The Violinist of Venice

by Alyssa Palombo

  I had come to dine with him one evening, alone. After dinner, we adjourned to his private sitting room, still discussing a recently published book of poetry we had both read and finishing our dessert wine. The hour grew late, and the wine dwindled, and still I did not take my leave.

  At a pause in the conversation, Tommaso reached out, brushing away a stray curl that had fallen in my face. His hand lingered on my cheek for a moment, then trailed down my neck before abruptly pulling away. “I am sorry,” he said, moving so that he sat farther from me on the daybed.

  I leveled my gaze at him. “You should be.”

  His expression was absolutely stricken. “You should be sorry that you stopped,” I said, a smile playing about my lips.

  “Adriana…” He slid closer, cupping my face in his hands. “Do you mean it?”

  I took a deep breath. “I have wanted it for some time now.” I smiled. “I do not usually make a practice of seducing mourning widowers, but you are just so handsome—”

  His mouth covered mine then, cutting me off, and we did not speak again for some time. His hands explored beneath my bodice, and began to push up my skirts.

  “Yes.” I sighed, reaching for him, beginning to unlace his breeches.

  He drew away. “No.”

  I stared at him in wonder.

  “Not here.” He smiled, stood, and helped me to my feet. “I have waited this long. I can wait the few more minutes it will take me to remove all of your clothes, and make love to you in a proper bed.”

  * * *

  It was Tommaso who taught me that love between a man and a woman can take many forms. It need not be a grand, sweeping passion that can carry you to ecstasy and also destroy you. Instead it can be a quieter love, mingled with friendship and respect and desire and a wish to make the other happy.

  We carried on with our affair unashamedly; he would stay at my palazzo, or I at his, and our children grew so used to our comings and goings that they soon ceased to comment altogether: an unspoken sort of approval that meant a great deal to me. Once Tommaso took me to one of the small islands in the lagoon after nightfall, and we made love on the beach, with not a soul to see us.

  “I am the luckiest man alive,” Tommaso murmured in my ear one night, drawing me tight against him in his bed, his skin warm against mine. “It has taken me years, but finally I have the woman I love in my arms.”

  I arched my neck to smile up at him. “And she is not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  I was so wrapped up in my own romance that when trouble began to brew, I did not notice until it was too late.

  It was Cecilia’s lady’s maid, a girl named Laura, who discovered my daughter’s secret. “She has been ill in the mornings, madonna,” Laura reported nervously. “I have twice this week cleaned the vomit from her chamber pot, and more times before that. And she…” Her face turned red as she looked down at her shoes.

  “Go on,” I encouraged, thanking the Blessed Virgin for loyal servants who would bring me such information about my children, though in truth they were children no longer: Lucrezia was a woman of nineteen, and Antonio and Cecilia had just turned eighteen. God help me, but perhaps there was a bit of my father in me after all.

  “She has not bled these two months past, madonna,” Laura said. “I change her linens and take her clothing to the wash, and there has been no blood.”

  “Mother of God,” I whispered.

  “I cannot be sure, of course, madonna—she does not discuss such things with me—but the signs are there,” Laura said.

  “And who—” I shook my head, cutting myself off. “Never mind. Thank you, Laura. You have done the right thing in coming to me. I will see that a bit extra is added to your wages this month.”

  She curtsied. “I hope it may all end well, madonna,” she said, turning to leave the room.

  So do I, I thought, the dread in my belly so heavy that I could barely rise from my chair.

  * * *

  I summoned Cecilia to my sitting room immediately.

  “Cecilia,” I said, as she entered and sat. “I have heard some disturbing news this morning.”

  Her face remained impassive. “Oh? And what might that be?”

  “I think you know.”

  She grew a bit paler. “I have not the slightest idea, Mother.”

  “Do not play the coy maiden with me, girl,” I snapped. “It is rather too late for that, or so I hear.”

  In an explosion of rage, she rose from her chair. “Laura!” she cried. “I might have known that minx could not keep a secret—”

  “Sit down,” I commanded, rising to my feet as well. “Your maid did right, coming to me as soon as she did, so that we might take this in hand. Sit down, Cecilia, now.”

  But she just stood there, chin raised defiantly, her eyes boring into mine. “It does not matter what you think,” she informed me. “I love him, and he loves me.”

  God and Mary Virgin preserve me, I thought, a freezing chill sweeping over me, as though I beheld a ghost. I have given birth to my own image. “Who?” I asked aloud.

  She raised her chin higher. “Andrea,” she said. “Andrea Foscari.”

  “Dear God,” I whispered, and shame washed over me. What manner of mother was I, that I had not seen it? “How long has this been going on?”

  She took a deep breath and looked away. “Since Carnevale,” she said. “At the party Don Foscari gave.”

  Lord, Holy Mother, forgive me. I had been there, we all had, and I had not noticed that Andrea Foscari had led my daughter away—or the reverse, knowing Cecilia as I did.

  I had been rather occupied that night, when Tommaso—disguised so well that I almost did not recognize him—had led me away from the party and down to the mezzanine, where he had pressed my back against the wall, hiked up my skirts, and taken me swiftly and almost roughly, as if we were a pair of servants trying to escape the master’s eye. I had returned to the party flushed and with a grin I could not entirely hide, prompting Giulietta to wink at me and say, “You are not a true Venetian until you have made love to a masked man during Carnevale.”

  If only we had known, that night, that we were not the only ones behaving like fools in love … I shook my head in disgust at myself. “Andrea cannot marry you,” I said aloud. “He is betrothed to Elena Corner. And yet he says that he loves you, dishonoring you when he cannot act as a gentleman and ask for your hand?”

  “He does not love her, much less wish to marry her. I would not expect you to understand,” Cecilia shot back. “What would you know of love, married all those years to my father?”

  “Do not dare to speak of what you do not understand,” I replied. “I know more than you do, it seems, about what befalls young women who give away their hearts and their maidenhead.”

  “How? How would you know?” she demanded scornfully.

  “How do you think? Because I, too, fell in love with a man who could not marry me, and found myself with child as a result!”

  The shock on Cecilia’s face made me realize what I had said. Just like that, my greatest secret, the one I had guarded so closely all these years, was secret no longer.

  “What?” she cried.

  I looked down. “That is neither here nor there.”

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “I am not here to answer to you for my actions, you foolish girl,” I said. “Quite the reverse.”

  “But then … surely you must understand…”

  “Better than you can imagine,” I said. “And I also understand that my daughter has repeated my mistakes, which was the last thing I ever wanted.”

  “Maybe if you had told us of your mistakes,” she retorted, “we may have learned from them.”

  I had no answer for that, but I would be damned if I admitted it. “Go to your rooms and stay there,” I said, “while I see what can be done about this mess.”

  “What do you mean? What are you going to do?”

  “Go see Andre
a’s father, of course.”

  Her face paled. “You are going to tell him?”

  “Of course. He must know, so that we may deal with this.” I stared hard at her. “Go. Now. And do not make me lock you in your rooms, as my father once did to me.”

  This time, sullenly, she did as she was told. When I passed by her door on my way down to the dock, I could hear her within, weeping.

  I arrived unannounced at Tommaso’s palazzo, and he came to greet me with a wide smile, removing my damp cloak.

  “Adriana, this is an unexpected pleasure,” he said. His hands slid down to the laces on the back of my gown. “Let me help you remove a few other things as well…”

  I frowned. “Would that this visit were a pleasurable one, Tommaso.”

  His smile fell away. “What has happened?”

  “It is best that we talk in private,” I said. Without delay, he led me up the stairs to his sitting room. He called for the servants to light a fire and bring wine, then settled into a chair beside mine. “Tell me, Adia,” he said softly, calling me by the pet name that only he ever used. “Whatever it is, we shall face it together.”

  “My daughter Cecilia,” I said. “She is with child.”

  He drew in his breath sharply.

  “Like mother, like daughter,” I said, causing him to blanch. We had never spoken of our painful past since that night when he had sought me out for a dance, but it could no longer be left to lie. “She is, Tommaso,” I said, tears beginning to fall. “She is just like me: impulsive and headstrong and impervious to reason when her heart is involved. I should have seen that this would happen, and told her of my mistakes so she would not repeat them…”

  “Shhh,” he said, taking my hand, stroking my fingers lightly. “It is not your fault, Adriana. Our children grow and become adults, doing what they will.” He squeezed my hand. “Anything that I can do to help, I will.”

  I laughed through my tears. “How I wish you meant that, Tommaso.”

  He looked startled. “Why do you think I do not?”

  “I have not told you who the father is.”

  At first he seemed puzzled, then all at once the truth became apparent. “No,” he whispered. “Andrea.”

  I nodded.

  “Damn the fool!” He rose and began angrily pacing the room. “Does he not know better? Have I not raised him to comport himself better than this? He has a duty, to me and to his family—”

  “She told me they love each other,” I said.

  “They are neither of them twenty years old!” he exclaimed. “What do they know of love?”

  “As much as we did at that age, I expect.”

  He paused, acknowledging the many truths behind my words. “And what is to be done now?”

  “I came here to ask you that very question,” I said.

  He spun away from me. “Damnation! What are we to do, Adriana? They cannot marry. I am sorry, but they cannot. He is already contracted to Elena Corner; his mother made the match, it was her wish—”

  “I am not asking you to break the betrothal,” I said. “I am asking you to consider whether you are willing to do to our children what our parents did to us.”

  “This is not the same, Adriana,” he said, his voice heavy with warning. “I would remind you of that.”

  “You are right, it is not,” I said. “All I am asking is that you let them choose for themselves.”

  Silence ensued. After a long while, Tommaso stalked to the door, opened it, and stuck his head out, calling for one of the servants. “Bring Andrea to me,” he said. “Immediately.” He returned to his chair, spinning his wineglass in his fingers. He did not look at me or speak further.

  After a few moments, Andrea entered the room. He froze as he saw both of us sitting there.

  “Sit,” Tommaso said, gesturing to a chair across from us.

  Andrea sat, his back straight, his head held high.

  He was a handsome young man, I thought, studying him. It was easy to see why he had turned Cecilia’s head.

  “No doubt you know why you are here,” Tommaso said. “I expect you to answer for your actions as a man would.”

  “You know, then,” he said, glancing at me. “That Cecilia and I … she told you.”

  “Her maid did, rather,” I interjected. “She discovered that my daughter is with child.” I noted the lack of surprise on Andrea’s face. “As you know.”

  “Damn it, Andrea!” Tommaso burst out. “Have you no sense? What can you have been thinking, to so dishonor the daughter of a patrician, of a senator?”

  “I love her,” Andrea said quietly. “As she loves me. There is no dishonor in that.”

  “And your betrothed?” Tommaso demanded. “What of her?”

  Andrea shook his head. “I do not love her,” he said. “I do not even particularly like her. She is vain and foolish, and all her conversation is malicious gossip. Not like Cecilia.” As he said her name, his whole expression changed. “She is intelligent—more so than many men. And beautiful, and the music that she plays…” He shook his head. “Any man would be honored, should she agree to be his wife, were she the daughter of a senator or a gondolier. I wonder that she ever even looked twice at me.”

  That was enough for me. I saw it then: he loved my daughter; she was not just sport or a dalliance. He was a good man, just like his father.

  “And so you expect me to break your betrothal?” Tommaso asked. “The Corners are a family not easily slighted, figlio.”

  “You need break nothing, Father,” Andrea said. “Cecilia and I have been discussing it. We will elope, and leave Venice together. My honor is better served by doing right by my child and the woman I love than it is standing by a promise my mother made on my behalf.”

  Silence. After a moment, Tommaso looked at me. “And would your daughter consent to wed my son, then?”

  A smile broke out on my face. “I believe that she would, yes.”

  Tommaso sighed. “Well, then, yes. God forbid that I should stand in the way of a young couple in love. There is enough of that in this Venice of ours as it is.”

  70

  MY CONFESSION

  And so it was settled. Andrea and Cecilia would be married in April of 1734, two months before the child was due, thus allowing it to be born in the marriage bed, even if it was not conceived there.

  Tommaso and I gave a grand party to celebrate the betrothal of our children. No one but our families knew Cecilia was with child; though no doubt Venice would find out soon enough, for the moment it was a secret. And whatever people chose to think later, no one who saw the couple that night could doubt that they were very much in love—and that their parents were very pleased to have it so.

  I learned that Lucrezia had known of Cecilia and Andrea’s affair all along, and of her sister’s pregnancy. I could not find it in me to fault her for not telling me; after all, who better than I to understand the bond between siblings?

  The night of the party, Vittoria and I looked on as Andrea made a toast to his bride-to-be, declaring himself the happiest and most fortunate of men, and heaping boundless praise upon the blushing Cecilia—good heavens, when had I ever seen the girl blush, of all things?

  “They are a lovely couple,” Vittoria murmured to me. “Oh, Adriana, I am so happy for them, and so glad you and Tommaso were able to come to an accord. Not that he set himself against anything you wanted, I will wager,” she added slyly.

  I laughed. “You may or may not be right about that, sorella. But all we want is our children’s happiness.”

  “Then you are successful.” She watched the couple kiss, to the applause of those present. “There is nothing like one’s first love,” she said. “I am lucky enough to be married to mine, and so will Cecilia.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Not all of us are so fortunate, and it has always been my fondest wish for my children.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Vittoria studying me as the speech ended and the crowd began to disp
erse. Softly, so softly I was almost not sure I had heard her, she said, “It was Maestro Vivaldi, was it not?”

  I could only stare at her, dumbstruck with horror.

  Apparently I had not kept my secret as well as I thought.

  I grabbed her arm and drew her out into the hall where there was no danger of being overheard. But once there, I still could not speak.

  “Oh, Adriana, forgive me,” she said. “Forgive me for prying; it is a sin I will readily confess. I have been curious, and I thought … it seemed to me that everything fit together, over the years.”

  When still I remained silent, she said, “Please forgive me. I should not have said anything.”

  She made to return to the ballroom, but I reached out, stopping her. “I can only imagine what you must think of me,” I said.

  To my surprise, she smiled slightly. “I admit, I was a bit shocked when first I thought I had stumbled upon the answer. But … he was always a rather difficult man to work with; at the Pietà he demanded perfection at all times. Yet we all adored him just the same, perhaps because of that.” She studied my face. “So I can see how easy it must have been for you to love him. And just as easy for him to love you.”

  “It was,” I whispered. “It was easy to love him, and yet painful at the same time.” I cleared my throat. “Did Giuseppe—”

  “No,” she hurriedly assured me. “Giuseppe never breathed a word. I asked him once, after we were married, if he knew who your great lost love was. He tried to avoid the question, but I…” She smiled ruefully. “I pressed him, which was wrong of me. It was the only time in our marriage that he has ever spoken sharply to me. He said that it was your secret to tell, not his.”

  “I am sorry to have caused discord between you,” I said.

  Vittoria smiled. “Do not be. It is one of the things I love most about him—his loyalty.” She paused, studying me. “There is one thing I still do not understand,” she said. “Where does Anna Girò fit into all this?”

  I took a deep breath. “She is our daughter. Mine and Maestro Vivaldi’s.”

  Vittoria threw her arms around me. “Oh, Adriana,” she whispered. “I will not tell a soul. I will take it to my grave, I swear.”