The Niccodemi Variations - 4. Furio Niccodemi's Dark Words

Furio Niccodemi's Story

It happened in June 1870.

By the end of May we were back from Paris where I had performed my last triumphant concert. In Europe the political situation was becoming more complicated. Everyone was now certain that Prussia would attack France. My father and I returned by ship from Marseilles to Naples. After a short stay in our palace on Via Toledo, we moved to Ravello at the Villa. It was here that I saw Ninetto for the first time.

Ninetto was the son of the Villa's gardener, but had always lived with his mother in Amalfi. That summer his father had wanted him with him, to help with the work.

We arrived that it was almost night. The Villa was lit by lanterns and flashlights. The butler was waiting to welcome us, the gamekeeper to plan the first of the endless hunting trips that would help my father endure his stay at the Villa and the slow pace of time.

He hated this place, but he was forced to stay at the Villa for at least four months of the year. It was stipulated in my grandfather's will that we were obligated to this stay, which was forced for my father, but very welcome for me, because it allowed me to rest.

Our life was hectic. I was playing all the time, in all the places where we were paid. I would play an endless number of gigs from autumn to spring, and we would travel the length and breadth of Europe. From June to September, however, the Villa in Ravello had to be inhabited because of grandfather's posthumous command.

Every year in those four months I would restore my strength and prepare for my tour that would last for all of the next eight months. My father spent that time hunting, chasing skirts and frequenting all the brothels from Naples to Amalfi.

Because of the movement and excitement aroused by our arrival, the dogs barked furiously and annoyingly. They were big hunting dogs that my father had bred for his amusement. I had never had anything to do with those big beasts, but I knew they were very fierce. Sometimes my father had mentioned the fights he organized with dogs owned by some other obsessed person like himself. I never knew if the dogs were happy to see him or just wanted to eat us because they were hungry.

The relationship between my father and me had soured years earlier, when I had realized that he was exploiting me to pay for his vices and wealth. And it had not improved over the years, as I had grown up and my desire for independence had sharpened.

My grandfather had left nothing to his son, my father, except the noble title. The now dilapidated palace on Via Toledo in Naples and the Villa in Ravello with the few remaining lands were mine alone. Grandfather had left them to me, rightly not trusting his son. However, on the condition that, until I came of age, we would spend four months a year at the Villa in Ravello, otherwise the whole inheritance would end up with the Benedictine monks of Camaldoli.

My grandfather was an eccentric man, but also a fine musician.

My father was very hurt at the reading of the will, but he could do nothing but increase his control over me, who was already providing him with sustenance through my music.

I was a son who quickly turned out to be a precocious musician and an accomplished pianist. With me, exploiting my talents, he had solved his financial problems fairly quickly. My mother died at the right time, when I was five years old, and he could freely begin to exploit me, turning me into a money-making machine. We began that same winter traveling around Europe and performing gigs everywhere.

From my grandfather, in addition to the possessions he had left me, I had inherited a love for art and music. With him I had also learned to play the piano. He had been my first teacher as long as he had lived. On his lap I was already strumming at a very young age. Then he had died, and my father had hired a series of tutors who also followed me on tour.

I studied and refined with all the greatest artists of my contemporaries. I had met them, and by them I had always been considered a promising performer.

Then I met Richard Wagner, and the man bewitched me.

I insisted with my father on taking composition lessons, and finally at the age of fifteen I began to compose my Variations. I had had the idea five years earlier, when Richard Wagner himself had appointed me the guardian of the Grail theme from his Parsifal.

The score of the Variations, that manuscript, followed me everywhere as I continued to compose and develop my idea in as many breaks as my complicated and hectic life allowed.

By the beginning of June 1870, I had almost completed the Seventeenth Variation and sketched out, even only in my thoughts the Eighteenth Variation.

The first ten were already known and praised throughout Europe. I performed them in almost all my concerts, and admirers eagerly awaited the last eight Variations, which were sure to be spectacular.

I already had the idea of what to write on the score sheet, but it seemed to me that something was missing. All the ideas that came to me were as if muffled, attenuated. Nothing to do with the brilliance of the other Variations.

On the evening of our arrival at the Villa, in that hubbub, in the screaming and with the frenzied barking of the dogs, I motioned to my father that I would precede him into the house and set off. We had been talking to each other almost only in gestures for a long time, and that was enough for both of us.

That's when I saw Ninetto.

He must have been 16 years old, a couple of years younger than me. He was leaning against the wall and didn't know where to go. Whether to turn back and walk around the mansion in the dark of night, or to continue on his way and face the proximity of the dogs that clearly frightened him, even though they were tied up.

"Come," I told him as I approached, "follow me!"

I laid an arm on his shoulders and guided him toward the dogs, but I shielded him with my body. I felt that he was trembling.

We passed unharmed and walked away from the mansion toward the servants' and peasants' houses.

When we were far enough away a movement from him signaled to me that he would no longer need my guidance and protection. In short that my arm across his shoulders perhaps made him uncomfortable. We were right under an oil lamp that barely illuminated the way to the servants' quarters.

"Oh, boy, are you afraid of dogs?"

"Yes, a lot! You, are you Master Furio?"

"To serve you," I said and mentioned a bow that was meant to be playful.

He took it seriously, for he immediately removed his hat and lowered his head in a sign of respect.

"I-I am Ninetto, the gardener's son," he muttered, so much so that I could hardly hear him.

"Ninetto, are you really afraid of those dogs?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Oh, they're tied up!"

"I know, but I'm afraid. When I hear them barking I lose my mind. You see, sir, when I was little, I was attacked by one of your father's dogs and--" he could no longer speak, so upset was he by that memory. He was wheezing.

"Never mind," I said and caressed him on the cheek.

"The dog bit me here," and in saying this he lifted his shirt and showed me a scar on his side. It was a cruel mark, long and stitched up as best as possible. He must have suffered a lot. In his eagerness to show me the scar, he also pulled down his breeches and showed me much more than he would have liked.

As a pretended man of the world, I feigned not to notice and he quickly covered himself, but that image of innocent nudity that my eyes had captured remained etched in my mind.

"I'm sorry, Ninetto, but if dogs scare you so much, try to stay away from them."

"Oh, mister, I would like to stay away. Until now I have been far away, Master Furio. Until last week I was living with my mother in Amalfi, but then my father ordered that I come here to help him."

"Oh, I see. And would you like to return to Amalfi?"

"Oh, if I could, but my father doesn't want to hear about it. At least as long as you are here. He says I could become your personal valet."

"My personal valet? Why is that? I don't need one."

"My father says that every gentleman needs a personal valet and that if I know how to do it, if I learn quickly, I can become your personal valet. I don't believe that, because I am ignorant and don't know how to serve a gentleman. He, however, says I must learn. That was why I was in the house, because the butler is giving me some teaching on how to behave. And your father's servant was also there."

"Oh, all right, Ninetto. We'll see!"

That idea amused and intrigued me. If the staff of the house were already involved, then my father knew and had certainly inspired this.

A personal servant would have been a good idea. I was eighteen years old by then. And Ninetto seemed bright enough. As well as cute, though quite naïve.

"Well, Ninetto, I think we'll talk again soon. And we could try and see if it works, couldn't we?"

"Yes, Master Furio, thank you!"

And he walked away toward what must have been his home. I had to explain to him that a good servant only goes away when the master tells him he can. But we had plenty of time, he to learn, I to enjoy his naiveté.

I drifted away intoxicated with a happiness that was utterly foreign to me, while in my mind's eye I reviewed the fleeting image of those almost-dropped breeches being quickly pulled up. And I repeated to myself that Ninetto was just beautiful and innocent. And that I had no right to have those thoughts, to take advantage of him.

I was eighteen years old, and although I was always very busy with my music, I had my own needs.

The relationship with my father had always been exclusively formal. So he had never proposed to take me to a brothel, as many fathers did with their teenage children. Although he frequented the houses of ill repute in every city we visited and was a true expert in mercenary love.

Over the years, my tutors had hinted at the need for a young man to have his own way of venting his cravings, but my innate reserve had always blocked them from delving into the subject. No one had ever proposed that I lose my virginity by going to a brothel. I, for my part, was perfectly happy with that, because I had realized very early on that that was not the kind of fun I could be interested in. In short, my idea of sexual fun was different from that of most men.

I already had definite ideas about it. As for my virginity, I had gotten busy fairly quickly.

During the summer of my thirteenth year I convinced a kitchen boy to reveal all the secrets of life to me. I had begun to feel the first itches and, I had no older brothers, cousins, friends or acquaintances at hand. No one who could answer my questions that had become pressing. I noticed this boy a little older than me and with a hint of a mustache on his lip. Looking so much older than me, he seemed well suited to satisfy my curiosity. It was not difficult to convince him to show me his good graces in exchange for a few cigarettes.

In that hour we spent together, he explained to me, with few words and many actions, everything a young male needs to know about his body.

What he showed me amazed me, in size and maturity. And especially for the almost pyrotechnic effects that a simple movement could induce.

With many more cigarettes and more than a few treats throughout that summer, the boy was willing to show himself in every aspect and I remained forever grateful.

In the following winter I continued my education on the subject with two Russian boys. The cold in St. Petersburg was fierce and almost unreal, but in the homes of the nobility there was always a delightful warmth. It was in the house that hosted us that I met the Rubinstein twins, my contemporaries.

They were the grandsons of the great pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein, the owner of the house and our host.

We understood each other in French, which we spoke fluently, because in those years almost only French was spoken throughout Europe.

We were to rehearse Beethoven's Trio for Strings and Piano, No. 7 "The Archduke." Dimitri and Aleksey Rubinstein were already accomplished performers and played violin and cello. My presence in St. Petersburg had aroused the curiosity of the capital's most exclusive circles. Rehearsals were frequent, not least because we would be performing the Trio in the presence of His Majesty the Czar.

In addition to enjoying Beethoven's music with Dimitri and Aleksey, who were indeed very gifted musicians, those devilish twins were my true mentors on the path of emancipation from my father and affirmation of my personality. And they especially helped me in the search for my true desires and feelings. Those two had understood many things before me. They were immediately lavish with explanations and practical demonstrations. And they showed me unequivocally what my real desires were.

What little I knew was supplemented by their much broader knowledge.

We locked ourselves in the parlor where at our disposal were a monumental Lichtenthal piano (1), a fine Guarneri del Gesù violin (2) and an even more precious cello that was a perfect copy of the Stradivari Duport (3). There was also a large fireplace with a nice crackling fire, some sofas, on the floor some bearskins and soft and inviting carpets, fabulous sweets and hot drinks of all kinds, even a little alcohol.

The two blond angels quickly persuaded me to offer them my Italian-brown body and dined at will on my limbs illumined by the warmth of the fire and a few glasses of sweet, hot wine. They caught every nuance of my limbs and tasted every mood of my body. And so did I who lost myself in their clear bodies and fed on their manna. It was by their example and teaching that I learned to lay my nectar in their bodies.

That was an unforgettable winter for me that culminated in the success of our concert in the presence of His Imperial Majesty Alexander II Romanov, the Tsar of All Russia, who gave each of us a diamond ring. My father resold it the next morning to pay for our trip back to Italy and the whores who accompanied us.

When I finally left St. Petersburg I knew a lot more about myself and my body. I finally understood what my true desires were and knew that they would never go in the direction that most men would go.

Other similar encounters followed, and my experience grew unbeknownst to my father, for whom I remained the asexual and obedient producer of his substantial income. As long as the cachets of my gigs continued to flow into his pockets, he would have no reason to be interested in me or my emancipation.

Until the summer of my eighteenth year and the moment I met Ninetto.

The morning after our first meeting, when I woke up, I found Ninetto behind my door, ready to empty my pythal.

It may seem a menial task, but it was essential to the hygiene and smooth running of a stately home that in the morning you remove from the bedside table what you had produced during the night. That has always been the first task of a valet.

From that day, Ninetto began to frequent the Villa and my life in the guise of my personal valet.

I fell in love with him very quickly. I never knew how he felt about me, other than the admiration I could read in his eyes when we were together and especially when I played the piano.

The devotion he had toward me because I was his 'Master' was touching. We never managed to talk to each other in full confidence, perhaps because of his discretion or because of my difficulty in having a friendly relationship with anyone. I had never had friends, only casual lovers. The ones I had fraternized with most were the Rubinstein twins.

Ninetto, with his innocence, was an absolutely new creature in my universe made up mostly of notes and sounds, as well as fleeting and undemanding adventures.

We never talked openly with each other or about what our relationship might be. We immediately began to exchange long, contented, satisfied looks. We were always happy to be in each other's company. We were happy, content that we had met, that we had found each other, that we could be together at all times of the day, without having to explain to anyone why we were together. Ninetto turned out to be a priceless and certainly unintentional gift from my father.

As my personal servant, Ninetto quickly learned to prepare my clothes, to help me put them on.

Then, after a few days, he prepared my first bath for me.

The room where I slept had no bathroom, so I had to use my father's. There was no problem of meeting, because fortunately he did not use to bathe often.

In the tin tub, half filled with lukewarm water, Ninetto, following the other valet's instructions, had dissolved the bath salts. We were alone and no one would disturb us.

I took off my shirt and then also the long cotton underpants I wore at night. It was the first time Ninetto had seen me naked and he widened his eyes.

I don't know why he was so surprised that a naked nobleman was in every way equal to a naked servant.

I felt like laughing, but I had other things to think about. For example, to hide my excitement, which I tried to cover with my hands. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ninetto blush and look away from what for him must have been an unusual if interesting sight.

I stepped into the tub and sat down. Ninetto poured more lukewarm water.

"Is the temperature okay with you, Master?"

"Yes, Ninetto!"

He poured more water and then began to rub my shoulder with the soft cloth.

It was his first time and he moved very circumspectly and with some indecision, but the touch was gentle and loving. I was used to the roughness of my father's valet rubbing my skin quickly and badly. Ninetto was caressing me and thus did not contribute to diminishing my arousal.

"Am I doing this right, Master?" he asked me in a trembling voice.

"Yes, Ninetto, continue," my voice was dreamy.

"Thank you!" he whispered and that simple word gave me like a jolt.

It was a revelation. I loved him, I loved him so much. I knew it in that moment. I loved his unconditional devotion, the gentleness of his manner, the sweetness of his expressions. I loved his attentive eyes, his delicate skin. I had never loved anyone and, in that moment, I realized that I loved Ninetto madly.

I looked at him and noticed that he was excited, too. His breeches hid nothing from my watchful eye.

I spread my legs and laid my hands on the edges of the tub. Ninetto could look at me as he wished, and he did. Then he stared straight into my eyes.

"May I wash you there, too?" he asked in his ever-trembling voice.

I spread my legs a little to give him access to my arousal. He continued the massage, which immediately became something very different. And I don't know how voluntarily. Unfortunately, it did not last as long as I would have liked, but it was beautiful.

"'Thanks, Ninetto,' I whispered when I had calmed my breathlessness.

" Master, did I do something I shouldn't have?" he asked already crying, frightened that he had done something he shouldn't have.

"No, not at all! It was beautiful!"

I caressed him. My hands were wet and I left a trace of water on his cheek, which was bright red from all the emotion and shame he was feeling.

I drew him to me and kissed him quickly on the lips.

It was my declaration of love.

He closed his eyes and almost responded to my kiss, then pulled away confused.

"Let's finish this bath, Ninetto!"

"Yes, Master!"

He quickly washed my legs as well, then I stood up and he with trembling hand washed my groin. He brushed me everywhere gently. My heart throbbed, bursting with love, with tenderness.

"Thank you, Ninetto," I murmured.

"Thank you, Master!"

He laid a large towel on my shoulders and began to rub me vigorously.

I got out of the tub and he continued to dry me off. To do that, he came very close to me. I could smell him. I wanted to hug him, because, to dry myself, he was already doing so.

When he was satisfied, he handed me the clean clothes and helped me put them on. He would not take his eyes off me. In his eyes I read an unconditional admiration that I did not feel I deserved.

I was about to tell him when he came up to me and squeezed me tightly. It was only for a moment.

"Excuse me, Master, I'm sorry," he looked at me bewildered, "I don't know what I was thinking and I took a confidence I shouldn't have."

"No, Ninetto!"

"You should whip me for what I did!"

"No, Ninetto, never!" I said raising my voice a little, because he was crying, he was disconsolate "You have done nothing wrong and I am glad that you are my personal valet. Do you understand? I want you to stay with me always!"

"Oh, yes, Young Master, thank you! Forever!"

"Now fix Master Earl's bathroom. I am going to play the piano a little. You join me in the parlor and, if you want, stay and listen to me. And if anyone comes looking for you, you will tell them I ordered you to stay by my side!"

"Oh, yes, yes, Master, yes!"

That day I played as I had never played before. I composed in a few minutes the conclusion of the 17th Variation and put my hand to the 18th. The development of the composition was already in my mind, but it lacked the flicker that would make it immortal as was my intention. I was well aware that I had composed a unique work, the conclusion of which would be the epigraph to the monument I had accomplished.

I know that at the age of eighteen one does not think about epigraphs and immortality, but that was me at that moment. As if by a premonition, I was already imagining what would be left of me after my death.

Ninetto's presence behind me, that soft body whose form I had fleetingly brushed against when he embraced me, catalyzed my mind, imagination, and perhaps even my compositional technique.

"Come sit next to me, Ninetto, please," I asked him after a while and he made himself small and leaned precariously on the tip of the stool "come closer, Ninetto," I said laughing, "come on, come closer!"

And he complied, squishing obediently against me. He adjusted himself by giggling at my body. I could feel the warmth he emanated, his fresh fragrance.

When I was writing notes and chords on the pentagram, I would put my other arm on his shoulders and draw him to me. Then he got brave and passed his arm around me from behind. We stood thus embraced for I don't know how long, while I played and transcribed on the pentagram the music I was composing. Ninetto ran to refill my inkwell when it was empty and then went to get more sheets of music from my room. We ate something without even getting up and continued composing.

It was as if we were doing it together.

So it was that after a few hours of frantic work I concluded the composition of the last of the Variations. A music that, except for Ninetto and perhaps a distracted servant, no one ever heard again.

The finale of the seventeenth and eighteenth Variations were now there on the music paper, ready for immortality. Thirteen sheets of score neatly penned with almost no corrections, as was my custom. They contained the summa of my piano technique. I already knew it was the best thing I had ever composed.

I turned to Ninetto, who had religiously listened to every note I had played and then transcribed. As if he was aware of the exceptional nature of my creative design.

"Ninetto," I whispered and laid my head on his forehead, "we did it!"

"Yes, Master!"

On the piano stand lay the sheets of Variation No. 18 and the one sheet on which I had written the conclusion of Variation No. 17.

I hugged him tightly until I heard him sigh. I felt the softness of his body and his form adjust to mine. We got up and stretched a little, then went back to holding each other tightly. I couldn't stand that we were apart, now that I had found him.

In that crazy moment, ecstasy made me abandon all caution and our embrace turned into something much more intimate.

Evening had fallen and the wind was blowing harder and harder outside. A storm was brewing on the sea. It was going to be one of those summer fortunals that ravage the places they hit.

No light had yet been turned on in the hall of the Villa. That dimness, the silence that reigned in the house, deceived us and our hands ran to touch, to grope, to untie knots, to unbutton. We were mad with love and desire, lay down on the carpet and, in seconds, shed the garments that would have prevented that conjunction we both desired.

Ninetto offered himself to me and I, with infinite caution, caught his innocence, his beauty, his love.

At the moment of ecstasy we reached together, I heard the door open wide. My father came in screaming. He was holding a torch and was followed by the pack of his dogs.

Ninetto and I were still joined in the extreme expression of our love.

Before I turned to look, I felt Ninetto stiffen beneath me. He, too, had heard the door open and especially the noise and barking of the dogs entering the hall.

Not even imagining what was going to happen, I relieved Ninetto of my burden and stood up with as much dignity as I could muster. I stared at my father and did not realize that Ninetto was already running naked toward the lodge, pursued by the angry dogs.

I turned to look and shouted with as much voice as I had.

"Ninetto!"

But he ran faster than the wind that was blowing so hard on the loggia. He jumped the balustrade and was lost forever.

I ran, too, and when I looked out, his inert body already disappeared among the waves crashing mightily and monstrously on the rocks.

I turned to face my father, who had run after me and struck me with his fist.

"Depraved!" he shouted and was about to hit me again.

"You have killed him!" I said, wiping away the blood that flowed from my wounded lip. I was naked, but covered with enormous dignity and also with disgust and disapproval of the man I despised. The wind swirled around us. The storm was at its peak.

It was my intense gaze, my celebrated blazing eyes that deterred him from striking me again and silenced him.

"Murderer, you have killed him!" I repeated.

It was my accusation of irredeemable guilt. A guilt that was also mine, however, first of all.

"I knew what you are..." my father muttered, "I had no idea you would go so far as to desecrate my home..."

"This was never your home," I pointed out in a fit of fussiness that did not belong to me.

I returned to the hall, picked up the score I had just finished writing, and walked away with all the dignity I could muster at that moment.

I had gone from the greatest joy to the darkest despair. I had only one thing in mind, to end my suffering that was intolerable, irredeemable. I had to put an end to my worthless life.

First, however, I had to perform the action that would make my most important legacy useless to my father. My Variations had to disappear with me.

I locked myself in my room with the original score of the Variations and the papers I had just written. I prepared to burn all that paper.

****

(1) Hermann Lichtenthal was a piano manufacturer in Brussels. He was invited to St. Petersburg by Tsar Nicholas II and established his factory there in 1840.

(2) Bartolomeo Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri, known as del Gesù, was an Italian luthier, now considered the most distinguished and perhaps most highly regarded luthier along with Antonio Stradivari.

(3) The Stradivari Duport is a cello built in 1711 by luthier Antonio Stradivari. It is named after Jean-Pierre Duport, who played it around 1800. It was used as a model by luthiers such as Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, and is considered one of Stradivari's best cellos.