The light of dawn was just beginning to leach away the darkness when a hiss in my ear awoke me. “Madonna. Madonna, wake up. Adriana!”
My eyes snapped open and I sat up in my bed quickly, only to see Giuseppe standing over me, looking slightly embarrassed. “Dio, Giuseppe, did you think to frighten me to death?”
“My apologies, madonna,” he said, “but I thought it best that we speak before the rest of the house is about.” His expression changed to that of a schoolmaster about to scold an errant pupil. “What could you have been thinking, cavorting around Venice alone at that hour?”
“Please, Giuseppe,” I said, pushing the covers aside and getting out of bed. I took my robe from my wardrobe and pulled it on over my night shift, so that I did not feel quite so naked beneath his disapproving stare. “I could not stay, and I had not the foggiest idea where you might be.”
“And is Madonna going to tell me why she had to depart her lover’s house so suddenly and so unexpectedly?” Giuseppe asked.
I gave him a sharp, quelling look. “You must know, if you went to his house to seek me. Surely he told you. You will not make me recount it, I hope.”
“I know only what Don Vivaldi told me, and he was not all that intelligible.”
I started slightly. “What do you mean?”
“He was drunk,” Giuseppe said. “By the time I arrived, he was so deep in his cups that it was clear he had been drinking for hours.”
“I see.” I turned away from Giuseppe and made a pretense of studying the early morning sky from the window.
“Very well. Since you are apparently too proud to ask, I will tell you what he said—or what I could gather, at any rate,” Giuseppe said. “You and he got into quite the argument, something about his father discovering you, and … it seemed one moment he was swearing he would never forgive you, and the next he was swearing before God that he could not go on until you had forgiven him.” He paused. “I would never have guessed it,” he said, more to himself than to me.
Tears stung my eyes, and out of habit I forced them back as I kept my face turned resolutely to the window.
“And so?” Giuseppe said, after a moment had passed. “Would you care to elaborate, madonna?”
I sighed, composing myself, and turned to face him. “It is just as he said. When I arrived, his father was there.” I told Giuseppe of our lie, and how Signor Vivaldi had not seemed to believe us. “Then he left, and…” I bit my lip. “Antonio said horrible things to me, and I said horrible things to him. And I left.”
Giuseppe studied me carefully. “And so it is over?”
Over. The word seared, as though I had passed my hand through a candle flame. The blister that was left behind throbbed and swelled until it threatened to drive me out of my mind with pain.
Over. The word I had not thought once, not through the entire night before, even though I knew it was the word to explain the sickening weight in my stomach. How could it not be over, after the things he had said?
I heard Giuseppe sigh, tentatively speaking up. “Adriana, perhaps it is not so dire as all that. You did not see him afterward, and I—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Do not say anything. There is nothing you can do.”
He did not move for a moment, then I heard him leave the room, closing the door behind him.
I stared toward the Grand Canal, where it snaked its way among the houses and bridges of Venice, leading to the lagoon and eventually to the sea. How I wished I could follow it; let it take me far from this city of so much music and so much pain.
* * *
Not long after Giuseppe left, I crawled back into bed and fell into a deep sleep. I was awakened again a bit before midday by Meneghina, who came in to dress me. “Shall I send for some food so that Madonna can break her fast?” she asked as she walked around the bed to the wardrobe.
I could feel the events of the night before nibbling around the edges of my mind like rats with a crust of bread. I felt the urge to let them devour me, to remain in this bed for as long as it took for my memories to be eaten away entirely. But I pushed the thought away. “That sounds wonderful, Meneghina,” I said, sitting up.
Meneghina cast me a curious look—I was not usually so effusive in the mornings, or ever, to be truthful—but did not comment as she began pulling out clean underthings and a warm day dress. The December air had finally turned cold, and with a vengeance. Soon it would be Christmas and, the day after the holiday, Carnevale would begin again.
Some bread and cold ham was brought up so that I could break my fast, after which Meneghina helped me to dress and tied my hair back with silk ribbons. “Thank you, Meneghina,” I said, smiling warmly at her.
“Will there be anything else, madonna?” she asked, still looking puzzled.
“Yes,” I said. “Send Giuseppe Rivalli to me when you leave, if you please. I have a mind to go out and take some air, and would have him accompany me.”
She bobbed a curtsy and left to fetch him. I pulled one of my warmest cloaks from the wardrobe and went out into my sitting room to wait for Giuseppe to arrive.
He did, within minutes. “You sent for me, madonna?” he asked formally. He lowered his voice slightly. “How are you this morning, Adriana?”
“I am quite well, Giuseppe, never fear,” I said. “I wish to go out, and take the air.”
He eyed me quizzically. “And shall we be taking the air at your … er … favorite spot?”
“Somewhere new this time, I think,” I said, deliberately avoiding his eyes. “Perhaps to…” I cast my mind about, searching for a proper distraction. “Piazza San Marco, to take a turn about the square.”
Giuseppe stared at me as though I had taken leave of my senses. “It is December, madonna. The piazza will be flooded—the acqua alta.”
Mentally I cursed myself for a fool—perhaps I had taken leave of my senses. What Venetian could forget about the high tides that flooded the city on winter mornings? “To Santa Maria della Salute, then,” I said irritably. I had not been to the church in years, not since my mother died. She had loved to attend Mass there—when we did not attend at the Pietà—or would often take me there to pray even when Mass was not being held. Ironic that a woman who so loved to pray at a church named for Our Lady of Health would die of a fever.
The poor man seemed quite thoroughly confused, but he nodded. “Very well, madonna. I shall call for the gondola.”
He returned to fetch me a few minutes later, and as we made our way down to the dock I chattered mindlessly about a party Tommaso had mentioned taking me to during Carnevale, and how I hoped Father would let me attend. I cannot imagine that Giuseppe cared in the slightest—I scarcely thought it of any import myself. I only knew that I had, desperately, to fill the silence.
Giuseppe helped me into the gondola, and I huddled into the pillows and cushions within the felze, pulling my cloak tighter about me. By the Blessed Virgin, what had I been thinking to come out in this cold?
It was a short ride to the church from the palazzo, and soon Vincenzo, our gondolier, docked near the church steps to let us off. I handed him a coin so that he could step into a nearby tavern for a glass of mulled wine, if he so chose. I had half a mind to follow him.
Giuseppe trailed behind me as I entered the church, the weak winter sunlight trickling through the windows just underneath the massive dome. I sank down into a pew near the back, not bothering to kneel and pretend to pray. All I wanted was the silence and stillness and flickering candlelight to dull and quiet my mind, to wash it clean. I tried to remember how it had felt to come here as a girl with my mother, how I had watched her pray with such devotion that she seemed like the very Madonna herself. It had been so much easier—then—to be happy.
But my peace was short-lived. Giuseppe sat next to me, clearing his throat. “So?” he said, glancing at me. “I take it you have something to say?”
I didn’t look at him. “I do not know to what you are referring, Giuseppe.” I shivered and pulled my cloak tighter—it was scarcely warmer in the church than out.
“Stop it, Adriana,” he said, his sharp tone echoing off the walls and ceiling high above us, as though the very stones were reprimanding me. “Pretend to the rest of the world if you must—and you must, it is true—but you need not maintain this façade with me.”
“I do not know whatever—”
“Why did you drag us out in the cold to freeze our arses off, then?” he demanded. “If not to speak freely?”
I shifted in my seat to face him, my chin raised haughtily. “We will not speak of the events of last night, Giuseppe,” I said. “Not now and not ever. I dragged us out here so that I would not have to think about it. It seems you are determined that I not get my wish, however.”
“I think it might help you to speak about it, Adriana,” he said.
“You forget yourself, Signor Rivalli,” I snapped. “It would do you well to remember that it is I who am the mistress and you who are the servant.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I could have wept at the shocked, hurt expression on Giuseppe’s face. Good God, can I say nothing that does not hurt those I love best? I asked myself. “Giuseppe, I am sorry—” I began.
“No,” he cut me off, getting to his feet. “You are quite right. I should remember my place.” He nodded to the door. “I will just wait there for you then, madonna.”
“Giuseppe, please,” I said, reaching out and grabbing his sleeve. “Do not…” I released him and looked down. “Without you, I am all alone,” I said softly. “Do not you, too, forsake me.”
Giuseppe sighed and sat down again. “Is that what you think he has done, madonna? Forsaken you? Adriana, perhaps I have been wrong all along, for it seems to me that both of you—”
I held up a hand to silence him, unable to bear the bitterness of hearing him concede now, of all times. “Please. I was very much in earnest when I said I do not wish to speak of it.”
“Adriana, I only wish to help you.”
“Then help me forget,” I said.
I knew Giuseppe so well that it seemed I could read all of the words he wanted to say as they chased each other across his face. In the end, he only sighed and said, “As you wish, madonna.”
He rose and began to walk about the church, leaving me to my thoughts. After a time I knelt on the cold stone floor and tried to pray. But at first I could not think what to pray for. It seemed to be sin upon sin to beseech God to bring my lover back to me, to send him to beg forgiveness—though I could think of nothing I wanted more. The longer that I thought about it, the more it seemed that I might better ask God to help me become someone who was worthy of being forgiven.
* * *
As poor a distraction as my outing had proved to be, it was far better than sitting listlessly in the palazzo all day. Eventually, however, we had to return, and I was again confronted by the problem of how to fill so many empty hours, empty days.
I returned to my old refuge of my mother’s library, reading many of the books I had not encountered before, including a few volumes of history of the Venetian republic. I delved deeper into the writings of Christine de Pizan, the Frenchwoman whom my mother had greatly admired, and reread Dante’s Divine Comedy, which I appreciated far more than I had as a girl of fourteen. I studiously avoided the love poetry of Dante and Petrarch, however.
Giuseppe did his part as well. He had found a new bookshop deep in the Rialto district, and took me there one day when the weather was slightly more hospitable. I spent several happy hours browsing the stacks, and bade the bookseller to send the bill to my father.
Even so, I found reading all the time was soon no longer sufficient distraction. In desperation, I began spending time playing the ancient harpsichord that was housed in the small parlor on the piano nobile. I could not remember ever hearing anyone play it; perhaps that was why my father had not felt it necessary to remove this particular trace of music from the house. He came upon me playing it one day; I could hear him enter the room and stand in the doorway but did not turn until he spoke, his voice laced with disapproval. “Adriana—”
I stopped, turning to face him. “Yes, Father?”
“I think you know by now that I feel it inappropriate for a woman to study music,” he said dangerously.
Accomplished liar that I had become, a lie sprang to my lips instantly. “I know, Father,” I said, “but I did not think that you would mind in this instance, for you see, Tommaso Foscari mentioned that he plays the harpsichord, and so I thought to surprise him by learning to play a bit myself.”
“Hmph.” My father’s two greatest desires were at war on his face: his desire that I be obedient to him in everything, and his desire that I wed Tommaso Foscari. “I suppose if you are just playing for your own amusement, and his, there is no harm.” With that he left the room, closing the door behind him, and I had one small refuge left to me.
The harpsichord was not an instrument I had learned in depth. I sat before it and plinked away at the keys, trying to remember which keys were which notes, and trying to string them together into something like a song. It was certainly nothing like playing the violin, but at least I was playing music, however paltry. I discovered some yellowed pages of sheet music beneath the lid of the bench, and tried my best to play them. I marveled at my lack of coordination with the instrument, yet could hear myself improving after the long hours I spent at it each day.
Tommaso Foscari invited me to dine with him, his brother, and his sister-in-law one evening, and of course I went, doing my best to smile and act carefree. Tommaso was just as charming and attentive as he had been at the opera—and just as handsome.
I suppose I may as well fall in love with him, I mused after he had returned me to my palazzo. For what else do I have left? Yet just the thought was like a dagger being plunged into my breast.