The Orphan's Song

by Lauren Kate

  The women’s howls of laughter brought him back to the piazza. “My sior goes to church only when the doge demands it. His god is wine and money.”

  “The cori play beautiful music,” Mino said.

  “Everyone knows that,” the blonde said, “but he never even takes me to the opera; he’s as happy with a street performer.”

  Mino looked around. The violinist was gone but two more were setting up, tuning their instruments. Again he wished to hold their violins, to feel with his whole body the glide of the bow. Mino had never been to the opera, but he did know of men who crossed three sestieri and the Grand Canal simply for the experience of the Incurables coro.

  The brunette looked thoughtful. “Luigi Fontacari just married a singer from the Incurables. She’s breathtaking. And young. Fontacari says she sings like a bird, though he’s the only one who’ll hear it.”

  “Why is that?” her friend asked.

  “She signed an oath,” Mino said. “A condition of accepting the dowry from the Incurables. Once the girls leave and marry, they must never sing outside the home.”

  “How sad,” the blonde said.

  The brunette nodded. “And she was famous. Imagine giving all that up.” She snorted. “For old Fontacari. Pray she gets a good cicisbeo.”

  The women laughed.

  Mino leaned forward, his heart in his throat. “What is her name, this musician from the Incurables?”

  “They called her Giustina, bella voce,” the brunette said.

  * * *

  ALL NIGHT HE wrestled with his disbelief. Giustina, married already? He tried not to think of the place in the coro her departure would have opened. He’d had to fight to keep from following the women as they left to spy on the blonde’s married boyfriend.

  He had not let himself consider how Violetta’s fate might still be in flux. Now, as he wandered the moonlit piazza, it obsessed him. Had Letta progressed to the coro like she wanted? Or had Giustina’s place gone to Reine, as Letta had long feared?

  Once, he had thought that by now he would have enough money from the squero to move her to a larger, more comfortable home. To marry her. Even to have a child on the way, if she’d felt ready. He thought he’d have found his mother, too. Or if not her, at least some evidence of her existence, of his family.

  Mino’s dreams were meant to feel closer, instead of ever farther beyond his reach. But that hadn’t happened. He didn’t recognize the life he was living now.

  By morning, as the sun rose over the water, he and Sprezz loitered in San Marco. Near the gold-painted basilica, where the piazza opened to face the Grand Canal, two columns towered over the square. Both had been brought from the East six centuries ago. One held up a magnificent bronze statue of a huge winged lion. He had a flowing, curly mane, a tail almost in motion, and the bearing of an angel taking flight; he was the emblem of San Marco, of the city. He was Venice, cast in metal.

  The other column featured a marble sculpture of San Teodoro, a slain crocodile at his feet. He represented the republic’s independence. Looking up, Mino thought of Letta.

  Pale pink light shone on the canal as he sat against the base of the column. Its plinth was ringed by three stone steps, worn to seats over the years. He scratched Sprezz beneath his chin. He yearned to sleep, but his mind couldn’t rest.

  To whom had the coro spot gone—Violetta or Reine? Mino had heard the prioress whisper that Reine’s tuition equaled ten times the alms the other orphans collected on their walks through the Dorsoduro. Reine would expect Giustina’s spot; nothing in her life had prepared her to think otherwise.

  But then, there was Violetta. She was known to be trouble, but almost everyone was drawn to her. She had always been blind to the effect she had on others. She’d once told Mino he was the only soul who cared whether she lived or died. He’d been dumb enough to take that as a compliment, intimate words from someone grateful for his love. He realized later that she meant it. She truly could not see what Mino did when he watched her through the courtyard window. She claimed Laura loved everyone, not seeing how Laura loved her best of all. She couldn’t see the way the younger girls adored her, mimicking her walk and intonations. Mino knew why. Violetta was freer than any of them, and everyone wanted a taste.

  He had assumed, at least, she knew how he felt about her. She used to say she knew everything Mino was thinking, and he’d believed her, taking comfort in the fact that sometimes he didn’t have to speak. It emboldened him—to feel transparent and still loved. He had taken it for granted. He’d assumed she knew that if anyone were to open Mino’s heart, they would find Letta’s name engraved upon it.

  That afternoon, his proposal had seemed a trifling detail in their romance; he’d been so certain she already knew.

  He closed his eyes and heard her voice. He let it come to him. On the days they’d played together on the roof—his violin, her song—Mino wanted for nothing. How sure he had been that their future was bright.

  “Nice dog.”

  Mino’s arm snapped around Sprezz as he jolted awake. He had fallen asleep beneath the column. The day was gone. It was late afternoon and crowds of men and women sidestepped him as they moved along toward the stretch of bridges. He looked for the speaker, reclaiming his bearings, holding tight to Sprezz.

  “I used to have a dog,” the man said. Mino saw him standing on the dock a few feet away, leaning against a tall oar. He was wearing the black-and-white shirt and straw hat of a public gondolier. He looked as young as Mino. “Two years since Cherry died. Two years since anyone understood me.” He smiled sadly, and Mino felt for him. He had known Sprezz for a single day, but would rather die than lose him now.

  He loosened his grip on Sprezz. “He’s friendly, if you want to say hello.”

  Sprezz trotted toward the man, who leaned down to pat his head. “He wants a ride,” he said as Sprezz hopped into his gondola, sniffing its perimeter. “Where are you bound, little pup?”

  “Come back, Sprezz,” Mino called.

  “It’s fine.” The man grinned at the sight of Sprezz standing on two paws at the gondola’s helm. “Maybe you two want a ride? It’s on me. I’m going to the Zattere.”

  Mino looked at the dog wagging his tail, at the grinning gondolier. The Zattere bordered the Incurables. The promenade was nearly an hour’s walk from here, but surely far shorter by boat. He looked up at the almost setting sun. Five o’clock, he guessed. He didn’t believe in luck or signs, but if they left now, he could make it to vespers. He could discover whether she’d made the coro. He could find a way to let it bring him peace.

  “Why not?” he said and climbed inside the boat, trying not to show how the rocking alarmed him. He had been given a basic lesson in rowing as part of his early training at the squero, so that he might understand how the vessels he would build worked. But that single hour on the quiet canal near the shop seemed another lifetime now. He sat down as quickly as he could on the first bench, not even making it beneath the shelter of the wooden fèlze where passengers were meant to sit.

  Sprezz hopped up beside him, his tail wagging against Mino, who put his arm around the dog, as much to steady himself.

  “I’m Mino.”

  “Carlo,” the gondolier said, leaning to shake Mino’s hand from his post at the back of the vessel. He pushed his oar off the dock to back out into the canal. He began to row. It was even colder on the water than it had been on the promenade, and Mino pulled his tabarro close.

  He studied the small circular movements of Carlo’s arms, the flexing of his torso, and the remarkable balance of his stance, memories of his lesson coming back to him. This man embodied the world Mino would have created if he’d gone to work at the squero. He paid very close to attention to the way Carlo’s strokes hardly rippled the surface, how he leaned into the oar, his body tipped forward at such an angle that Mino was certain he would fall in. But when Mino g
lanced around, every gondolier passing by steered precisely that way, their chests jutting out. Rowing was a dance between gondolier and water.

  Mino was unaccustomed to this hidden view of his city, a few piedi below the street. He saw the undersides of the calli he’d walked along so many times, sheathed in glowing green moss. He felt the cool blink of darkness as they passed beneath bridges. He saw how the buildings tilted forward slightly, as if reaching for one another across the water. He thought he knew the sounds of Venice, but to ride on the canals was to become part of a rhythm he’d never heard before. There were no rests in the lovely music of the water; the waves struck a chord that went on and on.

  The boat entered the maelstrom of the Grand Canal, joining a matching fleet of gleaming black gondolas all moving on the water as if breathing. Carlo threaded between a hundred other vessels, whistling at friends, picking up the next line of a song someone else was crooning as they passed. Once, the helm of his boat nearly skimmed another’s, and the men traded obscenities with glee.

  “I’ll drown your unborn children, brute,” the other man shouted.

  “At least my madonna isn’t a whore,” Carlo called back, winking at Mino. Sprezz barked his support.

  The wind pummeled them, and the rocking made Mino queasy, but the sunlight warmed his skin. It made everything on the water seem to sparkle. This was the way to travel in Venice. In the life he’d dreamed of having, he would have eventually been able to afford this for Letta. But he could no more pay for a gondola ride now than he could earn her love, and when he looked again around the Grand Canal, his heart turned bitter at the sight of all the other carefree passengers.

  A quarter of an hour later they arrived at the Zattere. From the water, the facade of the Incurables looked taller, bleaker, more impenetrable. So it was to Mino now. He could not go to the only home he remembered. He could enter only the public door to the church. This pained him more than he expected, a tense knot in his chest.

  Carlo secured the boat, Mino thanked him and hopped off, gulping air to settle his stomach. Sprezz followed at his heels until Mino reached the entrance, then the dog circled twice and sat down outside to wait.

  Mino bowed his head and entered the church. It was as crowded as ever, packed with upward of a thousand Venetians and tourists. He pulled his cloak higher, studying the tiled terrazzo as he moved for the nearest pew. He felt exposed. He wished the law allowed masks inside.

  He didn’t let himself look up at the brass grille. He did not wish to be witnessed, but more than that, Mino wanted to hear rather than to see Violetta’s fate. He wanted to know through the music whether she had made it.

  He did not anticipate that Father Marché’s prayers would affect him, but the consolation they brought was immediate, like food to an empty stomach. The priest said the kyrie, led them through gloria and credo, and Mino felt sorrow that he could never be known in this place again, with all its comforting mysteries.

  He closed his eyes when the music began, his body tight with nerves through the first two orchestral movements. Then her voice arrived, a sound like morning, everything rising.

  Oh, Letta.

  The magic of her singing filled the chapel, filled Mino until he thought he would burst. In her voice he heard the details of her life as a lead soprano. He saw her sunlit corner room, her eager assistants, the years of fame to come, the money and the suitors. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look at her.

  Through the grille her pale skin shone. The movement of her lips enchanted Mino. He longed to stand up, to shout out his apologies, to climb the wall and leap over the grille. He longed to hold her, to interrupt her song with a kiss.

  How quickly it was over. He sat when everyone else rose to leave. He couldn’t move. When he looked up, she was gone, and he knew she’d been whisked away, first to a retiring room where younger girls would bring her tea, as Violetta had once done for Giustina.

  It should have been all he needed to see, but Mino wanted more. He wanted to talk to her. He had to reach her. But how? Find the prioress and beg for a meeting like any other man who wished to see a coro girl?

  Mino couldn’t. She never wanted to see him again. And what would he say? Congratulations? She was above him now, that white dress, her hair brilliant and swept off her face in a new style. This was her destiny.

  It had never been him.

  He had always sensed he wasn’t enough for her. He’d tried to fight it with his proposal, but he’d never really had a chance. This life was so much bigger than the one he could have offered her.

  He left the church dejected, stepping outside in a daze. Dusk had fallen and the lights of Giudecca shone on the canal. Sprezz appeared at his side, and Mino patted him as he walked without knowing where he was going. He found himself back before Carlo’s gondola. He wanted someone to talk to, to take him out of his head.

  The gondola was there, but the gondolier wasn’t. Carlo’s straw hat rested on the post of the dock, and Mino picked it up, spinning it between his palms absently. Sprezz barked, and Mino looked up to see a man dressed in the red patrician vest of a senator.

  “I need to get out of here. Quickly. Is this your boat?”

  Mino shook his head, but when he looked up, the man tossed him a snakeskin purse. It was heavy with coins, more gold than Mino had ever held.

  “What can I do for you?” Mino asked.

  “Take me to La Sirena. Don’t be followed.” The senator was already in the gondola, seated inside the wooden fèlze, fanning out the wide sleeves of his robe. He drew a bauta from his cloak and fastened it about his face, replacing his tricorne atop it. It was Lent, so masks were prohibited on the streets, but many Venetians still carried them should the night run wild. At the neighborhood gambling houses, especially this far from the Doge’s Palace in San Marco, a desire for anonymity skirted under the city’s restrictive laws.

  The senator seemed to relax beneath his mask and the fèlze. He was staring out the window, Mino realized, at a woman hurrying toward them. Mino thought of the ladies he’d met earlier and laughed to himself. In all his years growing up there, he’d never known the Incurables was a place where men could temporarily disappear.

  “Go!” the senator commanded.

  Mino whistled to Sprezz, who hopped on. His palms were sweating. He couldn’t believe what he was about to attempt. If it worked, he would bring the boat back straightaway. He’d apologize to Carlo, split the money. He would give thanks to Saint Jude, patron of lost causes. For now he could worry about nothing but how to row. He needed that gold. He put Carlo’s hat on his head. He prayed for his long-ago lesson to flow through his limbs, to guide him. He tottered toward the back of the boat.

  He lifted the oar from its rowlock on the right side of the boat. He pushed off the dock post, just as Carlo had done. Sprezz ran the length of the boat, hopping up to be close to Mino. His arms were shaking, his hands freezing in the wind, knuckles white. His heart raced as he dipped the oar into the water. He tested it against the current. He had no idea where he was going, what La Sirena was, but he grasped the fundamentals: this man wanted to escape that woman. The money would be Mino’s so long as he achieved that feat.

  “You don’t exactly have the Venetian stroke,” the senator called, shaking frigid water from his boot, which Mino had soaked with a splash of his oar. Mino rowed more gently. Smaller circles, like Carlo had done. He could learn.

  He might do all right if he never had to turn. But now he was approaching an intersection with another, narrower canal. Which would be more difficult: executing a turn up the calm, minor canal—or carrying on along the busy and turbulent Giudecca waterway? He didn’t know how to manage either.

  His choice was made for him as he heard the wailed warning of an approaching gondolier, who turned out of the narrow channel just as Mino would have passed. Mino rowed forcefully, fast circles to the right, arcing the bow i
n an attempt to avoid the crash. But the iron teeth of the fèrro at the helm of his boat sparred with the iron teeth of the other, and instantly the boats were tangled. The impact jostled Mino almost headfirst into the water. He staggered for balance, then put his arm out to catch Sprezz.

  His mind went to the purse in his pocket, and he knew he was on the cusp of losing it if he didn’t play the boatman. So just like Carlo, Mino began to curse the other gondolier.

  “Are you steering a ship or stirring polenta with that spatula, you harlequin?” he belted out at the other man, who was savagely using his oar to extricate his boat.

  “It was your whore of a mother who taught me,” the man shouted back.

  Mino had been moving toward the bow of his boat, coming at the fèrro with his own oar, but he froze, stunned by the man’s words. They felt like an indictment. He had failed to find his mother, failed even to attempt it.

  Fury rose in Mino, at himself, at the oarsman who dared insult his mother. He had the oar in his hands—

  But at that moment, the other man loosed his fèrro from Mino’s, sending the boats gliding apart and Mino up the narrower canal.

  He heard the other gondolier go back to singing his barcarolle, as if nothing unpleasant had happened. Mino gasped for air and tried to calm himself.

  He determined that if he made it off this boat, he would change his ways. He would use this money to pull himself together, to devote himself to his search for his family. That vespers service had proved once and for all that he could never have had Letta. He must instead trace love backward, to the source.

  He glanced at the senator, who met Mino’s eyes and chuckled.

  “Boatmen,” the man said to himself.

  Mino exhaled, relieved to know he had not sacrificed his purse. “Where is La Sirena?” he asked.

  The senator stared at him, amused. “I thought every man in Dorsoduro had darkened La Sirena’s door.” He pointed north toward the Grand Canal. “Sempre dritto.” The only Venetian direction ever given: always straight. “Curve left at rio della Toletta. It will be to the right, just past the third bridge.”