Scarpia

by Piers Paul Read

  *

  Sister Monica left the parlour. Monsignor Tochetti and Father Carnevali rose from the table and sat on the two straight-backed upholstered chairs placed on either side of the fireplace. Father Carnevali handed the bishop his breviary, took out his own, and both clerics started to read silently the Office of the day. Monsignor Tochetti considered that he would probably have to wait for a while, if only to justify the prioress’s talk of difficulties, but twenty minutes later she returned, followed by two peasants, a man and a woman, and behind them a girl.

  The bishop stood. The two peasants went down on their knees. Both seemed older than the bishop had anticipated – almost fifty, perhaps, which suggested that they had married late in life. The gardener was still dressed in his work clothes, but his wife was wearing her Sunday best – a clean, embroidered dress with square-cut bodice and a bonnet, slightly askew as if put on in haste. The bishop held out his hand to proffer his episcopal ring, first to the husband, then to the wife, which both kissed with lowered heads.

  The girl, who stood behind her parents, did not, at once, go down on her knees. Only when her parents were raised by a gentle gesture by the bishop, did she first curtsy and then, with a bounce, kneel, kiss the ring and stand again: and as she did so, she looked briefly and quizzically into the eyes of the august successor to the Apostles, before lowering her glance demurely to the floor.

  Monsignor Tochetti may have successfully made himself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom, but he was quite aware that God bestowed physical beauty unevenly on his creatures, male and female alike, so that some, like Father Carnevali, despite the advantage of youth, were unpleasing to the eye, while others, like this young woman, were a delight. The questioning glance had come from large brown eyes decorated with long lashes and crowned with elegant black brows. The hair beneath her bonnet was black with a sheen, and her pale brown complexion was free from pockmarks or any other blemish. She was recognisable as the daughter of her mother, but just as the older woman was now heavy and bent, the younger one was erect and slender. As in the mother, her features were strong, but none were out of proportion: and her pink lips, when they parted, showed an even row of bright white teeth.

  The prioress, Sister Monica, who had been standing by the door, now came forward and directed the gardener and his family to sit on a bench that was placed against the wall. The bishop and Father Carnevali resumed their seats on the straight-backed chairs, and the three whom he had summoned sat facing them on the bench – the girl between her two parents. Sister Monica, and an accompanying nun, remained standing.

  ‘My very dear children,’ Monsignor Tochetti began, ‘I have asked to see you because yesterday in your parish church I heard this most beautiful voice, and after the ceremony I asked Father Giacomo to whom it belonged. He told me it was yours . . .’ The bishop moved his eyes from the parents to their daughter. ‘He told me of your presence, here at the convent, and Sister Monica kindly acceded to my request to meet you. And this meeting, I should say, is not simply to satisfy my curiosity. You may not know it, but in the cathedral of Golla we have a choir that is famous throughout the Veneto, and it would, it seems to me, add to the greater glory of God if you, signorina, would come to Golla under my protection and sing in that choir.’

  There was silence. Neither the parents nor the daughter raised their eyes and remained not just silent but entirely still as if they were not present, or wished they were not present, or thought the bishop’s short speech had somehow nothing to do with them. Then, suddenly, the mother directed a furtive look at her daughter, before going back to the contemplation of her embroidered skirt.

  Monsignor Tochetti had addressed them in Italian, and it now occurred to him that perhaps they had not fully understood what he had said. He therefore repeated his proposition in Venetian, adding to his proposal an assurance that the girl could reside with one of the many religious communities in Golla and would be treated with every respect and consideration.

  Now both parents spoke at once. ‘It is a great honour,’ said the gardener.

  ‘She is still young,’ said the wife.

  ‘How old are you, my child?’ the bishop asked the girl.

  ‘I am fifteen, Your Grace.’ She looked up to say this, and her expression encouraged the bishop: it seemed to suggest that she felt that at fifteen she was quite grown up.

  ‘But in Golla, in a great city . . .’ said the mother.

  Monsignor Tochetti smiled. Golla, a great city!

  ‘I understand Tuscan,’ said the girl. ‘I can read and write . . . almost.’

  ‘There is much wickedness in the city . . .’ said the mother.

  ‘Would she perhaps find a means to . . . to earn her living?’ asked the father.

  ‘Her voice, which has such natural beauty,’ said the bishop, ‘would be trained to perfection by one of the finest choirmasters in all Italy.’

  ‘So that . . .’ The gardener hesitated to put it bluntly.

  ‘She would earn her living,’ said the bishop. ‘And more.’

  ‘It would be a wonderful opportunity,’ said Father Carnevali with an ingratiating glance at the bishop.

  ‘Yes, for sin!’ said Sister Monica. She did not move; her hands remained folded under her habit; but her words were as strong as a fist thumping upon a table.

  ‘Yes, for sin,’ repeated the old peasant woman, the mother, raising her eyes and turning with gratitude to the nun standing behind her.

  ‘There is sin everywhere,’ said Father Carnevali.

  ‘But the walls of a convent keep the Devil at bay,’ said Sister Monica.

  During this exchange, Bishop Tochetti watched the girl closely and he noticed how, at the mention of sin, her eyes slightly widened and, when she turned to look at Father Carnevali, she wrinkled her nose. Could she smell his malodorous breath from where she was sitting, or was it just his appearance that had produced this reaction? And why had the word sin led to a widening of the eyes?

  ‘Both these things are true,’ said the bishop, speaking in Venetian. ‘High walls can protect from worldly temptations but, as Our Lord tells us, good and evil are a matter of our inner disposition. And he also told us that we must not hide our light under a bushel; and we must remember the parable of the talents in which the man who keeps his one talent buried is consigned to everlasting torment in Hell.’

  ‘With all due respect to Your Grace,’ said Sister Monica, ‘the talent may be spiritual and a calling, even for one with a fine voice, may be to be a saint.’

  ‘There are saints outside the cloister,’ said the bishop.

  ‘The path is harder for a young girl.’

  The bishop turned to the girl. ‘Do you feel, my child, that Almighty God and the Blessed Virgin would like you to take the vows of the nun?’

  ‘I prefer singing to praying!’ The girl blurted this out. The bishop and Father Carnevali laughed. The two nuns did not. Nor did the mother.

  ‘But to sing is to pray,’ said the bishop. ‘Laborare est orare – and it is not just to pray but to preach, to evangelise, to clothe truth in beauty, to make it shine and delight!’

  When a bishop, even a mere coadjutor bishop, points at a path towards sanctity and salvation, it leaves little more to be said.

  ‘Let me suggest this,’ the bishop went on. ‘If the signorina is willing, let her come to Golla with her mother and father, and they will be shown where she might reside, and by whom she would be taught – all this, of course, at my expense. Indeed –’ the bishop now stood up and turned to Father Carnevali – ‘let us give you now ten scudi to cover the expenses.’ Father Carnevali bowed. ‘If, that is –’ the bishop turned to Sister Monica – ‘the services of your gardener can be spared for two or three days?’

  Sister Monica, too, bowed to signify her acquiescence.

  ‘And if all does not seem satisfactory –’ the bishop turned back to the parents – ‘then of course the three of you can return to San Lorenzo.’

  M
onsignor Tochetti and Father Carnevali moved towards the door. Father Carnevali gave the ten scudi to the incredulous gardener. Then, at the door to the parlour, the bishop stopped, held out his hand to be kissed and, after the three had kissed it, added an episcopal blessing.

  ‘But I do not even know your name,’ he said to the girl.

  ‘Our name is Tosca,’ said the father.

  ‘And she is Floria,’ said the mother.

  ‘So,’ said the bishop. ‘Floria Tosca. I look forward to seeing you in Golla, my child.’ And, after giving her a final blessing, he left the room.

  Three

  1

  Vitellio Scarpia and Luigi Spoletta disembarked with their few belongings at Civitavecchia – the port, fifty miles from Rome, used by priests, pilgrims and cultivated sightseers on their way to the Eternal City, and the base for the warships of the Papal States. The two Sicilians were there fortuitously: Civitavecchia had happened to be the destination of the first boat leaving Cadiz after Scarpia’s release from the Castillo de Santa Catallina. They took rooms at an inn near the port and as they ate dinner Spoletta dropped oblique remarks to make clear that in his view they should find another boat to take them on to Palermo. Nothing that he said required an answer from Scarpia who, throughout the voyage from Cadiz, had been silent and, even now that he was back in Italy, remained in a sombre mood. Spoletta also made the point, as if thinking aloud, that their funds were running low; but he did not press it. He realised that Scarpia might not want to return to his parents penniless and in disgrace.

  The next morning they travelled on the public diligence to Rome. Arriving at the Piazza del Popolo, the driver directed them towards an inn which he promised would be suitable for a cavaliere. It was above an eating house and so filled with the smell of burning fat. On the second day they found better lodgings close to the Piazza di Spagna – an apartment on the piano nobile and a garret for Spoletta under the roof. The wallpaper was faded and carpets threadbare, but the place was clean, the owner was agreeable and his daughter, who offered to wash their clothes, was good-natured if plain. The plainness, like the shabbiness of the rooms, suited Scarpia’s mood: he looked away from pretty girls.

  Rome was a good place for a disheartened man to hide away from the world. The city that had once been the capital of a great empire was now an anomalous backwater, ruled as it had been for the past thousand years by its bishop, the Pope. In antiquity, two million inhabitants had lived within the Aurelian walls: now there was a tenth of that number and much of what had once been a city had returned to nature as vineyards and fields. There were magnificent basilicas, grand palaces, innumerable churches and fine fountains and piazzas; but cattle and sheep grazed among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, and chickens scratched the earth of the Forum. On the bend in the Tiber, where the Romans now lived, pigs fed off the rubbish, which lay in heaps on the mostly unnamed, unpaved and unlit streets.

  The Pope at the time of Scarpia’s arrival in Rome was Giovanni Angelo Braschi, Pius VI. Handsome, amiable, vain, he had risen through the ranks of the papal civil service and had now reigned for twenty-three years. He was not especially devout, but liked to preside at the elaborate liturgies on the innumerable feast days of the Church. He had ennobled and enriched his nephew, Duke Braschi Onesti, but far from being offended by this nepotism, his subjects admired their papa bello: popes who did not share their good fortune with their relatives were considered stingy. He was extravagant, spending large sums of money on grandiose projects such as a magnificent new sacristy for St Peter’s Basilica, Egyptian obelisks in many of Rome’s piazzas, the Pio-Clementino museum, and fruitless attempts to drain the Pontine marshes.

  There was, at the time, a large gap between the rich and the poor, but so imbued were all the citizens of the Eternal City with the values of the Gospels that the poor were respected, even revered. Monasteries, convents and lay fraternities vied for the privilege of caring for the needy – feeding them, clothing them, educating them, giving them shelter and tending them when they were sick. There was free primary education, funds for dowries for impoverished girls, and the newly built prison, the carcere nuovo, was the most advanced in Europe. Foreigners who lent themselves airs or showed contempt for the poor were despised: in Rome a prince or a cardinal would happily share a pinch of snuff with his coachman or a beggar on the street.

  As a result of the free provision of life’s necessities, few Romans did any work. Those not attached to one of the many ecclesiastical establishments worked as servants or artisans or were wholly idle. Even those who worked took a siesta that lasted from midday until six in the evening. Sundays were days of rest, and no one worked on the many feast days that punctuated the year. Such holy days saw magnificent singing by choirs in the basilicas and churches and jubilant celebrations later in the day. On the feast of St Peter and St Paul, the facade of St Peter’s Basilica was illuminated by six thousand lamps, and there was a fireworks display from the Castel Sant’Angelo judged to be finer than that put on for King Louis XVI at Versailles. The Roman nobility shared their pontiff’s sense of noblesse oblige. The magnificent collections of art in their palaces were open for all to see, and given some pretext such as the state visit of a foreign monarch, they laid on sumptuous entertainments with a free distribution of cakes and ices and paid for orchestral concerts in public squares.

  *

  Each morning, after Spoletta had helped him dress, Scarpia set out to explore the city. He mingled with the foreign visitors among the ruins of the Forum and the Baths of Caracalla, read the gazettes in the Caffè Greco or the Caffè degli Specchi, and at midday ate lunch in one of the many alberghetti. In the afternoon like everyone else he returned to his lodgings for a siesta. In the evening he watched the passeggiata on the Corso and at night explored the dark streets lit only by candle lamps beneath some image of the Madonna or a saint.

  On Sundays, Scarpia went to Mass in a nearby church or in one of the great basilicas – St John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore or St Peter’s itself. He was awed by the grandeur of the buildings. The rich decor of painted putti and marble saints led his eye upwards towards images of the Saviour whose suffering had won Paradise for the repentant sinner, and to his gentle mother surrounded by angels reigning as Queen of Heaven. Never hitherto devout, Scarpia had been obliged by experience to discover a new side to his mercurial character, one that was reflective and susceptible to remorse.

  Scarpia could not remove from his mind the memories of what had happened in Algiers. Images recurred over and over again in his mind’s eye of Celestina’s buttocks like sides of ham; of her body pressed gently against the dark hirsute body of the Turk; of her finger twirling the lock of his tight-curled black hair – then of the man, his back against the wall, held paralysed at the point of Spoletta’s sword; his eyes flitting to and fro; and then Scarpia’s sudden fury, and lunge at the man’s breast.

  Scarpia had attacked the Hanoverian grenadier during his sortie at the siege of Gibraltar, but that was war. The janissary, Celestina’s lover, was also an enemy who, had he had the chance, would have killed Scarpia. But he did not have the chance. It was not a fair fight. When Scarpia had killed him he was unarmed, ungirded – half-naked, bristly like a pig. And like a stuck pig he had died – blood pumping from his carcass; and there was Celestina crouched beside the body, her face wet with tears and blood; and, had he not been restrained by Spoletta, he might have killed her too – possessed for that moment by a jealous rage, the terrible hatred of someone he had so recently loved and had thought was his.

  And then there was the shame he felt at disappointing those who had helped him on his way to preferment and good fortune – Celestina’s father, Admiral Barceló and the King of Spain himself; and his father and mother who had sent him off to Spain with their prayers and blessings. What shame, embarrassment and disappointment they would have to endure when they learned that he had been dishonourably discharged from the Spanish army. What kind of welcome would he get af
ter dissipating the favours they had called in as well as the ducats, dollars and sequins they had put in his purse?

  Scarpia feared the disappointment of his father less than the disdain of his mother: his father, after all, had lost so many illusions that he might even be pleased to lose another. There was also the parable of the Prodigal Son which was familiar to any Christian; but that story told by Christ of a father’s forgiveness of a wayward son made no mention of the mother, who, if she was like Marcella di Torre della Barca, would have been less likely to forgive the shame that her son had brought on the family.

  These were the thoughts that led Scarpia to linger in Rome. He could live there cheaply – even for nothing thanks to the many soup kitchens. If he could no longer afford the clothes of a gentleman, then he could wear a soutane and pass himself off as a cleric: a third of the city’s male inhabitants wore soutanes or the habits of one of the many religious orders, and, as he mused on his own failure as both a soldier and a lover, it struck Scarpia that perhaps he had mistaken his vocation and was called, like Ignatius Loyola, to be a soldier of God – not as a Jesuit, because the Society had been suppressed, but as a member of one of the many other religious orders each of which had a church in Rome – the Augustinians, the Benedictines, the Carmelites, the Franciscans, the Redemptorists, the Theatines, the Barnabites – the choice was vast.

  By chance, as these thoughts were passing through his head, Scarpia found himself outside the Oratorian church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. He went in. A Mass was in progress: incense thickened the air, rising past the gilded columns to the sumptuously decorated dome. In a side chapel there was a confessional with a line of penitents waiting to be shriven. Scarpia knelt behind them. His heart thumped because, although he had been to confession many times before, his sins had hitherto been insignificant peccadillos.