The Violinist of Venice (29 page)

A chill washed over me as I thought about having to look into Tommaso's eyes as I took apart his every dream for the future, destroying the last of his illusions about love.

“Never before have I thought it a mercy that your mother is gone; yet at least she did not live to see the depths to which you have lowered yourself,” he said. “She would be ashamed of you.”

“I think she would not,” I said, finding my voice. “And you dishonor her memory by saying so.”

His face turned scarlet. “How dare you!”

“You told me she would have been happy I found a man who loved me,” I said. “And I did. Is that so terrible?”

“Yet he did not love you enough, did he?” my father snarled.

I flinched and fell silent, as he had known I would.

Not another word passed between us as the gondola continued toward Ca' Foscari. Upon arriving, the gondolier leaped to the dock to help me out. His eyes flicked briefly to my swollen belly as my cloak parted, but there was no surprise in his gaze. I could not stop my lip from curling with bitterness that everything I had struggled so long to keep secret should now be laid bare before so many.

My thoughts were interrupted by the cruel grasp of my father's hand on my shoulder. He steered me along the dock and into the entryway of the giant palazzo that loomed before us.

How I dreaded what was about to take place within these walls.

A servant greeted us, showing us into a small, elaborately furnished room on the floor above the
piano nobile.
I drew the folds of my cloak around my belly as we sat, hoping to hide it for as long as possible. My father chortled.

It was not long before Donna Foscari swept into the room, elegantly dressed in a simple silk dress, followed by her husband and Tommaso. “Now, what is all this fuss about, Enrico?” she asked, patting her hair, no doubt just pinned into place by her maid. “What is so urgent that you must call on us at this dreadfully undignified hour?”

“It is my great regret that I have been forced to do so,” he said. “Yet I regret even more what you shall be forced to hear next.”

Tommaso's parents looked at us quizzically. “What can you mean, Enrico?” Don Foscari asked.

Tommaso kept his eyes fixed on me. “What has happened, Adriana? Your father sent word that you have been quite ill…”

“Yes, Adriana,” my father said. “Tell your betrothed about your
illness.
”

I could not bring myself to meet Tommaso's eyes. I knew of no way to lessen the pain of what I was about to say, so I took a deep breath and stated the facts as plainly as I could, with no mincing of words and no attempt to make it sound better than it was. The sooner I said it, the sooner it would be over. “I am with child,” I began, my eyes fixed on a spot on the far wall. Don and Donna Foscari gasped, their eyes darting questioningly to their son. But no one looked more shocked than he.

“I had a lover for quite some time,” I continued, growing angry as I spoke. The only person to whom I owed an explanation was Tommaso. His forgiveness I would readily beg, but only his. Yet here I was, explaining myself to all of them. “But that is over now. And I … I am sorry,” I said, at last meeting Tommaso's eyes, flinching at the anger and hurt I saw there. Yet I held his gaze, so he would know my apology was for him alone. “I am sorry to cause you pain. That is the last thing I wanted. If you think me a fool, then you are right. And that is all I have to say.”

I do not think I have ever heard a room so silent, before or since. The silence was physical in its presence, separating me from everyone in the room. I was on an island, alone.

“Well,” Donna Foscari said at last, the one word as sharp and corporeal as the silence had been. “This changes everything.”

“I should say so,” Don Foscari growled. “You may consider our offer of marriage revoked and the betrothal contract null and void. And if you should try to fight it, Enrico, so help me—”

“Father,” Tommaso interjected in warning, surprising me.

“Rest assured I shall attempt nothing of the sort,” my father replied, humbly. “I would expect nothing less on your part. No one is more deeply shamed than I by my daughter's disgraceful conduct.”

I lowered my head to hide my burning cheeks.
What is this Venice we live in, where love is dirty and unspeakable and marrying for wealth and power is the highest virtue?

“How could you do this, Adriana? You selfish girl!” Donna Foscari exclaimed. “After all that our family has done for you! After all that my son has done for you!”

She was right. Tommaso had been good to me, better than I deserved. He had been honorable throughout our courtship. He had asked for my hand; he had been willing to give me his name, make me his wife, be a father to my children—much more than the father of the child I was carrying was willing to do.

I looked at him, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees, his eyes growing red. He looked up suddenly and saw me watching, visibly flinching as our eyes met.

“Answer her, Adriana,” Don Foscari prompted me. “I think we would all like to know.”

I took my gaze from Tommaso and raised my chin defiantly. “I have no answer which you will find acceptable, madonna, and so I choose not to give one.”

“Why, you impudent, foolish tart!”

“Enough!”
Tommaso said, cutting his mother off and standing. “Everyone out! Everyone except Adriana.”

His parents and my father stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Now!”
he cried. “I would speak with Adriana
alone.
I think I am entitled to that much.”

A moment passed; then Don Foscari rose from his chair, followed by my father and, eventually, Donna Foscari. She threw me a scalding look before following the men out. “Do be quick about it, Tommaso,” she told her son. “She deserves no sympathy or forgiveness from you.” She closed the door behind her.

Once we were alone, Tommaso did not speak for a long while; rather, he sat back in his chair and looked at the floor. When he finally looked up, the tears he had been fighting were now visible. “Adriana, why?” he asked, in a voice so lost and forlorn I felt what remained of my heart crack a little more. “Why would you do this? How could you lie to me this way?”

“I … I did not mean to,” I said. “I did not want to. But I … oh, Tommaso, I knew him long before I met you. And I fell in love with him before I met you. It was not anything I could change. But … I meant what I said before, though it does not mean much now. You are a good man, Tommaso. You deserve better than this. But everything … got away from me. It did not go how I planned, not at all.”

“And what did you plan, then?” he asked, the bitterness in his voice lashing across my skin. “You would use me and toy with me until your lover decided to do the honorable thing and marry you?”

“No,” I said. “I was going to end it once you asked for my hand. I would not have married you and been unfaithful.”

“And yet…” He trailed off, letting the question hang unspoken in the air.

“Yet by the time you did ask for my hand, I was already with child,” I answered. “And I … I was trapped. I
am
trapped.” I looked away. “I am sorry, Tommaso. I do not expect you to forgive me. Only that … one day you may understand.”

He laughed bitterly, a harsh, unnatural sound of which I would not have thought him capable. “I do understand, Adriana, better than you will ever know. I understand, and I wish to God that I did not.”

I looked up at him curiously.

“You loved this man as I love—loved—you,” he said. “And wherever your life takes you after you leave this room, I would beg you to think on that. I think you owe me that much, at least.”

With that, he turned abruptly on his heel and left the room. I remained in my chair, unable to stop the silent tears that had begun to stream down my face.

 

43

CHAINS

When we finally returned to the palazzo, I was immediately locked in my rooms again. One of the servant girls came to wait on me, though it appeared my father had dispensed with posting a guard at my door.

He need not have bothered with locking me in, for I had nowhere to go. All that was left for me, it seemed, was to contemplate my bleak future.

Fearing I would go mad, I distracted myself by returning to the new composition I had begun on that fateful night, fleshing out the orchestral accompaniment but trying to leave the raw pain of the melody alone. It was not as polished as
La sirena,
but it was, perhaps, more powerful for it.

I had not seen Giuseppe—no doubt he was similarly confined once again—but when I did, and when this new piece was done, he would have one last message from me to take to Vivaldi.

*   *   *

When my father finally saw fit to release me from my imprisonment, it was in much the same manner as he had prepared me for Ca' Foscari. This time, however, my father directed the maid to take even greater care with the arrangement of my hair, and he personally looked through all my jewels to select just the right ones for me to wear.

He nodded approvingly as he studied the finished product. “Good,” he said. “I will send for you when our guest has arrived.” Then he turned and left, with the maid following him out, leaving me alone to wait.

It was not long before Signor Fiorello came to fetch me. Moving woodenly, I followed him to the large parlor to find my father conversing with Senator Baldovino. Dread drenched me just as surely as if I had taken an icy bath.

When the two men noticed my presence, they rose to their feet politely. “Daughter,” my father said. “You remember Senator Baldovino, surely.”

“Indeed.”

The senator approached me and lifted my hand to his lips. “A pleasure to see you again, signorina,” he said, with surprising sincerity.

“Be seated, Adriana,” my father said.

I took a chair, opposite the two men who held my future between their fingertips.

“I have no doubt you can deduce why Senator Baldovino is here,” my father began. “He has expressed his willingness to marry you, even in your … condition.”

The way he said “condition” made it sound as though I suffered from leprosy. “Is that so?” I asked snidely.

My father shot me a warning look. “Yes.”

“She is quite far along, as you said,” Senator Baldovino interjected, studying me.

“Yes,” my father answered. “How far along exactly, Adriana?”

“About six months now.”

“So she will be delivered sometime in December, or perhaps January,” the senator said.

“So it would seem,” my father replied.

“And how old are you, signorina?” the senator asked me.

“Nineteen,” I replied. “I will be twenty come March.”

“March, eh?” the senator said. “Perhaps an April wedding, then. A lovely spring wedding. What would you say to that, Enrico?”

“That sounds like a marvelous idea, Giacomo,” my father said, smiling.

I began to feel as if every part of my body were growing cold, as though I were a walking, reanimated corpse that wanted only to be returned to the grave.

“Very well, then,” Senator Baldovino said. “We will draw up the betrothal papers before I leave.” He turned his gaze back to me. “Would it suit you to be a senator's wife, signorina?”

I could not speak, but Senator Baldovino did not wait for a reply.

“Rest assured I will not hold your past indiscretions against you. Quite the reverse, in fact.” A lecherous grin spread across his face. “I rather prefer a woman who knows what she is doing during the act of love.”

His use of the phrase “act of love” caused me to physically shudder.
It will never be so for me, never again
.

“Nor shall I question you as to the father,” he went on, in what he no doubt felt was a benevolent tone. “I do not care, quite frankly. This is in the past, or soon will be. God willing, you will be carrying a child of mine before too long.”

I froze in horror at these words.

“Do we understand one another, signorina?” he asked.

There was nothing I could do but nod.

“Benissimo.”
He turned back to my father. “I am well pleased by our business here today, my friend.”

“As am I, Giacomo,” my father said.

“Perhaps you had best inform her of what we discussed earlier.”

“Ah, of course.” My father turned his gaze on me, his expression hardening. “Listen carefully, Adriana, so that you understand what is going to happen.”

I sat in silence: a condemned prisoner waiting for her sentence.

“Next month, I am sending you to my sister's house in Mantua, where you will spend your confinement,” he informed me. “You will give birth there, and once the child is born, it will be given to a family in that city to raise as their own.”

At this, my chilly composure cracked; I whimpered slightly.

My father scowled. “I told you that you would not be allowed to keep the child.”

“Please,” I whispered, glancing from my father to my future husband. “Is there no way that I might…?”

Senator Baldovino shook his head. “No,” he said. “I will forgive your past, signorina, but my money will not be used to bring up another man's bastard. It will be better put toward the care of our own children, would you not agree?”

And what makes you think you will even be able to father children at your age, old man?
I thought viciously. I gasped as a new idea came to me. “What if the child were to be reared at the Pietà?” I asked. “As my mother was?”

While my father looked enraged at this, Senator Baldovino appeared intrigued by the suggestion. “I would not be opposed to such an idea, Enrico,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “The Pietà is a fine institution; as you know, I have been one of their benefactors for many years. Adriana could rest assured that her child was well cared for, and given a good education.”