“We must go, Rebecca,” I said with a note of caution in my voice I wished I could remove.
She was right about the good fortune, though. They played for us most of the way back, and Rebecca threw her entire soul into the business, sawing away at that rough-hewn piece of wood to make sounds that by rights should never have issued from such a cheap and unworthy instrument. Slowly, even Delapole’s party, now well in its cups, began to realise something was up. The chatter ended, even from Rousseau, and as our ski f zigzagged, chasing the soft breeze across the lagoon with the fiery ball of the sun beginning to touch the mountains to the west, they fell into silence and listened, at last, to the music.
When we rounded the great bulwarks of the Arsenale, so close we could see the fires of the workmen behind the gates toiling on new warships for the Republic, the other players whispered to Rebecca. Modestly, she moved her chair forward in the boat, and as we sailed past La Pietà, she tore into the same exercises and études I had heard her play when she auditioned for Vivaldi.
The power and virtuosity of her performance left us all breathless. We passed Salute and I saw a priest who had come out of the church stand on the edge of the stone jetty, straining to hear the tempest of sound that enveloped those of us fortunate enough to be on the water. Even Uncle Leo seemed moved, though I could not help noticing that while the rest of us seemed entranced by Rebecca’s art, it was her face and form in which he seemed most engrossed. He had drunk more than any, and it does not make him more pleasant.
She ceased playing as we pulled into the berth at the front of Ca’ Dario. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I heard such hurrahs and applause that I thought the acclaim must come from all around us, from the gondolas on the canal, from the windows of the palaces, the streets and jetties, not just our own party. It made me both proud and nervous.
Delapole stood up in the stern of the boat, a little unsteadily, walked forward, and shook her by the hand in a formal, fatherly fashion.
“You are the very wonder of the day,” he said. “Those mosaics and that cathedral are quite gone from my head now. All I hear is your fiddle. What is your name?”
“Rebecca Guillaume. Thank you, sir.” She glanced at me, and I could see she realised the possible danger of this kind of recognition. The day was failing too. We would have to hurry to be back at the ghetto before nightfall.
Delapole picked up her fiddle. “I know enough about these things to realise this piece of firewood isn’t worthy of you. Tell me, Rebecca, in an ideal world, what instrument would you choose?”
“One that is most unfashionable these days, sir. A Guarneri, but not by Pietro of this city, though they are very fine. He has a cousin, Giuseppe del Gesù, in Cremona, who makes big, bold instruments that the crowd deem ugly. I played one once in Geneva. It has the bravest, strongest tone you will ever hear in any fiddle.”
“Then you will do a rich man a favour, Rebecca Guillaume. It’s off to Cremona in the morning, Gobbo. Speak to this Giuseppe. Tell him we have a marvel of a musician here who thinks his big, ugly fiddles are just the ticket, then haggle the fellow to the brink of death.”
“Sir!” Rebecca’s hands shot to her face. “I cannot possibly accept such a gift. It is more money than our family might make in a year.”
“Money, money.” The Englishman wafted his hand nonchalantly in the air. “What’s it for if you can’t throw a little at art and beauty once in a while?”
Leo’s eyes positively glared at that. I suspect our uncle thought the cash he’d expected by way of a printing commission was now going in the direction of Rebecca’s fiddle.
“No,” she said most firmly. “It isn’t right.”
“Then I shall merely have the thing delivered to you, dear girl, and you can place it on your mantelpiece as a parlour decoration if you wish. Come. We must celebrate inside! Drinks! Tidbits! And I shall demand a song of you, Rousseau, a pretty Parisian serenade.”
I made sure she caught my eye then. The sun was half down over San Marco. We needed to be heading swiftly back to the ghetto.
She managed to extricate herself from the party with little difficulty. They were fast on the way to becoming decidedly drunk, except for Gobbo, who was mouthing curses about his mission in the morning. Before we left, Rebecca strode over to him and issued one final instruction.
“There are fakers in the city,” she told him. “Make sure you deal only with Giuseppe himself and buy an instrument that has his label on it. There should be the cipher IHS and the inscription ‘Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremone, anno…’ and the year of manufacture.”
“Anything else you want while I’m there?” Gobbo replied with an ugly smirk. “The odd dress or two? Some nice scent? I bet you’d know how to use ’em.”
Quite rightly, she turned her back on him, and we made for the door, followed all the way by Gobbo’s beady eyes.
I used what little coin I had to find us a gondola that took us straight to San Marcuola. Then we walked hurriedly for Cannaregio, where, close to the ghetto, she took hold of the collar of my jacket and gently dragged me into the half light of a narrow alley. We stood there peering into each other’s face.
“Lorenzo,” she whispered. “I will have a Guarneri! I will have a proper instrument for the first time in my life!”
I thought of Attila’s throne and wondered if perhaps there was indeed some fairy-tale power hidden in the grey and ancient rock. “You deserve nothing less. But we shouldn’t forget there is danger here. For us, and for Jacopo too. We must be cautious.”
“Yes, and die of old age in our beds, never having tried to touch the sky! Oh, Lorenzo. There’s nothing won in this world without risk. But I promise. I shall be modest and unobtrusive from now on. A quiet, obedient girl.”
I laughed. She snorted. I stifled the urge to take her in my arms and said simply, “I think that’s wise.”
“But I wish the concerto I finished writing last week to be published and performed, Lorenzo. It is very good, I think. Leo may be just the man.”
In that dark, musty-smelling alley, the entire world turned upside down and spent a good interval that way before righting itself again.
“A concerto? What are you thinking? They will see through our game at La Pietà immediately if you make yourself more public than you are already.”
“I merely said I wished my work performed and published. Not that I should be the one whose name is attached to it. To begin with, anyway.”
With that she reached forward, held me very gently, and kissed my cheek, once. “There is much to talk about. And much to teach you. But if we do not get past my jailer soon, it won’t matter a damn anyway.”
Then Rebecca Levi, also known as Guillaume, brushed past me back into the street. Incapable of rational thought, I raced after her.
23
A balance outstanding
It was ten in the morning. They sat at a small window table in Florian’s: Scacchi, Daniel, and the mute, puzzled Fabozzi, all three waiting for Massiter to arrive. The day was grey and overcast. Beyond the glass, tourists posed beneath mobs of squabbling pigeons while the souvenir stands hawked their cheap wares. The price list Daniel had picked up on the table was so ludicrously high it was difficult to take a sip without thinking of the cost.