Hidden Voices (9 page)

Anetta is pining to see her and writes long letters of consolation, never receiving any in return. Poor Anetta seems thinner and gaunt, as if she has been ill herself. I think only the sight of Luisa, restored to health, will make her well again.

There is such a pall over everything, one would hardly suspect that Carnival begins in only three days and we celebrate Christmas in two. It is rumored that the Board of Governors will want the Ospedale to ignore Carnival this year. Would such a decision apply to all of us? I wonder. I have been preparing for this grand pre-Lenten celebration since last year, when I first spied the wig-maker’s assistant. In fact, I’ve been working secretly on a magnificent mask made out of all the dusky blue pigeon feathers I’ve been able to find in the street and the square. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to capture the beautiful iridescence that can be seen when massed on the bird. No matter. The mask will still be like no other. And I am so very ready to meet my own dearest love. Another year’s wait would seem endless.

Just before supper, I have sequestered myself in the little storage room outside the kitchen to work on my mask and am surprised when Anetta comes by with the porridge bowls from the nursery. She stops when she sees me, clearly upset at discovering what I am up to.

“For the love of Our Dearest Lord, Rosalba. You didn’t kill that bird, did you? Father Vivaldi will have an attack!”

She is so serious, I cannot help laughing.

“What bird, Anetta? Do you see a plucked and limp little body somewhere?”

“But all those feathers?”

“Are from many wild pigeons. I have been picking up these feathers from the street for almost a year. Don’t you think it a clever idea?”

“If you want to adorn yourself with all the filth to be found in the square.”

“You give me no credit for my cleverness. I have washed each one with a soap made of lard and lye according to Cook’s recipe, and have dried them all in the sunlight.”

“I suppose . . . if it entertains you. But it does seem quite frivolous at such a time as this when even the bells from the campanile in the Piazza San Marco sound like a dirge. Haven’t you noticed?”

“I have noticed that we cannot continue to exist in this saddened condition, that we must begin to see goodness in the world again, to celebrate joyfulness. Doesn’t Father Vivaldi tell us this himself with his music?”

“And doesn’t the Bible tell us that there is a time to mourn?”

“And a time to set it aside. Truly, Anetta, though we have lost Maria and a few of the little girls, our own Luisa has been spared, and you must begin to hope again.”

She looks confused and stricken, as if offered a sweet that is in the process of being snatched away.

“You expect me to hope, when I haven’t laid eyes on Luisa for weeks?”

“You’ve been told she is well again. Is that not enough?”

“I will only believe it is true when I see for myself, when I know that her lovely lean body has not been wasted or her sublime voice lost.”

“Of course, she will not be quite herself for a while. You must expect that. We must all expect it. For a while.”

“For a little while or a long while? That is the answer no one will give me.”

“And cannot,” I tell her. Then, changing to the only subject that might still capture her attention, I ask, “And what of Concerta? Is she happy and well?”

Anetta responds as I thought she would, a smile creeping into her words.

“And growing so fast she needs new linen shirts, larger flannel petticoats, and muslin slips. Even her caps and undercaps are becoming tight. When I have the time, I shall make her new ones with embroidery and knotted fringe.”

“That will be lovely,” I assure her. “She is surely the best cared for infant in the nursery.”

“Oh, I do not neglect the others.”

She has misunderstood me.

“Of course you don’t. I only meant —”

“That is not to say that I wouldn’t if I could. She has become so like my own, my very own child. Sometimes . . .” she begins, but then stops herself and says, “I am being very silly. You would not want to know.”

“Sometimes what, Anetta?”

“Well . . . sometimes . . . I think of myself, Luisa, and Concerta living all together. In the country somewhere. In a little house. Living together in a little house.”

“It is a fine dream.”

“Yes. But I know it is only a dream.”

“It is good to have one. A dream.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” I tell her. But she doesn’t ask what it is, and I don’t offer it.

My dream is of Carnival and my handsome wig-maker’s assistant. My dream must happen, and soon. I will make it happen.

T
HE OSPEDALE ALWAYS CELEBRATES
the Feast of Natale very simply. This year each girl received a packet of sweets and a new everyday pleated cap, for which we are grateful. And Father has written a small festive violin solo that he plays himself during our noon meal, which includes dishes that are far grander than usual. Cook carries out the steaming platters to a sideboard decorated with pine boughs. There is a goose stuffed with truffles, a roasted wild boar filled and basted with all manner of herbs, pasta with a hearty sauce, the usual
granturco,
or polenta, made from corn, and a very special side dish, sardines in a
saor
made of onions, vinegar, spices, pine nuts, and raisins. There are even cakes spread with apple jam and bowls of the sweet biscuits called
baicoli.
We are each given a quarter of a fruit called a
melarancia.
It is orange in color, tastes both sweet and tart at once, and causes all the little girls to wrinkle their noses with pleasure. We are told that it is a great delicacy and will not appear on our plates soon again.

I mention the food first, because it will not be easy for me to describe my greatest gift, the return of Luisa to our table if only for the noon festivities. When I see her being led into the room, walking very carefully beside the burly nurse who evicted me from the hospital more than once, leaning into her, actually, as if one small misstep would cause her to lose her footing altogether, I become both dejected and then full of a sudden energy I haven’t experienced in a very long time. Immediately, I jump from my chair and run to her side, against the protests of Prioress, who clucks her tongue when I clasp Luisa to me as gently as I can. The bad-tempered nurse tries to pull us apart, but I do not budge until Luisa herself withdraws from me, breathless, it seems, with her effort at simply standing up. I then fetch her a chair near the head of the longest refectory table. It is but one of a few newly vacant places and not near my place at table, but just to have her in the room is delight enough. Dressed only in a chemise and dressing gown, she is extremely pale and thin, with violet crescents above her cheekbones. I turn often to see if she is eating what has been put upon her plate, that is, until Rosalba pokes me and tells me to stop.

“She will eat when she is ready,” says Rosalba. “It is feat enough that she has made it to Christmas dinner. Do not anger her with your constant attention.”

I am not allowed to take Luisa back to her sickroom, as I request when she rises to leave the meal in a short space of time, quickly tired, it seems, from raising a few forkfuls of food to her lips. Watching her leave the refectory with the odious nurse is very difficult for me, since it is doubtful that Luisa will be joining us again soon.

“You must think only of her being restored to health,” says Rosalba when I sigh overmuch at Luisa’s leaving our company so soon.

“It would seem you might have enjoyed the quiet nights and extra space in our bedchamber,” says Silvia. “I for one have luxuriated in such a sea change. No hysterics over normal bodily functions. No bouts of whimpering for her mother.”

“Neither was ever a burden to me,” I tell her, “nothing on a par with your thrashing and whistles and snorts in the night.”

Silvia becomes red-faced and Rosalba smirks.

“I do nothing of the kind, and you know it,” says Silvia. “I keep even my wind to myself so as not to annoy.”

“The noise,” says Rosalba, “but not the odor.”

“As if you could separate mine from all of the rest.”

“It would not be a task I would care to undertake,” says Rosalba.

I delight in the way she rises rather grandly and goes off to return her plate to the kitchen, while Silvia scrunches up her tiny features until her mouth and eyes are but slits.

“The only way she can have the last word with me,” she says, “is for her to leave like that. She will not be so high and mighty when she discovers what I have found out about this year’s Carnival.”

I cannot resist asking. “What is it? What do you know?”

“The moment I tell you, you’ll run right away to tell her.”

“There are other ways — more reliable ways — to find out,” I say, still dying for her to divulge what she knows.

“No one knows but me. I overheard Prioress scheming with Signora Mandano and Maestro Gasparini how to keep the lot of us indoors until Shrove Tuesday.”

“There. You see? You’ve told me yourself.”

She presses her lips together, sticking the upper lip over the bottom one until she resembles a jackanapes.

“That’s not the whole of it,” she says at last. “When we’re all told, you will be astonished.”

“Or you. For being misinformed again. Your gossip can never be trusted. And, think of it, how often are we allowed out of this place during Carnival or at any other time?”

“Judging from her actions of late, Rosalba has been counting on the loosening of some rules, I am certain. She’ll be livid to discover that we’re all being held by a tightly woven net with no possible holes. Beginning tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“The first day of Carnival.”

Saint Stephen’s Day dawns gray and dismal, a heavy dark sky hanging low over the lagoon, the islands obscured by fog. Already, however, there are decorated
peote,
smaller gondolas, and other small craft plying the canals, songs and shouts leaping so high into the air we can hear them through slightly open windows. And there are already revelers dancing along the cobblestone streets and suitors throwing perfumed eggs at women in stark white
bautta
masks, which cover their forehead and eyes and nose and accentuate the elaborate layers of black clothing beneath. As intended, there is no way to tell the lower classes from the upper. Except with the wheelbarrow parade, where the pushers of barrows wear no masks at all and are clearly all manner of farmers come to town.

At the risk of letting in damp, frigid air, many of the girls are already hanging out windows to view the festivities in the street. We are so close to the Piazza San Marco, where most of the performances will be, as to get the overflow of musicians and jugglers, the grotesque
gnaghe,
dressed as women, and a few harlequins on stilts.

We all know that the Parade of the Doge is to begin in the afternoon and still nothing has been said to indicate that we may not attend in chaperoned groups, as we have in the past. We are just finishing the noon meal when Prioress rises from her chair and clears her throat, as she does habitually before any announcement. Silvia looks meaningfully at me, but I pretend not to notice her.

“Signorine,” says Prioress, tapping her glass with a spoon for better attention. The room becomes suddenly quiet, for we are all expecting something by now.

“As you know, this has been a very sad time for the Ospedale, a sad time indeed.” She clears her throat again, but has no need to tap on the glass. She clasps her hands together and loses them within the folds of her large sleeves. “We have had to consider a change in our usual lenient attitude toward the celebration of Carnival, one in keeping with the period of mourning that has been forced upon us.”

There are small gasps of disappointment, but still no one speaks. Silvia tries desperately again to catch my eye.

“In the past we have, as you know, allowed you to join the throngs of revelers for short periods when properly chaperoned. We have even encouraged a few chaperoned trips to the performances in the Piazza San Marco.”

There are murmurs as girls agree and as they evidently remember some happy times.

“The Board of Governors has thought long and hard about what to do during these days before the penitent ones of Lent, and has decided that, though you may all watch the revelers as much as you please from windows on the lagoon or even from the street of the Pietà if you stay in the shadows of the chapel, mixing with the crowd in any way will not be allowed.”

There are a few audible objections, Rosalba’s low moan among them, but many of the girls remain silent.

“However,” declares Prioress at length, “there will be one exception, a light in the darkness, so to speak, for, as you must understand, this is no punishment, and it has long been the Ospedale’s policy, in music as in everything else, to encourage the joy of living.” With great effort, she composes her stern features into something approaching pleasantness and continues, a tilt to her expression, almost a smile: “So, children, we have made another decision. And one that you will find quite delightful as the weeks of celebration continue.”