Hidden Voices

by Pat Lowery Collins

  How I wish to wake her and gather her into my arms, but she’s so still, so sound asleep, and would never allow such an embrace from me. Did she allow such overtures, I wonder, from the boy Alessandro? It makes me feverish to think of it.

  Brigitta has tiptoed around her, but Silvia bumbles through the door, dropping her books and then her music, the pages fanning out into the hallway.

  “The duchess has returned, I see, “she says while scrambling for them. “I wonder what she’ll do this time to gain attention. I’m told the squawky little bird has lost her song at last.”

  “You don’t know that for certain,” I tell her. “No one knows that for certain.”

  “We’ll soon find out,” she says, and scurries after her newfound friend, Brigitta, who has recently been settled in Rosalba’s space.

  In my excitement, I dress as quietly as possible, but cannot wait to find Signora and have her explain this riddle. Does she, does anyone but me, know about Luisa’s voice returning or of the farm boy? How did they cause her to leave Alessandro? Has she returned to us to stay?

  In the refectory I catch up to Signora, who looks drawn and tired in the extreme. Tangles of her hair, which is usually gathered into neat rolls, escape a pleated cap. She gazes at her bowl of millet as if she is a fortune-teller reading tea leaves in a cup, and barely stirs when I sit next to her.

  “Signora,” I address her, “why did you bring Luisa back? It gave me such a start to see her there upon her cot when I arose this morning. You must have traveled half the night.”

  “We did, indeed, for Prioress insisted that she be here for Catina’s funeral. You may not know that it was Father Vivaldi who requested such a ceremony. He had a special bond to this unfortunate child and has written a new Agnus Dei that he plans to have Luisa sing.”

  “If she is able.”

  “Of course, if she is able. We do not know that yet.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “She was so overcome with grief on the entire trip, I didn’t think that I should speak of it. I’ll wait until she’s rested. Until she’s had something to eat.”

  “That’s probably best.”

  “You are usually such a sensible girl, Anetta,” she says, changing the subject so that I am put off guard. “I hope you will not ruin any opportunity for marriage that comes your way again.”

  “You are not married,” I make so bold as to observe.

  “No. Such an alliance is not for everyone.”

  “Then why need I comply?”

  She slowly chews the porridge in her mouth and swallows it before she answers me.

  “Our prioress believes it best for you. She knows about such things. You should defer to her good judgment.”

  And not consider my own discernment, which has served me rather well these sixteen years.

  There is no point in telling her just now why Prioress may be in error. And so I finish my repast and take my leave, hoping to have some minutes to see Luisa and consult with her before the first ensemble of the day.

  Retracing my steps back to the bedchamber, I think how when we learned, days ago now, about Catina, it was no great surprise to those who had been with her near the end. It was still so very sorrowful, however, even knowing how her little body had been wracked with every breathing crisis and seeing her released from all of that. At the last, Sofia says it was as if she’d stepped into another, a more peaceful, room. I think myself, she was not meant to stay on earth for long.

  And I do understand Father’s fond attachment to her, which began because they shared the same affliction. But above that, there are always certain souls here who have a special attraction for each other and between whom there is deep friendship, even love. Concerta’s happiness has been my great concern right from the start; my love for Luisa, though not truly reciprocated, is a constant, and she will always be most dear to me.

  When I enter our room, it is in a slow and quiet manner, but Luisa is already dressing and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She does smile heartily on seeing me, which makes me think I may have indeed been missed. The smile fades quickly, however, and her wan appearance matches a desultory attitude and displays itself in listlessness, as if she carries unseen burdens on her spare shoulders.

  “I did not tell about your voice,” I blurt out after some pleasantries have passed between us. No need for her to know that I would have, given enough time, or how Catina counseled me. But then I shock myself by adding, “Except for Catina. I did at length reveal the glorious news to her. I simply could not help myself.”

  To my surprise, Luisa says, “I’m glad she knew before she died. She worried when my voice did not return as if it were her own.” And then she says, “The summer’s coming to an end. They would have sent for me no matter. They would have torn me from the arms of Alessandro.”

  I sense my own eyes opening wide. “Is that what happened?”

  “I feel as if it did. I was all packed and set to leave in such a short time and never had a proper chance to say good-bye.”

  “Will you not see him once again?”

  “Somehow I will. Somehow — I don’t know when — I’ll manage to go back to him. You’ll see.”

  “I’m not the one who separated you. I never told a single soul about that.”

  “I know, Anetta. It isn’t you I have a quarrel with. You are a loyal soul and would not betray my trust. And Signora Ricci didn’t tell, I’m certain. She was so anxious that I leave before we were found out.”

  I wince within, thinking of the great temptation that lingers still to reveal and try to end her little love affair once and for all. More than once it has occurred to me that if I but told the whole of what I know to Silvia, she’d slither off with it to Prioress, and then it would be Silvia who takes the blame.

  “But have you told Signora or Prioress that your singing voice has been returned to you?”

  “Alessandro has been taken from me. Rosalba is still missing. Catina is dead. What is there to sing about?”

  “You should talk with Father Vivaldi,” I tell her. “You should do it right away.”

  The funeral for Catina the next morning is better attended than one would think for someone so often ill, for many of the older girls did not know her very well. Sofia is here and Signora Mandano, Geltruda, Brigitta, and Anna Maria, as are all of the iniziate, each little downcast face soggy with tears. The Mass is celebrated on one of the side altars, in front of which Catina lies within a plain pine box, a spray of flowers from the kitchen garden on the lid. I think of the marble caskets Father talked about once that enclose the remains of royal children. He saw them in some famous basilica, and on top of each of these was a marble effigy of a child in peaceful sleep surrounded by many sculpted angels and by garlands made of stone. Will Catina’s reward be different from the one that they receive? Will their heavens ever meet and will they play together?

  I look for Luisa immediately on entering the chapel, thinking to find her in the choir loft. But she is neither there nor in the church below. When a few of the younger girls sing the entrance hymn and the later Offertory, it is clear she must be indisposed and doesn’t mean to come. At the Alleluia, however, I cannot help but listen for her voice among the rest, but, alas, it is not there.

  Right before Communion, I am so deeply wrapped in prayer for Catina’s precious soul that the first notes of the Agnus Dei, though not fortissimo, enter my consciousness like a thunderclap and spark my instant recognition of the perfect voice, Luisa’s own, that I carry in my mind. They are so pure, so rich in tone, so otherworldly, as to make me certain I will soon be tasting the true bread from heaven.

  SALVATORE WILL NOT LET ME play or sing from now until the child is born. He says I am too large and that I look ridiculous. Pasquale says his brother is afraid his whores and paramours will think the baby is his own, the very thought of which disgusts me. Most nights I go out with the family until they find a spot in which to settle, and then I sit upon a bench or rock or a
nything that will not break under my bulk. Sometimes I stay alone within the little house, but it was blistery hot in midsummer and presently is as cold as the outdoors and creaky, and there are no locks. The rats within the walls are most rambunctious. Sometimes they scurry out and run across the floor.

  And so tonight I troop behind the family once again. Even Pasquale walks ahead of me. There is no spring in my step. My belly’s heavy, my feet are leaden, and my breath is short. It feels as if the babe has slipped much lower just since yesterday. An old cape of Pasquale’s covers most of me, but I feel like a barge in the lagoon that plows the waters more slowly than a boat adrift. I wonder how I’ll manage with a child in tow.

  All summer we performed while it was light, but lately the dark falls earlier. I welcome it, the way it drops just like a mantle in whose folds I like to hide.

  And I really do not mind that I can’t play their tunes with them. I have grown weary of the ones they know and am too well aware of their mistakes. Pasquale tries to improvise at times but doesn’t do it very well.

  Tonight they’ve chosen to perform in the little campo near the Ospedale, a way in back of it, in fact, where Father Vivaldi and his brothers live. I tell Lydia this, but she remarks, “Non c’è problema,” and flicks her chin as if to say, Don’t bother me.

  I pray that he will not see me in my present state, that he will notice I’m not playing with the group and pay no mind to them. Perhaps he’s staying late in his repair shop, which I can picture in my mind — the tools neatly arranged upon his worn wooden bench, a variety of instruments lined up in the order of their having been delivered to him — or is rehearsing for the concert on Sunday or composing something in that little private room beside the choir loft. It matters not. I only pray that I’m not observed by him. And so, as they set up while it is light, I lean against the wall along the alleyway and listen to them as they tune their instruments and start to play the tunes I’ve grown to hate. I’m appeased some when I see that they do not draw as large a crowd as when I sang with them. From time to time, I hear a few people in the crowd ask about the lovely girl. Pasquale always says, “She’ll be back soon”; Salvatore only grunts. Lydia flirts and asks if she will do.

  My back aches so that, as the shadows start to form, I ferret out a place to sit beside the well, which does not catch the light from windows on the little square. My knees pulled up, I could well be a mound of mud in all this darkness, a large stone, a wagon cushion, a bag of refuse, something of no account. What I would really like to be is lithe again or so small as to be invisible.

  It seems that I have dozed a little, for next I know, the crowd is thinning and Pasquale’s playing his last solo. Lydia is packing up her violin and shaking out her stiffened shoulders. I am standing to stretch as best I can, still in the dark, when there’s a hand upon my arm and another body very close to mine. I am too terrified to scream and barely hear the whispered voice that tells me not to be afraid. “It’s only me, Rosalba. Don’t you know me?”

  I look as closely as I can with eyes that are accustomed to the dark and notice first a faint red crested pate, quite wigless, and then the kindly face of Father underneath. He seems to wear a nightshirt with his trousers as if he snuck out of his chamber in the dark. The pressure of his hand upon my arm increases, and with the other hand he holds a package out to me that’s wrapped and tied and long.

  “Take this,” he says. “Conceal it underneath your cloak.”

  When it is placed into my hands, I know exactly what it is.

  “My oboe,” I exclaim so quietly I hope he hears me. “How I have missed it.”

  “Not in Venice,” he reminds me. “You must never play it here.”

  “I know that, Father.”

  “I heard you on the piccolo one time. It will not make your fortune.”

  I cannot help but laugh at his assessment, for it is so apt.

  “And so I thought I’d bring you your true instrument.”

  “You cannot know what you have done,” I tell him. “How can I thank you?”

  “Be well, my dear,” he says, and then he turns and, in just moments, he is gone.

  Walking back, I hold the oboe up against my body, with its length along the inside of one arm. The baby kicks against it once or twice as if she does not wish to share this space.

  “You must be tired,” says Pasquale, slowing his pace to mine. “Perhaps next time you shouldn’t come with us.”

  My back aches more than ever and my stomach hardens in an odd way every little while. Soon these episodes are painful, but I refuse to drop to my knees in the street.

  “It isn’t far,” says Pasquale when he sees me stumble. “You’d better let me carry you.”

  I look at just how slight he is and smile at the mere thought of him supporting all this girth. “You couldn’t do it,” I exclaim.

  “Well, then, Salvatore. We’ll ask Salvatore.”

  “I’d rather die,” I say, and mean it. But just the thought of being held in that man’s arms gives me the strength to shuffle on. By the time we cross some bridges and come up to the street on which we live, my feet can barely move apart, and a strange wail escapes my lips, causing Lydia to run back down the stairs she has already climbed. She arrives just as a sudden gush of fluid travels down my legs and forms a puddle at my feet. I bend as best I can to look, but cannot see the color of it. It smells of water from the ocean and of something primal as the flotsam of the sea.

  I SWORE THAT IF SIGNORA made me leave Alessandro and the countryside, I would never sing again. But what else could I offer sweet Catina whose short life was so marred and whose soul was so very old? And how else can I live but as the person I was meant to be? When Father showed me the new Agnus Dei, I could tell without bringing forth one note that it was very beautiful. Singing it, I decided, would be my gift to her, but, as it happened, no less gift to myself, for once again the music of my mentor and my friend, within the chapel where I first performed it, invigorated all my sensibilities.

  Afterward, Father Vivaldi spoke to me again about his oratorio, the one on which he has been working for so long, the one that has a major part for me. I had anticipated this, but I had not anticipated what would follow our discussion. With hindsight, I am very sure he planned it, but at first it seemed to be an odd and unexpected mix of circumstances.

  It is when coming back from the sad duty of sending prayers aloft for dear Catina, already basking in her heavenly reward, that Prioress takes me aside. I am impatient to resume my studies as a means to mask my longings and to quiet my great need for Alessandro, and do not wish to be forestalled.

  “Your mother,” she begins, “is here to see you.”

  My hand goes to my throat. It has been over a year’s time since I have heard from her at all. By now I was quite sure she had abandoned me. Remembering the times I called for her in my delirium, and the long wait of all those days and nights without a word, I find it hard to believe she is really here within these walls.

  But Prioress assures me. “She was in chapel, too. She heard you sing.”

  “Why?” I ask immediately. “She did not know Catina.”

  “But Father sent word to her that you might sing the Agnus Dei. He was sure she’d want to be there to hear your voice restored.”

  If I had only known, if I’d been told, what would I have done differently? For a certain I would have spent more time on the score. I would have concentrated on those places that I knew I could improve upon.

  “Why are you so flustered, Luisa?” Prioress asks. “Your mother had most complimentary things to say. She was quite overcome.”

  I can’t imagine this. My mother overcome. Her strong composure was the shell that I could never penetrate. Knowing I soon may have the very approbation that I’ve prayed for in the past paralyzes both my thought and movement. I cannot speak.

  “She’s in the parlor, the one that has the grille. She’s waiting for you.”

  The parlor with the grille. It
means that others may look out at us. Someone like Silvia could try to see how I comport myself.

  “Can you not put her in the back parlor, which is more private?”

  “I suppose I can,” says Prioress. “If that is what you want. But do come to her quickly. She came by gondola, I’m told, and wishes to return as soon as possible.”

  I straighten out my apron, remove my cap, and pinch my cheeks to put more color in them. I try some phrases in a low voice to myself. “How are you, Mother? What a pleasure to see you.” But such proper expressions quickly turn to Why didn’t you come when I needed you? Why come back at all? Why have you really come today? I stop myself when tears begin to spill.

  When enough time has passed that she must now be in the other room, I hold my breath and proceed slowly down the narrow hallway. It is a short distance, truly, too short for me to sort my turbulent feelings. The door is closed. I leave my hand upon the knob for such a long time, its coldness turns to warmth. When I finally twist it, Mother is standing by the window, looking out, as decorously dressed as I remember, this time in a traveling suit with open overskirt revealing a fine petticoat, the closed bodice pinned and laced at the front and sides. Her frontage when she comes to meet me is not quite as high as I recall, or else I have grown enough in height to make it seem so.

  “Luisa,” she says, quite tenderly for one who for such a time so willingly absented herself. And then she gathers me into her arms the way she always has before, and I am clinging to her as I used to and feeling somewhat dizzy from her lovely scent. But this time I do not beg to go along with her or call her Mother. This time I don’t say a word.