The Orphan's Song

by Lauren Kate

  How she wished to take Laura into her confidence. She’d loved talking with Elizabeth, but who knew when she’d see the British woman again? And besides, Elizabeth did not know who Violetta really was. An orphan. A coro girl. Violetta, voce d’angelo. Laura had known her all her life.

  “Violetta?” she asked again.

  She couldn’t tell Laura everything, but she desperately wanted to tell her something. “I think I am in love.”

  “Violetta.” Laura gasped and rushed to sit beside her. Her eyes dropped and her cheeks flushed. “I confess: I found your bedsheet, your open window. One night. Months ago. I know you have been leaving. But I never suspected . . .”

  Both girls laughed with nervous relief. How lucky she was to have a friend as good as Laura. Violetta felt she did not deserve her. Even now as they divulged their secrets, Violetta would still lie. It would be too dangerous for Laura to know about her performances as La Sirena. But she could tell her about Federico. She could use her friend’s advice.

  “What is he like?” Laura asked. “Will you marry?”

  “No,” Violetta said quickly. “Of course not. He knows my position on marriage.” She was surprised to find herself thinking of Federico’s own restrictions on marriage, his status as the second son.

  “Your position hasn’t changed?” Laura asked, a little teasing. “Even now that you’re in love?”

  Violetta shook her head. “We meet once a week. It’s enough,” she lied. “He’s very exciting.”

  They laughed again and Laura squeezed her hands. “It is good you told me. You can trust me, Violetta.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “And now I must tell you something.”

  “Anything,” Violetta said lightly, her mind still pondering the mysteries of Federico. She was glad Laura hadn’t asked about their intimacy. She had depressingly little to say on the subject.

  “Yesterday I saw Mino.”

  Violetta’s hands went slack. Questions rolled into her mind like fog until she couldn’t think. She’d heard wrong. Or Laura was mistaken.

  Mino was gone.

  “You know the prioress and I went to hear the trumpeter in Cannaregio,” Laura said, her voice a whisper. “On our way back, through the merceria, we passed a little violin shop. Mino owns it, Violetta. He builds them. They are like no instrument I’ve ever held—”

  Violetta meant to say stop, but her mouth was too dry. Her skin burned as if near a hot flame.

  “There’s more,” Laura said. “He is coming here for a meeting. Sunday.”

  Violetta looked up at Laura with terror in her eyes. She felt the need to tear something to shreds—the music in her hands, or Laura, or her own capricious heart.

  “Did he ask after me?”

  Laura swallowed.

  “Oh.” Violetta felt as if she had been punched.

  “He looks well,” Laura said. “Come Sunday. Make amends.”

  * * *

  SOMEHOW, SHE WAS there after mass that Sunday, in her best Incurables dress with her hair braided. Laura had requested Violetta join the meeting, lend her opinion in Porpora’s absence. The maestro had gone to Vienna to compose an opera for the season; his replacement had yet to be agreed upon. Laura had cited to the prioress Violetta’s perfect ear and her position as the coro’s lead soprano. The prioress obliged—she could refuse Laura nothing.

  Violetta would be limited by what she could say to Mino before the prioress, but her presence could show him that she was sorry. Perhaps it was all she needed him to know.

  She felt more exhausted than ever, even though she had stayed in the past few nights. She should have gone out last night—turned up at La Sirena to drink and exhaust her mind. Instead she’d lain awake, tortured by memories.

  If Violetta could change what had happened between them, how much would she do differently? She would erase every word she’d said about his mother, of course. But the rest? Would she decline Mino’s proposal again?

  Yes. She couldn’t see another way, even now. Even though he had meant more to her than any other person. Even though she did love him. It was different than the physical ache she felt for Federico; it was its own kind of love and it was still in her heart. She knew she could not marry, could never be any man’s wife or any child’s mother. But she kept returning to that moment when he’d proposed. She saw his blue eyes when he said Marry me. She felt his hands holding her close. She smelled the jasmine on the bed. She felt anew how she’d wrecked the future he dreamed of.

  Waiting with Laura before the fire in the downstairs receiving parlor, she was on the brink of tears. She went to the window, wishing she could open it, let in all the rain from outside.

  “He isn’t coming,” she said.

  “It’s not even half past one,” Laura said. “Should we allow him to be late before you write him off?”

  “I know he isn’t,” Violetta said under her breath.

  Half past one turned to a quarter to two, and Violetta caught Laura and the prioress exchanging glances. When finally a door opened, Violetta’s heart caught in her throat. But the man in the doorway wasn’t Mino. It took a moment for Violetta to remember Carlo, the young man she’d met at her first masquerade. She knew him only from the instant he’d lifted his mask. She’d clung to her own all that night.

  He must know Mino. How? What if Mino had been there, that night at the party? What if she had ended up dancing in his arms, instead of Carlo’s? She would never have met Federico. Where would she be now?

  “I’m sorry,” Carlo said, bowing. “A personal matter prevents Mino from meeting today. He’s sent this letter, and a wish to reschedule.”

  What personal matter? Violetta didn’t believe him.

  The prioress took the letter, read it quickly. Then she folded it again and slipped it into her pocket, and Violetta lost the chance to glimpse even his words. She told herself it didn’t matter as she fought the urge to plunge her hands into the prioress’s skirts.

  Regardless of what Mino had written, Violetta knew the truth. She felt incoherent with regret, her mind clear on only one thing: he had not come because of her.

  SIXTEEN

  ON SUNDAY EVENING, Ana came to Mino’s room earlier than usual, just after her mother retired. She lay down in his arms and closed her eyes before they even made love, a soft smile on her face. How quickly she slept.

  The night was mild and clear. Mino breathed her orange-scented skin and listened to the dreaming patterns of her breath. He watched her face as the moon climbed through the sky. Wonder kept him awake now; last night it had been fear. Last night everything had been different. When he held Ana in this same position, she had seemed the only solid ground in Mino’s world.

  Last night he’d feared the meeting at the Incurables, meant to take place this morning. He had risen early, left before sunrise for his shop to prepare. But then, an hour before, in a single moment, his life had changed forever.

  He had made his meeting at the Incurables for when he knew Ana would be at mass and then luncheon. He hated keeping a secret from her, but he hadn’t known how to tell her.

  Early that morning before the meeting, he’d lit the candles in the shop but left the wooden casements closed. The floor was carpeted with wood shavings, and the smell of varnish had been enough to singe his nostrils. Mino loved it there, particularly alone, late at night or early in the morning. He’d lifted his prototype proudly. He wanted to present it at the Incurables as an example of what he had accomplished. He had made it with his old home in mind.

  Would Letta be there? he’d wondered. Would she look upon his violin with her dark, appraising eyes? He’d shivered to imagine it. Her approval would mean so much to him. It would mean not just that his instrument was good—he knew it was—but that she didn’t hate him anymore.

  He wasn’t foolish enough to hope for a moment alone with her. The prioress
would be there, perhaps the maestro, and Laura. But he could look at her. They had once shared an entire unspoken language. He could tell her he was sorry with his eyes. He would recognize her silent answer.

  What if she forgave him, there in the parlor? What then?

  He didn’t know. He had to stop. He would drown if he began to wonder what else she might tell him—about coro life and the roof, about what freedom looked like to her now. He didn’t need to know those things anymore. He had Ana. He had Sprezz. He had his shop.

  All he needed was Letta’s forgiveness so he could move on.

  The back door had creaked open. Mino had looked up, startled by Ana in her pink cloak and hood.

  “What time is it?” he’d gasped. Had he lost himself in thoughts for so long that she was already back from lunch? Was he late?

  “Early,” she’d said, her voice unusually thin. She was a woman who spoke quietly but with a fortitude that showed her intelligence, whether she was talking about the price of artichokes or the war of the Polish Succession. Mino had looked down and saw that beneath her cloak, the hem of her nightgown showed. She’d gone there without dressing.

  “What’s wrong?” he had asked, feeling his heart quicken. He had only told her of his meeting in passing. He had mentioned the violin maestra from a church orchestra and cast it as preliminary. He had not specified that this church belonged to an ospedale. He had gotten nowhere near telling her the ospedale was his.

  Guilt had flooded him. Did she know?

  She’d come close, reached for the violin in his hands and set it gently on his workbench. When she’d taken his hands, hers were clammy. She drew him to the chaise and they sat down. Her smile was broad but flickering.

  He felt uneasy.

  “Ana—”

  “We’re going to have a baby, Mino.”

  She laughed and covered her face, and when he’d drawn her hands away he’d seen tears in her eyes. A baby.

  The world stopped. Mino felt a sense of great peace. For so many years, he had sought his mother, thinking she was the answer to all his questions. Now he was looking at a new mother, one he had helped create. Ana. Together they had made someone new.

  A child would look to them for everything. His child. He couldn’t speak for his amazement.

  Suddenly, all there was to life was Ana and this babe. They held hands as if neither would ever let go. Mino dropped to his knees before her. He moved their hands to her belly. He felt the life within.

  He would not go to Dorsoduro that day. There could be no meeting at the Incurables. No more what ifs. With the British commission, Mino had more work already than he’d hoped to acquire in half a year. He could make his own opportunities. He must stop looking upon his broken past to heal him. He only had to look right here. Here was a baby. Here its mother. Here its father.

  “Marry me,” he had said.

  Ana had dropped to her knees and kissed him. “Yes.”

  * * *

  THE LETTER CAME four months later, in September, when pale sunlight faded in the afternoon sky, when Ana wore the rose behind her ear, indicating her betrothal. Her belly had swollen to a beautiful globe, and she sat on the chaise in his shop—the only place she was comfortable—going over his accounting while she ate anchovies for the fifth meal in a row.

  “Mino?” She looked up from the paper in her hand. “What meeting did you neglect at the Ospedale degli Incurabili?”

  He put down the varnish brush, wiped his face with a rag, and took a breath before he spoke. “What does it say?”

  “You had an appointment to discuss an order and never showed up, never rescheduled,” Ana said, looking again at the paper, as if perhaps she had misread. “That isn’t like you.”

  “It’s my mistake,” he said slowly. “The meeting was the day you told me about the baby.” He touched her shoulder, knowing she would remember how, after she had told him, they made love on the shop floor for hours. “I forgot about it afterward.”

  “They are seeking violins for a full coro, Mino, and their music school. Do you not think an order of that size has to do with my well-being and the baby’s?”

  He felt hot and tugged at his collar. “I couldn’t have fulfilled it,” he said. “I’ve been working all hours just to meet the Baums’ order.”

  “And now you’re halfway done with the commission,” she said. “And according to this letter, they are still in need of instruments.” She looked at him carefully. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Mino came to sit beside her. He breathed her in. Underneath the anchovies was still the reassuring sweetness of oranges. This was Ana. He could tell her.

  “I am an orphan of the Incurables. It would be painful for me to return.”

  “Darling,” she said, and put her arms around him. “I wish you’d told me.” When she kissed him, he felt how overwhelmingly good she was, how loving. He didn’t deserve her. “Shall I go with you?”

  Months ago, he wanted to go alone, to look in Letta’s eyes and return to Ana stronger. That was before he knew of the baby. With the baby coming, Mino was already stronger. He was bonded to Ana. He could lean on her.

  So now he saw it—the meeting, Letta watching him, watching Ana. Would it upset Letta to see him with another? Foolish thought. She had never loved Mino, not as he loved her. Might it be better if Letta didn’t have to wonder whether Mino was still in love with her? Ana’s presence would make the meeting more comfortable for everyone.

  “Thank you,” he told her.

  “I’ll set everything up. I know a member of their council. We’ll bring sausages.” Ana smiled at him, then down at her belly, addressing the baby. “Your papa is about to work for the most important coro in Venice. This will change your life, little one.”

  “I don’t want our life to change,” Mino said and kissed her, leaning over her on the chaise until she laughed and pulled him close, making room between her legs.

  She would never know how truly he meant it.

  SEVENTEEN

  AGAIN,” Violetta instructed Helena from the parlor chaise. “This time, slow down. Stop worrying about the next note. Stay with the one you are singing. Stay there as if you’ll never leave it.”

  She knew this was difficult advice, but she sighed as Helena ignored her, singing the scale again exactly as she had before. Outside a pale and gray September sky made the parlor gloomy. Violetta couldn’t imagine how it was nearly carnevale again. Two years already since that last day with Mino. It put her in a sullen mood to think of cycling through the same excruciating anniversaries every year. Why could time never circle back so that she might unsay those words?

  “Your tongue is too thick,” she told Helena irritably.

  “What am I meant to do about that?” Helena asked.

  “Stick it out,” Violetta said, and when Helena did, Violetta held it between her thumb and forefinger and pulled it forward until Helena’s eyes widened. Violetta had learned this trick from Giustina and it had served her well at the casino, where there was never time for a full warm-up before a performance. “Now sing.”

  As her protégé moved through the exercise, Violetta pushed everything from her mind but the rise and fall of Helena’s notes. Ever since Mino had missed that meeting, she had thrown herself into her responsibilities.

  For almost as long as she’d been a member of the coro, Violetta had secluded herself in the afternoons, claiming a virtuoso’s need for private time to rehearse and study while sleeping off her nights as La Sirena. But after Mino didn’t come, Violetta had trouble sleeping. Darkness filled her mind. She’d had to find new ways to stay busy.

  Helena had a bright, bell-like voice. What the eleven-year-old girl lacked in nuance, she made up for in volume. It might serve her well, as Hasse—the new maestro—composed bold oratorios that begged for a soloist whose voice could cut through an orchestra. Violetta
had learned how to sing over the din of La Sirena; Hasse thought she was brilliant.

  “Do you have an admirer?” Helena lisped, her tongue still pinched between Violetta’s fingers.

  Violetta let go. “Pardon me?”

  The girl seemed to wither under Violetta’s gaze. “It’s what some of the other girls are saying.”

  Violetta raised an eyebrow and waited, trying to give away nothing of the heat flushing her cheeks.

  “They say you have an admirer, and you’re expecting a proposal. That’s why you’ve started training me, because you’re going to leave.”

  Violetta rolled her eyes, even as she relaxed. This was children’s gossip; it had nothing to do with her nighttime realities. “Who do they believe my admirer to be?” She leaned closer to Helena, showing the girl it was okay to speak freely.

  “Ava said it was Porpora.” Helena laughed, glancing up to confirm this was absurd before going on. “That you’re already carrying his child, and that’s why his contract wasn’t renewed.”

  “And you?” Violetta asked. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Helena said, her large brown eyes holding Violetta’s. It was meant to be an expression of faith and loyalty, but it felt like a prophecy Violetta couldn’t abide. She stacked up her papers and turned away.

  “Again tomorrow,” she told Helena before closing herself in her chamber.

  Her mood was bitter. She had realized that what she hated most about her life now—more than being cloistered at the Incurables, more than never knowing her own parents—was that she had to admit she had hurt Mino out of spite and jealousy. Even if she fled this city, that would still be true. It crushed her that he hadn’t shown up for the meeting with the prioress, that she’d been ready to make amends and he had not. That was all she could make of his absence that day. Nothing, not even fantasies of Federico, could lift the weight.