Cry to Heaven

  It was almost an hour later that Tonio, fully dressed, emerged from the palazzo. The air was bracing and clean, and he walked the few narrow streets that separated his house from that mentioned in Alessandro's note.

  And when the door of Alessandro's room opened and Tonio lifted his eyes to that familiar face, he felt himself shaken as he had seldom been in his life. He had never felt so cold, so small suddenly, standing in that empty passage, though he had long ago met Alessandro's height.

  Then he felt Alessandro take hold of him, and for the first time since he had left Naples, he was near to tears.

  He stood very still, the tears stinging him slightly, but never breaking loose, and it seemed a wave of pain silently inundated him. It was Venice in this room, Venice with its tangled alleyways, and those immense rooms that had once been all of Venice for so many years. And when all of this fell away in an instant, it left him naked, monstrous, humiliated.

  Tonio forged the gentlest, slowest smile. And as Alessandro placed him silently in a chair, he watched that old languid grace with which Alessandro seated himself opposite, and reached for the decanter of red wine.

  He filled the glass beside Tonio. And together they drank.

  But they did not speak.

  Little had changed in Alessandro. Even the delicate mass of lines that threatened the surface of his skin was precisely as it had been before, merely a veil through which one could see the timeless radiance perfectly.

  He wore a dressing gown of gray wool, with his chestnut hair loose on his shoulders. And every movement of his delicate hands brought back with it a wealth of muted and agonizing impressions.

  "I'm so grateful that you came," Alessandro said. "Catrina made me swear that I would not approach you."

  Tonio nodded respect for that. God knows he'd told Catrina enough times that he would see no one from Venice.

  "I had a purpose in coming to you," Tonio answered, but it was as if it were someone else's voice. He himself was locked silently inside and wondering: What is it you see when you look at me? Do you see these long arms, this height already stretching itself towards the grotesque? Do you see--? He could not continue.

  Alessandro was giving him his most respectful attention.

  "It wasn't only love that brought me," Tonio went on, "though love would have been enough. And that I must know how it is with you. I could have suffered the loss of all that, with never seeing you. I must admit it. Because I would have saved myself so much pain."

  Alessandro nodded. "What, then?" he asked compliantly. "Tell me. What can I tell you? What can I do?"

  "You must never tell anyone that I asked you this, but are the bravos of my brother, Carlo, the same men who served him when I was last in Venice?"

  Alessandro said nothing for a moment. Then he answered. "Those men disappeared after you left. The inquisitors of state searched everywhere for them. There are other men in his employ now, dangerous men...."

  Tonio nodded. But he showed no expression.

  It was, very simply, as he had hoped. They had fled for their lives. Italy had swallowed them. Someday, somewhere, perhaps, he would catch a glimpse of those faces, and he would take the opportunity when it arose. But they were not important to him. It was not inconceivable that Carlo had found a way to silence them forever.

  And it was only Carlo who awaited him now.

  "What else can I tell you?" asked Alessandro.

  After a pause, Tonio said:

  "My mother. Catrina wrote that she was ill."

  "She is ill, Tonio, very ill," Alessandro said. "Two children in three years, and the loss most recently of yet another."

  Tonio sighed and shook his head.

  "Your brother is as unrestrained and imprudent in this as in so much else. But it is her old illness, Tonio"--Alessandro's voice dropped to a whisper--"as much as anything else. You know the nature of it."

  Tonio looked away, his head slightly bowed.

  After a long pause he asked, "But did he not make her happy!" His tone was softly desperate.

  "As happy as anyone could, for a while," Alessandro said. He studied Tonio. It seemed he was weighing both sides of a question.

  "She weeps for you, Tonio," he said. "She has never stopped weeping. And when she learned you would perform in Rome, it became her obsession to see you. It is one of my solemn charges that I must bring her the score of the work and as detailed an account of all I saw as I can possibly remember." He smiled faintly. "She loves you, Tonio," he said. And then, his voice dropping so low it was all but inaudible, he said, "Hers is an impossible position."

  Tonio absorbed these words silently, without looking at Alessandro.

  When he did speak, his voice was strained and unnatural.

  "And my brother?" he asked. "Is he faithful to her?"

  "It seems he must have as much of life as if he were four men," Alessandro said.

  Alessandro's face hardened. "He has done marvelously well in public life, but for his insatiable desires few men admire him privately."

  "Does she know?"

  "I do not think that she does," Alessandro said. "He is very attentive to her. But of women he cannot get enough, nor of gambling, nor drinking...."

  "But these women," Tonio said, his voice a monotone, his fingers touching Alessandro's hand for emphasis, "tell me about them, what sort are they?"

  Alessandro was obviously puzzled by the question. He hadn't considered it before. "All sorts." He shrugged. "The best of the courtesans, surely, wives who are bored, girls even now and then, if they are especially pretty and easily corruptible. I think it matters only that they be pretty and that there be no scandal attached to it."

  He studied Tonio's face, apparently trying to divine the importance of this to Tonio.

  "But he is ever wise and discreet. And to your mother the sun and moon, so small is her world. But he cannot give her the one thing she wants, which is...her son Tonio."

  Alessandro's face grew pensive and sad.

  "She loves him still," Tonio whispered.

  "Yes," Alessandro said, "but when had she the slightest will of her own? And I tell you there were times in the past months when she would have left her house on foot to come to you had they not restrained her."

  Tonio shook his head; he was suddenly spending himself in a series of little movements as if he could not contain all of this, and did not want to give way to tears, but could not help it. Finally, he settled back in the chair and drank the wine Alessandro had offered him.

  When he looked up, his eyes were reddened and vacant and very tired. With his open hand he made a gesture of helplessness.

  Alessandro was watching him, and impulsively he reached out and clasped Tonio's shoulder.

  "Listen to me," he said. "He is too well guarded! Day and night, inside his house and out of it, four bravos follow him."

  Tonio nodded with a bitter twist of a smile. "I know...." he whispered.

  "Tonio, to send someone against him might only mean failure, and it would arouse his fear. And there is too much talk of you in Venice now already. There will be more talk after last night's performance. Go out of Italy, Tonio, bide your time."

  Again, Tonio gave a slight bitter smile.

  "Then you never believed it?" he asked softly.

  Alessandro's face became so violent in an instant he seemed not himself. He winced, and his mouth lengthened in a sneer. In a tone full of dark irony, he said: "How can you ask?" Then he drew very close to Tonio. "If I could I would kill him myself."

  "No," Tonio whispered, shaking his head. "Leave him to me, Alessandro."

  Alessandro sat back. He looked into his wine, and moving the cup ever so slightly to make it swirl, he lifted it to drink. Then he said: "Give it time, Tonio, give it time, and for the love of God, be careful! Don't give him your life. He has taken too much already."

  Tonio smiled again and taking Alessandro's hand, he crushed it softly to comfort him.

  "I'm there," Alessandro said, "wh
enever you need me."

  A long silence fell between them and it was easy and simple as though they had so long been friends that nothing need be said. For a while, Tonio seemed lost in his memories.

  Finally, his face brightened and softened, and some glimmer of well-being returned to him.

  "Now," he said, "I want to know how you are, and how it's been with you. Are you still singing at San Marco? And tell me, last night were you proud of your old pupil?"

  It was an hour later that he rose to go. The tears came back, and he wanted the embrace to be quick.

  But it seemed as their eyes met for the last time, all of Tonio's past thoughts about this one he so loved were revealed to him, the innocent superiority of that boy who had thought Alessandro less than a man, and all the suffering heaped upon those old considerations--all of this visited Tonio as he stood in the door.

  And he realized the full measure of what lay unspoken between them, that both were of the same ilk, but neither for the world would say so.

  "We'll meet again," Tonio whispered, unsure of his voice. And very unsure of the words he'd just spoken, too, he slipped his arms around Alessandro and held onto him just for an instant before turning and hurrying away.

  It was almost noon. He would have to sleep, and yet he could not. And walking on past the Cardinal's house as if he did not even recognize the gates, he found himself finally in one of those many Roman churches he didn't know, full of shadows and the scent and light of hundreds of candles.

  Painted saints peered down on him from gilded shrines, black-dressed women moving silently towards the distant crib where the Baby Jesus opened His arms.

  And wandering the alcoves, Tonio saw a saint he'd never known. And in the shadows before the little altar he went down on his knees, and then stretched out full length on the stones, burying his face in his arms as he cried and cried, unable to stop himself even for those gentle Roman women who knelt beside him again and again to whisper some small comfort.

  17

  FOR THE NEXT WEEK, Guido and Tonio lived and breathed opera as never before. All day they went over the "mistakes" and the weaknesses of the previous night's performance, Guido scribbling changes in accompaniment and giving Tonio a refinement of instruction never possible in the past. Signora Bianchi ripped stitches, adjusted panniers, sewed on new lace and paste jewels. Paolo was ever ready for the slightest errand.

  Bettichino outdid himself with trills and high notes while Tonio bested his every trick. In the duets, their voices created a singular loveliness unrivaled in the memory of those who heard them, and the theater, silenced over and over by these flashes of brilliance, quickly erupted in shouts and Bravos. A thunderous applause followed every curtain.

  Society congregated without cease in the first and second tiers. Foreigners swelled the card games and suppers, and every performance was sold out before Ruggerio even opened the doors.

  Each night Guido struggled through the backstage corridors, pushed and shoved by the crowd, agents at his elbow with offers for seasons in Dresden, Naples, Madrid.

  Flowers were brought in, snuffboxes, letters tied with ribbon. Coachmen were waiting for answers. The glum Count di Stefano nodded once again patiently when a firm Maestro insisted Tonio was not yet free for the social whirlwind.

  Finally, after the seventh successful performance, Guido sat down in the cluttered dressing room with Signora Bianchi to make a list of those invitations that Tonio must accept first.

  For now, he could see Count Raffaele di Stefano any time he wanted. He could go tonight.

  Guido had no doubts any longer. His pupil had passed every conceivable test. He had offers from some of the best opera houses in the world. And for the first time, Guido accepted Ruggerio's assurance that the opera would run through the carnival.

  But Guido, tired as he was, had not fully felt his exultation until early the following morning when he awoke to see Tonio by his bed, gazing out of the open window.

  Count di Stefano had taken Tonio away that evening almost by force. They'd quarreled, made it up, and driven off. And though di Stefano's devotion alarmed Guido somewhat, he had also found it amusing.

  He, himself, free of the Contessa, who had gone back to Naples, had spent a delicious four hours with a young dark-skinned eunuch from Palermo. The boy--Marcello was his name--sang well enough for small parts, Guido had told him that frankly.

  And then it was lovemaking of the slowest, most rapturous and delicate sort, the young one a master of every sensuous secret. His skin had smelt like warm bread, and he'd been one of those few eunuchs with plump little breasts as delectable and succulent as those of a woman.

  He'd been grateful afterwards for the few coins Guido pressed in his hands. And begging to be allowed backstage, had promised to buy a new frock coat with the money Guido gave him.

  Guido, realizing these delightful encounters awaited him nightly, was trying to take it in stride and think like a human being.

  Now it was almost dawn and a cold wintry light filled the room like a vapor as Tonio turned and approached him.

  Guido rubbed his eyes. It seemed to him Tonio was covered with tiny pinpoints of light. He realized that these were droplets of rain, yet Tonio seemed an apparition, the light sparkling on his gold velvet coat, on the white ruffles at his collar, and on his softly mussed black hair. When he sat beside Guido, he appeared full of a shimmering energy as if he had not slept the entire night.

  Guido sat up and put out his arms. He felt Tonio's lips brush his forehead, and then his eyelids, and then that close, utterly familiar embrace.

  Tonio seemed splendid and almost miraculous to him in this moment, and then Guido heard him say in a low voice:

  "We've done it, haven't we, Guido? We've done it!"

  Guido sat silently looking at Tonio, a delicious air washing over him from the open window. It was full of the scent of rain. And an odd thought came to him, random, beautiful, that the winter wind smelled as fresh suddenly as if he were far, far away from the decay of the city, in the open hills of Calabria where he had been born.

  But in the grip of this moment, with all of his life before him, the past, the future, he could not speak. He had worked so hard, he was so tired. And his mind was too unaccustomed to such happiness.

  Yet he knew he was answering Tonio with his eyes.

  "We can do it now, can't we?" came Tonio's low whisper. "We can make a life for ourselves if we want it. It's all there."

  "If we want it? If, Tonio?" Guido said.

  The room was so cold. Guido found himself looking past Tonio, at the milky sky. The gray rain clouds appeared substantial and to have their own luminous, almost silver terrain.

  "Why do you say 'if'?" he asked gently.

  Tonio's face had become unspeakably sad.

  But this may have been an illusion because when he looked up at Guido again he smiled.

  His black eyes crinkled at the corners, and there was such a radiance to his expression that Guido found himself feeling an inevitable sorrow: he could never really merge with Tonio and become part of that beauty himself, forever.

  "We're going to Florence next." Guido took both Tonio's hands. "And then who knows where we'll go? Dresden, maybe, maybe even London. We'll go anywhere we want!"

  And he could feel a tremor passing from himself into Tonio. Tonio was nodding, and it seemed this moment was too perfect really to endure. But Guido was silently and completely thankful for it.

  Tonio was now in his own thoughts, and a stillness had settled over him, sealing him off, and what was left to Guido was the vision of his youth and that radiance.

  And Guido realized that as he looked at him he was recalling an image of Tonio he had only lately seen, an image painted exquisitely on porcelain which had given him this same overwhelming and almost mysterious sense of Tonio.

  He was seized with a small excitement. Almost tenderly, which was not usual for him, he kissed Tonio, and then he rose, and placing his feet on the chill
floor, he walked silently across the room and, in the clutter of his desk, found that small porcelain portrait. It was oval in shape, framed in gold filigree, and he could not see it now in the dark. He hesitated, staring at the dim figure on the side of the bed.

  And then he put the picture in Tonio's hands.

  "She gave it to me days ago to give to you," he confessed, and he did not examine the pleasure it gave him now to present this little gift to Tonio.

  Tonio looked at it, his neglected hair falling out of its ribbon so that it veiled his face.

  "She's captured you perfectly, hasn't she? And from memory, completely." Guido shook his head.

  He stared down at the little image, the white face, the black eyes. It was a white flame burning in the center of Tonio's open palm.

  "She'll be angry with me," Guido said, "for having forgotten it."

  But he hadn't forgotten it. He had only waited for a moment such as this when all was quiet and still, for once, and he did not know why it gave him this little satisfaction.

  "And how has it been with her?" Tonio whispered. It had a thin sound to it as though he had drawn in his breath with the words, rather than letting it out. "Living alone in Rome, painting portraits."

  "Oh, she is quite the rage." Guido smiled. "Though lately I think she has been spending much too much time at the opera."

  Guido watched as again Tonio lowered his eyes to the portrait.

  At every curtain call it seemed Tonio looked up to Christina's box and made her a low, graceful bow. And she, bent over the rail, beamed down at him, her hands in a little flurry of clapping.

  "But how is it with her!" Tonio pressed. "Does no one look out for her! Does the Contessa not...? I mean..."

  Guido waited for a moment and then he turned slowly and went to his desk. He sat down, looking off at the window and the sky that was brightening and changing its shape, devoid of stars, yet revealing the sun's first wintry shimmer.

  "Has she no family that cares what she does?" Tonio whispered. "And what would they think if they knew she sent such a gift to a..." But again he broke off, holding the little portrait in both hands now as if it were dreadfully fragile.

  Guido could not help but smile.

  "Tonio," he said softly, "she is an independent young woman, and lives her life as we do ours." And softening his tone even more, he asked, "Must I be the one to give you away again?"