And it is not yet over. There are still Petrarch’s sonnets to the Virgin to come, in a new setting that shows the girl’s voice at its finest; then, after refreshments, the play in the refectory before an audience of female relations and benefactors. If the performance goes as well as the concert—and the only concerns are that Suora Lavinia finds her courtier’s costume, which has gone missing, and that the nun in charge of special effects gets the moment right so the thunder coincides with the miraculous breaking of the wheel rather than rumbling irrelevantly two or three speeches later—the convent will surely have delivered up its finest Carnival entertainment ever. Yes, Zuana thinks, the abbess has every right to look satisfied.
As the song draws to a close, all eyes are fixed on the girl. She glances up quickly toward the audience, then drops her gaze demurely to the ground. Though some will see a glow of performance about her, to Zuana’s eyes she looks gaunt and exhausted, almost feverish with the excitement of it all. Perhaps it is no wonder. Extreme goodness can be as taxing as extreme rebellion. Once Carnival is over and normality has returned, she will find convent life gentler and more soothing. If, that is, gentleness and soothing are what she really wants.
In the orchestra, Suora Ursula picks up her flute and brings it to her lips as the audience settles itself for more pleasure.
THE CONCERT ENDS and the singers disband. Behind a screen a table is now revealed laden with refreshments: fine wines next to fine glasses, hand-painted ceramic plates piled high with biscuits and sugared almonds, and, in the middle, a glass bowl full of the glowing colors of marzipan fruits. The families and visitors surge forward to meet and congratulate the performers; a few of the younger men are so eager to get to the front that there is some shoving and pushing along the way (protected by their masks, there is now the chance for a little Carnival courtesy as well as compliment). When they arrive, however, they are disappointed. The songbird herself is already gone, whisked out through the back door by Umiliana, who, having been a veritable lioness in her protection of all her novices, now sacrifices her visiting rights to chaperone Serafina in the interval between the concert and the performance.
They go first to the chapel, where they are joined by Suora Perseveranza, excused from the festivities to spiritually compose herself for her ordeal at the hands of the pagan emperor. From prayer they move to the refectory, where it becomes Serafina’s task to arrange the remaining chairs and light the candles in readiness for the performance. Though it is humble work for a young woman whose voice has just captivated some of the city’s most discriminating music lovers, she exhibits no resentment or impatience at her fate; she simply does everything as she is instructed, occasionally glancing out through the window to where the day is gradually dying.
By the time the watch sisters in the gatehouse have counted out the last male visitor and closed and secured the doors against possible intruders (a procedure most rigidly observed today of all days), and the abbess has accompanied the noblewomen, sashaying across the courtyard like a fleet of well-rigged galleons, into the refectory, the twilight is advanced enough for the candles to light up the stage, leaving just enough remaining natural light for the actors to move behind the curtains.
The novice mistress’s attention is now divided between those of her charges who will perform and the others who will be spectators, and everyone is vying for the best seats behind the benefactors. Such are the bustle and chatter that Serafina finds it easy to slip away from the throng and select a place for herself at the far end of a row at the back.
There are still a few empty places elsewhere when Zuana takes a seat to the right, almost directly in front of her. She turns a little to survey the room and as she does she catches Serafina’s eye.
“Your voice was heavenly in the concert,” she says lightly, before the girl can drop her gaze. “The parlatorio was ringing with your praises.”
Far from taking pleasure in being complimented, the novice looks confused, almost anxious. “Thank you,” she says, with a half smile. Zuana glances back toward the stage across a sea of elaborate veils and tall headdresses. “I fear you will not see much from here. You should find a place closer to the front.”
“Oh, no, no …I am happy here.” The girl shakes her head. Zuana notices how her hands are clasped tightly in her lap, one on top of the other as if to stop them from trying to escape. “I am …well, but I am very tired now.”
Her voice trails away as the noise level in the room rises. With the men gone, the women are more animated, rowdy even. She would not be the first young novice to yearn for company after solitude only to find it hard to be amid so many people and so much clamor.
There comes a sudden hushing and shushing as Suora Scholastica emerges from behind the curtain and stands waiting patiently, her full-moon face beaming with nervous excitement. Someone claps her hands to signal silence. She clears her throat.
“Welcome, dear friends and benefactors of the convent of Santa Caterina, to this, our humble entertainment.” Behind her the curtain rolls and twitches as someone moves along against it.
“In the same way that the body needs food and sleep to thrive, so the spirit also needs recreation and rest.”
She pauses, smiling broadly, and around the room people smile back, for it is impossible not to be affected by her enthusiasm.
“For this reason those wise men who established convents saw fit to allow the sisters to put on sacred plays and comedies by which to aid learning and to enjoy a little spiritual fun.”
Someone in the audience lets out a little cheer, and a ripple of laughter moves through the rows. A few of the noblewomen of Ferrara will no doubt have heard stories of convents where such entertainments are banned or curtailed, following the new rules from Trento, and are concerned lest the same thing should befall their own sisters and daughters here.
“The first scene—” Scholastica raises her voice to make it heard. These words have taken her many months to compose, and she is determined that people are going to listen to them. “The first scene of our presentation of the martyrdom of Santa Caterina takes place in the emperor’s palace in Alexandria.”
The curtain parts, pulling slowly back from either side to reveal a wooden cutout of an entrance with two painted pillars on either side. To the left stand a few noble courtiers and scribes, draped in fabrics and hats, and opposite them the emperor, tall and imperious, though still recognizable as Suora Obedienza, in a velvet cloak and a gold diadem, with a fuzzy black beard clinging precariously by two straps to her chin. A spirited interchange takes place between them about the pleasures of pagan living and the power of the gods, and then the music starts, with the courtiers giving a short dance, the steps of which most of the ladies in the audience could execute with their eyes shut.
Everyone now is craning her neck to see. Even Umiliana, who of course must disapprove in principle, cannot help but be a little curious in practice. Zuana glances back toward Serafina, who sits upright, eyes to the stage with an almost fierce attention. This time next year she could be behind the curtain herself, for there are ample opportunities for good voices during the musical interludes. Next year. How many Matins and Vespers and prayer hours will have come and gone before then? There was a time when Zuana knew the answer to that—could compute the number of offices, even the number of psalms sung, between each and every feast day. Everything becomes easier when you stop counting. Has the girl reached that stage already?
The dance is interrupted by the banging of a drum and through the back entrance two soldiers appear, their brass helmets picking up the flare of the candles. They pull with them a figure in a long white shift and a wig of golden curls down to her shoulders. This arrogant young girl has been found defying the will of the gods in favor of her own Savior. The audience gives a little gasp of pleasure. She seems so small, too fragile almost to be God’s messenger. Yet she must debate with the emperor’s scribes and either recant her Christian beliefs or be tortured.