Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  “Yes, the sea is calm and we’re lucky, even though we still feel seasick,” she replied.

  “Vittorio Leonardi, at your service.”

  “Amelia Garayoa.”

  “This is my wife, the divine Carla Alessandrini,” Vittorio said. “Are you traveling for pleasure, to see your family, for business?”

  “Come, Vittorio, don’t be so nosy! Don’t mind him, my husband is terribly indiscreet,” Carla interrupted.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t mind him asking questions. I suppose I’m traveling to begin a new life.”

  “How so?” Vittorio continued, unabashed.

  Amelia did not know how to reply. She was embarrassed to say that she was running away with her lover, that the future held nothing for her.

  “Please, Vittorio, stop upsetting the young woman! Come on, let’s go back to our cabin, the wind is getting up and I don’t want my voice to be affected. Please forgive my husband, and please don’t imagine that all Italians are as intrusive as he is.”

  The diva and her husband went back to their cabin, and Amelia heard Carla affectionately scolding her husband, who looked at her penitently.

  That night the captain held a cocktail reception to welcome the first-class passengers, and, to Pierre’s surprise, Carla Alessandrini and her Vittorio came over to Amelia. She introduced them, and Pierre was extremely friendly, aware that this couple could be useful to him. They chatted until the dinner gong was struck, and Vittorio suggested that they share a table.

  From that day on they became inseparable. Vittorio, who was a bon vivant above all things, felt an immediate pull toward Pierre, who seemed to share his taste for the finer things in life. Carla, who had a well-developed sense of drama, was impressed by the story of Amelia and Pierre’s love, which had led them to flee halfway across the world to make their lives anew.

  The diva intended to spend a month in Buenos Aires, as she was booked to star in Carmen at the Teatro Colón, which fit in well with Pierre’s plans, as he thought that Carla and Vittorio could open lots of doors for him.

  When they arrived in Buenos Aires it was midwinter there. The last few days of the voyage had not been pleasant. The waves washed over the deck, and the majority of the passengers, suffering from seasickness, had been forced to remain in their cabins. Unlike their partners, neither Carla nor Amelia found themselves affected by the strong waves. Vittorio cursed his fate and assured Carla that he was about to die. Pierre stayed in their cabin without eating anything, except when Amelia insisted. This meant that the two women’s friendship flourished even more, so that when they reached Buenos Aires Amelia thought that she had found a second mother in Carla, and Carla considered Amelia the daughter she had never had.

  “Well, Guillermo—will you allow me to call you Guillermo? Now that we’ve got so far, I think the best thing is for you to talk to Francesca Venezziani and Professor Muiños,” Pablo Soler said.

  “Who are they?” I asked in disappointment.

  “Francesca Venezziani is the world’s greatest authority on opera. She has written several books on the world of opera and its principal figures. She talks about Amelia Garayoa’s friendship with Carla Alessandrini in the biography she wrote of the singer. There are even photographs of the two of them together.”

  The shock of this revelation must have shown in my face.

  “Don’t look so confused, I’ve already told you that Francesca Venezziani is an authority on everything to do with opera. I’ve spoken to her on a couple of occasions, trying to find out if Carla ever suspected that Pierre Comte was a Soviet spy, but she’s never found anything in Carla’s letters or in the reports of people who knew her. If I were you, I’d go to Rome to talk with Francesca Venezziani, and then to Buenos Aires to talk with Professor Muiños.”

  “And who is Muiños?”

  “Well, you can tell from his name that he’s of Galician origin. Don Andres Muiños is emeritus professor at the University of Buenos Aires; I knew him at Princeton, where he taught Latin American history. He has published several books, and two in particular are essential. One is about the Nazi community in exile in Latin America and the other is about Soviet spies.”

  “And which side is he on?”

  “You seem to be a bit too worried about other people’s ideologies...”

  “It’s so I know who I’m speaking to, so I know how to treat what he tells me.”

  “You have a lot of prejudices, Señor Albi.”

  “No, I’m just prudent; when you live in this country, you feel the weight of ideology fairly heavily. Here you’re either on one side or the other, or else you’re nothing, and of course, history isn’t told the same way from each side. You should know that better than anyone, you’re a historian and you were also a witness to our last civil war.”

  “Professor Muiñoños is an erudite man, I am sure that you will find what he has to say interesting. Doña Laura agrees with me that it is vital for you to speak to him. I took the trouble to call him myself last night after speaking with Doña Laura, and he would be only too pleased to talk to you.”

  Pablo Soler gave me a card with phone numbers and addresses on it: Francesca Venezziani’s in Rome, and Professor Muiños’s in Buenos Aires.

  “I haven’t spoken to Señora Venezziani yet, but I shall, never you worry.”

  While Pablo was talking to me, I was weighing in my mind whether I dared ask him for the interview my editor at the online newspaper had suggested, and although I was afraid he’d send me away with a flea in my ear, I plucked up my courage.

  “I’d like to ask you a favor, but of course, there’s no obligation...”

  “Young man, I don’t feel any obligation to anyone at this stage in my life, so ask away.”

  “Well, you know that I’m a journalist, and... Well, would it be too much for you to grant me an interview to talk about your books, especially the one that you’ve got coming out?”

  “Ah, journalists! I don’t trust them all that much... and I don’t give interviews.”

  “Well, I had to try,” I said with a laugh.

  “Is it so important for you to get an interview with me?”

  “Yes, it is, really, I’d get good marks with my boss and it might help me keep my job. But I mustn’t abuse your kindness, and you’re helping me so much with all this about my great-grandmother, which is why I’m here after all.”

  “Send me a list of questions and I’ll answer whatever you put to me; I won’t answer at great length, but you have to promise not to cut anything or change a single comma. If your boss accepts this condition, then I’ll answer your questions as soon as you send them to me.”

  I didn’t know if I should kiss him after shaking his hand, but it is a fact that I will always be grateful to him for that interview.

  When I left Don Pablo’s house I called Pepe at the newspaper to tell him that the interview was on, as long as we didn’t change a single comma. I insisted that he tell the boss this, as I didn’t want any problems with Soler.

  “Look, Pepe, I only know him because of some family contacts and I don’t want to get on the wrong side of him. You know he doesn’t give interviews and it’ll be a coup for us, but it’s got to be how he wants and I don’t want to take any chances.”

  Pepe put me through to the boss, who assured me that even if he sent fifty pages they wouldn’t cut a word of the interview.

  “If you really get it, we can talk about your future here,” he said as bait.

  “The first thing we have to talk about is how much you’re going to pay, because don’t think you’ll get this for a hundred euros.”

  “No, sure, if you get it I’ll pay you three hundred for the interview.”

  “In that case, no. They’d give me at least double that in any supplement or Sunday newspaper.”

  “How much do you want, then?”

  “I won’t do it for less than six hundred.”

  “Okay, send it when you’ve got it.”

  Half
an hour later I sent him the questionnaire by e-mail, and Pablo wrote back to promise that he’d have the answers for me soon.

  I called Aunt Marta to tell her that I would need more money, as I was going to Rome and then to Buenos Aires.

  “What do you mean you’re going to Rome and Buenos Aires? As if you were just jumping on the metro... You have to give me some explanation.”

  “Your grandmother Amelia, my great-grandmother, had a very eventful life, and if you want me to write the story I’ve got no option other than to follow where the trail leads me. Don’t think that this is a walk in the park.”

  “A pretty expensive walk in the park.”

  “Look, you were the one who wanted to find out about your grandmother; I really don’t care. If you want me to drop it, I will.”

  Aunt Marta weighed whether to tell me to get lost, and I crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t: I really didn’t want to lose the chance of finding out what happened to Amelia Garayoa.

  “Alright, but tell me why you have to go to Rome and Buenos Aires.”

  “Because I have to see the world expert on opera in Rome, and a professor who knows all there is to be known about Soviet and Nazi spies in Buenos Aires.”

  “What nonsense!”

  “She didn’t spend her whole life doing embroidery, and she got caught up in some pretty impressive events.”

  “You’re not making them up to pull my leg?”

  “No, I’m really not; I don’t have enough imagination to invent the things that happened to my great-grandmother. She was quite a lady!”

  Aunt Marta agreed to put some more money into my account, after threatening me that if I were making things up I wouldn’t know what hit me.

  “I’m going to talk to Leonora to tell her that I’m not going to let you get away with anything.”

  “You should speak to my mother, because she wants me to drop the whole thing; she thinks I’m wasting my time.”

  My mother was worried when I told her that I was going to Rome and Buenos Aires.

  “But this is nonsense. Tell Aunt Marta to keep her money, and look for a proper job.”

  “Aren’t you curious about what happened to your grandmother?”

  “What can I say? Yes... but not if you’re going to lose job opportunities.”

  6

  I arrived in Rome that same night and checked into the Hotel d’Inghilterra, in the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from the Spanish Steps and the Spanish Embassy to the Vatican.

  The hotel was extremely expensive, but Ruth had recommended it to me. I don’t know if my friend used it a lot, given that the low-fare airline for which she worked was not precisely renowned for its generosity in putting its personnel up in quality hotels. I thought about calling her to find out what she was doing at that moment, but decided in the end not to, as it would be behaving too much like a paranoid and jealous boyfriend. As they always say, what the mind doesn’t know, the heart doesn’t grieve over.

  When I called Francesca Venezziani the next morning, I arranged to meet her the same afternoon. Professor Soler had called her and spoken about me.

  I was ready to be surprised, and the truth is I was surprised when I saw Francesca: She was extremely beautiful, tall, dark-haired, about thirty-five years old, and dressed in Armani. The skirt suit she was wearing must have cost a fortune. She met me at her home, a beautiful loft in the Via Frattini, close by my hotel.

  “So you’re investigating Amelia Garayoa...”

  “She was my great-grandmother,” I said, to justify myself.

  “How interesting! And what do you need to know that a stranger can tell you?”

  “Well, it might seem strange, but we don’t know anything about her in my family, she upped and disappeared and left us all one day, including her son, my grandfather.”

  “I can only tell you about Amelia Garayoa’s relation with Carla Alessandrini. Your great-grandmother has only really been interesting to me to the extent that Carla treated her like a daughter.”

  “Well, if you would be kind enough to tell me what you do know, then I would be extremely grateful.”

  “I’ll do better, I’ll give you my book about la Alessandrini. Read it and if you have any questions, ask me.”

  “That seems fine, but given that I’ve come to Rome, I wouldn’t like to leave emptyhanded...”

  “You’ll have my book. Is that too little?”

  “No, no, it’s great, but couldn’t you tell me something about the relation between Carla and Amelia?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s all written down in the book. Look, there are even some photos of Carla with Amelia. You see? There’s this one in Buenos Aires, then this one in Berlin, and here, Paris, London, Milan... And Amelia read a poem at Carla’s funeral. Carla Alessandrini was an exceptional woman, as well as being the most extraordinary opera singer of all time.”

  “Why did she take Amelia in?”

  “Because the only thing that Carla did not have was a child. She sacrificed everything for her career, and when she met Amelia, she was at that age, past forty, when women begin to ask themselves what they have done with their lives. Amelia made her feel a strong sense of protectiveness; she was the daughter that Carla could have had and she was so defenseless that Carla adopted her, emotionally speaking. She protected her, she gave her help at various moments of her life, and she never asked for anything apart from what Amelia gave her, love and sincere affection. Carla always held out her hand when she saw Amelia about to run aground. She became a safe refuge for Amelia, and Carla, a generous woman, never asked questions that Amelia couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to know anything other than what she saw in this young Spanish woman.”

  “And what about Vittorio Leonardi, Carla’s husband, what did he think about this mother-daughter relationship?”

  “Vittorio had no illusions, he was a good person but he had no illusions about himself. He was handsome and friendly as well as smart. He was Carla’s manager, he knew how to look after her interests, he mollycoddled her and knew her well. He knew that there were some points where it was useless to try to stand up to her. So he accepted Amelia without asking questions, just as he shut his eyes to some of his wife’s love affairs as well. Vittorio was not well-off when he met Carla and he suddenly went from being a gossip-columnist who found it hard to make ends meet to living surrounded by all kinds of luxury at the side of a woman who was desired and adored by everyone. He went from nowhere to the very top of things in an instant and never risked his relationship with Carla: He, at least, was always faithful to her.”

  “And what did Carla Alessandrini think about Pierre Comte?”

  “That’s just what Professor Soler wanted to know when he called me a couple of years ago: He was working on a second edition of his book about Soviet spies in Spain. I felt very flattered that an authority like Professor Soler might be interested in my opinion. Well, I answered his questions, I said that Carla did not like Pierre Comte very much, and she helped Amelia when she decided to break with him. I think she didn’t trust him, and I’ve read in some of Professor Soler’s books that he was nothing more than a Soviet spy. Of course, Carla never knew this, or at least there is no document or witness that makes us think that she did know this. She didn’t sympathize with him, not because he was a Communist, but because Amelia was unhappy; I don’t know if you knew that Carla Alessandrini was a great woman who not only stood firm against Mussolini but also always spoke out against Hitler in public. There was one occasion when she sang at the Berlin Opera and Hitler wanted to come and congratulate her in her dressing room, and she refused to receive him, pleading a headache. As you might guess, that was a time when no one stood up to Hitler no matter how much his head ached. What Carla did know was what Amelia did years later. Not because Amelia told her, but because she figured it out; she was a clever woman.”

  “And what did Amelia do years later?” I asked, a little annoyed.

  “Aha! You’ll have to f
ind that out for yourself. Professor Soler has told me that you need to find things out step by step, that’s what you were told, and what he was told. I don’t know what all this is about, but apparently someone wants you to put together the puzzle that was Amelia Garayoa’s life yourself. And anyway, as I said, she is only of tangential interest to me; my main interest is Carla Alessandrini. Do you like the opera?”

  “I’ve never been in my life, and I don’t even have any operas on CD.”

  “A pity! It’s your loss.”

  “And how come you are so interested in it?”

  “I wanted to be a singer, I thought I could be a new Carla Alessandrini, but... well, I didn’t have her voice or her talent, nowhere close. It was difficult for me to accept, but in the end I decided that if I couldn’t be the best then it was better not to continue. I studied musicology at the same time that I took my singing lessons, and was in the chorus on one or two occasions, but not to any great effect. My thesis was on Alessandrini, and various little-known aspects of her life. My thesis supervisor had connections with various publishers, and he was convinced that my thesis could be turned into an interesting book. And that’s what happened. Now I write about music, above all about opera, both books and newspaper articles. I’m somebody now, which is what it’s all about, anyway. Well, you know almost everything about me, tell me something about yourself.”

  “I’m a journalist, out of work because of the way politics functions. I don’t know what things are like in Italy, but in my country if you want to write about politics you’re either on the Right or on the Left, or a nationalist of some kind, or else you’re unemployed. And I’m the latter.”

  “You don’t have any opinions?”