Chapter 1
Paris, 1875
It seemed like a dream, his song, his kiss…
Carlotta Giallo stepped out to the edge of the enormous stage of the new Palais Garnier opera house and sighed deeply. She stretched her stiff arms over her head, her footsteps echoing into the depths of the dark, empty auditorium. For the last ten hours she had been hunched over a pile of musty cloth, stitching gold trim onto the hems of the exotic Spanish costumes from the theater's latest opera, Don Giovanni Her eyes swam blearily from the gaudy tinsel and glass gems which she had wrestled back into place with her needle and thread. The costume workshop had been dim and stuffy, overcrowded with thirty poorly-paid seamstresses like herself. Carlotta smiled wearily.
The only thing which made her job bearable — indeed, which made it wonderful—was the fact that the singer's rehearsal studio was located directly above the costume workshop.
Carlotta took several wide steps, her skirt swishing around her ankles. The company had just started rehearse a new opera, Love Songs, that afternoon. For the last four hours, she had been able to listen to the chorus practice their roles. There were some beautiful voices in the chorus this year, but not one of them could do justice to the lead role.
Carlotta gazed out at the deserted, cavernous theater. She was completely alone: all the stagehands and performers had gone home hours ago.
She closed her eyes and began to sing. Softly at first, then with growing intensity.
"Ah, perhaps he is the one my lonely soul desires…that I would summon up in a dream!"
Her voice echoed fluidly through the deserted auditorium, arcing and resounding as it never did when she sang at home or in church. She spun lightly on her toes; the sad, sweet music welling up inside of her.
"I wish to be happy! Toward new joy I want to fly, on the wings of my desire!" She raised her arms, imagining the hero was beckoning to her.
"Love pulses like the heart of all nature, love surrounds earth and all the stars…"
Carlotta froze, her mouth still open. Somewhere on the other side of the dark stage, a tenor voice had begun to sing. Was she imagining it? Her eyes scanned the thick shadows, unable to make anyone out.
She hesitated, then sang, "What do you say, my troubled heart? No one has yet awakened love in you…"
Closer now, in the darkness to her left, she heard, "A mysterious love, as high as heaven…"
Carlotta couldn't imagine who the singer could be, but his voice stirred her to the bottom of her soul. She closed her eyes and, abandoning reason, sang the tender duet with him. She heard his voice approach, closer and closer in the dim space, until his warm breath grazed her neck. She shivered, but felt no fear.
"Toward new joy I want to fly, on the wings of my desire!"
They sang the closing notes of the duet together, their voices fading to silence in the vast, dark space. Carlotta heard the tenor's breath gently sigh out, felt it warm her cheek in the darkness. She shivered with a mixture of uncertainty and unexpected longing. This was the point in the song when the hero was to kiss the heroine.
Carlotta felt a hand hesitantly touch her shoulder. The fingers lightly caressed the lace at her collar. Her eyes remained closed as her mysterious singer's lips brushed hers. Softly at first, then with a longing heat that made her want to melt into his arms. Her entire body felt weak and powerless, except for her lips, which met his eagerly, moving with reckless abandon in a burning kiss.
What on earth was she doing?!
Carlotta's eyes flew open. She pulled away from the man, whose face she still could not see in the dark.
Shocked by her behavior, a hand hovering at her lips, she dashed into the wings and out the stage door to the street without a backward glance.
Babbo would have me put away in a convent if he found out, she thought grimly as she hurried down the ill-lit sidewalk. Still…her lips tingled with the memory of his kiss, and she ached to return to the stage and his embrace.
Carlotta ran up the three flights of stairs to the aging apartment that the Giallo family occupied. She paused outside the mud-spattered door to smooth her hair and compose her face. It would be no good if Babbo saw a blush or downcast eye and began to question her.
"Ah, Carlotta, home so late! What about dinner? Here, sit, eat, eat!" Mamma rose from her chair in the corner of the small room, which served as bedroom to Nonna, Babbo and Mamma — as well as kitchen, dining room, and living room for the entire Giallo family.
"Perché cosí in ritardo? Povera ragazza!" Nonna, Carlotta's grandmother, rose as well and manhandled Carlotta into a chair at the small kitchen table. Carlotta giggled and sat, glancing at her father. Babbo was absorbed in his Italian newspaper, already two months old by the time it arrived from relatives in Rome.
"Sorry I'm so late. Don Giovanni closing this week, but I guess they're planning to sell the costumes or rent them out to other theaters or something. We all had to stay late trying to make them look presentable."
"Non parlare più! Mangi!" Nonna shoved a plateful of cavolo imbottito and a chipped mug filled with red wine at Carlotta. Carlotta dug into the stuffed cabbage, which she recognized as having come from Mamma and Babbo's vegetable stand. Though they hadn't managed to sell the cabbage that day, it was fresh and delicious.
"Where's Zia?" She asked between mouthfuls.
"She and Benito went down to the tobacco man for a paper and Babbo's cigarettes. They should be back any minute."
"We're already here! Bad news for Italians in the headlines tonight!"
Carlotta's aunt, Zerlina, entered in her customarily abrupt way. Only a few years older than Carlotta, she had lived with the Giallo family ever since she and Babbo lost their parents. To Carlotta, she was more like a big sister than an aunt. Nevertheless, the entire family had called her Zia, or Auntie, ever since Carlotta had learned to lisp out the word.
"Here's your sigaretta, Babbino." Zia tossed the cigarettes into her elder brother's lap. He grunted at her, not taking his eyes off the text of his newspaper.
Carlotta felt a chill slide down her spine, and glanced up at the open doorway. Her cousin, Benito, stood framed by the chipped wood. Watching her. Carlotta lowered her eyes to her plate.
"You were late tonight."
His low voice made her want to tremble, and she didn't know exactly why. A year younger than Carlotta, her parents had expected him to marry her ever since he was born. The Giallo family had decided to bring him with them to France when they immigrated over a decade ago. Carlotta had known and lived with Benito since she was nine, but somehow in recent years she had acquired an inexplicable feeling of discomfort whenever she was with him.
"Work. It ran longer than usual," she replied, putting a forkful of cabbage into her mouth in hopes of discouraging conversation. Benito continued to gaze down at her.
"Shut the door, Benito! You're letting in the stench from the Turanelli's glue pots! I swear to you, that family is mad to try to make money off of those ugly little figurines of theirs," Zia said as she marched over to Carlotta and stole a sip out of her wine cup. She leaned down to whisper in Carlotta's ear. "And where were you really, hm? Out making a rendezvous with some handsome opera star?"
Carlotta felt her face grow hot. She ducked her head, but not before Benito's saw her blush.
"What did you mean, bad news for Italians in the headlines?" Mamma shooed Zia away from Carlotta so she could eat in peace. Zia strode across the room, snatched the Italian paper from Babbo, and tossed it aside.
"Look at this, Brother!"
She thrust the evening edition of the Times at him. Carlotta always marveled at the way Zia bullied Babbo. Carlotta couldn't imagine what he would do if she or Mamma, or even Benito, ever grabbed anything out of his hands.
"Donnaccia!" Babbo swatted at his baby sister indulgently. "What's so interesting? Famous American singer is coming to town … war veterans meeting to discuss something-something conditions … ah, yes, I see it! This is bad news. Very bad."
"What is it, Babbo?" Mamma leaned over the back of Babbo's chair, a worried frown creasing her face.
"The king is up to his old tricks again. Another mistress, another bastardo on the way."
Mamma sighed sadly and rapidly translated for Nonna.
"It's all just anti-royalist propaganda!" exclaimed Zia, pacing the bare wooden floor. "If Victor Emanuel would only step down…"
Carlotta felt her mind wandering away. Who was that man in the theater? Had she, in her exhaustion from a long day of dreary sewing, simply imagined him? His voice was so beautiful; more like a dream than any real man's could be. She touched a finger to her lips. His kiss…no one had ever kissed her like that before.
Carlotta felt Benito's eyes on her. She quickly lowered her hand and took a sip of wine.
"I think Prime Minister Minghetti is right: Socialism will not be at all bad for Italy. The king has done nothing to help the country, besides contributing to the birth rate," Benito said, speaking to Babbo, though his eyes never left Carlotta's face.
"Bah! Mark my words: nothing good can come from the socialists. You will see."
Babbo shook his finger at Benito, who scowled but was loath to challenge Babbo directly. Zia, however, had no such compunctions.
Carlotta could hear her aunt's voice making a strident reply, but she just couldn't concentrate on the words. It was like this every evening: debates about Italian politics, recitations of the evils of the encroaching Austro-Hungarian Empire, breathless tales of the alluring dangers of Parisian life contrasted with the humdrum safety of the traditional Italian lifestyle.
Carlotta finished her wine and leaned her chin in the palm of one hand, the fingers of the other tracing the rim of her mug. Those warm, soft lips growing more insistent; more passionate. Those hands on her shoulders, guiding her to press against the unseen length of his body …
Who was he? Was he real or a dream?