The Orphan's Song

by Lauren Kate

  “My name is Ana,” she said, and nodded to the blonde. “This is Stella.”

  Stella extended her cheek for Mino’s compulsory kiss. No one did this at the Incurables; there was so much he was learning about women. He leaned in and grazed her masked cheek with the lower edge of his mask, then looked to Ana to see whether she expected the same. Slowly, she tilted her face toward his.

  Maybe it was because she had removed her mask, but Mino felt compelled to remove his own before he kissed her. He set it on the table. His lips brushed her cheek. He took his time with it and felt a warm bolt through him at the supple pressure of her skin.

  “My name is Mino,” he said. “My friend is Carlo.” He patted Carlo, who had his head down on the table.

  “Is he all right?” Ana asked.

  “Brokenhearted,” Mino said.

  Ana only nodded, and Mino realized he’d become used to women offering advice on love. He wondered about Ana’s discreetness.

  “Ana, I’m on my break,” Stella said. “I wish to relax, not”—she waved her hand at Carlo, then at Mino—“do this.”

  Mino’s eyes returned to her violin in the open case. He marveled at the wood, the ornate scrolls. He had never liked such large scrolls. The more modest instruments sounded warmest.

  “Excuse her,” Ana said. “She’s very tired—”

  “Damn it,” Stella muttered. One of the horsehairs on her bow had come loose.

  Without thought or hesitation, without turning his eyes away from Ana, Mino reached over and snapped the loose string off Stella’s bow with the force required to keep all the other hairs perfectly intact.

  “I am very tired, too,” he said and, feeling Sprezz nuzzle against him under the table, he leaned to pat the dog’s head.

  Ana blinked at Mino. It took him a moment to figure out why. The motion, snapping off that horsehair, had been intuitive. But now, under her gaze, he felt himself transported back to the Incurables, to those early years when he would take his violin to the rooftop and teach himself to play.

  And now he could not keep himself from asking, holding out his hands for Stella’s violin: “May I?” Stella handed it to him the way a mother hands a child to a doctor, suddenly alert.

  He held it close, ran his fingers over it, thought about its music and the full life it had lived—from when it was crafted for Stella as a child and the tortured howls she’d first sawed upon it to when she’d gotten this job at La Sirena and had wondered whether she was good enough; into the future, when she’d take it to an audition at Teatro San Moisè; and beyond that, to its next owner, perhaps Stella’s daughter, who would feel her mother through the worn wood.

  It was enough to hold the violin; Mino didn’t need to play it.

  “You might consider a better metal winding for your D and G strings,” he finally said. “You lean on them when you play vibrato sul ponticello. Do they buzz?”

  Mino hadn’t been this candid with anyone since he’d left the Incurables, but he felt the woman needed to know this.

  Ana’s eyes widened as she turned to Stella. “Only yesterday you complained of buzzing in your strings.”

  “Different winding would completely change my tessitura,” Stella said.

  “Of course,” Mino said, thrilled to be debating such details. “But it might be a welcome alteration, particularly when you’re playing slower pieces, like a largo. And the buzzing would cease.”

  “What makes your buzzing cease?” Stella asked pointedly.

  Mino responded perfectly in rhythm. “Like a violin, I require sure fingers.”

  Stella didn’t laugh, but Ana did, a more musical sound than anything Mino had heard that night. Mino turned to watch her make it.

  “Stella.” The castrato was moving past them, barking over his shoulder for his accompanist to rejoin him.

  “Give it back,” Stella said, holding out her hand for Mino to return the violin. “I’ve wasted my entire break with you.”

  Mino surrendered the violin, pained by how rough Stella was with it as she hurried back up onto the stage.

  At the sound of her violin, Carlo roused and moaned. He rubbed his eyes, swayed. “I must go to bed.”

  “Let me help you,” Mino said and rose from his stool, taking Carlo under the arm.

  But Carlo, even in his drunken state, glanced at Mino, then at Ana, grinned and shook his head. “Stay.”

  “Will you be all right on your own?” Ana asked.

  “I live two blocks from here,” Carlo slurred. “Not even any bridges to cross, so you don’t have to worry about me drowning.” He bent to kiss both of their cheeks good night.

  Mino flushed as he sat back down. He should have left long ago. Why hadn’t he? Yes, it had been powerful to hold that violin, but to what end? Sprezz was snoring at his feet. They were far from their regular haunts near San Marco, and Mino did not relish looking for a new corner in which to sleep in Dorsoduro.

  Ana pulled her stool closer. Despite the casino crowds, it was as if they were alone.

  “So,” she said, curiosity lifting her voice. “Time for questions.”

  “All right.”

  She peeked beneath the table at the dog. “Who’s he? He’s cute.”

  “He’s Sprezz. Short for Sprezzatura.” When she tilted her head toward him, Mino gathered she wasn’t familiar with the term. “It means something difficult that’s made to look easy.”

  Her smile widened. She was enchanting. “That’s a wonderful name.”

  “It suits him. That’s what you wanted to know?”

  “That’s one thing,” she said softly, leaning close. Mino held his breath. “Another is, who are you?”

  How tiny she was. He could have put his arm around her and her shoulders would have spanned only the space between his elbow and his chest. She was young, like him, and the kind of pretty that felt out of place in this casino, no beauty marks, no rouge. Her loveliness was all in her simplicity. Mino thought he might prefer to look at her in a sunlit piazza, rather than in a hole like this, where candlelight cast flattering shadows Ana’s beauty did not need. And for a moment it felt like all he wanted was to watch this young woman walk in the sunlight. The urge came out of nowhere and brought Mino both comfort and confusion.

  “Fine,” she said, her fingertip swirling the rim of her wineglass, which was mostly full. “I’ll play. Are you a maestro? A theater composer? A private tutor?”

  “I am no one,” he said. Not only could he not lie to this woman, he wanted her to know the truth. He wanted to see the disdain in her bright eyes when she found out he slept on the street and ate scraps. Then she would expel him from his fantasy before he let it go any further. For where would it have gone? He would never see her again.

  “I am nothing,” he said. “A ghost.”

  She reached out her hand and her fingertips met his shoulders, then, gently, his cheek. “You seem so real.” She tilted her head. “Who are you haunting?”

  “My mother.”

  Ana glanced around the casino, taking him at his word. “Is she among us?”

  Mino took out his half token, laid it before her on the table.

  Ana glanced at it but looked more closely at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “Have you ever seen one of these?” he asked.

  She shook her head. Her fingers traced the shorn edge of the wood.

  “It’s a half token.” He leaned closer to see it as she did. Suddenly the painting looked old to him, faded, and instead of thinking about his mother, he thought of how he was close enough to Ana to smell her skin. She smelled like oranges.

  He felt dizzy. He leaned away and reached for the token.

  “I have the top. My mother has the bottom. Or so I’ve grown up thinking.”

  “You’re an orphan,” she said quietly.

  When
he looked up at her, his eyes were filled with tears. He saw her through them, how she shone. And when he blinked and saw her clearly again, he expected her disappointment, her departure from this table. But she didn’t move. She was crying, too.

  “You mean to trace her through this token,” Ana said simply, understanding.

  “It’s all I have,” he said.

  Her fingers surprised his by threading through them. “Do you remember her?”

  The flash of memory assaulted him. Her short hair and the necklace she wore, the way his fingers felt winding through the chain. Now the memory was poisoned with the image of her at the wheel, relieved and running down the calle. Away.

  A lie, Mino told himself, but his memory didn’t listen.

  “She was a singer,” he said, now running his thumb along Ana’s nail. He liked that she wore no polish. “Her voice was beautiful.”

  “My sister knows many musicians in Venice,” Ana said. “It’s a small world. Perhaps she knows someone who can help.”

  “That’s generous,” Mino said, only then realizing that Ana was nodding at Stella, who attacked her violin and glared in their direction.

  “You’re sisters?” he said. “You and Stella?”

  “We’re more alike than we seem.” Ana laughed. “She’s mean at first, but good-hearted once she trusts you. And she knows people.”

  Nadia, the barmaid, swung past their table. She didn’t look happy to see Mino left behind to settle the bill. “We’re closing. You owe me ten soldi.”

  Panic struck Mino. Carlo had left no money when he went home. Now Nadia saw his expression and whistled under her breath. “What a surprise.”

  “Nadia,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow—”

  “With what, one?” she said. “I can’t let you out the back door tonight, Mino. Federico is here.” She nodded toward a tall, dark-haired gentleman who wore no mask. He must be La Sirena’s owner.

  Mino swallowed, realizing he had seen this man before, summoning guards to remove patrons from the casino by force. There was a clear brutality to him, one Mino wished never to confront.

  But then, Ana was sifting through a purple purse, placing something in the barmaid’s palm.

  “We’re settled,” she said.

  “No,” Mino begged her. He was ashamed.

  “Don’t think of it.” Ana nodded toward the door, somewhat shyly. “Let’s go?”

  Mino struggled for the right words. Go where? What did she mean? He felt he would go anywhere with her. “What about Stella? Shouldn’t you wait?”

  Ana shrugged. “She has a date.”

  Mino swallowed. “And you don’t?”

  She put her hand in his again. It was so tiny, and damp with sweat, and he liked feeling the mix of her confidence and anxiety.

  “Perhaps I do.” She smiled. She picked Mino’s mask up off the table and tied it around his head. He did the same with hers. It was harder to tie than it should have been. He’d had too much to drink.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m not usually so clumsy.”

  “It’s all right, Mino.” Ana seemed to understand him. “My home is close. My fire is warm. We have stayed at La Sirena long enough.”

  NINE

  ON A DAMP LATE NIGHT IN SEPTEMBER, Violetta hurried down the labyrinthine calle della Toletta wearing her mask and necklace. It was terrible to run in so tight a dress, but she would not rest until she saw that rebellious tree near the entrance to La Sirena.

  She had spent nearly three months weighing Federico’s offer, nervously leaning toward accepting, then backing away from the idea every time it began to feel real. Then that afternoon she had attended the farewell dinner for Vania, who, at forty, was retiring from the coro to the San Zaccaria nunnery. Vania’s voice was still so warm and bright, but she wouldn’t sing again. When Violetta embraced her, said goodbye, all she could think was never, never, never. Her own life could not follow the same narrow path. It was decided. And she didn’t want to waste another moment letting Federico know.

  When she rounded the final corner, she ran headlong into a masked pair coming from the opposite direction.

  “Excuse us,” the woman said. She was a head shorter than Violetta and very petite, rubbing her brow where she had smacked it upon Violetta’s opal necklace.

  Violetta winced. The force of the blow had caused the pointed edge of the gold collet holding the stone to stab into her breast. When she raised the stone and looked down, she saw a drop of blood on her chest.

  “Are you hurt?” the woman asked, and for a moment Violetta couldn’t reconcile the sting at her breast with this tiny creature before her. She wanted to berate the woman for her recklessness, to ignore that she herself had been as reckless, but then she noticed the man in his mask and tabarro. He was a little off-balance. He must have been drunk. Violetta understood the hurry to get the fool home and into bed.

  “I’m fine,” she said, more coldly than necessary. She didn’t want to waste any more time on this pedestrian couple. She had to get to Federico.

  She was moving past them when, at her feet, a black-and-white-spotted dog barked. A memory returned of the little dog she used to watch through the attic window when she was a girl. How she longed to meet him up close. She hadn’t thought of him in years, and the sight of this dog brought her back to a simpler time, when the things she wanted did not scare her.

  Moments ago, nothing could have slowed her pace. Now Violetta lowered to her knees on the cobblestones and presented her gloved palm to the dog. She felt his whiskers through the silk as he sniffed her, then the damp pressure of his tongue. She scratched his head, let her fingers linger on his ears. She wanted to ask his name.

  But when she looked up at the couple, she saw the woman edging her body underneath her lover’s arm. She saw how readily she shouldered the weight of her man. She saw open generosity, no judgment in the motions, in the murmured reassurances.

  She tried to imagine such vulnerable tenderness between herself and Federico. There was something between them, but it was different, more charged. Perhaps one day, she thought, now watching the man kiss his partner’s hand. The simple gesture made Violetta feel she was intruding.

  “Come, Sprezzatura,” the woman called the dog. “Time for bed.”

  The dog trotted after them, and Violetta rose to watch them go, the little family they made. She felt unexpectedly envious, and she couldn’t express why. She had to admit, it was a terrific name for a dog.

  She hurried across the bridge without looking back, touching the mottled bark of the tree with her fingertips as she ducked beneath it.

  She should have been at La Sirena an hour ago, but just as she’d been pulling her cloak over her grown, ready to strip her bed, twist her sheet, and escape, she’d heard Laura rise in the room across the parlor. She’d heard her friend’s bare feet padding on the wood. Coming closer. Violetta had untied her mask with the speed of an accelerato. She had kicked it and the cloak under her bed, dove back under the covers, pulled them up as high as her neck. She undid the clasp on the necklace and let it slide into her hand, beneath her pillow. She had barely closed her eyes when the door to her room creaked open.

  “Violetta?”

  She held her breath, not moving. She felt Laura’s urge to come close, pull back the coverlet, and climb into bed as they used to do. When they were children their beds had been smaller, like the distance between their hearts. They hadn’t talked much recently. But Violetta understood why Laura was there.

  She’d had her nightmare of her mother.

  Violetta had not been haunted by her own dream of Mino’s mother in more than half a year. Her recent dreams featured Federico. They were equally hard to shake upon waking.

  “Are you sleeping?” Laura asked.

  Another night, Violetta would have taken her friend into her bed. They would not h
ave to speak, only hold each other until the ache subsided enough for Laura to sleep. But not tonight. Not when she had finally determined to take Federico up on his proposal. She had the morning off tomorrow to recover. It had to be tonight.

  If she let Laura in, she would see Violetta’s gown, wrinkled from having been hidden in the bottom of her armoire. She’d see the slippers she wore beneath the blankets, and she would know the nature of Violetta’s secret. She couldn’t. Violetta had plans now that stretched across the evenings into a future she couldn’t yet see.

  When Laura left, Violetta felt guilty. She waited in her bed a long time, knowing how hard it would be for her friend to sleep again. She could not risk being heard when she slipped through her window.

  * * *

  NOW SHE WORRIED she had waited too long. It was after midnight. What if Federico was gone? She had to see him tonight. She climbed the stairs, and stopped before the fishtail plaque, the candle in its blue glass.

  The doorkeeper didn’t recognize her in her mask, but when she moved aside the neck of her cloak and showed the opal, he bowed and opened the door. She wished Fortunato had been there; tonight she wanted a direct line to Federico.

  But the casino was almost empty. A first glance showed neither the owner nor his servant.

  “How can a beauty like you be alone so late in the evening?” a man said, coming up behind her, his hand sliding up her hips.

  “I’m not alone,” she said and swiveled away, taking in what she could of him beneath his mask. He was no taller than she, with a pale unshaven neck. He smelled of brandy.

  “I’m meeting someone.” The words brought a confidence to her voice.

  “Everyone’s gone home but the barmaid,” the man said, stepping close again. “And me—”

  Before he’d finished speaking, he was lifted off the ground by the neck of his tabarro and tossed violently to the side. He landed on a card table, then rolled off it to the floor, breaking a bottle with his fall. In his place stood Federico. As the man moaned and rolled to his knees, Federico looked at Violetta, and the violence in his eyes suddenly cleared.