by Anne Rice
And there he sat in the open air, looking beyond the morning traffic to the white beach and the blue-green water.
The sea was a swarm of fishing boats and vessels drifting into port.
And beneath him the open space called the Largo was full of all that minute and busy life he had grown accustomed to seeing here.
Tonio was thinking.
But seldom in his life had he so little need to do so.
For fourteen days, he had been at Naples. And for fourteen days on the road before that, after leaving that filthy room in Flovigo. And during all of this time, it was entirely possible that he had never once really used his reason.
All that had happened to him weighed on him totally. And yet he could not see it as a whole, nor see around it. Rather all its aspects beset him like so many buzzing flies come from hell to drive him out of his mind and they had almost succeeded. Torn with hatred, torn with grief for the man he would not be, he had flailed against everyone around him, even himself, without purpose, and without hope, rectifying nothing and vanquishing no one.
Well, that was over.
That had changed.
And he was not entirely sure why it had changed, either.
But after a night of lying on Vesuvius, of moving only when the mountain chose to move him, it had all of it done its damnedest to him, and now it was over.
And central to this change was the realization--not made in the heat of anger or pain, but coldly, in the midst of danger--that he was entirely alone now.
He had no one.
Carlo had done evil to him, irrevocable evil.
And that evil had separated Tonio from everyone he loved, completely. He could never live among his family or friends as he was now. If he did, their pity, their curiosity, their horror would simply destroy him.
Even if he were not banished from Venice, an inalterable fact that caused him excruciating humiliation, he could never return there. Venice and all those he knew and loved were lost to him now.
All right. That was the simpler part.
Now came the harder part.
Andrea, too, had betrayed him. Surely Andrea had known Tonio was not his son. And yet Andrea had led him to believe that he was, setting Tonio against Carlo, to fight Andrea's battle after Andrea's death. That was a terrible, terrible betrayal.
Yet even now, Tonio knew what Andrea would say on his own behalf. Save for Andrea, what would Tonio have been? The first of a wretched brood of bastards, children of a disgraced nobleman and a ruined convent girl? What would Tonio's life have been? Andrea had chastised a rebellious offspring who deserved nothing, saved the honor of his family, and made Tonio his son.
But even the will of Andrea could not work miracles. At his death, the illusions and laws he had created in his own house had crumbled. And he had never made Tonio understand what lay before him. He had sent Tonio to fight the battle sustained only by lies and half-truths.
Was it a miscalculation of pride finally? Tonio would never know.
All he knew and understood now was that he was not Andrea's son, and the man who had given him a history and a destiny was gone from him, his wisdom and his intentions forever beyond Tonio's reach.
Yes, he had lost Andrea.
And what of the Treschi remained? Carlo, Carlo who had done this to him, Carlo who had not the courage to kill him, but the cunning to know that for the House of Treschi Tonio could never point the finger of blame.
Clever, cowardly, but very clever. This spoilt and rebellious man who, for the love of a woman, had once threatened to doom his family to extinction, would now rebuild it on the cruelty and violence done to his blameless son.
So the Treschi were gone from him: Andrea, Carlo.
And yet the blood of the Treschi ran in his veins. There persisted in him a love for Treschi who had gone before these two men, father and grandfather, a love of Treschi who would come after, children who must inherit the traditions and the strength of a family in a world that would remember little or nothing of Tonio, Carlo, Andrea, this appalling tangle of injustice and suffering.
All right, that was hard.
But what comes now is the hardest.
What lay before Tonio? What emerged from this chaos? What had become of Tonio Treschi, who sat now on a veranda in the southern city of Naples, alone, staring out under the shadow of Vesuvius on the ever-changing surface of the sea?
Tonio Treschi was a eunuch.
Tonio Treschi was that half man, that less than man that arouses the contempt of every whole man who looks upon it. Tonio Treschi was that thing which women cannot leave alone and men find infinitely disturbing, frightening, pathetic, the butt of jokes and endless bullying, the necessary evil of the church choirs and the opera stage which is, outside that artifice and grace and soaring music, very simply monstrous.
All his life he'd heard the whispers behind the eunuch's back, seen the sneers, the lift of eyebrows, the mock foppish gestures! All too perfectly he'd understood the rage of that proud singer Caffarelli at the footlights glaring at the Venetians who had paid to see him like the court ape perform vocal acrobatics.
And already within the confines of the conservatorio to which he'd clung like a shipwrecked prisoner to the remnants of his prison boat in alien water, he had seen the self-loathing of these neutered children, taunting him to share their degraded state. Slipping into his room at night with barbs of uncommon cruelty, "You are the same as we are!" they all but hissed at him in the dark.
Yes, he was the same as they were. And how the world took cognizance of it! Matrimony was forever denied him, his name no longer his to give to the lowliest woman nor the most needy stepchild. Nor would the Church ever receive him, save for the lowest Orders, and even then only by special dispensation.
No, he was outcast, from family, from church, from any great institution in this world that was his world, save one:
That was the conservatorio. And the world of music for which the conservatorio would prepare him.
Neither of which had the slightest actual connection with what had been done to him by his brother's men.
But were it not for that conservatorio, and were it not for that music, then this thing truly would be worse than death.
As it was, it was not worse.
When he had lain in that bed in Flovigo, and that bravo, Alonso, had put a pistol to his head, saying: "You have your life, take it and leave here," he had thought then it was worse than death. "Kill me," he had wanted to answer, but he had not even the will then to do that.
But on the mountain, this very day, he had not wanted to die. There was the conservatorio, and there was music that, even in the moments of his worst pain, he could hear, purely and magnificently, in his head.
The smallest ripple of feeling came over his face. He was staring at the sea where children moved in and out of the waves like a great flock of swallows.
So what would he do?
He knew. He had known when he had come down from the mountain. Two tasks lay before him.
The first was the revenge against Carlo. And that would take time.
Because Carlo must marry. Carlo must have children first, healthy strong children growing up well towards the day when they might marry and have children of their own.
But then he would get Carlo. Whether he himself survived the revenge did not matter. In all likelihood he wouldn't survive it. Venice would get him, or Carlo's bravos would get him, but not before he himself had gotten to Carlo and whispered into Carlo's ear, "This is between us now."
What he would do then he wasn't certain. When he thought of those men in Flovigo, of the knife, of the cunning of all of it, and the finality of all of it, death for his father who had lived and loved so much already in his thirty-five years seemed infinitely too simple and too good.
He knew only that some day he would have Carlo in his power, as those men in Flovigo had had him in their power, and when that moment came, Carlo would wish for death just as Tonio had wished f
or it when the bravo had said in his ear, "You have your life."
Then Carlo's bodyguards could take him, Venice could take him, Carlo's sons, it did not matter. Carlo would have paid.
Now the second task.
He would sing.
That he would do for himself because he wanted to, whether it was all a eunuch could do or no. Whether it was what his brother and those henchmen of his had destined him to do did not matter. He would do it because he loved it and wanted it, and his voice was the one thing in this world which he had once loved that was still his.
Oh, the magnificent irony of it. Now, his voice would never leave him, never change.
Yes, he would do it for himself and he would give it everything that he had and he would let it take him wherever he might go on this earth with it.
And who knew just how splendid that might be? The celestial brilliance of the church choirs, even the grand spectacle of the theater, he dared not really think of it now, but it just might give him the only time that he would ever spend with God's angels.
The sun was high in the sky. The pupils of the conservatorio had long ago settled in for the hot, fitful sleep of the siesta.
Yet the Largo hummed with life below him. Fishermen were coming in with their catch. And against a far wall a little stage had been erected before the milling crowd on which a tawdry Punchinello was gesturing coarsely.
Tonio watched that lone figure for a short while, its rough voice now and then carrying over the din of the square, and then he rose and entered the small room to gather up his few possessions.
There was one more aspect of it all that he had taken down with him from Vesuvius.
It was perhaps the one thing of which he was most certain, and he had known it in a wordless and clear way when he had first awakened in the sunlight and seen that graceful corpse teetering over him.
He had thought in those moments of Andrea's words: "Make up your mind, Tonio, that you are a man...behave as if it were absolutely true and all else will then fall into place."
He strapped on his sword, lifted his cape onto his shoulders, and glanced once more into the mirror at the young form and face that were his reflected there.
"Yes," he whispered. "Make up your mind that you are a man, and that is what you will be, and damn him who says otherwise."
That was the way to overcome it. That was the only way, and in this quiet moment before the mirror, he allowed himself to accept all the good that his "father" had once given him. Anger was gone. Hatred was gone. Blind rage had evaporated.
Yet a fear remained, which for all his clarity of mind he could not yet examine. He knew it was there. He felt its presence as surely as one feels the menace of a nearby flame; yet he could not turn to it and acknowledge it.
Perhaps silently, he committed it to the future; he said to himself, I will not think of it and in time, it will leave me alone. It was wound up however with powerful, throbbing memories of Catrina Lisani against the pillows of her bed, of little Bettina, his tavern girl, lifting her skirts in the dark of the gondola. And perhaps most hideously, it had something to do with his mother circling that dark bedchamber, whispering over and over, "Shut the doors, shut the doors, shut the doors."
At one moment these thoughts coagulated so that he stopped in the very act of leaving this suite of rooms in the albergo. He stood with his shoulders hunched as if he'd been struck an ugly blow. But then his mind emptied itself. These three women vanished.
And the conservatorio loomed above him, nestled in the hills of Naples, with something of the allure of a lover.
8
IT WAS THE STILL quiet of the siesta time when he reached the gates, and he mounted the steps without being seen, soon finding his little room almost as he had left it. He felt the most palpable calm in this place as he looked at his trunk and those few pieces of clothing that someone had so carefully removed from the cabinet and laid out to be taken away by him.
The black tunic was still there. And removing his frock coat, he slipped it on, and, gathering up the red sash from the floor, he put it around his waist and, quietly passing the slumbering dormitory, made his way downstairs again to the door of Guido's study.
Guido was not resting.
He looked up from the harpsichord with the immediate flashing anger with which he greeted all interruptions. But he was dumbstruck when he saw Tonio standing there.
"Can the Maestro be persuaded to give me another chance?" Tonio asked.
He stood with his hands behind his back, waiting.
Guido did not answer. In fact, his face was so much the picture of menace that for one moment Tonio was made aware of the most violently conflicting feelings for this man. But one thought emerged: this man must be his teacher here. It was unthinkable that he study with anyone else, and when he thought of Guido walking into the sea to destroy himself, he felt just for an instant the weight of an undeclared emotion that had battered him for twenty-eight days. He closed his heart to it. He waited.
Guido was beckoning to him. He was also shuffling wildly through his music.
Tonio saw a glass of water on a small stand beside the harpsichord and he drank all of it.
When he looked at the music, it was a cantata by Scarlatti, and though he did not know it, he knew Scarlatti.
Guido plunged into the introduction, his somewhat short fingers appearing veritably to bounce on the keys, and then Tonio hit the first note perfectly on pitch.
But his voice sounded huge, unnatural to him, completely out of control, and it was with a tremendous act of will that he forced himself on, up and down the passages which his teacher had written in, the embellishments and graces which he had added to the composer's score.
Finally it seemed to him his voice was all right; it felt almost good; and when he finished, he experienced an odd sensation of drifting. It was as if a great deal of time had gone by.
He realized that Guido was looking past him. The Maestro di Cappella had come in through the open door and he and Guido were staring at one another.
"Sing this again for me," said the Maestro, approaching.
Tonio gave a slight shrug. Yet he could not bring himself to look directly at this man. He lowered his eyes and, lifting his right hand slowly, felt the fabric of his black tunic as if he were making some casual adjustment of its simple collar. He could feel it encasing him, rendering him distinct in some way he'd never been, and he could remember in an inarticulate instant all of this man's harsh condemnation of him.
It seemed another age, and what was said was unimportant.
He looked at the Maestro's large hands, the hair on the backs of his fingers. He looked at the broad black leather belt encircling his cassock. And he envisioned beneath it, effortlessly, the man's unmutilated anatomy. And then looking up slowly, he saw the shadow of the Maestro's shaven beard darkening face and throat.
But the Maestro's eyes, confronted at last, surprised him.
They were soft and wide with awe and anticipation. And Guido was looking at Tonio with the same expression. They were both of them locked to him, waiting.
He let out his breath and started to sing. And this time he heard his own voice perfectly.
He let the notes rise, following them in his mind without the slightest effort to modulate them. The simpler, lustier parts of the song came. His voice took wing. And at some indefinable moment, the joy in all its purity was returned to him.
He could have wept then.
Had there been tears to shed, he would have wept, and it did not matter to him that he was not alone, that they would have seen.
His voice was his again.
The song was finished.
He looked out through the cloister at the light flickering in the leaves and felt a great delicious weariness overcoming him. The afternoon was warm. And in the far distance it seemed he heard the soft cacophony of children at play.
But a shadow rose before him. And turning almost reluctantly, he looked into Maestro Guido's
face.
Then Guido put his arms around him, and slowly, tentatively, Tonio gave himself over to that embrace.
Yet it seemed he was remembering some other moment, some other time when he had held someone in his arms, and there had been this same sweet, violent, and concealed emotion. But whatever it was--whenever it was--it was gone. He could not now recall it.
Maestro Cavalla stepped forward.
He said, "Your voice is magnificent."
PART IV
1
EVEN AS TONIO unpacked his trunk that first afternoon at the conservatorio (and his family had indeed sent him everything that belonged to him), filling the red and gilt cabinet with a few favorite clothes and arranging his books on the shelves of his room, he was aware that the transformation he had undergone on Vesuvius had yet to be really tested.
This was one reason he wouldn't give up this little room though the Maestro di Cappella had immediately told him he might have an unused apartment on the first floor should he want it. He wanted to see Vesuvius from his window. He wanted to lie in bed at night and see the fire of the mountain against the moonlit sky. He wanted to remember always that on that mountain he had learned what it meant to be completely alone.
Because as the future commenced to make known to him the true meaning of his new life, he needed his resolves to stand by him. There would be moments of acute pain. And he had some inkling, no matter how resigned he felt now, and no matter how appalling had been the pain of the last month, that the worst was yet to come.
And he was right about that.
The little moments of pain came immediately.
They came in the warm sunlight of the afternoon as he lifted from his trunks those brocade and velvet coats he'd once worn to suppers and balls in Venice, as he held up the fur-lined cloak he'd once wrapped around himself in the drafty pit of the theater as he sat gazing up into the face of the singer Caffarelli.
It was pain, too, that he felt when that night at the evening meal, he took his place among the other castrati, ignoring the shock on their hostile faces.
But all this he bore with the most serene expression. He nodded to his fellow students. He flashed a disarming smile at those who had ridiculed him. He reached out to touch the hair of that little one, Paolo, who had ridden with him from Florence and often approached him in the days afterwards.