Anno Domini 1709
Dearest Mother,
Since I was first taught to dip a quill and pen my ABCs,
I have imagined writing to you. I have written many such
letters in my mind, and you have read them. They made
you weep. With the power of exquisite music exquisitely
performed, they called you back to this place to claim
me.
Have I ever been in your thoughts, as you have been in
mine? Would my eyes remind you of the infant I was when
last you saw me?
When I happen on my reflection in a dark window, I am
sometimes startled to see a young woman’s face looking
back at me. How much more surprised would you be to see
the transformation wrought by Time?
Here, within these stone walls where you left me, I have
grown like those plants that are cultivated indoors,
with shallow roots and always turning toward whatever
sunshine can be stolen from the day outside.
I have heard that children often resemble their parents.
I have looked at my long-fingered hands and wondered,
are they like your hands? Is my profile like yours? Do
you have fair hair that seems not to belong with your
dark eyes? Is there also a hunger inside them?
Until this morning, I had no hope that any letter of
mine could ever reach you-nor any assurance beyond the
promptings of my own imagination that you even lived.
Today all of that has changed.
Who you are, where you are-both are as much matters of
darkness to me as before. But I pray to the Holy Virgin,
even though I have never seen her. I play my violin for
God, even though I cannot know if He has ever listened.
Why can I not then write to you? Sister Laura has never,
as far as I know, lied to me before. And today Sister
Laura told me to write to you.
But I must explain.
On this one day a year, the figlie di coro-the daughters
of the choir, as both the singers and instrumentalists
are called-are allowed to visit whatever blood relations
on the outside are willing to welcome them. Girls look
forward to it, plan for it, dream about it, and then
spend the rest of the year hoarding every detail of it,
like squirrels with their treasure of nuts, until the
next year’s visit comes around.
Last year on this day, while servants beat rugs and
shook out draperies, I sat beneath the arch of my
favorite window, near the rooms occupied by the
privilegiate of the coro. The window affords a splendid
view, through the iron grating, of all the life that
moves upon the water below. I sat on the little bench
there, in the silvery storm of dust that danced in the
light, my arms wrapped around my violin. I heard and
then watched Maestro Vivaldi climb the stairs.
He has been my teacher-and one of the very few men who
has ever seen my face or spoken to me-for nearly half my
lifetime. I was only a girl of eight when, newly
ordained as a priest, Antonio Vivaldi, native son of
Venezia, was hired by the governors of the Pietà to be
our master of the violin.
I can remember the day when Sister Laura brought me
before him. Don Antonio sat in the sacristy unwigged,
his hair as red as the branding irons they would use to
mark the infants when they were left here-just like the
one that marks me on my foot, a small, ornate letter P
to designate a foundling enrolled at the Pietà.
“What’s this?” Don Antonio asked. Looking up from the
papers and quills that lay in disorder on his writing
desk, he protested that he was hired to teach the
advanced students, not the piccoli.
Sister Laura pushed me forward, even though, with all my
heart, I longed to turn away and run. The color of his
hair frightened me-it put me in mind of the flames of
Hell. And the impatience in his voice bespoke a man who
had no love of children.
But Sister Laura urged him to hear me play.
When I was done, he took the instrument from me and
examined my hands, turning them over in his. He tipped
my face up so that he could peer into my eyes, and it
was then that I could see the happiness my playing had
given him. He asked me my name.
“They call me Anna Maria dal Violin,” I told him.
Sister Laura explained to Don Vivaldi that none of the
foundlings is allowed to know her surname, if she has
one. Many of the babies brought to the Pietà are sent
out to the country after they are enrolled, to be nursed
and raised by a foster mother until they return, at the
age of ten, to complete their education. But I was one
of those suckled by a wet nurse here (we still had wet
nurses, nenne, then, who lived on the premises). My
musical training was begun as soon as I was able to hold
a violin.
I hoped she’d explain further, for my benefit as well as
his. But she only stood there beside me, with one of her
hands resting on my shoulder. That hand was trembling.
Sister Laura was my teacher until Maestro Vivaldi came
to the Pietà.
“Anna Maria dal Violin,” said this red-headed priest.
“You will be one of our fourteen iniziate, an apprentice
musician in the coro. Work hard!” He turned back to his
papers then, dismissing us with a wave of his hand.
I felt myself fill with happiness like the water that
fills the empty bucket when it is dropped into the well.
Sister Laura told me that she had never heard of an
eight-year-old being made an iniziata. It would mean
classes and rehearsals with the girls and women of the
coro, under the direction of Maestro Vivaldi.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Vivaldi’s Virgins
by Barbara Quick
Copyright © 2007 by Barbara Quick.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
HarperCollins
Copyright © 2007
Barbara Quick
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-089052-0
