He reached in and grasped the object, untied the string, removed the brown paper, and turned the light on the first page. It was written in a spidery, backward-leaning hand and said simply, Concerto Anonimo and, in Roman numerals, the year: 1733. Daniel flicked through the pages rapidly, setting up a cloud of dust.
“What is it?” Laura whispered.
“Patience,” he replied, and sat down on a dusty pile of papers to examine their discovery, his mind racing. Even from a cursory glance he realised there could be only one explanation, extraordinary as it was. “I
think we have found the composer’s score for a violin concerto. The original manuscript, before it went to the copyists.”
Laura shook her head. “But it is anonymous. Why hide it?”
“I don’t know.” Daniel scanned the music, written in the long-dead composer’s curious hand with an extended, sloping slant that seemed to suggest the notes had been dashed out in the heat of creation. At first glance the piece had perhaps a touch of Vivaldi to it. He had once sought out copies of the composer’s originals in the college library. The hand looked nothing like this.
“Come!” Laura ordered. “We must tell him!”
They rushed upstairs with their discovery and found Scacchi and Paul in the front room, dancing in each other’s arms to some light jazz on the stereo.
“Spritz?” Scacchi asked hopefully. His skin seemed more sallow than it had earlier in the day.
“Later,” Laura announced. “Daniel has found something.”
“We have found something,” he objected.
She waved at him like a mother ticking off a silly child. “No matter. Tell us, Scacchi. Is this what you want?”
The old man’s dark eyes came abruptly to life. The two men ceased dancing and came over to the table to examine the sheaf of pages Daniel had spread out there.
“I can’t read a note of music,” Scacchi said. “Is this valuable?”
Laura prodded the old yellowed page gently with her forefinger. “Of course it’s valuable! Why else would it be hidden?”
“That is female logic,” he complained. “It is anonymous. It says so. Do you recognise it, Daniel?”
“No. But it appears to be a full score for a concerto for solo violin. See! The date says 1733.”
“Vivaldi?” Paul wondered hopefully.
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so. It’s similar, but why would Vivaldi write anonymously? And this is not his hand. I know it.”
“Still,” Scacchi said hopefully, “something from that time, something fresh, would have value, surely?”
Daniel had to agree, though he could not hope to guess at a price. “It must. This seems well-done from a first glance.”
“Good!” Scacchi declared. “And you have the perfect way to start a small whisper about its discovery. Tonight, with Massiter, who may well be an ideal buyer.”
Laura looked at him severely. “You cannot ask Daniel to take something as valuable as this and wave it under the Englishman’s nose. Massiter will snatch it from him straightaway and throw the poor boy over the side of his boat as fish food.”
Scacchi scowled at her. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Laura. Of course he shouldn’t take the original. You can copy out a few pages of the solo in your own hand, Daniel, surely? Massiter asked for some composition. Tell him this is it.”
Daniel demurred. “This isn’t my work, Scacchi.”
“Just a ruse, lad, to whet the appetite. Massiter’s probably smart enough to see through it anyway.”
“Pen!” Laura shouted. “Paper!”
Paul brought them to him. Daniel stared at the white sheet and the ancient pen.
“Oh, come,” Scacchi said, urging him on. “It is such a small thing. I am not Mephisto, Daniel. Nor are you Faust.”
Daniel reached for a ruler and, in thick black ink, began to draw the five lines of the stave.
17
The Red Priest
Santa Maria della Visitazione — or La Pietà, as everyone seems to call it — is a crumbling piece of stone a little way along from the Doge’s Palace. They say the place is so feebly built that one day it will be pulled down entirely and replaced with something more fitting. The Venetians must have magnificence, you see, particularly in such a prominent location.
We stood on the doorstep in silence. Until now this was a prank. Had the city militia caught us, what reprimand might there have been for a Jewess who forgot to wear her red scarf and her foolish companion? A few harsh words for Rebecca and a clip round the ear for me. But to walk over the threshold of La Pietà was very different. The Hebrew would be entering Christ’s Church, and not for penitence or some instant conversion, either. Would God strike us down on the very steps? Would we be damned for eternity for some gross insult against the Lord’s house?
I cannot answer for the latter, but on the first I have to disappoint you. When we finally summoned the courage to march through the gloomy rectangle of La Pietà’s front porch, we were greeted by nothing more than the sound of stringed instruments scratching their way through a piece of middling difficulty. No claps of thunder. No roars from on high. We entered the nave of the church, and there sat a small chamber orchestra, mostly girls in dark cheap dresses, with Vivaldi waving his stick over them.
I must admit I expected rather more of the famed Red Priest. For one thing, the red hair is long gone — the poor fellow wears a dusty white wig to cover his bald head. True, there is a vivid scarlet frock coat, but his face is bloodless and pasty and his eyes forever squint crossly at the page. I peered at that high pale forehead, thinking about the miracle of creation (individual, not divine). Somehow all this wondrous music had escaped such a humble frame and ventured out to capture the world. For a while, anyway. They say Vivaldi has had scant success since he wrote The Four Seasons eight years ago and must now travel as a journeyman conductor to Vienna and beyond to pay his bills.
We stood in the shadows for a while until he rattled his little stick on the stand and waved silence over the small band of players.
“You,” he then yelled in our direction. “You’re late.”
Rebecca walked out into the light, her small violin case at her side, and I was amused to see an expression of admiration steal its way over Vivaldi’s face. Rebecca has this e fect upon people. I slid into a pew, the better to observe proceedings.
“Where are you from, girl? What use are you to me?”
She bowed her head modestly. “Geneva originally, sir. I cannot answer for the other. You must be the judge.”
“Hmmm. I know men in Geneva. Your teacher?”
“Only my late father, who was a carpenter by trade.”
His face sagged quite noticeably. “Very well, then,” he grunted in a most miserable fashion. “Play something. Let’s get it over with.”
Rebecca opened her case and took out a rough-looking instrument stained a rather disgusting shade of reddy-brown.
“Did he make that, too, girl?” Vivaldi demanded. “Must be the ugliest-looking instrument I’ve ever seen.”
She gazed at him with a firmness of purpose I found quite admirable. “He did, sir, and would have bought me something better if we could have a forded it.”