Sitting at her vanity, Livia was brushing her hair and absentmindedly singing
There once was a Vilia, a witch of the wood,
A hunter beheld her alone as she stood!
The spell of her beauty upon him was laid,
He looked and he longed for the magical maid!
There’d been a long period during which singing had been an important part of her life. From her earliest childhood, in the quiet city of Pesaro, Livia’s voice had grown up with her, turning rich and nuanced. As her voice grew, so did her beauty. Her parents, wealthy aristocrats, quickly realized that, given the varied talents that had been bestowed upon their daughter, who seemed every day more like a princess in a fairy tale, the sleepy little city on the Adriatic coast would be too small for her; and so they packed her off to Rome to study under an aunt who was an opera singer.
It was then that singing became her passion and her profession. As a contralto, Livia toured the world, embarking on an extremely promising career. Then she met Arnaldo Vezzi, and she had sung no more.
Certain men, Livia thought to herself as she continued to brush her hair, burn everything they touch to the ground. They’re like uncontrollable fires. Certain men cannot have anything but themselves in life. Vezzi was a genius, perhaps the greatest tenor of his time, and a genius’s wife couldn’t have a career of her own, or even a personality of her own. She had to be the wife of a genius and nothing more: smile, be beautiful, and keep her mouth shut.
But Vezzi’s life had ended as perhaps he deserved, with his throat cut in a theater dressing room, there, in that city whose torrid heat was now pouring in through her open window. And it was in that same city that she had decided to live.
Of course that was strange, and she realized it. Some of her girlfriends, in the phone calls from Rome during which they updated her on the latest gossip from the highest social circles, circles in which Livia had once traveled and which she didn’t miss in the slightest, had informed her that this decision of hers had generated its fair share of bafflement.
As she sang, she reconstructed the chain of ideas that had led her subconscious mind to select that aria:
For a sudden tremor ran,
Right thro’ the love-bewilder’d man,
And he sigh’d as a hapless lover can
A never known shudder
Seized the young hunter,
Longingly he began quietly to sigh!
“Vilia, O Vilia! The witch of the wood,
Would I not die for you, dear, if I could!”
Not a romanza for a contralto, but for a soprano. And it wasn’t from an opera, but an operetta. Sung by Hanna Glawari, Franz Lehár’s Merry Widow, from the start of the second act.
“The Merry Widow.”
Livia knew perfectly well that that had become her nickname in the drawing rooms of her new city, where her arrival had caused an uproar. The fact that she had refused to dress in mourning, in spite of her recent loss, had caused a scandal.
The protocol of grief was a rigorous one. The first year, black dresses and hats, with no ornamentation of any kind, except for a horrible string of beads in dark wood, with the addition of a black veil for the first six months; no jewelry except for simple earrings, best if they were pearl; in the summer, white with black accessories; no luncheons or dinners, no theater, no movies, no concerts. In the second year, a few small concessions: tea was acceptable, and some color could be added to one’s dress, provided it was relatively drab.
Livia thought it was awful that tradition should force a woman to sacrifice two years of her life just because her husband had gotten himself killed, and that it was unbelievable that the loss of a child wasn’t treated in a similar way. When diphtheria had taken her infant son Carletto six years earlier, and she herself had felt as if she were dead inside, no one had expected her to wear black; the death of a newborn baby didn’t call for mourning, perhaps because it was such a common occurance.
After Arnaldo’s murder, she hadn’t felt it necessary to observe the appalling local customs for even a day. After all, they hadn’t been husband and wife for years. They were just two strangers bound by habit and convenience, by his prominent social standing and her beauty, which he showed off like a trophy. Thinking back, Livia was disgusted with herself, with her willingness to live like that.
The merry widow, then. With her fashionable clothes, her valuable jewelry, the elegance of her lithe, feline gait that caught so many eyes. The merry widow, whose entrance into her box in the Teatro San Carlo was greeted with an intense silence, followed by a sudden buzz of conversation that rose like a tide. The merry widow, who smiled at everyone but confided in no one.
Many men claimed, as they chatted in salons and foyers, that they had enjoyed her charms, but they were all considered braggarts because none of them had been seen out and about with her, and none of them could claim to have seen the interior of her lovely new apartment on Via Sant’Anna dei Lombardi.
But now someone claimed to have run into her on the arm of a strange fellow with green eyes. And that someone had investigated further, and the rumor had circulated through word of mouth, much as the flames might leap from a burning curtain to the wallpaper. The green-eyed fellow was a certain Commissario Ricciardi, an officer of public safety, no less.
Livia was certain that this subject was the talk of the town in the most exclusive cafés. She didn’t mind it, either, because those green eyes had been the very reason she had moved to this town.
After a lifetime of watching men come as soon as she called, she found the role of suitor strangely intriguing. To hang on a man’s lips, to try to fathom his thoughts and foresee his wishes, was something absolutely new for her.
It was hardly easy. Ricciardi was a tough nut to crack. When she was with him, Livia felt as if she could hear a sort of buzz, a background noise that spoke of memories or perhaps of regrets, of ancient sorrows. Livia didn’t rule out the possibility that these regrets concerned another woman, but from that point of view she feared no one. She was Livia Lucani, not just any woman. She’d turned the heads of princes and cabinet ministers; for two weeks a Florentine count had flooded her hotel room with bouquets of roses. She wasn’t about to be defeated by a phantom.
Moreover she sensed that, even if he didn’t show it, Ricciardi enjoyed being with her. When they discussed a play or a movie they’d watched together, she glimpsed a flicker of interest and a tranquil enjoyment otherwise absent in those eyes the color of waves crashing onto a rocky shoal. The man was beginning to thaw.
After that November night last year, there had been nothing more between them. It seemed a dream, when she thought back on it. The rain, his fever. His pain, his hands, his shivering. The enchantment. Who could say if it had really happened at all?
For the first time in her life she had imposed upon herself an abstinence that, in the full maturity of her body and her heart, weighed on her. But if a woman is in love, she’s hardly willing to settle.
“Vilia, O Vilia, my love and my bride!”
Softly and sadly he sigh’d.
Standing at the door to her bedroom, holding an armful of fresh linen, Clara the housekeeper stood listening raptly. Livia saw her in the mirror and gave her a level, inquisitive look.
The young woman couldn’t contain herself.
“Signo’, I can’t help myself, I have to tell you: you are marvelous when you sing!”
Livia burst out laughing: “Oh, come on, Clara . . . I thought I was singing to myself, I didn’t even realize that . . .”
“What are you talking about, Signo’? People in this neighborhood come to the windows of the buildings across the way to listen to you! Don’t you realize what a stupendous voice you have? If I had a voice like yours I’d do just like the goldfinches do: I’d sing and never stop.”
“Thank you, my dear. Thank you. It’s been so long since I sang that I’m out of practice. I loved to sing, when I was young. But now that time is gone . . .”
Clara interrupted: “Are you kidding? I’ve never heard a voice like yours. And in this city we all sing from morning till night, and even from night till morning. You know what we like to say here? That a heart in love or a heart in despair has no choice but to sing. It can’t do without.”
A heart in love, thought Livia. A heart in love has no choice but to sing. That’s why when I was with Arnaldo I lost all desire to sing. A heart in love.
She turned to look at her housekeeper, who was now making the bed: “You know what I say? Let’s give a party. A party, in celebration of the wonderful summers that you have here.”
“Signo’, I’ve always thought it was a deadly sin to have an apartment like this, with a drawing room that opens out onto a terrace, and never have anyone over.”
Livia stood up and clasped the young woman’s hands in hers: “Yes, a wonderful party under the stars. We’ll invite two hundred people. I want everyone to be there. And we’ll have the piano moved out onto the terrace: you say that the people who live around here like to hear me sing, no?”
“Of course they do, Signo’, it’s all they can do to keep from clapping, when you’re done.”
Livia broke into a little dance step: “We’ll have a masquerade party. Let’s think of a theme, something fun, I want everyone to be happy. What theme can we come up with? Help me out.”
Clara thought it over, wrinkling her nose in comic concentration. Then she said: “Why don’t we pick the sea, Signo’? Here, for us, summer means the sea.”
Livia was delighted: “You’re a genius, Clara. The sea. Nothing could be better. And once again I’ll sing in public. We’ll call a maestro, I need to practice, I can’t come off looking like a fool. I want my audience to be amazed. It’s going to be a wonderful night. And I’m going to introduce the man I desire to everyone who attends. You said it yourself, didn’t you? A heart in love has to sing. I have to sing.”
Clara was caught up in Livia’s happiness.
“Signo’, listen, you have to sing a song with the words of our land, a song we can understand. A serenade, a tarantella, something that when the people hear it they’ll say: ah, the signora sings like an angel. An angel in love.”
“Yes, Clara, you’re right. I have to sing a song that everyone, absolutely everyone understands. Even those who pretend to be deaf. It has to be an enchanting song. And I know just where to get it.”
She went to her wardrobe. What she needed was an outfit that would take people’s breath away: in that garment, the merry widow would dance her waltz.