2 - Painted Veil Read Free Page A

else, even what hour of the day it is.”
    “Does his latest project have a charming smile and a bosom to match?” I jested, but the painters passed a cautionary glance. With elaborate shrugs, they turned their attention back to their game.
    Before I could take a good look at the large canvas and the other half-painted flats leaning against the walls, someone bellowed my name out in the corridor. It was Aldo, the stocky, pugnacious stage manager who did hold authority over the entire backstage crew. Luca’s assistants swept the dice from the floor, jumped up, and reached for paint-stained smocks. I signaled for them to relax and went out to find Aldo pacing the corridor like a racehorse eager for the starting flag. A self-important smile stretched his thin lips across his round, alpine face. With his pale complexion and light brown hair, he appeared more Austrian than Venetian, but I knew his family as long-time residents of the parish next to my own.
    “I’ve wasted ten good minutes looking for you, Amato. Maestro Torani wants a word with you before rehearsal.” Aldo rocked back on his heels and searched my face for signs of the curiosity he thought his message would produce. He was disappointed. As part of my determination to distance myself from my old, careless ways, I was keeping my emotions on a tight rein. The stage manager continued with a scowl, “In his office. Right away.”
    The director’s office lay on the opposite side of the theater. The San Marco was a venerable opera house. It dated to the middle of the last century when it first occurred to a small group of noblemen that people might pay to see the intoxicating new spectacle that combined song, dance, and visual delights. Throughout the years, several families had owned the theater and exploited it to the utmost. When the Senate took over, the roof was leaking, the gilt on the boxes was flaking, and plaster was falling in hunks. Even the boards that floored the stage had warped. During the long-overdue refurbishing, Torani had claimed a quiet corner as far away from hammering, sawing, and vocalizing singers as the layout of the building would allow. The summons to his private sanctum came as a surprise. If Torani had anything to say to a musician in private, he generally used Aldo’s cubbyhole by the stage door.
    To avoid my colleagues gathering on the stage, I crossed behind the blank batten and canvas backdrop that stretched into the yawning gloom above. The hall outside Torani’s office was empty. I rapped on the door. The director didn’t make me wait; the door opened as if he had been standing right beside it. I began to worry. Was I guilty of some unknowing but serious transgression? Had I run afoul of Signor Morelli or the ubiquitous Carpani? I knew Maestro had not summoned me to indulge in social pleasantries. Rinaldo Torani seldom socialized with his musicians. He always said that the director of an opera company could not afford to get involved in personal entanglements with theater employees. He was probably right. I had seen company intrigue scuttle more than one promising career.
    Torani closed the door, careful to make sure that the latch caught. He motioned me to sit, then lowered himself into a high-backed leather chair behind his writing table. An inkwell had overturned, leaving a black stream that meandered over and around wrinkled papers, dirty crockery, and spent quills. He pushed at the debris in a half-hearted attempt to impose order, finally giving up and throwing his heavy-bottomed wig on top of the whole mess. A wig made sense for a man who retained so little of his own hair, but unless he was conducting an opera in front of an audience, our director could never manage to keep one in place for more than a few minutes.
    “How are you this morning, Tito?” he began, running a hand through the frizz that ringed his balding pate.
    “I’m doing well, Maestro.”
    “Finding Ptolemy’s cantabile aria a bit challenging are