Hidden Voices Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’d finally slit her own fabulous throat.”
    “What a terrible, vicious thing to say,” gasps Anetta, clutching her own throat with both hands and then doubling over as if in pain herself, “and when she suffers the
dolori,
too.” She drops down next to me and pats my hair in a gesture that makes me cringe.
    Though I push her away, she continues to play my defender and coos and coddles until I could retch.
    What she’d never believe is that I prefer Silvia’s snarling to all of her cosseting ways. Silvia’s envy is something that I understand; Anetta’s constant toadying is foolish and weak.
    Nonetheless, I have no choice but to listen as Anetta instructs me how to place the rags I have soiled in a crock to await washing and fasten some fresh ones into my undergarments. It is an odious ritual that I rail inwardly against. I do indeed feel changed — achy and clumsy and clammy. I’d sooner curl back into bed and sleep away whatever days it may take to expunge these secretions than disguise my condition with the customary watteau and clean apron and go about my lessons.
    “You will grow used to it, Luisa,” Anetta says finally.
    “It’s one more thing about this life that can’t be helped,” says Rosalba as she adjusts her own undergarments and pulls on her watteau.
    “This life?” I ask.
    “A girl’s life. A woman’s life,” Rosalba calls back.
    “For a certain the Creator is a man,” says Silvia, “to have devised such wretchedness. There is more misery in store for our sex, no doubt, to which we are not yet privy. What little information they give us about such things is probably more wrong than right.”
    “Don’t frighten her,” Anetta says. “Father Vivaldi says God never gives anyone more than she or he can stand.”
    I’ve heard him say that, too, and hope I will not need to test such limits.
    “Don’t worry, Luisa,” says Silvia. “Anetta here will make quite certain you never so much as stub your toe.”
    “And will come between you,” says Rosalba, “when you attempt to stab Luisa in the back.”
    Rosalba means well, I am sure. Sometimes I think she is one of the few here who do not covet my fine voice and lineage. Knowing me as she does, however, she should realize that I have strength sufficient to defend myself. Silvia is not the only thorn in this garden. I have needed to learn early to ignore the snide remarks and envious asides about my mother. And sometimes, when I am chosen for a solo that others bargained for quite openly, there is a jealousy or rage released that saturates the very corridors.
    That Father has chosen me to feature, a girl so far from being ready to be affianced to a nobleman, shows his esteem for my ability — and, of course, his great desire that this concert will stand out and be remembered. There is a pride in this affable priest that I recognize and understand.
    Later, when we are at leisure in the large parlor and I am thinking of how Father Vivaldi’s desire for perfection has often put Anetta in a state of near paralysis, I suddenly hear “Luisa!” close to my ear. Then I bump to the bare floor as Silvia, much to her amusement, gives me a push and slides behind me to appropriate the footstool by the fire.
    “Ha!” she exclaims. “It was easier to dislodge the queen from her throne than I had expected.”
    “If you had but asked me to move, Silvia,” I tell her while trying to appear unfazed as I brush off my skirts, “I would have obliged.”
    “And you should not frighten people like that,” says a little
iniziata
I have not noticed before. I am surprised to find someone so young coming to the defense of a senior girl. They are usually too timid by half and are not often found in either parlor taking their ease.
    “Be careful,” I whisper to her as I pass through the room. “You do not want to make an enemy of Silvia.”
    “She does not frighten me,” says the bold child, and plunks down upon the carpet with her embroidery.