My Uncle Oswald(64)

“I’ll meet you by the ladder.”

She nodded again.

“Good luck,” I said, and I tiptoed away and stood behind a bush only five yards from the window. Through the foliage of the bush not only could I still see Yasmin but I could also see into the room where the composer was sitting, because the big window was low to the ground.

The piano tinkled. There was a pause. It tinkled again.

He was working out the melody with one finger only, and it was wonderful to be standing out there somewhere in Italy on the edge of a lake at midnight listening to Giacomo Puccini composing what was almost certainly a graceful aria for a new opera. There was another pause. He had got the phrase right this time and he was writing it down. He was leaning forward with a pen in his hand and writing on the manuscript paper in front of him. He was jotting his musical notes above the words of the librettist.

Then suddenly, in the absolute stillness that prevailed, Yasmin’s small sweet voice began to sing “Un bel dl vedremo.” The effect was stunning. In that place, in that atmosphere, in the dark night beside the lake outside Puccini’s window, I was moved beyond words. I saw the composer freeze. The pen was in his hand against the paper and the hand froze and his whole body became motionless as he sat listening to the voice outside the window. He didn’t look around. I don’t think he dared to look round for fear of breaking the spell. Outside his window a young maiden was singing one of his favourite arias in a small clear voice in absolutely perfect pitch. His face didn’t change expression. His mouth didn’t move. Nothing about him moved while the aria was in progress. It was a magic moment. Then Yasmin stopped singing. For a few seconds longer Puccini remained sitting at the piano. He seemed to be waiting for more, or for a sign of some sort from outside. But Yasmin didn’t move or speak either. She simply stood there with her face upturned to the window, waiting for the man to come to her.

And come to her he did. I saw him put down his pen and rise slowly from the piano stool. He walked to the window. Then he saw Yasmin. I have spoken many times of her scintillating beauty, and the sight of her standing out there so still and serene must have come as a glorious shock to Puccini. He stared. He gaped. Was this a dream? Then Yasmin smiled at him and that broke the spell. I saw him come suddenly out of his trance and I heard him say, “Dio mio, come bella!” Then he jumped clear out of the window and clasped Yasmin in a powerful embrace.

That was more like it, I thought. That was the real Puccini. Yasmin was not slow to respond. Then I heard him say softly to her in Italian, which I’m sure Yasmin didn’t understand, “We must go back inside. If the piano stops playing for too long a time, my wife wakes up and becomes suspicious.” I saw him smile at this, showing fine white teeth. Then he picked Yasmin up and hoisted her through the window and climbed in after her.

I am not a voyeur. I watched A. R. Woresley’s antics with Yasmin for purely professional reasons, but I had no intention of peeping through the window at Yasmin and Puccini. The act of copulation is like that of picking the nose. It’s all right to be doing it yourself but it is a singularly unattractive spectacle for the onlooker. I walked away. I climbed the ladder and dropped over the fence and went for a stroll along the edge of the lake. I was away about an hour. When I returned to the ladder there was no sign of Yasmin. When three hours had gone by, I climbed back into the garden to investigate.

I was creeping cautiously between the bushes when suddenly I heard footsteps on the gravel path, and Puccini himself with Yasmin on his arm walked past me not ten feet away. I heard him saying to her in Italian, “No gentleman is going to permit a lady to walk back to Lucca all alone at this time of night.”

Was he going to walk her back to the hotel? I followed them to see where they were going. Puccini’s motor car was standing in the drive in the front of the house. I saw him help Yasmin into the passenger seat. Then, with a great deal of fuss and match-striking, he got the acetylene headlamps alight. He cranked the starting handle. The engine fired and ticked over. He unlocked the gates, jumped into the driver’s seat, and off they went with the motor roaring and revving.

I ran out to my own car and got the thing started. I drove fast toward Lucca but I never caught up with Puccini. In fact, I was only halfway there when he passed me on his way home again, alone this time.

I found Yasmin at the hotel.

“Did you get the stuff?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Give it to me quickly.”

She handed it over and by dawn I had made one hundred Puccini straws of good quality. While I was working on them, Yasmin sat in an armchair in my room drinking red Chianti and giving her report.