The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice Read online

  And if his favoritism had cost him his job? The thought was so distressing to her that she could not bear to eat. She poked at the food on her plate and thought, I have dinner, but does he? Each morsel staring back at her seemed like a betrayal of him, and she could not swallow a single bite.

  She could put her tumultuous feelings to rest only by telling herself it was for the best. Maybe she was wrong about ever having been important to him. She’d been a fool for thinking otherwise, but she was wiser now. Telling herself the subject was closed let her mind go blank, buying her a few moments of peace. But before she knew it, against her will, her mind was alive again.

  What was it he had said? For there to be anything special between them it had to seem as if there was nothing between them at all? It made sense at the time, but looking back, she wondered, had he paid no attention to her because she was special, or because she really wasn’t? Somewhere along the line he stopped caring about her, and she hadn’t noticed because nothing changed in the way he acted. Since he gave her the third violin solo and then nearly kissed her, he had almost completely ignored her, despite how hard she tried to please him. Chiaretta was right. I acted like a little wife, and he let me.

  As the months passed, she was less sure whether to resent him or be grateful for what he had offered, even for a short time. Sometimes these two emotions became one, and she despised him for giving her a taste of something he knew she would want more of, but not be able to have. Only the cruelest person in the world would do something like that. Unable to fall back asleep at night, she spun her questions and their changing answers over and over in her head in the hope that this time she would sit up and say “That’s it!” and it really would be, and she wouldn’t have to think anymore. But instead, with each retelling and reinterpretation, she sank deeper into gloom.

  When Prudenzia suggested that Maddalena master a new instrument, she put her violin away without protest and threw herself into learning the cello. Its low and mournful notes dragged her body down until she could barely keep her head up, and she begged to be relieved of the string section altogether. Maybe just getting through every day is enough of a goal, she thought, remembering Silvia and the lifelessness of her lessons as she took to learning the recorder again.

  Silvia the Rat. The nickname seemed so unkind now. For all her mincing ways with Luciana and all her inflated self-promotion, the obvious inadequacy of Silvia’s talent had eventually caught up with her. Soon after Vivaldi’s departure—for that was how Maddalena measured time—Silvia had been told that she would not be advancing any further in the coro and that a place had been found for her in a convent on the other side of the city. Maddalena had heard her cries echoing down the hallway.

  “God, God, nothing but God,” she had heard her screaming until a telltale cracking sound and wounded cry reverberated down the hall to indicate she had been slapped, and slapped hard, to make her stop. “I want to die!” were the last words Maddalena heard, before a door slammed and Silvia was left alone to contemplate her fate.

  Maybe it’s wisest not to care too much about anything, Maddalena thought. Maybe music is just another thing it isn’t safe to love.

  * * *

  By the time she was seventeen, Maddalena had become so thin her bones protruded and her eyes grew dull. Chiaretta, at fourteen, was shorter than her sister but outweighed her by at least ten pounds. Melancholia had been the diagnosis of the hospital matron, who clucked over the color of Maddalena’s urine and treated her with aloe and borage to purge her body of excess black bile.

  Even her sister couldn’t reach Maddalena. After a performance at the inauguration of Giovanni Corner as the new doge in 1709, Chiaretta tried to describe the crowd, the colors, the food, but she knew Maddalena wasn’t listening. And Anna Maria was no longer in the bed next to theirs. Promoted early to sotto maestra when she turned twenty, she had moved off their ward some time before.

  On the way to a concert, Chiaretta had seen the gondolier push aside a dead seagull with his oar. She had watched as its bedraggled body took the blow and then continued to bob in the crests and troughs of the canal. Something about the way Maddalena shrugged her shoulders chilled Chiaretta with a memory of that bird.

  When the Congregazione offered her a chance to go with a group of figlie di coro to spend a week at a villa outside Venice on the Brenta Canal, Chiaretta turned it down.

  “I don’t want to leave you here alone,” she wrote in her sketchbook.

  “You should go if you want to,” Maddalena wrote back. “You’ll have Anna Maria for company.”

  “You don’t care what I do?”

  “Of course I care.”

  Chiaretta looked at her sister’s listless reply, and impatience bubbled up through her concern. “I will then,” she wrote. “You don’t care about anything. You don’t share even one thought with me anymore.” Her face crumpled, and she began to cry. “You’re scaring me,” she added, handing the sketchbook to her sister.

  Chiaretta’s tears had always gotten Maddalena’s attention. Now Maddalena realized she couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen her sister cry. Still, she didn’t have the energy to try to make the situation better between them. “You have your life and I have mine,” she wrote. “Go live yours. Just leave me alone.”

  “But you don’t have a life,” Chiaretta whispered, not caring if the warden heard. “You don’t even try. I don’t remember what your smile looks like!”

  “Well, that’s just it,” Maddalena whispered back. She leaned forward with her eyes wide open, shaking her head as if to convey that Chiaretta was missing something obvious. “This is my life. Look at that dried up apple Luciana. How old is she, and how many more years does she have to hobble around with those rotting tree trunks for legs? And Michielina, staggering around blind from copying scores in the dark?” Her voice had risen to the point where the warden hissed at her to be quiet.

  She grabbed the book and drew a sketch of an old crone. Underneath it she wrote, “Maddalena—a few years from now.”

  She stood up and dusted off the front of her skirt as if she had someplace to go, then sat down again.

  Chiaretta put the book away. “All right,” she whispered. “If that’s the way you want it.” Her voice trailed off, leaving her ultimatum vague and incomplete.

  Chiaretta spent the week at the villa on the Brenta Canal wishing it were over. The work was minimal—a short concert for their host and guests each evening—and each day yawned before her with nothing but endless hours to worry about her sister. Every evening at dinner she smiled, bending her neck and looking up through her lashes in a way she had been told made girls look attractively shy. After dinner, she willed herself to lose track of everything as she sang, and then after the concert, as soon as was polite, she begged leave of her hosts and went to bed. “Five more days,” she would say as she lay in the dark. Then four, then three.

  Anna Maria insisted on dragging her out every day, once for a walk along the towpath and another time for a boat ride on the canal. When they returned, Chiaretta forced a smile and told her friend how much better she was feeling. When two more days remained, Anna Maria arranged for them to take a carriage into the countryside for a picnic lunch. The stable hand driving them spread a blanket in the shade of a large tree next to a cherry orchard and laid out their meal of cold chicken, a square of soft white cheese, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of water to mix with a small amount of wine. His duty done, he walked back to the carriage and fell asleep out of the sun.

  When they had finished lunch, Anna Maria and Chiaretta lay on their backs, putting their hats over their faces to protect against the sun filtering through the leaves. After a few minutes Chiaretta turned on her side toward Anna Maria. Resting on her elbow, she put her head in her hand. “I don’t know what to do about Maddalena,” she said.

  “You were so quiet I thought you were asleep.” Anna Maria rolled over to face her. “I’ve been afraid to bring it up. I didn’t want
to remind you.”

  “You couldn’t have reminded me. I haven’t forgotten, not for a minute.”

  “She wants Vivaldi to come back, that’s all.”

  Chiaretta fell silent, picking at a small spot on her dress to dislodge whatever had dried there.

  Anna Maria leaned closer and waved her hand in front of Chiaretta’s eyes. “I said she wants Vivaldi to come back.”

  “I know. I heard you,” Chiaretta said. “What do you think about that?”

  “Well, he’s not like any other priest I ever met. Always looking out for himself. I don’t think priests are supposed to do that.” She watched a ladybug crawl across Chiaretta’s skirt, coaxing it onto her finger when it came into reach. “Do you remember that rehearsal when Caterina had a fever and ended up fainting?”

  Chiaretta sniffed. “He was mad she had disrupted the schedule. He was jiggling and jumping around the way he does, and muttering Latin under his breath.” A wave of fatigue came over her, and continuing the conversation felt like too much effort. “Would you like some cherries?”

  Anna Maria got up and linked her arm in hers. “She thinks about him too much,” Chiaretta said as they walked the few steps to the edge of the orchard.

  “Can you blame her? She wasn’t even an attiva and she got private lessons.”

  “And was talked about all over the Pietà. He just used her to keep from getting bored. He didn’t need her.” Chiaretta shook her head in disgust. “He left without saying good-bye, and she is still sitting there in misery. He’s selfish beyond imagining. He’ll come back if and when he wants to, and she’ll be dutifully waiting.”

  Anna Maria picked two cherries and handed one to Chiaretta. “I don’t think you’re being fair to him. Did you ever listen to Maddalena play? Truly listen? She was better than anyone in the coro. Better than I am, certainly. She could pull her bow across the strings in a way that made me want to say”—Anna Maria put a fist on her chest—“ ‘Here, take my heart.’ And she didn’t teach herself that. He brought it out in her. And that’s what’s missing now. That’s what she wants.”

  Chiaretta reached up into the tree and added a few more cherries to the one that was still in her hand. That’s what she wants. She finally understood. She stared at the fruit in her hand, not sure how it had gotten there. She put one of the cherries in her mouth and chewed without tasting, while the others fell to the ground.

  “Thank you,” she said to Anna Maria. “But I’m not sure how much it helps anything.” She started walking back to the blanket but stopped and turned to her friend. “Do you ever actually suffer for your music—give yourself to it the way she does?”

  Anna Maria gave her a wry smile. “I’m too busy being their prodigy. I don’t have the time for that. Or the temperament.”

  “I don’t either,” Chiaretta admitted. “I guess I should be glad he trained her, but I see her shriveling up now that he’s gone and...” Chiaretta buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

  Anna Maria put her arms around her. “Cry. It’s the first time you’ve relaxed all week.”

  Chiaretta stayed pressed against her friend’s chest for what seemed like a long time before pulling back. “I feel better,” she said.

  “Truly, or are you still pretending, the way you have been all week?”

  “Truly.”

  “Good,” Anna Maria said. “One last thing, and then we don’t have to talk about it anymore. Maddalena has to find her own way, even if it looks to you like she isn’t trying. Even if sometimes you want to shake her and tell her to stop pitying herself.”

  Chiaretta looked at her, then knelt to gather up the leftovers of the picnic. “There are ants all over it. Shall we just leave it for them?”

  Anna Maria nodded, picking up bones with her fingertips and flinging them into the grass.

  “Here! Here! I’ll do that!” The stable hand was running over.

  “Want to get some more cherries?” Chiaretta asked.

  “Better get there before I eat them all,” Anna Maria said, taking off ahead of her.

  Chiaretta came back from her holiday with a new resolve to mend the rift with her sister. She arrived as the midday meal was being served, but when she saw Maddalena staring at her plate of food, her plan vanished in a rush of fear. Perhaps her time away had highlighted the wan appearance of her sister, or perhaps something terrible had happened in her absence. Whatever the cause, Maddalena looked so haggard that Chiaretta rushed to her. She sat down next to her and touched her knee, but Maddalena did not return the gesture.

  “Not now,” she whispered.

  The meal was interminable, but finally they were back on the ward.

  Chiaretta sat on her bed, looking at her sister. “Is Vivaldi dead?” she mouthed. Was there anything else that could make Maddalena look that way?

  Maddalena shook her head, but by then the warden had come to stand by their beds. They rolled on their backs and lay looking at the ceiling, waiting for enough time to pass so they could get up and bring out the sketchbooks.

  “The priora told me I can’t stay here more than another year,” Maddalena wrote. “I have to become a nun or get married.”

  “WHAT?” Chiaretta’s answer took up a quarter of a page.

  “Prudenzia said I’m no use to the coro anymore. She said you can tell by my age whether a girl has it in her.”

  “You were the best they had when Don Vivaldi was here.”

  Maddalena’s face darkened. “She asked me whether he had ever—” She stopped writing for a moment, and Chiaretta grabbed the sketchbook.

  “Ever what?”

  “Ever touched me,” she whispered. “You know.”

  Chiaretta thought back to the time on the gondola when the man had slipped his hand up her thigh. “He didn’t, did he?”

  Maddalena picked up the book again. “OF COURSE NOT!” The brush of Vivaldi’s lips on her neck had been so small a gesture, and the look on Chiaretta’s face was so dire that Maddalena was sure she must be thinking of far more serious acts. It had been so long ago, it would be a distraction to say anything about it now.

  Chiaretta saw the flush on her sister’s face. “He never touched you here,” she leaned forward and whispered, drawing her hand across her bodice, “or here?” She pushed her hand through the folds of her skirt.

  “No! He’s a priest!” Maddalena slashed two lines into a cross to emphasize the point in a way that said the subject was closed.

  Maddalena put the sketchbook away. Chiaretta fell back on her cot, and Maddalena did the same, flooded with loneliness so physical it made her shudder, as lost as a shorebird shrieking in the night fog. Where does it land? she wondered. Where do I?

  The prospect of Maddalena leaving forever was so frightening Chiaretta could think of nothing else except how to go with her. Night after night she lay awake concocting wild schemes. They could run away, but where would they go? Would they have to disguise themselves as men, and if so, where would they get the clothes? They could try to find their way back to the village of their childhood, but would they have to marry men there in order to stay? She had been only six when she left, but she still remembered that all the men were ragged, and sometimes her foster father came into the house covered in dirt and smelling so bad she would sneeze and her eyes would water.

  We could become nuns together, she thought one night. That was at least possible, and it enabled her finally to get to sleep.

  The priora was sitting at her desk when Chiaretta was ushered into her office. “I understand from the matron that you told her you wish to become a nun?” The priora raised her voice and cocked her head in disapproval. “This is rather unexpected, Chiaretta, coming from one of the attive in the coro.”

  “Yes, Madonna, I know, but I’ve given it a great deal of thought,” Chiaretta responded. “I want to take vows when my sister does.”

  “Chiaretta, my dear, dear girl,” the priora said. “Your devotion to each other is quite obvious, but do
you feel you have a vocation?” She arched her eyebrows and stared at her.

  It seemed a simple and appropriate enough question, but something about it hit Chiaretta with the force of a burchiello smashing into a dock. She looked up at the priora and saw the falseness of the smile, the feigned concern in her voice. Did you ask Maddalena if she had a vocation?

  The plan that had made so much sense in the night began to unravel. She opened her mouth to say that she didn’t want to be a nun, that she was sorry she had bothered her, and that all she wanted was for the priora to let Maddalena stay. Before she could do so, the priora’s servant opened the door to the study.

  “Signore Bembo is here to see you, Madonna. Shall I tell him to wait?”

  “No, no, bring him in. I’d like him to hear this.”

  Antonio Bembo wore the black cloak required of all patrician men in Venice, and Chiaretta recognized him as one of the Nobili Uomini Deputati.

  “Signore Bembo, you have come at a most opportune time,” the priora said. “Chiaretta, tell him what you have told me.”

  Chiaretta started to blurt out how it had all been a big mistake, but when she saw the expression on the priora’s face she stopped. The priora looked pinned to her chair, shifting her weight as if she were nervous and trying not to show it.

  At that moment, a voice seemed to come from some hidden recess of Chiaretta’s mind, telling her that even though she was just fourteen and no match for the wits of Signore Bembo or the priora, if she had the courage to play out what she had started, she would not end up with her own path lined to a convent, or perhaps her sister’s either.

  She took a deep breath. “I told Madonna I want to be a nun.” The pleasant expression with which Signore Bembo had greeted her vanished.

  Her specially fitted dresses, her invitations to the country and to fancy homes on the Grand Canal, her name on the tavolette? It all made sense. They have plans for me.

  She turned her gaze from Signore Bembo to the priora. “I want to serve Our Lord,” she told her, surprised that her voice could sound so steady when she was telling a lie. She said a quick, silent prayer for forgiveness and added what she thought might be blasphemy to the list of things she must not forget to confess. But this is my sister I’m talking about. I’ll explain to God later.