The Orphan's Song

by Lauren Kate

  In rehearsal, as they worked on Porpora’s opera Rosbale, Violetta felt distracted, watching the sun drag across the sky through the clerestory windows. How distant the night still was, how torturous the passage of time.

  * * *

  BY MOONLIGHT, in her mask and her simplest dress, with her necklace stowed in a pouch in her pocket, she made her fifth escape out her window.

  On the warm and windy promenade, she kept apart from larger groups of revelers. But when she saw a young, elegant couple rounding the corner from the narrow calle Incurabili, she hurried to catch up to them.

  “Your gown is beautiful,” Violetta said, falling in step with the woman, eyeing her lavender silk skirt.

  The woman stopped walking, leaned a hip toward Violetta, offering her garment up for praise. She wore no mask but at the corner of her eye, she showed off a black beauty mark known as la passionata. Every Venetian beauty mark signified something different, and this one meant the woman burned with passion for the particular man at her side. Some of the orphan girls, Laura among them, swooned over the romance of la passionata.

  “I’ve never seen silk so fine,” Violetta said.

  “It’s from the dressmaker at La Minada, on calle—”

  “Can she make another?”

  “I’m sure she could make one for you”—she glanced at Violetta’s orphan’s dress—“for a price.”

  Violetta shook her head. “Could she make another for you? I should like to have this one. Tonight.”

  The woman and her lover started laughing.

  “How much is it worth to you?” the man teased, but when Violetta pulled out her purse and started counting sequins, his eyes widened and his laughter ceased.

  “Will five do?”

  “Why would you pay so much for a dress?” the woman asked, looking at Violetta with sudden distrust.

  Violetta’s impatience had caused her to offer too much money. She hadn’t wanted to waste time haggling, but it would be worse if the woman tried to determine who Violetta was, why she had so much to spare.

  Luckily, her lover was already pulling her into an alcove of a door, untying the laces of the gown’s skirt. “Who cares?” he hissed.

  As her fine skirt dropped to the ground, the woman spun around and glared at him, but then a brief and silent negotiation waged between their eyes, and a moment later, the woman began unpinning the top of her gown, and then the lace stomacher, handing Violetta the dozen straight pins with increasing irritation.

  When the woman stood in her stays and her chemise, Violetta gave her the coins. Her beau held out his hand, offering to hold them, but the woman swiftly tucked them into the linen pocket tied around her waist. She looked at Violetta and the pale purple dress in her hands.

  “Six and I’ll throw in my corset.”

  Her lover turned his face to hide his laughter, either in greedy delight or at the thrill of his woman standing naked but for her chemise in the middle of Venice.

  Violetta had long been curious how she would look and feel wearing stays. But she had no one to lace it for her, and besides, it would be challenge enough to pin the stomacher and then the gown in place on her own.

  “I’d rather your kerchief,” she said, gesturing at the woman’s neck even as she struggled to manage the three pieces of her new garment and all its pins.

  The woman shrugged. “As you like,” she said, untying the airy silk scarf at her neck, taking the extra sequin in exchange. Then she was helping her beau out of his tabarro, which she draped over her shoulders, and the two of them hurried toward the Zaterre without another look back.

  Violetta changed in the same alcove. Though she had watched the woman remove her stomacher carefully, it was far harder to pin the stiff triangular garment on straight against the fabric of her own ospedale gown. They never wore anything so complicated at the Incurables. She stabbed at her breast with the pins, cursing under her breath, telling herself tonight would be worth it. Eventually she moved on to the skirt, fastening the laces as tight as she could, trying to approximate the shape the stays would have given her waist. She couldn’t breathe at all. But instead of loosening the skirt, Violetta remembered watching the women on the altana getting laced into their corsets. She looked down at her own changed form and grinned. She secured the knot. She would simply take smaller breaths.

  The top of the dress was just as complicated, and by then her fingers were impatient. She might be there all night pinning herself together. What she needed was a cicisbeo, who would have not only pinned but offered a comb for her hair. Then she laughed at herself. How quickly she was changing.

  She had no makeup, no beauty marks, no ringlets in her hair, but she had a mask and a dress whose skirt swished along the pavement. She had a necklace that changed color at every step, and a need that propelled her forward. She found a wellhead behind which to fold her own dress, which she would need before returning to the Incurables. She followed the calli toward memories of his palazzo. Her heart quickened when at last she saw its grand iron gate. She gauged the nearby buildings for a sign of the casino he had told her was nearby.

  A blue light at the end of the calle caught her eye, and she drew closer. She passed three bridges, then a remarkable tree with a silvery bough that reached up out of its red-brick-walled garden to drop leaves into the water. She’d never seen such a tree in Venice; the rare greenery in the city was usually meticulously groomed, needing to fit a confined space. This tree’s need to grow out of its bounds struck a chord in Violetta.

  She reached a spiral stone staircase curving from the street up to a second-story balcony. The blue light came from a glass lantern outside the door. Her hand met the smooth stone of the banister as she wound up the stairs. At the top, a doorkeeper examined her inscrutably. There was a plaque depicting a fishtail beneath the lantern, lit blue by its light. She’d come to the right place.

  “Help you?” the doorkeeper said.

  She raised her chin, repositioned the kerchief at her neck, and subtly showed the opal necklace. His guarded stance turned supple.

  “A moment, siora,” he said, and disappeared inside the door.

  He returned quickly with a second man, twice as old and also in black. A domino covered the top half of his face. Violetta recognized him as the servant who had first greeted her at the palazzo masquerade. She remembered the twinkle in his eyes.

  “Siora,” he said with a gracious bow. “My name is Fortunato. I am at your service.”

  Violetta curtseyed. In any other circumstance, she would have felt the social blunder of not offering her name, but she remembered the words of the man who’d given her this necklace. The gift’s purpose had been anonymity, and Violetta suspected Fortunato understood this.

  “May I bring you to him?” he said.

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” she said, suddenly nervous at how the night was accelerating. “I’ll just take a moment.”

  He bowed again. “Should you need anything, only look for me.”

  She curtseyed again and passed through the door, feeling the power of the stone around her neck.

  Stepping inside the casino was like stepping into a new world. It was nothing like the palazzo, where everything had been pastel, brushed gold, and reflective chandeliers. The casino was possessed of a darker mystique. Its ceiling was paneled leather, its walls tiled with painted squares depicting pairs of lovers in poses that made Violetta look twice, then blush. She pressed against them, looking for the man. Half the room wore fine patrician vesti, and Violetta worried she might not be able to find him in the crowd.

  Suddenly, their last interaction seemed insignificant, ages ago. Would he even remember her? She touched the opal necklace. It was still there. It was real.

  A chalumeau played a soulful glissando at the far side of the room, couples tangled in the corners, and card games erupted as Violetta’s eyes scanne
d the room. She ran fingertips across a tabletop, felt a mountain range of wax from former candles. And then she saw him, at the bar, talking closely with two red-robed men. Once again, he was the only man without a mask.

  She took some time to study his features at a distance. The line of his jaw, the slant of his nose, and the penetrating sparkle in his eyes felt as familiar to Violetta as her own face. It was as if she’d spent her life gazing at a portrait of him. Or as if she’d spent her life envisioning a man and had finally brought him to life.

  She wished she’d come sooner. Surely she’d be less nervous had not so much time passed since they’d met. Her heart beat quickly as she crossed the room.

  She was about to touch his shoulder when he turned to her and, glimpsing the necklace, smiled. He took her hand and kissed it.

  “I was beginning to think you were a dream,” he said.

  He remembered her. She left her hand in his after the kiss.

  “Mystery singer,” he whispered in her ear. “Champagne?”

  “Perhaps a sip,” she said, remembering her first and only taste of champagne at his party. She was as amazed to be here now as she had been that night. She drew in her breath when she felt his fingers at her waist. Firm and assured, he guided her through the casino.

  After spending the last month thinking of him, his touch thrilled her beyond expectation, sent a shiver coursing through her. She leaned into his hands, subtly arching her back, her whole body curving toward him like a wave about to crash. They reached a table at the back of the room and he let her go too soon.

  “Please,” he said, pulling out a chair.

  She found herself seated across from a woman who looked like a painting. She was older than Violetta, with oiled skin beneath her black domino and a painted black sfrontata beauty mark on the bridge of her nose, signifying forwardness. Her stack of necklaces was so thick you could see no skin between her collarbone and her chin. She glanced up from the hand of cards she played with another man and nodded at Violetta.

  “Pack my pipe, and not so poorly as last time,” the woman ordered her in a dismissive tone that reminded Violetta of Reine.

  Violetta’s cheeks blazed. At the Incurables, she would fire back a retort, but here she needed to blend in, remain anonymous.

  “Lucrezia.” He put a hand over the woman’s, and Violetta saw how the touch softened her. Her chin lifted and she placed her other hand atop his.

  “Darling?”

  Violetta felt jealous, then foolish. Had she misread the man’s invitation for her to come again? She tugged at her kerchief to cover the opal necklace.

  “She’s not your servant,” he told the woman. “She’s a singer.”

  “Small distinction,” the woman said.

  He turned to Violetta with an apologetic look. “She plays Griselda in the opera at San Samuele this season. She is one of the finest contraltos in Venice, and I thought you two should meet.”

  “I’m not—” Violetta started to say.

  “If she were a singer of consequence, Federico, I would already know her.”

  Federico. Violetta thought the name suited him. She toyed with it on her tongue, wanting to say it aloud.

  “Perhaps you’d like to see a performance,” Federico said to Violetta, sitting down between the two women. “Lucrezia is so good tickets are hard to come by, but I have a box at the theater.”

  “I can’t,” Violetta said, crestfallen.

  Federico studied her. He leaned close enough that she forgot Lucrezia.

  “Is it the hour?” he asked. “Too soon after sundown?”

  Violetta nodded, nervous, trying to keep her secret without pushing him away.

  “Because you have a family?” he said.

  He wanted to know if she was married. She wanted to know the same about him. “It isn’t that,” she said.

  “What then?” Federico said.

  “Perhaps she takes exception to old men wooing her in front of their lovers,” Lucrezia shot at him and puffed her pipe.

  Violetta flushed but Federico was undeterred. “What then?”

  “Obligations,” she said.

  He smiled. “What time do they rest for the night?”

  “What time is it now?” She smiled back.

  Federico held out his pocket watch. “Eleven.”

  “Then,” she mused, “half past ten?”

  “Perfect,” Federico said. “You could catch the last act tomorrow night.”

  “Perhaps,” she told him. Yes.

  He smiled. Under the table, his knee touched hers, and he passed her a key.

  * * *

  SHE VIBRATED THE next day as she sang the aria in mass. She felt the change come over the audience as her voice transformed them, gave them a collective desire to reach God. She felt like the only one in the church who wanted something else. Toward the end of the concerto, her eyes met another’s through the orange-blossom grille.

  Federico. He was watching her sing. In his black robe, he towered above the others in the pew, his back so straight, his chin tilted toward her. He sat very still, but his expression suggested a mind in vigorous movement.

  She felt him holding his breath, felt the slick track of the tear down his cheek. He had never seen her face, she was not wearing the necklace, and yet she realized he knew it was her.

  She remembered his hands around her waist the night before. She remembered the slight graze of their knees beneath the table when he’d handed her the key to his opera box. The coro grille made the distance between their bodies now all the more unbearable. They could see each other, almost. Desire filled her limbs, her lungs. She sang the rest of the song to him.

  * * *

  IT WAS ONLY later that she grew fearful, as she dined silently with the other coro women in the downstairs hall. Everyone had praised her, Laura and Porpora most of all, but the words that normally buoyed her confidence felt small compared to her worries.

  Federico now knew things about her that could destroy her. If he told anyone she’d been at his party, all she’d worked for would disappear. Was that why he had come? Would he use this information to get something from her? What could he take? She was tortured by her own stupidity for holding his gaze, for letting him know that he was right.

  All afternoon, through her lessons and her meeting with Porpora, she tortured herself over whether she should go to the opera. If she did, her presence would be a confession of who she was. But if she didn’t go, she might anger him. If she didn’t go . . . She shook her head. There was no chance of that. Lying awake in her bed? Alone? No music or mystery for company? No chance of Federico’s hands on her? She was far past accepting that fate. She was in too deep. She would go to the opera that night.

  * * *

  TEATRO SAN SAMUELE was on the other side of the Grand Canal. Wearing the same dress she’d worn the night before, Violetta headed for a traghetto, whose gondoliers took groups of commoners back and forth across the water for a small price.

  On her way there, winding through the calli, she hadn’t expected to cross the bridge at Ca’ Foscari. It stopped her in her tracks.

  She remembered Mino at her side as she took in the joyous frenzy of the boats, the riot of colors of young men and women in masquerade attire, the smell of lemon blossom cologne, and him. How naive she’d been.

  She thought about their brief kiss in the apartment. It was over before she knew it was happening. She closed her eyes and imagined kissing Federico. In her mind, the two men tangled.

  A gondola passed beneath her, jarring her from her reverie. A masked man stared at her through the window in the boat’s fèlze. She hurried down the other side of the bridge. Federico would be waiting.

  She found the traghetto stop and paid her lire, huddling with the others on the gondola. She’d never been on a boat before. As the boatman pushed off
from the dock and they began to glide across the Grand Canal, she gripped the arm of the woman in front of her, then let go sheepishly. In her haste to reach the opera, she hadn’t anticipated how monumental this ride would be, how different Venice was upon the water. As she settled into the rocking, she looked around in wonder. She heard a flute playing out an open palazzo window. She smelled roasting fish and lemon in the air. She was glad for the opportunity to pause amid her beautiful escape beneath the stars.

  Back on land, she hurried toward what she hoped was north. She had to ask five people for directions, and each one expected a tip. Everyone told her sempre dritto, always straight, which was impossible in Venice. At last, she arrived before the towering theater building. A doorkeeper asked for her ticket.

  She shook her head. “I don’t—”

  “You need a ticket to see an opera.”

  Violetta held up the key uncertainly.

  “Follow me,” he said quickly, leading her inside and up two flights of stairs.

  He brought her to a golden door, then bowed his exit. She put the key inside the lock and turned it. Before the door was open, Federico was there. No mask, just him.

  “Hello,” he said with great intensity.

  “Hello.”

  For a moment, they just looked at each other. Violetta’s cheeks grew hot. Below, far away, a tenor sang of love’s deceit. She could feel Federico’s nervousness as powerfully as her own.

  “Did I go too far this morning?” he finally asked, his eyes probing her face.

  She shook her head. “I went too far the night I came to your palazzo. A woman in my position, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Come farther,” he said. “I will keep your confidence.”

  It was what she wanted to hear. He reached for her hand and drew her inside. He closed the door behind them. She saw they were alone. At last. She squeezed his hand and stepped closer. His words, his poise, his hand around her back as he led her to the sofa, made her heart quicken. She felt exhilarated and protected in his presence.