The Orphan's Song

by Lauren Kate

  She leaned forward to see the stage, set with painted wood to resemble a countryside of rolling hills. She had only ever seen the country depicted in paintings. This was the closest to the world beyond Venice that she had ever been.

  Her gaze swept around the opera house, taking in the spellbound audience leaning forward in their own boxes and in the rows of seats behind the orchestra. The women wore big, beautiful dresses, wigs of elaborate curls. Everyone was masked, but Violetta could tell from their posture how rapt they were by the show. She remembered something the prioress had said long ago as they passed the syphilitics’ ward.

  “How did they get that way?” Olivia had asked. The young orphans were not permitted in the sick room, and its mysteries caused fascination and fear.

  “Loose morals,” the prioress had said grimly. “The sort of women drawn to sinful temptations like the opera house. The Lord sends them back to us eventually.”

  Now Violetta understood how small the prioress’s experiences were, how she was threatened by these liberated Venetian women. Violetta wanted to be more like them, relaxed, alluring, demanding pleasure and beauty from life.

  She turned toward Federico, let her knee rub against his. She was holding her breath. She met his gaze and he smiled, reaching to touch her face. His fingers traced the edge of her bauta, then trailed beneath it to touch her chin. She felt the wild urge to remove the mask and let him see her, as he had that morning. But she couldn’t. Certainly not here where anyone might turn their gaze from the stage.

  Suddenly, Lucrezia appeared on the stage in chains, being dragged forward by two men.

  “You’re just in time for her finale,” Federico said absently.

  Violetta looked down at the singer on the stage, remembering how Lucrezia’s demeanor had softened in Federico’s presence.

  “Are the two of you . . .” Violetta started to say. “Does she love you?”

  “Once we were lovers. But I am the second-born son, not permitted to wed.”

  Violetta blinked. “Why not?” There was so much she didn’t know.

  His voice took on a hard edge. “To preserve the estate. We are a ducal house—my great-grandfather was a doge, and since then, each of his descendants has served as a voting member in the republic’s Great Council. But only one son each generation takes a wife and is allowed to write his children in the noble class’s Book of Names. Alas, it was not me.”

  “That’s terrible,” Violetta said. She had pitied those who left the Incurables to wed. She had always feared the bond and responsibility of motherhood. But these were her choices. What if someone had forbidden her to have a family of her own?

  Perhaps no one was truly free to live on their own terms.

  “It’s not so bad.” Federico laughed, and she wanted to know what he meant, but he pointed back to the stage, to Lucrezia, who was singing. “She’s not a pleasant woman, but she’s a wonderful contralto.” He glanced at Violetta. “But then, you’ve had the finest music in the world as background all your life.”

  “How did you find me?” she dared to ask.

  He reached for champagne, sitting on ice, and poured a glass for her. “I have long heard of the famous Violetta, voce d’angelo, but I haven’t been to mass since my mother died. Maybe I grew tired of waiting to see you again.”

  “You’re still leaving out the best part.” She raised an eyebrow. Something told her he had not stumbled upon her performance, that his presence had been carefully determined. “How did you find me?”

  “Are you happy there?”

  His question distracted Violetta. She paused to think about it, watching Lucrezia. “It could be worse.”

  “Why are you here tonight? Why risk so much?”

  She couldn’t say it—I want more. She was afraid. Here, finally, was someone who might be able to help her break away. What if she really could make her dreams real?

  “I want to hear you sing again,” he said. “I want to put you on a stage.”

  “I can’t. Not in Venice.”

  He leaned in. “Not here. The opera is too public.”

  “Where then?”

  He smiled. “La Sirena, where we dance under the law. By day, you would sing for the Incurables. By night, come sing for me.” He took her hands.

  She leaned closer, breathless.

  “Start with one performance a week, any day you choose. Sing anything you like. I will make you the star. I will keep your secret. I will protect you above all else.” He was looking down at her thumb boldly stroking the back of his hand. It felt so much easier to convey her wishes to him with her body than her words.

  “You make it sound so simple,” she said.

  He smiled. “We’ll write up a contract. You’ll make tenfold what you make at the church.”

  Violetta’s hands stilled as she thought about this. He was serious. She had earned a little fortune in the six months she’d been singing in the coro. But she had spent nearly all of her pocket money on the lavender silk dress, and the rest—her dowry—was in the prioress’s hands, saved for a future husband or her retirement to a nunnery at forty.

  No, neither of those could be Violetta’s fate. Maybe this was it, right here, with him.

  “It’s easier than you think,” he said.

  “I’m afraid,” she admitted.

  “I am as well,” he said, surprising her. “I haven’t heard a voice like yours . . .”

  From the way he trailed off, Violetta expected him to add a since, to reference some distant time, but he didn’t.

  “I must think about it,” she said.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said as onstage the curtain dropped.

  EIGHT

  ON THURSDAY EVENINGS, La Sirena hosted unofficial gatherings for three orders of mystics. The white-bearded cabalists claimed the large center table beneath the chandelier, the Freemasons poured their wine and threw their cards at the booth nearest the barmaid, and the alchemist Rosicrucians sat at the back by the musicians.

  Carlo introduced Mino to the Rosicrucians the first night they patronized La Sirena together. At first, what Mino liked most about these alchemists was their sworn enmity to the Freemasons. The leader of the Freemasons was the man who had sent Mino to the whorehouse.

  But hating the Freemasons wasn’t the only thing Mino and the Rosicrucians had in common. Though he could not afford to gamble with them (he always showed up at the end of their long turn at whist), he read their pamphlets and pondered the existence of an elixir of life that might cure them all. He admired the brothers’ seriousness, their unprejudiced minds. He even liked their pendants—the wooden rose over the cross.

  “It is not a Christian symbol,” Carlo explained. “The order of the Rosicrucians predates Christianity. The cross represents the human body. The rose is what unfolds in one’s consciousness over the course of one’s life.”

  Mino liked imagining a rose slowly opening inside him. Since he’d left the Incurables, this brotherhood was the closest thing he had to a family. He liked their theory that base matter might be transformed into something nobler.

  “When we speak of transmutation, do we mean only turning metal into gold?” the senior brother asked Mino over a bottle of wine. Gianni wore a bright, stiff wig and a mask too small for his large face. He had traveled to Germany, where the original manifestos of the order had been written, and he seemed to Mino to be a man of great wisdom. “Or can we attest to the transmutation of the human character, from dull to brilliant?”

  “I hope both are possible,” Mino said. “In my experience, metaphorical changes are often bound up with physical ones.” He thought of the day he met Sprezz, and the gift of those boots. He thought of how what he’d felt for Letta in his heart had seemed to ripple through his body, too.

  Mino longed to change nearly everything about himself—his loneliness, his self-worth
, his dismal sleeping quarters, the length of time that had passed since he’d held a violin, his memories of that afternoon with Letta. . . .

  Before he met the alchemists, he had been convinced he lacked all means to change his circumstances. But recently, especially by the end of these Thursday nights, he felt the urge to become something better growing inside him.

  In late September, late in the evening, when all the bottles on the table were empty, Carlo was lamenting his love for Carina. Mino had a single soldo in his pocket, not enough to fund the evening when his friend got like this. He signaled Nadia, the barmaid, and she brought Carlo a dram of acqaioli.

  “She promised me dinner, in an intimate café in Cannaregio, far from her husband’s home,” Carlo said, stirring sugar into his drink. “All day I ached to see her.” He leaned close, and Mino saw the bare patch in the center of his eyebrow where he had pulled out the hair in agitation. Carlo moved to pull some more.

  Mino helped his hand down. “Peace, friend. Let it be.”

  “When I arrived at the café,” Carlo continued, “I was not the only fool. She had invited five men to dine with her.”

  Mino’s eyes widened. Someday he would have to meet this woman, who played the men of Venice like jokers in a deck of cards. The rumor was she’d once danced the tightrope in Constantinople.

  “Do you know the worst of it?” Carlo asked. “We stayed for hours, each of us, still hoping. In the end, she left alone!”

  “To meet a sixth man?”

  “When there is a bridge, does a man expect water underneath?” Carlo sighed. “It helps, at least, to know I’m not the only one.”

  Mino let himself laugh only when Carlo did. Even at his most depressed, Carlo was never beyond seeing humor in his love. Mino could not admit how he envied his friend. If only he could see Letta again.

  Over his shoulder came the heavy scrape of chair legs, then the warmth of a candle drawing closer. Gianni had pulled his chair near.

  “Every week it’s the same, Carlo,” Gianni said. “What is so noble about this woman? Are there not two dozen others right here, in this room, whose kiss could transform your misery into bliss?”

  “Mino,” Carlo said, reaching across him to pop a sausage in his mouth, “tell him it’s impossible. Carina is an angel, and I have held her in my arms. For me there is no going back to mortal women.”

  “Carlo can no more kiss another woman than he could turn fire into ice,” Mino said in solidarity.

  “Anything is possible,” Gianni said, and widened the space on his lap for a handsome and heavily perfumed courtesan.

  “Not this again,” she said, sitting on Gianni’s knee. “Some forms are fixed. Why should your lover ever change? She has it all—the palazzo, the rich husband, the husband’s mistress to keep him occupied, and a dozen fools like you.” She stroked Carlo’s cheek.

  “They don’t love her like I love her,” Carlo said.

  “Lucky for them.” The courtesan laughed, turning to Mino. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” He tensed, feeling each of their eyes on him. In the weeks since he had sat among these men, Mino had kept his past closely guarded. He skipped the gambling, arrived for the discussions, stayed to listen to the music, and left with Sprezz before the womanizing. He should have left by now. He liked these meetings on his own terms and was not ready to part with his secrets.

  “What type of lover do you prefer?” the courtesan asked, leaning her elbows on the table.

  “It is odd,” Carlo said, squinting at Mino. “I’ve never seen you talk to a woman.”

  “A lot goes on while you are wiping away tears,” Mino said.

  When was the last time he had talked intimately with a woman? He exchanged pleasantries with Nadia most nights at La Sirena. He used to let the women at the Venice Triumphant flirt with him as he traded out their tables for the midnight chicken coops. He had spoken openly to that woman in the whorehouse kitchen as she fed him eggs. She’d seemed kind and then deceived him; and ever since, he realized, he’d closed himself off even further.

  Except, he still talked to Letta most nights when the moon was bright and he could feel close to her, imagining her looking up at the same sky. Are you all right? he would ask her. Forgive me. But his words were prayers, not conversation. If only he could really talk to her. Apologize. He hadn’t considered what he was asking her to sacrifice that day.

  “You look pale, Mino,” Carlo said.

  “Is he a virgin?” Gianni asked. “Is that the trouble?”

  “There’s a remedy for that.” The courtesan laughed.

  Mino wanted to leave, but all eyes were on him.

  “I loved one woman,” he said hoarsely. “She is dead.”

  Everyone burst out laughing, even Carlo, whose laughter rekindled his tears.

  “It’s a good thing you don’t gamble,” Carlo said. “You’re a terrible liar, Mino.”

  “Come to the haberdashery and be my bookkeeper,” called Marcello, the hat maker. “I’ve never known a man so painfully honest.”

  “I do need a job,” Mino said. He forced himself to laugh when the others did. Not even Carlo knew how untenable Mino’s situation was. It was his own choice to keep quiet about where he slept; but now, as he made friends, he was unsure how to let anyone know he needed help.

  He had no money. Sprezz could scrounge up something for them to eat tomorrow morning, but it never went down easy, the shame sticking like a fish bone in the back of Mino’s throat. If he were really that bad of a liar, why couldn’t the Rosicrucians see through him, to his hunger and his pain?

  It nagged at Mino that his whole existence felt like a lie. He had lied to the women in San Marco about being a gondolier. He had lied to the man who first brought him to La Sirena. But to speak of Letta brought Mino back to the boy he’d been that first day on the roof. Was it only her that kept him honest?

  “We are pathetic,” Carlo said, leaning against Mino and draping an arm around his shoulders. His eyes followed a pretty girl in a green gown weaving toward the bar. “Even Carina tells me I must find other lovers if she and I are to be happy. And I’m sure your dead lover looks down from heaven and wants you to find . . . comfort. Point and I will follow, friend. Let us try our luck tonight.”

  Mino’s chest tightened as he looked around the casino. The women were dazzling almost without exception. He wished to talk to none of them.

  His eyes found the musicians—the castrato and his tall, fair-haired accompanist—stepping down from the little stage for their break.

  “The violinist,” Mino said. If he were coerced into speaking to a woman tonight, he might at least have something to say to the violinist. They could discuss music, her instrument. Suddenly Mino felt pulled by an unexpected force. “Let’s go.”

  “You have excellent taste,” Carlo said and slid down from his seat. “Even better for me is her friend.”

  Mino wasn’t looking at the friend, nor even at the woman. He was looking at the violin. It felt unlikely he would ever again possess an instrument of his own. By the time he stood before the violinist—who stood half a head taller than he with an imposing crown of white-blond hair—he was so envious he was angry.

  “You play well,” he growled.

  “I know.” She took the compliment, bored.

  “Who would like more wine?” Carlo boomed behind Mino, leaning too close to the pretty young brunette seated at the table. She looked uncomfortable, Carlo miserable and desperate.

  Mino turned away from them, eyeing the violin as the blonde packed it into her case. He had not been this close to one since he left his in the apartment. He clasped his hands to keep from reaching out for it. He focused on the woman, who looked lovely but exhausted. There were sweat stains on her dress and her beauty mark was smudged down her nose.

  He offered a handkerchief. “May
I?”

  The violinist was confused but stayed still as Mino wiped the beauty mark from her face. His touch had an effect on her; she seemed to soften and a moment later lifted her mask to him. He found her far more beautiful than expected. His fingers went to his half token in his pocket and he was moved by the similarities. Was it possible there was some connection? How in the world would he raise such a topic with a stranger?

  “Do you get to select the music you play here?” he asked.

  “Federico chooses it,” she said coolly, her mask replaced, her eyes looking past him again. “He chooses everything.”

  “It’s a nice song,” Mino said, claiming the stool across from her.

  “I prefer Vivaldi. He has a marvelous opera on now at Teatro San Moisè. . . .” She looked Mino up and down, as if spotting each stain on the frayed hem of his tabarro. “I don’t imagine you’ve seen it?”

  “No, but I adore Vivaldi’s oratorios.” He had heard them sung a few times on occasional outings with the other foundlings to the rival Ospedale della Pietà. Letta and every musician she’d studied with were passionate about Vivaldi’s sacred compositions.

  “I like those oratorios, too.” The brunette spoke up from the other side of the table, her voice both booming and frail at once, and Mino saw how desperate she was to be liberated from Carlo, who was spilling wine as he tried to refill her glass.

  “Yes, she knows all the church music,” the blonde said with great disinterest.

  Mino looked at the brunette more closely. She raised her mask slowly. She had a sweet round face, and large, dark, energetic eyes. When she blinked, she reminded him of a butterfly. Her dress was plainer than most of the others at the casino, but it accented her natural, radiating beauty. Her hair, too, was very simple, unwigged, undyed, knotted in a dark chignon at the nape of her long neck. She smiled at Mino.