The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [8]
There's some beauty in this world I could never recreate.
`Ascolta, Leonora. I have to go away for a while. But that heart will tell you that I will always be with you, and when you look at that heart and hold it in your hand you will know how much I love you. Try it now'
Her fingers closed round the heart, putting out the light.
She closed her eyes. `Can you feel it?' Corradino asked.
Leonora opened her eyes again and smiled `Yes,' she said.
`See, I told you it was magic. Now do you have that ribbon I gave you on your last name-day?'
She nodded.
`Well push it through the special hole I made and hang it round your neck. Don't let the Prioress see it, or Father Tommaso, or lend it to the other girls.' She clasped the heart and nodded again.
`Are you going to come back?'
He knew he could not. `Someday.'
She thought for a moment. `I'll miss you.'
He suddenly felt that his insides had been gutted, like the fish in the Pescheria market. He wished he could tell her of what he had planned - that he would send for her a soon as it was safe. But he dare not trust himself. The less she knew the better.
What she does not know, she cannot not tell; what she cannot tell, cannot not hurt her. And I know too well the poison that is hope, the waiting and the wanting. What if I can never send for her?
So he only said; `I'll miss you too, Leonora mia.'
She pushed her fingers through the grille again in their acknowledged sign. He caught the message and placed each of his printless pads on her tiny finger tips, little finger to little finger, thumb to thumb.
Suddenly the door to the calle opened and the tonsured head appeared. `Corradino, how many times do I have to tell you not to come sniffing round my girls? Is that not how this sorry mess came to pass in the first place? Leonora, return to the orchestra, we are ready to begin.'
With a last glance, Leonora was gone, and Corradino muttered an apology and made as if to leave. But when the priest had gone back inside the church, he stole back down the calle and listened as the music began. The sweetness of the harmony, and the soaring counterpoint, bled into his soul. Corradino knew what would happen, but he gave in to it.
For when she holds the glass heart in her hand she holds my own heart there too.
He knew he may never see Leonora again, so this time he leant against the church wall and let the tears flow, as if they would never stop.
CHAPTER 4
Through the Looking Glass
Still the music played.
Nora sat in the church of Santa Maria della Pieta and tried to think of a word for what she was feeling. Enchanted? Too reminiscent of old-world courtesies. Bewitched? No; the word seemed to imply an entrapment by a malign force.
But no-one has done this to me. I came here of my own volition.
She glanced left and right, at her unknown companions. The church was packed - her neighbour, an elegant Italian matron, sat so close that her red sleeve lay across Nora's forearm. But Nora did not mind. They were all here for the same reason, bound together, all - that was it; enraptured - by the music.
Antonio Vivaldi. Nora knew the soundbite version of his life - a red-headed priest, had asthma, taught orphans, wrote the Four Seasons. But he had never really troubled her musical radar until now. She had found him too cliched for her art-student trendiness - music for lifts and supermarkets, done to death. But here, in the warmth of candlelight, she heard Vivaldi played by live musicians, in the very church where he had written these pieces, first rehearsed them with his orphan girls. The musicians were all young, studious looking Italians, all extremely accomplished, who played with passion as well as technical excellence. They had not pandered to tourist sensibilities by donning period dress - they let the music speak. And here, Nora heard the Four Seasons as if for the first time.
Oh, she knew that the church itself had changed - she knew from her pamphlet guide that the Palladian facade was late