Hidden Voices

by Pat Lowery Collins

  She looks up from her prone position, squashing all the dandelion pieces in her hand. “I’m glad that she could stay in that nice place. It was so beautiful.”

  “She says there is a boy there. Alessandro. What of him?”

  “I saw him once. He keeps a cow.”

  “And did Luisa sing to him when playing on her mandolin?”

  “I never heard Luisa sing at all the while that I was there. She played sometimes, but did not sing. Did not Luisa tell you that?”

  She turns upon her back and looks up at the sky. I pick the petals from a daisy in the grass.

  “The things Luisa tells me in her letters, the things that she instructs me not to tell a soul. What do you think? Am I obliged to keep her confidence?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “You have a way of speaking frankly,” I say, laughing. “As if you are an oracle.”

  “I make the others angry when I’m wrong.”

  “But sometimes you are right.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And so. What do you think?”

  “I think you do not have to keep a secret if you did not ask to have it given to you.”

  “Truly?”

  “And if that secret, being kept, will harm the one who trusts you with it.” She pauses to suck a clover stem. “That’s what I think.”

  “Thank you,” I say, for I am stunned at just how wise she appears, this delicate young girl who seems to lately hover between earth and heaven.

  It is an answer I did not expect and one that I must contemplate awhile. I have no question as to what is best for my dear friend. But if I act upon the truth of it, I stand to lose entirely the very love I seek.

  EACH DAY SIGNORA RICCI invents new tasks for me to do around the cottage. When I am finally free to run into the fields, it is so late sometimes that Alessandro has already left for home. I have picked apricots and plums until my fingers blister, fed chickens in the morning and the night, stretched bed linens upon the line, and even helped to beat the rugs. I dare not remind her that I’m here to recuperate for fear she’ll simply make me stay inside with naught to do, for it is clear they mean to keep me far away from Alessandro at all costs. The why of it is not so clear, and the wanting has been made the more intense. Just to be able to catch sight of him returning from his work is boon enough to send my spirits flying through the trees.

  Today it has been raining, and I have some idle time in which to dream and think about the letter to Anetta that I sent with Davio a week or more ago. In it I bared my soul and told my friend of Alessandro and the secret that we keep about my voice. I also made her swear to closet all I say within her heart and not divulge a particle of it to anyone. Because she loves me as she does, I’m certain she will do as I request. The part about my learning to conjoin with him was better left unsaid. I would have been hard put to make her understand my pleasure and my joy in it, nor did I wish to share this knowledge.

  At noon there is a knock upon the door, and I am wild with hope of seeing the one who fills my thoughts at every hour of the day. I run into the kitchen just as Signora takes the milk pail from his hands. He stands dripping at the entry, and Signora fusses with a mop about his feet while he looks down with great discomfort. It gives me time to look at him while unobserved, and when at last his eyes are raised and meet my own, his smile is like a streak of sun across a cloudy sky.

  “Buon giorno,” I say for lack of something I can wish him that is more sublime. Buon mondo? Buona vita?

  He returns my greeting, and we both stay feasting on each other’s faces until Signora chortles to herself, then takes my chin, turns my face to hers, and asks, “What say you to inviting Alessandro here to midday meal?”

  “Oh, yes,” I answer, and press my hands together like a little girl, while Signora takes his wet outdoor attire, hat and boots and jacket, and sets them by the fire to dry. She fills large bowls with a fragrant stew of sausage, beans, and lentils, and sets an entire loaf of bread between us, from which we break large chunks to dip in oil. It is an unexpected celebration, and being such, we appreciate it all the more.

  He asks about the way in which I’ve spent my days since last we saw each other. I tell him about Signora’s many relatives — the brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles — who come to visit and to pick the grapes. There are so many, I’ve not yet learned to know one from the other or who it is that sits at table with us. The Red Priest is the only other person that I know from such a large brood, members of which are rarely seen about the Ospedale. I question Alessandro about his lamb, if she has grown a winter coat, and ask after Evangelina.

  “I think she looks for you,” he says. “I see her lift her head at any stranger’s step upon the straw.”

  “I was just learning how to milk her properly.”

  “Perhaps you’ll come and try again.”

  “I think not,” says Signora, sitting down across from us. “Luisa has so many other things to do.”

  After the meal, we sit before the little fireplace awhile and listen to the rain upon the roof of thatch. Signora sorts the peas and snaps the beans and boils an oxtail for another pot of soup. I pick up my mandolin and play some tunes that have no words to them, fearful I might forget myself and sing to ones that do. For a time, it seems as if we’re sealed into a warm and changeless place. There is no Ospedale in this place, no Venice, no vineyards, and only a faint apparition of Signora Ricci far off in the corner of the room or fast asleep behind a cupboard.

  “You must have other duties,” Signora says at last, becoming very real again, addressing Alessandro and breaking the golden spell. “Doesn’t your father need your help today? Surely there are indoor duties, bottles to be filled and stored, labels to be inscribed. A vintner’s life does not end when rain begins to fall.”

  “Yes,” he tells her. “I thank you for this lovely meal, this lovely time.” He turns to me and takes my hand to lift me from my chair.

  Just then the Riccis’ wagon comes rattling along the road and pulls into the yard behind the house. Davio makes the usual clamor while taking off the horses’ harnesses, wiping the animals down, and leading them to the trough. The commotion does not capture my attention, and I do not even question where the wagon’s been.

  When Signora goes to call the wagon driver in to lunch, I pull Alessandro toward me, and he puts his other arm around my waist.

  “When can we meet again?” he whispers in my ear.

  “I’ll try to find a way,” I tell him. “Signora watches me the whole day long.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything. Someone saw you and me together once when we were in the barn. They think I need a chaperone.”

  “This is too hard,” he says, pulling me closer to him. “I need to see you more than this.”

  When Signora rushes into the room, we spring apart, but she has noticed how we held each other. Instead of her reproach, however, I am astonished when she starts to speak in such staccato exclamations I must piece the words together for myself.

  “Catina. That dear girl. That child. The bambina with a curse upon her head. The one I couldn’t do a thing to cure no matter how I tried. Who knows? Perhaps it was the evil eye when she was very young.”

  “What are you trying to say?” I ask in an attempt to stop her staggered exclamations, which have begun to frighten me.

  She puts both hands up to her head and moans and strikes her breast before she answers me.

  “Davio. He has brought back news from the Pietà.” She hugs me to her tightly till I almost cannot breathe. “The little girl.” She smiles somewhat even as her eyes crease up and tears begin to flow. “Your little traveling companion. Catina. Yes, Catina. The one who was so wise.”

  Signor Ricci comes inside the room, which swims now with confusion and distress.

  “The little one,” he tells me kindly, “she has been taken up to heaven.”

  His eyes roll toward t
he ceiling. Then he adds, “Signora Mandano says she’ll come for you in a day or two so you can say your last good-byes to your young friend. She says it’s time that you return.”

  Catina. Dead. I’d known that it was possible. I knew that she was frail. But frail enough to die? There was such a timelessness about her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alessandro says. He did not know her at all, but seems so stricken that I sense it is because I’m being sent back soon. My own grief is so deep that I almost cannot separate the two painful feelings it includes — grief for loss of one I love and fear that I will lose another when I have to leave this place. There is some little hope within the last, while none at all for seeing sweet Catina once again.

  “She’s with the angels,” says Signora, dabbing at her eyes with both her bare hands and then an apron hem.

  I cannot think of her in some strange heaven high above the clouds. In my mind’s eye I see Catina that first day here, her sleeping form upon the blanket in the orchard, the peaceful smile upon her lips, the bright mantle of white apple blossoms that covered her. As softly as a prayer upon the wind, the flowers drift and drift and swirl.

  THE OTHERS THINK I have retired early. It is a Monday and the day on which we rest, for at the start of any week there are few about the streets with time to listen to our little troupe. There is a soft rain, enough to clear and freshen the hot air of afternoon and to make the cobblestones glisten and polish the church spires. The usual beggars are not in their usual places; the gondoliers are under cover of their gondolas. No one will notice as I walk alone, my cloak covering all, my bush of curly hair tied back beneath my hood, and nothing exposed that would distinguish man from woman, royalty from renegade. I even wear Pasquale’s boots.

  For all the miles from the house in which I stay, I have walked as quickly as my condition will allow. My steps begin to slow only when I reach the Riva degli Schiavoni. They quicken as I pass near the Bridge of Sighs and over the Rio del Vin, and do not slow again until I cross over the Rio del Greci and am right in front of the school and chapel and so close to the Ospedale that I can hear sounds from inside — the dinner bell, random scales, instruments being tuned, shrieks of laughter, the great stew of noise I used to hate. Many windows are wide open, heavy wooden shutters pushed back against the stucco walls. Girls pass back and forth behind them, never pausing long enough for me to see just who they are. Is that Anetta, the one much larger than the two others she is with? Is that Luisa, her mouth open wide and sliding into notes that I could never reach? That one who just dashed across the room, was that the churly Silvia, and is her tongue still sharp? I wonder who has taken my place in their chamber. Do they, does anyone, ever think of me?

  There are pools of light that mingle right below the building, and I’m careful to keep out of them and to the shadows and to make no noise. Weeping can be very silent, I have learned.

  Everything looks so well ordered and happy inside, so full of life. Such a good life! Why did I not know it?

  The door on the Calle della Pietà opens and two girls run across to the chapel, chattering together as they go. Their watteaus, shining bright blue when in the open doorway, turn black enough to be invisible when the door shuts behind them. How well I remember wearing those everyday costumes; how drab they appeared to me then; how often I managed to lose my cap. My waist was small, my body not swollen with child, my hunger always appeased. And music. The glorious music of Father Vivaldi sounding always in my ears. It was my heartbeat.

  Later in the week, Pasquale purchases an oboe for me with his own ducats, and he presents it to me, as if it were a stuffed goose on a platter, while the others are at market.

  “See?” he points out. “There is a barely visible seam where it has been repaired. It does not, my friend assures me, affect the tone.”

  “Who is this friend?” I ask, not really caring to know, but anxious to say something — anything — to hide my disappointment. It is a very old instrument and has not been well cared for.

  “He is a pawnbroker, but an honest fellow, and he let me know of this fine instrument the moment it was popped into the shop.”

  “Popped?”

  “Pawned.”

  I have no wish to blow upon this gift, but Pasquale’s kindness must be rewarded. And so I lift it to my lips with no great expectations. It falls so short of what I’ve been accustomed to, however, as to make the tears, which seem to live right near the surface of my eyes, begin to flow again.

  “You are not used to it as yet,” says Pasquale. “It will take time to make it seem your own.”

  My own. Where is my own oboe? How could I have left it behind? It was so like another arm, I thought it always would be there, and until now I did not appreciate its many virtues — the polished and stained boxwood, the square silver keys and perfect swallowtail great key, the soft veiled tone.

  “I have no music,” I tell him.

  “I will buy some scores. We’ll find something you like to play.”

  I am confounded at his urgency. He seems so anxious that I can’t help asking why.

  “Salvatore has noticed your . . . predicament at last. He says we cannot have you standing up to sing — not for your sake, but because he will not be made a laughingstock. He says that you must sit with Mother at the back and play an instrument.”

  “He says all that, does he? And what did you say back to him?”

  “I said that I would talk with you. That I would find you something you can play upon.”

  “Or . . . ?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Or what will Salvatore do? How will he punish you or me, for that is what your words imply.”

  “Salvatore can make it very hard for you. And for me. You think that he has been unkind before, but you have only felt a little of his rage. Since I was a small boy, I’ve thought of him as a caged tiger who needs regularly to be appeased.”

  I have known this for some time, for now that Salvatore is so used to having me around and does not notice me at all, he storms through the narrow house from floor to floor whenever he is crossed.

  “What kind of life is that for you or me? Did you never stand up for yourself? Did Lydia never try to protect you?”

  “I learned early that it was best to be agreeable. It is not so very hard. They do not buck me in the things that matter to me most.”

  “Like what, Pasquale? What matters to you that they don’t oppose?”

  He hesitates and rubs his stubbly chin, on which he has been trying for some time to grow a beard.

  “You,” he says in his same quiet way. “You matter to me most of all, above all else. They know I mean to care for you, to raise your child. They have not dared to buck me there.”

  “And you think that by my acting just like you, by always doing what they say, it will go well with both of us?”

  I put the oboe down. It is as offensive to me as someone else’s worn-out glove and a symbol now of what will be expected. It is a threat, and with such a trap, there is but little place to stand above and not fall in.

  “I’ll find a better one,” Pasquale says, retrieving it. “I’ll see what has been popped today and make a trade.”

  “Bring me a piccolo,” I tell him. It is an instrument I’ve seldom played and therefore one that I may definitely toot upon while still in Venice. Or so I reason.

  Poor, doting, kind Pasquale. He is much cheered by this. And for my part, it buys me time before I need to come to a decision, the thought of which is pressing like a large and leaden fist upon my soul.

  “No more tears,” says Pasquale, taking my hands in his. “You see, isn’t it much easier to be agreeable?”

  Easier and so deceptive, for I do not mean to be agreeable for long.

  “Here,” I say, placing his hand upon my belly where the baby thumps quite lustily. Pasquale’s eyes smile down at me with such clear happiness, I almost start to think that we are indeed a little family.

  It is many weeks befo
re I slip away again to walk the Riva and to view the Ospedale in the dark. I wait to leave until Lydia is so sound asleep I know she will not stir again till morning. Her heavy snores accompany my footsteps down the stairs.

  The streets are washed again by rain. It has stopped falling and is being held in clouds so dark they fade into the blackness of the sky and mask the stars. The lagoon is sleeping, only one or two gondolas plying purple waters under a curious moon that Father Vivaldi used to call “the old moon in the young moon’s arms.” There is that pervading sense at midnight of the turning of the spheres that used to keep me wide awake with longing.

  This time there is only a faint glow from the few candles left to burn throughout the night. It creeps around the edges of the shuttered windows and turns the ones left open into softly shining shapes. A boat is coming to the pier as I approach, and I quickly duck behind a pillar of the chapel. There are two passengers alighting, a woman and a younger female, judging from their stance and walk. The gondolier carries their cases to the door of the Pietà, leaving both the travelers to grapple with the unlit door. When the signora manages to put a key into the lock, the signorina pushes and the sticky hinges grant a slender opening through which the ladies pass into the hallway and drag their baggage after them. The candlelight inside illumines both their faces long enough for me to know exactly who they are, but I’m confounded as to why they are arriving at the Ospedale at this hour. Luisa’s face is streaked with tears; Signora’s is set, determined, much more tired than the face that I remember.

  THERE WAS SOME COMMOTION in the night, but that is always so in this building of many rooms, filled with girls of all ages. Not a night goes by that someone doesn’t waken from a dream or have a stomachache or need to use the chamber pot. I’ve learned to sleep through all the nightmares and the terrors, and I barely stir when Prioress does her heavy pacing down the halls, even sometimes in the early hours before dawn.

  Come morning I don’t find it strange at first that someone’s sleeping in Luisa’s bed, never imagining that she’d be sent back to the Ospedale in the dark. I just assume that one of the other girls has climbed into the wrong cot. But then I see these tresses on the pillow, as black and shiny as a shoe, and that pale skin, so marble white with that blue tinge at the temple from tiny veins right near the surface. My heart begins to leap within my chest, just as if I’d been surprised by someone jumping out at me.