anything.

“Sorry?” he said. His deep voice resounded from the bricks, filling her ears with its richness. It seemed the cars passing over their heads should be able to hear it.

“I didn't mean to do it, Massimo.”

He made a dismissive gesture with one fine, large hand. It hurt her to see it. She felt as if it were she being dismissed.

If he were as appalled as she had been, then he must hate her as she had hated Zdenka Milosch. He must wish he had never met her, never held her in his arms.

He said in a level tone, “Can it be undone?”

She shook her head, slowly, sadly. “No.”

His voice dropped to a rumble. “All those people…”

“I know. I know.”

He folded his arms and leaned against the thick door. He lifted his chin, and a glimmer of reflected light fell across the clean line of his jaw. “I haven't been thirsty yet.”

“You're already having memories,” she said.

Any hope she might have harbored for him—for the two of them together—slipped away like water poured out, leaving her empty, without expectations.

His eyes searched hers. “I have your memories. And Mozart's,” he said. “Leopold, and Constanze…Prague…England…”

“Yes.”

“It's astounding.”

“Mozart couldn't bear it.” She hesitated, almost afraid to ask the next question. She spoke softly. “And you? Can you tolerate it?”

He took a long time answering. She saw in his face the same conflict she had lived with for such a long, long time. “It's terrible, Octavia. And it's magnificent. To know what he meant, to know what he intended…”

“Yes.”

“But at what a price!”

“I no longer resort to the tooth.”

He gave a bitter, chest-deep laugh. “Except for me.”

She turned her head away to hide the pain that must show in her face. “Yes, Massimo. Except for you.” She didn't want to mention the Milanese street girl, though he must remember that, too. The memory of those wide eyes and stricken face was too grievous, and she shut it away as swiftly as she could.

“But, Octavia, someone provides what Ugo gives you. Is there a great difference?”

She stared blindly at the locked door of the crypt, the long-empty tomb. The treasures it had once held had been moved to a museum. “I was so glad,” she said slowly, choosing her words with care, “when Ugo presented another way. I have asked where he finds his—his supply. He won't tell me.”

“I know that.”

A small noise escaped her throat that may have been a laugh or a sob. “Of course you do. I didn't think. It was different for me. It was some time before I experienced the memories.”

“The moment I was out of the hospital,” he said.

The little door before her blurred, and she realized with a start that there were tears in her eyes. It was guilt over Massimo, so young and fine and promising. And it was the rending sense of loss over what might have been.

She swung around to face him, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. “You have to block the memories, close them away,” she said. “They'll destroy you if you don't.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, tipping his head to one side. “I know how you do it,” he said. “It's as if there's a room, or a lot of rooms, where you store them.”

“That's it. That's good.”

He opened his eyes, and looked into hers. “Why couldn't
he
do that?”

“Who?”

“Mozart.”

“Oh, Massimo.” Her eyes stung again at the picture of Mozart on his deathbed. “I did everything I could, but he wouldn't—”

“I
know,
” he said impatiently. “I know all of that. What I don't know is why.”

She lifted her shoulders in a despairing shrug. Her eyes brimmed and overflowed. Tears dripped down her cheeks, and she made no attempt to hide them. “I have never known. I think it takes a certain—a certain hardness. To do what you have to do, and to control the memories. Mozart was so highly strung, and so sensitive. But Zdenka Milosch was as hard as iron.” She swallowed and swiped the wetness from her face with the heels of her hands. “She never cared,” she said. “Not about either of us. She only cared about the music. It was all that was left to her, and to the elders.”

“Are they going to try to kill me?” he asked.

The question startled her. “She's dead! Countess Milosch is dead.”

“Is she? What happened?”

“Nick killed her. At the elders' compound.”

“But the elders still live.”

“They do. And Tomas and Kirska and the others.”

“Someone will take her place. There's too much at stake.”

His voice had softened a bit, and a little flame of hope flickered in her breast. She put out her hand to him. “Massimo, come with me. Follow us, Ugo and me. He'll protect you.”

He drew back from her hand. He shook his head, and his lips curled slightly, a shadow of the sweet smile she remembered. “I have my own career to think of,” he said. “Just as you do.”

She dropped her hand, and the feeble spark of hope guttered and died. She said bleakly, “You must hate me. I hated Zdenka Milosch, once I knew.”

“I thought,” he said with a grimace, “that I was in love with you.”

“And now that you know what I am, you're revolted,” she said.

“I don't know yet what I feel,” he said.

“No. I suppose you don't. It takes time.” She straightened her scarf and looked away from him, up to the street where the passing headlights gleamed on the windows of the office building opposite the piazza. “There are compensations, you know.”

“Singing.”

“Yes. That above all.”

He took a step toward her, his shadow swaying above her in the gloom. He bent his head a little to look into her face. “I can handle the memories,” he said. His voice had gone hard again, with a deep steely note. “But I don't know if I can do what you do, Octavia. I don't know if I can do what you did to me.”

She released a long breath, feeling as weary as if she were one of the ancients. She turned her face up to his, letting him see the naked sorrow in her eyes. “You will, Massimo. My dear. When you're thirsty enough, you will.”

Ughetto left the elders' compound in the autumn, when the harvest of
aconitum lycoctonum
was in and drying in bundles in the pantry behind the kitchen. He took enough of the herb with him to last for a long time. He didn't tell anyone he was going, nor did he ask permission. From a small stash of money the elders kept in the kitchen, he lifted money for coach and boat fare. He slipped over the garden wall one moonless night and struck out on foot. He was, at last, going home.

The journey was long, and it was nearly a month before he reached Napoli. There he haunted the docks until he found a boat headed for Trapani. He stood on the deck all day as the boat bobbed its way across the peaceful Tyrrhenian Sea, and he peered ahead for his first glimpse of the harbor. He was the first off the boat when it tied up to the dock. Carrying a small cloth bag with his few possessions in it, with his herb in a pouch around his neck, he strode quickly up the road that led to his mother's tavern.

Eight years had not changed Trapani nearly so much as it had changed Ughetto. He saw faces he recognized, but no one recognized him. The same fishmongers plied the wharves who had once given him fish heads for his
mamma
's soup pot. The same fruit sellers who used to hand out slices of lemon to thirsty children playing in the square still hawked their wares from beneath striped awnings or broad umbrellas. He passed them all with the most cursory glance. He was impatient now. He hardly looked at the vista of blue sea beyond the white beach. He didn't slow his steps to savor the salt tang in the air. The sun he had longed for shone generously on his head, but he barely noticed it.

When he reached the tavern, he stopped in the street and gazed at it for long moments. It was smaller and darker than he remembered. It had no real door, only a piece of canvas pulled across the entryway. He had forgotten that the main room gave directly onto the street. The canvas was pulled aside now, tied with a length of rope. He could see the same scarred tables inside, where sailors sat drinking and gambling, the same oil lamps that had always hung from the walls, the same bits of discarded fishing equipment propped here and there. The familiar smells of fish and beer and smoke wafted out through the open door and wrapped him in a fog of nostalgia. He felt as if he were eight years old again, as if his sisters might come tumbling out to drag him down to the beach, or to tease and torment him until he cried.

He took a step closer. Someone was moving between the empty tables, a thick-figured woman in a dark dress and an apron. A scarf covered her hair, and she carried a wooden tray on her hip. He didn't know if it was his
nonna
or his
mamma.
And he didn't know what he would say to either of them.

Ughetto drew a breath that puffed out his chest and lifted his chin. He put his shoulders back, hefted his bag, and went inside.

The woman in the scarf turned when he entered. At first she thought he was a customer, and an automatic smile began to cross her face. Then, as he stopped just inside the doorway, her smile vanished. She stared at him, her eyes wide, her mouth a little open.

Not his mother, but one of his sisters. Ughetto said, “Nuncia. Don't you know your brother?”

His sister gasped. She dropped her tray on the dirt floor, whirled, and ran back toward the kitchen, calling, “Mamma! Mamma!”

Ughetto dropped his bag near the door and waited, listening to the sudden tumult from the kitchen. There was a clatter, as if something had fallen. Voices raised, calling names, shouting orders. A few moments later, Nuncia came back into the tavern, with three of her sisters in tow. When they saw Ughetto, they stared as wordlessly as Nuncia had.

He gazed back at them. They had grown older, of course, but he still knew which of them was which. Nuncia was the plumpest. One had grown tall, another had retained something of her childish prettiness. One limped, as if she had suffered an injury.

And behind them came Ughetto's
mamma.
Like Nuncia, she wore a scarf on her head. She had grown stout and gray-haired. She stood in the passageway between the kitchen and the main room of the tavern, her plump jowls trembling. She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

She said, in a hoarse tone, “They wanted their money back. I didn't have it.”

He shrugged.

“Ughetto,” Nuncia said. “Are you a…a
musico?
” All the girls watched him, awaiting his answer.

His
mamma
took a step forward. “They said you ran away.”

“They sent me away, Mamma.”

“Because you can't sing?”

“I can sing. That is, I
could
sing.” Ughetto stepped forward, where the light from the small window could fall on his face.

“What happened?” Nuncia asked. “Mamma said you were going to be a famous singer.”

Ughetto ignored the question. “Tell me, Mamma. What did you do with the money? The money you took when you sold your son?”

His
mamma
dropped her eyes and stared at the floor. “We paid for Maria's wedding, and for Caterina's.”

“For two weddings,” Ughetto said, slowly and thoughtfully, “you sold my future.”

Mamma said, “I have six daughters. What was I supposed to do?”

Nuncia crossed the floor to Ughetto and searched his face with her eyes. “You've gotten so handsome, Ughetto.”

He smiled at her. “It's good to see you,” he said softly.

She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his cheeks, one and then the other. A moment later, his other sisters did the same. The youngest put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
“Mi dispiace,”
she whispered.

“Not your fault, Anna,” he said. “I know that.” He looked around at his sisters, at the empty tavern. “Where's Nonna?”

Nuncia said, “She died the same year you left.”

And Anna whispered, “Of a broken heart.”

Mamma looked at him, above the heads of her daughters, and he read the fear in her eyes. She had not sold him to pay for weddings. She—and no doubt his
nonna,
too—had known what he was. That night on the docks, when the moon glimmered on the moving waters of the bay, hung between them.

“If you're not a singer, Ughetto,” his
mamma
said in a shaky voice, “what do you do?”

“I have work,” he said. “For a countess.”

Nuncia said, “A countess! Is she very rich?”

He dug into his pocket. “Rich enough. I've brought you a bit of money.”

Anna took the little purse he handed her and carried it to her mother. Mamma opened it, counting the coins with her eyes before she looked up at Ughetto again. She said only, with infinite sadness,
“Grazie.”

“Prego.”

She looked as if she might say something else, but then caught her lip between her teeth and was silent.

Ughetto shook his head. He would not tell her, even if she pressed him. He had wanted to know if she understood, and it was clear to him she did. Perhaps she had hoped castration would cancel out the circumstances of his birth. He would not ask. He didn't want to know if it wasn't true.

 

Ughetto stayed in Trapani for three days. Nuncia cooked him enormous meals. Anna walked with him along the beach, asking him questions about the
scuola,
about Roma, about his life. He swam in the warm waters of the bay and slept long hours in the two rooms the family occupied above the tavern. His mother hardly spoke to him, and she looked wary whenever he came near her.

Ughetto found his
nonna
's grave in the cemetery on its hill above the village. Her gravestone was a rudimentary monument, with only her name, the date of her death, and a rather crude crucifix carved into it. Ughetto sat down beside it in the untended grass. He stayed there a long time, talking to her as if she could hear him, telling her he wished he could have seen her one more time. He told her everything else, too, about the
scuola,
about his dashed hopes, and about the elders of La Società. “I don't know what will happen now, Nonna,” he said. He stroked the soft grass growing on the mound of earth that covered her resting place. “But I'm sure you wouldn't like it.”

He found a ship sailing to Rome from the Trapani harbor, and bought passage. He walked slowly back to the tavern, wanting to remember everything just the way it was at that moment.

His sisters gathered to bid him farewell. Maria came, with a fat baby on her hip. Caterina already had two toddlers clinging to her skirts. Nuncia and Anna and the rest hugged him, and Anna cried.

He wiped away her tears. “Just be happy, little Anna, will you?”

She buried her face against his chest. “I miss you, Ughetto! I want you to stay!”

Gently, he loosened her hold on him, and held her at arm's length. “It's Ugo now, Anna. And I can't stay, I really can't.”

“But why not?” She lifted her tear-streaked face and gazed at him. Her eyes swam with real tears, shed just for him. He had to set his jaw to keep from giving in to his own loneliness and sorrow. Who would ever weep for him again? Certainly not Zdenka Milosch, or the ancients who haunted her mansion. His was going to be a lonely life. A long, lonely life.

When he could control his voice, he said, “I have work to do in Roma, and in Firenze and Milano, even Parigi.”

Nuncia said, “You should be proud of your brother, Anna. He must be very important in the world.”

Anna wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron and sniffled. The other sisters stepped back as their mother came forward.

“Ughetto,” she began.

“Ugo now, Mamma,” Nuncia said.

Her mother nodded. She looked older than she had just three days before, with dark circles under her eyes. Her lips were pale.

He said,
“Arrivederci, Mamma.”

She shook her head.
“Addio, mio figlio.”
And in a low tone, meant only for his ears, she said, “Don't come back, Ugo.”

He met her eyes with his own, and the last tender spot in his soul seemed to harden, to scab over, to begin to scar. “No,” he said. “I won't.”

She stepped back as he bent and picked up his bag. Anna came forward with a packet in her hands. “Bread,” she said. “Some olives and a bit of dried fish.”

“Grazie,”
he said. He kissed her cheek. He looked into his sisters' faces, each in turn.

Anna turned away, throwing her apron over her face, sobbing behind the folds of cotton. One of the toddlers began to wail along with her.

Nuncia and Caterina and the others followed him out into the road and stood waving as he descended to the docks. He looked back, imprinting the memory of his home, the dark, dank little tavern perched above the town, his six older sisters arrayed before it. Six of them, and he the seventh child, the only son. Their existence had doomed him to the life of the
lupo mannaro,
though they would never know it.

At the last moment his mother came outside to stand behind her daughters. She shaded her eyes with her hand, watching her only son leave home for the last time.

At the bottom of the hill, Ugo lifted his arm in a last salute. The girls waved, but his mother kept her arms folded over her long apron.

Ugo turned away and set off to catch his boat.