The True Adventures of Nicolo Zen

  Soon after I fell asleep, someone whispered in my ear, “Wake up.”

  I sat up, and there was Aldo, kneeling at my bedside, grinning. His milky eyes looked even whiter in the darkness.

  “Good evening, Nicolà.” He leaned closer. “Or should I say, Nicolò.”

  He sensed my panic and his smile widened.

  “Oh yes, I’m on to you,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I have to hand it to you. It must be difficult to wear a dress, learn to curtsy, remember to sit down when you pee. Though you do forget sometimes, you know.”

  How could he know that? I thought.

  “I don’t need to see you in the privy,” he went on. “I can read the sounds. The rustle of clothes, the piss hitting from higher up. It’s easy for me.”

  “Go away or I’ll call Marta.”

  “Call her. It won’t take her long to determine which of us is telling the truth.” He leaned a few inches closer. “But I have a better idea: you give me something I want and your secret remains safe.”

  I was wide awake now, but felt as if I had stumbled into a nightmare. “What could I possibly give you?”

  “Adriana,” he replied with a crooked smile. “Bring her to the wine cellar tomorrow night and I’ll forget everything I know about you.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Maybe I will. But if you don’t bring her, I’ll go to Luca and you’ll be sent packing.”

  “What if I speak to them first?”

  “They won’t believe you. And after she hears from me, Marta will check beneath your little dress and confirm that you’re an impostor and a liar. In no time, you’ll be back on the street. Don’t try to warn Adriana off, because I’ll know about it. Tell her you’re taking her to Julietta. She trusts you. Knock four times at the door to the wine cellar and leave immediately. Don’t look back at Adriana. And don’t say another word now.” He backed away into the darkness. “Eleven o’clock. Sleep well, Nicolò.”

  7

  I felt sick the next morning. I saw Adriana across the room at breakfast. She smiled at me, but I didn’t have the chance to speak with her. The entire string section—violins, violas, bass viols—were sitting at the same table. When they were finished eating, Marta ushered them downstairs to a large rehearsal room. They would spend the next four hours there while I was assigned to a practice room with Prudenza, playing the violette, and a bassoonist named Lucia, a shy girl with flushed cheeks who was reputed to be the daughter of a Milanese prince imprisoned in Austria. We had been told to play two of the Master’s sonatas as well as a trio by Albinoni. But we had barely begun when Luca entered the room looking grim.

  “The Master wants to see you,” he said to me.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. You two play on without her.”

  I was certain Aldo had turned me in; after discovering some other means of getting at Adriana, he wanted me out of the way.

  When I entered his office, the Master was by the window, gazing at the sailboats on the canal. He was wearing a white shirt, ink-stained at the cuffs, and blue trousers. As usual, his desk was littered with sheet music. His yellow cat, Giacomo, was curled up on an ottoman. “Good morning, Nicolà,” he said pleasantly. “Please, sit. So how do you like life at the Ospedale?”

  This wasn’t what I had expected. It took me a moment to gather my wits. “Of course I like it, Master.”

  I obviously didn’t sound convincing, for he stepped out of the sunlight and walked over to me. He got so close that I could see his left eye was a paler blue than his right, and his hair more orange than red. “You’re sure?” he said.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good. Because I am making you my Prima Clarinetto, first soloist in the flute section. Beginning today.”

  I was both relieved and terrified.

  “I was impressed by your performance last night,” he continued. “Your confidence. Your feel for the music. And, most of all, your ability to adapt the flute line to the clarinet. It was what I was hoping you could do.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You learned a great deal from those birds in the forest you mimicked,” he added dryly.

  Again I was caught off guard, for Adriana had told me he rarely displayed a sense of humor. Despite my nervousness, I forced a smile.

  He handed me some sheet music. “You have provided me an inspiration. I am converting the flute solos in my new concerto into solos for the clarinet. I can widen the octave range and expand the solos. No small thing. The flute parts will remain, to be played by our two flautists. When a piece calls specifically for a flute solo, the Seconda Flautista will play it. But that is not your concern. What do you think: are you pleased?”

  “Of course, Master.” In fact, the notion that I had in any way inspired Antonio Vivaldi was beyond my comprehension just then.

  “Good,” he said. “We will be performing this concerto next Sunday, at San Stefano. It contains seven clarinet solos of varying length. Study them. Prepare yourself.”

  My throat was closing up. “I won’t disappoint you.”

  “Good luck, then,” he said, petting Giacomo and returning to his desk.

  As I walked down the long, low-lit corridor from his office, past a succession of doors, one of them opened and someone stepped out behind me.

  “What were you doing in there?” Aldo demanded. Up close, I better appreciated his size: a head taller than me, maybe twenty kilos heavier, with those big, heavy hands I had noted the first time I saw him.

  Nevertheless, with all the defiance I could summon, I said, “I told you to go to hell.”

  He took my arm and twisted it. “Don’t ever say that to me again.”

  I pulled free. “The Master called me in. He’s promoting me to Prima Clarinetto.”

  Aldo laughed. “That’s a good one, pretty boy. Because if you don’t do what I told you, you’ll never play with the orchestra again, as Prima or anything else. You won’t even be allowed to sweep the floors. Eleven o’clock,” he hissed, disappearing through another door.

  My practice session seemed interminable. Despite the honor bestowed on me by Antonio Vivaldi himself, my heart wasn’t in the music. Afterward, Prudenza asked me what was wrong, but I put her off. I had decided I couldn’t trust anyone except Adriana. All afternoon I was miserable, trying to plot out my best course of action. But every scenario I concocted ended badly. I did not doubt that Aldo would carry through on his threat, and that left me with the narrowest of choices: because I would never put Adriana in danger, I could either quietly accept expulsion from the Ospedale or put myself in danger in order to expose Aldo so he could no longer threaten Adriana or any other girl.

  I chose the latter, for though I knew I was likely to fail, it was better than doing nothing. Aldo was blind, but I felt I was truly operating in the dark when I came up with a plan.

  At dinner I noticed that Marina and Genevieve looked at me with even more hostility than usual, but also with a certain smug self-satisfaction. I had always been suspicious of them, and now I wondered if they might somehow be in league with Aldo. Or if Carita, a few feet away in her bed, had eavesdropped on my conversation with Aldo the previous night and reported it to Genevieve. As for Adriana, she left the dining room early and was already asleep when I retired to the dormitory. With all the other girls filing in and readying themselves for bed, I couldn’t wake her up and have a private conversation. In fact, I concluded it was better that she not know what I was about to do.

  After Signora Marta extinguished the candles, I feigned sleep until I was sure Carita’s snores were genuine. Then I put my dress back on and got under the covers and waited until quarter to eleven. As I slipped out of bed, I was sweating and my mouth was dry. I draped my cloak over my shoulders, fastening the button at the throat and pulling the hood up over my head. Then I picked up my shoes and made my way to the door on tiptoe.

  Marta made her rounds of the dormitory twice eac
h night: first, at ten o’clock, an hour after bidding us good night, and a second time at no fixed hour, and thus completely unpredictable. (My theory was that it corresponded to her nocturnal visit to the privy.) In short, I knew I might run into her at any moment.

  Once out the door, I put on my shoes and walked down the hallway to the wide landing at the head of the main stairway. I could either take those stairs to the lobby, where Carmine the porter sat by the street door, or I could go to the end of the hall and descend a small, dark stairwell that led directly to the basement. The latter seemed the safer choice, its only drawback the fact that Marta’s quarters were directly off of it on the second floor. I proceeded carefully as my eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. At the third-floor landing, I heard heavy footfalls—like a man’s boots—in a nearby corridor. I backed up against the wall, holding my breath, but the footfalls stopped abruptly. Continuing on, I was soon outside Marta’s quarters. Beneath her door there was a band of light. Either she was awake, reading her Scripture, or asleep beside a burning candle. Gripping the front of my cloak so it wouldn’t rustle—in case she wasn’t deaf—I walked as lightly as I could past her door and down the remaining stairs. The stairwell grew dimmer until finally I was engulfed by darkness, as if I had descended into a deep well.

  In the basement, myriad doors led to storage rooms, and instruments of every sort lined the walls, from cembalos to stringless lutes. A single taper was lit, beside a narrow door. I opened the door and walked down a steep set of stairs to a subbasement where, in the bowels of the Ospedale, at the end of a short L-shaped hallway, a final door of thick oak planks led to the wine cellar.

  I pulled my hood as far forward as I could, concealing my face completely, took a deep breath, and knocked four times. The door opened and Aldo’s large pale face appeared. He cocked his ear, listening for retreating footfalls down the hallway, but there was only silence.

  “Nicolà followed my instructions,” he muttered, “but she must be quite fleet-footed. Welcome, Adriana.”

  I kept my lips sealed; with his acute sense of hearing, unless I whispered, he would surely be able to distinguish my voice from Adriana’s. My scent was another matter, and he obviously intended to test it: before opening the door, he stuck his thick, blunt nose inches from my face and sniffed.

  “You don’t smell the way I expected,” he said.

  “No?” I whispered as sweetly as I could. “Then I’ll go.”

  “You won’t,” he said, taking my arm firmly and pulling me into the wine cellar.

  It was like a cave: walls and floor of heavy stone, the ceiling beams rough-hewn. The air was dank and cold. Several candles were burning, but the light was dim. Moldy wine casks lined the walls. A broken crucifix, speckled with bloodred paint, was hung on the far wall, just beneath the low ceiling. Two chairs were set face to face in the center of the room beside a large candle.

  “Take off your cloak,” Aldo said, “and sit down.”

  It was then I saw we weren’t alone. A man in a black cape and hat was standing in the corner, behind the last cask.

  I hesitated, but Aldo firmly guided me to one of the chairs. “I’ll get you a cup of wine,” he said.

  Reluctantly I removed my cloak, my eyes riveted on the man in the shadows. He took a step forward, but I still could not see his face. I heard a gurgling sound on my right as Aldo filled a wooden cup. He emptied it in a single gulp and refilled it.

  When I sat down, the large candle illuminated me fully. With that, the man in the shadows broke his silence.

  “You told me her hair was yellow,” he said to Aldo.

  “It is,” Aldo protested.

  “Maybe if you’re blind,” the man said acidly.

  “What goes on here?” Aldo demanded, putting down the wine cup, and grabbed my shoulder. With his other hand, he tried to feel the contours of my face. I pulled away from him, and for a split second saw Aldo’s visitor clearly as he stepped into the light: a middle-aged man with a craggy face, gray beard, long nose, and close-set eyes. Suddenly the man laid hands on me, pinning my arms behind my back.

  “Let me see her,” the man said through his teeth, and before I could move, Aldo ripped my dress right down the front, exposing my nakedness.

  “Hey!” I cried out.

  “My god,” the man shouted, releasing my arms. “She’s a boy!”

  “What!”

  “You’re a fool and a liar, Aldo,” the man growled, beating a retreat to the door. “And you’ll pay for this.”

  Aldo immediately understood what had happened. “It’s you!” he cried, lunging at me with outstretched arms.

  I jumped from the chair, avoiding his grasp. “Don’t touch me, you pig. Did you really think I would bring Adriana here?”

  Aldo was livid, but didn’t lose sight of his objective, which was to corner me. Just as with every other room in the Ospedale, he had the wine cellar mapped out in his head to the last detail. It was unnerving to watch him move about as if he could see. No matter how much I backpedaled, ducked, or skipped this way and that, he kept closing in on me.

  “Adriana’s not here,” he said, “but you are. And I’m going to give you a beating you’ll never forget.”

  “I’ll tell Luca what you’ve been doing down here.”

  “Luca!” he laughed. “That’s a good one. Don’t forget to tell him who you really are.”

  That laugh took the heart out of me. I realized that, even if I managed to get out of that cellar in one piece, the repercussions of my having come there would be dire. I had hoped that, by threatening Aldo with exposure, I could preserve my secret and remain at the Ospedale. What was I thinking? Even with my limited knowledge of the world, I ought to have realized that only a fool would attempt to blackmail a blackmailer.

  Aldo had finally pushed me up against the wall, and dropping his shoulder, charged forward and knocked the wind out of me. Then he came at me with his fists. Having been around rough men, my father had taught me the rudiments of defending myself: Keep your hands up and wait for an opening. Aldo swung wildly at first, and I was able to avoid the blows, but then he caught me on the ear and hit me in the mouth, cutting my lip. He reared back to punch me again, but tried packing so much into it that he tottered, slightly off balance, and I saw my opening: I landed a punch squarely on his jaw, so hard that I thought I had broken my knuckles. I followed this with a kick to his shin, and another to his groin that doubled him over, but didn’t stop him. Cursing loudly, he started swinging again for my head. It was terrifying to fight someone who was blind, yet could move so swiftly and strike blows so precisely. Every time I attempted to circle around to the door, he cut me off. If he was able to pounce on me again, I knew he wouldn’t let go until he had really hurt me. So, lowering my head, I took him by surprise, bolting right past him and pushing one of the chairs into his path. When he stumbled over it, I picked up the other chair and swung it as hard as I could, catching him on the shoulder and the head.

  Staggered, but staying on his feet, he shouted, “You little bastard,” and lunged at me.

  I ran to the door and threw it open and plunged into the hallway, right into the hands of someone who lifted me off the ground.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled, shaking me so hard I thought he would crack my spine.

  It was Luca.

  All I managed to say was “I can’t explain, but thank god you’re here, signor.”

  Luca ignored me and glared at Aldo. “What goes on?” he demanded.

  “He’s an impostor,” Aldo shouted.

  “He?”

  “Look at him.”

  It took Luca a moment to understand. He tore my dress open completely. “Who the devil are you?”

  “Let me go,” I said, trying to break free.

  “Look what you did to me,” Aldo shouted, feeling blood trickling from a gash in his temple. “I’ll kill you.”

  “You’ll shut your mouth,” Luca snapped. “Who else knows about th
is?”

  Aldo hesitated. “Nobody.”

  Luca squeezed my arm and shook me again. “Does anyone know you’re down here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Speak!”

  “No.”

  “What is your real name?”

  “Nicolò.”

  “Very clever. Well, Nicolò, you’re going right back where I found you.”

  “I want to see the Master,” I said.

  “You’ve got nerve,” Luca said, shoving me back into the wine cellar and slamming the door behind us.

  “Have you any idea what you’ve done?” he demanded. “Did you set out to make fools of us?”

  “No, signor.”

  “Sit down,” he said, righting one of the chairs, “and tell me what you could possibly want to say to the Master.”

  My mind was racing. “That I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry you were caught out?”

  “No. I’m sorry I broke the rules and left my bed.”

  “The rules? You should never have had a bed here!”

  “I am sorry that I deceived him, and you, pretending to be a girl. The truth is I am an orphan. I did lose my family. When you found me in the street, I was cold and hungry with nowhere to go.”

  “Am I supposed to feel bad for you, after all your deceptions? Why did you come down here tonight?”