Hidden Voices

by Pat Lowery Collins

  I am trying to sleep when Anetta comes into the room and flops down on her bed. There are six of us in this one space, and the beds are so close beneath the high windows that you can feel each girl turn in the night, especially she whose large feet and sharp elbows stick off at all angles.

  When I keep my eyes shut and roll to my side, my stomach feels surprisingly sore and full, and I notice a strange sticky wetness between my upper thighs. I reach down and bring my hand back. In the light from the hallway, my fingers look stained and dark, and they smell of blood. (Madre di Dio!) I had hoped this day would not come, even though all the girls near my age and even some younger ones have begun their monthlies and must deal with the mess and the bother! Only Lucretia, who is sixteen, is fortunate enough to have nosebleeds only and doesn’t bleed from her bottom. I had hoped to be such an exception, but now I will have to leave my warm bed and find those disgusting rags that the other girls wear. I will have to ask someone, Anetta, where they are kept and what exactly I must do with them. The others are sound asleep, or I’d never confide such a thing to her or ask for her help. When I’m forced to at last, she acts as if I’ve been given a prize.

  “Luisa, just think.” She claps her big hands. “You’re a woman today.”

  A woman has bosoms and a fat posterior. I am straight up and down and as spare as a bird, and intend to remain that way. The rough rags that Anetta gives me are stiff and cold. With a great wad of them fastened in place, I can barely sleep from discomfort.

  In the morning I’m roused by Silvia, who shrieks and points at two scarlet streaks on the coverlet.

  “It’s her first monthly,” Anetta declares in a whisper that’s as shrill as a shout. It causes Rosalba to fairly leap from sleep. Her feet slap the floor.

  “What’s the matter? What is it? Have I overslept? Not again.”

  “I thought,” says Silvia, her small, feeble eyes growing narrow and mean, “that Luisa was bleeding to death, that she’d finally slit her own fabulous throat.”

  “What a terrible, vicious thing to say,” gasps Anetta, clutching her own throat with both hands and then doubling over as if in pain herself, “and when she suffers the dolori, too.” She drops down next to me and pats my hair in a gesture that makes me cringe.

  Though I push her away, she continues to play my defender and coos and coddles until I could retch.

  What she’d never believe is that I prefer Silvia’s snarling to all of her cosseting ways. Silvia’s envy is something that I understand; Anetta’s constant toadying is foolish and weak.

  Nonetheless, I have no choice but to listen as Anetta instructs me how to place the rags I have soiled in a crock to await washing and fasten some fresh ones into my undergarments. It is an odious ritual that I rail inwardly against. I do indeed feel changed — achy and clumsy and clammy. I’d sooner curl back into bed and sleep away whatever days it may take to expunge these secretions than disguise my condition with the customary watteau and clean apron and go about my lessons.

  “You will grow used to it, Luisa,” Anetta says finally.

  “It’s one more thing about this life that can’t be helped,” says Rosalba as she adjusts her own undergarments and pulls on her watteau.

  “This life?” I ask.

  “A girl’s life. A woman’s life,” Rosalba calls back.

  “For a certain the Creator is a man,” says Silvia, “to have devised such wretchedness. There is more misery in store for our sex, no doubt, to which we are not yet privy. What little information they give us about such things is probably more wrong than right.”

  “Don’t frighten her,” Anetta says. “Father Vivaldi says God never gives anyone more than she or he can stand.”

  I’ve heard him say that, too, and hope I will not need to test such limits.

  “Don’t worry, Luisa,” says Silvia. “Anetta here will make quite certain you never so much as stub your toe.”

  “And will come between you,” says Rosalba, “when you attempt to stab Luisa in the back.”

  Rosalba means well, I am sure. Sometimes I think she is one of the few here who do not covet my fine voice and lineage. Knowing me as she does, however, she should realize that I have strength sufficient to defend myself. Silvia is not the only thorn in this garden. I have needed to learn early to ignore the snide remarks and envious asides about my mother. And sometimes, when I am chosen for a solo that others bargained for quite openly, there is a jealousy or rage released that saturates the very corridors.

  That Father has chosen me to feature, a girl so far from being ready to be affianced to a nobleman, shows his esteem for my ability — and, of course, his great desire that this concert will stand out and be remembered. There is a pride in this affable priest that I recognize and understand.

  Later, when we are at leisure in the large parlor and I am thinking of how Father Vivaldi’s desire for perfection has often put Anetta in a state of near paralysis, I suddenly hear “Luisa!” close to my ear. Then I bump to the bare floor as Silvia, much to her amusement, gives me a push and slides behind me to appropriate the footstool by the fire.

  “Ha!” she exclaims. “It was easier to dislodge the queen from her throne than I had expected.”

  “If you had but asked me to move, Silvia,” I tell her while trying to appear unfazed as I brush off my skirts, “I would have obliged.”

  “And you should not frighten people like that,” says a little iniziata I have not noticed before. I am surprised to find someone so young coming to the defense of a senior girl. They are usually too timid by half and are not often found in either parlor taking their ease.

  “Be careful,” I whisper to her as I pass through the room. “You do not want to make an enemy of Silvia.”

  “She does not frighten me,” says the bold child, and plunks down upon the carpet with her embroidery. Given the rude example of Anetta earlier, I have no heart to scold her. It would be a mean reward for her defense of me as well. There are enough girls here who find me haughty and aloof. I do not need another enemy, no matter how insignificant.

  IT IS SATURDAY, and those of us who are to be in tomorrow’s concert have been practicing with Maestro Gasparini all morning. The violins are beginning to sound to my tired ears like a swarm of bees and the wind instruments like the lowing cattle I once saw driven along the Riva, only heaven knows why. I sense how well Father Vivaldi has prepared us, however, by the way in which the maestro looks almost pleasant from time to time and makes only feeble attempts at correcting the dynamics of any phrase. Our ranks are bolstered by some of the older maestre, and, as I have said, Anna Maria, our most accomplished violinist and Father’s obvious favorite, is playing the first violin solo. But in fairness, he has not neglected my part, but made it both wildly colorful in some passages and calm in others. In fact, the parry between my violin and hers becomes a highly charged duel that I’m beginning to think we can each win if we keep our wits.

  Of the three concerti we will play tomorrow, this first is the most difficult and the most delightful. There will be a short sinfonia as well and a lovely cantata composed only last week. We’ve been told there are to be important personages from the papal city in the audience and a famous composer from Vienna named Signore Bach. Plus the usual overdressed dukes and wives or consorts. From our high perch, we always look down upon a sea of color, fur, and feathers that glints with gold and silver embroidery and flashing jewels. Here and there are the bright berrette of the monsignori, the elaborate frontages of the women, and very occasionally the tall hat of the doge. Rosalba claims it is a great blessing that we can’t see the features of some of the dukes and merchants too clearly, and it is just as well that they can’t see a number of us.

  Maestro Gasparini taps the podium with his stick, the signal to put aside our instruments and assemble for the noon meal in the refectory.

  “And do not return until after my nap,” he instructs us. “You play like drunken street performers right after lunch. Take a nice long s
iesta or go for a walk.”

  The little iniziate, the young assistants, pass among us with the corrections Father Vivaldi has made that have just arrived from the copyists. We can never be certain that there will not be additions or omissions in any piece of his music, even after it is performed, and we are all anxious to discover what has been changed.

  After a few minutes, Silvia moans and smacks the case of her theorbo. “He’s removed the most beautiful part of the second movement in the first concerto. Poof ! Just like that.”

  “I think it’s a vast improvement,” says Luisa.

  “Only because it isn’t your notes he’s stolen. It’s always my notes. He shrinks my part every time. Why does he write the notes down at all if he’s just going to take them away?”

  “He doesn’t know he’s going to take them away,” says Luisa, “until he hears you play them.”

  “That isn’t true, Silvia,” I say quickly to assuage her hot temper, but it is too late. She has already reached for a handful of Luisa’s black hair and pulled it hard enough to bring tears. When I get up and try to separate the short little squabblers, it occurs to me that I could easily smash their niggling heads together if I were so inclined. Instead, and only because of my new role as maestra and section leader, I hold them apart, one hand on each head, until they have calmed a bit and stopped squealing. The few ducats I have recently begun to earn for my position are not nearly enough pay for handling this sort of business.

  For all concerts, though we can barely be seen behind the grillework that surrounds the high choir balcony on which we sit to play or stand to sing, we dress in white Spitalfield silk and feel quite special. It does not rustle the way some taffetas do and thus distract from the performance.

  The same cannot be said for the materials of those who mull around in the chapel below or perch on small couches and tiny brocaded chairs. They dress in all manner of noisy fabrics and swish about and call to one another as if at a fair.

  “At least we can’t smell them,” Rosalba whispers to me when we are in our places.

  It is said that one reason we perform from above is to spare us from all the perfumes and pomades and sweat — a lethal blend for a singer or asthmatic priest. Luisa wears a pomegranate blossom in her hair that Geltruda eyes suspiciously. It is a mystery where Luisa could have found such a flower, yet she always thinks of something to set herself apart. We have come to expect it, and she is so beautiful, who can object?

  The first concerto is for cello, one of the instruments Father himself plays, plus strings and basso continuo. I’m told that this work was requested by the cello teacher for Maestra Georgetta del Cello, who is almost ready to leave here and desperately needs to attract a suitor. (It is especially fortunate that she cannot be seen too clearly, as the way in which she grimaces, spreads her legs, and attacks her instrument is simply indecorous.) The allegro is very bright and rhythmic and the adagio curiously languid. After the sprightly third movement there is much nose blowing and shuffling of feet below us — a very good sign that the audience is both awake and enjoying the performance.

  The second concerto, one of the concerti ripieni, has no name and no real soloists but is carried by the strings, so I am kept busy. Maestro Gasparini himself plays the harpsichord, flinging his arms about when his fingers are not occupied on the keys, and it is completely thrilling when all the strings converge to deliver the ritornello and then go their separate ways for the little fugues.

  The concerto in which my violin is featured — the one for two violins and basso continuo — begins the second half of the concert. Maestro Gasparini steps forward, raises his stick, counts noiselessly, then brings the stick down, and we are immediately into the difficult allegro that bounces motifs back and forth so nervously that it’s no surprise to hear a loud pop right before the adagio. It echoes from the high ceiling like a hollow cannon shot, and there are many exclamations and titters from the crowd. As he always does, Father Vivaldi races off to the wings with the offending instrument and replaces the broken gut string immediately, a feat only he can accomplish in such a short space of time. He rushes back, and we resume playing at the exact place of the interruption, completing the stirring allegro and launching into the tuneful adagio, where I ultimately lose myself in the rich weave of the music. Even the final allegro seems to be played in my sleep, for I am in fact as startled as a sleepwalker might be when the last note is delivered.

  The shuffling, foot stomping, and blowing of noses is even louder this time, and Father Vivaldi grins at me, extremely pleased. Maestro Gasparini wipes his glistening brow as though weary beyond belief.

  Almost at once, Luisa and Geltruda step forward and the other singers take their places. Luisa appears almost unearthly, as if she has stepped out of a fresco by Tintoretto. The gasps from the audience must be caused by what little they can see of her behind the grille, for she is a vision truly, and she delivers her solo like an angel.

  Afterward, we gather in a schoolroom for an assessment of our performance. On our way there, Maestro Gasparini makes excuses and turns down the Calle della Pietà. He is clearly feeling spent, his rotund backside swaying a little as he picks his way along the cobblestones, dark patches of sweat revealing themselves on his jacket when he raises his arms to steady himself. It is left to Father Vivaldi, as is often the case, to point out our difficulties and suggest how to correct them. For this, I believe we are all grateful, for he is ever considerate and not given to displays of temper.

  “Well done,” Rosalba suddenly states to the entire small assemblage. She gives a low bow as if she herself has been entirely responsible for our collective achievement. “A magnificent performance. The dukes will come running.”

  “Sit down, Rosalba,” says Father, chuckling and pulling her into a chair. “You, as much as anyone, need to hear what I have to say.”

  As always, he has little to correct in Anna Maria’s playing. To her credit, she is not smug about this, but does leave early, having heard what little pertained to her. My own performance was not without fault, yet I’m relieved when there are only a few suggestions for changes in the bowing. Even Luisa has some pleasant comment to make about it, though later I cannot recall what it was. (Were it a true compliment, you can be sure I would have treasured it and committed it to memory.)

  When Father is finished, I cannot restrain my own praise of her wondrous solo, which to my ear was the pinnacle of perfection.

  When I say something of the sort, she waves me away with a small gesture of her hand that suggests she would rather not dwell on her performance but remark on the concert as a whole. Such a gracious response should have been expected.

  She then tarries a little and stays behind to speak with Father, and the thought occurs to me that she is actually waiting for her mother to appear. I myself make a hasty departure. I do not want to witness Luisa’s great disappointment when that mysterious and ornamented woman does not come.

  ARE YOU HERE TODAY, Mother, as you promised? Is that you wrapped in the scarlet bagnolette and wearing a satin mantilla? Or are you the woman with the dark blue cloak who has just turned to the man with the very high periwig? From here, looking through this iron grillwork, it is so hard to be sure. Did you notice how well I played the flautino in the little sinfonia? Please be here somewhere, Mother. Please be the elegant lady who has just bustled in late. Please be here now to listen to me sing, even though this cantata is not as pretty as some and to my mind relies too much on Geltruda’s thin contralto. I do realize, however, that Father must write to each of our strengths. I only wish that this time it were not at the expense of my part, which could have been much expanded and a great deal more operatic. You would have been so pleased by that. It is not an overly long little piece, however, and has a few places where I can show my ability to swell and sustain a note or sing a run with great rapidity. At any rate it is over very quickly, and did you notice how it was followed by a great deal more feet shuffling than I’ve heard this day? A l
ittle triumph, I must confess. Though Geltruda is red-faced and looking a bit spent, she has truly done her best.

  The lady with the cloak is looking up, and I can see clearly now that she is not my mother. The woman in scarlet is already passing through the chapel doors, a red-heeled man at each elbow. Quite possibly Mama. The latecomer is holding court and obviously has not come to hear me or anyone else perform.

  We do not bow, as I’m told other performers do after such a concert, but file down the stairs from the choir loft and back into the school, where we are congratulated or corrected as our professors see fit.

  Anetta is beaming at me and clasps her large hands at her waist.

  “You sang beautifully, Luisa, as always. We were all entranced.”

  I cannot return her effusive compliment, for her playing to my ear was awkward, the solo part not mastered nearly as well as it should have been. It was Anna Maria who shone.

  “We all did our best, I am sure,” I say in retort, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed the slight at all. Her constant good nature grates on one’s nerves so. When Geltruda compliments me as well, I do manage to tell her the small improvement I’ve noticed of late in her tone.

  Imagine — Maestra Alicia has chastised me for the pomegranate blossom, saying what poor form it is to try to stand out from the rest. She reminds me that we are all doing our best to earn a steady income for the Ospedale in order to pay for our educations. Doesn’t she realize that some of the paying customers come especially to hear me or some other soloist who is unusually gifted? Is one not to be thought better than another if it is true? Should such truths be hidden?

  Just in case Mother is allowed into the school after the concert, I stay behind while the others go for their tea. So many instruments have been left haphazardly around the room that it looks a good deal like Father’s repair shop. It amuses me to think that my best instrument cannot be seen but resides safely within my throat and chest, where only I can tune it and protect or repair it. Only I.