Vivaldi's Virgins (11 page)

As we passed the Mendicanti, just before we headed out into open waters, the
coro
there joined in our song, so that their notes floated down on us as our notes floated up to meet them, and they mingled in the air.

And then the fresh wind was full in our faces and the whole watery world opened up before us. I could feel how much harder the men rowing had to work suddenly.

I wish I could find the words to describe what I felt as
la Serenissima
began to grow smaller and smaller behind us, and the vastness of the lagoon made the sound of our voices so small that we were stunned into silence. Without a word, we reached for one another’s hands and held tight. The teachers who accompanied us—even la Befana—seemed just as awed.

I expected to see a whale rise from the deep at any moment to swallow us. Yes, the sun poured over our sides, warming our faces even as the breeze blew fresh upon us. But although Venezia is upon the water, she is anchored there by the thousands of tree trunks driven down into the mud of the canals to hold up the stones of our palaces and churches, our bridges and every manner of building. Though made of water, Venezia is also, secretly, of the earth—a celestial nest perched at the top of hidden trees.

But now there was no vestige of earthliness to separate and save us from the waters, which were ever a darkening and deepening blue. For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of the smallness and weakness of this body in which my soul, for the moment, resides. The blueness called to me, the blueness of Heaven and all eternity—and I felt the smallness of the things we care about. In that moment, the sea seemed a mother to me, sang out and called to me, and I cried softly because I longed to be held by her, lost in her arms.

We were carried along by the oarsmen on a journey that brought us neither farther away nor closer to any shore. We were in a mid
dle place without any way to mark the passage of time except the sun—no bells, no chores, no lessons, no prayers. Some dainties were brought out for us to eat. Some of us could eat without remorse. But others hung like wilted plants, with faces just as green, over the sides, and retched so piteously that we were all soon left without an appetite.

And then the island came into view. What a welcome sight, the Basilica with its church and bell tower after the sick-making journey across the lagoon! And the trees—trees such as I’ve never seen before, whole forests and fields of green and windswept gold. The sun was high in the heavens by then, and as soon as our feet touched the ground we were hungry.

But first we sang for the fishermen and farmers who met our boat and greeted us with baskets of food and flowers. The servants of the Foscarini set about making fires to cook the fish that seemed to be jumping out of the waters to hear the music we made.

I stood by watching as a magnificent picnic was spread upon a green meadow where the first violets had been teased into blossom by the weak winter sunshine. Two twin girls who have lately joined the
coro
—Flavia and Alicia dal Basso—sat upon the grass and began weaving garlands of violets and buttercups while chattering in the secret language they share.

The maestro made a great fuss over these two when they were brought in as
iniziate.
They look like any other girls of twelve (although they look exactly like each other). But through some trick in the way they are made, they can sing in the low baritone range. The maestro, sighing over them, said that it’s only once in a decade that such a voice comes along—and then to have two, identically rich and mellow! Now that the maestro is gone, la Befana makes them sing their parts an octave above, insisting they’ll do themselves an injury otherwise—and perhaps even grow male parts! She says it is a sin against nature for a girl to sing like a man.

I hear footsteps approaching, which gives me hope that my time here is done. I will tell the rest of the tale to you later, when Sister Laura lets me.

Claudia always signs her letters to her mother with kisses. And so I will also sign this to you with
baci
—thousands of kisses, from your loving daughter,

Anna Maria dal Violin

I
CAN FIND NO CONTINUATION
of the tale in my box of letters. But I have only to close my eyes to see Torcello again, that island that seemed like a paradise to me—a paradise that held within it a tiny corner of Hell.

I remember that I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face when one of the Foscarini’s serving maids brought me a prettily arranged trencher of food. Deep in thought as I was, I didn’t really look at her face, but merely thanked her. And then I was rudely woken from my reverie by a sharp little kick from the toe of her shoe.

Fortunately I did not have time to cry out in protest before I looked full in her face and saw, peeking out from her starched little cap and row of curls, my old friend Silvio.

“Signorina,” he said, his voice disguised and bowing apologies. “My errant foot kicked out all on its own at your juicy little ass!”

He managed to say this so that it sounded like normal speech, and to maintain a beautifully servile expression, so that no one would have taken note of the interaction even if anyone had been watching.

“I wondered why I didn’t see you with Rebekkah!”

“Shh!”

“Come eat with me!”

“Don’t be daft—I can’t! And please ignore me properly, as fits my station.”

I pretended to eat while he hovered over me.

“I spoke with von Regnazig’s man about your bijoux—look down, for God’s sake, Annina!”

“Please, Silvio—tell me quickly!”

“I can’t now. But when you’ve done eating, go off into the woods—there, to the left, away from the Basilica—as if to have a pee. I’ll find you there—and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

He went off to serve the others, and I was left with a trencher of food I no longer felt in the slightest bit capable of eating.

Now that I was about to find out who had sent the locket to me, I felt, once again, more dread than relief. I was convinced it had something to do with the secret of my identity—what else could it be? I was far too young—and too unknown—to be receiving tributes from a suitor. But all the possibilities I could think of filled me with fear. What if I learned that my mother was some low whore, or a criminal imprisoned beneath the Doge’s Palace? What if, once found, she wanted to claim me again, to use me, as Marietta’s mother used the children in her keeping? Or—far more likely, given the locket’s strange appearance and my own strange looks—what if one or both my parents came from another place, perhaps a savage place, where I’d be put out in some desolate field to herd goats? Or tasked day and night with spinning? Or married, against my will, to some rude merchant who would make me play jigs for his drunken friends?

My fantasies ran in other directions, too. There was the young noblewoman who had borne me out of wedlock—who read my letters and was using whatever influence she had to better my position in the
coro
. Who had been watching over me and was just waiting for the right moment to make herself known to me. Who would visit me in the
parlatorio
. I would tell her all my secrets, all my fears, and she would give me her counsel in whispered words meant only for me. We would resemble each other
in some odd way that would make both of us laugh—and I would know that I was not alone in the world.

How ardently I wanted to believe in answers! I never allowed myself to linger more than a terrified moment on the consideration that even the best outcome could open a Pandora’s box of complications and contradictions. I could not let go of my quest—I was like a dog that, sniffing something buried in the ground, will not give up digging for it, no matter that the bone he hopes to find turns out to be something infested with maggots and rot, something that should have remained forever buried.

I was pushing the food around on my plate, wondering how I’d break away from the group to go into the forest. Giulietta and Claudia came up from behind me, one after the other, each demanding that I walk with her on the outing to the Basilica. I said yes to both, just to buy myself more time. And then Marietta knelt down beside me, kissed my cheek, and whispered a plea for me to follow her into the woods.

Knowing that Marietta had some kind of mischief afoot—and having so lately got out of jail—I had little desire to do anything she suggested. But her proposal happened to coincide this time with my own purposes. I laid the trencher in the grass and chased Marietta across the field. We made out that we were playing a game of tag, laughing and squealing, and straying all the while farther and farther from the picnic.

And then, suddenly, she was running in earnest away from me, toward the dark line of trees.

I had never run such a long way before, and never with the yielding earth beneath my shoes rather than dead cobblestones. I was panting several paces behind Marietta—who was ever fleeter than I—as she reached and then penetrated the edge of the woods, so extravagant in the growth and greenness of the trees that grew there, like a living wall.

It took several moments for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. Following the direction of Marietta’s footfalls, I thought I saw some people hidden among the trees. When I got over my surprise and could see clearly again, I made out a gentleman, with two servants in attendance. As Marietta ran full-tilt toward him, her arms outstretched, he stepped out into a beam of sunlight that fell through the canopy of the trees. I could see his black hair and ruddy cheeks, his fierce eyes and full mouth. He could have served as a model for one of Sebastiano Ricci’s paintings of the ancient gods.

He embraced Marietta—and then she gazed back at me with a look that begged my complicity.

I shook my head in envy and disbelief. “Do what you want, Marietta!” I shouted at her. “I wash my hands of you!” And with that, I turned my back and ran farther into the forest.

It was my first time ever being in a forest (unless, I reasoned, I had been born on the mainland and carried through a forest as a babe in arms). It was at once frightening and beautiful—and the sight of Marietta in the arms of that nobleman, as handsome as she was lovely, stirred up my senses to a ridiculous degree.

I felt that I could smell and see with an unaccustomed keenness. I could hear the very leaves breathing, and the tiny movements of birds and insects among their branches. Although I had read of the forests and oases of the Bible—and had spent as much time as any other girl of the Pietà beneath the two twisted pomegranate trees and the palm in our courtyard—I had no idea that trees, when massed together, had such a beautiful smell. The leaves, the bark, and their exhalations filled the air with a fragrance fit for angels.

I really did need to relieve myself by then, but didn’t want to for fear that Silvio would happen upon me. I reached a clear
ing and decided to wait there for him. I remember wondering if there were lions there on Torcello, or other creatures who might wish to make a meal of me. I prayed to the Virgin for protection. Meanwhile, because Silvio was such a long time in finding me, I chose a sheltered place and made a tent of my skirts to release my water, being careful not to wet my shoes. And then I laughed, because it was the first time that making water had seemed to me a lovely thing, there among the trees and the low-growing brush and the dew and the flowers.

I had barely pulled up my knickers when I heard someone running, and turned to see Silvio, pink in the face and a little wild-eyed. “I thought you’d been eaten by a lion!”

I ran to him laughing and, in truth, a little frightened. I put my arms around him—of course, “he” was still dressed as a “she”—and laid my head on his shoulder. “I’m so glad you found me!” And then I whispered, “Are there lions here?”

“I grew up in the same pile of stones as you did, little sister, and heard the same stories. There were lions in Ancient Rome, I think.”

“Bugger Ancient Rome!” I said—or something equally vulgar. “Tell me what you know about the locket, Silvio! Tell me quickly, before anyone finds us!”

“Or eats us!”

“This is not a time for jokes!” I took both his hands in mine and wondered at the length and slenderness of his fingers. It seemed suddenly unjust to me that boys of the Pietà are not allowed to study music.

“I thought you liked my jokes!” He pulled me down so that we were sitting on the grass, knees to knees. “This is what I know, Annina.”

I closed my eyes, praying to the Virgin that what he knew would be something I wanted to hear.

“The locket was left in the keeping of a pawnbroker in the Ghetto, the Banco Giallo.”

“Is that the bank used by von Regnazig?”

Silvio nodded. “There are three different pawnshops in the Ghetto, each known for the color of the receipts they give: red, green, or yellow—
rosso, verde
, or
giallo
. All the nobles use them.”

“Hurry!”

“I’m hurrying. The locket was originally given as a pledge for a loan—the usual thing. It was a young nobleman, in some desperate need, and not very long ago. He was masked and didn’t give his name. And then someone else came to pay back the loan and reclaim the pledge—a relative of his. A
zentildonna
.”

“For the love of God,
who?
”

Silvio shook his head. “She was also masked. The only thing the pawnbroker could tell me was that she seemed, from her voice, to be rather young—although not so very young. She repaid the pledge and then paid something extra to have the locket delivered to you, specifying that it had to be done in secret. The pawnbroker promised her that he would find a way.”

This news filled me with a sense of excitement at its significance: a noblewoman. But then I realized that I was no closer than I had been to being able to find this lady. “Couldn’t he tell you anything more?” Poor Silvio, after all his trouble! I probably sounded more annoyed than grateful.

He shook his head. “There was only one small thing.”

“Tell me!”

He took both my hands in his and kissed them. “This is where we must tread carefully, my sweet Annina, because not only your future but mine, too, may rest upon how we proceed.” He looked in my eyes as he spoke. “The lady told the pawnbroker that he’d been recommended to her for his honesty and probity.”

“And what good does that do me?”

“Well, you see, the person who recommended him was Rebekkah.”

W
e didn’t linger long after that. Silvio promised to find out everything he could from Rebekkah. And then he ran back, before he was missed, to join the group of servants the Foscarini had allotted to the outing.

I ran in the direction of the tower, and then through an entrance to the ancient church, where I could hear the echoing voice of a guide as well as the echoed whispers of my restless friends, who no doubt would have far preferred to stay out of doors.

Wedging myself between some girls at the back, I tried to calm my breathing and look attentive as the voice droned on about the mosaic depicting the Last Judgment on the back wall, the Harrowing of Hell at the top, the Elect at the bottom left, and the Damned at the bottom right. The scene seemed particularly appropriate to my situation.

“Where have you been?” Bernardina hissed at me. “And where is that trollop, Marietta? La Befana has been asking about you both!”

“I went to relieve my bowels.”

“And you needed her to wipe you?”

“Bernardina, that is disgusting!”

“Well, you are disgusting, the two of you, with your intrigues and assignations!”

“I’ve had no assignations!”

Bernardina snorted in a way most unbefitting a well-brought-up girl. “Which is more than can be said of your best friend—washing between her legs, indeed!”

The guide was droning on: “The Basilica was remodeled in the first years of the eleventh century by Bishop Orso Orseolo, later Patriarch of Aquileia.”

“She’s not my best friend.”

“If she’s not, who is, then? I suppose that title belongs to your Saxon bedmate.”

“Silenzio!”
Maestra Meneghina’s voice boomed from the front of the group. Magically, and much to my horror, the group parted like the Red Sea at the sound of it. The parting formed a straight pathway to where I had placed myself at the back, hoping to look inconspicuous.

After surveying the effect her voice had upon us, la Befana walked slowly toward me. She didn’t stop until I could see the mole on her chin and the two black hairs growing out of it like beheaded flowers.

I could hear everyone holding her breath. La Befana looked at me for what seemed a very long time before she spoke, as if her eyes were special instruments that could see beneath the surface of things to the most compromising truths inside. Then she smiled—but it was not a friendly smile. It never was with her, not in all the years she cast her shadow here.

“We are honored to have you join us, Anna Maria.” She waved behind her. “Please,
Signore
, carry on!” And then, to me, “Follow me, young lady!”

I followed her through a doorway that opened onto a winding staircase; I realized it must be the tower. As we passed one of the arched windows, I looked out through the grille at the pale green and yellow leaves of the forest—and suffered a pang of guilt that I hadn’t even tried to stop Marietta from whatever folly she was about to engage in. An image passed before my eyes of Marietta transformed into a woman in the manner of her mother—ruined, corrupt, and ill.

Distracted as I was, I stumbled. La Befana turned to look at me; there was no sympathy in those eyes. “Be quick! And watch your footing!”

She seemed to me uncannily fit for one who was so old. I was breathing hard by the time we reached the top of the staircase, which ended in the small, round, unadorned room that housed the bell. There were bars on the window. Again I looked out and thought of Marietta. And I thought about how different a landscape looks from far above.

We cannot really see things when we are in the middle of them. I did not know that then, but I know it now. I couldn’t imagine why la Befana had brought me up into the tower, unless it was to hurt me.

I was, of course, afraid. La Befana was famous among the foundlings for knowing how to hurt while leaving us unblemished, with no bruises for us to show the Prioress. I think she must have made a study of the places she could press and squeeze and twist and poke without leaving any trace behind her, apart from the hatred for her she burned onto our souls. The governors have always been unforgiving when it comes to physical maltreatment of their wards. But we knew that our words alone weighed nothing in the scales of justice.