1 - Interrupted Aria Read Free

bulk of the Zecca, and we soon entered the Grand Canal. The heavy traffic on the canal claimed our boatman’s attention; the rest of our journey passed in silence. Felice crouched in his seat, marveling wide-eyed as we darted around barges and just missed scraping the pavements that lined Venice’s watery highway, while I fretted over the reception that awaited us. It seemed as if the open-air tunnel of balconied palaces would never end, but then, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to. Finally, with the mellow light of impending dusk softening the marble angles of the great houses, we left the width of the Grand Canal and threaded through progressively narrowing channels. I began to notice refuse gathered in corners and porticoes. Stucco was peeling off damp, dirty walls. This was not how I remembered my city, the jewel of the Adriatic. Times must be even worse than my sister had hinted in her letters.
    In a few minutes, the gondola came to rest at the bottom of a familiar calle . I tightened the grip on my bag.
    “This is it, Felice,” I said with a gulp. “We’re finally home.”
    As we mounted the smooth, well-worn stones of the landing, I found my doubts and worries turning to excitement. In a moment I would be hugging Annetta! Last words from our gondolier followed us: “I’ll be watching for you at San Stefano, young castrati . Make Venice proud!”

Chapter 2
    Two rows of pinched, three-floored houses marched up the calle and split to encircle the Campo dei Polli, a small square at the end of the street. There, a group of boys kicking at a leather ball jostled around the central stone well which supplied the neighborhood with drinking water. Their shouts echoed around the campo and startled a flock of pigeons into flight. The lingering warmth of the day had failed to tempt anyone else outside; the stone benches under the square’s single tree were vacant. Like a hundred other campi in this district, my boyhood home displayed the humbler, more domestic face of Venice. The glorious spires and towers of the Piazza San Marco that had dazzled Felice as we entered the city were not so distant in space, but were a thousand miles removed in tone and mood.
    Felice set his bag down and cleared his throat. “Which house is yours, Tito?”
    I looked around, fighting a wave of foolish confusion. Which house was it? The square surrounded us with a hodgepodge of dingy plaster façades that each looked equally strange and familiar. Was it that one with the small balcony, or the next one with the withered vines hanging from a window box which should have been taken in weeks ago? Drawing a large breath, I let something like the instinct which leads a sheep to its own pen after a summer of grazing on the mountainside set me before a narrow, wooden door. As I raised my hand to pull the bell cord, we heard loud squeals of anger or laughter from inside.
    Before I could ring, the door swung inward to reveal a stooped old man in a worn jacket and floppy red cap pulled down to meet bushy, white eyebrows. The bright blue eyes gazing at us in surprise were surrounded by more wrinkles than I remembered, but they told me I had chosen the right door.
    “Lupo! It’s me, Tito.”
    A woman carrying a small market basket pushed past our old house servant and threw herself in my arms. “Tito,” she gasped, “I thought you would never arrive.”
    For a long moment we embraced as if our lives depended on it, then gently pushed away for a mutual inspection. How can I describe the woman my sister had become? There is a type of beauty that surpasses a harmonious arrangement of features, a beauty that no artifice can match. Annetta’s brown eyes radiated that beauty from vast, calm depths. Her wide smile, generous and confident, was unfettered by the kind of self-doubt that tormented me daily. The glowing brown hair cascading down her back and unblemished complexion completed a picture of health and well-being.
    “This must be Felice,” she said,