Sofia grips Beppe’s arm, suddenly nervous at the thought of meeting them all again; Beppe smiles at her in reassurance. He turns to the dog. ‘Go on, then,’ he says, holding Ippo’s head in both his hands and pointing it in the direction of the wagons. ‘Go on, boy. There’s Ago! Ago! Seek! Go on – go find him!’
Scrabbling down from the cart, Ippo does not need to be told twice. He races off, ears flat against his head, back arching at each stride like a hound’s, and Sofia feels her face stretching out into a smile as Agostino looks up in astonishment. Ippo jumps up, his joyous barks audible even at this distance. Sofia sees him turning in tight circles, chasing his tail with excitement; hears Ago shouting to Cosima, who all but falls out of the back of the wagon, she reappears with such haste; sees Vico’s head peering out from the smallest wagon, his expression unreadable from this far away.
Agostino has seen them – he is waving wildly with both arms. He begins to run, his breath puffing in clouds before his face.
‘Come on, let’s go and meet him,’ Beppe says. ‘Nicco, can you follow on in the cart – do you mind?’
‘Go on – hurry up! Get going!’ is Niccolò’s only reply.
Vaulting down from the cart, Beppe reaches back up and takes Sofia’s hand. She jumps down, and, hand in hand, they too start to run. Their footsteps jar on the hard ground and Sofia stumbles, but Beppe’s grip on her hand tightens, his arm lifts, and she rights herself without slowing.
As they near each other, Sofia can see the untidy smile on Agostino’s face; he is out of breath now, and the smile has stretched out into a gasp for air, but his arms are wide and before she can speak, he has pulled both her and Beppe into a hug.
‘Oh thank heavens – you’ve found her! Thank God! Genesius and Vitus were watching out for you after all! Oh, bless them – bless you! Cosima and I have been sending up our prayers nightly and’ – Agostino looks upwards – ‘heaven be praised, they have obviously intervened in the right places and… oh dear Lord… here you are and… who is that in the cart over there?’
‘Niccolò.’
‘Niccolò? Niccolò Zanetti? Oh cielo! How marvellous!’
Cosima has caught up and, gasping for breath, she too throws her arms around first Sofia, then Beppe. ‘Oh, thank goodness he found you! Why? Why did you go like that? Where have you been? We’ve been so worried! Beppe, where was she? How did you —?’
Beppe is laughing. ‘Enough! Enough! We’ll tell you everything, but we’re all badly in need of something to eat. It’s been hours since —’
‘Oh, my word, of course! Quick – I have a pot of my best soup on the brazier,’ Cosima says, taking Sofia’s hand and turning back towards the wagons.
Catching Sofia’s eye, Beppe grins and raises an eyebrow. ‘Soup. Still glad to be back?’ he says, very quietly into her ear, and she laughs.
The little cart scrunches up beside them.
‘Niccolò, bless you, how good to see you, my friend,’ Agostino says, reaching up and taking one of Niccolò’s hands in his. ‘But I thought you were at your daughter’s for the winter.’
‘I was, Ago, I was. In fact I had absolutely no intention of moving from Anna’s little place until the spring.’ He smiles at Sofia. ‘But then I was rudely uprooted from my hibernation by the arrival of your little Colombina. No regard for an old man’s need for rest, she had – not a moment’s thought given to —’
‘Niccolò!’ Sofia is suddenly anxious.
He laughs and blows her a kiss.
‘Bring that donkey down here, Nicco,’ Ago says, pointing towards where the Coraggiosi horses are tethered. ‘She’ll need hay and water.’
The brazier is blazing and the soup in its great iron pot is steaming – white wisps are tendrilling out from beneath the rim of the lid. The Coraggiosi have seated themselves around the fire on their usual odd assortment of boxes, barrels, cushions and blankets. Beppe and Sofia, in the midst of it all, are pressed close to each other and Beppe’s arm is protectively around Sofia’s shoulders. Ippo has curled himself at Beppe’s feet, his nose tucked under his paws. Niccolò is in the only complete chair – a small painted wooden thing with a woven rush seat and no arms – while Lidia, Federico and Giovanni Battista, who is still tutting his teeth and shaking his head in bewilderment at the new arrivals, are side by side on a long wooden chest. Vico has picked up his guitar and is cross-legged on a folded blanket in front of Lidia’s legs. Agostino has perched on an upturned half-barrel and Cosima is on her feet, wooden ladle in hand; removing the lid of the pot she begins spooning soup into bowls.
Just to the left of Giovanni Battista, Angelo is perched on an upturned wooden carton. He has said little since the newcomers were bustled in to sit near the brazier, and now is watching them intently, chewing the skin at the side of his thumbnail.
Sofia darts glances his way every now and again, unable to determine what she should be thinking about him. It is, after all, thanks to Angelo that she is not still incarcerated in that cramped and ill-smelling room in Bologna – or worse – but then Beppe’s overheard and misunderstood outburst, which caused her to run off and spend so many days in abject misery, was also down to Angelo. Gratitude and resentment battle uncomfortably in her head.
Agostino’s voice breaks into her thoughts. ‘And then you overheard these Gelosi boys talking about Sofia’s arrival…’ he is saying to Beppe, but then he stops, as though hearing his own words again in his head and turns instead to Sofia. ‘Oh, Sofia, to think of it! The Gelosi! You have performed on the stage with the Gelosi. Our own Colombina, on stage with the Andreinis and Flaminio Scala. Oh my word, that is so entirely extraordinary!’
‘Ago, they were lovely. They couldn’t have been kinder. And they’re doing what they can for us even now – as I told you. After what that man said, when he came and spoke to us after the performance, Isabella said she would petition on our behalf.’
‘What man?’ Agostino frowns in bemusement.
Beppe says, ‘Did we not say? One of the Franceschina servants. Clearly no friend of his master’s, though. Realized straight away what we were talking about, and told us da Correggio was sodden with opium and grappa much of the time and was asking for trouble. He said that he thought his master was selling the opium, too – not just taking the stuff himself.’
Agostino puts his head in his hands. ‘Oh cielo! I knew it! It’s all my fault!’
‘What?’
‘I chose to take us all to the home of an immoral reprobate. It’s all my fault.’
‘Don’t be silly, Ago, how could you possibly have known?’
Everyone – Sofia perhaps most vocally – hurries to reassure Agostino, and Cosima changes the subject. ‘Tell us more about this plan you hatched, Sofia.’ She has perched herself on Agostino’s lap. ‘How did it work?’
Feeling everyone’s eyes on her, Sofia says, ‘Well, it seemed like the only chance I could possibly get of confronting whoever killed that man. I thought that if I could write it into a speech and try to… oh, I don’t know… flush them out, make them feel guilty… I hoped that perhaps I’d be able to see it – see their reaction. I meant to describe the awfulness of it – the fact that someone actually did it. You know – that they picked up a great lump of metal like that, and actually hit it against a man’s head.’ She swallows. ‘I thought it would shame whoever it was into reacting. I wanted to see someone gasping, looking shocked, reacting in some way that’d be obvious.’ Stopping again, she puffs a resigned little laugh in her nose. ‘It was stupid, really, wasn’t it? I mean… to think that whoever it was would happen to have been there – watching me. On that very day.’
‘I’m glad you did it,’ Beppe says. ‘If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found you, would I? Not so easily, anyway. And you nudged that servant into telling us what he knew.’
‘I suppose so.’
Lidia smiles as Sofia lays her head on Beppe’s shoulder.
Looking at her now, returning the smile, Sofia can see that t
here is a new fullness in Lidia’s face, a soft pink in her cheeks, and, although it is hard to see from where she is sitting, it occurs to Sofia that Lidia’s front-fastening bodice seems to be slightly looser-laced than before. Catching at her lower lip with her teeth, she wonders if these tiny changes signify what she thinks they might.
Vico has stopped playing his guitar. He is frowning at something to one side of her with his brow furrowed. Catching her eye, he holds her gaze for a second, then looks at Beppe. Some sort of understanding seems to pass between them, for Beppe nods briefly – though to what he is agreeing, Sofia has no idea at all.
‘And tell us more about how you managed to get yourself onto that stage, Beppe,’ Agostino continues, boomingly cheerful once more. ‘Was it a total shock when you turned round and saw him, Sofia?’
‘No – not when I saw him. The shock didn’t come till I heard him speak.’
‘How did you do it, Beppe? How did you come to be there?’
Beppe squeezes Sofia against him. ‘I heard those boys up on the stage, like I told you, and I couldn’t imagine who else they could have been talking about. I was on my way around to the back, to find which wagon Sofia and the others were in, when I saw him. Simone da Bologna. He was coming out of one of the carts. I recognized him from all those years ago, when I first saw the Gelosi back in Bergamo.’
‘Then what?’
‘I stopped him. “I’m looking for a girl called Sofia Genotti,” I said.’
‘What did he say?’
Beppe kisses the side of Sofia’s head. ‘He looked as though he was ready to punch my lights out, to be honest.’ He demonstrates Simone’s reactions as he describes them. ‘His eyes narrowed… and his mouth pursed up tight… and he just said, “Who are you?” So I told him. Told him everything. Told him how long I’d been looking. Told him how desperate I was. Told him what I’d heard the little boys on the stage say – about the new material Sofia had suggested.’
‘Was the idea of the substitution his or yours?’ Vico asks.
‘Mine. He was all for an immediate reunion. As soon as I said I’d been searching for Sofia for days, Simone suggested taking me back into the wagon right there and then, but I said no.’
‘Why?’ This from a furrowed-browed Cosima.
‘I don’t really know. I suppose… oh, you’ll laugh… but…’
‘What?’
Beppe shrugs. ‘I’m a performer, aren’t I? I can’t help it. I just knew it would work on the stage, and it seemed right.’
Everyone laughs.
‘Simone loved the plan. He said he would change the instructions he was giving Sofia, and that he’d tell her it would be funnier if she stared out front while pouring her heart out, and that Arlecchino would pretend to be bored behind her. He gave me the lines.’
Sofia is smiling now. ‘Simone made me promise not to turn around.’ She puts on Simone’s voice. ‘Far more amusing to the audience if you’re totally unaware of him not listening behind you.’
‘But what she didn’t know was that Simone gestured out at the audience to keep silent.’ Beppe puts a finger to his lips now. ‘Then he tiptoed off stage completely. He stripped off, I put on the costume – which didn’t fit very well, I can tell you – and I crept back on in his place. No idea if the audience noticed the change of actor.’
Sofia says, ‘When I turned around and he was sitting there, drumming his fingers on his knees and looking the very picture of boredom, I just presumed it was Simone. Why would I not? I thought that the audience’s laughter had been because he had been fooling about behind my back.’
‘And then…?’
‘And then he spoke. And I knew straight away. And it was as though I’d stopped knowing how to breathe.’
Beppe pulls her in tightly again and kisses her cheek. The softest murmur of appreciation passes around the various members of the Coraggiosi.
‘But,’ Agostino says proudly, ‘but like a true and consummate actor, you carried on with the scene, and the audience were none the wiser that you were all but poleaxed.’
‘She did indeed,’ Beppe says. ‘She was wonderful.’
‘And you, Niccolò,’ Agostino says now, and everyone turns to look at him. ‘Without you, none of this would have come to pass, am I not right?’
Niccolò smiles. ‘No, not me – it was my lovely daughter. It was Anna’s idea that Sofia should go back.’
‘But you came with her.’
‘Of course. How could I have sat there and let her go back on her own?’
Agostino says, ‘Do you know, if I did not have the very lovely Cosima upon my knee at this moment, I would stand and declare that you, Niccolò Zanetti, are now even more than an honorary member of the Coraggiosi. You are… a… oh cielo, I cannot think of a proud enough term. Help me out, someone!’
‘Ha! The great and verbose Agostino Martinelli is lost for words! That has to say something about the immensity of his pronouncement, don’t you reckon, Niccolò?’ Federico says, grinning.
‘I’d say Niccolò should be awarded the title of “Fundamental Member of the Coraggiosi”,’ Beppe says.
‘Perfect, Beppe, perfect.’ Agostino smiles widely. ‘Cosima, my love, on your feet for a moment.’
Cosima stands.
Getting to his feet too, Agostino raises his glass. ‘Signor Niccolò Zanetti: Fundamental Member of the Coraggiosi!’
Everyone takes a mouthful from their cup or glass and repeats Agostino’s words. Niccolò’s colour deepens dramatically.
Looking suddenly more serious, Agostino leans towards where Niccolò is sitting. ‘Why don’t you stay with us, Nicco? Travel with us? Don’t go back to Faenza. You could set up stall wherever we stop and play and…’
The rest of his sentence is lost in the babble of responses from everyone else, agreeing, exhorting Niccolò to consent, proclaiming the good sense of the suggestion. Niccolò raises both hands and the troupe falls silent.
‘Agostino – all of you – I am truly honoured by your suggestion.’
‘Will you come? Come with us? It’s new territory – down here, down south – it’ll take time to build up the audiences again, but…’
‘We may be back in Emilia-Romagna, don’t forget, Ago,’ Vico says. ‘Like Sofia said just now. The Andreinis are doing their best to have the banishment rescinded – that’s what you said, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. They’re performing at the Castello Estense any day now, and they are going to put it to the duke himself.’
‘The duke himself? Oh dear God, that would be a gift from the heavens,’ Agostino says, shaking his head. ‘But wherever we are touring, Niccolò, we would like you to be with us. What do you say – will you come?’
Niccolò draws in a long breath, holds it… then nods. ‘Very well. I will. I’ll have to send word to Anna – but I’ll do it. I’ll come with you.’
Everyone claps.
Sofia looks around at the firelit faces of the members of the troupe. Their happy camaraderie – which she feared had been quite lost, immediately after her release from incarceration – is perhaps more vividly present here tonight than she has seen it before and everyone seems uncomplicatedly happy.
Everyone?
Glancing around again, this time more quickly, she sees that Angelo has slid away – yet again, as he has done on so many occasions, he has absented himself. She is about to point out his disappearance to Beppe, when Vico puts his guitar on the ground and leans over towards them.
‘Beppe,’ he mutters. ‘Can we talk? Now?’
His smile has vanished and the seriousness of his expression, at odds with the joviality of the evening, suggests trouble; Sofia, looking from him to Beppe and back, is suddenly fearful. She sees Beppe nod. He starts to stand. She grips his hand. ‘Can I come with you?’
Beppe looks back at Vico, eyebrows raised in question. Vico nods, jerking his head towards a deeper patch of shadow beneath a clump of beech trees. Arm around Lidia’s shoulders, he sets off,
with Beppe and Sofia close behind.
40
Sofia glances back over her shoulder. From here, in the deeper shadows of the trees, the still-burning brazier stands out brightly, and the near sides of the wagons are blocks of bright flickering colour in the otherwise dark blue night. Thick clouds are obscuring the moon and there is a velvety quality to the darkness. She can see little of her companions out here, other than faint silvery highlights along the edges of their faces and limbs and the odd gleam in an eye. Those few leaves still remaining on the beech branches have crisped and curled, and they are rustling softly overhead now, as though, Sofia thinks, they are whispering between them, curious about what might be transpiring below.
The Girl with the Painted Face Page 39
