The Violinist of Venice (32 page)

 

47

B MINOR

As soon as I heard the first notes of the music, I knew it was his. My steps slowed as I tried to catch the breath of which the music had robbed me. My father turned his head ever so slightly to glare at me, as though he thought I had some dramatic notion of releasing his arm and running away. As if I could move at any but the slowest of paces, weighed down as I was by the senator's diamond necklace and this gown with its stiff bodice and ten-foot train.

Thank God that, at just that moment, I caught sight of a familiar face in one of the back pews: Giuseppe, grinning at me like a boy who had just succeeded in playing a trick on his nursemaid. I smiled back. Now I knew there was one person, at least, in the church who loved me for myself and truly wished me well.

I collected myself, gave my father a reassuring smile, and we continued our procession to the altar.

The music played by the orchestra, which was soon joined by the choir, was a joyous, vibrant piece, glorifying God.
He may as well have written me a requiem Mass,
I thought,
for I am only twenty years old, and already my life is over.

Yet as I reached the altar, the music changed, so drastically I thought my own thoughts had summoned what I was hearing. It was in B minor—of course. Urgently tolling strings climbed higher and higher before the choir came in, each voice part layering on top of the next, moving upward by half steps. Tears filled my eyes even as I quelled the urge to laugh.

I took my place before the priest, and beside Senator Baldovino, looking as old as ever. My father released me and went to his place in the front pew beside Claudio, come from Florence for the wedding, with what I fancied was a rather self-satisfied smirk on his face.

The priest waited for the music to finish before commencing, and I could not help but notice that this movement was longer than the one before. A reprieve. I closed my eyes and let each chord wash over me, tears streaming freely down my face. If either the priest or my intended noticed, no doubt they simply attributed it to happiness.

Once the music—both gift and cruel reminder of what I could not have—ended, the priest began. I scarcely listened to what he was saying, my eyes and attention drawn to the choir loft above and to the left of us, obscured from view by a high metal grille that served to protect the
figlie di coro,
as they were called, from the eyes of outsiders. I could just make out the red of the robes they wore to perform, or on the extremely rare occasions they went out in public. My mother had told me this, I realized; I had only just now remembered.

Was he there, as well? Was he watching? Surely he was, directing the orchestra and choir in his work. Perhaps it was merely my imagination wishing to at once torture and soothe me, but I was sure I could feel his eyes on me from somewhere in the sanctuary.

I hope you are seeing this,
I thought, as though he could hear me.
I hope you are seeing the wreck you have made of my life. I hope it was worth it, Antonio. I do.

“I do,” Baldovino suddenly declared, tearing me from my reverie.

“And do you, Adriana d'Amato, take Giacomo Piero Baldovino to be your husband?”

“I do,” I said dully.

More joyous music rang out as my new husband led me away from the altar, though this time I scarcely heard it, nor did I hear the good wishes being shouted to us by the smattering of people in the pews. I blinked as we stepped outside into the mocking sunlight and into the decorated gondola that would carry us back to the senator's—and now my—palazzo for the wedding feast. I felt heavy with the weight of this new life, of all the lives I had lived before, and all the ones I might have lived; so heavy that it was a wonder I did not sink the gondola straight to the bottom of the lagoon.

*   *   *

Our wedding night, after I suffered through the banquet in stony silence, was rather what I had anticipated. In the master bedchamber,
mio marito
clumsily removed my cream-colored, lace-trimmed shift—created especially for this night—then gestured for me to get into the bed, where he nearly crushed me with his weight as he pushed himself roughly inside me. I could not even draw breath to cry out in pain. I simply lay there, unmoving, enduring his short, jerky thrusts until he finally moaned aloud in his release and then rolled off me. I curled myself into a ball, facing away from him, trying and failing to hold back the tears that stung my eyes.

Once he had regained his breath, my husband placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You are doubtless weary from the excitement of the day, and perhaps a bit nervous and anxious about this first bedding, as well,” he said, in what he no doubt believed was a reassuring tone. “So I will make allowances. But for the love of God, Adriana, surely you know that a man wants a woman to do what she can to please him?”

I would have murdered him right there in our marriage bed had I been in possession of a weapon. I wanted to scream at him.
There are only two kinds of women who seek to please men in bed: whores and women who are in love. I have been both, but now I am neither.

Instead I closed my eyes and prayed for sleep to come as quickly as possible.

Yet before I could retreat into the security of slumber, the gypsy's words whispered themselves across my mind again:
You already know your fate, although it will not come about in quite the way you think … you will bear the child of the man you love.

It had come true, all of it, every word. I laughed silently at the foolish, naïve girl who had first interpreted these words as a blessing, a benediction, a sign that she was going to get everything she had ever wanted; the girl who had then told herself that it was all silliness and superstition.

If only she had believed that tragedy could actually befall her.

 

48

INTERMEZZO

The ocean breeze somehow smelled different here than it did in Venice—sweeter, warmer, fresher. I could leave the villa—loaned to us for our wedding trip by a friend of Giacomo's—and wander down to the shore in nothing more than a shift, for there was no one else on this small Greek island to see us. I spent many enjoyable days exploring the beaches and forests, as I was usually left to my own devices.

The evenings were another matter.

As I watched the fiery sun sink beneath the waves, Giacomo came up behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Beautiful, is it not?” he asked, as if he had commissioned the entire spectacle for my pleasure and now expected to be thanked for it. “Beauty seems to flourish here.” He bent his head and kissed the side of my neck, while slipping my shift down my shoulder. I did not move, keeping my eyes on the fading horizon, until he took my hand and placed it over his hardening manhood beneath his breeches. I forced myself to pull away slowly.

“Here,
marito
?” I asked. “Surely the marriage bed is a more appropriate place for such … activity.”

“We are newlyweds,” he reminded me. “A bit of adventurousness is to be expected,
si
?” He reached for me again, but I instinctively took a step back.

“A wife's duty is to please her husband, in
every
way,” he reminded me with a growl. “God knows I am not some handsome young swain, but I
am
your husband, and so you might think about resigning yourself to that, Adriana. A bit of gratitude would not be wanting, either.”

The more I help him along to his pleasure, the less time it all will take.
“I am sorry,
marito,
” I said aloud, looking up at him through my eyelashes. “Of course you are right. Let us only go inside to the bed, where we will be more comfortable.”

His annoyance melted away at once. I let him take my hand and lead me inside.

*   *   *

Gloomy autumn rain splashed against the windows and high stone ceilings of the church—a far cry from the weather on that lovely island paradise, which I still thought of longingly from time to time. The humidity made my mourning wear—a heavy black velvet gown and black lace veil—difficult to bear.

On my left side, Giacomo listened stoically to the funeral Mass, while on my right, my father was—uncharacteristically—weeping. I had never been under the impression that he loved Claudio all that much, but rather only saw him as a successor to the business. Yet apparently I was wrong.

Earlier that month, we had received news that Claudio had been found stabbed to death in an alley in Florence—outside of a brothel, where there had been an altercation between Claudio and another patron. The murderer was not apprehended; likely the culprit was someone of far greater wealth and influence than my brother.

It was a fitting end for Claudio, really, I thought ruefully. Yet tears sprang to my eyes as I contemplated how devastated my mother would have been, had she lived to see the mess her son had made of his life.

As everyone rose to receive the Host, I surreptitiously glanced around the church from beneath my veil. The pews were full of people I did not know. I had been hoping to see Giuseppe, but he did not appear to be present. I wondered if he had even heard the news, though there was no love lost between him and Claudio in any case.

Giuseppe and I corresponded regularly by letter—he had found employment as a secretary for one of the members of the Council of Ten—but we had not seen each other since my wedding. Giacomo's and my first true argument as a married couple had been when he had forbidden me from inviting Giuseppe into our house.

“Your father warned me about this friend of yours,” Giacomo said as I broached the subject over dinner one evening. “I know he was the one who helped facilitate your trysts.” He shook his head and reapplied himself to his meal. “No. I shall not have him in my house.”

“And did my holier-than-thou father also inform you,” I asked, “that this same Giuseppe Rivalli is also his bastard son, and therefore my half brother?”

The look of surprise on my husband's face was quite gratifying. Giuseppe may have sworn not to reveal the truth of his parentage, but I had taken no such vow.

Giacomo recovered rather quickly. “Most men of privilege have at least one bastard somewhere,” he said. “It is the way of the world.” He glanced up at me. “You should know that better than anyone, Adriana.”

That put a quick end to our discussion on the matter.

After the requiem Mass, we accompanied Claudio's coffin out to one of the islands in the lagoon for burial, and then returned to the city. We had offered to return home with my father and spend the evening with him, but he had declined rather brusquely, saying he preferred to be alone.

“A sad state of affairs,” Giacomo said as our gondolier rowed us back. “But in truth it seems your brother had no one to blame but himself.” He quickly crossed himself. “Not to speak ill of the dead, of course.”

“I do not believe the dead can hear you, husband,” I said, smiling slightly, “nor do I think they can take offense at an utterance of the truth.”

He smiled back, changing the subject. “As to happier thoughts, can we expect the renovations to be finished by the end of the month, as projected?”

“We can,” I told him. “The new carpets I ordered are set to be delivered tomorrow, and the last few pieces of furniture by early next week.”

“Excellent.”

Just as Giacomo had told me on the night we first met, his palazzo was very much in need of renovations when I moved in: the furniture was both old and old-fashioned, scratched and worn; the curtains were oppressively thick and heavy; the carpets had grown threadbare.

He had told me to spare no expense in the renovations and to choose whatever pleased me. Glad to have a project to distract myself from the memories that resurfaced upon our return to Venice, I summoned the finest furniture makers, upholsterers, and carpenters in the republic to remake the old bachelor's house into a home fit for a patrician and his wife, and perhaps someday children as well.

Giacomo had also allowed me to hire whatever additional servants I might need, and my first act had been to find and rehire Meneghina as my personal maid, for which she seemed both grateful and happy.

“Home we go, then,” he said, smiling at me.

“Yes,” I said, realizing that I was beginning to think of his palazzo that way. Ahead of us, Venice rose out of the waters of the lagoon to greet us, as if by magic. “Home.”

 

49

PERFORMANCE

The renovations were finished by the end of October, as planned, and Giacomo was more delighted with the finished product than I could have imagined. I went from room to room with him, pointing out everything that had been done and explaining my choices.

“This is excellent,” he marveled, taking everything in. “You have marvelous taste, Adriana.”

“I am glad you like it,” I said genuinely. He had been most generous in giving me free rein, and I was happy that he was so pleased.

“And it is finished just in time, for I am planning to give a party,” he informed me.

“Oh?” I asked. I had been under the impression that Senator Baldovino did not cut a large, dashing swath through Venice's social scene. “I thought that you did not like parties,” I ventured.

He chuckled. “I have never had a particular fondness for them, it is true,” he said. “But I have this lovely house which looks as if it were new, and a beautiful wife whom I am eager to introduce to society.”

“That sounds wonderful,” I said, finding his enthusiasm was catching. And I was hardly opposed to having company; surely there would be
someone
among Giacomo's circle of friends who would be pleasant enough. “I should like to meet more of your friends.”

“And so you shall,” he said. “But I had something else in mind for this particular
festa
that I think shall be most pleasing to you.” The smile on his face was almost boyish, and I was touched he should be so happy at the thought of pleasing me.