The Violinist of Venice (26 page)

I sank down onto my bed and put my head in my hands. “My father is giving a dinner party tonight for Tommaso's family,” I said. “God only knows how late they will all stay, and I cannot make some excuse and attempt to slip away—not tonight, not with all of them here.”

Giuseppe's shoulders sagged in defeat.

“Did he say anything about tomorrow night?” I asked.

“No, he did not,” Giuseppe said. “Fortuna is playing a cruel joke on us, it seems,” he added, referencing that capricious goddess of gamblers, merchants, and statesmen alike.

“Yes,” I replied. “I hope that she is enjoying herself.”

 

37

STAND MY GROUND

The next morning, I rose and waited for Meneghina to come help me dress. As I was pulling on my white silk robe, the door to my bedchamber banged open unexpectedly. I turned, expecting Meneghina or perhaps Giuseppe. I froze as I beheld my father, his eyes fixed in shock on my protruding belly beneath my shift. I quickly pulled my robe closed, but it was too late. He had already seen what he needed to see.

In an instant, his expression changed from shocked to enraged, though I could tell that he was trying to keep his anger under control. “Please tell me,” he said through gritted teeth, “that is Tommaso Foscari's child.”

Suddenly there seemed to be a new way out. What if I lied and said yes? What could my father do? We were engaged to be married, after all, and once we were, it need not matter to anyone again.

But Tommaso would know the truth. And love me though he did, he was not so mindlessly besotted that he would consent to raise another man's child as his own. Nor could I ask such a thing of him.

But it did not matter. My hesitation had been the giveaway. My father had seen the calculation in my eyes, as I tried to decide the best answer to give. And in that one moment, he knew everything that I had tried so hard, for so long, to hide.

In a few quick, long strides, he crossed the room, and the back of his hand came crashing against the side of my face, sending me tumbling to the floor.

“You disgusting hussy!” he yelled, standing over me. He reached down, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and used it to haul me to my feet. “You filthy whore! How … who…”

But his anger was so great that words failed him. He struck me across the face again, harder this time. Black spots began to dance across my vision, and I could feel my lip split open and begin to bleed.

“How could you be so stupid, you slut?” he demanded, shoving me into my wardrobe. I fell against it, striking my head and back so hard that I cried out. I huddled against it as he came to tower over me again.

“Tell me his name!” he demanded, spittle flying from his mouth. “Tell me the name of the depraved bastard who dared defile you, or so help me God—”

“I would sooner die!” I flung my head back and shouted at him.

He struck me across the face again. “Tell me his name!”

But beating or no beating, I was through cowering in fear of him. Even as I knelt on the floor, my body curled around my belly to protect my child, I refused to give in. “You are not fit to touch his shoes!” I cried. “Your filthy, foul lips are not fit to speak his name!”

He dragged me to my feet by my robe, and I could feel the thin cloth tear under his violent grasp.

“How dare you speak to me that way!” He shook me roughly. “You will burn in hell for this! For your harlotry, for lying to your father, for your disgusting lust!”

“Oh, yes,” I choked out. “And the man who beats his pregnant daughter will have a seat in heaven just below the throne of God!”

“Damn you!” he shouted, shoving me away from him. “Damn you to hell!”

“I will see you there, Father,” I shot back.

“It is the violin teacher, is it not?” he demanded, causing the air in my lungs to desert me yet again. “He has been your lover all along; you have been going to him all this time, and you have let him have you.”

I tried to get around him to the door, but he caught my face in a crushing grip. “I told you to stay away from him! Now for the last time, tell me his name!”

“No,” I bit out. “I will not.”

He struck me again, a stream of insults spilling from his mouth. “Stupid bitch … whore … slut … harlot…”

He had backed me up against my dressing table, and my hand scrabbled over the surface of it, finding a pair of shears Meneghina had left there with one of my gowns she was letting out. I grasped them behind my back as he withdrew, ready should he try to strike me again.

“And to think,” he said, extracting a small box from his pocket, “I came to bring you your betrothal ring from your fiancé, and to tell you the negotiations are complete and everything is settled.” He flung the box at me, overcome by his wrath again. “Do you realize what you have done, you insufferable whore? No one will want to marry you now! You have ruined yourself, and you have ruined me! I am going to be shamed before all of Venice by you, the whore with the bastard child whom no one will ever marry…”

He raised his fist to hit me again, but this time I was ready. Gripping the handle of the shears so tightly that my fingers ached, I brought them up in an arc above my head, intending to plunge them into whatever part of his body I could, to save myself and my child.

A hand seized my wrist in a crushing grip. “No, Adriana!” Giuseppe shouted in my ear. “Stop! Give me the shears, for God's sake!”

I struggled, but Giuseppe was much stronger than I. He wrested the shears from me, pushing me away from my father as he did.

“The bitch tried to kill me,” my father said, staring at me in wonder. Quickly his shock dissipated, and he lunged at me again. “You bloodthirsty demon, I shall teach you!”

Giuseppe caught him and forcefully shoved him back. He leveled the point of the shears at the older man's chest. “You stay away from her!” he shouted. “As God is my witness, Enrico, if you lay another finger on her, I will kill you myself!”

“You!” my father seethed. “You knew! You have been helping her in her harlotry! Helping her to deceive me, after all I have done for you!”

“I am my own man, Enrico,” Giuseppe said. “You do not own me.”

“How dare you, you ungrateful wretch!” My father looked wildly back and forth between us. “I am betrayed not only by my daughter, but by my son as well!”

Silence fell as the truth was spoken aloud at last.

Finally I had the answer to the question I had asked so often.

“Is this true?” I asked aloud, even though I already knew it was.

“I am not about to answer to you, you murderous bitch—” my father began, but Giuseppe cut him off.

“Yes,” he said, turning to look at me, all the while keeping the shears pointed at my—
our
—father. “It is true.”

And even in this most dire moment, as my life lay in pieces around me, I could not help but study his familiar face anew, seeing things I had never noticed before. His hair was the same dark brown—almost black—as my father's before it had begun to gray. Their skin was the same color, a shade lighter than mine. And Giuseppe and I had the same dimples at the corners of our mouths …

“Are you going to stand there brandishing those shears at me forever?” my father demanded imperiously, yet there was fear on his face.

“That depends,” Giuseppe said. “Because I am not going to let you hurt Adriana again. Ever. I have stood by enough times in the past, but no more.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Now get out.”

He did as he was told, glaring all the while. Yet he stopped just inside the doorway to my bedchamber. “You have ruined everything, you know,” he told me, almost conversationally. “You might have had everything any woman has ever dreamed of, and you threw it all away to be some common musician's whore.”

Rage nearly blinded me, but I would not give him the satisfaction of showing it.

“The Foscaris will never have you now, of course,” he went on, “but perhaps I can find someone else who will still have you. Either way, do not expect to keep that bastard you are carrying.”

I could no longer restrain myself. “You despicable excuse for a man—”

“You shall see, you worthless whore,” my father said, his eyes glittering dangerously. “You will not defy me again.”

“Enough!” Giuseppe yelled. “Get out, Enrico!”

This time he obeyed, but not before slamming the door with an earsplitting crack.

Giuseppe put the shears back on my dressing table and turned to me, his expression almost fearful at what he might find. “Come and sit down,” he said, taking my arm and leading me gently to the bed. I complied, beginning to tremble as my exhilarating rush of anger began to fade. Suddenly I was fully aware of each bruise, each ache—and there were many.

“I will send for Meneghina to bring some cloths and warm water, madonna,” Giuseppe said, moving toward the bellpull that rang in the servants' quarters.

I nodded, still trembling. “But you must never call me madonna again,” I told him, my tongue feeling thick and awkward in my swollen mouth. “How can you have condescended to be my servant, to be Claudio's servant, all these years, when the whole time you knew…”

He shook his head. “It does not matter. I was watching over you—the best I could, in any case. What do you think has kept me here all these years?”

I merely stared at him in wonder, silently willing him to continue, greedy for the whole truth now that I had had a taste of it.

“I stayed,” he said, “because of you. Enrico was good enough to give me a place in the household—”

“As a
servant,
” I spat. “And you his own son!”

Giuseppe shrugged. “It could have been much worse. He could have thrown my mother and me out and washed his hands of us. Instead, he saw that I was educated, and had a roof over my head and food in my mouth. The only condition was that I never reveal the truth to you or Claudio.”

“Who was your mother?” I asked. I was far beyond being shocked that infidelity was also on the long list of my father's crimes; yet a part of me felt what my mother's pain must have been at discovering such a thing.

“A kitchen maid,” he said. “Her name was Maria Rivalli. Your father kept her on after I was born, but she died of a fever when I was only five. Your mother, angelic woman that she was, never once took her hurt out on me. She loved me as if I were her own.” He smiled sadly. “When she knew she was dying, she made me promise I would always look after you. As if she needed to ask.” He sighed, and after a moment chuckled. “I always knew the day would come when I would have to protect you from Enrico, but I never expected I would have to protect him from you.”

“You should have let me kill him,” I snarled. “I would have done all of us a favor.”

“No,” he said. “That is not a road you want to travel, Adriana.”

Meneghina came in just then, stopping dead when she saw the state I was in. Giuseppe told her quickly what we would need, sending her scurrying off again. She soon returned with a basin of steaming water and strips of clean cloth. She efficiently set about cleaning the blood from my face and applying the warm cloths to the ugly bruises and lumps forming on my skin.
“È
il lavoro del diavolo,”
she whispered as she inspected me. “How did he find out, madonna?”

I laughed mirthlessly. “He came to bring me my betrothal ring and saw me in my robe,” I said. “After all this time, it was naught but a moment of chance that has undone me.”

“What will you do now, madonna?” she asked.

“You must rest,” Giuseppe said, before I could answer.

“No,” I protested, moving to get up from the bed.

“Please,” he said gently, placing his hands on my shoulders to prevent me from rising. “You must think of the child.”

“I am thinking of the child!” I retorted. “I must get both of us to its father at once, or else…”

“Oh, Adriana,” he said, in a voice so full of sorrow that my heart nearly broke. “Do you not think we have finally lost?”

“No!” I shouted, pushing him away and sitting upright. “To give up now would be to lose all!”

“Please, Adriana,” he said. “You must rest! You will think more clearly if you do.”

“What are my choices, Giuseppe?” I asked. “What would you have me do?”

“I would have you sleep, restore yourself,” he insisted, getting to his feet. “We will leave you now, so that you may do so.”

“Giuseppe,” I whispered. “Please. Do not you abandon me,
mio fratello.
”

Tenderness, joy, sorrow, and pain all warred on his face as I addressed him, for the first time, as
fratello.
Brother. “I am not abandoning you,” he said. “I would never. And so long as you promise me that you will rest, I will take you to him tonight, I swear it on my life. But after this…” He gestured at the vicious bruises that covered me. “I no longer know what we are fighting for.” With that, he turned and left, and Meneghina silently followed him, looking back at me sorrowfully.

I lay down and rolled over onto my side, curling my body into as tight a ball as my swollen belly would allow.
It will be just as Giuseppe said,
I told myself, letting the thought gently lull me to sleep.
I will go to Antonio tonight, and then we shall flee together.

Despite my initial resistance, I fell asleep almost immediately. I was exhausted from so many things, including relief. My father's wrath had been horrific, but it was over, and I had nothing further to hide. And soon all of this—this house, my father, my betrothal, Venice—would be behind me.

When I awoke, it was evening. Meneghina had left food for me beside my bed. It was not much—stew and some bread—but I bolted it down, famished. Then I strode to my wardrobe, pulled out a simple dress that I could lace easily myself, and donned my cloak. I went to the door, prepared to walk out of these rooms for the last time, but as I seized the handle I found that it was locked. I twisted the knob again and again, staring at it in disbelief, as if it might open under my incredulous gaze.