Hidden Voices (13 page)

“It’s only make-believe,” she says. “It’s not your life up there, you know.”

Oh, how I wish it were!

I
WANTED SO TO WALK ALONG
beside Luisa on our outing and make sure that she was safe. But because of how Rosalba cautioned me, I fought against my truest feelings and tramped ahead of everyone to lead the way. It wasn’t far to the theater by the shortcut, but Signora Mandano complained bitterly throughout the play that we had not come near enough to the vendors selling sweets. We went the long way going back so as to pass through the Piazza San Marco and buy the
frittelle
we’d all been promised. Signora would not let us eat them in the street, however, and we were made to carry the delicious treats back with us to share with all the younger girls.

“Who will eat our share and then buy more to eat when
they
go to the puppet show,” says Silvia. “It’s most unfair.”

I notice that Luisa doesn’t even sneak a nibble. Any food at all would surely do her good, and I would love to have seen her show a spark of happiness while in the theater. Whenever I looked over, her eyes were roaming around the audience, barely glancing at the play upon the stage in front of her. In contrast, Rosalba seemed about to fly up with the actors, as if the life up there were more real than the one she leads. How well reasoned she can be sometimes, but the side of her on view today has often been apparent recently and troubles me. “Just a few years,” I’ve told her many times, “and you can leave this place and do just as you please.”

I pray that she listens to me as closely as I do when she counsels
me.
What is it about Carnival that makes a person court the risks she wouldn’t at another time? What evil spells are in the air right before Lent? Why, yesterday, I caught the old cook lifting up her skirts to bare her backside to the butcher, who thrust himself between her heavy buttocks and grunted just like one of his own pigs. She went about the kitchen business after that, unruffled, as if she’d never ceased to stir the pots.

All the way back, I have such uneasy feelings about Rosalba, I plot to walk beside her, and even though Luisa holds her other hand, I do not try to meet Luisa’s gaze. She is still glum, but Rosalba is in a wistful state much like the Lover in the little play, smiling at nothing and at complete strangers, masked or not. She wants to know if I was as overcome as she was by the Commedia, had I ever imagined anything so fine, were not the actors beautiful, the scenery a work of art?

I tell her that I did enjoy it, yes, particularly the tricks, the
lazzi
and other comic business. Several of us laugh to remember the somersaults of the Harlequin while carrying a full glass of water that doesn’t even spill, and how the Captain boxed the ears of his servant so many times, the man grew cross-eyed.

“It is the lovers I’ll remember,” says Rosalba.

“That simpering Flavio? He is too soft by half to be a man,” declares Silvia.

Rosalba is quick in her retort.

“And who do you know to compare him with? The priests in their black skirts? The
castrati
? The lustful errand boys who lurk below stairs for a glimpse of one of us in a chemise? The overfed dukes who sometimes come to tea?”

“Not to mention your mysterious merlin and your bold and leering gondolier,” adds Silvia.

The girls who’ve heard Silvia stare at Rosalba as if shocked and mystified.

“Who are these men you’ve named?” asks Geltruda. “What have they to do with Rosalba?”

“They have nothing to do with Rosalba,” says Silvia. Her little smirk grows into a self-righteous grimace. “That’s her complaint.”

I have never known Rosalba to turn red in the face before or to become so absolutely quiet.

She doesn’t speak again until we’ve crossed over the Rio di Palazzo where we can see the Bridge of Sighs and are almost to the Calle della Pietà. Just as some girls begin to enter the chapel and others go off to the Ospedale, Rosalba pulls Silvia aside and tells her very quietly so that few of us can hear, “You know nothing of true love between a man and woman, Silvia, so do not scoff at others who do.”

“Don’t tell me of true love,” declares Silvia. “You have been as cloistered here as any of us.”

“Think what you will. It doesn’t matter a wit!”

“As if I needed your permission to do that. But if you don’t want my opinion, just keep your silly lovesick pantomimes to yourself. Don’t involve me in them again.”

What does Rosalba know of love? What secrets does she keep? Is the kind of love of which she speaks what I witnessed between the butcher and the cook? There was no more tenderness to it than such an act between two mongrel dogs.

“Anetta,” says Luisa suddenly, and I cannot believe that my own name is upon her lips.

I look at Rosalba, and she isn’t giving me a look of warning as she has so often done before.

“What is it, Luisa?” I ask.

“I merely want to thank you for the care you showed me when I was so very ill. You were most kind.”

What can I say that will not turn her away from me again? That I would do anything in the world for her, that I did not leave her side of my own accord, that I would watch over her forever if she would let me?

“I am glad that I could help you,” I say at last. And then I turn and head inside and to the nursery, where Concerta is just waking from her nap, her forehead as cool as my own. I pick her up and clasp her to me with such gratitude to Our Blessed Savior and to His Mother. With this same gratitude, I hold Luisa’s words within my mind, words I didn’t think that I would ever hear.

P
RIORESS HAS ASKED THAT I GO
with Signora Mandano to accompany the youngest girls when they attend the puppet show. She is sending small groups with two chaperones each, and so, no matter what, I’ll have the silly entertainment stuffed right down my throat. It is one way to miss solfeggio, however, and I have not been given any choice. I must confess, it will be good to be among the crowd again, the musicians and the acrobats, those crazy people balancing on stilts, even the ugly men in women’s clothes. The Piazza San Marco will bustle with excitement every day until Shrove Tuesday. It is a shame we get to see only small bits of Carnival this year. The balls and parties in the nighttime must be too marvelous to be believed.

As we start out, the little
iniziate
are so full of excitement that they don’t appear to feel the cold. Even without masks, their rosy cheeks beneath their hoods seem painted there. Right away Signora points out an uncommon spectacle in the lagoon, a man with long wooden shoes who slides upon the ice with brisk and lengthy strides. We watch, certain that he’ll break the crust and fall into the water, but when he stays on top, passes swiftly into the canal, and disappears from sight, the children squeal with pleasure.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” asks Signora, and I must admit that I have not. There are so many wonders that I haven’t seen in my short regimented life, however, that it does not surprise me to have missed such a one as this. It makes me think how unimagined wonders must be everywhere within the wider world.

“Now hold one another’s hands,” Signora tells the group. “And don’t let go. Keep your distance from the tumblers and revelers. I suggest you whistle like a bird, the way Father Vivaldi has taught you, if any stranger comes too close.”

The shrill little whistles begin at once and continue until the knot of
bambine
sounds like a frantic aviary into which a hawk has swooped.

“Not now! Not now!” Signora cries, and insists on silence before we start our journey, which will take us only over three short bridges that we can see from here. How far that seemed to me when I was very young.

Just as we are about to set out, Catina appears in the doorway, wrapped in her own cloak and cap and looking so wan I feel she may faint into the street. She is definitely not strong enough yet to come with us, but the other
iniziate
are clearly delighted with this brief send-off, and I’m amused to see her smile and pull the skin down at the center of one eye the way Signora often does when she signals us to be careful or alert. The gesture is duly noted by these children, who, I’m told, often look to her for guidance and who, after this send-off, hold ever more tightly to one another.

The girls, like a dark blue daisy chain with bright flower faces, wind single file and are so excited that the chain appears to throb. Most have never seen the Palace of the Doge before and are struck dumb as we pass in front of it, gazing up at its many arches and the ornate entrance with tiny gaping mouths. The church itself, of course, with its three golden domes and many spires, overshadows everything near the square, and the children wind their chain around the base of its steps as if in a dream. It is only mid-afternoon, and the square is filled to brimming with people of every kind — tourists from the continent, hawkers of every ilk, street musicians, harlequins and acrobats, both masked and unmasked. The noise is indeed deafening but so filled with merriment that I revel in the way it washes over us, and I collect the sounds and colors, the madcap roistering, so deep inside myself that I am quite drunk with all of it by the time we reach our destination.

Father’s little concert for our benefit within the cathedral is the first event. How I would resist the sudden quiet forced upon us by this church if I could. The girls, however, seem enthralled with the still and massive interior and beautiful paintings and speak only in whispers as we lead them to a side altar, where Father and his own
padre
are waiting for us, both tuning violins.

“Ah,” says Father as we assemble on the chairs in front of them. “You’re just in time.” He winks at me. “Quite an achievement with such a guide.”

His father is a trifle stooped, but robust for a slight, older man, and even somewhat dapper in a bob wig. Already, a small crowd has formed outside the communion rail, made up of people who obviously recognize the elder Vivaldi from his frequent performances around Vienna. The Red Priest seems to be known as well, perhaps for his operatic pieces, which, we’ve been told, have taken some notice of late. It is somewhat confounding that his compositions reach out into the wider world and we must share him.

“Look. The father and the son,” murmurs an old woman behind her hand as if commenting on the first two persons of the Trinity. “The Vivaldis,” can be heard whispered by many other spectators, and Father, wearing a stylish wig himself, looks up.

The older man smiles and nods when his son tells him who we are, but doesn’t leave his chair or take his violin from underneath his chin. It is so cold in here that we do not have the girls remove their cloaks, and one wonders how the fingers of the men can stay flexible enough to play the notes.

Very shortly, however, they launch into a wonderful duet that seems, in places, to imitate the sounds of animals, for I can clearly hear a thrush and then a bleating lamb and once the barking of a dog and the coo of turtle doves. The girls seem quite aware of this and sit up in their chairs, alert for any new surprises. It is a clever ploy to keep them fastened to the music, and Father beams throughout the quick performance. This whimsical invention of his own has clearly been designed to please such small children, and they are indeed completely delighted, clapping hands as children do instead of blowing their noses in appreciation as their elders might. They actually seem loath to leave this most majestic place and their dear friend from the Ospedale. But Father himself remarks upon the puppet show in store and cautions them to hurry in order to find places up close enough to see the entertainment clearly.

The puppet theater is set up on a platform near the center of the Piazza San Marco, very near the campanile. The children gape at the tall spire, their small heads tilted back in an attempt to see the top. As all of Italy loves its
bambini,
the little girls are soon ushered to the front, right by the hangman’s noose painted on the front curtain. The star of the show, Puncinello, has already, it would seem, killed his own baby, and is beating his ugly wife with a stick amid shouts and catcalls. There is no love at all to this story. Why it seems to please the crowd is quite a mystery to me.