Days passed, with more messages carried between Vivaldi and me, still without an agreed-upon time and date. This was nothing unusual; we had been forced to go a week or more without seeing each other in the past. But this was different. This was urgent, and I could not tell him what I needed to say in a letter.
Toward the end of June, Giuseppe finally brought a letter to me after several days without a reply. He waited by the door, in case he needed to return with my response. I went to the window of my bedchamber to read it, letting the late morning sun fall upon the hasty scrawl on the page:
Mia carissima Adriana—
I am sorry to have not replied to you sooner, and you will have to forgive me for giving you such short notice of my news. Even as you read this, I am on my way to Amsterdam. There is a publisher there who is interested in L’estro, and I thought it best to go meet him without delay. This may be the opportunity I have been waiting for, so I know you will understand. I wish that I might have seen you before I left, but it was not possible. I promise we will meet again as soon as we are both in Venice once more. I beg you to wish me luck in my venture.
A.V.
I let the letter fall from my hand. “No,” I murmured. “Please, no. Not now. He cannot go now, of all times. He cannot!”
I bent to pick up the letter and turned to face Giuseppe, almost accusingly. “Did you have this from his own hand?” I demanded. Maybe, if he had not departed yet, I could intercept him. Maybe he would take me with him …
Bewildered, Giuseppe shook his head. “No, he sent it via a messenger, as he often does. I have told the other servants that I have a sweetheart on Burano, to explain why I receive so many letters.”
I stared through him. “He is gone,” I whispered. “He has left for Amsterdam, to meet with a music publisher.” My whole body began to tremble. “He cannot, not now! I must—”
Giuseppe crossed the room and placed his hands on my shoulders to steady me. “Madonna, please! What is the matter? He is planning to return, is he not?”
“Yes,” I said. “But by then, it may well be too late…” I pulled away, sinking down onto the edge of my bed. “What am I going to do?” I whispered.
“Do about what? Why will it be too late?” he demanded.
I met his worried eyes. “I am with child,” I said.
Giuseppe staggered back as the news—and all its potential consequences—became clear to him.
“He does not know,” I went on. “I have not been able to see him to tell him. And by the time he returns, it may be too late. My condition may become apparent before…” I trailed off, unable to put into words the fate we were both envisioning.
Giuseppe’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times, as though no words could be found. “How far along are you?” he asked at last.
“Almost three months,” I said.
“And he does not know.”
It was not a question, but I answered anyway. “No, he does not.”
“Then you know what you must do,” Giuseppe said.
I gasped and jumped up, backing away from him. “No.”
“You must, Adriana,” he said. He stepped closer, taking me by the shoulders again. “You must. You have no other choice. He does not know; he need never know. By the time he returns, you will be at the villa. And once you come back to Venice, it will be too late. He will no longer be able to do anything for you. And if your father finds out…” He did not finish the sentence, but neither of us needed him to.
“I cannot, Giuseppe,” I said, my voice breaking. “Do you not understand? This is the child of the man I love. I would do anything to keep it safe. I could not…” I was unable even to speak the words.
“But you must, Adriana!” he exclaimed, releasing me and furiously turning his back on me. He took a moment to regain control before facing me again. “I will go seek out a wisewoman myself, if you wish,” he said. “I will get whatever herbs or mixture you need to take so that this can all be over with now. Women do it all the time, Adriana,” he added, trying to reason with me. “You will be neither the first nor the last.”
“I will not rid myself of my child,” I said through clenched teeth as I pushed him away. I pressed both hands to my belly.
“It is the only way!” he shouted.
“Keep your voice down,” I hissed. “Do you wish the rest of the household to hear you?”
He sighed. “Can you really be so foolish, Adriana?” he asked. “Can you really be so hopelessly, foolishly blind?”
“I am not blind,” I said. “I know the consequences just as well as you do.”
“And even if you do tell him before it is too late?” Giuseppe asked. “What can he do to save you? He cannot marry you. You could run away and live together in shame, but how will he make a living then? Unless he were to leave the Church—”
Giuseppe broke off and stared incredulously at me. “That is it, is it not? You are planning to ask him to leave the Church for you, and for the child.”
“In a way,” I admitted, unable to meet his eyes. “Not ask him, per se. But surely he will see that it is the only way for us.” I grew more confident as I spoke. “He will not abandon me. He loves me.”
“I know he does,” Giuseppe conceded. “But Adriana, what if he is not willing to destroy his life and his reputation for you? Everything he has worked for, everything that he hopes to achieve, would be undone.” He looked at me closely, a hard, scrutinizing stare, the one I had so far been able to avoid when I looked into the mirror but could not turn away from now. “And you would ask him to do all of that for you?”
“I should not have to ask him anything!” I burst out. “He should do it because he loves me and because it is what is right. I did not want this to happen either, but it did. We have both made choices that brought us here; neither one of us is solely to blame, and so we both must make sacrifices.”
“And what sacrifice will you be making, Adriana?” Giuseppe demanded. “If all of this goes according to your plan, then you will have everything you have ever wanted, and he will be ruined. What exactly will you be sacrificing, pray?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but found I could not. Giuseppe, damn him, was exactly right. All I stood to lose was a place in society that had never meant anything to me. It would be Vivaldi, and only Vivaldi, who would lose everything. Can I really ask that of him? I wondered, guilt creeping in to settle in the pit of my stomach. And if I do, might he not grow to resent me, someday?
“It does not matter,” I said aloud. “We have no other choice, Giuseppe. We will go someplace far away, far from Venice—far from Italy, if need be—where the scandal cannot follow us. And then we will begin again.”
“Is there nothing I can say that will dissuade you from this folly?” he asked.
“It is not folly.”
“It is,” he countered. “For what are you going to do when everything you are hoping for falls to pieces?”
“I do not know,” I said. “It cannot go awry. It will not.”
“Adriana.” He groaned, sitting down heavily on the bed. “Even the best-laid plans can go awry, and this one is folly. It is. Folly and madness.”
“Stop speaking thus!” I cried. “My life is unraveling, and—”
“But it is not just your life!” Giuseppe exploded, with a vehemence that made me jump. He rose to his feet. “Dio mio, for once, will you stop being so selfish and open your eyes? Your life is not the only one at stake! If you fall, we all fall with you: the maestro, your child, Meneghina, and … and me.”
“If you wish to leave,” I said slowly, “then go. Go to my father and ask for the rest of your wages, and leave. I will not stop you, and I do not wish you to suffer for me. Surely you know that is the last thing I want.”
He sighed. “I know,” he said. “And I would not abandon you, now or ever. Do not think that I care for myself more than I care for—” He stopped, the words he had not spoken hanging in the air, as audible as if he had said them aloud: for you. “Damn Enrico,” he snarled under his breath, turning away from me. “He is like a great filthy spider, and we are all caught in his web. Damn the old bastard to il inferno and back…”
I listened, fascinated by his rant, and had to stop myself from questioning him.
“So what will you do?” he asked finally, turning back to me. “You will wait for him?”
I nodded. “I will pray that he is here when we return from the villa, and that we can be gone quickly.”
Giuseppe sighed. “I know that I should tell you I will not help you.” He hesitated. “But I cannot. For better or for worse, madonna, I am, as ever, at your service.”
“And I thank you,” I said. “More than I can say. I know that I have a large debt to repay someday.”
He waved this aside. “There are no debts between friends,” he said. “And I have been wrong before where Maestro Vivaldi is concerned. He does love you, very much. I can only pray that it will be enough to see you through this.”
I nodded. “Have faith, Giuseppe.”
“And you. You will need it.”
I smiled weakly. “I will. I do. For I know no other way, now.”