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When Aristafeo arrived, we were still at breakfast. As he was announced, I noticed, behind my feigned surprise, the Verdis gave each other a knowing glance.
The sun outside was so bright it seemed to roar, and it filled the room so that when he came to a stop in front of us his face was difficult to see.
I was waiting for a sign he had possibly forgiven me for this secret he knew I carried, the one I could never admit to or apologize for. I wanted to know this before we began what was next, but I could not, and so I had to content myself with that as he greeted our hosts warmly and then came around to my side, where he took my hand.
He looked down at me and smiled, a smile of pure love, more intimate than if he had kissed me there.
She has accepted a role in my opera, Aristafeo said. They cheered, and next Verdi said he had received my note regarding I Masnadieri, which had pleased him. I am afraid I replaced you, but I do not care for the singer if you are still available. I hoped you would come to your senses; I can now replace her. Then he called out for champagne to be brought despite the early hour. The bottles were opened and we toasted the two operas.
After we had drunk our toast and the glasses were refilled, Verdi suggested we take them into the garden. As we went out, Giuseppina said, I wish you more luck than we had with Il Trovatore.
What is this? Aristafeo asked.
It was a terrific struggle to get it to the stage, but I think they all must be, she said, before she went to examine the shrubs along the wall. Aristafeo followed, chuckling.
This is the garden that inspired the one in the opera, Giuseppina said. Did you never know that? She asked this of Aristafeo, who said he did not: and he asked her questions as to which part was which as she took us around, pointing out the plantings. Verdi followed behind.
Did you originate the role? I asked her finally, as she finished her explanations and Verdi and his protégé walked on ahead.
Oh, no, my dear. You may remember that I retired; I wanted some respite from operas coming true. She winked. But I translated the play he took it from for him, she said. I did most of the work here. And then when he wrote the opera, he walked here quite often to think on it. It’s very pleasant here. In any case, I think of it as our opera, as you two should of yours.
She came to a stop. Imagine it, if you will, and she pointed back to the villa. Here is our trovatore come to serenade his beloved. There she is, waiting for him. Over there, the count hidden, jealous. Sometimes he would have me stand there and sing from it to see how it sounded.
I looked back. I could not see her. I saw instead a shadow, the Leonora of the night the tenor sang at the Théatre-Italien, the night I was given back to him. I could see him bringing me to Baden-Baden, full of hope that I would learn to be his Leonora there; I could see the garden at Villa Turgenev, where I sat imagining, again and again, the reappearance of the man standing near me now, my fearing his death, fearing us all caught in some game of Fate that would lead relentlessly to the place we apparently stood now and end with the two of us dead—the tenor our killer. I saw all that I had done to keep Aristafeo and me from this garden, and so I could not help but feel as if being here this way was yet another joke between me and whatever god had chased me for so long. Despite all my efforts, we stood here, so very alive. And the one we’d feared was dead.
I laughed. It was the wrong sort of laugh, I knew—this laugh spoke to the joke, the one this god had made of my life, and not to my companions, who could tell there was something strange to it and who watched me, waiting to know more. I set the champagne down instead, pointed at my glass, my hand over my mouth, as if the wine were at fault, at which they all three smiled as I mastered myself.
Afterward, the Verdis excused themselves, and Aristafeo and I were left alone. We sat on a bench in the cold sunshine and made our next plan: He needed us to travel to the Russian empress at once to secure her approval of the commission. Only after securing that approval would he then return to Paris and officially end his ties with the Baroness. When he returned from that trip, our new life together would begin in London.
He withdrew the tiny rose, my knife, and my old route book, and set them on the bench between us.
Until then, he said. Let them remind you of me.
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