6 - Whispers of Vivaldi

by Beverle Graves Myers

  I had no idea and told Maurino so. Then I asked. “Is that how Torani paupered himself? Sinking his savings into property that he couldn’t afford?”

  “No.” The manservant’s sheepish look became so pronounced and melded so perfectly with his tight white curls, he could have been an old ewe staring over a fence. “One night the maestro happened to enjoy a run of luck at the Ridotto. He doubled his money at the wheel not once, but several times. He was amazed to see his stake end up on the right square time after time. He couldn’t lose! When he came home, quite late, he was so excited I could barely ready him for bed. He vowed to return the next night and repeat his feat. ‘Dame Fortune has taken me under her wing,’ he said. ‘The Blessed Virgin has put a word in her ear, and I’m finally being rewarded for all my years of hard work.’

  “My master truly believed he could amass enough ducats to buy the villa he longed for.” Maurino spread his hands. “Of course, the miracle never repeated itself, but Maestro Torani kept trying.”

  I felt my heart sink to my knees. I knew this story so well, there was no need for further explanation. My father had also been convinced that he possessed a particular genius for beating the faro bank, and when he played against a banker who used an honest dealer’s box, Papa would manage to win often enough to bolster that conviction to an out-and-out religion. Until his death at the hands of his creditors, he was certain that his last, great triumph—the win that would allow him a life of ease—was just around the next bend.

  I hadn’t realized that Maestro Torani had sunk so low. And so quickly. I thought it over while Maurino dusted a few more books and transferred them to the crate.

  Because of my father’s actions, I could understand why Torani had kept his gambling from me. But had he also been ashamed to let any of his other friends help him? If so, why? Nearly all my countrymen relished a chancy adventure. Gambling was in our blood. Venice had married her fortune to the sea long ago, as commemorated by the Ascension Day ritual of the Doge casting a golden ring into the Adriatic. Setting out in a ship laden with goods or soldiers was nothing more than a gamble on a grand scale. Fortunes were regularly made, then quickly lost to a tempest or marauding corsairs. Still and all, few Venetians were feckless enough to throw good money after bad at the Ridotto. Though the Republic maintained the gambling house to plump up the state coffers, any sensible man or woman enjoyed a few bets and then proceeded to other pleasures. We left reckless Ridotto gambling to the punters from England or France.

  But not Maestro Torani apparently. A lucky wager had actually been misfortune in disguise and made him lose his head. If I believed in demons, I’d think a particularly powerful one had climbed on his back.

  I found myself stating the obvious: “If Maestro Torani played, he lost. If he kept losing, he owed money to someone.”

  Maurino groaned, very faintly. “He did sell a lot of things.”

  I snapped my fingers. “The paperweight he loved so much, the Doge’s gift—it disappeared from his desk at the theater.”

  “I know the one. It and many other baubles went to the Ghetto pawn shops—but they didn’t bring in enough. Not by half.”

  “Did Signora Dall’Agata and the Savio speak of this while they were closeted in the study?”

  Maurino nodded. “She explained about the bravos who’d sent the maestro increasingly violent warnings—his Ridotto losses were the least of it—he’d taken to frequenting a private casino that allowed him to run up a large tally. There were several nasty encounters he’d managed to keep secret. Then one early morning as he returned home, a man in a domino pushed him into a covered passageway and battered him with a cudgel. My poor master lay there for hours—thank Heaven it wasn’t winter—he would have frozen to death. Signora Dall’Agata and I found him only by the grace of God.”

  I shook my head. When I’d noticed Torani’s injury that day we’d talked on the Rialto, he fed me a story of a cat dislodging a roof tile. A cat! I’d swallowed the maestro’s lies like an infant licking syrup from a spoon. Dolt that I was!

  Maurino continued, “Signora Dall’Agata was frightened out of her wits and scrambled to raise money to pay those money grubbers—sold her jewels, every last one, I believe—but before she could complete the transaction…” His voice faltered.

  “The bravos ambushed Peppino and Torani on the canal,” I finished for him.

  He nodded, lips set in a tight line.

  Scales dropped from my eyes. I became aware of a novel emotion—a pang of guilt over that buffoon, Lorenzo Caprioli. I almost wanted to find him and apologize for my suspicions. Caprioli might be responsible for many foul acts, but he hadn’t scuttled Maestro Torani’s gondola as I’d been convinced.

  “Oh, Maurino.” I sighed, sick at heart. “Why did you not tell me of this?”

  “I wanted to. Truly. Signora Dall’Agata wouldn’t allow it. She said she had cleared my master’s debts and would see to it that he didn’t run up any more. How could he, anyway? After his dunking in the canal, he was barely strong to walk from his bed to his desk.”

  “What did Signor Passoni have to say about the maestro’s misfortunes?”

  Maurino grabbed a stout leather-bound volume, blew dust off the top, and swiped his cloth over the cover. He placed the book in the crate and talked as he continued his work. “The Savio was most gracious. I believe he felt some responsibility for the murder, for allowing a killer to invade his palazzo. He offered to take charge of the funeral and told Signora Dall’Agata to refer any of the maestro’s outstanding bills to his own man of business.”

  “Generous,” I murmured.

  “Yes, in all things.”

  “Eh?”

  “She asked for something else, in whispers. I couldn’t make it all out, but I think she requested an allowance to put toward her own upkeep.” Maurino turned toward the foyer. Peppino had returned. Quickly, the valet finished, “I believe Signor Passoni accommodated her.”

  Maurino beckoned to Peppino. As the two men shifted the heavy crate toward the foyer, I walked over to the window that overlooked the canal. I stood there for a moment wondering and worrying, then pressed my forehead against the cool glass. A gondola slid by, carrying a quartet of English dandies. The boatman was singing for their benefit, an old barcarola that resounded off the stones. On the opposite pavement, a girl shading her face with a parasol sent them a saucy wave. As her older companion batted her arm down, one dandy stood up and sketched a shaky bow. Only the steadying grasp of his fellows kept him from falling in the water. Everyone laughed, even the girl’s duenna.

  Despite the charming scene, a chill passed over me, and I involuntarily stepped back.

  You lose the ones you love, I thought, but life rolls on its way unheeding—a joy, a sorrow, and a mystery.

  ***

  Maurino had one other surprise for me.

  When he returned, I again questioned him about Tedi’s hasty exit. He appeared truly bewildered and could offer no explanation, but he did conduct me into the cramped burrow of Maestro Torani’s study. It was a slant-ceilinged room paneled in cream and light green with a frayed rush mat covering the floor. The single wing chair and side table I was accustomed to seeing in the window gable were gone. The writing desk, which was smaller and much neater than Torani’s desk at the theater, was the only piece of furniture remaining.

  “Did the Jew not buy the desk?” I asked.

  “It wouldn’t fit on his cart—he had it piled to the sky. He’ll return for another load. That letter is addressed to you—Signora Dall’Agata left it.” Maurino indicated an ivory-colored rectangle. It sat exactly in the center of a swath of ragged-edged blotting paper. A bulbous pottery olive-oil lamp held one curling corner in place. There was no inkwell set. It must have gone to the pawn broker along with so many other things.

  I reached for the letter.

  Tito, the front read, just T
ito. It had been addressed in Torani’s acutely sloping hand, folded in quarters, and sealed with a red blob of wax. I stiffened my thumb to remove the seal, but suddenly thought better of it. I glanced up at Maurino. Like the perceptive servant he was, he bowed and left me in privacy.

  I stowed the letter in an inside pocket. I’d read it later—when I was ready. Now, I wanted to search the desk away from Maurino’s curious eyes, however loyal they may be. Torani had sold anything that would plump up his pocketbook, but perhaps he’d kept a few treasures of the heart, sentimental relics that might furnish a clue as to who wanted him out of the way.

  I poked my long fingers into all of the desk’s little drawers and niches. They’d been emptied of everything except the usual detritus that tends to accumulate—soiled pen wipes, empty ink jars, dunning letters from tailor and wine merchant—but I wasn’t finished. I lifted the blotter, remembering how Torani had concealed Angeletto’s contract in his office at the theater. If luck was with me…yes! My fingers touched something. I withdrew a few crackling sheets. Music!

  The light was poor, so I stepped over to the window that overlooked a sunny courtyard filled with drying laundry. I shuffled the papers into two matching piles, an easy task since two different hands were represented. One was full and rounded, the other spidery and slanting. Then I fanned both piles out on the wide window sill.

  I was looking at two original compositions.

  The one on the right I’d seen before. The composer had handed it to me himself. It was part of Rocatti’s handwritten manuscript for The False Duke, actually one of the soprano arias that Oriana had sung at the reception last night.

  I frowned as I scrutinized the piece on my left. The paper was older. It had aged to a tannish hue, and the musical notations that danced over the printed staves were slightly faded. Also an original, this score gave evidence of more tentative composition than Rocatti’s. Some notes were crossed out with flurried strokes and others scratched in. Ink blotches smudged the margins. But—I quickly scanned the staves with the tune unreeling in my head—except for a few nuances, the arias were virtually the same.

  Whose work was this? Squinting at the slanting letters, I could just make out a signature at the top right-hand corner of the yellowed sheet. A large A followed by a smaller N, then a T. Antonio!

  The surname was even lighter, but it began with a large V that sloped to the left like a sail filled with wind, then an I and another V. The rest of the signature thinned out to a wiggly line, but there was only one composer who could have penned this score—Antonio Vivaldi.

  What had Maestro Torani whispered to Signora Passoni after the concert? “Don’t you hear the whispers of Vivaldi, my dear?” She’d jumped like she’d been prodded with a hot poker.

  Whispers, my left foot. This was a shout of Vivaldi, a fanfare, a blast of trumpets.

  I gathered the lot and took off at a run, recalling the bundle of scores I’d seen tied up in the vestibule downstairs. Was there more of this Vivaldi manuscript concealed in that untidy bale?

  I clattered down the uncarpeted stairs with my heart in my mouth. The red-and-black-tiles of the vestibule were an empty chessboard. With a frustrated sigh, I stepped outside and looked up and down the thin strip of pavement along the canal. The scores were gone, of course.

  And so was the anonymous boat Tedi had hired to carry off Maestro Torani’s personal effects.

  ***

  I wandered aimlessly, stung by Tedi’s mysterious decampment and puzzled by Rocatti’s poaching of Vivaldi’s composition. If someone had asked me where I was headed, I wouldn’t have been able to say. The weather was fine, and the air held a whiff of autumn. Eventually, I found it pleasant to ramble alone with my thoughts, which had inexplicably turned away from sorrowful confusion to settle on the happier times I’d shared with Maestro Torani. Such is the way our minds seek to protect us.

  A few squares east of the Calle Castangna, I passed the Greek church whose campanile listed almost as severely as the more famous tower in Pisa. Then I crossed several wooden bridges and wound through one quiet calle after another. Outside many doors, men occupied broken-down chairs, taking an after-dinner break. Their women gathered on balconies above, almost enveloped by curtains billowing out from open windows. At last I found myself on the pavement in front of the lofty, columned façade of the Church of the Pieta. The institution alongside the church was the Ospedale where Vivaldi had instructed his young female charges and where Signor Rocatti now held the same position.

  I drew close enough to see the porter at the gatehouse, drowsing with his feet propped up on the counter. I could wake him. He would stretch his arms, rub his eyes, and inquire which young lady I wished to visit.

  The residents of the Pieta were not all orphans, you see. Many were the natural daughters of aristocrats and their mistresses. In a society where only the oldest son of an illustrious family was encouraged to marry, the by-blows of the younger sons did tend to accumulate. While true foundlings were handed over to the nuns through a square window with nothing but their swaddling clothes, the noble daughters were consigned with generous donations to support the Ospedale and were generally acknowledged and visited by their families. Little stigma was attached to being a flower in the Pieta’s garden. If their bloodline was illustrious enough, many of the girls went on to make good marriages.

  Of course, it was Rocatti I would demand of the porter, not one of the girls. I stood there for some minutes, making up my mind. I finally decided to move along and confront the young composer later, once I’d had some questions answered. What did I know of Rocatti’s background, after all? I’d especially like to know if the young composer had pirated just one aria for The False Duke—forgivable, perhaps—or the entire opera.

  Borrowing a tune as an homage to your mentor was one thing. Presenting another composer’s opera as your own, note for note, was quite another.

  I strolled west along the Riva, pausing to take in the view of San Giorgio Maggiore. Across the sparkling, rippling waves of the Basin, the island’s spires and domes could have been an immaculate stage set created by our talented Ziani. Continuing on, I came to the rose-pink arcades of the Doge’s palazzo and the square beyond. The Piazzetta’s pavement blazed in the afternoon sun, and I was glad of the stiffening breeze that whipped flags and banners into a flapping frenzy.

  Fruit sellers were set up between the pair of columns that overlooked the Basin and the ships moored at its jetty. A trio of old women crouched on stools under a particularly huge umbrella that appeared in danger of toppling in the wind. In return for helping them anchor their protective shade, they offered me the pick of their wares: melons, figs, and apples. Ripe apples! They must have come from over the Alps—Italy’s wouldn’t be ready for picking for another few weeks. The sight of that heaped, shining fruit, red-striped over a delicate green, reminded me I was famished. I’d had nothing to eat that day, only a gulped cup of chocolate many hours ago. I accepted one apple for my mouth and one for my pocket.

  The juicy fruit only whetted my appetite. I continued along the pavement until my feet followed old habit and turned away from the water, toward the Teatro San Marco. I called in at the first café I passed. A spindle-shanked scarecrow in a greasy apron served me a salad so fresh it could have leapt onto the plate directly from the garden. He followed that with a simple dish of macaroni browned in butter topped by a filet of perfectly grilled fish. My stomach sang!

  If my mood hadn’t been mellowed by a full belly and fond reminiscence, I would’ve had the sense to avoid Peretti’s, the coffee house frequented by musicians and theatrical folk. Men only—the single woman allowed in Peretti’s was the ancient beldame who tended the steaming copper urn.

  I deposited a soldo in the admission box and passed through the glassed doors. It took but a moment to realize my mistake. As I glanced up and down the long tables, news-gazettes abruptly rose to cover their rea
ders’ eyes. Pipes suddenly went out, necessitating a great folderol of tobacco and tinder boxes. Snuff cried out to be taken. These activities occupied my acquaintances who were embarrassed to encounter one of their number who was suspected of killing the revered maestro of the San Marco.

  More forthright men—the sensation-seekers and morbidly curious—merely stared open-mouthed, as if I’d grown an extra nose.

  For the space of a heartbeat, I stood frozen. I saw none of my particularly trusted friends and couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. Suddenly, fiery coals of anger burst into flame beneath my soles and impelled my steps toward my usual seat. By God’s grace, I had as much right to take coffee at Peretti’s as any other man! Struggling to maintain a dignified mien, I removed my hat, sank down on the bench, and called my order to the boy.

  He dashed over to the urn, returned with the cup clattering in its dish, and pushed it at me with bulging eyes. I sent him a wink, which only served to make him go white as a sheet.

  Sigh.

  I’d taken only a few sips of the stimulating brew when the two men I least wanted to see in this world entered the steamy coffee house and headed straight toward me. Lorenzo Caprioli eased his bulk down on my right and Emiliano, his primo uomo, squeezed in on my left. I felt my jaws tense, my stomach flutter. After ordering a cup of coffee each, the scoundrels from the Teatro Grimani propped their elbows on the plank table as if they meant to settle in for a good talk.

  Thus bracketed, I could only say my buongiorno through clenched teeth. More than the beverage distinguished coffee house from tavern. It was the fast rule of every coffee house from London to Rome that discourse remain sober and civil, all the better to foster brotherhood and free exchange of new philosophies.

  There were other reasons to keep my demeanor in check. At least fifty pairs of eyes were watching. I hardly wanted to give Peretti’s clientele a fiery show that would be talked about all over the city. That would seal my reputation as a volatile monster for good.