The Violinist of Venice

by Alyssa Palombo

  The surprise vanished from his face, and with a quick nod he crossed the room and removed his violin from its case on his desk. He set the instrument into position, lifted his bow, and began to play.

  Oh, the music that came pouring from the Red Priest’s violin. Though he was the only one playing, the music seemed to swell and build and fill the entire room, until it sounded as though it must be coming from a full orchestra, instead of just one man. The piece he played was both rapid and lively, yet there was a passionate, desperate edge to it. And for all the music’s strident sort of quickness, he played it smoothly, so that the sound was rich and full.

  And what a sound it was. It did not seem possible that an ordinary violin, played by a seemingly ordinary man, was capable of singing with such beauty. And I thought that if one could somehow hear pure gold, this was exactly what it would sound like.

  It called to mind the tale of Orfeo and how his music had been able to make the very rocks and trees move and dance. I had always thought it a silly story, yet hearing Vivaldi play, I believed, if just for a moment, that such a thing was possible.

  I do not know how long he played; it seemed that he played forever, the glorious melody circling back on itself again and again, without end. My heart seemed to speed up, so that it beat in time with the music.

  Yet when he played the final notes and removed his bow from the strings, I felt as though it had not been nearly long enough, and that I could have listened to him play for an eternity.

  As soon as he stopped, his attention returned to me. I found myself staring at him silently. And even though I feared he was misinterpreting my reaction, I could not summon any words to accurately describe what I was feeling.

  Finally, as though he could no longer bear the silence, he spoke. “And so?” he asked, his voice echoing dully off the walls. “Do I live up to your expectations?”

  My voice came out scratchy and unused. “What was that?”

  His body stiffened as he misunderstood my meaning. “It is part of one of my own compositions.”

  “It was magnificent,” I gushed. “I don’t think I have ever heard anything more beautiful.”

  Relaxing, he chuckled as he put his violin back into its case. “You do me too much honor, signorina.”

  “It is true!” I insisted. “Surely you know without my telling you that it was—”

  “Very well,” he interrupted, smiling. “I shall accept your praise, if you insist. I am rather fond of that piece myself, truth be told.”

  I shook my head. “I do not feel the least bit worthy of learning from you.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, his tone now sharp. “You appreciated what you just heard, did you not? Not everyone would, as I know from experience.” His eyes met mine. “You understand, I think.”

  I felt a strange and uncomfortable flush of heat at these words. “Yes,” I replied. “I think that I may. That I will.”

  We held each other’s gaze just an instant too long, then he looked away and nodded toward my borrowed violin. “Let us see if you can play that melody again, and keep your wrist straight this time,” he said. “Emotion may be the most critical aspect of music, but the trick is to be able to combine that with perfect technique.”

  I picked up my violin. “Very well,” I said. “I will try again.”

  * * *

  Playing the violin again ignited a permanent glow that I carried inside me, which burned gently and steadily just beneath my breastbone. Before I left Maestro Vivaldi’s house, we agreed I should return at noon in three days’ time, but I knew my frequent comings and goings would not go unremarked upon for long. I was tempting il destino, but I couldn’t stop. I thought of it constantly; no matter what else I was doing, in my head I was making music. Bursts of color were beginning to flower in the unending gray that had dominated my world for years.

  Yet what haunted me most of all, in those few days following my first lesson, was the music Vivaldi had played. I heard it over and over again in my head, as though I could not forget it even if I had wanted to, and I began to feel that the music had changed something within me, though I did not know what.

  3

  APPASSIONATA

  “Faster, Signorina Adriana! You must play it faster!” Vivaldi shouted for the second time, causing me to stop in the middle of the piece I was playing.

  “I am still becoming familiar with the piece,” I protested. “This is only the third time I have gone through it, after all.”

  Vivaldi was shaking his head before I had finished speaking. “You are thinking about it too much,” he told me. “You are perfectly capable of playing this without familiarizing yourself with it. Do not let your head get in the way of what your hands are doing; simply do it.” He motioned toward the bow dangling limply from my right hand. “Try it again.”

  I lifted the bow to the strings, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes briefly. Do not let your head get in the way of what your hands are doing. I thought I knew what the maestro meant; but knowing and doing are very different things.

  I opened my eyes and focused on the sheet of music in front of me, then began to play. I tried to take in the notes written on the page and send them directly on to the tips of my fingers, only letting them pass through my mind for an instant. Amazingly, it worked, somehow; and when I reached the point where Vivaldi had stopped me just moments before, where he had demanded that I play it faster, I heard the music spill from my violin at the perfect speed, fast enough yet not too fast. I broke into a smile as I glided through it. From there I played on to the end without pause, holding out the last note perhaps half a beat too long, savoring it. When I finally looked up, I saw that Maestro Vivaldi’s eyes were bright with approval.

  “You see?” he said. “I told you that you could do it. It is that simple.”

  I smiled at his praise, and then, hesitating slightly, asked, “Did you write this?”

  “I did.”

  “It is wonderful,” I said, hoping that he could hear my sincerity.

  “It is made even more so by your playing of it,” he said.

  That same strange and welcome warmth as before flared within me, starting somewhere in my stomach and creeping up to my face. Knowing his eyes were upon me, I was forced to bow my head to collect myself.

  When I looked up again, he had turned away and was shuffling through a stack of parchment.

  “I have another for you to try,” he said, his back to me. He straightened up with another sheaf of papers in his hand and frowned. “Yet you are still not keeping your wrist precisely straight when you play,” he said, his voice a bit more stern now. “We have a little more time yet; let us see if we cannot correct that once and for all. It will make reaching each note much easier.”

  I shook my head slightly, as if to clear it, and set my violin into position again, waiting for him to tell me when to begin.

  * * *

  I made it safely home again that afternoon without being detected. Yet just as I had ensconced myself in a seat by a window in my rooms with a volume of Petrarch’s sonnets, one of the maids appeared at my door, telling me that my father required me to dine with him that evening.

  My father was, more often than not, much occupied with business, and lately I had been—very happily—left to my own devices as a result. But I knew that the servants would report to him all of my doings, as needed. It had happened before; when I was about fourteen, I had slipped out of the palazzo one Carnevale night at dusk to watch the revelers, and dream of joining them. I had not strayed far; I even made it safely back inside without being seen. Yet about a half hour later, my father burst into my room, delivering a ferocious lecture as well as a backhand across my face. I never discovered which of the servants told, but since then I knew better than to trust them.

  As my maid, Meneghina, dressed me in a presentable gown for dinner that evening, I briefly entertained the idea that this unexpected summons meant my father had discovered my secret trips. But I knew better
. If he’d learned of my disobedience, he would have taken me to task in a display of unrestrained rage that would shake the walls. I shivered thinking of it.

  He was already seated when I entered the dining room. “Adriana,” he said in his deep voice, nodding formally in my direction.

  “Father,” I replied, before resuming my silence.

  Servants brought out our soup, and one filled my wineglass with one of the crisp white wines that was produced on the mainland of the Veneto.

  I had almost finished my soup—a salty broth with white fish—when my father finally spoke again. “I have some news for you,” he said. “I am leaving the day after tomorrow to assist your brother with some business matters in Florence.”

  My elder brother, Claudio, had moved to Florence a few years ago to take charge of the d’Amato business offices there. As head of the company, my father made periodic trips there to ensure everything was to his satisfaction.

  “While I am gone,” he continued as the servants removed our soup dishes, “your Zia Gianna will be staying here with you. We may expect her tomorrow.”

  “And how long will you be gone?” I asked.

  “I plan to spend the summer there,” he said as the servants brought out the next course.

  I forced myself to temper my smile. My father’s departure provided just the freedom I needed to continue my lessons. If the servants noticed anything during his absence—and Fortuna, that most capricious of goddesses, smiled on me—they would forget it by the time he returned.

  My father put a piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed, scrutinizing me. He swallowed. “And when I return I shall focus on finding a husband for you.”

  My stomach lurched, as when one slips and narrowly misses tumbling into a canal. I had known that this would be coming soon: a few months ago, my father had sent away my tutor and stopped my daily lessons, saying I was eighteen and had learned all that was proper for a woman and more than enough to be a patrician wife and run a nobleman’s household. Yet hearing it aloud gave it life outside of my own mind.

  My father chuckled. “Surely this cannot be a surprise to you, Adriana. It is time you had a husband and, given the position of our family and your dowry, we shall have Venice’s finest to choose from.”

  He had said “we,” but I was not fooled. When I did not respond, he said, “Well, you have the rest of the summer to accustom yourself to the idea. I am expecting you to do well in marriage, Adriana, and to bring honor to our family. It is a woman’s duty,” he added, an edge of warning in his voice.

  I bowed my head and nodded at my plate, my meal suddenly losing all appeal. “Yes, Father,” I said quietly. There was nothing else to say.

  4

  THE CROSS I BEAR

  “Stop, Signorina Adriana. Stop for a moment.”

  So intensely was I trying to unravel what seemed to be a very complicated section of music that I did not immediately register the maestro’s words. It was not until he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder that I felt myself pulled abruptly back into the cluttered front room of his house.

  “My apologies, maestro,” I said, flustered and disoriented, not immediately realizing that he let his hand linger upon my shoulder longer than necessary. “I was just thinking … that is, I cannot seem to—”

  He waved my attempted apologies aside. “You do not seem quite in your usual spirits today, Signorina Adriana, if I may presume to say so. Is anything amiss?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, to tell him that I was quite well, that everything was fine, I was just tired, or it was the heat—for it was unseasonably warm that day. But instead, “It is my father,” I blurted out. “He has just gone to Florence on business for the summer, but when he comes back, he is going to find a husband for me.” I looked down, away from the Red Priest’s penetrating stare. “I am sorry,” I said. “I do not know why I told you. You certainly do not care about such trivial matters. I should—”

  Vivaldi shook his head. “On the contrary. It is not trivial, and I do care. But I must confess I do not fully understand. I thought most young ladies wished to make a good marriage, if they are able?”

  I studied him disbelievingly, but there was nothing but sincerity in his open gaze. “I suppose it is mostly that I do not want a marriage with the kind of man my father will choose for me,” I said. “He cares little for my happiness, you see…” I trailed off, unable to put eighteen years’ worth of anxiety and mistrust into words.

  Vivaldi did not say anything. Then he motioned to my violin. “Put that away for now,” he told me. He turned and disappeared through a door at the back of the room, emerging a moment later with a bottle of white wine and two glasses. “Music serves to cure all ills, yet a bit of wine never goes amiss either, no?”

  I smiled, accepting the glass of wine he poured me. As soon as I tasted it, I knew it was cheaper than I was used to, but I enjoyed it all the same. It was sweet and soothing.

  I sat in the tattered armchair near the fireplace, and he took the other, angling it in my direction. “So tell me, Signorina Adriana,” he said, “what would you do with your life, if you could? If you did not have to marry?”

  It was a question no one else would dare ask; a question I had barely dared to ask myself. Yet my answer was immediate. “I would play music. It is the one thing I have loved in my life, yet for so long I have been cut off from it. But even if my father let me”—Vivaldi’s eyebrows lifted in curiosity—“there is no call for female instrumentalists, only singers in the opera.” I paused, taking a sip of wine. “And I know I have to marry someone, someday, but I want my husband to be someone I love, that I choose for myself…” I trailed off and glanced at the maestro again, then looked down into my wineglass. “You are very kind to listen,” I said. “But I do not wish to burden you with my troubles, nor do I expect you to understand the cares and wishes of a silly young woman.”

  “I am afraid I must contradict you again, signorina,” he replied, a trace of emotion beneath his words. “You speak of music; who better to understand than I? What is more,” he added, almost reluctantly, “I, too, know what it is to have a path chosen for you which is not what you would have desired.”

  I glanced back up, surprised.

  “I am the eldest son of a family which was never particularly well off,” he continued. “And so my parents decided the best chance I would have to advance in the world was the Church.” He took another sip, staring at a spot on the wall behind me, as though he were seeing people and places and events long in the past. “I was a boy of fifteen when I was accepted into the minor orders for the priesthood; what was I to do? I was too young to have any idea of what I wanted. I still did not know ten years later, when I was ordained; but even if I did, by then it was too late. Even if I had realized what I know now.” He shook his head, sighing.

  I struggled to find my voice, spellbound by this side of him I never knew existed. “And what is it that you know now?” I asked softly.

  His eyes snapped back to my face, almost surprised, as though he had forgotten I was there. “I am not at all suited for the priesthood,” he said wryly. “I am the wrong sort of man altogether. My passions are not limited solely to serving our Heavenly Father, I am afraid.” He smiled and looked away. “Strange,” he said, more to himself than to me.

  “What is strange?” I asked.

  His eyes met mine again, an odd curiosity in them. “I do not believe I have ever told anybody that before,” he said. “Only said it to myself, countless times, over and over again.”

  I remained frozen where I was, silent, unsure how to respond. Why me? a part of me wanted to ask. Why tell me, of all people?

  “Still,” he added, breaking what had turned into a long silence, “being a man of the cloth has had its advantages. Were I not a priest, I would never have been able to teach at the Pietà, or write music for them.” He laughed. “For as long as that lasted.” He tipped his head back, draining the rest of his glass. “At least I am not requ
ired to say Mass,” he said. “A chest ailment,” he explained, in response to my questioning look. “A breathing problem that plagued me greatly as a boy, but seems to have mostly sorted itself out as I have grown older. Nothing serious. A convenient excuse,” he added with a smile, “though I expect the bishop was glad to be rid of me, as I got into a persistent habit of leaving the altar during Mass if an idea for a new composition struck me.”

  I laughed aloud at this.

  Noticing my wine was gone as well, he refilled my glass, then his, without a word. He lifted his glass. “To us, Signorina Adriana. Perhaps the fact that we already know what our lives lack will at the very least keep us from spending our years wondering what is missing.”

  I touched my glass lightly to his, smiling.

  “But one thing, maestro,” I said, after we drank our toast. “That is enough of this ‘signorina’ nonsense. You must call me Adriana.”

  He nodded. “Yet I fear I must presume upon this familiarity a bit further. Would it do so much harm if you told me your surname?”

  I considered this. Surely it could do no harm now.

  “Just to sate my curiosity,” he added.

  “D’Amato,” I confessed finally. “Adriana d’Amato.”

  His eyes widened. “Surely not,” he breathed. “Then you are the mysterious daughter that Enrico d’Amato keeps under such close guard.”

  I flushed. “I had not realized that all of Venice knew of my circumstances,” I said. “But yes.”

  He gave me a crooked sort of smile. “Never underestimate the might of the Venetian gossips, my girl.”

  “Then you understand why your discretion is of the utmost importance,” I said. “Nobody—especially my father—can know I’ve been coming here.”