The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice Page 6

  Maddalena stared at her for a moment, unsure of what she meant. “Do I do that?”

  “Yes, and stop it. You need to pay attention and stop doing whatever you feel like. This is a lesson.”

  Maddalena shut her eyes. “I know.”

  “And besides, you make me nervous when you do that. You’re supposed to play the music, not get all—all dreamy about it.”

  The bell to assemble for the midday meal had not yet rung, and their lesson would not be over until then, but Maddalena loosened her bow.

  “I have a headache,” she said. “I’ll practice today during our free time, if Maestra Luciana permits.”

  Silvia’s upper lip curled with scorn, revealing even more of her front teeth than usual as she shook her head. “You’ll never get better if you don’t listen.” Fifteen years old and you already sound like an old goat, Maddalena thought. My only headache is you.

  Maddalena walked among the pairs of figlie bent over their violins and violas to where she saw Luciana sitting with one of the older girls. Maddalena and the other figlie knew that, despite her present appearance and demeanor, Luciana had once been the most famous violinist in all four of the ospedali, and the figlie were often admonished to be grateful they had her to teach them. By now, gout had attacked her feet to the point that she could wear nothing but slippers. Any softness or kindness that might once have been part of her personality had vanished in years of pain.

  Like Michielina, Luciana would soon be allowed to retire and remain at the Pietà until she died, in a special group of retired musicians known as the giubilate, but because no one else knew as much as she did about how to coax sound from a violin, she was required to serve on, despite her infirmity. She continued to show up in the sala every day, often in so foul a mood it seemed to Maddalena as if the temperature dropped and what little sunlight made it through the grimy windows vanished the second Luciana walked through the door.

  When Maddalena came toward her, Luciana motioned to the girl to stop playing for a moment. “Yes?” She arched her eyebrows. “What do you want?”

  “I am not well today, Maestra. I have a headache and would like to stop my lesson.”

  Luciana’s loud exhalation made her annoyance clear. “The Congregazione has hired a violin teacher to take over some of my duties. He’s here today, meeting with Maestro Gasparini, and they are planning to look in on us. He needs to see how many we are and how hard we work.” Her thin lips turned down at the corners. “Self-indulgence is always unbecoming, Maddalena. You see how I suffer and you are thinking of a small ache in your head? Find a corner to sit in and practice until he comes.”

  The day was cloudy, and though the light was brighter near the window, the draft from an unseasonably chilly September day had kept the corner unoccupied. Maddalena shivered as she tuned the strings and tightened the bow. She already felt better, having needed nothing more than to escape from Silvia, to play alone the way she wanted to, out of the reach of Luciana’s glare, beyond the sala, somewhere even beyond the Pietà, where perfect music teased and beckoned.

  The cold had already stiffened her fingers, but she soon forgot her discomfort as she made her way through her favorite piece, a gentle lullaby that reminded her of the trees swaying outside the cottage where she had been raised. Her eyes drooped as she played, without the interruptions of Silvia’s clapping hands. Toward the end she reached a section where the fingering was still too complex for her to get through without intense concentration, and with her eyes shut, she tried it again and again.

  “Signorina?” She looked up, startled at the sound of a voice that, though high and nasal, definitely belonged to a man. The first thing she noticed was his hair. Backlit by the sunlight filtering through the window, it was bright as sunset, lapping like flames over the shoulders of his black priest’s cassock.

  The violin teacher. Maddalena jumped to her feet. Luciana was standing nearby with a member of the Congregazione, dressed in the black robe of a Venetian nobleman.

  The red-haired priest took the violin from Maddalena. “May I?” he said, putting his hand out for the bow. He put the violin to his chin and improvised a lead-in to the part she had been struggling with. He thought for a minute, tried it again, and then handed the violin back to her.

  “It’s not as hard as it seems,” he said. “Try it like this.” He took her fingers and moved them a different way.

  She played until her fingers fell easily in place, then repeated it twice more for the pleasure of it.

  “Good for you,” the priest said. “Can you play the rest of the piece for me?”

  Maddalena felt her face go hot. “Now?”

  “Certainly, if you wish.”

  Maddalena’s heart leapt. Though she wanted to play her best for Luciana to hear, she hit one false note after another. Somehow she managed to crawl back into control by the end, but as she looked up, all she could remember were the mistakes. Luciana’s face flickered with disapproval before going back to a practiced lack of expression.

  The priest was staring at her, puzzled. His young face was round, and his chin thrust forward as if it were in league with his long, thin nose to succeed someday in closing a circle between them. His fiery hair and small stature reminded Maddalena of the stories she had heard of gnomes who came out of the woods to make mischief in the villages. Unlike them, he was neither ugly nor repellent but instead exuded a wiry energy that seemed to draw the whole room in toward him.

  Before she could apologize for the way she had played, he spoke. “You are not afraid of the difficult,” he said. “And the music”—he tapped his forehead—“it’s enough to keep all of us humble. What’s your name?”

  “Maddalena.” Her voice came out almost in a whisper.

  “Maddalena. Maddalena Rossa,” he said, pulling on his hair. “Red. Like mine.” A quick nod of his head, and he was off to rejoin Luciana and the others across the room.

  Maddalena sat down to wait for the men to leave so she could get the scolding from Luciana over with. When the visitors were gone, the maestra walked back toward her. She touched her shoulder, and the unexpected tenderness weakened Maddalena’s resolve not to cry.

  “I was horrible,” she said, burying her face in her hands. “I so wanted to impress you, and now...” She didn’t finish. Now I will be stuck with Silvia forever.

  “Your playing was quite awful,” Luciana concurred, “but he saw something in you and wishes you to have special attention. Starting tomorrow you will be studying with me. Not promoted, mind you, but by special arrangement, an hour a week.”

  Maddalena looked up, astonished. “With you?”

  “Who else? Do you expect private lessons from Don Antonio Vivaldi himself ? He’s the best violinist in Venice.”

  “No, Maestra,” Maddalena mumbled. All she had hoped for was someone a little better than Silvia, and embarrassed to have her meaning misconstrued, she looked away from Luciana. All the figlie in the sala, instruments in hand, were watching. Maddalena looked at the floor, frightened by the inscrutability of their stares.

  If Maddalena thought her moment with Don Vivaldi would work miracles with Luciana, she soon came to know otherwise. Before Maddalena could have her first lesson, Luciana had an attack of gout and had to be treated in the Pietà’s hospital. She came back in early November in a fouler mood than usual and called Maddalena for her first lesson. Wincing, she lifted the hem of her robe up over her knees. Veins sketched purple lines in her sallow flesh. Her big toes, disappearing inside her slippers, were huge with swelling and the colors of a setting sun.

  “You’ll have to put up with me being so indiscreet,” she said. “Even feeling the touch of my hem is like being set on fire.”

  Maddalena was horrified not just by the sight of Luciana’s feet but by the intimacy of her revealing her bare legs up to her knees.

  “Stop staring,” Luciana said. “If you want to be a nurse, go to the hospital. If you want to be a violinist, play!” She motioned to M
addalena to pick up her instrument.

  “I don’t know what Don Vivaldi sees in you,” she said, ending the lesson early. She told Maddalena to go practice by herself and waved away an offer of assistance after Maddalena helped her to her feet. Then, leaning heavily on a cane and wincing, she hobbled from the room.

  The maestra is horrible enough even without those feet, Maddalena thought. She went back to the ward wondering how much of an improvement on lessons with Silvia this arrangement was going to turn out to be.

  * * *

  Once a year, on the festival of the presentation of the Virgin, burchielli and peote, shallow boats of varying sizes and shapes, lined up side by side across the canal, forming pontoons on which a temporary bridge was laid down. A procession led by the doge went from his palace across the bridge to offer prayers of thanksgiving at the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. All day and well into the evening, thousands of Venetians also walked across the bridge to light candles in the church for the health of their loved ones, and gondoliers brought their oars to be blessed by a priest on the church steps.

  Maddalena and Chiaretta were among the figlie making the trip from the Pietà. The hazy morning brought with it a faint odor of post-harvest burning on the mainland, and the air was so crisp and cold they blew their breath into their fists to warm them.

  The girls sang religious songs as they marched along the main thoroughfare between the Piazza San Marco and the church of Santa Maria del Giglio. Ahead of them, the bridge bobbed and lurched in water disturbed by dozens of boats hovering nearby. Some were filled with people cheering and waving to those crossing the bridge, while others waited their turn to pass under an arched segment in the middle, barely high and wide enough to accommodate even a small boat. As each boatman threw his body down flat and slipped under, the voices of the crowd fell and rose again in mimicry of his motions.

  Several of the girls had to be taken by the hand and coaxed across the moving bridge. Maddalena had gone ahead of Chiaretta, putting one foot in front of the other with such deliberation that she never looked up until she reached the far side. When she did, she was surprised to see her sister was not behind her.

  “Come along now, don’t be afraid,” one of the chaperones said to Chiaretta, who was standing motionless on the quay. In one of the boats, a woman dressed in the pale yellow of sunshine sat amid a collection of richly textured pillows. Her hair was almost as blond as Chiaretta’s and her skin as fair. The man next to her was throwing a black cloak over her shoulders, and she was leaning back against him, laughing.

  Chiaretta did not hear the chaperone call to her. That’s me in the boat, she thought. That’s me being held. That’s me laughing.

  “What is wrong with you?” the chaperone said. “Stop grinning like a monkey.” She took Chiaretta’s hand and pulled her across the bridge. On the other side, Chiaretta turned to look back, but the chaperone yanked on her arm to move her along.

  In the church, the chaperones handed each of the girls a candle and motioned her to the prayer rail in a side chapel, where dozens of candles were already burning. “Light it,” one of them said, “for the health of the doge and everyone at the Pietà.”

  As Maddalena lit her candle, she shut her eyes and whispered, “Please, Blessed Mother of God, help me to play the violin much, much better.” She opened her eyes and began to go back to the chaperones. Remembering their orders, she turned around and crossed herself again. “And bless the doge and the Pietà.” She thought for a moment, watching a wisp of black smoke from her candle snake up toward the ceiling of the chapel. “And please bless Chiaretta and keep her well.” She crossed herself again and went to join the others.

  Chiaretta knelt at the railing. “Please, God,” she said, “make me the lady in the boat.”

  FIVE

  Chiaretta winced as maddalena struggled to pull the comb through her hair. It had last been cut short when she was nine, almost a year earlier, and because it was rarely visible, Chiaretta did little more than push the loose strands back under her hood each morning.

  “If I cry I won’t be pretty,” she wailed.

  “If I don’t get your hair combed, you’ll be the only one wearing a hood and cap.” Maddalena stopped and looked at her sister. “Is that what you’d prefer?”

  Chiaretta said nothing but hunched down on a chair in the dressing room off the balcony of the chapel, stiffened her shoulders, and endured her sister’s ministrations until her hair glowed like pale honey poured down her back.

  “There,” Maddalena said. “Sit down and hand me the pins.” As her sister leaned over her, Chiaretta listened to her soft breath and felt its warmth on her cheek. She looked up into Maddalena’s eyes and felt a flood of love at seeing her sister so close but unaware she was being observed.

  Satisfied with her work, Maddalena tucked her own hair inside her hood in preparation for her day. Unlike Chiaretta’s, it was going to be ordinary. “Let’s get your dress on,” she said, “and then I have to go back downstairs.” Running her fingers over the silk skirt, she straightened its soft gathers and then held it out for Chiaretta to put on.

  The older figlie di coro, their heads uncovered and their hair coiffed in demure rolls at their necks, filed into the dressing room wearing their concert uniforms, modest black or dark red dresses that some of them fancied up with a V-shaped collar of white lace. Chiaretta’s dress was a mismatch, hastily located from a secondhand dealer in the Jewish ghetto when yet another of the singers had fallen ill with influenza, and several of the iniziate were told they would have to fill in for Sunday mass. Chiaretta was delighted with the dress, meant for a rich little girl and fit for a party. The ivory-colored bodice revealed her collarbones over several rows of dainty lace ruffles. The skirt was a matching ivory that rustled as she twirled around in her stocking feet.

  Then her face darkened. “I’m sorry you won’t be there,” she said to Maddalena. “I thought you would be first.”

  * * *

  The last year had been a difficult one for Maddalena. After playing the violin for several years, she had been told by Luciana that her time with it would be reduced so she could study other instruments. The encounter with Vivaldi might as well never have happened.

  “Your violin playing is good enough, if a bit undisciplined, but we have plenty of figlie to play the stringed instruments.” Luciana’s eyes had darted when she told Maddalena her decision, as if to evade the unfairness of her evaluation. “You can come down to the sala, if you wish, in your spare time to play. That would help you keep up your skills, in case we should need you for a ripieno, but you won’t be chosen as an attiva.”

  “But I just have a few free minutes a day—” Maddalena broke in.

  Luciana held up her hand to stop her from finishing. “I made a generous offer with a valuable instrument, and I hear a complaint? Perhaps I should reconsider.”

  “I’m sorry, Maestra.”

  “And you should be trying harder to make yourself useful. Like your friend Anna Maria. It isn’t about what you want, you realize. The coro is the backbone of the Pietà. Any girl who receives a musical education will be used as Maestro Gasparini deems necessary.”

  “I see that, Maestra,” Maddalena said, casting her eyes down.

  “And who knows?” Luciana’s tone softened so unexpectedly that Maddalena looked up at her. Her brow was knit with feigned concern as she patted her arm with a motherly gesture so false it made Maddalena flinch. “Perhaps all those skills will bring you a marriage proposal someday.”

  It had taken all Maddalena’s strength of will not to run from the room at Luciana’s words. She would choose the violin over marriage any day, choose it over food, choose it over a cloak to wear in winter. I would choose it over God, she said to herself, then banished the thought out of fear of the consequences. I didn’t mean it, she whispered the following morning as she made her daily devotion before a statue of Mary. But please don’t abandon me. If you do hear prayers, hear mine.


  Luciana had turned her over to one of the girls who played the recorder, and Maddalena found herself back to where she had been with Silvia. Now it felt even worse, because at least then she’d had the violin to lose herself in while Silvia pecked at her.

  Perhaps Silvia had dreams too and got so mean and bitter because they slipped away, Maddalena thought as she fingered the recorder. Playing the notes wasn’t the same as playing the music.

  Silvia did not understand that, Maddalena thought, or perhaps she had just given up caring about the distinction. No matter. She would have to try to play the recorder as best she could. But all the while, Maddalena imagined a violin, and a bow smelling of rosin, lying in a case in the dark, waiting for the music.

  The one advantage was that Luciana was maestra of the stringed instruments alone, so Maddalena would now see her only in passing. Maddalena knew Luciana had resented giving over lesson time to a figlia in the first stage of training just because the Red Priest, as many called him, had swept through the room one day and happened to take a passing interest in her. Maddalena watched how the other girls were with Luciana, praising her, flattering her, and she couldn’t see how she could manage to get such words out of her mouth. Maddalena had never caused any trouble, was never disobedient, and rarely took a minute of Luciana’s time. All she had wanted was to win the maestra over by good behavior, but instead she had become invisible. A dull girl, she had once overheard Luciana call her. Not like Anna Maria. Not like her at all.

  Thanks to Michielina’s lessons, Chiaretta’s voice now carried so well that anyone who heard her sing could not believe a tiny girl could produce such sound. Before Michielina retired, she had seen to Chiaretta’s initiation into the coro, but short of her tenth birthday, she had not yet had the spurt of growth that would bring her to her full size. Though her face had yet to take on its adult appearance, the figlie still talked as if it were already decided that Chiaretta would catch some rich man’s eye and go off from the Pietà as a wife. But for now, there was no speeding the time until she grew up. She took singing lessons and rehearsed with the choir, but until that day she had never performed.