The Four Seasons

by Laurel Corona

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

In glittering 18th-century Venice, music and love are prized above all else--and for two sisters coming of age, the city's passions blend in intoxicating ways. Chiaretta and Maddalena are as different as night and day. The two sisters were abandoned as babies on the steps of the Ospedale della Pietà, Venice's world-famous foundling hospital and musical academy. High-spirited and rebellious, Chiaretta marries into a great aristocratic Venetian family and eventually becomes one of the most powerful women in Venice. Maddalena becomes a violin virtuoso and Antonio Vivaldi's muse. The Four Seasons is a rich, literary imagination of the world of 18th-century Venice and the lives and loves of two extraordinary women.

Release date: November 4, 2008

Publisher: Hachette Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

For the hour it took the baby’s wails to run their course through misery to fury to exhaustion, no one thought of anything but how God had favored Venice above all other cities. The radiance of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints emanated from one spot, the balcony over the altar of the chapel of the Pietà. From there, benediction flowed over the black-cloaked nobles seated on the scarred wooden benches to the ragged workers crammed in at the rear. It filtered out the door to the people spilling onto the walkway of the Riva degli Schiavoni, and to those straining to hear on small boats bobbing in the Venetian Lagoon.

For that hour, heaven opened and God spoke. Two dozen women in red and white dresses were his messengers. No counterpoint, however frantic or interlocked, was beyond the skill of the musicians of the Pietà, hidden behind an iron grille draped in black gauze. No subtlety of harmony was overlooked, no languid musical line ever rushed. If music were fabric, that of the figlie di coro would be brocade, lace, gossamer.

And the singer was the golden thread. “Qui habitat,” Michielina sang, “in adjutorio altissimi.” Each note floated over the listeners like a feather held aloft by the breath of angels. While many of those listening could not have understood the words, those whose ermine-trimmed cloaks spoke to their high position in life would have understood the Latin and perhaps noted the aptness of the psalm. If indeed there were a place on earth to glimpse the dwelling place of the Most High, it was surely the balcony of the Pietà.

When the last notes vanished, the figlie di coro disappeared into the secret places of the Pietà through a door in the rear of the balcony. The heavens closed, and the people began to spill out into the October twilight.

“Michielina is better than Paola at the Mendicanti, don’t you think?” A young nobleman opened a side door of the chapel. “After you,” he said, gesturing to his identically dressed companion.

“I prefer the Mendicanti,” his friend said. “But Michielina…” He inhaled sharply to show his appreciation. “She is very good. Perhaps a bit breathy at times but—”

“Ugly as a toad and walks with a limp, I’ve heard.”

“Ahh,” the first man said with a sigh, “such a tragedy. Perhaps we should be grateful we can’t see them.”

Before the second man could reply, what might have been mistaken for a sack of rags draped over a small packing crate in a doorway caught his attention. From within the box a loud intake of air was followed by a choking cough and a hoarse, exhausted wail.

As one of them moved forward to take a closer look, his boot touched the edge of the sack. It moved, and he saw a small arm appear from under one of its folds.

He bent over and jostled the shoulder of the child. “Little one,” he said. “Are you all right?” When he turned her over, she did not startle or wake but fell as limp as the dead. The upturned face was that of a three-year-old girl. Her eyes rolled toward her drooping lids, and her mouth fell open to reveal a row of perfect white teeth above a lolling tongue.

“Laudanum,” he said. “I think she’s had a dose.” He tried to pick her up in his arms but found she had been fastened to the crate by a thick silk cord from a dressing gown. “Someone didn’t want her to wander off and drown.”

There was also a baby, drenched with sweat from its prolonged screams but now snuffling and falling back asleep. Wedged under its head was an envelope on which the word “Pietà” had been written in a meticulous hand.

“Vying with Michielina for attention?” the second man said. “No wonder no one heard you.” He stood up and began banging on the door.

 

IN THE CORNER OF THE SMALL EXAMINATION ROOM OFF THE infirmary ward of the Ospedale della Pietà, the little girl had been stripped down to her underclothing and was seated on top of the overturned crate while a wet nurse for the baby had been fetched from one of the surrounding homes. After the baby had fallen contented from the woman’s breast, she was laid on a long wooden table, bathed, and left to fall asleep.

Even in the dim light of the oil lamps, for by now night had fallen, the baby’s wrappings told the story that was undoubtedly contained within the unopened letter. The shawl in which she had been nestled was soft, honey-colored wool, with a sunburst pattern emblazoned in crimson and gold silk.

“Expensive,” one of the nurses said, holding it up to get a better look. She folded the shawl and placed it on the end of the table. “Get the book,” she said to a girl of about twelve standing beside her.

The girl went to a cabinet, brought out a large leather-bound register, and put it down next to the shawl, returning to the cabinet to bring the pen and ink.

“And put the iron in the fire,” the nurse ordered. She opened the envelope, and as she pulled out the letter, three gold coins fell from its folds. She moved closer to the lamp to examine them before putting them back in the envelope.

She turned to look at the girl. “I told you to put the iron in the fire.”

The girl’s eyes darted toward the small child seated on the crate before she turned away and fetched a metal object from a hook on the wall. As the nurse read to herself, the girl poked at the fire with the rod before leaving its tip at the edge of the coals.

“Just as I thought,” the nurse said, breaking the silence. She began to read aloud.

“God help me, I am abandoned by my patron, who says the baby is not his,” the letter read.

My delivery left me damaged in ways it is not seemly to speak of, and I dare not even show myself to those who once wished for nothing more than a chance to supplant him in my affections. For three years I have been able to keep my daughter out of sight and under the care of my servants, to maintain that appearance of a carefree youth so important to those in my trade. I had intended to do the same with the infant, who was born three months ago, but I no longer know where I will live, or even if I will live much longer, having little money and no appeal to any but the coarsest of men.

I am plunged into the pit of grief by the decision I must make, and I pray you to understand that it is only because I cannot protect my children that I give them to you. I have named the older one Maddalena, in honor of the saint to whom I have prayed to intercede for my forgiveness and thus preserve my soul. She has already been baptized with that name. The baby has a way about her that brings brightness into my heart, and almost from the moment of her birth her eyes were the color of a clear sky. I have taken that as a portent of happiness for her in her life, and I pray you for that reason to baptize her with the name of the Virgin and call her Chiaretta.

The nurse picked up the pen and wrote the date in the left column of the register. “Maddalena,” she spoke aloud as she wrote. “And Maria Chiaretta.”

She continued to read.

I have enclosed all the money I can part with, to help with the burden of finding a wet nurse who will also take in Maddalena, so they can remain together. I put my trust in the infinite mercy of God, who makes all things possible and hears the prayers of the fallen, and though I do not deserve or even dare hope to see my children again, I have also included a token, divided into three, so that if it pleases God that I may ever return for them I may know them, and they may have a means to know each other if circumstances pull them apart.

“Bring me the tokens,” the nurse said to the girl. “I need to describe them in the book.” She took the two pieces of ivory into her hand and strained to see the details in the lamplight. “An ivory hair comb,” she said, “broken into three pieces. Each girl has one end, with a carved flower. The mother’s piece will fit between, which is how she will prove who she is if she ever comes back for them.”

“Will she?” the girl asked.

“No,” the nurse said. “But some of them need to hope.” She put the letter back in its envelope, wrote the description of the shawl and the broken comb into the book, and gave the pen to the girl to clean. “If you don’t want to help, go find a box to store these things. And while you’re at it, go to the refectory and bring her back some bread and a little cheese.” She looked over at Maddalena. “Are you hungry?”

By now the small dose of laudanum had begun to wear off. Maddalena had pulled herself back up to a sitting position on the crate and was rubbing her eyes, too dazed to reply.

As soon as the young girl hurried from the room, the nurse got up and pulled the iron rod from the fire. The tip glowed red as she blew ash from it. She picked up one of Maddalena’s feet with a jerk, and the little girl fell onto her back on the crate. Pulling her lips into a thin line, the nurse brought the end of the red-hot poker down onto the bottom of Maddalena’s heel and held it there for a moment.

The nurse had dropped her foot and was returning the iron to the fire before shock turned to screams of pain and betrayal. “There, there,” she said as she came back with a drop of salve on her finger. “It will heal.”

As she grabbed Maddalena’s foot again, the little girl squirmed and struggled to get out of her grasp, but the nurse held her ankle in a grip so firm it left white halos around her fingers. She looked for a moment at the blackened rectangle enclosing the letter P before dabbing the ointment on the wound and going to find a bandage. By the time she found one, Maddalena’s screams had quieted to a few gulping sobs, and the girl watched in stunned confusion as the nurse wrapped a clean cloth strip around her foot.

“We don’t take in anyone but babies,” the nurse said, in a tone neither harsh nor tender but matter-of-fact, as if she were explaining it to the walls as much as to the little girl. “They don’t remember it for more than a minute. It wasn’t as simple for you, I’m afraid, but it couldn’t be helped.”

She rubbed her hands on her coarse apron as if to wipe away her involvement in the act. “You’ll be gone in a few days, and it’s how we’ll keep track of you.” She removed the branding iron from the fire. “It’s how we’ll get you back.”

“I don’t want to come back!” Though the pain had undone the last effects of the laudanum, Maddalena’s words were muffled and slurred, as if she were crying out in her sleep. “I want to go home.”

“You’ll forget.” As the nurse examined the glowing tip of the iron for a second time, Maddalena panted, too frightened to scream, but this time the nurse walked toward the table where Chiaretta had begun to stir. She picked the baby up by the ankle and dangled her upside down next to the table.

“Don’t!” Maddalena screamed as she tried to scramble down from the crate. The nurse pressed the branding iron onto the baby’s heel, and the room filled again with the shrieks of the two girls and the smell of charred flesh.

THE BLACK-AND-SILVER BOW OF THE GONDOLA DISAPPEARED into a fog so thick it hissed as it parted around the hull. Around each stroke of the oar, a vague, uncapturable melody swirled and trailed away in the water.

The gondolier had been moving so slowly he wasn’t quite sure he had reached the mouth of the Grand Canal. The air seemed hemmed in by the facades of the grand homes where the noble families of Venice were finishing their suppers, but in front of him it opened up like a yawn as he entered the broad lagoon.

He leaned forward and squinted, cocking his head to pick up the calls of other boatmen. A song was traveling across the water from near the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, and as he listened he could hear it getting louder. Finally he could pick out the words the boatman was singing.

A group of gentlewomen I did see

On All Saints’ Day, ’twas just a year ago;

The fog swallowed up the gondolier’s reply.

The one in front moved with a special grace,

And Love at her right side did seem to be.

The other boat had drawn so close the gondolier could hear a change in the sound of the water before they slid past each other in opposite directions.

Such a pure light did from her visage flee,

’Twas sure a spirit radiant and aglow;

The words faded as the boats pulled away. But in Venice, song was in the breath. The two gondoliers sang out together through the mist until they were too far apart to continue.

Grown bold to look, I saw then in her face

The spirit of an angel, truthfully…

As the gondolier’s voice died away, the curtain of the felce parted, and a stout middle-aged woman wearing a loose, dark cloak and veil peered out from the cabin. “I can barely see you,” she said. “Where are we?”

“The Broglio. I’m tying up there.”

“The Broglio?” Her voice turned up with disapproval. “You were supposed to take us to the dock at the Pietà.”

“Hell of a night,” the gondolier said by way of explanation, clearing his throat and spitting a mouthful of thick phlegm into the lagoon. The boat bumped against the dock, and he muttered a low curse as he jumped off. The bucking motion made the woman lose her balance, and she sat down with a grunt.

“Look,” the gondolier said, coming back onboard to help her up. “You can walk the five minutes to the Pietà faster than I can take you on the water. I’m finished with this night.”

The woman growled, as if to say that he would hear more about this in due time, before turning back toward the cabin. In a few minutes she emerged to put a satchel and a covered straw basket on the floor of the gondola.

She turned her head. “Don’t dawdle now,” she called back into the felce.

A small, bare hand pulled back the curtain, and a face peered out. A girl who looked to be no older than six stood motionless until she was prodded from behind.

“Go!” the voice behind her said. Within a few minutes two little girls, the other about nine, were standing on the dock.

The woman picked up the satchel and basket. “Come along,” she said without looking to see if they were following. She crossed the small piazza so quickly the girls almost lost her in the fog, before stopping at the point where the spiky, red-and cream-brick facade of the Doge’s Palace began to emerge from the mist. Having oriented herself, she turned to the right and resumed her pace. The girls struggled to stay no more than a step or two behind as they passed one column after another of stone so close to the color of the fog they could sense more than see them.

The woman muttered as she stumbled over a crate left behind by one of the merchants whose stalls spilled out onto the Riva degli Schiavoni during the festival period just before Christmas. Faint odors of wet straw and the contents of baskets in which dried flowers and herbs, clams, sausages made from wild game, and pungent salves and tonics had been laid out for sale wafted up from the detritus of the day.

A stone bridge loomed in front of them and then another, before the woman turned abruptly in to an alley. She banged the large bronze knocker on one of the doors, and the grate over a peephole slid open.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Annina. With the two girls.”

They heard a bolt being thrown and the groan of hinges as the door creaked open. A woman in a white cap, dressed in a cloak just like Annina’s, motioned them in.

“Hurry. It’s cold,” she said, her voice echoing along the walkway of the courtyard in which the girls found themselves. “You will sleep down here tonight. Annina will stay with you. No point in disturbing the others so late.”

The room she left them in was bare except for a small wooden prie-dieu and a bed, on which the girls sat stiff and motionless. Outside, the two women lingered, talking in low voices.

“Chiaretta—the younger one—can sing,” Annina said. “And she’s quite pretty.”

“And the older one?”

“Maddalena. Hardly speaks. They told me she’s good with her hands, and more obedient than the other one, but I can’t see that there’s much to her.”

They nodded good night, and Annina turned to go into the room while the other woman disappeared into the mist without another word.

 

CHIARETTA CRIED HERSELF TO SLEEP. HER BLOND HAIR WAS matted and tousled on a lumpy makeshift pillow, and her dress and coat served as a coverlet for her bare arms and legs. Next to her on the pallet Annina had arranged for them on the floor, her sister Maddalena lay, startled back from the edge of sleep by every unfamiliar sound.

Maddalena could hear the rattle in Annina’s breath and make out her form on her cot. She had glimpsed Annina without her heavy cloak and hood for only a moment, and she lay in the dark unable to remember what the woman looked like. Annina was so intimidating that Maddalena had spent most of the last two days looking at her own feet.

A few days before Annina arrived in the village where they lived, the family’s routine had been so disrupted it seemed as if the doge himself would be paying a visit. The chicken pen had to be raked clean of droppings and feathers, and even the dog was washed and groomed. Their foster father did not escape either, getting a haircut that left him looking as forlorn as a shearling lamb.

Maddalena and Chiaretta had no time to chase the chickens around the yard after collecting their eggs, or talk to the goat as he nuzzled in their apron pockets for food. They were forbidden to leave home in search of butterflies willing to alight on their fingers, or to find ant holes to pour water into and watch the ants scurry out carrying their glistening white sacs of eggs. Instead, they scrubbed the stone floor of the cottage and wiped the cobwebs from the low ceiling with a long pole and a cloth, while an older girl, the daughter of Chiaretta and Maddalena’s foster parents, pounded and scrubbed the spots out of all the girls’ dresses and mended holes in her two brothers’ pants.

Their foster father and the boys chopped a huge pile of firewood, while the mother kept the fire going for nearly a whole day, preparing not just the usual polenta and beans but honey cakes and roasted meat from a lamb her husband slaughtered out of view of the two little girls.

Chiaretta and Maddalena had seen nothing like these preparations before, except one or two times a year when everyone in the village was readying for a festival, or when someone was getting married. Chiaretta was beside herself with excitement, thinking the guest must be someone terribly important. Maddalena was almost paralyzed with anxiety. Of the children in the house, only she and Chiaretta had marks on their heels. Only they were not family, did not belong, would not be staying. Someday, she had been told, someone would come for them.

On the day the guest was to arrive, their foster mother gave Maddalena and Chiaretta a bath, washed their hair, and helped them put on their best clothes. For several hours they sat with their shoes off until the visitor arrived.

“Are these the girls?” Annina did not wait for an answer. “Have them take off their stockings so I can see.”

“Show me your heel,” she said to each in turn. Then, satisfied that they were indeed the wards she sought, she had nothing more to say to them.

The visitor’s attention to them was enough for Chiaretta to decide that all the work had been for a party in her honor. She spent the whole evening pulling the boys to their feet to dance with her while she sang, even though no one else was in a festive mood.

“It’s not a party,” one of the girls said. “Why don’t you quiet down?”

“It is too a party.” Chiaretta pouted, dropping her head and drawing an arc on the floor with her foot. “We haven’t had meat in a long time.”

Her foster mother got up at that and marched over to Chiaretta. “Sit down and be quiet. We eat like this once a week.”

Chiaretta’s look of astonishment at the lie was enough to earn her a strong twist on her ear and a place on the floor in the corner, where she cried until she saw everyone intended to ignore her, at which point she promptly fell asleep.

Maddalena had known what Annina’s interest in their heels really meant and had barely been able to swallow a bite. Even after hearing stories about someday going to live in a place where many little girls lived, a place where people were so happy they sang all the time, she wanted to stay where everything was familiar. In the village, she had her own secret name for everyone, from the boys to the geese that waddled along the path leading to the riverbank. She could tell Chiaretta’s blanket from her own by the smell of the wool, and in the orchard she knew each foothold to reach the apples that swung from the upper branches. But the choice of where to live wasn’t hers, and she knew nothing would sway the family to keep the two extra mouths they would no longer be paid to feed.

 

AND NOW TONIGHT SHE WAS IN THAT PLACE OF GIRLS AND singing she had been promised. Chiaretta stirred and rolled over, pulling Maddalena’s coat along with her own. Maddalena shivered, and when she couldn’t pull the coat back, she nestled in closer to her sister to keep the cold from seeping in. Burying her face in her sister’s shoulder, she felt her head fill from the inside with the pressure of tears she had held in all day. She shut her eyes, and though her swollen eyelids didn’t fit very comfortably, this time she let them stay closed.

Maddalena had barely slept when she felt Annina shaking her. “Get up,” the woman said. “Don’t you hear the bell?”

Annina prodded Chiaretta in the back. She wriggled away, saying “Don’t!” in a tone somewhere between a snarl and a sigh, before she bolted upright. She looked around the small room, trying to remember where she was. Maddalena was sitting up also, rubbing her eyes.

“Get dressed!” Annina said. She went to the prie-dieu, knelt, and crossed herself, speaking under her breath with her eyes closed. “Aperi, Domine, os meum,” they heard her say, her voice dropping lower until only her lips moved.

The girls watched as Annina continued. Then she crossed herself again and stood up.

“Don’t you pray?” she asked, and when Maddalena nodded her head, she added, “Well, do it then! Pater noster…”

Maddalena crossed herself, and Chiaretta followed suit. “Qui es in caelis,” they continued, “sanctificetur nomen tuum.” They murmured their way through the rest of the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary before Annina told them to get to their feet.

“You’ll have to learn how we do things here,” she said.

“Didn’t we do it right?” Chiaretta asked. She and Maddalena had been rattling their way through those prayers for as long as she could remember.

“You didn’t do it fast enough to be in the chapel on time for Lauds,” Annina said. “Leave your dress unlaced and put on your cloak.”

When they had finished pulling on their shoes, still damp from the night before, Annina looked the two girls over. Maddalena was much taller than Chiaretta, more than the three years’ difference in their age could account for. Her hair was brown, with undertones of red and gold, like autumn leaves. Her solemn hazel eyes were round, and her chin was pointed, making her face resemble a heart. It was a face free from noticeable defects, but one that did not quite coalesce.

Chiaretta’s hair was the light straw color of the white wines of the Veneto. Her curls formed a halo around cheeks still chapped from the cold of the journey the day before. Even in the candlelight her eyes, fringed with thick lashes, were the sparkling blue of lapis lazuli. But at the moment, the overall impression was of total dishevelment. Her hair was a tangle that could not be dealt with in time for chapel by any other means than anchoring it behind her ears, and her dress had gotten soiled by something she had spilled on it at mealtime the day before.

“Stand still,” Maddalena said as she reached up to pick the sleep crumbs from the corners of Chiaretta’s eyes. Her little sister froze her face and pushed her chin forward in obedience, revealing a row of small teeth as perfect as a string of pearls framed between the petals of her lips.

When Annina opened the door and motioned them into the corridor, they found themselves in the midst of girls and women passing through in one great wave, several hundred in all, wearing dresses that looked like the color of mud in the dim light as they moved without speaking through the courtyard.

Light had just begun to filter through the milky white glass over the main entrance to the chapel, but on the sides obstructed by other buildings, the windows were still dark. The dresses of the women lighting candles to illuminate the altar had taken on a rich crimson hue, under aprons and hoods the color of fresh cream.

When Maddalena and Chiaretta got inside the chapel, Annina guided them toward a marble pillar. “Stand up against this,” she said. Holding hands, the two girls watched as the church filled. By the time the last people were inside, their backs were pressed against the pillar and they could see nothing except the dresses of the women crowded around them.

“Domine, labia mea aperies,” a woman called out in plainsong, exhorting the Lord to open her lips for prayer.

Around the two girls, the congregation sang their response. “Et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.” Chiaretta tried to lift her back up against the pillar to see who was singing in such a clear and radiant voice a few feet away, and Annina elbowed her to be still.

“Who is that?” Chiaretta whispered.

Annina scowled and put a finger to her lips. “A figlia di coro.”

A daughter of the choir? Chiaretta could not ask what she meant—not then at least—so she turned her head away from Annina, feeling the cool of the marble against her face while the air around her grew warm and thick from the press of bodies. When people began singing again, instead of trying to see the woman, Chiaretta looked at the air in front of the voice, trying to understand how something invisible could be so beautiful.

 

SEVERAL LARGE POTS OF WATER WERE SIMMERING ON A GRATE in a huge fireplace, next to a metal washtub. A young woman tied on a wide work apron and began pouring the warm water into the tub.

She told the two girls to undress and sit down, and when Maddalena complied, another woman lifted up her hair in one handful and, without warning, cut it off at the neck with two savage clips of her shears.

Chiaretta shrieked as if her sister’s throat had been cut. She ran toward the door, and when she could not pull it open, she pressed her back against it, taking in great sobbing gulps of air. The first woman left the tub and crouched down in front of Chiaretta.

“Come, cara, it doesn’t hurt.” Her voice was soft and her hand gentle as she guided Chiaretta’s chin in Maddalena’s direction. “See?”

Maddalena held the rough ends of her hair in one hand, staring in shock while her foot toyed with the auburn strands on the floor.

Chiaretta kept her back pressed against the door, but the lady kneeling in front of her seemed nice, and Maddalena, though a little dazed, did not appear to be hurt. Eventually Chiaretta allowed herself to be coaxed to the chair.

After her haircut, each of them was handed a smaller version of the red dress the women wore. When the dresses had been tugged and smoothed into place, small white aprons were tied around the girls’ waists. After a few minutes in front of the fire, tousling what remained of their hair, Maddalena and Chiaretta covered their heads with lace-trimmed hoods that draped over their shoulders. The women placed a white cap on each of their heads, and the transformation of the two girls into wards of the Pietà was complete.

 

A FEW ANEMIC FINGERS OF GRAY WINTER SUNLIGHT FILTERED through the grimy windows of the children’s ward. The coal in the fireplaces at each end of the room had been damped down until evening, and the lamps were unlit as the girls made their way between the rows of neat cots.

“Where are the children?” Chiaretta asked.

“They’re at work.” Anzoleta, one of the ward matrons, signaled toward two of the cots. “These will be yours,” she said.

Maddalena sat down, feeling the hard frame through the thin mattress. She looked at Chiaretta, who had sat down on the other bed, rubbing the coarse wool blanket as if trying to make friends.

A bell rang from somewhere inside the walls of the Pietà. “It’s time for Sext,” Anzoleta said. She knelt and crossed herself. “Aperi, Domine, os meum,” she began, but before Chiaretta and Maddalena had time to get to their knees, she stood up again, continuing a string of Latin words.

“You’ll learn the daily office soon enough,” she stopped long enough to say. “For now, pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary until I’ve finished, and then we’ll go to dinner.” Chiaretta and Maddalena hurried to make the sign of the cross as she went back to her prayers.

 

THE REFECTORY WAS FILLED WITH THE SOUND OF RUSTLING robes and the scrape of the benches pulled across the stone floor to make room to sit down. From the kitchen, girls carried tureens to each table, while those closest to where they left them got up and began to ladle a thick soup of rice and peas into bowls. Others carried baskets of bread, placing a torn piece at each place. Prayers were said, and the meal began.

Maddalena and Chiaretta finished their meal in seconds, picking the last flakes of bread crust off the table with wet fingers. As the remaining soup was doled out, an older woman in a velvet dress left the head table and went to a lectern. She crossed herself before opening a book.

“Cease to be anxious for yourselves, for He bears your anxiety, and will bear it always,” she read. Maddalena looked around and noticed that some of the older women at other tables had stopped eating and were listening with their eyes downcast, while others, mostly the young, were fishing the last bits of rice and peas from their bowls and looking to see if any more bread remained in the baskets.

Within a minute or two she felt Chiaretta’s body jerk, and Maddalena flung out her arm to keep her sister from pitching forward into her soup bowl. Chiaretta’s eyes were red with exhaustion, and she was on the verge of tears. Maddalena put her arm around her, and Chiaretta rested her head on her shoulder.

Within a few seconds Maddalena heard knuckles rapping on the table. “No!” the woman at the head of the table mouthed, and Maddalena shook Chiaretta awake.

The woman at the lectern closed the book. Everyone rose at this signal, offering in unison a prayer of thanksgiving before falling silent again as they filed out of the refectory and up the stairs to the wards.

 

BY THE TIME MADDALENA AND CHIARETTA REACHED THE DORMITORY, dozens of girls in red dresses were taking off their aprons and head coverings and unlacing their shoes. Chiaretta sat on her bed, watching as one by one the girls knelt and crossed themselves, said a short prayer, then lay down on their beds. I guess I’m supposed to pray too, she thought. But I alre. . .