“Ye gods,” the old misery sighed, and placed a skinny, withered hand over his chin.
I could not take my eyes off Rebecca, for a variety of reasons. Something in this exchange amused her greatly. I felt already that she would best this grumpy old priest.
“A study we used to play, sir,” she announced sweetly, then raised her rough-hewn bow and brought it down on that ugly lump of wood like an angel felling demons with a sword. Well! You may guess what occurred next: a miracle. She wrung from that battered old thing such tones of sweetness, such surging passages of passion that I thought at one point our great composer might faint upon the floor in a swoon!
True, some of this was show (and what is wrong with that in the circumstances?). She dashed through scales, note perfect and at a flashing speed. She double-stopped, then treble-stopped, up and down the neck. A slip of a folk tune fell in here, some baroque finery there. Slow passages, fast passages, light and dark, loud and quiet, they dazzled us with their technical skill and yet carried a great sense of feeling too. I am no fiddler— having listened to Rebecca, I now doubt I am a musician at all — but I know genius when I hear it. Vivaldi was right about the instrument, which was not worthy of her. But none could doubt Rebecca’s brilliance, and it warmed my heart to see it wrung some emotion and generosity out of the old man, too, for when she finished this astonishing exhibition, the priest rose to his feet, broke into a broad, ingenuous grin, clapped his hands like a five-year-old, and yelled, “Hurrah!”
Rebecca, with that knowing smile still upon her closed lips, quietly placed the instrument back in its case, then looked at him and said, all innocence, “I hope I may be of use to you, sir. In some capacity.”
“Good God, girl!” he exclaimed. “You’re just the wonder I need.”
“Thank you.” She said this, I am happy to report, with a touch of firmly demure honesty, which Vivaldi took, I hope, as a small reprimand for his doubt in her.
“But what was it? I recognised Corelli. And some common studies. The rest?”
“I don’t know, sir. Things my father taught me.” She blushed when she spoke. I did not understand why.
The old priest clapped his hands. “No matter. Shame about that damned instrument of yours. Nevertheless, you are welcome to my little band of ladies.” At this the rest of the group, an odd-looking assortment, much like a bunch of nuns who had newly abandoned their wimples, smiled at her and clapped their hands by way of greeting. “Your name?”
“Rebecca.” My heart raced. A sharp look of panic had risen in her eyes. “Rebecca Guillaume.”
“A pretty name for a pretty face,” Vivaldi said pleasantly. “A shame that none shall see you.”
“Sir?”
Vivaldi pointed to the large gilt shutters that ran along each side of the nave. “This is a church, Rebecca Guillaume. Not a music hall. Can’t have ’em ogling the orchestra when they should be listening to the tunes. You play behind these golden eyelids, and I’m afraid they’ll stay tight shut while the audience swoon over your e forts.”
At this her head went to one side, as if to lean upon her shoulder, and I found myself perplexed once more. It was quite impossible to judge what she was thinking.
“Now…” Vivaldi announced, beaming from ear to ear. “To the new pieces!”
With that he distributed a score among the orchestra, explaining it carefully, instrument by instrument, with the skill and attention one should expect of a master (none of the “Print that right, lad, or I’ll boot your backside out of the window straight into the stinking canal” that I get from Leo). Rebecca’s presence moved the old man greatly. He threw himself into the music, becoming quite absorbed as they practised it passage by passage, change by change, until the whole began to emerge from what was, at the beginning, mere chaos. They played for almost three hours. The light was failing when we went back outside. I was anxious to return Rebecca to the ghetto before the guards pulled up the drawbridge and kept the world safe from Jews for the night.
We walked onto the jetty and set up a brisk pace to catch the first gondola. I sought some sign of happiness in her face. She had just been praised by the greatest musician in Venice and welcomed into his band of players. None was there.
“Rebecca,” I said as the boat swung into the volta of the canal and the leaning form of Oliver Delapole’s rented home, Ca’ Dario, with its odd rose windows, came into view. “You’ve made your mark this day. You play like an angel and he knows it.”
“Yes,” she replied in a low, fierce tone. “An angel that stays locked behind shutters where none may see. I’ve just swapped one prison for another to let someone else take the glory.”
Her anger startled me. “I don’t understand. It’s such an honour… ”
“What? To be shut away like some caged bird? Who does this condescending priest think he is?”
“Vivaldi. More than a musician. A composer. A conductor. An artist who towers above men.”
Those dark, penetrating eyes bored straight into me. I felt quite naked before their power. “And you think I can’t compose? Or conduct? You think I don’t want to stand in front of the orchestra like him and watch your mouths open in wonder when they do my bidding?”
The white arch of the Rialto grew larger before us, humanity swarming over it.
“He wonders what music I play, Lorenzo? Mine.”
I sat in the rocking boat, above the greasy waters of the Grand Canal, unable to marshal my thoughts. Rebecca was opposite me, on the narrow seat, and leaned forward to grasp my knee and whisper anxiously in my face.
“But there I’m doubly cursed, aren’t I? Not just a woman, but a J—”
There was nothing else for it. As gently as I could, I covered her mouth with my hand, shocked by the damp sweetness of her lips. Her eyes seemed, for an instant, frightened. Then I saw understanding there. No one is more free with gossip than a gondolier. If we continued in this vein, someone would be feeding the lion’s mouth tonight.
“Our stop is soon, cousin,” I said loudly, then, when her eyes told me she understood, removed my hand from her lovely mouth. “We must count our blessings and get on with the job.”
Ten minutes later we ducked into an alley by the ghetto and she put the scarlet scarf over that mass of curls once more.
“And there’s more,” she hissed before we went back into the fading day. “It’s impossible anyway. I hoped to persuade him that I might perform in the afternoon alone, but Vivaldi said I must play the evening concerts or none at all. I can never get out of the ghetto at night. I am a Jew, so it is my jail.”
For a moment I thought she might cry, but her composure held and I wondered unkindly whether she was playing with my emotions. Then she added slyly, “Tell me, Lorenzo. Has a Jew no eyes? Hands, organs, dimensions, senses, a fections, passions? Don’t I eat the same food, hurt with the same weapons, suffer the same diseases? Am I not healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, just like a Christian? If you prick me, don’t I bleed? If you tickle me, don’t I laugh? If you poison me, will I not die?” Then, most seriously, “And if you wrong me, shall I not seek revenge?”