Hidden Voices (2 page)

I cannot control my laughter. Having been here together since babyhood, Rosalba sometimes seems to know me better than I know myself. She has been sure of her path since the moment she stepped out the nursery door. I have always watched her for cues and followed a few steps behind.

“You worry too much,” she says then, squeezing my hand. “You will do well. You always do well. And besides, in the usual way, we’ll be hidden behind the grille. There’s nothing whatever to fear.”

Nothing except the large critical ears of the dukes and the doge, the ones who hold the futures of most of the girls here in hands that we can’t even see.

Luisa is petulant with me when we take our evening leisure. There is a pallor about her, and I think she may be feeling unwell. Rosalba thinks I coddle Luisa, but she appears so young and fragile at times and in more need of protection than some of the others. I myself am not truly at ease in a group, and am just waiting until all the others retire and I can go unobserved to the chapel to practice my solo for the performance on Sunday. Despite Rosalba’s reassurances that I will do well, I’m always in fear that I will not be as prepared as Father Vivaldi expects.

The chapel is so silent at night and completely dark except for the flickering light from the votives that burn on the side altars. The dome is as black as a deep upside-down hole. The candle I carry gives just enough light to guide my steps up to the loft of the choir where we perform. Some instruments have been left behind since the practice session in the late afternoon. Their graceful shapes and polished wood come alive for an instant when I pass among them, then fade into darkness again. My viola d’amore sits in the shadows, near the organ, lonely and proud, as if it is waiting for me. But it is the violin that must shine in this concerto, an instrument that Father Vivaldi has restored himself. When I bend to attach the candle to the music stand, I discover the new bow Father has left for me. Yet I don’t begin bowing at once. I lean back in my narrow chair and absorb all the quiet and calm. The other girls say they would never come here at nighttime alone. But though it does feel ghostly and strange at the start, if I say a quick
Ave
to Santa Maria of the Visitation, for whom the chapel is named, my fears are always quieted. The same is not true about my fear of this new music. The score before me has
L’estro armonico
written along the margin in Father Vivaldi’s hand. Seeing the music for only the third time, I am still amazed at its technical difficulty. So much syncopated bowing. Such lengthy crescendos and diminuendos. The sensation I get from just looking at the score is in fact one of great extravagance and unbelievable adventure. I am pleased that he has chosen me to play the second solo part with our best violinist, Anna Maria, but am intimidated as well.

I first tune my instrument with the aid of the continuo, and then, as this is not my first time alone with my part, I work for quite a time on the burdensome measures that had confounded me in rehearsal. When at last I feel ready to tackle the whole of the piece, I begin slowly, delighting in the silvery tone of this violin and making my way as I would across the slippery stepping stones in the kitchen garden after a rain. But the challenge of the notes themselves begins to take hold, and I soon find that I must deal with Father’s many arpeggios in such an unusual manner, and have to modulate so abruptly that it keeps my entire attention until, at the end of the solo, I am completely spent.

When I hesitate at the last arpeggio, I hear a noise — very faint and chirpy like a bird. Absently, I think how perhaps one flew in through a chink in the dome and is caught for the night. It has happened before. I try the difficult place where the change of bow occurs on a note off the beat, then I accelerate the tempo a little and play the
ritornello
in a different key, the way it is transcribed. I think I can master it this way. I only hope Father agrees. He will notice my sensitive playing of the difficult crescendos, I’m sure, and approve. Nothing passes his perceptive ear.

There again! I hear it. A little splash of a chirp. Or could it be whimpering. Yes. Growing louder, escalating into a cry. I drop my bow and run to the choir steps as fast as I can. I’m halfway down the dark stairway before I realize I’ve forgotten my candle and must go back for it. As I start down once again, I hear the thin wail rising over the clunk of my footsteps, and hurry to the nook at the back of the church. Just as I suspected, there is a baby on the wheel, red-faced and screaming. It is cold in here tonight, and the child is swaddled in nothing but a rough damp blanket. There are remnants of bloody afterbirth on her small body, and the cord looks as if it has been bitten rather than cut. Her tiny fists punch at the air as if she is already angry at this world she has so recently entered. I scoop her into my arms and press her against the warmth of my chest, sticking the end of a finger between her blue lips. She gulps little sobs between attempts at sucking the make-believe teat.

When I rush with her across the street and into the light of the nursery, I cannot help but observe that her face is unscarred and beautiful, one of the favored ones. The women gather around in surprise and delight when they see her.

“It is so late,” says the night nurse. “Who would leave a newborn all night in an empty church? How fortunate that you found her, Anetta.”

“Whoever left her must have heard me practicing the concerto. They must have known I would find her.”

I am faint with the excitement of something so unexpected, so seemingly divine, as if Santa Maria had placed this infant there herself.

“May I name her?” I ask.

“Names,” says the nurse with a sigh. “There are never enough names to go round!”

“But I have one. It’s perfect.”

“All right. Let us hear it.”

“Concerta,” I say. “Concerta Maria.”

She thinks for a minute, then nods her head.

“It will do. There is no other.”

From the first, I feel that her words say more than she knows.

Y
ESTERDAY MORNING,
as I quietly made my way back from the street through the side door, there was dependable Anetta at the stairwell, already returning from wherever she’d been sent. I’m sure she assumed, in her innocent way, that I’d been sent somewhere, too. But she would have been wrong. I simply had to escape the usual caterwaul of voices and strings being tuned. And since I couldn’t wait for the slim chance of being sent to the chapel by one of the
maestre
or to the laundry by Prioress, I made a small careful plan, as I often do, and slipped out when no one was looking. In the Ospedale there is never a moment of peace, except when we pray silently or in the dead of night during a rare pause between snores and dream muttering.

If you climb onto the largest footstool in the front visitor’s parlor, you can get a good view of the lagoon from the window on the right, and know which gondoliers are in business that day. Some are not worth the effort. There is one,
Giuseppe
I have heard him called, who sings into the sky on his arrival as if all of Venice is listening and not the few invisible orphans who, if the windows are open wide enough, are swooning all over one another. He is a beautiful man with a robust voice and forearms that expand in sunlight when pulling the oars. My eyes feast on his body whenever they can. And why not? He feasts on mine, too, if I stand in the passageway at a distance of less than a
campo,
until for a certain his pantaloons steam. It is only a game, after all, and not the real reason I need to make my escape from time to time. In fact, there’s another young man who has truly taken my eye. He is often seen running along the canal on Sundays and Holy Days, carrying a pedestal with two dressed wigs, powder flying, and returning less urgently with his carrier empty. During Carnival, he goes back and forth so many times, delivering wigs to the dukes, that I often catch sight of him more than once. Though such things are strictly forbidden, I will manage somehow to arrange a meeting.

“For what reason?” asks Silvia when I boast about it unwisely at tea. “He is only a tradesman’s apprentice. Not someone a girl from this or any other
ospedale
could marry.”

“I’ve seen him,” says Luisa with a sly smile. “He wears a smart bag wig and red-heeled shoes, just like a gentleman. His features are a little too keen but delightfully full. He has a grand nose.”

“Yes, he does,” I exclaim. “A nose much like the one on the bust of the last doge, don’t you think?”

“Well, he’s far from achieving that office,” says Silvia. “Head wig-maker or some insignificant whiting or merlin is all he will ever be, no matter how handsome.”

“Can’t you see? It is a dalliance,” Luisa declares scornfully. Then she laughs. “Our Rosalba is sure to become prioress or
maestra maggiore
and never marry at all.”

Neither idea appeals to me even a bit. I’m aware, however, that it’s not too soon to be forming a plan for my future. And I have one, as yet undeclared, that will necessitate my leaving here altogether. It is not unheard of for accomplished musicians from here and other
ospedales
to be in demand by touring European orchestras. Father Vivaldi, when learning of my great desire to see the musical cities of the world, has even suggested such a future for me. He did caution, “This is possible only if you but discipline yourself, Rosalba, for you have the skill truly, an amazing capability. But also”— and here he all but wagged a finger under my nose —“a singular gleeful nature often too intent on mirth-making.”

As a reminder of what can be achieved, he mentioned Sabina della Pietà, who was Sabina della Pianoforte within these walls and who comes back from time to time to encourage the girls here and to tell of her adventures. I didn’t confide this to Father, but while Sabina is husbandless,
I
shall choose to marry someone so handsome that the women will goggle in envy wherever we go. He will be royally cared for by me, for I cannot imagine a life under some old man’s thumb or devotion to a bald-pated fat fellow admired for only his frippery, a condition that dukedom seems to encourage.

One such is leering at us across the tea table where Prioress sits. He is just at her elbow and constantly wiping his brow, which is weeping great tears of cold sweat.

It is unusual to have strangers of any kind here for tea. He sits between Prioress and Father Vivaldi, and if I lean forward, I can manage to catch snippets of their conversation, which seems to revolve around his great disappointment.

“But madam,” he says with another swirl of his large embroidered handkerchief, “I had thought from their angelic voices — those voices from heaven — that every girl here would be comely beyond my belief.”

“And you find them . . . ?” asks Father.

The stranger clears his throat.

“Amazingly plain and . . . worse,” he says, while coughing up his sleeve. “Except for a few.”

He is staring at Roma’s thin face, which is mottled by burn welts and disfigured from one droopy eye. She stares back and sticks out her tongue just as Prioress says, “But sweet-tempered, Signore.”

Flustered, he darts his eyes about and they finally light on Luisa. The leer returns. His jowls become shaky, with what I am sure is desire.

“Ah, that one,” he exclaims. “Does her voice match her exquisite face?”

“Surpasses,” is all that Prioress says at first. “But she’s much too young to be leaving us. In four years or so, perhaps, and then only if she has not chosen the career of soprano soloist, which is well within her grasp.”

He sighs a long, resigned sigh, and his eyes begin traveling again. I look down so as not to attract his unwelcome gaze but sense it upon me just as Silvia gives me a nudge in the ribs.

“You’re his next choice,” she says, loudly enough to be heard everywhere in the room.

I sneak a look, and he’s sitting — hands on belly, buttons of waistcoat popping — smirking at me.

“Too young again, Signore,” Father Vivaldi tells him (thank our most blessed Savior). “Rosalba will be with us another few years.”

“Perhaps, Signore, our lovely Josepha or Colletta,” says Maestra Vincentia in the loud operatic tones that color her everyday speech. She comes from behind Prioress, pulling each girl by the hand until they are standing, befuddled and red-faced, before the duke. Each shoves her free hand into the pocket of her watteau and looks at her feet. I search his impassive face, where their presence is not registered, even as their terror exhibits itself in trembling limbs. I could scream! Both young women are kindly and bright with glorious mezzo-soprano voices and should never be treated with such gross indifference.

“Surely neither one would consider an oaf such as that for a husband,” I say to Luisa, and hope I am heard by Maestra matchmaker and the duke himself.

“What are their alternatives?” Luisa whispers back. “I’ve heard that no one has come forward for either girl yet. That’s the real reason this low-level duke was invited to tea.”

“Then they should stay here and teach.” It is always an option for those so accomplished.

“Neither one is like you,” says Anetta, “so sure of themselves. They may want to be cared for.”