He would bathe before he went to the Cardinal. He would dress carefully in immaculate or new clothes. And then, convinced that none of these encounters had ever even existed, he lost himself in the Cardinal's arms.
Yet the memory of those furtive embraces heated all that transpired.
One afternoon finally, he directed his carriage into the worst streets of Rome.
He saw children playing in doorways, people cooking in the open shops, arches hung with cheeses and meats. A fat glossy sow stopped his carriage, her piglets squealing after her. Laundry on sagging lines shut out the sky.
He sat back against the leather cushions, the windows open despite the splashes now and then, and a general stench the air from the nearby Tiber could not stir.
Finally he saw what he wanted. A young man fixed in a doorway, his shirt open to his heavy leather belt revealing a line of curling black hair. It rose up from his waist and moved out to encircle the tiny pink nipples of his chest as if forming the arms of a cross. His face, even shaven, was as rough as new-sawn lumber, and when his eyes met Tonio's, the small distance between them was suddenly closed by a current that caused Tonio's breath to halt in his throat.
He let the painted door swing back. The carriage stood listing in this tiny, all but impassable place, and Tonio in gold brocade stared forward, one hand palm up and inviting as it rested on his knee.
The young man's eyes puckered ever so slightly. He shifted in such a way it seemed his hips were thrust forward, and the bulge beneath his tight breeches grew larger as if deliberately to make itself known.
Then he moved forward into the carriage and Tonio brought down the blinds to seal them off with only the thinnest seams of light.
The horse plodded forward. The little compartment rocked slowly on its giant springs. Tonio stared at the black curling hair against the man's olive skin. And then suddenly he laid his white hand on it, opening his fingers broadly, and felt the hardness of the man's chest.
He could just see the glimmer of the eyes, the light etching the man's jaw. And very cautiously, he touched this, too, feeling the rough stubble left by the razor, and the skin beneath it so tight it moved all of a piece.
He drew back and let his head fall to one side. Turning away, he let his left shoulder shut the man out, or draw him in. And as he bent forward, his hands on the seat under him, he felt the man's weight against his back. He went down, stretching out on the leather until his face touched it and his eyes closed as if in sleep.
The man's left arm came under him, gathering him up tightly as if the better to hold him for the assault. And feeling that tightness, that rough muscle against his chest, pinning him against the man above him, sent the shocks through him as much as the iron itself driving in.
For one moment the pain was almost too great. And yet the pleasure blazed with it, until they were one harrowing flame. Then he realized his captor had not let him go. He felt his anger rising as his right hand eased towards his stiletto. But with a gentle nudge, he was let to know this young Roman was only stoking the fire for the second assault.
It was over. The young man had drawn himself up coldly when offered money. He had let himself out into the street. But just as the carriage moved forward, he had caught the edge of the window in both hands, and whispered the name of the saint that was the name of the street where he lived. Tonio had smiled at him, nodding. There had been the rarest smile given back.
And then there were only those somber walls again rising on either side, full of ocher and dark green, dissolving into the first veil of rain.
Tonio's eyes misted over. He stared listlessly as the carriage neared the Vatican. And then as if emerging from a thin nightmare which was never dispelled by the waking mind, the sign of a small shop came into view, its letters spelling out for all the world:
SINGERS FOR THE POPE'S
CHAPEL CASTRATED HERE
9
BY THE FIRST of December Rome was obsessed with the new opera. The Contessa Lamberti was to arrive any day, and the great Cardinal Calvino had taken a box for the season for the first time in his life. A great number of the nobility were solidly behind Guido and Tonio, but the abbati had commenced to talk.
And everyone knew it was the abbati who would pronounce the crucial judgment on opening night.
It was they who ruled on plagiarism with loud hisses; it was they who drove the unskilled and the unworthy scurrying from the stage.
Try as they might, the great families who governed the first and second tiers could not save a performance once the abbati had condemned it, and they were already voicing their passionate devotion to Bettichino. Bettichino was the singer of the season; Bettichino was better now than he had been in years past; Bettichino had been marvelous last year at Bologna; Bettichino was a marvel even before he had gone to the German states.
If they mentioned Tonio at all, it was to scoff at this upstart from Venice who let it out he was a patrician and insisted upon using his own name. Who believed all this anyway? Every castrato claimed family once he'd taken on the glow of the footlights, and gave out some foolish story as to why the operation had to be performed.
But then Bettichino's pedigree was preposterous, too, really. Descent from a German lady and an Italian merchant, his voice preserved by virtue of an unfortunate attack in childhood by a pet goose?
Only snatches of this talk reached Guido, who was scribbling night and day. He went out only to attend to affairs at the Contessa's villa, having given up all visits to the dilettanti as the day drew near.
But Tonio sent Paolo out to hear what he could.
Paolo, delighted to be free of his tutors, called on Signora Bianchi, who was hard at work on Tonio's costumes, then hung about with those men working on the backstage machines. In the crowded coffeehouses, he moped about as if he were looking for someone as long as he could.
And when he at last returned, he was red-faced with anger and on the verge of tears.
Tonio did not see him as he came in.
He was engrossed in a letter from Catrina Lisani in which she told him that many Venetians had already left for the Eternal City with no other object than to see him on stage. "The curious will come," she wrote, "and those who remember you with great love."
This gave him a mild and thoroughly unpleasant shock. He was living in daily terror of the opening night; sometimes that terror was delicious and exhilarating. Other times it was torture. And now to learn that his countrymen were coming to see it as if it were a spectacle at carnival caused a coldness to creep over him even as he warmed himself by the fire.
Also, it surprised him. He tended to think of himself as having been extracted from the Venetian world as surely as if someone had lifted him out of it, the crowds closing indifferently to fill the space where he had been. And to hear that people were talking there of the opera, talking a great deal of it, gave him an odd feeling that he could not define.
Of course they were talking because Catrina's husband, old Senator Lisani, had once again tried to have the decree of banishment against Tonio revoked. The government had only confirmed its earlier judgment: Tonio could never again enter the Veneto under pain of death.
But it was the last part of Catrina's letter that cut rather abruptly to his heart.
His mother had begged to come to Rome. From the first moment she had heard of his engagement at the Teatro Argentina, she had begged to make the journey on her own. Carlo had adamantly refused, and Marianna was now ill and confined to her rooms.
"There is some truth in this matter of illness," wrote Catrina, "but I trust you know it is illness of the soul. And for all your brother's weaknesses, he has been most attentive to her; this is the first real rift between man and wife."
He put the letter aside.
Paolo was waiting for him, and he knew that Paolo needed him now. Something had frightened Paolo. But for the moment he was almost powerless to speak.
She had wanted to come! Never, never had he expected thi
s, and it was as if a thin membrane that separated his two lives had suddenly been broken; and a soft, eerie, intoxicating sense of her was seeping through. Never in all these years had he felt such an abrupt and total awareness of her presence, the perfume of her skin, even the texture of her hair. It was as if she were at his shoulder weeping, angry, and struggling to embrace him.
His feelings were so violent and so unusual to him that he found himself on his feet before he realized it and moving across the room.
"Tonio!" Paolo tugged at him. "You don't know what they're saying in the cares, Tonio, it's dreadful...."
"Shhh, not now," he whispered. But even as he spoke the membrane was healing itself, separating her from him, putting her with all her love and misery far, far away from him in that other life that he no longer lived. What if he were some simple singer, long separated from her? What would it have meant to know she wanted to be here?
"You're a fool," he whispered. "All they have to do is reach out for you, and you bare your heart."
He drew himself up and turning back, he took Paolo by the shoulders, and then lifted his chin.
"What is it? Tell me. It couldn't have been all that bad."
"Tonio, you don't know what they're saying. They think Bettichino is the greatest singer in Europe. They say it's an outrage you should appear on the same stage."
"Paolo, they always say things like that," Tonio said softly, soothingly. He took out his handkerchief and wiped at Paolo's face.
"No, but Tonio, they say you're a nothing from nowhere, it's all a lie about your being a highborn Venetian. They're saying you were hired for your looks. They called Farinelli il ragazzo--the boy--when he started. And they're saying you'll be called la ragazzina--the girl. And if the girl can't sing, they'll get up a dowry for you so you can be shut up in a proper convent where no one has to listen to your voice."
Tonio started laughing in spite of himself.
"Paolo, that's nonsense," he said.
"But Tonio, you should hear them."
"All it means," Tonio said, brushing Paolo's hair out of his eyes, "is that the theater will be packed on opening night."
"No, no, Tonio, they won't listen to you. That's what Signora Bianchi is afraid of. They'll shriek and howl and stamp their feet. They're not going to give you a chance."
"We'll see about that," Tonio whispered. Though he wondered if Paolo could see him turning pale. He felt certain he was slightly pale.
"Tonio, what are we going to do? Signora Bianchi says when they're in a mood like this they can close the theater down, and it's all Signora Grimaldi's fault, mat's what started it. She came to town and said you sang better than Farinelli. That's what made them say all that about Farinelli."
"Signora Grimaldi?" Tonio said in a small voice. "But who is Signora Grimaldi?"
"Tonio, you know who she is, she's mad for you. She was always in the front row in Naples when you sang. And now she's got them all stirred up. Last night, she told everyone at the English ambassador's that you were the greatest since Farinelli, and that she'd heard Farinelli in London. You know what the Romans are saying, who is an Englishwoman to tell them."
"Paolo, stop for a moment. Who is she? What does she look like?"
"Oh, blond hair, messy hair, you know, Tonio. She's the one who was married to the Contessa's cousin, and now she's rich and all she does is paint...."
Tonio underwent such a change that Paolo was silent for a moment.
"Tonio!" Paolo tugged at his hand. "They were bad before she came, but now they're impossible. Signora Bianchi says a crowd like that can shut the theater down."
"She's in Rome...." Tonio whispered.
"Yes, she's in Rome. I wish she were in London," Paolo declared. "And she's with Maestro Guido right now."
Tonio's eyes shifted to Paolo at once.
"What do you mean, she's with Guido?"
"They're at the Contessa's villa. She's getting settled." Paolo shrugged. "Tonio, what are we going to do?"
"Stop being so foolish," Tonio murmured. "This isn't her fault. Everyone's excited about the opera, that's all. If they weren't saying this, they'd be..."
Tonio turned abruptly and reached for his coat. He adjusted the lace at his throat and went to the armoire for his sword.
"Where are you going, Tonio?" Paolo demanded. "Tonio, what are we going to do?"
"Paolo, Bettichino will never let them shut down the opera," Tonio said confidently. "If he did, he'd be out of work."
It was late afternoon when he arrived at the Contessa's villa just south of Rome.
The gardeners were all about with their clippers fashioning evergreen shrubbery into birds, lions, and deer. The lawns lay green and immaculate under the receding sun, and the fountains played everywhere in rectangles of clipped grass, in the middle of pathways, under colonnades of small, perfectly round trees.
Tonio wandered into the newly papered music room and saw the shape of the harpsichord under a snow-white sheet.
He stood stock-still for a moment, staring at the floor, and was about to leave the room as rapidly and purposefully as he had entered it when an old porter shuffled forward, his hands clasped behind his back.
"The Contessa has not come yet, Signore," said the old man, his words whistling between his dry lips. "Any day now, any day."
Tonio was about to murmur something about Guido when he saw an immense canvas on the far wall. All its colors were familiar to him, its tiny figures, nymphs dancing in a circle, their scant clothing transparent and seemingly soft to the touch.
Without meaning to, he was wandering towards it when behind him he heard the old man mutter faintly:
"Ah, the young Signora, she is here, Signore."
Tonio turned around.
"She will be back any time now, Signore. She went with Maestro Guido to the Piazza di Spagna this afternoon."
"Where in the Piazza di Spagna?" he asked.
A smile broke in the old man's wrinkled face. He rocked on the balls of his feet again, never once breaking the clasp of his hands.
"Why, to the young Signora's studio, Signore," he said. "She is a painter, a very great painter," and there was a slight mockery in his tone, but it was so soft and general it might have been directed to the entire world.
"She has a studio there...." It was more a statement than a question. Tonio looked again to the circle of nymphs on the wall.
"Ah, but see, Signore, she is coming now, with Maestro Guido," the old man said and for the first time gestured with his right hand.
They were on the garden path.
She had her hand on Guido's arm. And she carried a portfolio, thick and heavy, though not as large as the one Guido carried for her on his right. Her dress was flowered linen, flashing brightly from beneath her light wool cape, and the hood was thrown back to let the breeze play with her hair. She was talking to Guido. She was laughing, and Guido, his eyes down as he guided her along the path, was smiling and nodding his head.
Tonio sensed an informality between them. They knew each other. They were talking earnestly of some subject, as if they had known each other for a long time.
He was not even breathing when they came into the room.
"Well, do I believe my eyes?" Guido said ironically. "It's young Tonio Treschi, the famous and mysterious Tonio Treschi, who will soon astonish all Rome."
Tonio stared at him stupidly without saying a word. It seemed the girl's soft laughter filled the air.
"Signore Treschi." She made a little curtsy very quickly, and said with a lovely lilting inflection, "How marvelous that you should be here."
There was a great animation in her, her eyes crinkled and full of light, the flowered dress adding somehow to the impression of lightness and motion that she created as she merely stood quite still.
"I have something to show you, Tonio," Guido was saying. He'd taken the heavy portfolio and put it down on the harpsichord. "Christina just finished it this afternoon."
"Oh, but it isn
't finished," she protested.
Guido was lifting a large pastel sketch.
"Christina?" Tonio said. His voice sounded harsh to him, and partially strangled. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She was absolutely radiant from the outdoors. Her cheeks were flushed, and though her smile faltered for an instant, she immediately regained it.
"Oh, but forgive me," Guido said easily. "Christina, I thought surely you and Tonio had met."
"Oh, we have, really, haven't we, Signore Treschi?" she said quickly. And coming forward, she offered her hand.
He stared down at it, conscious that her fingers were enclosed in his fingers, and that her flesh was ineffably soft. It was a hand like a doll's hand, too tiny; one couldn't imagine it doing anything serious whatsoever. But he realized with a start he was standing as still as a statue and that both of them were staring at him. He bent to kiss her hand at once.
Yet he didn't really mean to touch it with his lips. And she must have seen this, for at the right moment, she lifted her hand just a little and received his kiss.
He glanced up at her. She looked unspeakably vulnerable suddenly. She was peering at him as if they were at a great distance and she had a great deal of time.
"Look at this, Tonio," Guido said with an easy manner as if he sensed nothing amiss. He was holding up a pastel portrait of himself.
It was an excellent study; Guido was alive in it; there was his brooding, even that glint of menace in his eyes. She hadn't spared his squashed nose or the fullness of his mouth, and yet she had caught the essence of him, which transformed the whole.
"Tonio," Guido coaxed, "tell me what you think!"
"Perhaps you could sit for me, Signore Treschi," she said quickly. "I'd like so to paint you. In truth, I have painted you," she said almost bashfully, her cheeks coloring slightly, "but only from memory and I would so much like to do a real portrait of you with care."
"Accept the offer," Guido said matter-of-factly, leaning his elbow on the draped harpsichord. "In a month, Christina will be the most popular portraitist in Rome. You'll have to make an appointment and wait your turn like an ordinary mortal, if you don't."
"Oh, you'd never have to wait your turn." She laughed almost gaily, and it seemed she was full of movement suddenly, her blond curls wispy and light in the air that stirred invisibly in the room. "But you could come tomorrow, perhaps," she said earnestly. "I'm so anxious to get started." Her eyes were darkly blue, almost violet, and so lovely! Beyond words. In his life he'd never seen dark blue eyes like that.