by Anne Rice
"No, Maestro--!" he whispered.
She turned lightly in her white slippers. He felt the room going round and round. He must not see that fair-haired girl. He must not see her! He would go mad if she suddenly appeared, and yet somehow if he could only make it known to her...
But what?
That he wasn't to blame, she wasn't to blame.
They were facing each other, the Marchesa and he, the music was full into the quadrille and by some miracle he came forward, bowed to his partner, breaking to move down the long line of couples exactly as he'd done a thousand times before, but again and again he kept forgetting what he was doing!
Guido appeared, his brown eyes too big for his face.
And then he was leaning on Guido, saying something to someone, an apology, he must leave, he must get out of this place, he must be in his room, his own room, or they should go up now onto the mountain. Yes, go up on the mountain, this was the one thing he had been unable to admit to himself, it was unendurable.
"You are tired," Guido said.
No, no, no, he shook his head. Impossible to tell anyone, but the thought that he could never again lie with a woman was unendurable. He would start roaring if he did not stop thinking of it. Where was she? He had never believed for a moment that Alessandro could really do it! He had thought his mother such a child, and Beppo, inconceivable. And Caffarelli, what had he really done when he got alone with them?
Guido was lifting him up into the carriage. "I want to go up on the mountain!" he said again furiously. "You leave me alone. I want to go, I know where I am going."
The carriage was moving. He saw the stars above, felt the warm breeze on his face, and saw the leafy branches dipping down as though they meant to stroke him. If he thought of little Bettina now in the gondola, that soft nest of white limbs, that silky flesh inside her thighs, he would go mad. Banish him! He would never set foot there again, until...and when...
He fell against Guido. They were standing at the conservatorio gates, and he said, "I want to die." Confide to you my pain, I'd rather die. And that voice spoke to him again, from inside himself, saying, Behave as if you are a man, and he was walking upstairs to bed as if he felt nothing.
4
IT WAS SOON CLEAR that whenever Tonio was too tired to work, Guido would have some reward for him. They would go out to the opera, or Tonio would be given some simple arias to enjoy. But Guido could not be foxed in this. He knew when his pupil could do no more, and one afternoon when Tonio was unusually discouraged Guido took him out of the practice room and down the hall to the conservatorio theater.
"Sit here; watch and listen," he said, leaving Tonio in the back row of chairs where he might stretch his aching limbs unnoticed.
Tonio had been more than intrigued by the sounds issuing from this room.
And he was delighted to find it was as lavish a little theater as any he had ever seen in a Venetian palazzo. It had one tier of boxes all fitted with emerald-green curtains, and its proscenium arch was aglitter with gilded scrollwork and angels.
Some twenty-five musicians were at work in the pit, an awesome number it seemed, since the opera house had only that many for some performances, and all were working away on their private exercises oblivious to singers practicing their scales, and the student composer, Loretti, fuming that the production would never be ready for the first night two weeks from now.
Guido, pausing at the door, laughed shortly at this and told Tonio everything was going splendidly.
Tonio started, as if awakened from a dream, because from the milling cast on the boards he'd already picked out the figure of Domenico, that exquisite sylph of a boy, whom he'd seen of late only at the supper table.
He had never once thought of this room, or of the coming production, without thinking of Domenico.
But the composer was calling everyone to attention.
The rest period was over, and within minutes a silence fell over the little theater and the musicians struck up the overture.
Tonio was astonished at the richness of the sound; these boys were better than professionals he'd heard in Venice, and when the first singers appeared on the stage, he realized that these students were probably ready to perform anywhere in Europe.
Naples was surely the musical capital of Italy as everyone had always said, though Venetians sneered at those words, and in a moment of gentle calm, listening to this lovely, lively music, Tonio thought, Naples is my city.
A relief coursed through him. The pain in his legs from so many hours of standing was almost delicious. And leaning forward to the rounded back of the green velvet chair in front of him, he folded his arms on its carved frame and rested his chin there.
Domenico appeared. And though he was dressed in his simple black tunic and red sash, he seemed to have become the woman whose role he was playing. There was about every gesture a yielding and a grace that caused Tonio suddenly to feel tense, resentful.
Only the boy's voice distracted him. It was high, pure, and utterly translucent, with none of the opacity of the falsetto. His true soprano range was obviously phenomenal, and the liquid manner in which he connected his rounded tones made Tonio ashamed of his own miserable performance with the Accentus.
"This is a voice to reckon with," he sighed as soon as Domenico had finished and made his exit. But this was merely a rehearsal and the boy lingered at the edge of the stage, his body forming such a languid posture that he seemed to be resting comfortably against the air as if it were a tree, and over the length of the house, his eyes appeared to be fixed on Tonio.
Tonio was so absorbed by this, by the light angular figure of the boy and those hollow cheeks and deep-set black eyes, that he did not even notice a figure was approaching him.
Then suddenly he realized a shadow had fallen over him. He looked up just as the music died away, and a silence fell over the theater.
Lorenzo, the castrato he had stabbed a month ago for tormenting him, was standing beside him.
Tonio stiffened.
He rose slowly. His eyes moved warily over this boy who was taller than he was, and dark-skinned as well as dark-haired, a somewhat rough-looking individual. Like many of the castrati, however, he had a bloom to him, though the face was plain and without contrast.
His eyes were fixed on Tonio. The rehearsal had come to a complete halt.
And Tonio had no weapon.
Yet as Tonio gave the boy a slow nod of greeting, he let his right hand rise slightly as if for something at his waist. Then he lowered it again as if he would pass it up under his tunic to reach for a stiletto. The gesture was drawn out, calculated.
But the boy appeared not to notice. His body taut, fingers curled at his sides, he acknowledged Tonio's nod with his own bow, his mouth breaking into a long ugly smile as he did so.
No one made a sound in the little theater.
And then Lorenzo, moving backwards carefully, turned and left Tonio there.
Tonio stood still, thinking. He had expected some attack from this boy. But this was worse. This boy meant to kill him.
That afternoon he left the conservatorio with Guido's permission to bring a locksmith back to his room; and slipping his stiletto into his belt, he now took it with him everywhere. No one could see it under his tunic. And wherever he went, he was cautious. Climbing the stairs in the dark at night, he listened before advancing.
But he was not afraid. And then suddenly the absurdity of that caused him to flush. He was not afraid because Lorenzo was only a eunuch!
He shook his head, his brain teeming. Was that what Carlo had counted on? That Tonio was only a eunuch?
He wished he could get at his brain with his hands and squeeze the organ of thought itself, he was in such pain suddenly. He did not know what the years would do to him, or what they had done to this dark-skinned boy from the south of Italy whom he had stabbed so thoughtlessly when he felt like a cornered animal. But should he expect any less of this one than he expected of himself?
> As time passed, he found himself hoping that this boy would attack him and wondering how it would go when it happened.
A slight murderous feeling came over him when he thought of it, bound up with the memory of his strength pitted against others, not the awful defeating blows that had brought him down in that room in Flovigo, but that moment when he had almost been free, and then drawing back from that pain, he thought coldly, sensibly, I will meet this when it comes to me.
But nothing happened in the following weeks except that this boy had changed his position at table so that Tonio might see him, and see that sinister smile which he never failed to offer with some gracious gesture.
And Tonio's hours with Guido deepened into fixed patterns, brilliantly illuminated now and then by wonderful little victories, though Guido was colder than ever, and taking Tonio out more and more often in the evenings in spite of it.
They attended comic operas which Tonio loved more than he thought he would (since they so seldom used castrati) and another performance of the same tragic opera at the San Bartolommeo.
Afterwards, however, Tonio would not go to any balls or suppers with Guido. Guido was puzzled by this. He seemed slightly disappointed. Then he remarked coldly that such entertainments were good for Tonio. But Tonio said he was tired, or that he would rather be at his practice in the morning. And Guido shrugged, accepting this.
Tonio was cold all over and sweating when these little discussions happened. He had only to think of those women around him and he felt a suffocating fear. And then he would think, without meaning to, of Bettina in the gondola; it was as if he could feel the gentle sway of the boat, smell the water around him, breathe the air that was Venetian air, and again there came the sensation of that warmth in entering her, the wetness of the little hairy cleft between her legs, and that incredible flesh on the inside of her thighs where he had sometimes nuzzled his head before taking her.
He would grow still at such times, silent, looking out the window of the carriage as if in the most peaceful thought.
And coming back one night from the San Bartolommeo, it occurred to him that he would not be entirely safe until he was inside the conservatorio. An odd thought when Lorenzo, offering his sly smile whenever their paths crossed, was obviously waiting there for the chance to harm him.
Yet the early part of these evenings out meant everything to Tonio. He was loving the theaters of Naples, and all the nuances of the performances were alive for him. There were times when after several glasses of wine he felt talkative, and he and Guido were constantly interrupting each other in their impetuosity.
And at other times, a baffling apprehension of the strangeness of it all would descend on Tonio. He and Guido behaved for the most part as if they were enemies of each other. Tonio was often as haughty as Guido was surly.
And one night when they were riding along the curve of the sea, and the air was salty and warm, and Guido had bought a bottle of wine for them, and the carriage was open, and the stars seemed especially low and brilliant in the clean sky, Tonio found himself quietly agonizing over the coldness between them. He stared at Guido's profile against the white foam that seemed to lash the black water and thought, This is the gruff tyrant who makes my days so miserable when with just a few words of praise he could make everything easier. And yet here he sits a gentleman tonight in his handsome clothes talking to me as if we were merely good friends in a drawing room. He is two people. Tonio sighed.
Guido seemed to have no awareness of Tonio's thoughts. He was describing to him in a low voice a talented composer named Pergolesi who was dying of consumption and had been so ridiculed in Rome when his opera premiered there that he had never recovered from it. "The Roman audiences are the worst," Guido sighed. And then he looked off to sea as if distracted. He added that Pergolesi had entered the Gesu Cristo Conservatorio years ago and was about Guido's own age. If Guido had given his all to composing he might have to worry now about the Roman audiences.
"And why didn't you give your all to composing?" Tonio asked.
"I was a singer," Guido murmured. And then Tonio remembered that flaming speech which Maestro Cavalla had made to him the night he'd gone up to the mountain. He was suddenly embarrassed to have forgotten it. He thought so much about himself, his pain, his recovery, his small triumphs that he had thought almost nothing about this man beside him, really, and then he thought, And so this is why he despises me?
"The music you've often given me...it's your own, isn't it?" Tonio asked. "It's marvelous!"
"Don't purport to tell me what is good or bad in what I do!" Guido suddenly became incensed. "I will tell you when my music is good just as I will tell you when your singing is good!"
Tonio was stung. He took a deep swallow of the wine, and without warning, even to himself, threw his arms around Guido.
Guido was furious. He pushed him off roughly.
Tonio shrugged, laughing. "You embraced me once, twice, if you remember," he said. "So I embrace you now and then...."
"For what reason!" Guido snapped. He took the wine from Tonio and took a drink of it.
"Because I don't despise you as you despise me. I am not such a divided person!"
"Despise you?" Guido growled. "I don't care about you one way or the other. It's your voice I care about. Are you satisfied?"
Tonio settled back against the black leather seat, his eyes on the stars. His mood gradually darkened. Why do I care what this boor feels, he was thinking, why is it necessary that I like him? Why can't I just take what he gives me...? But then a coldness came over him. He felt a chill that signaled the old pain, and he found himself thinking suddenly of the opera they'd heard, of this or that little musical problem to distract himself, anything but of how lonely he suddenly felt, and it was unreal to him for an instant that he had ever lived in a great house in Venice with a father and a mother and servants so much a part of life they were his flesh and blood and...This was Naples, this was the sea, this was his home now.
*
Two days later Guido informed Tonio at the end of a particularly ragged and hot day that he might sing a very small part in the chorus of the conservatorio opera.
"But it's to be put on tomorrow night," Tonio said. Yet he was already on his feet.
"You'll only sing two lines at the end," said Guido. "You can learn them in an instant, and it will be good for you to taste the stage immediately."
Tonio had never dreamed this would come so soon.
And being backstage was the real excitement. He couldn't get enough of what was happening around him.
He peered into dressing rooms heaped with plumes and costumes, with tables piled with powder and paint, and watched in awe as a great row of ornamented arches was slowly lifted into the black void above the stage by weighted ropes that brought it soundlessly down again. It seemed an endless maze was formed in this vast open place behind the rear curtain in which the carcasses of other operas lay abandoned. He found a golden coach covered with fluttering paper flowers, and transparent scrims with only the barest trace of stars and clouds on them.
Boys ran to and fro with swords in hand, or lugging gilded cardboard urns full of cardboard foliage.
And as the rehearsal commenced, Tonio marveled to see order brought out of chaos, performers drifting in on cue, the orchestra giving forth its spirited accompaniment, the whole sharpened and fast-paced and full of one delightful aria after another, the voices astonishing in their agility.
He could scarce concentrate on his usual exercises the next day, until finally Guido limited them to those lines Tonio would sing that night in the chorus.
He did not see the full cast in costume until an hour before the curtain.
The audience was already arriving. Carriage after carriage rolled through the gates. There was lively chatter in the corridors, and candles everywhere gave the building a festive warmth, bringing to life nooks and crannies that had always disappeared into evening darkness. The great drawing room was filled wit
h the local nobility, come to see this early preview of singers and composers who might later attain celebrity.
Tonio, hurrying into the wings, found himself caught up in the frenzy. Cast as a soldier, he wore one of his more colorful Venetian coats of red with gold embroidery, and a ribbon was now fixed over his shoulder to the hilt of his sword in the manner of the last century.
"Sit down," said a voice, gesturing to a little table before a mirror, and he was quickly draped so that a great deal of powder could cover his black hair, finally bringing it up to complete whiteness. He flinched when deft hands commenced to powder his face, and he stared in fascination when all the painting was finished.
The sight of his eyes so heavily circled in black intrigued him and disturbed him at the same time.
But all around him were painted faces, complexions that seemed almost to glitter.
Peering through a small chink beyond the corner of the stage, he saw the boxes were filled. White wigs, jewels, flashing satin and taffeta everywhere. Tonio drew back feeling the oddest throbbing inside of him, the strangest vulnerability.
It could not be that he was performing on this stage before all these men and women who only six months before...He stopped and shut his eyes. He must command his limbs to be still, his heart to cease its pounding. And he felt the first sting of tears in his eyes before he could prevent it.
But turning suddenly around he gave himself to the whirl of activity behind the curtain. In a distant mirror he saw a young boy who was himself looking innocent, fresh, with a serene expression like those white-wigged men who stare at you from the corner of the eye in portraits. And just the touch of a smile shaped his lips as inside of him the pain went away at his command. Each time, perhaps, he thought, it will be easier.
The fact was he loved what was happening! And if some sense of humiliation threaded him through and through it was only a bass chord thumping softly beneath a lovelier, stronger music. He touched the powder on his face; he gave that distant mirror image one last deliberate glance and the smile became fuller and slower and he looked away from it.
The Maestro di Cappella strode into the wings and reached out with both hands for a young goddess who had just appeared, her white curls flowing down her back, her skin like bisque with a blush to the cheeks so subtle and beautiful that Tonio gasped to see her.