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Authors: Barbara Wilson
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and Rousseau, but also Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman , books she couldn’t obtain elsewhere. As Mercedes said, “What else can a woman with a mind do in this godforsaken country but live as a nun?”
Occasionally my mind drifted to the Ospedale della Pietà and to the musicians there. Had the orphanage been a kind of prison where musicians were produced for the entertainment of the Venetian nobility and foreign guests? Or had it been a safe haven where girls who would have otherwise been on the streets were assured of education and livelihood, where talent was recognized and rewarded? What if my choice had been between cloistered musical servitude and prostitution? What would I have chosen? Nun, I thought, but crossed my fingers behind my back. Shut away, but at least with my own kind. Maybe some of the Pietà girls were the same kind of virgin I was. Maybe, I liked to think, they had had time for a kiss in between all those hours of practicing the bassoon.
There was a knock at the door and the maid came in. I’d been in bed most of the morning, and I assumed she probably wanted to make up the room; instead, she handed me an envelope with my name on it.
I opened it quickly.
Cassandra. Meet me at one at the Campo Santa Margherita at the Bar Antico.
N.
P.S. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going or let yourself be followed.
“Who gave you this?”
The maid smiled and shrugged. “The front desk.”
But when I went downstairs a little later, the clerk at the front desk professed not to know anything about it. I asked if anyone else had left me a message, and the clerk pulled out a scrap of paper with a single question scrawled across it:
What orchestra or chamber music group does Miss de Hoog play with?
Could it be from Albert? I had never seen his handwriting before, but it was like him to be curious about the least obvious thing.
I’d hoped to see Anna de Hoog at the palazzo ; to my relief, she was sitting in the garden with a few newspapers and a book beside her, obviously alone. I pulled up a painted iron chair and sat down beside her. It had turned into a sunny day with bouncy white clouds above. In the dappled shade Anna’s skin looked pale and mottled. Did she have a life-threatening disease? Her expression was a picture of serenity.
I picked up the book. It was Women Musicians of Venice . It looked like Nicky’s copy. When I turned to the inside cover, I saw that indeed it was. Someone else might have apologized for snooping among Nicky’s things, but not the unflappable Anna. With a guileless smile, she said, “Wasn’t it kind of Nicola to loan me this book?” and she launched into a discussion of the Venetian welfare state that had created the ospedali in the first place.
“They say the reason there were so many abandoned children in Venice was that men were encouraged not to marry, and a huge class of courtesans arose. There was no stigma in giving up a child. The mother would simply place the baby in a sort of revolving door and ring the bell. The nuns would be on the other side to take the baby in, wash it and brand it with the letter P for instance, if it was the Pietà that was taking the child in, and then give the baby to a wet nurse. It was quite a system, don’t you think? I believe the Pietà still has a sign near where the little revolving door used to be. All the same, don’t you think some of those women wondered, when they went to the concerts years later, whether their daughters might possibly be among the performers? And don’t you think the daughters wondered too, looking through the grille work out into the audience: Is my mother here ?”
“Not that this isn’t fascinating,” I interrupted, “but…”
“You’re probably wondering about Gunther’s death,” she said quietly. “It was shocking, a shocking thing to see.”
When I looked into her eyes, I saw she truly meant it.
“Do the police know anything more?”
She shook her
Occasionally my mind drifted to the Ospedale della Pietà and to the musicians there. Had the orphanage been a kind of prison where musicians were produced for the entertainment of the Venetian nobility and foreign guests? Or had it been a safe haven where girls who would have otherwise been on the streets were assured of education and livelihood, where talent was recognized and rewarded? What if my choice had been between cloistered musical servitude and prostitution? What would I have chosen? Nun, I thought, but crossed my fingers behind my back. Shut away, but at least with my own kind. Maybe some of the Pietà girls were the same kind of virgin I was. Maybe, I liked to think, they had had time for a kiss in between all those hours of practicing the bassoon.
There was a knock at the door and the maid came in. I’d been in bed most of the morning, and I assumed she probably wanted to make up the room; instead, she handed me an envelope with my name on it.
I opened it quickly.
Cassandra. Meet me at one at the Campo Santa Margherita at the Bar Antico.
N.
P.S. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going or let yourself be followed.
“Who gave you this?”
The maid smiled and shrugged. “The front desk.”
But when I went downstairs a little later, the clerk at the front desk professed not to know anything about it. I asked if anyone else had left me a message, and the clerk pulled out a scrap of paper with a single question scrawled across it:
What orchestra or chamber music group does Miss de Hoog play with?
Could it be from Albert? I had never seen his handwriting before, but it was like him to be curious about the least obvious thing.
I’d hoped to see Anna de Hoog at the palazzo ; to my relief, she was sitting in the garden with a few newspapers and a book beside her, obviously alone. I pulled up a painted iron chair and sat down beside her. It had turned into a sunny day with bouncy white clouds above. In the dappled shade Anna’s skin looked pale and mottled. Did she have a life-threatening disease? Her expression was a picture of serenity.
I picked up the book. It was Women Musicians of Venice . It looked like Nicky’s copy. When I turned to the inside cover, I saw that indeed it was. Someone else might have apologized for snooping among Nicky’s things, but not the unflappable Anna. With a guileless smile, she said, “Wasn’t it kind of Nicola to loan me this book?” and she launched into a discussion of the Venetian welfare state that had created the ospedali in the first place.
“They say the reason there were so many abandoned children in Venice was that men were encouraged not to marry, and a huge class of courtesans arose. There was no stigma in giving up a child. The mother would simply place the baby in a sort of revolving door and ring the bell. The nuns would be on the other side to take the baby in, wash it and brand it with the letter P for instance, if it was the Pietà that was taking the child in, and then give the baby to a wet nurse. It was quite a system, don’t you think? I believe the Pietà still has a sign near where the little revolving door used to be. All the same, don’t you think some of those women wondered, when they went to the concerts years later, whether their daughters might possibly be among the performers? And don’t you think the daughters wondered too, looking through the grille work out into the audience: Is my mother here ?”
“Not that this isn’t fascinating,” I interrupted, “but…”
“You’re probably wondering about Gunther’s death,” she said quietly. “It was shocking, a shocking thing to see.”
When I looked into her eyes, I saw she truly meant it.
“Do the police know anything more?”
She shook her
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