The Black Opera Read Free

experience would let him remove the splinters more cleanly.
    â€œCorradino!” The voice from below in the street was a familiar clear bass. “Conrad! What does it take to wake you up!”
    â€œSpinelli—you idiot—I have a fucking front door—!” Conrad clamped his eyes shut. He could not smell smoke, he realised. So, the building’s not on fire, no excuse!
    Being still clothed meant he had his shoes on. Conrad staggered upright, crunching over the glass on the floor. Tullio cursed, following, attempting to deal with his master’s injuries.
    With no regard for splinters still in the frame, Conrad kicked the glass doors open and put one foot on the balcony, leaning off the side so that he could see down into the street.
    Blazing sunlight over the Bay of Naples skewered his right eye. He squeezed his eyelids together, blinking away tears, and snarled with intense quietness:
    â€œJohnJack, I’m going to fucking kill you!”
    â€œKill me later. Come down here now . And get your coat on—you’re leaving Naples!”
    Before his other eye watered shut, Conrad saw that GianGiacomo Spinelli—called “JohnJack” on occasion, for his having sung at the Theatre Royal in London, God bless the English for their ignorant love of opera—had his own coat pulled hastily on, and a low hat tugged down over his eyes.
    He also had the collar of his jacket folded under itself, his crimson cravat badly tied, and every other sign of having dressed hastily (and conceivably in the dark).
    A carpetbag bulged at his feet.
    Tullio firmly seized Conrad’s hands one at a time, ensuring each was free of glass. The cold February wind made Conrad’s mind feel more clear.
    â€œHas everyone in Napoli gone mad this morning?”
    â€œGet to the carriage, I’ll tell you on the way!” JohnJack Spinelli glanced left and right, and looked up at Conrad again. “I had to come round the back—the front of your building’s being watched.”
    â€œWatched!”
    â€œLeave this way and you won’t be seen. The rest have packed up and gone already. Fanny’s on her way to Milan with Persiani. We broke down the door and Barjaba’s lodgings are deserted—They say the impresario was seen fleeing over the rooftops, clutching a carpet-bag full of the house takings, on the way to a hired carriage—”
    Conrad spluttered disbelief.
    â€œâ€”He’s gone!” JohnJack snarled. “The others have left on the public stage or the first ship they could get out of Naples harbour. I waited to get you. Tullio, get him packed, we don’t have any more time!”
    Vomit burned in the back of Conrad’s throat.
    He was aware that Tullio moved away, and a moment later returned with a jacket that he urged on over Conrad’s slept-in shirt and waistcoat. And, over top of that, a faded and battered greatcoat, surviving from the war. As if it were still war-time, when a man must up and move without warning and only the vaguest idea of why.
    Tullio moved around the room behind him; the sounds unmistakably those of things being thrown into carpetbags and travelling trunks.
    The disparate parts of the morning failed to make any sense.
    Conrad opened his eyes cautiously. Below, the tall, skinny coloratura basso stepped from foot to foot, either against the frost on the cold earth, or in urgency. While pale in the face, he did not appear to have a hang-over— Though he should , Conrad thought. Given what he drank last night—
    All the previous night overwhelmed him, pushing aside the pain. Five ovations; singers and audience made into the closest of drunken friends after the performance; and Conrad himself in the middle of it, for the first time one of the centres of success.
    â€œNo.” He gestured at Tullio to stop packing. “No, I’m not going anywhere! We had the success of the season last night!”
    â€œYes.”