Electric Velocipede Issue 25

by Megan Kurishage

  “But Calabria is rich in talent!” Giovanni said, looking to Enri, who blushed prettily. They laughed, and with his social tithe paid, Enri took a small table in a darker back corner that might seat two cozily, and the joy and friendliness dropped from his face.

  “Why are you here?” Enri asked.

  “I hoped I would see Italian opera in its purest form,” Giovanni said. “I complained about the ornament of your Hera, but if I told you of the opulence of opera in Rome, it would sicken you. And people coming up raved about this young musico . . . you.”

  Enri sighed. “Yes.”

  “It’s well deserved. I’ve never heard anything like it. Your power and range, they’re unlike anything I’ve ever heard.”

  Enri bowed a few degrees, bending head. “You flatter me,” Enri said. “Surely you heard better castrati when you were a working singer yourself.”

  Giovanni’s expression of sincere admiration caught. “Perhaps I had forgotten what it was like,” he said. “To see a performance live is not like recalling it, years later. In Munich, almost no one has ever heard a musico perform.”

  “Surely not.”

  “No one. We have— “ he stopped. “Only reports, women singing in the range, but it’s all farce, mimicry. I heard one man who merely sang falsetto.” Giovanni closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head, then opening them to look on Enri and smile again. “To be here for the real thing, ah.”

  Enri said, and smiled, reaching out to touch Giovanni’s hand, two of Enri’s long, cool, thin fingers resting next to the hard ball of Giovanni’ pisiform.

  “And starved for good food you find only the thinnest of soups, served in the most beautiful bowls, and you’re only hungrier after each stop.” Enri patted the back of Giovanni’s hand softly. “Then am I a delicious bit of veal in a thin broth?”

  The balls of Giovanni’s cheeks, lit by the lamps in the yard, glowed a hot red, and he swallowed.

  “I might be enraged, too, and make an ass of myself,” Enri said. He withdrew his long hand, dragging fingertips to the table and back. “I believe that. A little bit. Wine!” Enri yelled, his voice a knife through all conversations. “You’re lucky,” he said. “This was the best Hera I’ve ever done. I knew it would be when I woke up. Tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll only remember it. And in a few years we’ll both have forgotten it.” Enri looked off at the trickle of friends coming in.

  “No,” Giovanni said quietly. His hand lifted from the table, reaching up as his head leaned, and he straightened and stopped. “Tomorrow could be better still.”

  “Did his mood turn before he could eat?” Bartolo yelled to the back. “Stuff him quickly!”

  Enri sighed. “What if it is?” Enri said, turning to face Giovanni again. His brown eyes were wide, open, questioning. “You’re here only as a veteran of previous campaigns, then? Not a bard but a traveling audience?”

  “I want to establish a Bavarian opera company,” Giovanni said. “With you. With you as our centerpiece. “

  “A Bavarian . . . Royal Opera Company?” Enri asked. He laughed as he leaned back and took up his wine that had finally arrived. “Of course.” Enri took the carafe of wine, decanted a glass for himself with an expression of absolute, crushing boredom, and drank. He set the glass down and arched his back, stretching and wincing in pain. “Why not a Royal Bavarian Opera Company? Why not.”

  “The salary . . . ”

  Enri laughed, one bark, leaning into it. “Bartolo is moving the company,” Enri said. “How far remains to be seen, yes, his Venice idea is as much ambition as plan. But one step, two steps,” he raised both eyebrows and smiled apologetically “Soon I can buy Bavaria. I thought you might have an interesting proposition. How disappointing.”

  Giovanni’s face tightened as he ground his teeth. “You won’t get inland,” Giovanni said. He poured himself wine and shook his head. “Do we have to ask for food, or . . . ”

  “He knows I’m here,” Enri said. “They’ll bring something.”

  Giovanni sipped at the wine, frowned. “Do they cask this with the sand, or is it kicked in for each customer?”

  “I’m not going to get there?”

  “You’re turning down the chance to be special,” Giovanni said. “Unique. In a land of singers with testicles, the gourdless rules. Here, in Italy?” He laughed, three times softly. “I saw two of you discarded in the church choir at Wednesday Mass.”

  Bartolo pulled a chair in and bullied forward, shoving Enri back against a wall.

  “I am forced to be rude,” Bartolo said. He gave Giovanni a small, embarrassed smile, but his eyes betrayed no emotion at all. “On our walk here, some devil placed an unworthy thought among the lower minded members. They wondered if you intended revenge for your disappointment at the show tonight.” He paused, expecting Giovanni to catch on. “That you might wish to set high expectations for generosity and then leave us angry and impoverished. No?”

  “How long must I be insulted for coming from Munich?” Giovanni asked. “I’m growing tired of this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Next time I will pretend to be from Portugal.”

  Bartolo’s expression remained absolutely fixed. “Next time,” he said, “we will beat you to death and check your purse afterwards.”

  “Ah, you see?” Giovanni asked Enri, eyes lighting up and smiling. “This is the Calabria I remember so fondly.” He clapped Bartolo on the shoulder and chuckled.

  “Yes. Your coins, please,” Bartolo asked.

  Giovanni produced a small sack from around his neck and set it down on the table. Enri pulled it to him and drew out seven coins, silver, worn, mis-sized, placing each on the table in turn.

  “Ah,” Bartolo said, his face relaxing into curiosity. “I will testify to your wealth. Again, I’m sorry.” He stood, straightened his shirt and shoulders, and moved off.

  Enri pushed the seven coins into a neat row on the scarred, worn, stained surface of the wood table and moved the candle closer.

  “Ah,” Enri said.

  “They’re—”

  Enri leaned in, so far that he singed one of his stray blonde hairs, wafting a bitter acrid scent. He stacked the coins then turned each one over in his hand, rubbing the faces between thumb and forefinger.

  “As a member of a lower profession, I have a certain amount of experience in this,” Enri said.

  “They’re all alike,” Giovanni said. “Yes.”

  “You came to town.” Enri said softly, stroking the soft down on his cheeks absently, “You need to change your – what’s the Bavarian currency? The fossilized bear turd?”

  “For common circulation we use the turnip.”

  “More than twins.” Enri held two up, one in each hand, flipped their faces. “Even in the scratches.”

  Giovanni bit his lip. “I told them about that. Resolved as ‘won’t fix.’“

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I suspect my money-changer passed me counterfeits.”

  Enri patted himself down and found a coin of his own and turned it over. “If you’re not lying,” Enri said, “you’re very stupid or your counterfeiter is. The weight is perfect. Better.”

  Giovanni took the bag and one by one put the coins back under Enri’s fixed stare.

  “May I see your ear cuffs?”

  “They are forged in place, and can’t come off,” Giovanni said.

  “Are you cattle? Where is your brand?”

  “At least they let me keep my testicles,” Giovanni said.

  Enri’s eyes watered and his face flushed bright red. He threw his glass of wine to the rocks, smashing it, toppled the table, sending the carafe into the air, spilling across the startled players trying to duck away. Enri kicked the table out of his way and stormed from the courtyard.

  Giovanni drank from the glass still in his hand.

  Bartolo set the table upright.

  “Surprisingly late for his first tantrum,” he said. He pulled the chair back up
and wedged himself into it. “What started it?”

  “Started?”

  “Never mind.” Bartolo made a gesture to someone out of Giovanni’s vision with an apologetic face. “There is always something. And now, you see, he must be assuaged.”

  “Do I go?”

  Bartolo raised both eyebrows at Giovanni. “What a simple and complicated question,” Bartolo said. He caught the eye of the proprietor, smiled, and waved him over to ask after food.

  Bartolo and Giovanni sat together and had their dinner, and waited patiently for Enri to make his second entrance. Before they stopped glancing at the narrow passage to the courtyard entirely, he strode in smiling, stopped, bowed, and walked to the center table to take a glass and joke.

  Women of different ages, in much different dresses, orbited Enri, sometimes paying no attention, other times joining conversations, occasionally greeting groups seated and eating. They smiled widely to each other and made exaggerated gestures while they talked, never looking at but instead around Enri but closing with each rotation. The men accompanying them stood always a little back, muteness and distance equally clear statements. Enri circulated, wholly social and smiling. As the evening wore on, the women spiraled in, drawn by Enri’s bored face, until they would brush up against him, affect surprised, reach out and put a hand on his long forearm and smile and, in a most circumspect way, offer a proposition and then depart.

  “Moths circling a candle,” Giovanni said, quietly.

  “Sharks circling a castaway,” Bartolo said.

  “Castaways circling a shark,” Giovanni said. He pushed back from his plate and used his knife to pick at his teeth.

  “The way to his heart is an interesting and immediate offer. He is like a crow, always distracted, looking for shinier things. No plan a day, a week, a month away finds fulfillment.”

  “Especially if it involves travel to an unknown, backwards region,” Giovanni said.

  “It’s an interesting analogy,” Bartolo said. “Yes.”

  “I always thought I would find the castrati to be sexless, centered on their art.”

  Bartolo snorted. “Which art?”

  “How have you kept him here, then?” Giovanni said.

  “I make it easy for him. And I spend well on costumes,” Bartolo said. “Enri must be well-dressed at all times.” He chewed a bite of lamb, watching Enri greet a couple. “No, he must wear the best.”

  “Except when he is adding to his reputation as the finest music tutor available.”

  “I suspect he remains somewhat clothed,” Bartolo said. “Though that may depend on discoverability.”

  “Is that his excuse? That they must be unclothed for breathing exercises?”

  Bartolo shrugged. “I have not been present and am not his watchdog. I do my own, though it is not as lucrative, or frequent, and it’s with a much different cast,” he said, offering a suggestive look and mock toast. “Enri is an irresistible sweet, without consequences. I appeal to women with a taste for bitters. Older, with more sophisticated palettes, or so I tell myself.”

  “What happens to you both in a much larger city, with more money, and people?”

  “I will buy him a watchdog, for starters,” Bartolo said. He thanked the graying man who set down a baked paella. “Please, enjoy.”

  Giovanni looked at the paella with a small smile and wet eyes, smelling the seafood and saffron.

  “You remind me a little of myself,” Bartolo said. “Not only in your attempt to profit from Enri.”

  “I was a bass baritone, before these great days of Italian opera,” Giovanni said.

  “I suspected,” Bartolo said. “You have the gravity and proud bearing of our kind. Why did you give up the stage?”

  “My voice, as happens to us all,” Giovanni said.

  Bartolo kept a steady regard on Giovanni as he deliberately ate alternate portions of meat and pasta. “You can’t be older than thirty,” he said at last, in a soft voice.

  Giovanni nodded. “Say what you will about the wilds of Europe, but the air invigorates, the food is good, and the water is so fresh—”

  “Fresh with offal—”

  “The finest farmer’s offal, yes,” Giovanni said. “I look better now than when I left the home countries.”

  “I find myself skeptical, despite my trusting nature,” Bartolo said. “You couldn’t sing with me for a moment?”

  “How many high Cs remain for you?” Giovanni asked. “I wouldn’t ask you to waste one here, before us, rather than on the stage. They are so precious.”

  Bartolo remained still, a sad recognition on his soft features.

  “You are right,” Bartolo said. “And I know the truth in you.”

  He stood and leaning over the table, swept his arms out to grasp the man’s head in both great hands, and kissed his forehead.

  When he sat, with the courtyard watching, Bartolo’s grin drew his heavy cheeks up into balls and his eyes danced with the reflected flames of the lamps and candles.

  “You won’t sing? Just a line or two.”

  Giovanni looked to the table, the replaced carafe, and the rest of the company began to yell to him.

  “He is feigning shyness!” Bartolo cried. “We must indulge this spoiled one! What do we want this heralded bass to sing?”

  “L’Orfeo!”

  “I’m a poor Pluto,” Giovanni said.

  “Giasone!”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t—” Giovanni swallowed, cast about for another request, looked imploringly at Bartolo. He looked around and even Enri across the courtyard smiled and clapped, ignoring the annoyed young man next to him. The first impatient jeer came. Giovanni put his hands up.

  “Let me do Wotan’s farewell,” Giovanni said. “I will miss notes, I know. Please, don’t compare me to Bartolo in that, he is young and tremendous, and I am old and long from performance.”

  “Yes yes yes, flattery and delays,” Bartolo said.

  “Sing!” Enri screamed. “Sing, you barbarian!”

  “Just a moment.” Giovanni started softly, inaudible beneath the applause for his agreement, quietly running as everyone watched, testing his voice against the small space, turning bright red and shaking as the crowd put their hands down and paid attention. He stopped, sipped at the wine and spit it onto the stones and Enri’s broken glass. “Sorry,” he said.

  He sang. Nothing moved. No one applauded or spoke, no one turned back to their wine or food or friends, or coughed, or even seemed to breathe until Giovanni stopped after two minutes to see people from the street and the adjoining buildings pushing forward into the crowd, curious. They all stared, everyone in the company mouths open a little, delighted and stunned.

  “Oh,” Giovanni said, closing his eyes and swallowing. “Oh. No. I shouldn’t have.”

  He looked back at Bartolo, and saw the big man’s tears drop into his beard, running around his smile. “Cheer you bastards!” he sobbed. “Or I’ll strangle you one by one!”

  Enri started, and they all joined in ragged, enthusiastic chorus. Bartolo hugged Giovanni tightly, squeezing the breath out, and released him to take his applause.

  “Ah, here I am more familiar in performance,” Giovanni said. He beamed, blushed still brighter, smiled a little. “Your applause warms my heart,” he said, clapping his right hand to left breast. “I bow to you.” He bowed deeply, and the crowded courtyard clapped and laughed. He straightened, dropping the hand, hands out, confused.

  “You applaud for me? I am entirely surprised! Stop, stop, please, and allow me to applaud you for being such a good audience. I am unworthy for such excellent listeners.” They laughed harder, and Giovanni bowed again, still deeper, and rose. “And you—” He made to step to his left smartly but caught his ankle on the chair leg and went down, chair in the air, arms windmilling, and everyone rose, laughing, still clapping, smiling, and cheering. Bartolo reached down to pull him up and helped him to his seat. The new arrivals looked from Bartolo to Giovanni to the other singer
s, eyes wide, expectantly.

  “A preview!” Bartolo said. “Come tomorrow for more!”

  Giovanni smiled and sat. Bartolo sat, filled both their glasses, wiped a tear from an eye with the back of his hand.

  “And in German! Impossible! Was that your composition?”

  The color ran from Giovanni’s face. “No,” he said.

  “If it was yours and horrible, I understand shame. Or if it was performed terribly. But neither is the case.”

  “It is stolen,” Giovanni said, words running together, colliding in breathless haste. “I shouldn’t have, but I always did well with Wagner, and I panicked. This is terrible.”

  “You should have claimed it,” Bartolo said. “You’re ashamed at our ignorance? Better to hear it from you!” He laughed. “Cheer up. Are your own compositions so good?”

  “Yes,” Giovanni said. “No. They benefit from knowing that one, though, if you see.”

  “Stay,” Bartolo said. “I’ll hire you, we’ll compose new works while we prepare, and then you’ll move north with us. Share in our fortunes.”

  “I have to return.”

  “What if you don’t?” Bartolo asked, with a roll of his heavy shoulders. “What happens? They send a pack of hunting boar on your trail?”

  “No,” Giovanni said. “There would be . . . ” Giovanni dumped the remaining wine onto the stones. Bartolo filled the glass. Giovanni rolled his jaw and ran through facial stretches. “I don’t know how best to explain.”

  “I am in no hurry.”

  “The Bavarian dukes stop the civil wars and conquests that make it a squalid, awful place. They pool their monies.”

  “Hah!”

  Giovanni shook his head quickly. “Listen, please. Listen. They fund ambassadors, each mission’s finance nearly bankrupting them, most missions failing, the ambassadors lost, but the successes advance the country. Despite the cost and failures they fund each next one as soon as possible.”

  “I apologize. To be threatened is a small thing to such obligation.”