by Eric Dupont
Right before the Cavaradossi execution scene, Anamaria had managed to slip away from D’Ambrosio and out of Castel Sant’Angelo, which was closed to visitors. It was the day after Christmas. She walked resolutely to a hotel opposite the Vatican, checking in under an assumed name. Two hours later she emerged in the white habit and black veil of a Dominican nun that she’d bought from the costume maker on set a week earlier. A half-million lira for the costume, a million to buy his silence.
For the first three days, Anamaria took refuge in churches, often St. Peter’s, or in smaller churches where a black Dominican nun wouldn’t raise eyebrows. Paradoxically, it wasn’t until she donned a nun’s white habit that the Romans stopped staring at her dark skin, considered normal for a nun. But even though her costume allowed her to give D’Ambrosio’s men the slip, it made her almost too interesting in the eyes of the thousands of nuns who walked the streets of Rome every day in ever greater numbers the closer you got to the Holy See, like ants around their nest. Fearing she might be unmasked, she took care to avoid the other nuns, the Dominicans in particular, and instead melted into the banality of the city’s artifacts, a little nun from the third world come to visit the Holy City. Avoiding the nuns of Rome was like a video game where her success depended on her quickness of feet and mind. Aside from that, Anamaria ate during those three days like she hadn’t eaten for centuries. She went from one trattoria to another, sampling Roman-style tripe in one, sinking her teeth into mozzarella di bufala at the next. On December 31, by then repentant and desperate, she went back to St. Peter’s one last time. There, at the back of the basilica, right at the very back, on the right, she asked to see a priest who could hear her confession. And so, moments later, sitting in a confessional in the world’s biggest church, Anamaria wiped away a tear as she waited for her confessor. Light filtered through the wooden mesh. A man sat down. Aftershave. A priest who smelled good. Vétiver, she thought. The same aftershave as Michel’s. She felt her very soul melt.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“How have you sinned, my child?”
“In my thoughts and in my deeds.”
“Can you tell me your sins?”
“I walked away from an important commitment I made with people I love. May God forgive me. My actions were not out of pride, nor of laziness.”
“And what led you to break this commitment?”
“I was asked to do things that are contrary to my understanding of music.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“I’m an opera singer, Father. The clothes I wear are a disguise. I am dressed up as a Dominican sister to hide—please don’t turn me in!”
“How can I help you? I still do not understand the nature of your sin.”
“It’s hard to explain. You must understand, Father. I’ve been asked to sing Tosca in a production that’s being filmed right here in Rome and—”
“You . . . you aren’t by any chance Anamaria di Napoli, are you? All of Rome has been looking for you for three days!”
“Yes, Father. But, for the love of God! I’ve taken asylum in your church. Please let me stay!”
“What can I do for you? And please try to keep your voice down. This isn’t easy for me.”
“All my life all I’ve ever done is sing. It’s second nature to me, a God-given talent.”
“And your sins?”
“It’s funny. We have the same accent, Father. Are you from Quebec too?”
“Yes, but please go on. How have you sinned?”
“My mother is not a rich woman. She could never have afforded the singing lessons I needed to have a professional career. Madame Lamontagne paid for everything. I’ve been with her son, Michel, for fifteen years now, but lately he’s changed. And it’s all D’Ambrosio’s fault . . . Madame Lamontagne is funding a good part of his film on Tosca. He wanted me in the film at all costs, but Madame Lamontagne would only give him the money if Michel got to sing Cavaradossi. D’Ambrosio lost his temper. He refused, but I convinced him to let Michel sing.”
“I still don’t see any sins.”
“It’s simple. Michel and I have been in Rome for months, locked away in a tower in a palace by Piazza Venezia.”
“Palazzo del Grillo?”
“That’s the one. D’Ambrosio got it into his head that Michel and I are too fat for his production. He wanted us to lose weight.”
“Pride!”
“Worse than that, Father. First he had us run on treadmills for two hours a day. Then, when he realized we weren’t losing as much weight as he’d hoped, he put us on a diet no one could have kept to. For the past two months, we haven’t even been allowed to go outside!”
“But he’s the one who should be confessing. What have you done wrong?”
“I ran away. Plain and simple. For weeks now, Michel’s been taking pills every morning, some sort of appetite suppressant. I’ve tried to tell him they’re no better than amphetamines, but he won’t listen. He’ll do anything D’Ambrosio says. He’s losing his mind on those pills. He’s stopped sleeping, and he thinks everyone’s out to get him.”
“How horrible!”
“But that’s not even the worst of it.”
“Tell me the rest.”
“It’s Tosca . . .”
“What do you mean, Tosca?”
“Well, everyone has their own idea of how an opera should be. And usually I try to go along with the director’s vision. But D’Ambrosio is asking me to do things that . . .”
“That . . . ?”
“In the scene we filmed at Palazzo Farnese, for instance, in the Hercules Room, he had me . . . he had me . . . I can’t even say it . . .”
“Speak, child.”
“We had to pretend Tosca was being raped by Scarpia dressed up as an SS officer. A brutal rape, with slaps and punches. I was thrown against the wall, against the floor. He spat on my face. I . . .” She began to sob. “Help me! I don’t know who else to turn to. Even the police are looking for me! All I want is to sing! Why? Why Lord? Why am I being punished like this?”
“Ssh! Please, keep your voice down. You have nothing to fear from me. We can’t talk here . . . How did you find me?”
“Find you? I just asked for a priest to hear my confession.”
“Not so loud. Your voice has a tendency to carry! Listen, I’m one of your earliest admirers, believe me. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to walk out of this confessional and over to the exit, as calm as can be. Once you’re outside, turn left and continue up to the entrance of the Vatican Museum, along the wall. Do you know where I mean? Do you have money to pay your way in?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Wait for me in the inner courtyard, beneath the big green pine cone.”
“I know it! But who are you?”
“I’m your last hope. Now, calm yourself. I’ll meet you up there in an hour at the latest. And dry those tears! Nuns don’t cry!”
Unsettled, worried, and shaking, Anamaria walked out of the basilica in silence. Outside, a few hundred pilgrims were milling around the square. On the final day of the century, the museum had only a handful of visitors. Anamaria found the ticket booth in minutes, walked to the inner courtyard, and buried her nose in the copy of the New Testament she’d been carrying around with her in case someone opened her bag. She waited for the priest for an hour and a half, going inside to warm up every now and then before coming back out and reading everything the gospels had to say about the nativity. When she looked up from her page, she nearly had a heart attack. The unlikeliest of visions stood before her: a smiling, brown-eyed priest, a little on the heavy side, an almost perfect copy of Michel Lamontagne, but an older Michel, in his sixties, shorter, with greying hair, and a glint in his eye, holding out his hand to her. He was wearing black ECCO cap-toe, wedge-heel, four-eyelet bluchers made from the finest quality leather.
“Father Lionel Lecavalier. Pleased to meet you, Miss di Napoli.”
“How happy I am you found me, Anamaria.”
“Do you know me?”
“More than you think. But enough talk. Let’s walk and pretend we’re looking at the paintings in the Pinacoteca, okay?”
“Okay. I’ve been before with my sweetheart.”
“I’m going to tell you a few things that will come as a surprise. I’m counting on your talents as an actress not to start shouting or crying. Act as though I’m talking about the art. No more surprise than need be. They know me here. I’ll say you’re a nun from . . . I was going to say Quebec, but given your age, they’ll never believe me!”
“From Haiti, perhaps?”
“Why not? Are there Dominican nuns in Haiti?”
“There are bound to be.”
Lecavalier and Anamaria began to walk just like the other visitors in the Pinacoteca, looking half indifferent, half fascinated. Since they both knew the museum, it wasn’t hard for them to feign surprise in front of the reproduction of the Pietà. Lecavalier spoke quietly, occasionally pointing at a painting to stress his words, a subject that was light years from what he was actually talking about.
“Ah, the Death of the Virgin. It looks like a painting I once saw in a convent, the Sisters of the Child Jesus Convent in Rivière-du-Loup. I’m sure you don’t know it; I can’t imagine Madeleine ever mentioned it to you. She seems to have decided that whole world no longer exists. And she’s not entirely wrong. Just look at this crucifixion . . . How beautiful those colors are. If I asked you to leave the confessional, Anamaria, it was on principle. Like you, I am loath to break my promises. Like you, I’m stubborn and always try to meet the goals I set myself. Or at least fifty percent of the time . . . Try not to look at me. I think the nun who watches over this room has spotted us. Let’s find another room. Here we go. Now, what do you know about this Da Vinci? It’s St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators, removing a thorn from a lion’s paw. Let me tell you now who I am. I come from Quebec City, from L’Ange-Gardien, to be precise. Since my parents couldn’t afford to educate me, off I went to the seminary, at a time when priests were giving up the cloth by the dozen. More than anything I wanted to become a painter and restorer, to help repair paintings for the Vatican museums. I could see myself repainting Michelangelo’s cherubs or touching up the paintings at Palazzo Farnese. Ah? You’ve seen them? The Carraccis? Wonderful, aren’t they? But then I went and met Madeleine Lamontagne. It was in 1968. I was just back from a first stay in Paris. I was certain my time would come soon, that the diocese would be sending me to Rome to continue my fine arts studies. But then the archbishop at the time learned of my artistic aspirations and decided to give me a lesson in humility. The Church is very good at that kind of thing . . . He sent me to Rivière-du-Loup to answer a very strange request. The parish of Saint-François-Xavier—Oh! Forgive me a moment. What do you think of this Crucifixion of St. Peter? Incredible!—well, they wanted me to paint them a way of the cross, no less! I arrived in Rivière-du-Loup in the spring of 1968. I hadn’t even set foot in the church when I first met Madeleine Lamontagne, surrounded by all the family you never knew. Her father, Louis Lamontagne, known to the locals as The Horse. Her mother Irene, her brother. I think one of her brothers died in a foolish accident a few years before I got there. It was . . . how shall I put this? It was love at first sight; it’s the only way I can explain it. But diabolical love at first sight, times two. You didn’t know the father, or Madeleine’s brother Marc. It was absolutely impossible to remain indifferent to either man. In fact, and you must promise me, Anamaria, that this will remain strictly between us, Marc had eyes of such an uncommon color, like the dark of night. Yes, that’s the word. When I say it was love at first sight times two, I mean that from the first time we met Madeleine had already decided that her heart belonged to me; and vice versa. What she didn’t see—or what she saw and chose to ignore—was that her brother Marc had the same feelings for me. Yes, Anamaria, Louis Lamontagne’s children were very peculiar. They were brought up away from others, and it showed. There was this wonderful young boy, a bit of a simpleton like his father, and his sister, craftier than a monkey, like her mother. And both were handed over to me as models for the stations of the cross, with the blessings of their parents and the parish priest, none of whom saw a thing! There’s one thing you should know about Louis Lamontagne: he was a country bumpkin, lacking in education and, by all appearances, something of a simpleton, but he had values. And he had a good heart beneath all that muscle. Do you see that concrete stele? He could have lifted it without batting an eyelid, if you happened to be trapped beneath it. Or unnerr it, as he’d have put it.
“Things got out of hand very quickly. First, Madeleine began coming more and more often to the church where I was painting, even on days when I didn’t need her. She told me some disturbing tales about her brother, to the point I ended up believing that Marc was a little too close to her, that there was incest. Solange was already on the scene back then, a bit of a tomboy who couldn’t abide me. She’d realized Madeleine was hopelessly in love with me. That Solange was made of the same stuff as Louis Lamontagne: solid rock. But she was a good soul, completely devoted to Madeleine, the poor girl. Her Achilles’ heel.
“I shared my concerns with one of the Sisters of the Child Jesus. She seemed to know the Lamontagne family very well. A rather homely woman. The Lamontagne children, especially the boys, were a long time growing up, she reassured me. And Marc liked to torment his sister Madeleine, tickling her until she was breathless. But he had no ill intentions, far from it. In fact, had Marc impure intentions, they were much more likely to be directed at the other boys. There were already rumors about him. He talked to me about them once when he was posing for me. What I can tell you is that boy wasn’t into girls. And I should know. When Madeleine realized, probably by spying on us, that Marc and I had, well, feelings for each other, she flew into a jealous rage. A real Tosca! You know what I’m talking about! By the end of summer, she was already threatening to tell her father everything—or worse still, her mother. I should point out that Madeleine was as pretty as a picture and, like all the Lamontagnes, as strong as an ox. I’ll never forget the day she caught me with Marc in the church while I painted him. My God! Look, Anamaria. Just look at Poussin’s Martyrdom of St. Erasmus. Now Marc Lamontagne, the boys’ uncle, he was the spitting image of the man eviscerating St. Erasmus with his bare hands. Ah, if I’d known how to make better use of the Rivière-du-Loup light in July, I’d have been every bit as good as Poussin! And so in comes Madeleine into the church, only to find her brother half naked, his lips pressed against mine. The poor boy didn’t have luck on his side. And to add fuel to the fire, he told his sister he planned on going back to Quebec City with me, which was pure invention on his part, needless to say. But I think Madeleine must have believed him.
“Everything happened very quickly after that. Madeleine got it into her head that, in order to save my soul, she had to take her brother’s place, a role she threw herself into the last week of August. I resisted as best I could. But between you and me, I never saw much of a difference between their adolescent bodies. And both Lamontagne children were absolutely stunning at that age. They would just slide in between your arms . . . Just as good-looking as their father. And what can I say about him? Wait a moment, let’s go back this way . . . Here we are. Reni’s Crucifixion of St. Peter. Now, just look at that bare-chested man taking St. Peter down from the cross, the one with the huge calves. That’s what Louis Lamontagne looked like. Almost exactly like that. That’s how I remember him. He didn’t have a brilliant mind, he drank, he could be violent, but who wasn’t back then? Even the priests would hit each other! When The Horse—that’s what we called him—walked into a room, people would go quiet. Everyone wanted to be close to him. How many women said his name at Wednesday confession? How many wives in Rivière-du-Lou
p had him as a lover? Go there today and just count the teal-colored eyes. Divide the number in half and there’s the answer to your question. Everyone wanted to be Louis Lamontagne. To be able to get close to his daughter or son was—how can I put this?—a privilege for me. I gave in on August 31. With Madeleine. In one of the confessionals in the church of Saint-François-Xavier. After that, I finished their way of the cross and then began mine.
“Around the end of October, Madeleine told me she was pregnant. I was sure she was bluffing. She wanted me to leave the Church, to marry her. When she saw my disbelief, she lost her temper. ‘If you don’t marry me,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell everyone I saw you with Marc.’ I admit, I lost control of myself, Anamaria. I slapped her. Two or three times in front of one of the paintings of the stations of the cross, the one with the women of Jerusalem. I told her she’d have to get along without me. How could I be sure she wasn’t making it all up? One week later, her poor brother Marc died from diabetic shock and I left Rivière-du-Loup. I don’t know what happened after that. The parish priest told me that Louis Lamontagne died in December 1968, a foolish accident involving a train. He also said that Madeleine and Solange had gone to Montreal to open a restaurant with an Austrian, a food distributor with his own fleet of trucks. Pfeffer? Zucker? That was it. Zucker.
“I managed to put the whole thing behind me. But the Sisters of the Child Jesus hadn’t forgotten me. They managed to track me down through the diocese in 1975. It was the ugly one, Sister Mary of the Eucharist, who sent me a newspaper clipping of Madeleine and Solange posing with the twins outside one of their restaurants in Montreal. I was in Paris. I understood right away when I saw Michel. It was me, only younger. It took months until I could get back to Montreal. At the time, I was restoring works of religious art for the diocese in Paris. Touching up a cherub here, redoing a Madonna there, nothing too exciting. But it was a start.
