The Violinist of Venice (16 page)

I was unsure as to whether it would be more or less suspicious to protest further, so in the end I kept silent.

“Yes, stay, signorina,” Vivaldi said finally. “Your brother has no doubt already departed and cannot be fetched back to see you safely home.”

Signor Vivaldi shrugged on his cloak. “I think I will come by tomorrow, Antonio, if that is agreeable,” he said. “You quite forgot to show me that new concerto you spoke of.”

The look he gave his son, however, was one with which I, possessed of a disapproving father myself, was all too familiar. “Yes … of course,” Vivaldi said.
“Buona notte, padre.”

He saw his father to the door and watched, body rigid, until the older man had moved out of sight. He slumped against the door frame in relief.

I could barely summon my voice from the depths of horror and mortification to which it had sunk. “Tonio, I … I am so sorry. I did not know—”

“No, of course you did not,” he said, spinning to face me, eyes blazing angrily. “Why do you think that we arrange nights to meet, Adriana? Do you think I see no one but you? Do you think no one comes here to seek me but you?”

I felt that I could die of shame and regret; a part of me wished I would. “No, of course not. I only wanted to see you, after—”

“I am not some plaything for your pleasure, to be at your beck and call whenever you grow bored with the view from your palazzo,” he cut me off, advancing on me. “I have a life that does not include you, and the two must stay separate!”

“That is not fair, and you know it,” I said, my voice small.

He ignored me. “This will be the undoing of everything! You know that, do you not? It is catastrophic!” His hands were balled into fists as though he wanted to strike something. He pushed past me and began pacing in front of the fire.

“Perhaps he believed us,” I ventured.

The look Vivaldi gave me was one of utter contempt. “He did not believe us. He knows. He knows the truth about us. About me.”

“And so?” I asked. “He is your father. Surely he will not tell anyone. Surely he would not do that to you.”

“It is not that,” he said, stopping and facing me. “Can you not see, you foolish girl?
No one
was to know of this, least of all my father!”

“You speak as though you are ashamed of me,” I said.

“Of course I am ashamed!” he shouted, causing me to flinch. “How can I not be? I am a priest with a mistress! Of course I am ashamed of you, of all of this!”

I could not have been more shocked had he slapped me across the face. Yet soon enough my own anger allowed me to recover my voice. “And yet you have been sinning quite joyfully these past few months, I notice,” I spat. “How dare you say such things to me, as though I am some common whore whom you pay to spend the night?”

“We are both of us whores,” he shot back. “Is this what you wanted, Adriana? Is this what you were dreaming of in your silly romantic fantasies? An illicit, tawdry love affair with a musician before you go off and marry your rich Foscari, and please him with the tricks you learned in my bed?”

I could have screamed aloud in fury. “Are you
listening
to your own filthy words? You quite literally
told
me to marry him, and now—”

“And yet there you were in that box, dressed like a queen, your hand in his and the two of you staring at each other like you would never look away,” he said. “Just what manner of woman are you, Adriana? How am I to know?”

Rage nearly blinded me, and my entire body shook.

“Parlar non vuoi?”
he demanded. “Why do you not speak?”

“Because I have no desire to waste my breath on you ever again, you bastard!” I shrieked.

“Keep your voice down, lest you want the whole city to hear you!”

“Let them hear!” I cried. “Let them hear how you speak to the woman who gave herself to you out of love, only to have you shame her with that very fact!”

“What do you—”

“And do not attribute your own fantasies to me,” I raged. “You with the wealthy, forbidden virgin in your bed before you send her off to marriage, always knowing that you were the first. And what of you? How many have there been before me?”

Now it was his turn to look shocked, horrified. I knew that I had crossed a line with my words, that what I had said was unforgivable, but I could not stop myself. All I wanted was to hurt him as much as he had hurt me.

“Surely you cannot think—”

“I know not what to think!” I exclaimed. “The man I love would never have spoken to me thus, and so I know not what to make of the man who stands before me now!”

His mouth hung open as he stared dumbly at me.

I had arrived so excited to put to rights the dissonance that had slithered between us last time. Yet now I saw this serpent of discord had already struck and left its poison behind, when neither of us noticed, and now all that was left was for the wounds to fester. “I am leaving,” I said. “No doubt it will not bother you if I never return.”

With that, I turned and stalked out the door before he had a chance to respond.

In spite of it all, though, I could not resist one glance back. Through a parting in the curtains, I could glimpse him standing completely still, his face buried in his hands, body rigid with tension. Then, in a sudden burst of rage, he reached out and swiped one of the empty wineglasses off the table, sending it shattering against the stone of the hearth.

 

21

CURTAIN

The light of dawn was just beginning to leach away the darkness when a hiss in my ear awoke me. “Madonna. Madonna, wake up. Adriana!”

My eyes snapped open and I sat up in my bed quickly, only to see Giuseppe standing over me, looking slightly embarrassed. “
Dio,
Giuseppe, did you think to frighten me to death?”

“My apologies, madonna,” he said, “but I thought it best that we speak before the rest of the house is about.” His expression changed to that of a schoolmaster about to scold an errant pupil. “What could you have been thinking, cavorting around Venice alone at that hour?”

“Please, Giuseppe,” I said, pushing the covers aside and getting out of bed. I took my robe from my wardrobe and pulled it on over my night shift, so that I did not feel quite so naked beneath his disapproving stare. “I could not stay, and I had not the foggiest idea where you might be.”

“And is Madonna going to tell me
why
she had to depart her lover's house so suddenly and so unexpectedly?” Giuseppe asked.

I gave him a sharp, quelling look. “You must know, if you went to his house to seek me. Surely he told you. You will not make me recount it, I hope.”

“I know only what Don Vivaldi told me, and he was not all that intelligible.”

I started slightly. “What do you mean?”

“He was drunk,” Giuseppe said. “By the time I arrived, he was so deep in his cups that it was clear he had been drinking for hours.”

“I see.” I turned away from Giuseppe and made a pretense of studying the early morning sky from the window.

“Very well. Since you are apparently too proud to ask, I will tell you what he said—or what I could gather, at any rate,” Giuseppe said. “You and he got into quite the argument, something about his father discovering you, and … it seemed one moment he was swearing he would never forgive you, and the next he was swearing before God that he could not go on until you had forgiven him.” He paused. “I would never have guessed it,” he said, more to himself than to me.

Tears stung my eyes, and out of habit I forced them back as I kept my face turned resolutely to the window.

“And so?” Giuseppe said, after a moment had passed. “Would you care to elaborate, madonna?”

I sighed, composing myself, and turned to face him. “It is just as he said. When I arrived, his father was there.” I told Giuseppe of our lie, and how Signor Vivaldi had not seemed to believe us. “Then he left, and…” I bit my lip. “Antonio said horrible things to me, and I said horrible things to him. And I left.”

Giuseppe studied me carefully. “And so it is over?”

Over.
The word seared, as though I had passed my hand through a candle flame. The blister that was left behind throbbed and swelled until it threatened to drive me out of my mind with pain.

Over.
The word I had not thought once, not through the entire night before, even though I knew it was the word to explain the sickening weight in my stomach. How could it not be over, after the things he had said?

I heard Giuseppe sigh, tentatively speaking up. “Adriana, perhaps it is not so dire as all that. You did not see him afterward, and I—”

“No,” I cut him off. “Do not say anything. There is nothing you can do.”

He did not move for a moment, then I heard him leave the room, closing the door behind him.

I stared toward the Grand Canal, where it snaked its way among the houses and bridges of Venice, leading to the lagoon and eventually to the sea. How I wished I could follow it; let it take me far from this city of so much music and so much pain.

*   *   *

Not long after Giuseppe left, I crawled back into bed and fell into a deep sleep. I was awakened again a bit before midday by Meneghina, who came in to dress me. “Shall I send for some food so that Madonna can break her fast?” she asked as she walked around the bed to the wardrobe.

I could feel the events of the night before nibbling around the edges of my mind like rats with a crust of bread. I felt the urge to let them devour me, to remain in this bed for as long as it took for my memories to be eaten away entirely. But I pushed the thought away. “That sounds wonderful, Meneghina,” I said, sitting up.

Meneghina cast me a curious look—I was not usually so effusive in the mornings, or ever, to be truthful—but did not comment as she began pulling out clean underthings and a warm day dress. The December air had finally turned cold, and with a vengeance. Soon it would be Christmas and, the day after the holiday, Carnevale would begin again.

Some bread and cold ham was brought up so that I could break my fast, after which Meneghina helped me to dress and tied my hair back with silk ribbons. “Thank you, Meneghina,” I said, smiling warmly at her.

“Will there be anything else, madonna?” she asked, still looking puzzled.

“Yes,” I said. “Send Giuseppe Rivalli to me when you leave, if you please. I have a mind to go out and take some air, and would have him accompany me.”

She bobbed a curtsy and left to fetch him. I pulled one of my warmest cloaks from the wardrobe and went out into my sitting room to wait for Giuseppe to arrive.

He did, within minutes. “You sent for me, madonna?” he asked formally. He lowered his voice slightly. “How are you this morning, Adriana?”

“I am quite well, Giuseppe, never fear,” I said. “I wish to go out, and take the air.”

He eyed me quizzically. “And shall we be taking the air at your … er … favorite spot?”

“Somewhere new this time, I think,” I said, deliberately avoiding his eyes. “Perhaps to…” I cast my mind about, searching for a proper distraction. “Piazza San Marco, to take a turn about the square.”

Giuseppe stared at me as though I had taken leave of my senses. “It is December, madonna. The piazza will be flooded—the
acqua alta
.”

Mentally I cursed myself for a fool—perhaps I
had
taken leave of my senses. What Venetian could forget about the high tides that flooded the city on winter mornings? “To Santa Maria della Salute, then,” I said irritably. I had not been to the church in years, not since my mother died. She had loved to attend Mass there—when we did not attend at the Pietà—or would often take me there to pray even when Mass was not being held. Ironic that a woman who so loved to pray at a church named for Our Lady of Health would die of a fever.

The poor man seemed quite thoroughly confused, but he nodded. “Very well, madonna. I shall call for the gondola.”

He returned to fetch me a few minutes later, and as we made our way down to the dock I chattered mindlessly about a party Tommaso had mentioned taking me to during Carnevale, and how I hoped Father would let me attend. I cannot imagine that Giuseppe cared in the slightest—I scarcely thought it of any import myself. I only knew that I had, desperately, to fill the silence.

Giuseppe helped me into the gondola, and I huddled into the pillows and cushions within the
felze,
pulling my cloak tighter about me. By the Blessed Virgin, what had I been thinking to come out in this cold?

It was a short ride to the church from the palazzo, and soon Vincenzo, our gondolier, docked near the church steps to let us off. I handed him a coin so that he could step into a nearby tavern for a glass of mulled wine, if he so chose. I had half a mind to follow him.

Giuseppe trailed behind me as I entered the church, the weak winter sunlight trickling through the windows just underneath the massive dome. I sank down into a pew near the back, not bothering to kneel and pretend to pray. All I wanted was the silence and stillness and flickering candlelight to dull and quiet my mind, to wash it clean. I tried to remember how it had felt to come here as a girl with my mother, how I had watched her pray with such devotion that she seemed like the very Madonna herself. It had been so much easier—then—to be happy.

But my peace was short-lived. Giuseppe sat next to me, clearing his throat. “So?” he said, glancing at me. “I take it you have something to say?”

I didn't look at him. “I do not know to what you are referring, Giuseppe.” I shivered and pulled my cloak tighter—it was scarcely warmer in the church than out.

“Stop it, Adriana,” he said, his sharp tone echoing off the walls and ceiling high above us, as though the very stones were reprimanding me. “Pretend to the rest of the world if you must—and you must, it is true—but you need not maintain this façade with me.”