The Violinist of Venice

by Alyssa Palombo

  When it came time for the psalm, it seemed as if the congregation drew in a collective breath of anticipation. I realized that this must be the expected new work of il Prete Rosso as the strings struck up a beautiful yet heartbreakingly somber melody. After several measures, a mournful contralto voice rang out from the balcony.

  “Stabat mater dolorosa,” she sang, managing to convey so much sorrow in her rich, low voice it seemed as though she were actually weeping as she sang. “Juxta crucem lacrimosa, lacrimosa.”

  I broke out into a cold sweat, feeling as though the close air was smothering me. The psalm was of the Virgin Mother standing before the cross, sobbing as she looked up at her crucified son, her sacrificed child.

  “Stabat mater dolorosa, dolorosa,” the soloist sang with heightened urgency. Then she backed away, her voice becoming softer, as though her anguish were such she could not muster the strength to be any louder: “Juxta crucem lacrimosa, lacrimosa.”

  My breath came in shallow gasps. Never before had I thought of the Holy Virgin as a mother like any other, who had surely raged against the divine plan that took her beloved child from her. How she would weep to find that the world had not changed, that mothers and children were still being separated by the plans of those more powerful than they.

  And I was going to bring another child into this world …

  I tried to stand, pulling myself up using the back of the pew in front of me, but found my legs would not support me. The heat was overwhelming; the altar and the crucifix swam before my eyes. If I could just breathe, breathe past this sorrow …

  Vaguely I heard Giacomo’s urgent whisper: “Adriana! Be seated!” I opened my mouth to reply before collapsing against him, surrendering to the blackness that was waiting to catch me.

  * * *

  When I awoke, my breathing came easily, and the air around me was cool and clean. I slowly opened my eyes to find myself lying on a narrow bed in a small, plain room with feeble sunlight trickling in through a window.

  I sat up, leaning against the wall, and discovered that I was dressed only in my shift. My gown, petticoat, and corset were draped over a nearby chair.

  The chapel … that music … the heat … then nothing.

  Evidently I had fainted dead away.

  I breathed in sharply, my hands going to my abdomen: the child. Was the child well?

  In the space of only a few seconds, I felt myself become fiercely protective of the child about whose existence I had been somewhat ambiguous—so much so that I had not yet told Giacomo.

  I began to take inventory of my ailments. But other than a minor and persistent ache in my head and what felt like a bruise forming on my hip, I felt quite well. There was nothing leading me to believe that the tiny child within me was any the worse for wear after its mother’s unexpected adventure.

  Just then, a nun entered my chamber, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup on it. Her face brightened. “Donna Baldovino! You are awake, praise the Virgin!” She set her tray down and laid a hand on my forehead while peering into my eyes. “There is no fever, so that is well,” she said. “How do you feel, madonna?”

  “Well enough, if a bit embarrassed,” I confessed. “But Sister…?”

  “Sister Graziella,” she supplied. “I am the nurse and apothecary here.”

  “Sister Graziella,” I repeated. “I must ask … that is, I am with child, you see, and I hope my fainting spell did not harm the baby.”

  An excited yet knowing look came into her eyes. “Why, congratulazioni, madonna! You need not worry; I saw nothing to indicate that the child would have suffered any ill effects. And this quite explains your spell.”

  “Good,” I said, relieved.

  “But, madonna, does il senatore your husband know?” she asked. “He did not mention anything of your condition when he brought you here…”

  I was somewhat touched by the implication Giacomo had carried me to the infirmary himself. “No,” I said. “Not yet, I fear. It is early days yet.”

  She nodded. “Of course. Well, I have brought you some soup to help you regain your strength, and I shall send for your husband. I am sure he will be overjoyed at your news!”

  After she left, I obediently ate my soup, pondering the best way to tell Giacomo. Then I wondered whether Vivaldi had seen me fall in the chapel, whether he had known it was me. Whether he had worried. Whether he cared.

  54

  LULLABY

  Giacomo was overjoyed and puffed with pride at my news. As soon as the Lenten season ended he threw a large, lavish party in honor of the forthcoming birth of (he hoped) his son and heir.

  The spring and summer that followed were wonderful: Giacomo saw to it that I had everything I could possibly need or desire—from fresh fish, fruits, and vegetables to pastries and even a new, softer coverlet for my bed—brought to me without question or delay.

  As my belly grew and my time neared, I went out in public less, depriving my friends of my company on their excursions—something they lamented very loudly. But much as I missed accompanying them out, I had begun to anticipate the birth of my child with unabashed joy. This child would never be able to replace my Anna, but here was a chance to start again, and to have a son or daughter that would be mine to love, bring up, and care for as I saw fit.

  We went to Giacomo’s villa for June and July, but returned in mid-August as my confinement drew nearer. And so I waited, without dread, only happiness, and perhaps a little impatience.

  * * *

  “A girl,” Giacomo said, trying and failing to hide his disappointment as he looked down at the squalling infant in my arms.

  “But look at her,” I said testily, lifting her up. “Is she not beautiful?”

  “Oh, beauty she has in abundance,” he said, displaying the first genuine smile I had seen since he entered the birthing chamber. “Just like her mother.”

  I smiled.

  “Still, she is a girl, so I cannot make her my heir.”

  “I would love her no more if she were a boy,” I said defiantly. “I am going to call her Lucrezia, after my mother.” It was a statement, not a request. Her full name would be Lucrezia Giuseppina, but I chose to omit the second name for now.

  “As you wish, my dear.” He moved to the door, then stopped and turned back to me. “This has only strengthened my resolve to beget a son,” he informed me. “We must continue our efforts as soon as possible.” He closed the door behind him with a decisive click.

  I cringed but put our conversation out of my mind as I found myself alone with my daughter for the first time.

  I do not know how long I spent marveling at her. She was perfect. As she drifted into sleep, a look of contentment came over her face, and I felt as if light shined down upon us from heaven itself, bright and warm.

  And she was all mine. There was no one hovering at my bedside, ready to snatch her away. I would have a lifetime to watch every exquisite change that she went through, from babyhood to childhood to womanhood. And never, I vowed, would I let her father or anyone else sell her in marriage or lock her in a convent against her will. Her choices would be her own, and if she chose to marry, it would be for love.

  She soon woke and began to wail. At the sound of her cry, the midwife appeared from the next room. “Let me take la bambina to the wet nurse,” she said, moving to take my daughter from my arms.

  I shifted my body slightly, moving little Lucrezia out of her reach. “Certainly not,” I said, my voice coming out sharp. “I am her mother. I will nurse her myself.”

  The midwife gasped in horror at such a flouting of convention. “But madonna, surely il senatore your husband would prefer—”

  “These are women’s matters, signora, and not something over which my esteemed husband has dominion,” I told her. “I pray you send the wet nurse away with some coins for her trouble.”

  And with that, Lucrezia latched onto my breast, and I blissfully allowed my eyes to drift halfway closed. I was wonderfully, completely happ
y.

  * * *

  Lucrezia’s cradle was placed in my room, so that I might tend to her during the night if need be—though a young maidservant by the name of Giovanna slept in the nursery adjoining my bedchamber, should I need assistance. Exhausted, I immediately fell into a deep sleep the night following her birth, only to awaken with a suffocating sense of urgency in the dark hours of the morning.

  For a moment I thought Lucrezia’s crying must have woken me, but all was silent. Rising, I crossed the room to peer into her cradle. She was perfectly well, her chest rising and falling as her tiny lungs settled into their task.

  Yet as though she could sense her mother nearby, she soon woke and began to fuss. I lifted her out of her cradle and sat in the chair beside it, tugging down the shoulder of my shift to offer her my breast. But Lucrezia was having none of it. I waved away Giovanna, who had stumbled sleepily into the room when she heard the baby’s cries. After unsuccessfully trying to persuade my daughter to feed, I checked her swaddling clothes, but they were dry, leaving me at a loss as to why she continued to wail.

  I tried humming to her, a lullaby I vaguely remembered my mother singing to me. But that did nothing to calm her—small wonder, my vocal talents being quite nonexistent.

  “Please, madonna.” I jumped, startled, when Giovanna slipped back into the room unnoticed. “You need to rest. Let me take the child.”

  “No!” I insisted. “I will tend to her. Go back to bed.”

  The timid Giovanna sighed but did as I commanded.

  In my mind, it had become a test: only if I could find the source of Lucrezia’s distress and soothe it was I fit to be her mother.

  Standing, I began to pace, hoping the movement would lull her back to sleep. In this, too, I was disappointed.

  I placed her back in her cradle, hoping that she might fall asleep again if she were lying down. Still I did not meet with success.

  I wrung my hands, almost frantic. Could she be ill? Should I send for a doctor? Was she in some sort of pain that I could not detect? Did infants simply cry for no reason?

  Wait, I thought suddenly, maybe …

  Kneeling down on the floor beside my bed, I reached underneath and pulled out the violin case that had sat there, untouched, since I had moved into the palazzo. Vivaldi’s violin.

  Lucrezia’s cries faded into the background as I took the instrument out and beheld the polished wood, worn but still gleaming in the dim light. I ran my finger over the strings, listening to them hum. I reached for the bow, tightened it, and ran it slowly over two strings at a time, my fingers automatically moving to tune it. Then I played a long, glorious, drawn-out E, just to hear the music in the air, just to hear the instrument sing. A smile tugged at my lips.

  I moved to the side of Lucrezia’s cradle, took a deep breath, and began to play.

  Slowly and awkwardly, then more smoothly, the second movement, the largo, of Vivaldi’s A-minor concerto from L’estro armonico, came spilling from the strings. I had always suspected, hoped, he had written it as a love song for me. Now it became a different sort of love song, a lullaby for my baby. My fingers were stiff from lack of practice, and I stumbled over sections that I had forgotten, but it did not matter. Lucrezia’s crying slowed to a stop as I played, as though she were as transfixed by this piece of music as I had once been.

  Once I reached the end of the movement, she was drifting off to sleep again. Afraid to stop for fear she would wake again, I quickly began to pick out my mother’s lullaby on the strings, smoothing it out, embellishing and rearranging as I went.

  I do not know how long I played, but when I stopped Lucrezia was sleeping deeply once more. I lowered the instrument, my heart racing. The temptation to keep playing, to reach back into the memories I had walled off for any scrap of music—Vivaldi’s or my own—was almost more than I could bear. Yet I did not want to reach for too much all at once. What if the magic that had returned to me so briefly should disappear if I chased after it too eagerly?

  So I put the violin back in its case, returning it to its spot beneath the bed. There would be time enough to rediscover what I had lost. And suddenly I could no longer remember what it was that I had been so afraid of.

  MOVEMENT SIX

  KEY CHANGE

  May 1714–October 1727

  55

  IMPROMPTU

  “Please have a seat, Senator Baldovino, Donna Baldovino.”

  My husband and I obeyed, taking the two richly upholstered chairs that sat opposite the barrister’s desk.

  Signor Peri pressed his fingertips together, looking at us intently. “I shall get right to the point,” he said. “Your late father’s estate is something of a mess, Donna Baldovino. The details are rather … murky, shall we say.”

  I was not altogether surprised to hear this. In the letter scheduling the reading of my father’s will, he had warned us of some complications that had arisen with the estate. “How so, Signor Peri?” I asked.

  He sighed and picked up a sheaf of papers. “Unfortunately, Don d’Amato never made a new will after the death of your brother, Claudio. The most recent will we have leaves everything—ownership of the company, the palazzo and all its contents, the share in the glass factory, and all financial assets and property—to Claudio. There are a few smaller bequests which he made to several of his servants, which will of course be honored. But his wishes concerning the estate as a whole, of course, cannot be.” He handed me the papers so that I might examine them myself.

  I was not surprised that I had been left out; even had I not horribly disgraced him, this will had been drafted after my marriage. With my dowry paid and me safely ensconced in my husband’s house, there would have been no need for me to receive anything.

  Nor did it surprise me that my normally meticulous father had let such an important matter fall by the wayside. He had gone to pieces after Claudio was killed, showing his age in a way he never had before and indulging heavily in drink. I had thought—rather uncharitably—this was less out of distress over his son’s death and more for the disappointment of his fondest hopes: to see a d’Amato dynasty established that would rival any of the great families of the republic. That dream had been mortally wounded when I had become the wife of a minor senator rather than Tommaso Foscari, and it had breathed its last along with Claudio.

  His death was not entirely a shock. He had been extremely pleased at Lucrezia’s birth, and came to see her several times a week. I had just begun entertaining the hope that we might begin to enjoy a more cordial relationship when, just eight months after his granddaughter’s birth, he had taken a fever. By then, his health was so ruined by neglect that there was nothing any doctor could do.

  Now, several days after his requiem Mass had been sung, we were in the office of Signor Alonso Peri, barrister to both my father and his company, to set his affairs to rights.

  “What will be done with the estate, then?” Giacomo asked as I passed him the papers.

  “This is where I have good news,” Signor Peri said, breaking into a small smile. “My colleagues and I see no problem with the entirety of the estate passing to you, Donna Baldovino, as Enrico d’Amato’s only living child; and by extension your esteemed husband as well.”

  Giacomo looked like a man whose fondest dreams had all come true right before his eyes—and no doubt they had. After all, what more could a patrician with a dwindling fortune ask for when marrying the daughter of a wealthy merchant?

  It did not occur to me he might never forgive me for what I said next. All I thought of was the chance to repay a debt that could never truly be satisfied. “And what if my father had another child?” I asked.

  Both Giacomo and Signor Peri turned to stare at me.

  “Well,” said Signor Peri, recovering his voice first, “that would complicate things, certainly. But as your father had no children other than yourself and Claudio—”

  “He did, in fact,” I said.

  “Adriana,” Giacomo all but growled in
warning.

  I ignored him. “My father has another son who is yet living; an illegitimate son, but a son nonetheless, who is older than me by several years. His name is Giuseppe Rivalli, and he currently resides in Venice.”

  “Well, this is most fascinating, Donna Baldovino,” Signor Peri said. “Can you provide any proof of this claim?”

  I laughed. “Are my words not proof enough? What other reason could I possibly have to relinquish the fortune I stand to inherit, unless it were to see that fortune come into the hands of a most beloved brother?”

  “Adriana,” Giacomo said, attempting to sound pleasant and pacifying, “I do not think that this is entirely appropriate—”

  “On the contrary, husband,” I said. “It could not be more appropriate. You would not wish to wrongly inherit my father’s estate, would you?”

  Giacomo looked positively apoplectic at my words. “But surely this bastard cannot—”

  “Not necessarily,” Signor Peri said, somewhat reluctantly. “Again, the fact that we do not have a current will muddies matters. Though this—Giuseppe Rivalli, is it?—man is not Don d’Amato’s legitimate son, there would have been nothing stopping him from leaving this son the estate, if he so chose. So we cannot assume—”

  Giacomo leaped from his chair with such force that it tipped over. “Like hell we cannot!” he shouted. He pointed one finger at me accusingly. “Your father would never have left anything to that conniving bastard, and you know it!”

  “He did not trouble himself to leave it to me, either,” I said. “Who are you to say which one of us my father hated more?”

  “You will not take this out from under me, Adriana, I swear,” Giacomo said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Please, husband,” I said, placing one hand on my again-growing belly. My pregnancy was already noticeable, although it was only my fourth month; this led Giacomo to hope it would be a strapping son this time. “It does not do to upset a woman in my condition.”