The Cardinal stared at his singer. His eyes, slanted down at the corners by those strange smooth lids, gave off a slight gleam.
Yet in between the many demands upon his attention, the man devoured everything on his plate. There was an undisguised sensuousness to the manner in which he ate. He cut his meat in large pieces; he drank his wine in deep gulps.
And yet he was so slight of build as though he burned all that he consumed, a vice transformed into necessity, even as he lifted the glistening grapes to his lips.
When he had finished the meal, he drove a long pearl-handled knife into the board, so that it stood straight up, and curling his fingers around it, there rested his chin.
His eyes were fixed on Tonio. He had the look of one musing, pleasant to those around him, but secretly absorbed.
Late at night, often, Guido sat alone at his desk too tired to write. Sometimes he was too tired to undress and go to bed.
He wished he could lie beside Tonio as a matter of course, but the time of night-long embraces was over, at least for this little while. And there came that fear again, against which he could find no defense in these alien rooms.
Yet there was an undeniable pleasure in seeking out his love, something sweet and mysterious in crossing the vast expanse of cold floor, opening doors, to approach that bed.
Now he set down the quill pen, and stared at the pages before him. Why was it all so flat, so without the slightest inspiration? Soon he must drive it towards its final shape. All evening he had been reading the librettos of Metastasio, who was now the rage, and luckily a native-born Roman, but he could not find the story yet, not until he had won that last victory which he had no chance of winning tonight.
But it was not in his mind now. He wanted Tonio.
He let his passion slowly mount.
He hummed to himself, ran his knuckles along his lip, letting bits and pieces of fantasy tantalize him.
Then he padded silently across the floor. Tonio lay deep asleep, his hair in loose strands over his eyes, his face as perfect and seemingly lifeless as Michelangelo's melting white figures. But as Guido drew close, he felt the face warm to his kiss, his hand beneath the cover to draw the body up. The eyes fluttered open. Tonio moaned, blind for a little while, struggling, his flesh so hot he seemed a child consumed with a fever. His mouth opened to let Guido in.
They lay close in the dark afterwards, Guido fighting sleep as he could not allow himself to be found here.
"Are you mine completely still?" he whispered, half expecting nothing but the silence of the room.
"Always," Tonio answered drowsily. It seemed not his own voice, but the voice of some sleeping being inside of him.
"Has there never been anyone else?"
"No one."
Tonio shifted, pressing in, winding his arm around Guido so he could nuzzle into Guido's chest and they were clamped together, Tonio's smooth hot belly against Guido's sex, Guido feeling that fine black hair that always amazed him with its texture.
"And don't you sometimes wonder what it would be like?" he asked slowly. "A man? A woman?"
He closed his eyes and had almost drifted off when he heard the answer come low as before.
"Never."
4
IT WAS VERY LATE when Guido came in.
The palazzo was absolutely quiet as if the Cardinal had retired early. Only a few lights burned in the lower rooms. The corridors stretched out in pale darkness, the white sculptures--those broken gods and goddesses--giving off an eerie illumination of their own.
Guido was exhausted as he climbed the steps.
He had spent the afternoon with the Contessa at her villa on the edge of Rome. She had come up to make arrangements for the opening of the house later in the year, and she would remain in Rome only a few days now, returning before Christmas to spend the opera season here.
It was for Guido and Tonio that she was doing this, as she much preferred the south, and Guido was grateful for her decision to come.
But when he saw they might have no opportunity to be alone together today, he had become incensed. He was almost rude.
The Contessa, surprised at this but understanding, took him with her back to the palazzo where she was stopping as a guest. And once they were in bed, his hunger for her astonished them both.
They had never spoken of it, but it was she who led the way in their couplings. Fearless and loving with her mouth and hands, she had always enjoyed teasing Guido and hardening him for the act. In fact, she treated Guido exactly as if she owned him. She caressed him as if he were a child, possessively, with little gasps, as though he were infinitely enticing to her and someone of whom she hadn't the slightest fear.
Guido liked the attention. Almost everyone else was afraid of him, and he didn't care what she thought.
On some inarticulate level, he knew she was purely symbolic to him. She was woman, and Tonio was Tonio with whom he was miserably in love.
He reasoned it was always so with men and women, and men and men, and if he ever found himself thinking about it, he dismissed it at once from his mind.
But this afternoon, he behaved somewhat like an animal. And the new unfamiliar bedchamber, his odd behavior, and their brief separation from each other, all conspired to make the love play especially rich.
They did not get up right away. They drank coffee, a little liqueur, and they talked.
Silently, Guido wondered why he and Tonio were so at war. Their quarrel this morning over the question of a female role had reached an ugly climax, when Guido had produced the contract Tonio had signed with Ruggerio in which it was plainly stated Tonio had been hired as the prima donna. Tonio, shoving it aside, felt betrayed.
But Guido saw the first signs of defeat in him, only to be angered moments later when Tonio insisted that he would never take a stage name. He would be known to the audience as Tonio Treschi. They could call him Tonio if they must have a single name.
Guido was furious. Why such an irregularity? Tonio would be accused of haughtiness. Didn't he realize that most people would never believe he was a Venetian patrician? They would think this an affectation on his part.
Tonio was clearly wounded.
After a long moment he said softly, "I don't care what people believe. It has nothing to do with where I was born, or who I might have been. My name is Tonio Treschi. That is all."
"All right, but you will perform the role I write for you," Guido had said. "You are being paid as much as or more than experienced singers. You were brought here to play a female part. Your name, whether it's Tonio Treschi or anything else, will be on the posters in big letters when you're nobody. And it's your youth and your looks as well as anything else that will bring them in. The audience expects to see you in female dress."
He could not look at Tonio after these words were spoken.
"I don't believe that," Tonio had replied softly. "You have told me for three years the Romans are the strictest critics. Now you tell me they want to see a boy in skirts. Have you ever looked at those old engravings of torture instruments? Iron masks and manacles, veritable suits of pain? That is what female dress would be to me, and you say: 'Put it on.' I say I will not."
Guido couldn't understand any of this. He had performed female roles a dozen times before he was eighteen. But the complications of Tonio's mind always discouraged him. He could only follow one path:
"You must give in."
How could anyone love singing as Tonio loved it, how could anyone love performance as Tonio loved it, and not do everything that was required?
But he did not tell the Contessa these things.
He could not confide to her the worst part of it; his coldness to Tonio, and the recrimination of Tonio's forbearance.
Instead, he listened to the Contessa, who had troubles of her own.
She had failed to persuade the widow of her Sicilian cousin, that pretty little English girl who painted so beautifully, to consider marrying again.
The girl wo
uldn't go home to England; she wouldn't look for another husband. She wanted to be a painter instead.
"I always liked her," Guido murmured with only a little interest. He was thinking of Tonio. "And she is skilled at it. Why, she paints like a man."
The Contessa could not understand it, a woman wishing to set up a studio of her own, a woman mounting the scaffolding in a church or a palazzo to hold a paintbrush in her hand.
"You won't turn your back on her, will you?" Guido asked gently. The girl was so young.
"Heavens, no," said the Contessa. "She isn't my flesh and blood, after all. Besides, my cousin was seventy when he married her. I owe her something for that."
And with a sigh, she observed the girl was rich enough to do anything she wanted on her own.
"Bring her with you to Rome for the opera," Guido said sleepily. "Maybe she'll find a suitable husband here."
"It's hopeless," said the Contessa. "But she is coming. She wouldn't miss Tonio's first appearance for the world."
Now as he made his way slowly down the corridor to his rooms, Guido saw light under his door. And he was half glad of it until he remembered the animosity between him and Tonio, and then he felt slightly anxious turning the knob.
Tonio was awake and fully dressed. He was sitting by himself in a corner, and he was drinking a glass of red wine. He didn't rise when Guido came in, but he glanced up and his eyes caught the light.
"You needn't have waited for me," Guido said almost sharply. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed."
Tonio didn't answer. He rose slowly and approached Guido, watching from a little distance as Guido removed his cape. Guido had not rung for the valet. He did not really like servants about him and he could easily undress himself.
"Guido," Tonio said in a cautious whisper, "can we leave this house?"
"What do you mean, leave this house?"
Guido removed his shoes, and hung his jacket on a peg. "You might pour me some wine," he said. "I'm very tired."
"I mean leave this house," Tonio repeated. "I mean live somewhere else. I have money enough."
"What are you saying?" Guido demanded caustically. But he felt the slightest twinge of that terror that had been threatening him for days. "What's the matter with you?" he said, narrowing his eyes.
Tonio shook his head. The wine made his lips glisten. His face was drawn.
"What's happened? Answer me," Guido said impatiently. "Why do you want to leave this house?"
"Please don't be angry with me," Tonio said slowly, with great emphasis on each word.
"If you don't tell me what you're talking about, I'm going to hit you. I haven't done that in years. But I'll do it now," Guido said, "if you don't come to the point."
He could see the despair in Tonio's face, and the recoiling, but he could not relent.
"All right, then I shall tell you plainly," Tonio said in a low voice. "The Cardinal sent for me this evening. He said he could not sleep. He said he needed music to quiet him. There was a small harpsichord in his bedroom. He asked me to play, and to sing."
He was watching Guido as he spoke. Guido could barely hear the words. He found himself picturing the scene, and he felt an uncomfortable warmth in his chest.
"And so?" he demanded angrily.
"It wasn't music that he wanted," Tonio said. This was terribly difficult for him, and then he added, "Though I doubt he realized it himself."
"Then how did you realize it?" Guido snapped. "And don't tell me you refused him!"
Tonio's face was blank with shock.
Guido lifted his hand in a state of pure exasperation. He made a little circle, pacing, and then he threw up his hands.
Tonio stood accusing him silently.
"How did you leave him?" Guido asked. "Was he angry? What actually took place?"
Tonio obviously couldn't bring himself to answer. He was staring at Guido as if Guido had struck him.
"Tonio, listen to me," Guido said. He swallowed; he knew that he must not betray the panic he felt. "Go back to him, and for the love of God have patience with what he wants. We are in his house, Tonio, he is our patron here. He is the Contessa's cousin, and he is a prince of the church...."
"A prince of the church, is he?" Tonio said. "Have patience with what he wants! And what am I, Guido? What am I?"
"You are a boy, that's what you are, and a castrato," Guido sputtered. "It doesn't matter to you, it means nothing to you if you do it! But it means everything if you do not! Couldn't you see this was coming? Are you so blind! Tonio, you are destroying me in this place. Your obstinacy, your pride, I have no chance against it. You must go back to the Cardinal now."
"Destroying you!" Tonio said. "You tell me to go to him and do what he wishes, as if I were nothing but a whore from the streets--"
"But you are not a whore. If you were a whore you wouldn't be in this house, you wouldn't be fed and sheltered by the Cardinal. You are a castrato. For God's sake, give him what he wants. I would do it without hesitation if he wanted it of me."
"You horrify me," Tonio whispered. "You disgust me. There is no other word for it. They took you out of Calabria and dressed you in velvet and made you some thoughtless, soulless being with the semblance of a gentleman when in fact there is nothing you won't do for your purposes; you have no honor, no creed, no decent sentiments in you. You would take my name from me, you would take my form from me, all this in the name of music and what must be done, and now you send me to the Cardinal's bed in the name of the same necessity...."
"Yes, yes, yes!" Guido said. "I tell you to do all those things. Make me out a demon if you will, I tell you the configurations you place on all these things are lovely and meaningless. You are not bound by the rules of men. You are a castrato. You can do these things."
"And you," Tonio demanded in the same whisper, "what does it mean to you that I lie with him?" It was as if he dared not raise his voice. "Have you no feeling in this?"
Guido turned his back.
"You send me from your bed to his bed," Tonio went on, "as if I were nothing but a gift for His Eminence, gratitude for His Eminence, respect."
Guido merely shook his head.
"Have you no understanding of honor, Guido?" Tonio pleaded softly. "Did they cut it out of you in Calabria? They did not cut it out of me."
"Honor, honor." Guido turned wearily to face him. "If it has no heart, if it has no wisdom, what is honor? What does it matter? Where is the dishonor in giving this man what he asks of you when you will not be diminished in the slightest? You are a banquet from which he seeks once, perhaps twice, to take his fill while you are under his roof. How will you be changed by it? If you were a virgin girl you could plead that, but he would never have asked it of you. He is a holy man. And were you a man, how it might shame you to admit that it was your nature to do as he asks. You could claim an aversion whether you felt it or not! But you are neither of these, and you are free, Tonio, free. There are men and women who dream every night of their lives of such freedom! And it's yours by your nature and you cast it away. And he, he is a cardinal, for the love of God. Is what God gave you so very precious that you must save it for one better than he!"
"Stop this," Tonio insisted.
"When I took you for the first time," Guido said, "it was on the floor of my studio in Naples. You were alone and helpless and without father, mother, kindred, friends. Was there honor then?"
"There was love," Tonio said. "And passion!"
"So love him then! He is a great man. People stand at the gates for hours just to see him pass. Go and love him for this little while, and there will be passion, too."
Guido turned his back again almost immediately.
The silence was unendurable and without realizing it, he was holding his breath.
He felt swollen with anger, ugly with it, and it seemed all the misery that had been threatening him since they had set out on their long journey was now fully upon him and he had no defense.
But in the midst of this anxi
ety, this confusion, he understood.
And when he heard the door open and close, it was as if a blow had been dealt him between the shoulders.
Abruptly, willfully, he went to his desk.
He seated himself before an open score, and dipping his pen quickly, he lifted it to write.
For a long time, he stared at the marks on the parchment. He stared at the quill in his hand. Then he laid it down with a careful motion, as if he did not wish to disturb so much as the dust in the air.
His eyes moved over the objects of the room. And tightening his right arm around his waist, as if to fortify himself for some terrible assault, he rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.
5
TONIO WAS OUTSIDE the Cardinal's door.
At the heart of this lay a painful conviction that he had brought it upon himself. He did not know why exactly, but he felt it was his own fault.
Even when old Nino had first come for him, saying His Eminence could not sleep, Tonio had felt an elusive excitement that the great man was calling for him.
There was something a little odd about the servant's behavior, the manner in which he hastened to remove Tonio's frock coat, offering him another of his more richly embroidered coats to put on. There had been a furtiveness to the old man's gestures, as if he must walk on tiptoe to some purpose, as if he must hurry, as if neither of them were to be seen.
From his pocket he had drawn an old comb, uneven and broken, for Tonio's hair.
Tonio had not realized at first he was in a bedchamber. He'd seen only the tapestries on the wall: antique figures moved through the Hunt with a score of those tiny animals woven into the flowers and the leaves. The candlelight showed oddly abstracted faces, men and women on horseback, gazing into time from the corner of an eye.
Next he had seen the harpsichord, a small, portable instrument, with its single manual of black keys. The Cardinal was beyond it, a collection of soft movements and sounds, clothed in a robe that was the same color as the darkness, hazy as it was from the few tapers that seemed embedded in the rich hangings of this room.
The Cardinal's words had no beginning to them, no end. And there had been a pounding in Tonio, a sense of the forbidden, though he did not know why. The middle of a statement had penetrated to him, something about song, and the power of song, and it seemed he wanted Tonio to sing.