"But Mamma, I thought I saw..."
"Will you stop it!" she screamed suddenly. Lena moved back, startled, but he did not move.
"Take that look off your face," she said, the voice still high in pitch, and her hands on her own ears as if to blunt the sound of it. She started to gasp, and it seemed the taut flesh of her face was being cruelly twisted.
"No, don't...don't," he whispered. He stroked her hair, patted her until she gave a deep breath and seemed to become limp. Then looking up at him, she made that smile again, glittering and beautiful and frightening him. But it lasted only a moment. Her eyes were wet.
"Tonio, I've done nothing wrong," she pleaded as if she were only his younger sister. "Don't you dare spoil it all for me, you can't do it. All these years, only once in my life before have I ever been out in it. Don't you, don't you..."
"Mamma!" He held her face against his coat. "I'm sorry."
As soon as they stepped into the box Tonio knew he would not be able to hear anything.
It was no surprise. He'd heard enough stories of what went on, and he knew that with three different performances tonight, there would be a constant shifting among the theaters. Catrina Lisani, in a white satin mask, was already seated with her back to the stage, at a hand of cards with her nephew Vincenzo. The young Lisani were waving and hissing to those below, and the old senator, Catrina's husband, dozed in his gilded chair, waking suddenly to grumble that he wanted his supper.
"Come here, Alessandro," said Catrina, "and tell me if all this is true about Caffarelli." She dissolved into laughter before Alessandro could kiss her hand. But she motioned for Marianna to sit beside her.
"And you, my dear, do you know what it means to me to see you here at last, having some fun, behaving as if you were human?"
"I am all too human," Marianna whispered. There was something irresistibly girlish in the way she almost snuggled to Catrina. That anyone could be mean to her, that he could be mean to her, seemed impossible to Tonio. He felt like crying suddenly; he felt like singing.
"Play, play," said Vincenzo.
"I don't see why," said the old senator, who was much younger than Andrea, "I must wait for all that music to start before I have my supper."
Liveried servants moved in and out offering crystal glasses of wine. The old senator spilled a red stain on his lace ruff and stared down at it helplessly. He had been a handsome man and was impressive still, his gray hair growing in tight waves back from his temples. He had eyes of jet black and a hook of a nose of which he seemed proud when he lifted his head. But now he looked like a baby.
Tonio stepped to the front. The parterre was already jammed and so were the three tiers above him.
Masks everywhere from the gondoliers in the pit to the sober merchants high above with their wives in such proper black, the hum and tinkle of talk and drink seeming to rise in waves of no discernible rhythm.
"Tonio, you're too young for this," Catrina said over her shoulder. "But let me tell you about Caffarelli...." He did not look at her because he did not wish to see that deliciously animalian slit of her mouth, naked and red, beneath the white mask that made her eyes look so feline. Her arms in her burgundy satin appeared so soft he gritted his teeth with a little vision of himself squeezing them mercilessly.
But he listened intently to all this foolishness about the great castrato who was to sing tonight, that he had been discovered by his mistress' husband while in bed with her in Rome. In bed, Catrina said. His face smarted to think of his mother and Alessandro listening to this! And forced to flee, Caffarelli spent a damp night hiding in a cistern. For days after that, the man's bravos pursued him everywhere, but the lady gave Caffarelli bravos of his own who followed him all around until he threw everything up and left the city.
Andrea's words came back to Tonio in a confusion, something about the world, being tested by the world. The world...But he could keep his mind on nothing now but Caffarelli. He was going to hear a great castrato for the first time in his life, and all else could wait, for all he cared, and it was beyond him anyway.
"They say he'll fight with everyone before he's finished, and if the prima donna's pretty he won't leave her alone for a second. Alessandro, is it all true?"
"Signora, you know a great deal more than I do," Alessandro laughed.
"Well, I'll give him five minutes," said Vincenzo, "and if he hasn't captured my heart or my ear, I'm off to the San Moise."
"Don't be ridiculous, everyone is here tonight," said Catrina. "This is the place, and besides, it's raining."
Tonio turned his chair around, straddling it, as he looked at the distant curtained stage. He could hear his mother laughing. The old senator had said they should all go home and hear her sing a little song with Tonio. Then he could have his supper. "You will sing for me soon, my dear, won't you?"
"Sometimes I think I married a stomach," said Catrina. "Bet your clothes piece by piece, then," she said to Vincenzo. "Start with that vest; no, the shirt. I like the shirt."
Meantime a fight had broken out in the rear of the house below. There was shouting and stomping, and quickly everything was restored to order. Beautiful girls moved through the chairs hawking wine and other refreshments.
Alessandro rose up against the wall of the box like a shadow behind Tonio.
And just then the musicians began to appear, slipping into their padded chairs with a great fidgeting of lamps and rustling of papers. In fact, librettos were being thumbed everywhere; there had been a brisk sale of them in the lobby.
And when the young unknown composer of the opera stepped to the front, there were loyal cheers from up above and a rash of clapping.
It seemed the lights dimmed, but not enough. Tonio rested his chin on his hands against the back of the chair. The composer's wig didn't fit and neither did his heavy brocade coat and he was miserably nervous.
Alessandro made a disapproving sound.
The composer flopped awkwardly at the harpsichord. The musicians raised their bows, and suddenly the house was filled with a rush of festive music.
It was lovely, light, full of celebration with nothing of tragedy or foreboding, and Tonio felt an immediate enchantment. He bent forward as the crowd chattered and laughed behind him. Just where the balcony curved, the Lemmo family was already at dinner, steam rising from the silver plates before them. An angry Englishman hissed in vain for silence.
But when the curtain rose there were oooh's and aaah's from everywhere. Gilded porticoes and arches rose against an infinite backdrop of blue sky in which the stars twinkled magically. Clouds passed over the stars, and the music, rising in the sudden silence, seemed to reach the rafters. The composer was pounding away, his powdered curls flopping all of a piece, as grandly dressed women and men appeared on the stage to engage in the stiff but necessary recitative that began the opera's all too familiar and utterly preposterous story. Someone was in disguise, someone else kidnapped, abused. Someone would go mad. There would be a battle with a bear and a sea monster before the heroine found her way back to her husband who thought she was dead, and someone's twin brother would be blessed by the gods for vanquishing the enemy.
Tonio would memorize the libretto later. He didn't care right now. What maddened him was his mother's laughter and the sudden cries of the Lemmo family, who had just been presented with an elaborate broiled fish.
"Excuse me." He pushed past Alessandro.
"But where are you going?" Alessandro's large hand folded easily and warmly over Tonio's wrist.
"Downstairs, I must hear Caffarelli. Stay with my mother, don't let her out of your sight."
"But, Excellency..."
"Tonio." Tonio smiled. "Alessandro, I beg you, I swear on my honor, I will go no farther than the parterre, you can see me from here. I must hear Caffarelli!"
Not all of the chairs were taken. Midway through the performance many more gondoliers would come, admitted free, and then it would be mayhem. But now he was easily able to get close to the
stage, pushing through the rougher, cruder crowd until he sat only a few feet from the raging, storming orchestra.
Now all he could hear was the music and he was ecstatic.
And at that moment there appeared on the stage the tall, stately figure of the great Caffarelli.
This pupil of Porpora was definitely claimed by some to be the greatest singer in the world, and as he advanced to the footlights in his enormous white wig and flowing carmine cape, he appeared a god rather than the great king whose part he played in the performance. Delicately handsome, he allowed all eyes to drink him in. Then he threw back his head. He commenced to sing, and at the first immense swelling note the theater fell silent.
Tonio gasped. The gondoliers beside him let out soft moans and cries of pleasant astonishment.
The note swelled and soared as if even the castrato himself could not stop it And then bringing it to a close, he rushed into the body of the aria, without seeming to pause for breath as the orchestra raced to catch up with him.
It was a voice beyond belief, not shrill but somehow violent. In fact, the castrato's almost exquisite face seemed quite disfigured with rage before he had finished.
It was a face that had been painted, powdered, rendered as civilized as anyone could imagine in its frame of white curls and yet those eyes smoldered as he strode back and forth now, bowing indifferently to those who waved and clapped and nodded from the boxes, glancing to the pit, and now and then to the higher tiers as if with some remote calculations.
But the prima donna had commenced to sing, and it seemed the opera was falling apart around her. Or was it simply that now Tonio could see all the commotion in the wings, ladies with brushes and combs, a servant who darted out now to puff more white powder on Caffarelli.
Yet the prima donna's thin little voice continued bravely over the continuo of the composer at the harpsichord. And Caffarelli stood in front of her, his back to her, as if she didn't exist, affected a yawn in fact, and the hum of conversation rose again, a dull wave taking the edges off the music.
Meanwhile around Tonio all the real judges of the performance gave off their coarsely stated but very shrewd estimations. Caffarelli's high notes weren't so good tonight; the prima donna was dreadful. A girl offered Tonio a cup of red wine, and feeling for his coins, he glanced at her masked face and thought surely this was Bettina! But when he thought of his father, and the trust he'd been so lately given, he dropped his eyes, flushing deeply.
Caffarelli again stepped to the footlights. He tossed back the red cape. He was glaring at the first tier. And then came that magnificent first note again, swelling, throbbing. Tonio could see the sweat glistening on his face, his immense chest expanding beneath the glittering metal of his Grecian armor. The harpsichord faltered. There was confusion in the strings.
Caffarelli was not singing the right music. But he was singing something that sounded immediately familiar. Suddenly Tonio realized--just as everyone did--that he was recreating the prima donna's aria which had just finished, and making merciless fun of her. The strings tried to fall in, the composer was dumbfounded. Meantime Caffarelli crooned the notes, he ran up and down her trills with such appalling ease that he made her gifts utterly meaningless.
Mocking her long swelling notes, he pushed with monstrous power into the ridiculous. The girl had burst into tears but she did not leave the stage, and the other players were crimson with confusion.
Hisses sounded from the gallery, then shouts and catcalls from everywhere. The lady's supporters began to stomp their feet, shaking their fists wildly, but the supporters of the castrato were rocking with laughter.
At last having the full attention of every man, woman, and child in the house, Caffarelli ended this burlesque with a flat and nasal parody of the prima donna's tender little close, and commenced his own aria di bravura with a volume that was annihilating.
Tonio slumped in his chair, a smile spreading over his face.
So this was it, and it was all that everyone had ever said it would be, a human instrument so powerful and perfectly tuned that it rendered all else feeble in comparison.
Applause rang out from every recess of the house as the singer finished. Bravos roared from top to bottom. The loyal champions of the girl attempted to combat the swell but it soon vanquished them all.
And all around Tonio, there rose those hoarse and violent cries of praise:
"Evviva il coltello!"
Evviva il coltello, he was shouting it too. "Long live the knife" that had made this man into a castrato, carving out the manhood so as to preserve forever this glorious soprano.
He was dazed afterwards; it hardly mattered that Marianna was too tired to go to the Palazzo Lisani. Let these splendors come one at a time. This night would live in him forever; his head would teem with Caffarelli in his dreams.
And it would have been perfect, all of it were it not for the fact that just as they were pushing their way through the doors, he had heard behind him the words, "...just like Carlo," spoken crisply and clearly at his ear. He turned; he saw too many faces, and then he realized it was Catrina talking to the old senator, who said now, "Yes, yes, my dear nephew, just saying you look so much like your brother."
16
EVERY NIGHT for the remainder of the carnival Tonio went back to see Caffarelli to the exclusion of every other temptation.
One opera played each house in Venice over and over for the entire season, but nothing could lure him off to witness even a part of the performances elsewhere. And the bulk of society returned here again and again, to witness the same witchcraft that held Tonio captive.
No aria was ever performed by Caffarelli in exactly the same way twice, and his boredom between these sterling moments seemed something more desperate than a mere pose to irritate others.
There was a dark quality to his eternal restlessness. A despair underlay his continuous invention.
And over and over by sheer personal power, he created this miracle:
He stepped to the footlights, he threw out his arms, he took over the house, and murdering the score of the composer, confounding the players who hastened after him, he created, alone and without the help of anyone, a music that was in fact the heart and soul of the opera.
And damn him as they might, all knew that without him it might have come to nothing.
The composer was often frantic when the final curtain came down. And Tonio often hung in the shadows to hear him cursing, "You don't sing what I've written, you pay no attention to what I've written."
"Then write what I sing!" snarled the Neapolitan. And once Caffarelli drew his sword and actually chased the composer towards the doors.
"Stop him, stop him or I'll kill him!" shouted the composer, running backwards up the aisle. But everyone could see he was terrified.
Caffarelli howled with contemptuous laughter.
He was a vision of outrage as he pushed the tip of his rapier into the composer's buttons, nothing but his beardless face marking him the eunuch.
But all knew, even the young man, that Caffarelli made the opera what it was.
Caffarelli pursued women all over Venice. He drifted in and out of the Palazzo Lisani at all hours to chat with the patricians who hastened to pour him wine or fetch him a chair, and Tonio, ever near, worshiped him. He smiled to see the flush in his mother's cheeks as she too followed Caffarelli with her eyes.
But then she was having such a marvelous time, he loved to watch her, too. No longer keeping to the corners, her eyes sharp with suspicion, she was now even dancing with Alessandro.
And Tonio, taking his own position in the majestic chain of brilliantly dressed men and women that spanned the Grand Salon of the Casa Lisani, went through the precise steps of the minuets, thrilled by the vision of ruffled breasts, exquisite arms, cheeks that looked as soft as kittens' fur. Glasses of champagne on silver trays sailed through the air.
French wine, French perfume, French fashion.
Of course everyone adored Ale
ssandro. He seemed simplicity itself in his fine clothes, and yet so grand and so full of grace that Tonio felt an immense love for him.
Late at night they talked together alone.
"I fear you'll find our house dreary after a while," Tonio had said once.
"Excellency!" Alessandro laughed. "I did not grow up in a magnificent palazzo." His eyes had swept the lofty ceilings of his new room, the heavy green curtains of the bed, the carved desk, and the new harpsichord. "Perhaps if I'm here a hundred years, I will begin to find it dreary."
"I want you here forever, Alessandro," Tonio had said.
And in a quiet moment he had some inarticulate and wondrous sense of how this man, beneath all the hammered gold of San Marco, had spent his life striving for perfection. No wonder he possessed such unobtrusive seriousness, such soft sureness of self; he reflected the wealth and breeding and beauty that had always surrounded him.
Why shouldn't he move through Catrina's salon with an easy elegance?
But what did they really think of him, Tonio wondered. What did they think of Caffarelli? And why was it so tantalizing for Tonio to conceive of Caffarelli in bed with any of the women who hung about him? It seemed he need only beckon in order to be followed.
But it was fast occurring to Tonio, What would I do with any of them, because there were quite enough who gave inviting looks to him over their lace fans. And in the pit of the theater he'd smelled the sweet aroma of a thousand Bettinas.
Time, Tonio, time, he said to himself. He would have died before he would have failed his father. All before him flashed and glimmered in the magic light of new responsibility and new knowledge. And at night, he knelt down before the Madonna in his room and prayed: "Please, please, don't let it all come to an end. Let it go on forever."
But the summer was almost here. The heat was already stifling. The carnival would soon collapse like a house of cards, and then would begin the villeggiatura, with all the great families retiring to their villas on the Brenta River. No one wanted to be near the stench of the canals, the never-ending swarm of gnats.