The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice

by Laurel Corona

  “You make it sound so calculating, like we’re nothing more than”—she struggled for a word—“cattle.”

  “No, no. It’s not like that. I think you are using each other.” He smiled. “Where would Maddalena Rossa be without the Pietà?”

  Where would I be? Maddalena could not form even one clear thought.

  Vivaldi filled the silence. “It’s terrible to be born to do something you will never be permitted to do. Especially while you watch yourself go through life doing something else.” He paused, then added, almost whispering, “I know. Believe me, I know.”

  * * *

  Vivaldi’s new title of maestro dei concerti brought little power over the tight-knit world of maestre and coro. Figlie worked their way up, advancing by auditions from third to second to first chair, and no exceptions would be made for someone just because an outsider—especially one who might only be passing through—wished it to be so.

  But Vivaldi had another idea. At one of their lessons he handed Maddalena some sheet music, jiggling with impatience as she leafed through it.

  “A concerto in F major,” she said. “But with five movements instead of three?”

  “There are three, with bridges between them,” he said. “Play the second bridge. It’s the one marked ‘adagio.’ ”

  She stared at the music, still unable to understand what she was seeing. The first and second violins were playing an ostinato, no more than a simple repeated phrase.

  “Play the third violin part,” Vivaldi said. “I’ll play the first.” At the beginning her notes conformed to those he was playing, but at the end of each phrase, her part floated up and down in graceful arcs and flutters.

  It was less than a minute long, and they played it again and again. Maddalena lingered on each note before linking it to the next, not lifting her fingers for fear the music might slip from her grasp.

  “Like falling leaves,” she said when she finished.

  “Or snowflakes.” He smiled. “I wrote the third violin part just for you, Maddalena Rossa. For my little poet. You’re struggling for your place in the coro today, but when you’re older, you’ll be the one they’ll ask to stay on for life, if that’s what you want.”

  “I want to be here if you are.” The music still hovered in her mind and made her voice distant and dreamy.

  He looked away from her, and his expression clouded. “I can’t promise that, and besides, you will become the teacher and won’t need me.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  He looked at her quizzically. “Little one, I’m not leaving tomorrow. But you know, the Congregazione’s views are quite mercenary, and if they think they have a good backlog of music and adequately trained violinists, they may feel they can do without me, at least for a while.”

  The feeling of bliss the music had brought her was gone in an instant. Maddalena toyed with her fingers, trying to will away the sudden fear that had made her heart pound. The Congregazione may be able to do without him, but I don’t think I can.

  “What are you thinking?” Vivaldi’s voice had softened almost to a whisper.

  “That I don’t know what I’d do if you left,” she blurted out. Don’t say any more, she told herself. Don’t sound like a foolish little girl. “But you’re the Maestro dei Concerti now,” she said finally. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “Just a title, and all the more reason to get rid of me, because they have to pay me more. And of course, if and when Gasparini returns, I may seem a real extravagance.”

  He reached out and took her hand. “I’ve upset you.”

  Maddalena nodded and bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She could hear him breathing, but he said nothing, and she was afraid to meet his eyes.

  “You must hear me, Maddalena Rossa,” he said, breaking the silence. “I don’t control what the Congregazione does, but as long as I am here you will always be protected.”

  Vivaldi was still holding one of her hands. Bending her head, she put the other hand on her forehead to keep him from seeing her tears. “No one but Chiaretta and Anna Maria really care about me,” she said. “I mean, other than you.”

  “I do care,” he said. “Perhaps more than you know.” He had moved his chair closer and reached out an arm to bring her toward him. She buried her face in his chest, and much as she wanted to control the noisy intakes of air and heaving shoulders that would tell him she was crying, she could not. She felt his lips press against the back of her neck, once and then a second time.

  The shock stopped her tears. Only the circles of hot breath on his shirt told her she hadn’t stopped breathing altogether. She wanted to lift her face, but terrified of having it so close to his, she stayed rigid against his chest.

  “Had enough of crying?” he asked, pulling away.

  “I think so,” Maddalena said. She was looking at him now, seeing his eyes move in small darts over her face as he took in its details. Self-conscious, she wiped her wet cheeks with her fingers.

  His mouth moved to within an inch or two of hers, and she felt a sweet wrenching in her stomach that traveled all the way up to her throat.

  He pulled back. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He stood up and, crossing himself quickly, murmured something under his breath.

  She felt as if her insides were being torn out, as if they were somehow connected to him and she could not have them back until he held her again and kissed her. He’s a priest, she told herself, making a quick sign of the cross. “Hail, Mary, full of grace,” she whispered. “The Lord is with thee...”

  She felt suddenly aware of her body under her uniform. I’m a woman, she thought, not a little girl. “Mother of God, pray for us sinners,” she murmured with an urgency she had never felt before. It’s a sin even to want to kiss him, but I do. “Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  She looked up when she had finished her prayer, but he was watching her so intently she had to look away and begin the prayer again, this time silently in her head, just to keep her thoughts from straying.

  He picked up his violin and put it in its case. For a moment she envisioned running from the Pietà with him, running from Venice, living with him as man and woman. She put her head in her hands to stop the ideas that were spinning it in circles.

  He snapped the case shut. “Please forgive me, but I shouldn’t stay even a moment longer.”

  Maddalena felt her body close in on itself again. “Please stay,” she said, grasping for a reason that would appear sensible. “We haven’t practiced the concerto nearly enough.” Seeing the bewildered look on his face, she added, “The one you wrote for me.”

  The wheeze in his breathing was growing louder. “Perhaps that was a mistake.” His voice was almost inaudible and his eyes were averted, and Maddalena was not sure whether he had meant her to hear what he said. “You practice without me,” he replied, hurrying from the room.

  Maddalena stayed where she was, going over in her mind what had just occurred, focusing first on this detail and then on that one, until she reached a point where she wasn’t sure what had happened at all.

  Her first kiss would be a momentous event, but since it hadn’t occurred, she didn’t know what to think. “Nothing happened,” she said out loud, but she didn’t believe it. Even the furniture in the sala looked different. And if it were just an ordinary moment for Vivaldi, why did he suddenly start to wheeze, and why did he run away?

  She played around with the idea that he wanted her in the way she vaguely understood men wanted women. Perhaps he felt something similar to the brief sensations that had stirred in her own body and knew better what to make of them and how to react than she did. She wasn’t sure she wanted anything like that to happen again, it had so thoroughly confused her. But remembering the sweet rising up of something she had not even sensed was alive inside her, she knew she would not turn away a chance to feel it again.

  Something big had happened, she concluded, even if she hadn’t been kissed. And when anyt
hing happened, her first thought was to share it with her sister. Maddalena put her violin case back in the cabinet. She wouldn’t see Chiaretta for several hours, and that would give her time to figure out what to say.

  As she walked back toward the lace room, she stopped for a moment at a shrine tucked into a corner of one of the hallways. The painted image of Mary holding the infant Jesus looked out at her. Maddalena fixed her attention on those eyes, hoping she might read some kind of message in them. The Madonna stared back.

  Is she angry with me? Does she think I did something only bad women do? The idea was so odd it would have made her laugh, if sin were not such a serious matter.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had thoughts I shouldn’t have. I won’t have them again.”

  But before she reached the lace room, she stopped in the hallway to conjure up once again the feeling of Vivaldi’s lips on her neck and the warmth of his breath on her face.

  By the time she saw her sister that evening, Maddalena had decided to tell her nothing. The statue of Mary had offered no reassurance, and she feared Chiaretta’s reaction might make her feel worse, and even more confused.

  I’ve always told Chiaretta everything really important, Maddalena thought. If we didn’t know each other’s secrets, we’d be like everybody else. All the way back to the ward, Maddalena rationalized her decision to keep her first big secret from her sister. After all, in the end, what was there to tell? What kind of a story was there in not being kissed?

  Maddalena soon learned how hard keeping anything from Chiaretta could be. Perhaps she mentioned Vivaldi too much in the next week or so, or perhaps too little, but her sister sensed something was different.

  One afternoon, Maddalena and Anna Maria went to the sala dal violino to practice in their free time, and Chiaretta tagged along. When Maddalena commented that Vivaldi had more trouble breathing when the windows were closed and the fires were lit, she thought she had kept her tone casual, even indifferent, but Chiaretta leapt on her words.

  “You’re like his mother!” she said. “No—no—you’re like his wife!”

  “I am not!” Maddalena retorted a bit too sharply. Chiaretta puckered her lips and made kissing noises into the air.

  “You’re being horrid!” Maddalena said.

  Chiaretta raised her eyebrows, as if she realized she had stumbled upon something interesting. “Well?” she said, curving her voice upward.

  “Well what?” Maddalena growled. “All I did was make a simple comment, and you’re turning it into something awful, like I was—” She couldn’t finish.

  “Like you were kissing in the practice room?” Chiaretta rarely kept teasing her sister when she could see she had hit a nerve, but for some reason she hadn’t been able to stop.

  Maddalena turned scarlet. “How—” she started to say. How did you know? She saw Anna Maria’s and Chiaretta’s huge eyes and hands clamped to their mouths and realized they didn’t know a thing.

  “Oh dear,” Chiaretta said. “Was it bad what I said?”

  “No. I just wish you knew a little better when to shut your mouth.” Maddalena’s voice was clipped, and even though she saw that the harshness of her tone had hurt her sister’s feelings, for once she didn’t rush to apologize.

  “I’m sorry,” Chiaretta said. “I didn’t mean—”

  Maddalena’s color was returning to normal, but Chiaretta could see she was avoiding looking at her. Something had happened, and Chiaretta had to know what it was. “He didn’t, did he?” she asked.

  Maddalena’s eyes glinted with anger. “No!” she hissed, glad it was the truth.

  * * *

  “What is this?” Pellegrina, the first violinist said, pointing to the music. “Why don’t you get a beginner to play it?”

  Luciana shrugged. “Maestro Vivaldi has written it this way, and this is the way we will play it.”

  Maddalena raised her glance from the floor at the sharpness in the maestra’s voice ordering Pellegrina to stop complaining and play. Pellegrina was even more unhappy at the end of the first runthrough. She began sawing at her violin with her eyes crossed. “There must be some mistake,” she whined. “When is Maestro Gasparini coming back?”

  Pellegrina was showing willfulness and vanity, two traits that could be best controlled in the coro by making an example of someone from time to time. Her face turned pale as Luciana walked toward her. Everyone froze. Luciana was retiring in about a week and might want to leave a parting legacy. She yanked the lace cap and hood from Pellegrina’s head and gripped her hair. The figlie recognized the gesture and held their breath.

  Before Luciana could make a move, Pellegrina had begun to blubber her apologies. Then a male voice was heard clearing his throat in the doorway.

  “Maestro Vivaldi!” one of the girls said.

  “It goes like this,” Vivaldi said, yanking Pellegrina’s instrument out of her hands. He drew his bow across the strings in a way that freed every note, filling it with the wistfulness and regret Pellegrina had been uninterested in hearing. His face was in profile from where Maddalena was sitting, and she could not stop looking at him. When his eyes shut, savoring something hidden deep in the music, Maddalena felt she was the only person in the world who could hear it too.

  Vivaldi had canceled her last lesson, and she had not seen him since the afternoon when he almost kissed her. He looked only at Pellegrina when he came in, and Maddalena was not sure he knew she was there. But how could he not sense her presence, when the space between them felt as charged as the air just before a lightning strike?

  Maddalena’s violin felt glued to her lap, but the other figlie had picked up their instruments and were now playing along with the maestro. Finally hers moved into place of its own accord, and her bow began to ride across the strings. They were reaching the point where her first solo would begin, and Maddalena felt her heart rise. Her first notes would be a greeting to him, she thought, and he would turn and smile as he watched her play. But suddenly, Vivaldi took his bow from the strings, and within a few notes the sala had gone quiet again.

  “Do you think you can manage?” he growled, handing the violin back to Pellegrina without looking in Maddalena’s direction.

  “Yes, sir,” Pellegrina said, and though her eyes glittered with rage, her pale cheeks showed the relief of having been spared the scissors and the shame.

  “Good,” he replied and stalked from the room.

  Maddalena and Chiaretta watched through a window as snow fell between the roofs of the building into the alley alongside the Pietà. Christmas Day had been bright and warm, but in the last few days a cold wind had blown in, bringing snow behind it.

  The maestra clapped her hands for the figlie to take their places on the balcony. Below them people stomped their feet to remove the dirty slush from their shoes, scraped rented scagni against the stone floor, and rustled their programs.

  Maddalena stood at the rail, taking in the scene before sitting down in her new position as third violin. A commotion arose surrounding a man in a Carnevale mask who had just entered the church. A servant was brushing the snow from his cape, and a place was being vacated for him in the best viewing spot in the chapel.

  Vivaldi was not on the balcony, having no solo until the concert after the mass, and when he showed up unexpected, he was trembling.

  “Do you know who that is?” he asked the sotto maestra, who was standing far enough away from Maddalena for his question to be almost inaudible. “The King of Denmark. He’s traveling incognito, and he’s come to hear us.”

  Vivaldi left as quickly as he had come, and within a few minutes Maddalena watched from the balcony as he approached the king’s entourage. She already knew today would be out of the ordinary because she would have her first solo, but suddenly it had grown into more than she could have imagined. She was looking at the King of Denmark, and at her mentor nodding and bowing next to him.

  Maddalena smiled. He was thrilled, no doubt, but she had no trouble readi
ng what else was on his mind. Even while Vivaldi was saying words of greeting, he was certainly also calculating how much music he could have ready to sell to the king in a few days’ time. Maddalena wondered if she could make herself be on his mind as well. Staring at him, she willed him to look up at her, but instead of responding, he shifted his weight in a way that turned his back to the balcony and to her. She felt a pang of rejection just as she had the day of Pellegrina’s chastisement, when he had stormed from the room without acknowledging her.

  She had been so deeply hurt that she had not even wanted to come to her next lesson. He was nervous when she came in, and it took him a few minutes to recognize that she too was not acting like herself. They had played little music that day, losing track of time as they sat and talked. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. In fact, he thought he was being sensitive to her by ignoring her, trying to show her that he was going to be completely professional from then on, and that she wouldn’t need to worry about what he might do. He explained that he had abruptly stopped before her solo because, when he realized it was coming up, he thought she might not want to play it after all that had occurred. “But I knew you were there,” he had told her. “Believe me, I know when you’re in a room.”

  He cared about her—she knew he did—and he was acting in their best interests. He was a priest, and she was a cloistered young woman. To keep what they had, they had to be perceived as having nothing. He would certainly lose position if anyone knew he had kissed a figlia di coro. If he lost his position, they would lose the chance not just to play their violins together but to talk, which was just as important. Since then Maddalena had shifted her thinking, deciding that not being treated as special was one of the ways he told her she really was.

  She was his muse—he had hinted as much—but nonetheless, the bond between them could never be revealed in public, and would have to be sustained when they were alone by only the most subtle of means—a tenderness in the voice, a smile, a touch that lingered when he corrected her technique. These moments had become charged with an excruciating delicacy and depth for Maddalena because they were all she had.