by Anne Rice
"And why, my lord, for what?" Tonio asked. "Your generosity and your patience even in this?"
The Cardinal shook his head as though communing with himself.
Reluctantly, he took his eyes off Tonio and walked a few steps towards his desk before he looked back. He held his silver crucifix in one hand, and the candlelight brightened the red watered taffeta of his robe. His eyes were a narrow gleam beneath their smooth lids, and his face was ineffably sad.
"How appalling it is," he whispered, "that I can better live with my self-denial now that I know you feel such pain."
11
THAT NIGHT, when Guido came home from the Contessa's villa, the Cardinal summoned him to ask if he needed any particular assistance now that the opera season would soon begin.
He assured Guido he would be at the theater this year, though he'd never rented a box in the past. And after the opening performance, he would hold a ball at his house if Guido so desired.
Guido was as always deeply touched by the Cardinal's kindness. But then he asked in a spare and straightforward manner if it were within the Cardinal's power to provide Tonio with a pair of armed guards.
He explained in the same manner that Tonio had been banished from the Veneto when he became a castrato three years before. His was an old family; there was some mystery surrounding it all, though Guido knew nothing about it. And a great many Venetians were coming to Rome.
The Cardinal thought about this for a moment and then nodded.
"I have heard these stories." He sighed. It would be no problem whatsoever to have a pair of bravos accompany Marc Antonio wherever he went. The Cardinal knew little of such matters; but there were many gentlemen about him who knew a great deal. "We will manage this without consulting Marc Antonio," he offered. "And that way, he will not become alarmed."
Guido couldn't conceal his relief as it was his strong suspicion that Tonio would refuse such protection were he asked.
He kissed the Cardinal's ring and struggled to express his thanks.
The Cardinal was always considerate and kind. But before dismissing Guido, he put to him this question:
"Is Marc Antonio likely to do well on the stage?"
When he saw the consternation in Guido, he hastened to explain he knew nothing of music. He could not judge Tonio's voice.
Guido told him confidently, almost stridently, that Tonio was at this time the greatest singer in Rome.
But when Guido returned to his rooms, he was more than disappointed to find that Tonio was not at home.
He needed Tonio just now. He needed the comfort of his arms.
Paolo was sound asleep. The rooms were full of moonlight, and Guido, too weary and anxious to work, merely sat for a long time by himself.
Tonio had gone directly from the Cardinal's rooms to the fencing salon, where after a few inquiries, he learned the address of the Florentine, Count Raffaele di Stefano, who had been his fencing partner so often in the past.
It was dark when he reached the house, and the Count was not alone. Several of his friends, all of them obviously wealthy, idle, and full of recklessness, were dining with him, while a young castrato, got up as a woman, sang and played the lute.
This was one of those creatures with the breasts of a woman, and they were showed to superb advantage by the cut of a gawdy orange dress.
The table was littered with roast fowl and mutton, and the men had the belligerence of those who had been drinking for days on end.
The castrato who sported hair as long and full as a woman's challenged Tonio to sing, saying he was sick of hearing about Tonio's voice.
Tonio stared at this creature. He stared at the men. He stared at Count di Stefano, who had stopped eating and was watching him almost anxiously, and then Tonio rose to go.
But Count di Stefano came after him at once. He gave his friends leave to stay the night in the banquet hall if they wanted to, and then he urged Tonio up the stairs.
*
When the door of the bedchamber had been bolted, Tonio stood very still looking at the bolt. The Count had gone to light a candle and now the lights swelled evenly throughout the room. It showed the massive bed with its heavily worked posts. Beyond the open windows hung the giant moon.
The Count's round face had a maniacal seriousness to it, his glossy black curls making him look Semitic, his heavy shaven beard a veritable crust on his chin.
"I'm sorry my friends offended you," he said quickly.
"Your friends didn't offend me," Tonio answered calmly. "But I suspect that eunuch downstairs has engendered some expectations I cannot meet. I want to go now."
"No!" the Count whispered almost desperately. His eyes were glazed and strange, and he approached Tonio as if propelled to do so, drawing so close that some touch was inevitable, and then he lifted his hand and let it hover in the air, the thick fingers spread out.
He looked half mad. As mad as the Cardinal had ever looked, as mad as the eldest and most grateful of Tonio's lovers had ever appeared. He had no pride. He hadn't the haughtiness of the laborer Tonio had picked up in the streets.
Tonio reached for the door, but his passion was rising, making him reckless and as half mad as this man.
He turned around and let the breath hiss between his lips as the Count caught hold of him, and held him against the door.
It was rare, exquisitely rare, because he could not command himself.
And for so long it seemed all his passion had been at his command! Be it with Guido, or with any of those he selected for himself like so many cups of wine, and now he was lost in this, knowing full well that he was under the Count's roof, in his power, as he had never been in the power of any young and unrestrained lover before.
The Count ripped off his own shirt, and slipping his hand down the front of his own breeches broke them open as well. His dark stubble of a beard actually caused Tonio pain as he mouthed Tonio's neck, and then he pulled almost like a child on Tonio's coat, tearing loose his sword.
The weapon clattered to the floor.
But when the Count pressed his naked body against Tonio and felt me stiletto in Tonio's shirt, he left it there. He pulled Tonio to him moaning, his organ rising stout and cloven at the tip.
"Give it to me, let me have it," Tonio breathed, and going down on his knees, took the organ into his mouth.
It was midnight when Tonio rose to go, and nothing stirred in the house. The Count lay naked on the white sheets except for the gold rings on the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand.
Tonio, looking down at him, touched the mask of silky skin that overlay his nose and cheeks, and silently went out.
He ordered his carriage to the Piazza di Spagna.
And when he arrived at the base of the high Spanish Steps, he sat for a long time gazing out of the window at those who passed in the dark. High above him against the moonlit sky were many lighted windows, but he knew no houses here, no names.
A passing lantern shone for a moment in his face before the man who carried it turned the beam politely away.
It seemed he slept for a while, he did not know. He awoke suddenly, feeling her presence, tried to recapture a dream in which they had been together in fast conversation, he trying vainly to explain something to her, and she saddened and threatening to draw away.
He realized he was in the Piazza di Spagna He had to go home. And just for a moment he was not certain where that was.
He smiled. He gave the driver the word, and wondering in a half sleep why Bettichino had not come, he realized with a start the opera would open in less than two weeks.
12
WORD CAME TO THEM on Christmas Day that Bettichino had arrived.
The air was purified with the first touch of frost, and full of the ringing of all the church bells of Rome. Anthems carried from the choir lofts, and children preached from the pulpit as was the custom. And the Baby Jesus, resplendent amid dizzying tiers of candles, lay beaming from a thousand magnificent cribs.
Guido, discovering the violinists at the Teatro Argentina were masterly musicians, had rewritten all the string parts. And he only smiled when Bettichino, claiming a slight indisposition, had begged to be excused the courtesy of a visit. Would Guido merely send him the score?
Guido was ready for all difficulties. He knew the rules of the game, and had given the great singer three arias over and above those given to Tonio, with which Bettichino could well show off his tricks. He wasn't surprised when in twenty-four hours he had the score returned with all the singer's graces neatly copied in. He could now adjust the accompaniment. And though there were no compliments on the composition, there were no complaints.
He knew the talk in the cafes had reached its highest pitch. And everyone was frequenting Christina Grimaldi's new studio, where she talked of nothing but Tonio. The theater would be packed.
Guido's principal task now was to keep from Tonio his own fear.
*
Two days before the first night, the one and only rehearsal for the singers was called.
Tonio and Guido went in midafternoon to the theater to meet this opponent whose followers might try to drive Tonio from the stage.
But immediately Bettichino's manager appeared to say the singer was still suffering from a little indisposition and would merely walk through the part. At once the tenors insisted on the same prerogative, and Guido ordered Tonio to keep absolutely silent as well.
Only old Rubino, the elderly castrato who would play the second man, announced cheerily that he would sing. The players in the pit put down their instruments to applaud him and he launched into the first aria Guido had given him with a full heart. His high notes were long gone. This was written for and delivered by a contralto full of such polish and such clarity that everyone was almost weeping when he finished, even Guido himself, to hear his music sung by this new voice.
But it was right after this little performance that Bettichino appeared. Tonio felt himself brushed ever so gently by a passing figure and turned with a slight start. He then saw a giant of a man pass him, his throat wound in a thick wool scarf. A mass of yellow hair showed above it, so pale that it seemed almost silvery, and he had a very narrow, very straight back.
Only when he had reached the far side of the stage, passing old Rubino, in the same indifferent manner, did he turn as if on a pivot, shooting Tonio his first decisive glance.
His blue eyes were the coldest Tonio had ever seen. They seemed full of some northern light. And fixing on Tonio, they faltered suddenly as if meaning to move away, but were caught instantly as if by a hook.
Tonio did not move or speak, but he felt a strong shudder as if the man had sent him some hideous shock like an eel found still alive on the sandy beach.
He allowed himself to look down slowly, almost respectfully, and then up again to this figure of at least six feet and three inches that would so exquisitely dwarf his own tender illusion on the stage.
And then Bettichino with a very casual movement of his right hand pulled straight down on the edge of his wool scarf. It hissed about his neck softly, and fell loose, revealing the full expression of his large, square face.
Handsome he was, majestic even, as everyone said, and full of that smoldering power that Guido had once described as the magic of only some performers, long years ago. When he stepped forward it seemed of consequence to the entire earth.
Still he stared at Tonio; and so unrelenting, so cold, was his expression that all around him seemed suddenly at a loss. Scrambling to meet some unspoken challenge, musicians coughed into their curled fingers and the impresario nervously worked his clasped hands.
Tonio did not move. Bettichino commenced to walk towards him with very slow measured steps. And then standing directly in front of Tonio, the man reached out and offered his clean, pale hand.
Tonio clasped it at once; he let out a soft murmur of respectful greeting. And the singer, turning before his eyes turned with him, gestured silently that the music might begin.
That afternoon, Paolo dragged himself from the cafes to report the abbati were threatening to hoot Tonio off the boards.
"Well, naturally," Tonio whispered. He was playing a little sonata to amuse himself, content to listen to the music coming up from the harpsichord rather than to make any himself.
When Guido came in, Tonio asked him matter-of-factly if Christina Grimaldi would be in the Contessa's box.
"Yes. You won't have any trouble seeing her. She sits facing the stage. She wants to hear what goes on."
"Is she doing well?" Tonio asked.
"What was that?" Guido said.
"Is she doing well!" Tonio said crossly, but loudly.
Guido gave him a cold smile. "Why don't you go see for yourself?"
13
AN HOUR BEFORE the curtain was to go up, the heavens opened a torrent on the city of Rome. However nothing, not crashing flashes of lightning nor the wind that blasted the darkened windows of the theater, could stop the press of spectators fighting their way to the front doors.
A heavy jam of carriages blocked the street, one gilded hulk after another bobbing to a halt to disgorge its bejeweled and white-haired men and women into the sputtering light. And the high galleries were already packed with pale faces in the shadows, as catcalls and shouts and lewd verses rang out over the darkened house.
With dim little flames the tradesmen led their wives to the upper boxes, quickly assuming their places to watch the parade of finery that would soon fill the tiers below them, as breathtaking surely as any spectacle of music and movement on the stage itself.
And Tonio, having just entered backstage, moved at once to the peephole beside the curtain, though he was dripping wet.
Signora Bianchi was hysterical and started at once to rub at his hair.
"Shhhh..." He bent forward, peering into the theater.
Liveried servants were moving from sconce to sconce of the first tier, bringing to life velvet draperies, mirrors, polished tables, and padded chairs, as if a hundred drawing rooms floated, disembodied, in the dark.
And below, in the parterre, hundreds of the abbati were already seated, a candle in the right hand, a score spread open in the other, their sharp argument and commentary already cutting back and forth.
A lone violinist had already taken his chair. And now came a trumpet player, his cheap little wig barely covering his dark head.
Someone in the highest gallery shouted suddenly; a missile soared through the gloom, and from the first floor came a violent curse and a figure leapt to its feet, fist flying, only to be pulled back. A fight had broken out above; there was thundering on the wooden stairs behind the walls.
"Turn around to me!" Signora Bianchi said hysterically. "Look at you, did you throw yourself into the river! Your voice will close up in an hour. I must get you warm."
"I am warm," Tonio whispered, kissing her little withered mouth. "Warmer than I have ever been." And he led the way through the clutter to his dressing room, where old Nino was stirring the brazier and the air was already like the blast from an oven.
Tonio had awakened early that morning, and felt an immediate exhilaration when he began to sing. For hours he had gone up and down his most intricate passages, until he felt as elastic and powerful as he had ever been.
He kissed Guido on both cheeks before Guido left for the theater. He gave Paolo instructions to make himself one of the audience and watch everything.
And then when the sky was still clear, and a soft lavender over the twinkling windows that dotted the hills, he had wandered into the mired streets nearest the Tiber and, gathering a group of ragged children in front of him, commenced to sing.
The stars were just coming out. For the first time in three years, he heard his voice rising between close stone walls; and his eyes wet, he pushed his melody up and up until he was hitting notes he'd never attempted and hearing them soar, rounded, perfect, into the night that was closing over him above. From everywhere people had come. They crowded the windo
ws, the doorways, they packed the little streets on either side. They offered him wine and food when he stopped. They brought out a stool for him, and then a fine embroidered chair. And again he sang for them; any song they named, he gave voice to it, and his ears were ringing with their screams, and clapping and Bravos, all those faces around him swollen with the heat of their adoration when at last the rain had come.
Now he kissed Signora Bianchi. He kissed Nino. He let them tear away his wet clothes and rub his head with towels. He let them scold. He let them curse.
"I tell you, it will be perfect," he whispered to Signora Bianchi. "I tell you it will be perfect for Guido and for me." And in his heart, he made a little vow that he would savor every minute of it, be it triumph or debacle, and all the rest of the darkness of his life must part here so that he could cross this all-important sea.
In a wordless moment, he envisioned all those who would be in the house. He looked at the exquisite dress before him, woman's ruffles, woman's ribbon, woman's paint. Christina! He said that inaudibly so it was just a little explosion between his lips. It didn't matter to him now the pain and the fears.
What mattered was that he was at last going onto the stage, and for now, this moment, that was where he wanted to be.
"Now, darling," he said to Signora Bianchi, "do your magic. Make all your little promises come true. Make me so beautiful and so much the woman that I could fool my own father should I climb on his knee."
"You wicked boy." She pinched his neck with her soft hot fingers. "Save your silver tongue for the audience. Don't speak horrors to me."
And resting back against the chair, he felt the first soft sensuous strokes of her little brush on his face, the pull of her comb, the heat of her touch.
When he rose at last and turned to the mirror, he felt that familiar and no less alarming loss. Where was Tonio in this hourglass of dark red satin? Where was the boy behind these darkly painted eyes, these rouged lips, and this flowing white hair that ran in deep waves back from the forehead and in full long curls down the back?
It seemed he was drifting as he stared at her in the glass, and she whispered his name to him, and then drew back like some phantom on the other side who might suddenly take life away from him as he himself stood still.