The Violinist of Venice (40 page)

Adriana—

I saw Giuseppe at the Sant' Angelo two weeks ago, and he mentioned to me that you might have some use for these. I hope that you are well, and that these scores will help you to find the music again, if indeed you still feel that it eludes you.

At the bottom of the parchment it was signed, as he had always signed his missives to me, simply
AV
.

The leaping, acrobatic notes on the staves swam before my eyes. I clutched the packet to my chest and let the tears roll down my cheeks.

*   *   *

I invited Giuseppe to lunch the next day. Once the meal was served and we were alone, I did not mince words: “You saw him.”

It was somewhere between an accusation and a question, but Giuseppe needed no further explanation of my meaning.

“Ah.” He laid down his silverware beside his plate. “I take it he sent you the scores, then?”

I nodded.

“Yes, I went to see him at the Sant' Angelo after a production I attended there. You had said you needed music to play, and I assumed you would rather have his music than any other, though I knew you would never say it.” He looked at me calmly, as though daring me to dispute it. “I had heard he is now quite the music salesman these days, and so I thought to buy some scores from him. When he learned that they were for you, though, there was no mention of payment. All he said was, ‘I will see that she gets them.' And I see that he has done just that.”

“He copied them himself,” I said. “I know his hand. He did not have a copyist do it for him.”

Giuseppe held my gaze. “That does not surprise me.”

“What…” I hesitated. “What else did he say?”

Giuseppe looked away and returned his attention to his pasta, pretending my inquiry was a casual one. “He congratulated me on the change in my circumstances, of which he had heard. I took the liberty of telling him that you are well, and have three beautiful children.”

I nodded at my plate but did not speak.

“He looks well,” Giuseppe ventured, “if a bit harried.”

Suddenly I felt there was nothing more I wanted or needed to say on the subject. I looked back up at my brother, a cheerful smile on my face. “Did you receive an invitation to the ball Leonardo's father is giving on Friday next?”

He looked a bit startled by the abrupt change in topic, but followed my lead, letting me steer the conversation to friendlier shores.

*   *   *

When Giuseppe left that afternoon, I went upstairs to my rooms and pulled out a sheaf of papers from my desk. Sitting, I smoothed them out and began to look them over anew.

Here it was,
La sirena,
my first real concerto. I had feared facing this more than even Vivaldi's music.

I had been certain that when I finally looked at what I had written again, it would pale in comparison to the memories I had of it, of learning to play it myself, of teaching Vivaldi to play it. Or that I would now dismiss it as a juvenile girl's scribbling.

But as I read through each note, sections I had forgotten and those I remembered all too vividly, I felt its power anew, in a way that I had not before. I could see it as a work of music separate from myself, and not just as something I had created. It was well done; Vivaldi had not been lying to me, nor had I been lying to myself.

Gathering the pages, I placed them on my music stand. Then I got out my violin, took a deep breath, and began to play.

I played the entire thing, and let the memories flow through me. They were infused in the music, had bled into every note as I had written it. There was no parting the two.

But, I knew now, there were new memories to be made, and new music to be written.

When I finally reached the end, I was startled by a light applauding coming from the doorway into the nursery. I looked up to find both Meneghina and Giovanna watching me.

“That was beautiful, madonna,” Meneghina said. “Who wrote that?”

A slight smile touched my lips. “I did.”

 

59

RESONANCE

Time passed, in the peaceful and quietly joyful manner to which I had become accustomed since the births of my children. I watched them grow, take their first steps, say their first words. I spent as much time with them as I could, determined that their childhoods should be as happy and carefree as possible.

Giacomo made a point of seeing the children once or twice a day, but only briefly. In that respect he was not different from many patrician fathers, but I could not help feeling slightly resentful toward him. He had been so excited by my pregnancies and the births, especially of the twins, that I had allowed myself to hope that Lucrezia, Antonio, and Cecilia would grow up with the loving, doting father I never had. Still, at least I was able to raise them as I saw fit. Giacomo's only stricture was that they—especially Antonio—be reared as befitted patrician children, and the children of a senator of the republic.

When Lucrezia turned four, I decided it was high time I find a tutor to begin teaching her to read and write, and to teach the twins once they were old enough. My daughters, I determined, would receive the same education as their brother: mathematics, Latin, French, Greek, philosophy, religion, literature, and—if they so chose—music.

To this end, I engaged a young Jesuit priest, Padre Davide. He began coming to the palazzo every day but Sunday to begin teaching Lucrezia her letters, and soon enough Antonio and Cecilia joined the classroom as well.

From the night she was born onward, Lucrezia became my most devoted audience whenever I played the violin. A generally playful and restless child, she could sit still without fail when listening to me play—her mother's daughter, indeed.

One day when she was five years old, I noticed her humming along with my playing. She matched the pitches perfectly, and her voice—young though it was—sounded melodious enough.

I waited until I reached the end of the piece—not wanting to make her feel self-conscious—before I turned to her. “That was lovely, Lucrezia,” I said, smiling at her.

She looked surprised. “What was?” she asked in her high child's voice.

“Your humming. You made a nice accompaniment to my playing.”

“Oh, that.” She shrugged. “I forget I am doing it sometimes.”

I went to sit on the bed beside her. “Do you like to sing,
figlia mia
?”

She nodded. “I cannot do it as good as Zia Vittoria, though.”

I laughed. “Few people can, darling.”

Only a few months before, Vittoria had finally sung for me during one of her visits. Lucrezia had learned that Vittoria had once been a singer, so she took to pestering her to sing something. Vittoria demurred but Lucrezia insisted just as strenuously as I wished I could. Finally she relented, saying that, after all, her contract with the Pietà did not forbid her from ever singing again, just from performing in public. So she took in a deep, slow breath, and began to sing a beautiful, elaborate piece that sounded as though it were part of a motet. The chatty Lucrezia was, for once, silent. The purest of sounds rang out of Vittoria's mouth, full and lovely. Any opera singer in Venice—in all of Italy, no doubt—would trade all of her jewels and finery for such a voice.

When she finished, we both simply stared at her, awestruck, before I remembered myself and began to applaud, my daughter following suit.

Vittoria blushed. “Maestro Vivaldi wrote that motet for me,” she said, confirming what I had already suspected. “
Laudate pueri Dominum.
He would have been disappointed with that performance, I am afraid—I am quite out of practice.”

I tried to find the words to properly express what I thought of Vittoria's impromptu performance, but she waved them aside, begging me to change the subject, which I did reluctantly.

Upon learning of Lucrezia's love of singing, an idea struck me the very next day that prompted me to send a note asking Vittoria to pay me a visit.

“I shall get right to the point,” I said, as soon as we were ensconced in my sitting room.

Vittoria raised one of her delicately arched eyebrows. “What? You mean this is not a visit to gossip about everyone we know?”

I laughed. “Not today, I am afraid. I have a proposal for you. I was wondering if you might consider taking on my Lucrezia as a voice student.”

“Truly?” she asked, surprised.

“Yes. I have noticed her humming to herself often, and she likes to sing. I can think of no one better for her to learn from than you.”

“Oh, I … I do not know,” Vittoria said, looking stricken. “Please, do not mistake my meaning. I would like nothing better. It is just … I do not know if it would be allowed.”

“Who is to find out?” I asked. “You could come here, as you do anyway, and give Lucrezia her lessons, and I shall pay you. It need concern no one but ourselves.”

“Pay me!” she exclaimed. “I could not accept payment for teaching music.”

“As I said, who is to find out?”

She vigorously shook her head. “No, no. I could not take payment, not for something I would do gladly.”

I sighed. “Then I will not pay you. But please at least consider it. I think it will be good for both of you.”

Vittoria promised to think on it, spending several days soul-searching and, no doubt, praying. Ultimately she agreed to teach Lucrezia, though firmly refused payment.

“We will start with scales, and sight-reading, but I will need to get some music for her to learn from,” Vittoria mused aloud. “And she must first learn technique, breathing and posture and so on…”

“I will pay for whatever music you need,” I told her. “Let us see if she has any talent first.”

“Oh, I am sure she does!” Vittoria said.

We decided Vittoria would come once a week for an hour to teach Lucrezia. When I told my daughter, she skipped around the nursery in excitement, and I knew I had made a good choice.

*   *   *

As I tended to my children by day, I was more often than not in the company of my friends by night. During such pious seasons as Lent we were forced to forgo our merrymaking; but the rest of the year, Venice offered no shortage of amusements. We frequented a number of the many opera houses—though I carefully avoided seeing any opera written by Vivaldi, which I am certain no one marked, save for Giuseppe. Then there was gambling at the Ridotto, endless parties, playhouses, and the many cafés and restaurants.

One evening, bored with the opera and impatient for our dinner to arrive, I left the box to get some air and stretch my legs.

I had not wandered far when I noticed a man clad in a familiar dark green jacket, intimately speaking to someone in a shadowy, curtained corner. It was Giuseppe; his height and broad shoulders just barely concealed the tall Vittoria. I drew in a sharp breath.

Vittoria saw me before I could speak. She turned a brilliant shade of red and stepped around Giuseppe. “I am sorry to have left you all so rudely,” she said, her voice wavering slightly. “Has our dinner arrived?”

“No,” I replied, looking from her to my brother curiously. It was plain that they had only been talking, but knowing how modest Vittoria was, I was far more surprised than if I had come upon Giulietta and Mario making love in the same corner. “I merely wished to take a short stroll.”

“Yes, of course,” Vittoria said. “Well, I should return directly.” She swept past us, disappearing back into our box.

“Giuseppe,” I began, but he shook his head.

“I know.” He sighed. “Let us return to the box as well, before our friends become curious about all these comings and goings.”

I acquiesced and followed him back; as if by unspoken agreement, we moved past the back section, where Vittoria had smoothly joined a very rowdy game of cards, and stepped past the curtain into the front section.

Giuseppe fixed his gaze on the extravagantly costumed diva parading about the stage before us, but his interest—real or feigned—was not about to distract me from learning what I could, especially now that we had privacy.

“Giuseppe,” I began again in a whisper.

He sighed and turned to face me, his handsome face full of anguish. “Please,” he said, “do not judge me too harshly,
sorella.
I know it looked scandalous, but we were doing nothing but talking. That I swear, upon my honor.”

“I do not doubt it,” I said. “But you are lucky it was I who came upon you, and not someone who might not have been so discreet.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “But I just had to have a word alone … had to know if it was possible that she—”

“Giuseppe,” I admonished him, “she is a married woman.”

“I know!” he bit out sharply. “I know, and I am in torment! I am all too aware that she is married, and to a powerful nobleman, no less. She is too pious, too good, to violate the sanctity of her marriage vows. Nor would I ever ask her to.” He turned to me, his expression nakedly earnest. “I swear to you, Adriana, I would never ask that of her. Never.”

“I know you would not,
fratello,
” I said, staring in wonder at my levelheaded, reasonable brother, who just now seemed to be tearing at all his seams right before my eyes. “But I would not see her reputation harmed by some misunderstanding. Nor would I see you heartbroken.”

“You need not worry for her reputation,” he said. “I will not again forgo discretion in such a way. But as for my heart…” He smiled ruefully. “That is past saving, dear sister.”

“Giuseppe,” I whispered. I had not realized his feelings for Vittoria were so strong; had not thought he loved her so deeply, so completely. Yet it was there on his face for me to read.

Sighing, he rose to his feet. “There is nothing to be done,” he said. “I shall surely burn in hell for coveting another man's wife, and yet I cannot imagine that Lucifer himself could devise a more painful torment than what I now endure.” He parted the curtain and returned to the back of the box, leaving me alone.