Hidden Voices Page 7

  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.”

  “Let me tell them,” Father Vivaldi interrupts.

  “It was Father’s idea,” says Prioress, sitting down abruptly as he stands up. “So, yes, I will let him tell you himself.”

  Father Vivaldi seems a trifle more breathless than usual, but it is clearly not from ill health but because of his excitement at unfolding his little plan, which appears very little indeed when he has finished telling it. All it amounts to, in fact, is a trip to Saint Mark’s Basilica to hear him and his father perform together, followed by a puppet show in the square and a treat of frittelle — the small round fritters made from goat’s milk, rose water, and saffron, and sprinkled with sugar. Frittelle can be found only during Carnival, and we would be utterly despondent if we had to miss out on them.

  “It is like throwing a hungry dog a very small bone,” says Silvia.

  I myself am so encouraged at having seen Luisa yesterday and by knowing that she is getting well, that any restrictions during Carnival seem unimportant. Yet looking across at Rosalba, I see that she is crestfallen and this troubles me because of her unpredictable nature. Surely, I tell myself, she is planning to observe the rules. She must. And I must do everything I can to see that she does.

  I DID NOT WISH to go down to supper yesterday. I felt much too unsteady on my feet and in such an ill humor it was all I could do to be led downstairs by Sofia and into the clutches of Anetta. Such a scene was inevitable, for I had been told of her repeated attempts to enter the sickroom. Afterward, I was too upset to converse with anyone at table or force more than a few mouthfuls of food down my throat. In just moments I was also too light-headed to sit comfortably and had to beg Sofia to take me back.

  “The little excursion did you good,” she kept saying on our way upstairs. “You must begin to build up your strength again.”

  What I can’t understand is how one can build upon something that is missing. I all but threw myself onto my bed as soon as we made our way into the hospital room. I clung to it as if it were a raft, and soon fell fast asleep, not waking again until the candles were being lit and their soft light flickered and fell over empty beds and those few occupied by the girls who were mending and those still with fever.

  Little Catina has coughed and wheezed mercilessly since she first arrived, even as she seems to slip in and out of sleep. She cannot sleep soundly this way, however, and that is what the nurses say she absolutely must do if she is to recover. In just the light from the candles, I can see that her face is quite red now and am certain the rash must be covering her chest and arms, and that her tongue has turned as spongy and white as mine had been.

  Pails of water have been brought into the room to put moisture into the air, which is constantly dried by steady fires in the grate to keep the room warm. A warm wet cloth, wrung out and placed repeatedly upon Catina’s chest, causes her breathing to become more even for a little while. But then the hard hacking coughs begin to wrack her small fragile chest once more, and it is as painful to me as if my own breastbones heaved up and down in consort with hers. One nurse prays under her breath continually whenever Catina launches into one of these terrible sessions, and I find myself desperately repeating every prayer I have ever known or thinking that if I keep my eyes closed to the count of ten or stay absolutely still without moving a muscle or hold my own breath through perhaps three of her violent gasps, then she will magically stop. When she doesn’t, I can’t help feeling betrayed, as if I have held up my part of the bargain, however foolish it was.

  Afterward, I sleep quite heavily again, barely waking off and on in the night when Catina’s attacks are at their worst, then exhausting myself again in prayer and useless bargaining, promising all manner of things to the saints, things that I cannot remember in the light of morning.

  This morning I have awakened from a very deep sleep, which came upon me only as the windows were beginning to change from midnight blue to gray streaked with pink and yellow. My first thought is of Catina and how she has fared after another troubled night. But when I glance at her bed, it is untidy and slightly soiled and entirely empty.

  She has left us, too, I tell myself, and the thought is so unbelievably sad that I curl into a ball and make a shrill wild sound that I have never made before or heard uttered by a single soul.

  “What is this keening?” asks Sofia. “Are you in pain?”

  “Catina has left us,” I cry into my chest. “Little Catina, good little Catina, is gone.”

  When Sofia laughs, I find it cruel beyond belief.

  “Only to another room,” she assures me, “so that you and the others can get some rest.”

  “Is it true?” I ask, uncoiling slowly from my ball of misery. Can it possibly be true?

  “Of course it is,” says Sofia. “And we are watching her even more carefully. And,” she adds, “seeing some slight improvement. Nothing is easy for that child, but she has a center of hard gold that cannot be cracked. You will see.”

  Catina has been so terribly sick and she is so young, it is difficult to believe that she has not lost her fight. But remembering our conversation in the infirmary that night that seems so long ago, I realize what Sofia has said about Catina’s hard center is right, and that I should have suspected her amazing will may actually be able to transcend things that would take the life of someone physically stronger.

  I continue to ask about her, however, eve
n as my own strength does indeed begin to eke back into my limbs and mind. My throat cannot be trusted just yet, however. I can speak well enough but am afraid to test my singing voice, stricken by panic at times when I think how it might have simply disappeared.

  When Sofia tells me that I may move back into the chamber shared with other girls from the coro, it seems like a huge step for which I am unprepared.

  “You cannot stay in the infirmary forever,” she tells me. “You are one of the last to leave.”

  “It is only this one bed I occupy. There are many ones empty now.”

  “Because some of the girls who were in them have returned to their lives in the Ospedale. As you should. As you must.”

  She begins packing up the few things I have accumulated here — a small bone-handled brush for my teeth, a comb for my hair, and an extra chemise — and she hands me the nightdress I wore to the infirmary that first awful night. She has fetched my everyday clothing and lays it upon the rumpled bed. When she gently pulls me to my feet, the room spins less than in the past and soon rights itself. Still, it takes a great effort to dress myself. With the apron, it is all I can manage to tie it properly behind my back. What good fortune that the cap covers this head of hair matted with body oil and sweat, for until one is entirely well, we are told not to wash overmuch for fear of a chill.

  Our chamber is empty when I return there — not surprising since it is the middle of morning and classes are in session. My bed has been made neatly by someone, probably Anetta. The things in my trunk seem undisturbed. I was, of course, certain they would be, for the students here are taught honesty above any other virtue. My guitar, an instrument that I rarely play, stands invitingly in the corner, and soon I am sitting by the window, strumming it, my fingers stiff and shaky but warming to the vibrations of the strings and the indescribable feeling of making music again. It is the first time since I was very little and, as Mother has told me, I would sing for her amusement, that I have played or sung with no others to join in. Just melding the notes into a chord, their exact harmonies always the same even when repeated again and again, seems such a perfect thing. It is a thought that expands my weakened spirit and causes me to consider this moment only and not all the days stretching before me that I must somehow rejoin.

  “You are here!”

  It is Rosalba who proclaims this and not Anetta, thank heaven, who I am forced to admit has been most kind in her constant concern for me these many weeks. Of course it is Rosalba, for who else would manage to leave her lessons before the appointed hour for them to end?

  She rushes to me with a quick embrace that, thankfully, does not suffocate like Anetta’s.

  “How grand it is to have you return to us in good health, Luisa. Many prayers have been answered.”

  “Including my own, for I was not yet prepared to hand over every solo rightfully mine to Geltruda.”

  “Buono! You return lighthearted as well.”

  She appears not to know why she came here, for though she opens her trunk, she takes nothing from it and walks back and forth, back and forth, from window to door.

  “It is Carnival,” she says suddenly. “The doge’s parade should begin soon. We may be able to see the end of it from our own window, though it will not be easy.”

  “And not from the street?”

  “Not this year. This year we will only be treated to a dull-witted puppet show.”

  She is so obviously disappointed that it’s clear Carnival must matter overmuch to her, and I cannot help wondering why. For my part, I feel scarcely able to walk to the parlor downstairs, let alone to the square, and do not wish to celebrate anything.

  She quickly takes something from the pocket of her apron and turns her head away and then back, a blue-feathered mask now placed over her piercing black eyes. It is quite beautiful and not at all like anything I have ever seen on a reveler’s face before.

  I must have gasped my approval, for she seems pleased.

  “Would you know me in this?” she asks.

  “I would know you anywhere, Rosalba.”

  “You, yes, for we are like sisters. But what of a casual acquaintance? A passing gondolier, a shopkeeper’s assistant?”

  “To them, I believe, you would be quite a mystery in such a splendid disguise. Quite a mystery indeed.”

  Her smile is catlike under the mask.

  “But what can you be thinking?” I ask. “Surely you will have little contact with such people at a puppet show.”

  “Don’t worry yourself, Luisa. It was a frivolous question. Nothing more.”

  “And the mask? How did you come by it and why?”

  “It is my own invention, made when I had reason to believe we would be allowed the same freedom of Carnival this year as we have known in the past.”

  I am relieved to see her put the mask inside her trunk. It must have been the real reason she came up here before Latin instruction was over. Yet I feel I must warn her, as she is sometimes so willful, and I try hard to think of something that will make her listen.

  “One Carnival is like another,” I say.

  “Oh, no,” she quickly corrects me. “Each one is as different as . . . as one springtime to another. One year the trees bud beautifully and burst with color at the proper time; another, they are frozen in their sleep and drop blossoms before they bloom.”

  “You describe a natural event, not a fanciful celebration devised by men and attended by all manner of riffraff.”

  “And kings and dukes and mysterious strangers. Therein is the beauty of it. The mystery, the chance meeting, the possibility of a great romance.”

  “Or great disaster.”

  At this remark of mine, she sticks her lip out petulantly and thrusts her mask into her pocket.

  “The long days of your illness and seclusion have infected your good humor and level judgment more than I realized at first. Last year at this same time, you were quite ready to join in the fun and revelry.”

  “Last year I was a different girl entirely. And so were you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that, for myself, I am more somber and much older than just months ago, so woven through with mourning and with God’s bewildering will that I can scarcely recognize myself. As for you, the Rosalba I’ve so often turned to for advice, the one whom I have always considered sage enough to see things as they truly are”— I pause to look at her and make quite certain that I have her full attention —“that Rosalba seems right now to be replaced by someone foolish, bold, and disobedient.”

  She laughs, grabs the top of my cap, and gently shakes it.

  “And you are fast becoming a depressing scold.” She bows and sweeps one arm across herself from shoulder to toes as if to introduce an actor. “There is but one Rosalba,” she declares, “and she is here before you.”

  “Be careful, dear Rosalba,” is all that I can muster after that.

  I WAS SO OVERJOYED to see Luisa back in our chamber that I almost forgot why I came there in the first place in the middle of the morning. It is not easy to slip out during Latin, for Maestra Duval has enormous eyes that take in everything but the very corners of the room. Even with her back to the class, one must be directly behind her and not even a little to the side to be clear of the broad sweep of her sight. I waited most of the hour for just such an alignment and was quite certain that Silvia would tell on me, but at the time of my escape, her little head was almost down to the paper on her desk because of her need to squint so.

  Luisa is much changed in ways I probably cannot describe properly. She is thinner, true enough, but also less fidgety, and I detect a new, uncommonly deep place within her dark eyes in which both sadness and calm seem to reside together. Her lovely auburn hair is completely covered by a cap, which makes her look even younger than she is.

  In truth, it is a great gift to see her without the others present. She is idly strumming her guitar and not singing along, which of itself is unusual. I do not ask about her throat
for fear there might in fact be some small problem with her voice after so long an illness. Befuddled at first and forgetting what I had come for, I roam about the room for quite a while before taking my mask from my pocket and putting it over my eyes to surprise her.

  Her reaction is just as I had hoped, for the mask is surely as unique and beautiful as she declares it to be. Still angered by the decision of the Board of Governors concerning Carnival, and even though they may feel they are giving us a great treat under the circumstances, I cannot help making a bitter pronouncement about the puppet show.

  Of course Luisa is untroubled by the Carnival ban, for I suspect she will not be allowed out-of-doors for quite a while. Few of the celebrations ever really appealed to her anyway. She seems, however, overly concerned for my welfare when she says, “Be careful, dear Rosalba.”

  I have to tell her, “When was Rosalba anything but careful!”

  She does not, of course, know about the little incident with Giuseppe, which seems very long ago now, or about my increasingly careless attitude toward some of the concerts, which, to my mind, are entirely too frequent of late. In this rather confidential and unexpected meeting, I must remind myself that it is right to think she will not understand and that it is enough to already have more than one watchdog at my back.

  And no one, thank the heavens, was privy to my little encounter with Father Vivaldi yesterday at noon when he chided me for my sudden emergence of great mirth whenever it is time for work or concentration.