Vivaldi's Virgins (22 page)

Silvio was also there, although I only saw him afterward, during the party. He was
in maschera
and well disguised, although
dressed this time as a man. Slipping in among the throng of well-wishers who came up to me after the concert, he put his face close to mine, opened his brown eyes wide, and crossed them before disappearing into the crowd, leaving me there, giggling like a schoolgirl.

H
ow I have treasured Silvio’s presence in my life, from the very first days when we found each other in the
comun!
Even in middle age, he is as winsome and handsome as ever. He’s as slim as a youth and his hair is still blond, although I suspect he uses some nostrum to keep it so. His cheek is smooth, his hands are slender and nearly unmarked by time. He can afford now the rich silks and velvets he always favored, and he wears them well.

Silvio understands the transience of beauty, and more than anyone knows what a will-o’–the-wisp it is. It is he who first sees
la piavola de Franza,
the doll dressed in the latest fashions, down to the last detail, and sent to him by post chaise once a week from Paris. One or another of his handsome apprentices puts the doll on display in the window of Silvio’s shop in the
merceria
. All the ladies of fashion—and those who merely aspire to become ladies of fashion—come to gaze at it and take notes and then send urgent messages to their dressmakers. Butterflies, all of them. Venezia is filled with butterflies. And Silvio supplies them with their favorite food.

He has done well by himself, to be sure. But unlike many who are wealthy, he is also generous. Every year or so, he sends enough silk from his own factory to make new robes for all of us in the
coro,
and I suspect he makes frequent donations to the
comun
as well, although one would never know it from speaking to him. In fact, I don’t know how he manages at all as a man of
business, because he still likes nothing more than to winkle the satire or silliness from any situation.

And yet, inside, he is the person, man or woman, of the most exquisite sensibilities I’ve ever known.

To mark my birthday in the year after my mother died, he sent me a little branch of
finocchio
—which is, of course, the word that’s rudely used to describe men such as Silvio, as well as the licorice-flavored plant. Stuck fast to that lacy branch of fennel was a pair of cocoons.

I didn’t even see them, at first, or know what they were. They looked like nothing more than part of the plant itself, two places where the stem was thicker and a paler shade of green—two slender, lozenge-shaped packages swelling out from the stem, half-hidden among all the feathery dark green leaves. It was Maestra Olivia, with her deep knowledge of gardens, who—though almost blind even then—put her ear up close to the branch and smiled. “You must watch them carefully, Anna Maria, because they are almost ready.”

“Is it some fruit?” I, in my ignorance, asked her.

“Yes,” she said, smiling her toothless grin that was as sweet as a baby’s. “Yes, a sort of fruit! Put the branch in a warm place straightaway, where the sun can shine upon it, and you will see it ripen.”

I put the branch in a patch of sun in my window. And, directly, I saw the little lozenges begin to writhe. Whatever fruit was inside their skin had come to life. What magic was this that Silvio had sent me? Were there fairies in the branch of fennel?

I put my ear up close to them and heard a rattle and then a tearing noise. And then I watched, and time stood still as the fabric of their prison ripped open and—first one and then the other—two creatures wriggled out, new and panting and wet. They looked like ladies in ball gowns suddenly released from a
net, tumbling bottom-first onto the dance floor, all enfolded in their silken skirts. And then their wings unfurled, as bright and bold as Joseph’s coat of many colors. I crossed myself, because I had never seen a miracle before.

I do not know how long I stood there watching them as they flapped and dried their glorious wings. I know I watched—hardly daring to blink my eyes—until they’d found each other, found their strength, and flown away.

I had fallen so in love with them, in so short a time—and yet they were gone from me, gone forever.

So it is with everything we love, and with everything that is most beautiful in this world. I keep telling myself, “Drink it in, Anna Maria! Drink as deeply as you can while there is yet water in the well.”

I see my butterflies sometimes in the moments before sleeping and waking. Sometimes I think they’ve come to me again, in just the same way that sometimes I feel the touch of Franz’s hand caressing my hair, or the brush of his lips against my cheek—just as soft, just as fleeting.

ANNO DOMINI
1711

Dear Annina,

You were brilliant at the concert. I felt quite jealous to be in the audience merely watching you with all the dullards from my family, who couldn’t begin to appreciate how difficult the
concerti
are, or how fabulously well you played your solos. The only compensation was having the prince come home to sup with us afterward. I got to sing for him, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be heard, for a change, by someone who truly appreciates the finer points of music.

How someone like you sprang from the Foscarini is quite be
yond me. There’s not a singer or player among the lot of them—and they’re all, except Tomasso, a terrific bunch of snobs. I felt like slapping my mother-in-law when she snubbed you yet another time. And yet, after we were all safely tucked into the gondola, she couldn’t say enough about how pretty and graceful you’ve become, and how you’re obviously the maestro’s favorite and destined to become a
maestra
yourself, before long. My darling mother-in-law is, without doubt, the biggest hypocrite I have ever known.

You and Bernardina seem to be as thick as thieves these days. Is she really blind now, in both eyes? However does she manage? She has even more freckles now than she used to—but I suppose it doesn’t matter what she looks like, stuck inside that hole. Oh—sorry,
cara!
I promise, I’m still working on the question of a husband for you. Are you still giving lessons to Bernardina? Do you get paid?

To be absolutely honest, I hate being married. Tomasso is utterly revolting. He stinks and he snores and he never trims his toenails, and yet he insists on coming to my bed at least once a week. And now I’m pregnant again. Oh, dear Mother of God, I asked him not to, but he wants nothing more than to get a son. “What of my career?” I asked him. “Career!” he said, and then he squeezed my booby. I hate him! I have to keep a basin close by me at all hours, even though they call it morning sickness. My face is bright pink when it’s not green, and my tummy is swelling up like a dead dog.

The latest horror is that my own lovely Virgilio has been sent into exile for being a sodomite. I had no idea he went that way! And here he is, written into the marriage contract as my official
cicisbeo.
Mamma Foscarini says, too bad—one only gets one
cicisbeo
per marriage. “But he’s been sent into exile!” I told her, “and he’s a
finocchio
besides.” I think she knew all along, because she’s looking terribly self-satisfied about the entire business.

I’ve heard that you’re to be the soloist in another concert this coming January in the Basilica. Is it true? How is it that things were never so exciting when I was in the
coro?

I’m going to ask Papa if he’ll put my name in for election by the board to serve as a
visitatrice
for the Pietà. At least, as a volunteer, I’ll be able to spend some time with all of you, although the governors will probably think I’m too young to stand for the job. And I won’t be able to do it, anyway, until I’m done having this wretched baby.

Sometimes, I’ll tell you, Annina, it’s a curse being so clever. I’m in a gilded cage now, but just as much imprisoned as I was at the
ospedale.

I’ll come again next visiting day with another letter. Be sure to wear your big sleeves.

Congratulations,
cara.
Would that I were doing half so well as you!

Your best friend always,
Marietta

T
HE MAESTRO
has nurtured bitter quarrels with other impresarios when his work, in their hands, has failed to meet with success. And his relentless suits for patronage—his fawning and petulance—must surely try the patience even of those who most appreciate his talents. But since championing the career of Anna Girò (“the Red Priest’s Annina,” they call her), Vivaldi seems to have more enemies than friends, especially among his brothers in the clergy.

No one was more curious than I when he finally brought his young protégée, two years ago, to the Pietà.

Of course, the rumors had been dogging him since he first installed her as his prima donna. How could there not be rumors adhering to a situation as sticky as this one: a priest, traveling with a young woman and her older sister, who was still hardly old enough to serve as a proper chaperone.

And yet the situation never struck me as particularly odd: the maestro had for decades been putting a good deal of his time and energy into writing and producing operas. It seemed only natural that he would care greatly about the success and welfare of his favorite contralto. Singers here hate her, of course. How could they not? I myself felt jealous of the attention he gave her.

The maestro had me stay behind, after one of our rehearsals, to play the continuo for Signorina Anna while she tried out some new solos destined for his latest opera, an adaptation of Apos
tolo Zeno’s drama
Griselda
. He had spread himself particularly thin that year, and it was showing in his face, which had begun to look quite careworn. He was wearing out his health—and giving much more money than he liked to porters and gondoliers.

The librettist he hired showed real grace when introduced to me. But la Girò merely waved in my direction. I was nothing to her—a middle-aged, de-sexed factotum. “
I
am the Red Priest’s Annina!” I wanted to say to her. But of course, I said nothing.

The diva’s sister was apparently considered so unimportant that no one bothered introducing her at all. Some fifteen years older than Anna—around my age—Signora Paolina was as modest and quiet and generally squashed-looking as Anna was vociferous, fiery, and proud.

I knew from gossip that Anna was twenty-five, but she looked younger. She could have been eighteen, with her glowing skin, her large, expressive eyes and cascade of lustrous dark brown hair. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have long hair. Her face was not beautiful. But there was an undeniable beauty and drama simply in the way she held herself and moved.

While the diva conferred with Vivaldi, her sister sat in the corner, working a piece of lace.

The maestro put the music before me, when they decided where they wanted to start, and I played the introduction. Anna never even looked at me, but she heard her cue nonetheless.

From the first moment when she opened her mouth and began to sing, I thought the maestro had lost every quality of discernment that had made him great, both as a teacher and composer: his cherished diva’s voice was as thin and frail-seeming as her person. Her pitch was true, and her gestures were graceful. But I couldn’t imagine how she would ever make herself heard at the back of the theater.

Not five bars into her first aria, Anna threw down the music and addressed Vivaldi in what struck me as a most disrespectful manner. “The words don’t allow for any movement at all! What can I possibly do but just stand there and sing?”

I saw the librettist suppressing a smile.

Here the maestro was, fifty-seven years old and at the height of his career. He’d just been reengaged by the governors as
Maestro de’ Concerti
, and was enjoying the patronage of several crowned heads of Europe. And yet Vivaldi looked quite cowed by this frail young woman. None of us had ever dared to talk to him with such impudence.

He took in her comment, then turned, in a slightly blustering way, to the poet. “Well?” he said.

Signor Goldoni smiled graciously at both of them. “My apologies, Padre. I was under the impression that this section was for a singer not a dancer.”

La Girò shot a murderous look at Vivaldi and stomped her foot.

I’d never seen him look so foolish or flustered. He didn’t want to offend the poet, who was even then considered to be the very best among the new crop of librettists, following his triumph with
Bellisario
. But Vivaldi was also clearly terrified about displeasing Signorina Anna.

The competing strains of his two careers had taken their toll on him, as had his frequent travel and general health, which had always been indifferent, at best. Anna, on the other hand, looked radiant, despite her unpleasant ways. I concluded, as everyone else did, that he must be madly, hopelessly, ridiculously in love with her.

“Sir,” Vivaldi ventured. “We’ll need new words here—words that will allow Miss Girò to act as well as sing.” He stole a look at her to see if she approved, and I burned with shame for him.
This is what happens, I told myself, when a musician lets other things matter more. “Let’s carry on with the other arias to see if they are…suitable. And we can meet again tomorrow, if that will not be too soon, to try out whatever new texts you manage to write by then.”

“I’ll write them now, Padre, if you’ll give me pen and paper.”

The maestro merely made dismissive sounds at the possibility of the poet pulling text that would be good enough out of his sleeve, even when the young man protested that it could and would be done. He finally grabbed a piece of paper off my music stand, tore off the lower half, and bowed to me. “Signora, would you be so kind as to provide me with a quill?” He looked at Vivaldi. “Must I write it in my own blood, Padre, or will you lend me some ink?”

Vivaldi gave in, but had scant expectation, I’m quite sure, that the poet could come up with anything but drivel in such short order. He conferred with Anna for a few moments, consulted his schedule, and talked a bit with me about some of the people we both know. Marietta had just given birth to her fifth child—another daughter, which was a great disappointment to her family and an extreme source of annoyance to Marietta, although I know she loves her girls to distraction. She hasn’t sung on the stage since
Agrippina,
and I think she knows she never will again.

The poet came up to us with his half-sheet of paper all scribbled over. Vivaldi put on the spectacles he uses now for reading. He half-read, half-sang the words, then looked up with tears in his eyes. “Dear Sir! My dear fellow!” He threw his arms around the poet. “This is brilliant! This is beautiful!” Then he shoved the paper under my nose. “You saw—you saw it just as I did. He wrote this in not fifteen minutes—absolute poetry!” Then he turned to Anna. “It’s perfect!”

She looked away, her nose in the air. I don’t think she liked his effusions for another person’s talents.

“It is perfect for you!” He was whispering, almost begging.

It didn’t make sense to me then—not yet.

S
ilvio had his gondola waiting, as always. Everything was quiet in the lowest reaches of the
ospedale
when I made my way down the stairs to the water gate. The
portinara
pretended to be asleep. The gondolier greeted me almost as an old friend. I left as easily and unnoticed as a bird that might have flown in by mistake among the rafters and now flew out again.

I could see, even in the starlight, the pain behind Silvio’s smile.

“Caro mio!”
I told him as he took my hand and helped me step aboard the gondola. “I’m so very sorry about Rebekkah.”

She had been aunt, adopted mother, and teacher to him, all in one. She was the one thing in the world, I think, that made him feel that he belonged. I had envied him that, over the years. And now I grieved with him that she was gone.

Silvio kissed me. “She had a good death, if there is any such thing.”

“She had a good life,” I told him.

“As good a life as was possible here. And from what I’ve heard, far better than it might have been elsewhere. In any case, the Hevrat Ghemilut Hassad’m did their job well.” He explained in response to my puzzled expression, “The Jewish burial society. Everyone in the Ghetto contributes to it, although I had assured Rebekkah during those final hours that she would have the finest procession money could buy. Between their efforts and mine, we had over two hundred torches and yet avoided every bridge and passageway from which
Veneziani
might have
thrown their rubbish and curses upon the funeral of a Jew.”

I saw tears in his eyes—the first, I think, I’d ever seen there.

“I will be your
zietta, caro!
” I tried to say it while making the same face that he had once made while saying the words to me.

I don’t have Silvio’s gift for mimicry—but my ineptitude itself was funny, I suppose, and he was smiling again by the time we settled ourselves onto the gondola’s cushions and arranged the rugs over us. Once all this was done, Silvio reached into his breast pocket and handed me a tiny velvet pouch. “Annina,” he said with his usual look of mischief, “Rebekkah left this for you. It was given into her keeping, many years ago, by your mother.”

I thought I’d already been given all the gifts my mother had to give me. I opened the little pouch with more of a sense of curiosity than need. What message was this that she was sending me from beyond the grave? And whatever it was, how odd of Rebekkah to have waited so long to give it to me!

I should have known, of course: the pouch contained the key. It was exactly as Rebekkah had described it to me, that night—my first night—in the Ghetto. I held it up for a moment against the velvet of the sky. The three sapphires looked like the stars in Orion’s belt.

I hadn’t forgotten Silvio’s promise that we would open the locket together, if he ever found the key. “You don’t still have it, do you?”

Silvio laughed. “I came close to selling it more than once, when money was scarce for us. But Rebekkah always found a way. And, well, you know how my own business has flourished since then.”

“I’d say so! I’ve heard it said that you’re one of the hundred richest men in Venezia.”

He didn’t argue with me, and I let the subject drop. “Where are we going?”

“To the Lido.”

I’d never been there before, and why would I have been? The Lido, the bewitched island that is the final resting place of
la Serenissima
’s Jews. I knew that Rebekkah would be buried there in a freshly dug grave, no doubt side by side with the sister she’d so greatly mourned.

I tucked the little pouch into my bodice and settled myself back against the velvet cushions, next to my friend. The journey to the Lido is a long one, but I knew that I would travel, with Silvio, in luxury. We ate French pâté and drank champagne as we crossed the
bacino
and rounded the customs house at the point of Dorsoduro. Silvio had ermine shawls and tumblers full of hot buttered rum for us when we entered into open water and the wind blew colder. He lay back beside me on the cushions, beneath the height of the baffles, and we stayed like that, in companionable silence, gazing at the stars.

Sometimes it seems to me that a piece of Heaven must have fallen out of the sky, crumbling as it fell, to make the islands of
la Serenissima
. I’ve heard it said that there are more of them than anyone has ever counted. They are as numerous as the stars and as impossible to mark on any map. Whole islands, small but perfect, rise and then disappear beneath the waters of the lagoon between two risings of the sun.

The poets tell of a certain flower that pushes out of the soil of these temporary islands, blooming and dying in a single night, with leaves the color of sea foam and petals the color of wine. Their perfume is sought by wise women, witches, and necromancers, who say that it can raise the dead or cause someone to fall in love, irrevocably, through all eternity.

Everyone who lives here, or visits here, catches the faintest whiff of it, now and then, lingering in the air. It is the smell of youth and love and music and longing and a tinge of decay. I’ve
gone whole years without smelling it, and then I find it again—or it finds me—and I breathe deep and savor the memories it brings. I think I would like to smell that smell at the moment when I pass from this world to the next.

I counted and wished upon three falling stars on that journey, the same wish every time. The Lido hove into view—an unprepossessing shoreline of sand and scrubby trees, and so long that it was hard to think of it as an island at all. Silvio gave the gondolier a handful of coins, telling him that we would be awhile.

We walked for a long time between sand dunes, and then along a wooded pathway, and finally through a gate. The white Istrian stone of the monuments was even whiter for the moonlight washing over them. The headstones leaned every which way, as if the dead were gossiping with those they loved in life and pulling away from those they loathed. Some pairs of headstones leaned against each other, melted together, in death, into one.

The older stones were grown over with trees and vines and half-covered with brambles. Walking among them, I felt the spirits of the past hovering round me.

Time has a very poor memory. We each of us do what we can to be remembered—but most of us are forgotten.

If someone had asked me, that night on the Lido, who, among all those I’d ever met, I thought would live on in some way, I would have been hard pressed to name more than half a dozen. Vivaldi, surely. My uncle Marco Foscarini, if he lives long enough to become Doge. Gasparini and Handel. Scarlatti and, the only female among them, Rosalba. The various popes and royal personages—time always saves a place for these in her guest book.

But what of all the rest of us? I knew that each one of those blocks of stone in the graveyard stood for a life that was lived. Within each grave beneath them reposed and rotted the mortal remains of someone, like myself, who yearned, who wept, and
laughed and loved. Not one of them ever believed that what they strived so hard to achieve or avoid—the person they held most dear, their fondest dream, the secret they kept, the one thing that inspired their devotion: all of it would be as forgotten as surely as yesterday’s rain.