The Violinist of Venice (27 page)

But it did not. I was locked in.

 

38

LOST

Morning dawned to find me still locked in my rooms. I had paced them all the night, certain Giuseppe would come set me free, but he did not. No one did.

It was beneath my dignity—only just—to pound at the door and demand to be released. It would have been an exercise in futility in any case. The order to lock me in had surely come from my father, and none but Giuseppe would dare to defy him. Which could only mean that Giuseppe had been similarly incarcerated, to prevent him from coming to my aid.

The sun rose, and lingered in the sky, and still no one came. I had finally succumbed to exhaustion and was sleeping atop the coverlets of my bed when I heard voices outside my door.

“Let me pass, please,” an unfamiliar female voice said. The door swung open, and I was on my feet as quickly as my condition would allow. A woman whom I only vaguely recognized as a kitchen maid came in with a tray, set it on my sitting room table, and moved to leave.

“Wait!” In an instant I caught her arm in a tight grip. “What is the meaning of this? Why is the door to my rooms locked? Where is Giuseppe? Where is Meneghina?”

“The master commanded it, madonna,” the woman informed me, looking almost apologetic. “I know not where they are; only that I was told to bring you this to break your fast.” Quickly she slipped from my grasp and went out the door. I heard the lock click back into place behind her.

I stood, dumbfounded, staring at the closed door.

*   *   *

For over a week I was trapped in my rooms, seeing no one except the servant from the kitchen—whose name, I learned, was Teresa—who brought me my meals three times a day, helped me dress, and drew me a bath every other day. For the first few days I continued to ply her with questions, until I came to realize that even if she did know something—and how could she not?—she was not about to share with me.

My father I saw not at all. He had found the perfect punishment for me, worse than a beating, and he knew it.

On the third day of my imprisonment, I hit upon the idea of bribery. I took a pair of small diamond earrings set in gold that my father had given me and had them ready when Teresa arrived with my midday meal. “Come look, Teresa,” I said, making my voice as cheerful as possible.

Glancing at me wearily, she set the tray down and came to where I sat, in a chair by the window. I opened my palm to show her the earrings. “Lovely, are they not?”

She nodded, still not sure of my aim.

I held one up to her ear. “They would look marvelous on you. That lovely dark hair of yours would set them off quite well.”

“I would have no use for such things, madonna,” she said, but I could see from the gleam in her eye that she was rather taken with the idea.

I extended my palm again. “They will be yours if you help me leave this house.”

For a moment she hesitated, looking covetously at the baubles in my hand. Then her face closed off, and she shuddered slightly. “I dare not, madonna,” she said. “The master has said if you were to be found missing whilst I am attending you, it will go worse for me than it did for Meneghina…” She trailed off, eyes wide. “I mean to say—forgive me, madonna…”

“What has happened to Meneghina?” I asked, feeling slightly sick, Giuseppe's words echoing in my mind:
If you fall, we all fall with you.

“Forgive me, madonna, I am not supposed to say.”

“And who is to know if you do say?” I asked, standing to block the door that led from my bedchamber to the sitting room so she could not leave. “One earring if you tell me what has befallen Meneghina,” I said, holding them out to her again, “and the other if you tell me where Giuseppe is.”

Her meaty shoulders sagged in defeat. “Very well,” she said. She reached for the earrings, but I curled my fingers into a fist over them.

“Speak first.”

“Very well,” she said again. She lowered her voice. “Meneghina was dismissed.”

“No!” I cried.

“
Si.
The master assumed she knew of your … that you had a lover,” she said awkwardly. “Nor did she deny it.”

“Dio mio,”
I murmured, the guilt tightening like a noose around my throat. “Here,” I said, dropping one of the earrings into her hand.

“If it please you, madonna, you did promise me the other one as well…”

“First tell me of Giuseppe.”

“He is locked in his room,” she said, admiring the diamond in her hand. “Under guard, as well. All of the servants have been forbidden from carrying messages between the two of you, under threat of dismissal.”

He was still in the palazzo at least; our father had not turned him out as I had at times feared. Yet that may have been preferable, for now he was in no position to help me, nor I him. I gave Teresa the other earring, as promised, and she scurried from the room, her new treasures hidden in a pocket of her worn apron.

Despite everything, I smiled. My jailer was susceptible to bribes.

*   *   *

Each day, I tried to tempt Teresa into releasing me, first with a strand of pearls—another gift from my father—and then with the emerald bracelet Tommaso had given me on Christmas. I was rather fond of it, but I did not see that I had a choice. After a week had passed since my door was first locked I offered her both, in desperation.

Each day she refused, though not without some hesitation. When she refused both the pearls and the bracelet I snapped, screaming at her to get out of my sight.

Finally I pulled out the strands of silver set with dozens of diamonds that my father had ordered for my coif on the night I attended the Foscaris' ball, the night I first met Tommaso. It was obscenely valuable; I had more costly things still, but I refused to part with anything that had been my mother's, or that I might need later. When Vivaldi and I made our escape from Venice, we would need everything of value we had. Those pieces were packed away in a purse I had secreted in my wardrobe.

On the ninth day of my incarceration, I was ready. I let the chain slip through my fingers as Teresa came in with my evening meal. Her eyes locked on the gleaming silver, the sparkle of the diamonds.

“It can be yours,” I said. “You know what you need do.”

“But madonna, I would lose my place,” she protested, her eyes never leaving the jewelry.

“And how much would that matter?” I asked. “How long could you live off the money that this would bring you?”

Her silence told me that I had finally won. “Distract the guard tonight, and then return when he is away,” I said. “I will hand this to you and then be gone.”

“Very well,” she said, her voice low. “Consider it done.” With that, she set down the tray and vanished, leaving me to prepare myself for my flight.

*   *   *

I was ready when Teresa returned later that night to unlock the door, wearing my plainest dress and cloak and with the purse of gold and jewelry slung across my chest. In one hand was the strand of diamonds, in the other the pearls.

I did not know or care how she got the guard to leave his post. I know only that I heard the key turn in the lock, and that she opened the door for me, her palm outstretched as she stood alone in the hallway. “Thank you,” I said, placing the diamonds in her hand.

She did not speak, merely stepped aside to let me pass.

I went immediately to the servants' quarters. A tall man I had never seen before slouched beside the door to Giuseppe's room, head bowed. When he heard me in the darkened hallway he straightened up, wary.

I approached him and handed him the strand of pearls. “Be gone,” I admonished him. To my amazement, he did as I asked, even handing me the key. He was clearly some hired hand that had no loyalty to my father and no real need for this position.

I unlocked the door and slipped inside, shutting it behind me. Giuseppe bolted upright at my entrance. “Adriana?” he asked. He leaped from the bed and embraced me tightly. “How did you—”

“Bribery,” I explained. “Listen to me, Giuseppe. I am going now.”

He moved toward the door. “I will come.”

“No,” I said. “You must stay here, at least for a bit, so that I will not be found missing right away. If we are both gone, they will know. You can make your escape afterward. Once I am gone, our father will no longer feel any need to keep you here.”

“Adriana.” He put both hands on my shoulders. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

I laughed mirthlessly. “It is all I have thought about these days past. And I have had much time to think.” I embraced him, tightly, aware that if all went as I hoped, it would be some time before I saw him again. If ever. “Good-bye,
fratello,
” I whispered into his ear.
“Grazie mille.”

He held me close, not speaking. “Godspeed, Adriana,” he said.
“Mia sorella.”

It took all I had not to break down at those words, so I turned quickly and left, left Giuseppe, left the palazzo, and made my way to Vivaldi and to my future.

 

39

NOTHING LEFT

I tried the door of Vivaldi's house and unsurprisingly found it locked. Peering in through the part in the curtains, I could see him seated at his desk, candles blazing around him as he composed some new masterpiece. The sight of him made me want to weep with relief, but there was no time for that.

I pounded on the door. “Antonio!” I hissed loudly. “It is I! Open the door!”

Hearing me, he quickly unbolted the door, and I stepped inside. “Adriana!” he exclaimed. “
Cara,
you cannot know how happy I am to see you! There has been no word for days, and I was worried.”

“And I am happy to see you,” I interrupted. “But there is no time for such now.”

His brow creased. “What is it, Adriana? What is wrong?”

Now that I was finally here, finally near enough to touch him, finally where I had wanted to be for so many interminable weeks, I found I did not know how to ask him to uproot his life. “I … we are undone,” I stuttered at last. “My father has discovered that I have a lover, but I would not tell him your name.”

As I spoke, I moved into the light so he could see the last traces of the bruises on my face, now an ugly yellowish color; the remnants of my split lip. His eyes widened. “It was worse still,” I said. “He has kept me barricaded in my rooms for over a week now. Giuseppe was similarly imprisoned.”

“Domine Deus,”
he whispered. “So this is why there has been no word. Oh,
cara.
” He reached out and cupped my face in his hands. “How could I not have known? Please forgive me somehow.”

I shook my head. “There is nothing to forgive. My father's spite and hatefulness are no fault of yours.” I took his hands in mine. “But there is good news, too,
mio amore,
” I went on, “beautiful news.” I placed his hands on the swell of my belly beneath my cloak, looking up into his eyes. “I am carrying your child.”

He did not speak for a long time. I felt his fingers stretch slowly over the curve of my abdomen as his eyes widened further in shock and wonder.

Suddenly, he drew his hand back sharply as though he had been burned.
“Mater Dei,”
he breathed, “this cannot be. How? I thought you said…”

I shrugged. “I had begun to think it impossible as well, yet clearly I was wrong. But none of that is important.” I stepped close to him, again taking his hand. “This is our chance, Tonio.” When he did not respond, I went on, trying to quell the uneasiness I felt growing within me. “We can leave tonight, before anyone knows we have gone. We can be together; have what we always thought we could never have. We can raise our child together.” I paused to clear my dry throat. “Come with me,
amore.
”

Again he was silent. “I … I have just been reinstated at the Pietà,” he said finally.

I could not fathom what this had to do with anything I was saying. “You … what?”

Silence.

His head was bowed, so I could not search his eyes for the truth I was so desperately afraid I would find there. Yet when he did look up at me, I wished he had not. “I … I cannot, Adriana. I cannot. May God forgive me.” He paused, voice ragged. “May you forgive me as well, though I have no hope of either.”

My breath caught in my throat. I pressed a hand to my chest and stumbled away from him, trying to steady myself, to convince myself that I had not heard those words from his lips. When I finally looked back at him, I could only manage one flat syllable, a wish and a prayer and a question and a denial: “No.”

Hurriedly he crossed the room to me. “Adriana, please. I never intended for things to happen this way—”

“But it
has
happened this way!” I said, staring hard at him. “All of it has happened, and you cannot now undo it. The child—
our
child—cannot go away at your whim!”

“Adriana,” he said, lowering his voice. “Think of what you are asking me to do.”

“Think of what you are asking
me
to do!” I shot back. “You are abandoning me! You are flinging me to my father's mercy, and an abhorrent marriage.”

“Marriage?” he asked, almost hesitantly. “To whom?”

“Not that it makes any difference to you,” I said, “but Tommaso Foscari asked for my hand several weeks ago. Now he and his family will surely call it off once my father tells them I am with child. If he has not told them already.” I laughed harshly. “He thinks he can still find someone who will have me, and with the king's ransom of a dowry he will give me simply to be rid of me, no doubt he is right.”

“And … what will become of the child?” Vivaldi asked.

I turned on him anew. “I have not the slightest idea!” I cried. “Do you not see what you have done? What you are doing? Can you not see the devastation you will wreak in my life, our child's life?”