The Case of the Orphaned Bassoonists

by Barbara Wilson

  Occasionally my mind drifted to the Ospedale della Pietà and to the musicians there. Had the orphanage been a kind of prison where musicians were produced for the entertainment of the Venetian nobility and foreign guests? Or had it been a safe haven where girls who would have otherwise been on the streets were assured of education and livelihood, where talent was recognized and rewarded? What if my choice had been between cloistered musical servitude and prostitution? What would I have chosen? Nun, I thought, but crossed my fingers behind my back. Shut away, but at least with my own kind. Maybe some of the Pietà girls were the same kind of virgin I was. Maybe, I liked to think, they had had time for a kiss in between all those hours of practicing the bassoon.

  There was a knock at the door and the maid came in. I’d been in bed most of the morning, and I assumed she probably wanted to make up the room; instead, she handed me an envelope with my name on it.

  I opened it quickly.

  Cassandra. Meet me at one at the Campo Santa Margherita at the Bar Antico.

  N.

  P.S. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going or let yourself be followed.

  “Who gave you this?”

  The maid smiled and shrugged. “The front desk.”

  But when I went downstairs a little later, the clerk at the front desk professed not to know anything about it. I asked if anyone else had left me a message, and the clerk pulled out a scrap of paper with a single question scrawled across it:

  What orchestra or chamber music group does Miss de Hoog play with?

  Could it be from Albert? I had never seen his handwriting before, but it was like him to be curious about the least obvious thing.

  I’d hoped to see Anna de Hoog at the palazzo; to my relief, she was sitting in the garden with a few newspapers and a book beside her, obviously alone. I pulled up a painted iron chair and sat down beside her. It had turned into a sunny day with bouncy white clouds above. In the dappled shade Anna’s skin looked pale and mottled. Did she have a life-threatening disease? Her expression was a picture of serenity.

  I picked up the book. It was Women Musicians of Venice. It looked like Nicky’s copy. When I turned to the inside cover, I saw that indeed it was. Someone else might have apologized for snooping among Nicky’s things, but not the unflappable Anna. With a guileless smile, she said, “Wasn’t it kind of Nicola to loan me this book?” and she launched into a discussion of the Venetian welfare state that had created the ospedali in the first place.

  “They say the reason there were so many abandoned children in Venice was that men were encouraged not to marry, and a huge class of courtesans arose. There was no stigma in giving up a child. The mother would simply place the baby in a sort of revolving door and ring the bell. The nuns would be on the other side to take the baby in, wash it and brand it with the letter P for instance, if it was the Pietà that was taking the child in, and then give the baby to a wet nurse. It was quite a system, don’t you think? I believe the Pietà still has a sign near where the little revolving door used to be. All the same, don’t you think some of those women wondered, when they went to the concerts years later, whether their daughters might possibly be among the performers? And don’t you think the daughters wondered too, looking through the grille work out into the audience: Is my mother here?”

  “Not that this isn’t fascinating,” I interrupted, “but…”

  “You’re probably wondering about Gunther’s death,” she said quietly. “It was shocking, a shocking thing to see.”

  When I looked into her eyes, I saw she truly meant it.

  “Do the police know anything more?”

  She shook her head. “It’s always a bit complicated in Italy when a foreigner dies. Especially when foul play is suspected. I believe his grandmother was contacted last night and has arrived this morning.”

  “And his wife?”

  “He wasn’t married.”

  “But this Frigga he kept talking with on his cell phone…”

  Anna deliberately looked into the distance. “I had thought to be leaving today, now that the symposium is finished and the performance of Orlando Furioso is done. But I suspect I may be staying on a few days.”

  That reminded me of what I took to be Albert’s question, left for me at the front desk. “I suppose you have to leave because you have other musical engagements to fulfill?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I didn’t catch what orchestra you were affiliated with.”

  “I am not affiliated, only a fill-in,” she said, and seemed so pleased with the assonance that she repeated it. But I could see she was watching me carefully and would not be caught out.

  “Now I have a question for you,” she said, in a disconcertingly flirtatious voice that contrasted with her bland demeanor and inquisitive eyes. “I find your friend Albert Egmont rather fascinating. I had hoped to see more of him. Is that possible? I understand from Marco that he is staying at the Danieli.”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “But he is your friend.” Again, that false sprightliness.

  “More an old acquaintance. He knows about missing things.”

  “Missing things,” she said significantly. “Missing bassoons?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Missing things are a sort of specialty of his?”

  “Why, did you lose something?” I didn’t mean to be rude, but I didn’t for a moment believe in this sudden coyness, especially as regarded Albert.

  Anna smiled, and something in her eyes said that it was me she found attractive, not my friend the Egg. This disconcerted me even more.

  We were interrupted just then by the arrival of Marco with Andrew and Bitten in tow. They had all been to the police station, Marco explained. To give statements.

  “But why?” exclaimed Anna. “You were all at the concert last night. Though all of you did miss Act Three.” She laughed almost lightheartedly. “In fact, really, it’s only Cassandra and I who managed to stay for the whole performance. Come now, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” she said to Andrew, as if she knew exactly what he’d been saying about her oboe-playing.

  He turned bright red under his freckles, obviously the sort of person who enjoyed snide gossip more than telling hurtful truths.

  Bitten hadn’t said a word. Her robust Swedish good looks seemed to have vanished overnight. She walked into the palazzo, and Marco looked at Anna severely. “It is no laughing matter, Miss de Hoog. This Gunther, he was very nice, and a good musician too. It is a sad thing, a terrible thing, if he was murdered.”

  “No one feels that more than I,” she said, with a sudden return to seriousness. “I laugh because I am nervous. That is all. Has his grandmother arrived yet?”

  “Yes. She is at the police station. And Miss de Hoog, the police wish to interview you again for more details about discovering the body.”

  “Shall I…go to the station?” She looked anxious.

  “No, the inspector, he will come here very shortly. Please make yourself comfortable. And you, Cassandra?” Marco turned to me. “Still no word from Nicola?”

  “Not a peep,” I lied.

  “Your friend, this Albert, he did not come back to the scene of the crime with us. I told the police he was living at the Danieli.”

  Marco’s tone had become more hushed and urgent. He pulled me aside. “The bassoon, have you any thought where is the bassoon?”

  “I believe your father told us very firmly yesterday that the bassoon Albert brought over was not the bassoon that had been stolen.”

  “Yes, I know,” Marco murmured unhappily.

  “Well then?”

  “Even fathers make mistakes,” suggested Anna de Hoog, who had moved a little closer to us.

  Marco turned on her. “Not my father!”

  “Sorry, sorry. No reason for alarm.” Anna smiled and backed off.

  Sorry, sorry. No reason for alarm. It was what the unknown woman who called me in London had said.

  In
her room over the garden, Bitten had taken up her bassoon. She played a series of warm-up chords that led into an adagio movement from one of Vivaldi’s bassoon concertos. I couldn’t have told you which one, but I had heard it often enough, for Nicky loved it too. But Nicky had never played it with such a feeling of loss as Bitten did now.

  Seven

  THE CAMPO SANTA MARGHERITA is long in shape and a bit shabby, like an old slipper. Tourists don’t seem to find it particularly enchanting, or to find it at all, for that matter. Since I was early, I took a seat at an outdoor café and pulled out Lovers and Virgins, but my mind wandered. This morning I’d been completely engrossed. But I had passed into self-disgust and disbelief. I used to feel the same about the gossip of my older sisters. They’d come in breathy on Saturday nights, full of stories of girls behaving with unvirtuous abandon (not them!) in the back seats of parked cars, and I’d listen avidly before suddenly experiencing remorse. How could I even think of giving this potboiler a positive review, much less translating it into English? English had enough crappy historical romance novels; we didn’t need another one from Venezuela. I thought longingly of Bashō in Lima. The unnamed narrator wrote me a poem:

  Down narrow streets

  I search—

  Have you

  abandoned me forever?

  I had a cappuccino and forced myself to read on. The sooner I finished this novel and gave it a scathing critique, the sooner I could get on to the other books in the stack. The eldest sister, admirable Isabella, had taken over the running of the hacienda and put down a peasant uprising almost single-handedly through a combination of guile and bravado. Had she arranged that the handsome stable hand would die in the riot? Perhaps not, but Maria blamed her sister for his death. Her pregnancy had just begun to show, and she was inconsolable.

  Finally it was time to meet Nicky. The bar she’d directed me to was full of students playing pinball. But there was a back room where depressed-looking young people in black bent over books or leaned together talking intently. Nicola was waiting for me, and as I went toward her I was reminded of the first time we met, many years ago in Islington. It wasn’t by chance. An acquaintance from a ship traveling down the Nile to Luxor had mentioned that she had a friend who had a friend named Nicola who might have a spare room.

  We were both around thirty then, me under, she over. I’d been knocking around the world for a number of years already and had just begun to make some headway in the world of literary translation. Nicky was already well established as a bassoonist and had been living in Olivia’s house for almost a decade. It had been just as Nicky was finishing her music degree that she heard Olivia was looking for a live-in secretary. Nicky applied for the job, seeing it as a temporary occupation while she found her feet in the London music world. It had gradually evolved from a job to a friendship to an attachment strong as family. Olivia had gone from being Nicky’s mentor to being her responsibility.

  Unlike in temperament—Nicky was bold, fresh, open, and Olivia was often secretive and a bit sulky—they were both passionate about their music, and their lives revolved around practicing, rehearsals and performance. When Olivia’s arthritis finally made her put down the bow, at least in regard to the concert stage, she continued to teach. It was only at the very end, a year before her death, that she stopped playing. And even then Olivia had never stopped listening to music.

  Olivia and I had nothing in common. In the early years, just after Nicky had impulsively offered me the attic room, Olivia had acted as if I hardly existed. The huge house had two stairways, and it was possible for me to enter and leave through the kitchen and former servants’ quarters without seeing Olivia at all. Nicky sometimes chided me, “She won’t bite you.”

  “She doesn’t like me. She knows my great-grandparents were peasants.”

  “Nonsense,” said Nicky. “She thinks you’re a fascinating person. She often asks me where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to.”

  That was a kind lie on Nicky’s part. Far from “not biting,” Olivia had sharp teeth and exercised them. She had never used them on Nicky, but I had felt their snap often enough. “Oh, Cassandra, dear,” she would begin, and I knew some request designed to put me in my place would follow. “If you’re going to eat fried fish, could you please not eat it in my kitchen? It lingers so.”

  Why did I keep living in her house then, for almost twenty years? It was free, for one thing, thanks to Nicky, and for the most part I really was hardly there. Some years I spent only a month there, other years six months at most. It was an address in a more than respectable part of town (unlike Peckham where I’d previously had a bed sit), an answering service, a steady point in the universe. It allowed me to keep my clothes somewhere, and to have a desk. It allowed me to be attached, but without responsibility.

  I stayed there because Nicky wanted me to as well, because Nicky, in spite of all our ups and downs, was a true friend. And perhaps I stayed, too, because of the music.

  “I suppose you know that you’ve gotten yourself in a much worse place than you were in even two days ago.” I spoke more harshly than I’d meant to, probably to disguise the wave of sentimentality and relief that had come over me when I saw that she looked fine.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gunther’s death of course! At first you were only suspected of stealing a period bassoon. Now they think you murdered someone.”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Who killed him? When?” Nicky looked disturbed, but better than I’d seen her two days ago. She was wearing a fitted red sweater with a deep V-neck that showed ample flesh. I knew Nicky was more likely to go for clinging cleavage when she felt she’d pulled off something clever. Her appetite had returned too, if the array of dishes in front of her was any indication. There were several sorts of bruschetta, a salad, a dish of olives, panini with cheese and salami, and a glass of wine.

  “Last night. A porter at the Danieli found him floating in a canal by the Pietà.”

  “Well, that’s a shame,” she said. “I’m sorry. He actually was quite a good bassoonist.” She brooded a little, and then said briskly, “Well, it can’t be helped if they suspect me. That’s the least of my worries.” She took a bite of bruschetta.

  “The least of your worries? May I inquire then, very respectfully, what you are worried about? Obviously not your professional reputation.”

  “It’s that horrible Bitten, of course.” She pushed a plate toward me and signaled the waiter for another glass of wine and one for herself. “Eat a wee bite, lass. You look starving.”

  “She’s not horrible,” I said, remembering Bitten’s playing of the adagio movement. “What has she done? Surely you don’t suspect her of pushing Gunther in the canal?”

  “She told me she’s Olivia’s granddaughter, that’s what she’s done.”

  “What!”

  “Bitten asked, after the first morning seminar of the symposium, if I’d like to have a cup of coffee with her. We’d never met, but I was familiar with some of her research on the girls of the Pietà and thought she was trying to connect with me, woman to woman, about the whole notion of Baroque women musicians. We were the only two women in the symposium playing bassoon after all, so it seemed obvious we would want to talk and, I hoped, form an alliance against Mr. Know-It-All McManus. Oh, futile feminist hope!” Nicky finished off another bruschetta.

  “To tell the truth, Cassandra, at first I thought she might be putting the make on me, not necessarily because of my gorgeous physique, but because she’d heard of my CD-ROM project, and wanted to be involved. She drew me out, asked me increasingly personal questions about my life in London. You know I’m not the most discreet person in the world, Cassandra. It never occurred to me to hide my close relationship with Olivia. I told her all about our long friendship and how Olivia had left me the house and all her possessions and quite a bit of money—I’m afraid, Cassandra, I even exaggerated the amount of money. Vanity, vanity…” Nicky drank deeply from her glass.r />
  “But how could Bitten imagine she was related to Olivia? I thought Olivia’s son died in a concentration camp during the war.”

  “According to Bitten, Olivia’s son, Jakob Wulf, was married before the war to a girl called Elizabeth. At some point during the war Elizabeth Wulf, now widowed, made her way to Sweden with Bitten. There she married someone named Johansson, and Bitten grew up thinking he was her father.”

  “Why has it taken Bitten so long to figure this out? Why now?”

  “She says she only just put it together herself,” said Nicky. “But I find it impossible to believe that Bitten is any relation to Olivia. There must be some other explanation. Bitten—what kind of Jewish name is that?”

  “She’s certainly bigger,” I said, my imagination jumping back to the photographs in Nicky’s study. “But then, Olivia was quite a tall woman in her younger days, and they both have a rather regal tilt to their heads, and the eyes…You know, Nicky, I believe their eyes are very similar. Olivia had a very cold stare too.”

  “I really don’t think so,” Nicky snapped. “It’s a load of codswallop, is what it is.”

  “Is that what you told her?” I asked.

  “Yes. And then she got that very mean, haughty look—which you’ve seen, Cassandra—and said that after all I’d told her about her grandmother, there was good reason to believe the inheritance was really meant for her, and that I’d soon be hearing from her solicitors.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “I said, over my dead body was she getting anything that was rightfully mine, and she said, ‘We will see, Nicola Gibbons, we will see,’ and that, my dear, is more or less the last real conversation we’ve had.”

  Nicky called the waiter over and ordered lemon gelati for both of us, and espresso. I could see that she was shaken by all this, but hardly ready to give in.

  “This has been an eventful trip for Bitten then, hasn’t it?” I mused. “Didn’t her affair with Gunther begin just a few days ago too?”

  “The first day,” said Nicola. “They were barely introduced when they had their knickers off.”