Hidden Voices by Pat Lowery Collins Page A

celebration continue.”
    “Let me tell them,” Father Vivaldi interrupts.
    “It was Father’s idea,” says Prioress, sitting down abruptly as he stands up. “So, yes, I will let him tell you himself.”
    Father Vivaldi seems a trifle more breathless than usual, but it is clearly not from ill health but because of his excitement at unfolding his little plan, which appears very little indeed when he has finished telling it. All it amounts to, in fact, is a trip to Saint Mark’s Basilica to hear him and his father perform together, followed by a puppet show in the square and a treat of
frittelle
— the small round fritters made from goat’s milk, rose water, and saffron, and sprinkled with sugar.
Frittelle
can be found only during Carnival, and we would be utterly despondent if we had to miss out on them.
    “It is like throwing a hungry dog a very small bone,” says Silvia.
    I myself am so encouraged at having seen Luisa yesterday and by knowing that she is getting well, that any restrictions during Carnival seem unimportant. Yet looking across at Rosalba, I see that she is crestfallen and this troubles me because of her unpredictable nature. Surely, I tell myself, she is planning to observe the rules. She must. And I must do everything I can to see that she does.

I DID NOT WISH to go down to supper yesterday. I felt much too unsteady on my feet and in such an ill humor it was all I could do to be led downstairs by Sofia and into the clutches of Anetta. Such a scene was inevitable, for I had been told of her repeated attempts to enter the sickroom. Afterward, I was too upset to converse with anyone at table or force more than a few mouthfuls of food down my throat. In just moments I was also too light-headed to sit comfortably and had to beg Sofia to take me back.
    “The little excursion did you good,” she kept saying on our way upstairs. “You must begin to build up your strength again.”
    What I can’t understand is how one can build upon something that is missing. I all but threw myself onto my bed as soon as we made our way into the hospital room. I clung to it as if it were a raft, and soon fell fast asleep, not waking again until the candles were being lit and their soft light flickered and fell over empty beds and those few occupied by the girls who were mending and those still with fever.
    Little Catina has coughed and wheezed mercilessly since she first arrived, even as she seems to slip in and out of sleep. She cannot sleep soundly this way, however, and that is what the nurses say she absolutely must do if she is to recover. In just the light from the candles, I can see that her face is quite red now and am certain the rash must be covering her chest and arms, and that her tongue has turned as spongy and white as mine had been.
    Pails of water have been brought into the room to put moisture into the air, which is constantly dried by steady fires in the grate to keep the room warm. A warm wet cloth, wrung out and placed repeatedly upon Catina’s chest, causes her breathing to become more even for a little while. But then the hard hacking coughs begin to wrack her small fragile chest once more, and it is as painful to me as if my own breastbones heaved up and down in consort with hers. One nurse prays under her breath continually whenever Catina launches into one of these terrible sessions, and I find myself desperately repeating every prayer I have ever known or thinking that if I keep my eyes closed to the count of ten or stay absolutely still without moving a muscle or hold my own breath through perhaps three of her violent gasps, then she will magically stop. When she doesn’t, I can’t help feeling betrayed, as if I have held up my part of the bargain, however foolish it was.
    Afterward, I sleep quite heavily again, barely waking off and on in the night when Catina’s attacks are at their worst, then exhausting myself again in prayer and useless bargaining, promising all manner of things to