The Violinist of Venice (44 page)

“And I yours,” I said, meaning it. “But for my sake, and yours—and the sake of my children—I would not want to provide gossip for idle tongues.”

His smile, charming as ever, stopped my protests. “Have you no handsome young swains coming to engage in courtly love with you, Adriana?”

I laughed. “I do not, I am afraid.”

“Then this I shall do, though I am not so young,” he said. “It is to a lady's credit to have a devoted
cavaliere servente,
I believe.”

“I believe it is,” I said, conceding.

He bowed low. “Then I shall leave you to your guests, my lady, and will be glad to call on you as soon as is convenient for you.”

I could not help but smile as I walked away from him and slipped through the doors of the ballroom. Hopefully my next encounter with my past would end as well as the first.

Opening the door of the parlor, I found Vivaldi pacing inside. He whirled to face me as I entered, clutching a rosary tightly in his hand.

“Am I a demon from your past that you would exorcise, then?” I asked with a sardonic smile, nodding toward the rosary.

He looked a bit startled by my question, but his face soon relaxed into a wry smile. “Hardly. Yet I might well pray to be delivered from temptation where you are concerned, Adriana.”

“Now you would call me temptress?” I demanded, but he shook his head.

“Nothing of the sort. Do not think that I mean to lay any blame at your feet, only at my own where it belongs…” He trailed off and looked away. “I only meant to compliment your beauty, which for me will always be far and beyond that of any woman living.”

I gazed at him, this man I had loved with such passion it had nearly destroyed us both, my anger and bitterness melting away. This man, flawed as any mortal, had somehow managed to create music beyond what even I had thought him capable; I, who knew him better than perhaps anyone else. Surely that was worth more than all his failures, even if one of them had been that he failed me.

“I am sorry,” I said quietly. I sat on the daybed that stood between us and, taking my cue, he sat beside me. My body lurched awake at his nearness.

After a moment of silence, he said, “What did you think?”

“It was—it is—a masterpiece,” I said.

“You think so?”

“There has never been anything like it before,” I said. “You must know that.”

“Yes, but that does not make it a masterpiece,” he said. “Perhaps there is a reason there has never been something like it.”

“Surely you cannot doubt that the composition of such a work is a remarkable feat, and the performance of it no less so,” I argued.

When he did not reply, I spoke again. “Still so unsure of yourself, Tonio?” The old endearment slipped out yet again, but I paid it no mind. “There has never been anything like
Le quattro stagioni
before because there has never been a genius like yours.”

“Do you truly believe that?” he asked.

“I always have.”

He sighed heavily. “You must know what your opinion means to me,” he said. “More than that of anyone else, I think. And you must know…” His expression softened, and its tenderness made me want to fall into his arms and run away all at once. “Every time I sit down to compose for the violin—for my instrument and yours—I am writing for you. Always for you. I write as if you are still the same young woman about to appear at my door to play music late into the night.”

I bowed my head, hiding my tears. “And I still play, Tonio. I play all the music you sent me, and I write my own. Thus a part of me is still that young girl, after all.”

I could sense he wanted to take my hand, but he did not. “Then you have found the music again?”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes, I have.”

And then our stolen time came to an end, as it always had, and I was forced to rise, to excuse myself, and leave him.

In truth our lives run in seasons as well,
I thought as I left the parlor.
My youth was spring, and my affair with the man I loved was summer, with all its heat. And autumn came as we began to come apart, and winter when we were undone, and I was forced to give up our child. And yet surely that winter has ended long since. Then spring came again with the births of my children, and this peace and contentment I know now is like the beautiful sun of summer once again.

 

64

WIDOW'S WEEDS

“Zio Giuseppe and Zia Vittoria are waiting downstairs,” Lucrezia said, peeking her head in. I sat motionless at my dressing table, staring down at the black veil that sat upon it. When I did not respond, she stepped into the room.
“Madre?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes. Of course.” Still I did not move to put on the veil. I had waved Meneghina away when she offered to do it for me. This was something I had to do myself, and yet found that I could not. By donning this widow's veil, I moved from one part of my life to another, and there would be no going back.

I was not ready.

And yet I had no choice. It was only two short years after the premiere of
Le quattro stagioni
in our ballroom, and Giacomo was dead. His death was rather like his life, in which he cut no great social or political swaths: he died quietly in his sleep.

I jumped when I felt Lucrezia's hands on my shoulders. “Mama, are you all right?” she asked softly.

I closed my eyes and banished the waiting tears. “I am, I suppose,” I said. “But,
cara,
what of you?”

Lucrezia looked guilty as her eyes met mine in the mirror. “I am well,” she said. “Perhaps too well.” At that, she began to cry.

“Oh,
cara,
” I drew her onto my lap, though at thirteen, she was much too big for such things.

“I am
sad,
but I do not know why, Mama,” she said through her tears. “If I am sad because he is dead, or sad because I did not know him better, or sad because I think I should be
more
sad…”

“I understand,” I whispered. The children had cried upon hearing of their father's death, but their emotional recovery was swift. Giacomo had so distanced himself from their lives that they never truly knew him.

When Lucrezia ceased her crying, I squeezed her once, then helped her to her feet. “Now go downstairs to your aunt and uncle,” I said. “I will be along directly.”

She left the room, and I took one last, long look at my bare face.

My own tears of sorrow for Giacomo were very real. Ours had been a difficult marriage, yet there had been true affection and partnership between us, and he had given me three beautiful children. Even his cruelties were more out of thoughtlessness than malice.

And now he was gone.

I picked up the veil and pinned it into place, letting the gossamer fabric fall over my face.

*   *   *

Mask in place, I stepped off the dock and into the waiting gondola, helped by a warm, familiar hand. “
Buona notte,
Adriana,” Tommaso Foscari said from beneath his mask as I settled onto the seat beside him. “How are you faring,
mia cara
? I have missed you these past weeks.”

“Well enough,” I said. “And the children are well, which is all that matters. It is just strange, without him, even though…” I trailed off, and Tommaso nodded, understanding. “I have missed you as well,” I went on, and he briefly squeezed my hand. “I just do not know how much more mourning I can take. That is, I do not mean…”

He shook his head. “I understand. I know all too well the complicated emotions of a … marriage of convenience,” he said delicately. “But as Giacomo never begrudged your going out while he lived, I hardly think he should do so now.” He smiled. “And in Venice, no one need know you have been out rather than home grieving.”

I smiled. “And where are you taking me tonight?”

“A small concert I have heard of—some German harpsichordist who is traveling through,” Tommaso said. “He is to play some music by this obscure fellow named Bach. A friend of mine with no musical taste finds him deplorable, so I am certain that you and I will enjoy him greatly.”

Laughing together, we talked like old friends until we reached the concert. The first few visits with Tommaso had been somewhat awkward: him trying to hide the remnants of his pain, and me trying not to see it. But soon, somehow, it had become easier, effortless. And I saw the man I had known before, but more clearly, now that I was no longer afraid of him.

 

65

WAYS TO SING OF LOVE

It was my children who concocted the entire scheme. They appeared in my bedchamber one morning, as Meneghina was dressing my hair for the day.

I eyed the three of them in the mirror: devastatingly beautiful fourteen-year-old Lucrezia, with her long blond hair and heart-shaped face; Antonio, nearly thirteen and still a head shorter than his older sister, his light brown hair falling into his eyes; and Cecilia, taller than her twin and as beautiful as Lucrezia, if in a different, darker way.
Vivaldi was right. She does look much like me.
“What is this, my darlings?” I asked aloud. “Are you not due for your lessons now? Must I make excuses to Padre Davide?”

The three shot each other conspiratorial glances. “Yes,” Lucrezia said. “But we wanted to speak with you first.”

“We wish to put on a concert,” Cecilia announced. “We have been practicing, and wish to play for everyone—for you, and for Padre Davide, and Zio Giuseppe and Zia Vittoria, and Zia Giulietta, and—”

“And
everyone,
” Lucrezia finished impatiently. “Everyone who wishes to come and hear us.”

I turned on my chair to face them. “Are you sure that you are ready?” I asked. “You have practiced enough, and have enough music to play a whole concert?”

Antonio glanced uncertainly at his twin. “I can play some of the songs Crezia has learned with Zia Vittoria,” he said. “To accompany her. And Cecilia—”

“I have made up a violin part for some of them,” she said. “I just use parts of the accompaniment and the melody, and—”

“And we are learning more,” Lucrezia added.

“Yes,” Antonio added. “We need to practice more, but—”

“But if we knew we had a concert to prepare for, it would encourage us to practice,” Lucrezia said.

Smiling, I studied the three of them again, only slightly surprised. They were my children through and through, and I was thrilled to see how my blood—and my mother's—had held true. “Very well,” I said. “We shall hold a concert here—say the last week of October. That gives you a little over a month to prepare. Will that be sufficient?”

“Oh, yes!” Antonio said.

Cecilia tossed her head. “We could be ready sooner,” she said.

“No doubt,” I said, my mind beginning to work. “But if, perhaps, you were to have some new music to learn as well—would that still be sufficient time?”

“Yes, certainly,” Lucrezia said. “What new music would you have us learn, Mother?”

I smiled. “I have not written it yet.”

*   *   *

I began work that day, writing a strange sort of song for voice, violin, and harpsichord. The violin part came first, naturally, and the harpsichord was a great deal simpler to write for than when one had an entire orchestra in mind. Lucrezia's part, however, gave me pause; I had never written for the voice before, though I was certainly familiar enough with my daughter's voice to feel up to the challenge. I enlisted Vittoria's help in selecting a text, and in working words and melodies together.

“I have brought a book of Petrarch,” Vittoria said, when she arrived at my palazzo to lend her assistance. “Not very original, I know, but I do so love his poetry. I have a few sonnets in mind.”

“Yes, of course,” I murmured when I saw the first sonnet she had marked.
I would sing of love in so new a way / I would draw a thousand sighs / from that hard heart, and light / a thousand noble desires in that chill mind
 …

It would be perfect, perfect for the music I was composing, and perfect for Lucrezia to sing; the sweetness of her voice could melt even the hardest of hearts.

“I rather thought that one would be best as well,” Vittoria said. “But Adriana, I knew not that you composed so much!”

“I am no Maestro Vivaldi, it is true,” I said. “But I have been writing music since I was a young girl. Some of it is passable enough.”

“More than that, I should say,” Vittoria said, studying the staves of what I had already written for the concert. “Why, you are quite accomplished!”

I smiled. “My experience is rather limited, all told.”

“But so you have formed your own
coro
of sorts,” she said, smiling. “I think it is lovely. I am so happy your children wish to perform.” Her eyes lit up, an idea coming to her. “But Adriana, you must play us something at the concert as well!”

“Me?” I asked. “Of course not. The day will be about the children.”

“Do not be silly!” she interjected. “They will love to see you perform, and so will your friends! Why, I do not think I have ever heard you play, not once in all these years!”

I grinned. “Very well, I will play—on one condition.”

“Name it.”

“That I may accompany you as you sing.”

Vittoria's hands flew to her face. “Oh, Adriana! How can you even suggest such a thing? You know I cannot perform!”

“You must have performed masterfully at one time, for from what I hear you commanded many an audience from the balcony of the Pietà,” I said.

“You know that is not what I mean! I signed a contract which forbids me from performing in public.”

“Vittoria,” I said, “my
piano nobile
is not ‘public.'”