by Anne Rice
And Guido, where was Guido? Surrounded by people, Guido was actually laughing, the little Contessa Lamberti on his arm.
Tonio stopped, took a deep, ungraceful gulp of his white wine, and continued his wandering. More guests streamed in and there was a blast of fresh air from the front doors.
He leaned his shoulder against the fretted edge of a long mirror, and without willing it, realized it had been his last day in Venice when he had seen his future wife, oh, so many things had happened that day, he had lain with Catrina, he had sung in San Marco.
This was dreadful, and how long had he been in Naples? Almost a year!
When he saw Guido beckon, he went to him.
"You see that little man there, the Russian, Count Sherzinski," Guido whispered. "He's a brilliant amateur, and I've written a sonata for him. He may play it later on."
"Why, that's splendid," Tonio whispered. "But why don't you play it?"
"No." Guido shook his head. "Too soon. They've all just discovered I'm something more than..." But he swallowed the words, and Tonio, secretly, slyly, pressed his hand.
More of the conservatorio musicians had just arrived. Guido was moving away, and Piero, the blond-haired Milanese castrato, came up to Tonio at once. "You were marvelous tonight," he said. "You teach us something every time you sing."
From a distance Tonio saw Benedetto, the Maestro's new pupil, who had taken the role originally written for him. Benedetto passed them without a glance.
"It was his night," Tonio said with a resigned gesture, "and Guido's, to be sure."
He had assisted Benedetto with his costume; he had placed the wig of curls and ribbons on his head. How disdainful he had been of those around him; he took no more notice of Tonio than he would of a valet; and he had long, perfectly oval fingernails, each one with its pale half moon at the root. He must have buffed them when he was alone; they shone as if they were lacquered when he was on the stage. Yet there was something hard-bitten and starved-looking about him; the white lace and paste jewels never really transformed him; but he wore it all without the slightest self-consciousness. What would he think, Tonio wondered, if he knew I'd given up the part rather than put on those clothes?
"He was all right; he will always be all right," Piero said now, giving Benedetto a cold, appraising look.
He was drawing Tonio into the billiard room. "I want to talk to you, Tonio," he was saying. From here they could see the open ballroom and the long line of those performing the minuet, though the music was thin here and distorted. At moments, when the conversation roared, it seemed these brilliantly clad men and women danced to nothing.
"It's about Giovanni, Tonio. You know the Maestro wants him to stay on another year, he's determined he should try for the stage, but Giovanni's been offered a position in a Roman choir and he wants to take it. If it was the Pope's chapel, the Maestro would say yes, but as it is, he's turned up his nose at it.... What do you think, Tonio?"
"I don't know," Tonio said. But he did know. Giovanni had never been good enough for the stage, he'd known it the first time he'd heard him sing.
But the girl with the yellow hair had appeared in the frame of the distant archway. Was it that same violet dress she wore? The one she had worn almost a year ago? Her waist seemed so small he might have closed it easily in both his hands, and the swell of her breasts was so flawless and radiant, the flesh there as lovely as the flesh of her cheek. It seemed her eyebrows were not blond as they might have been, but dark, smoky, like the blue of her eyes, and it was what made her so very serious. He could see so clearly her expression, her slight frown, and the slight pout of her lower lip.
"But Tonio, Giovanni wants to go to Rome, that's the worst part of this. Giovanni has never enjoyed the stage, he never will, and he's always loved singing in church. He loved it when he was very little...."
Tonio smiled at this. "But Piero, what can I do?"
"You can tell us what you think, Tonio," he said. "Do you think Giovanni could ever make a life for himself with the opera?"
"Ask Guido, that's what you should do."
"But Tonio, you don't understand. Maestro Guido would never contradict the Maestro di Cappella, and Giovanni really wants to go to Rome. He's nineteen, he's been here long enough, this is the best offer he's ever gotten."
A little pause fell between them. The girl turned, she bowed, she took her partner's hand and proceeded down the row of dancers, her skirts swaying.
Suddenly Piero laughed and touched Tonio in the ribs. "Oh, so it's that one you're after," he whispered.
Tonio flushed. He had to rein in his immediate anger. "Certainly not, I don't even know who she is. I was just admiring her."
He appeared as casual as he could. Motioning to a passing waiter, he took a fresh glass of white wine, holding it to the light as if the sudden wash of liquid against the crystal fascinated him.
"Go flatter her, Tonio, and maybe she'll paint your picture," Piero said. "She'll paint you naked if you let her."
"What are you talking about!" Tonio said sharply.
"She paints naked men." Piero laughed as if he were enjoying this teasing immensely. "Of course they're angels and saints, but they haven't much clothing on. Go look in the Contessa's chapel, if you don't believe me. She painted all the murals over the altar."
"But she's so young!"
"Yes, isn't she!" Piero whispered, smiling broadly. "But what's her name?"
"I don't know, ask the Contessa. She's connected to the Contessa. But why don't you fix your attentions on a nice older lady? Girls like that mean trouble...."
"Well, it doesn't really matter," Tonio said sharply.
A painter. And she painted murals on the walls. The idea shocked him; it tantalized him, giving her a luxurious new substance, and suddenly her negligent air seemed all the more seductive. She seemed concentrated on something beyond her own loveliness, and the protection of it. But she was so pretty! Had Rosalba, the Venetian painter, been so pretty? If so, then why did she paint? But that was moronic. And what did he care if she was the greatest painter in all Italy! Yet it maddened him deliciously, the thought of her with a brush in her hand.
Piero's face seemed suddenly so vulnerable, and Tonio was now looking at him as if he had only just seen him. He'd just begun to understand his words. This matter for Giovanni was crucial. It might determine the course of his life, and Piero was turning to him for a solution. It puzzled Tonio, but it was not the first time the others had come to him.
"Tonio, if you talk to him, he will do what you say." Piero spelled it out. "I think he should go to Rome, but he won't listen to me. He'll be disappointed and humiliated if he keeps trying for a life in the opera."
Tonio nodded. "All right, Piero," he said. "I'll talk to him."
The fair-haired girl had disappeared. The dance had broken up. He couldn't see her anywhere. And then he saw her from a great distance as she proceeded to the door, still on the arm of that elderly gentleman. She's leaving, he thought, and he felt a sharp regret to see her go. Of course it wasn't the same violet dress, just a dress of the same color, and it had such wide skirts, gathered with clusters of little flowers. She must love that color....
But Giovanni, what was he going to tell Giovanni? He would make Giovanni express the answer for himself, and then he would urge Giovanni to follow his own conviction.
There was in him some troubling sense of the responsibility given him. But more than that, he experienced a warm feeling for all the boys who were now turning to him often as some sort of leader. It seemed he was close to so many, and not only the castrati. Not long ago, the student composer Morello had given him a copy of his recent Stabat Mater with the note, "Perhaps some day you will sing this." Twice recently, Guido had let him take over the instruction of the younger boys, and he had loved that too, seeing how much they looked up to him.
And what was it he had been thinking? Something about the chapel, the Contessa's chapel, where was it? He'd let the wine go to his head.
And the Contessa herself seemed to have disappeared. Of course any of the servants would know where the chapel was. Guido would know. And where was Guido? But he felt he must not ask Guido. "I am disgracefully drunk," he whispered. And seeing his reflection in a glass, he said: "Your mother's son!"
It seemed he was in an empty salon and knew that he must lie down. Yet when another servant approached him with the inevitable cool white wine, he drank it and, touching the servant's arm, said: "The chapel, where is it? Is it open to the guests?"
Next he knew he was following the man up the broad central stairs of the house, and down a long corridor to a pair of double doors. A sense of intrigue quickened him. He watched the servant lift his candle to the sconces, and then Tonio stood in the dimly lit chapel by himself.
It was beautiful, rich, and full of wondrous details. There was gold everywhere as the Neapolitans loved it, etching arches and fluted columns, bordering the ceilings and the windows with gleaming arabesques. And the lifelike statues were dressed in real satin and velvet. And the altar cloth was encrusted with jewels.
Silently he went up the aisle. Silently he knelt on the velvet cushion at the communion rail, putting his hands together as if he meant to pray.
In the dim light, he saw the murals pulsing above him, and it seemed impossible that she could have painted these huge and splendid figures: the Virgin Mary ascending into heaven; angels with arched wings, gray-haired saints.
Robust, powerful, these figures seemed on the verge of life, and he felt a rush of love for her as he looked at them, imagining himself near to her, and in the midst of some low and passionate conversation in which he could hear, finally hear, her voice. Ah, if he could only pass close to her some night on the dance floor when she was talking to her partner, he could hear her voice. Above him, the Virgin's dark hair flowed in ripples to her shoulders, her face a flawless oval, her lids half mast. Did she really paint this? It seemed suddenly too exquisite for anyone to have painted it. He closed his eyes.
He held his forehead with his right hand. A torrent of feeling threatened him. He was miserable and compelled in his mind to make some explanation to Guido of why he had come to this place. "I love only you," he whispered.
And dizzy from the wine, and sick, he moved clumsily away from the altar towards the doors.
Had he not found a couch then in a small upstairs parlor, he might have been very ill.
As it was, he lay down and shut his eyes, and then he heard his mother say very distinctly, "I should have run away with the opera," and he was asleep.
It was quiet when he awoke. Surely the party was over. And getting up quickly, he went to the head of the stairs. Guido would be furious with him. Guido might even have gone home alone.
Only a few guests remained now sprinkled about the immense rooms, and everywhere below the servants moved quietly gathering up napkins and glasses onto silver trays. The air smelled of tobacco, and a lone harpsichordist, an amateur, was playing a spirited little song.
Only three of the violinists were still there, and they were chatting with one another. And when Tonio saw Francesco among them, he hurried down the stairs.
"Did you see Guido?" he asked. "Has he gone home?"
Francesco was obviously very tired, having played two engagements this evening, and at first he didn't seem to understand.
"He's going to be furious with me, Francesco. I fell asleep. He's probably been looking for me," Tonio explained.
Then Francesco smiled. "He won't be angry with you," he whispered in an oddly confidential manner. And now he laid his violin carefully in its case and, snapping the cover shut, rose to go. But seeing the blank expression on Tonio's face, he smiled again and glanced pointedly to the stairs and the floor above.
Tonio bent forward, as if straining to hear the unspoken. Francesco made the gesture with his eyes again. "He's with the Contessa," he whispered finally. "Just wait."
For a long moment Tonio merely looked at Francesco. He watched Francesco gather up his music; he watched him make his farewells to the others. He saw him go out.
And then as Tonio stood alone on the edge of the vast empty room, the little exchange made its full impression upon him, and slowly, he approached the stairs.
He told himself there was no truth to this. It meant nothing. Perhaps he had misunderstood.
Of course, Francesco couldn't know that he and Guido were lovers when no one knew.
Yet when he found himself in the mouth of the dark upstairs corridor, he was trembling in every limb.
He rested against the wall. His earlier dizziness came back to him, and suddenly he wanted to be out of this place, far, far away from it. Yet he stood perfectly still.
He did not have long to wait.
Down the hall, a door opened, and in the light that seeped out onto the flowered carpet, Guido and the Contessa appeared. Her plump little body was still done up in an elaborate ball gown, but her dark hair was flowing free. And Guido, turning tenderly to her, bent to kiss her as he took his leave.
Their bodies merged in the shadows. Then she was gone, and the light was gone with her. And Guido was coming to the head of the stairs.
Tonio was speechless as he watched this. He was speechless as he saw the indistinct shape of Guido approach.
But then he saw the look on Guido's face as their eyes met, and there was no longer the slightest doubt.
12
HE WAS CRYING. He was crying exactly as if he were a small boy, and he didn't care. He could not accept that this was happening. Guido had deceived him. Guido had deliberately wounded him. And if he had spoken angry words to Guido in the beginning, it was only panic, the desperate attempt to keep the pain of this full moment away from him.
And now here was Guido speaking to him in that cold, inflectionless voice, giving him nothing! What had he expected? Excuses, lies even? And Guido had said to him that he had warned Tonio. He would take women when and where he could. And it had nothing to do with the love between them.
"Oh, but you made a fool of me!" Tonio whispered. He could not think, however. He could not keep track of a sequence of accusations.
"How made a fool of you? Do you think I do not love you? Tonio, you are my life!"
But there were no excuses, there was no remorse. There was no concession to stop. There was nothing but that coldness and that low voice repeating the same words over and over.
"But was it only tonight, or were there other times? Oh, there were other times."
Guido would not answer. He stood silent, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on Tonio as if he could not feel for an instant the misery he had inflicted.
"Well then, how long? When did it begin?" Tonio cried. "When was it that I was not enough for you, tell me?"
"Enough for me? You are the world to me," Guido said softly.
"But you won't give her up...."
Guido said nothing.
It was no use talking any more; he knew the answers would be the same, and that this abyss could open under him, that this misery could come, drawing him back to his other earlier hurts, was stunning him. This pain seemed unendurable. It resonated with every fiber of his being, and it seemed the small world he had made for himself in this place teetered, threatened to crumble. What did it matter that he had once known worse pain? It was unreal to him, it was this moment that was real now.
He wanted to get up, to go away. He never wanted to see Guido again, nor the Contessa, nor anyone here, and yet this was unthinkable.
"I loved you...." he whispered. "There was no one for me but you. There was no one else ever."
"You love me now, and there is no one else for me but you," Guido answered. "You know that."
"Don't say any more. Just leave it. It only gets worse the more you say. It's over."
But as soon as he had spoken those words, he knew Guido was moving towards him.
And just when he thought surely he would strike Guido, he felt himself turning to him. It was almost as if in his mis
ery, he could not resist Guido. Guido could yet protect him even from Guido's cruelty. And when Guido whispered again, "You are my life," it was tortured and hungry, and Tonio gave himself over to him.
Guido's kisses were slow and savoring. It seemed passion came in such clear waves, carrying Tonio up, only to slacken ever so slightly, just before swelling again.
But when it was finished and they lay close, intertwined, Tonio whispered in Guido's ear, "Show me how to understand this. How could you wound me and feel nothing? I would not for all the world have wounded you so, I swear it."
He thought he saw Guido smile in the dark. But it was not an ugly smile. Rather it was sad and his sigh seemed to come from the weight of some old knowledge.
There was in his embrace then a desperation, and as he folded Tonio yet closer to his chest, he held him as if someone else meant to take him.
"In time, beautiful one, you will," he said. "And for now, show me this gentle generosity."
Tonio's eyes were closing. He wanted to deny it, but it seemed even as he slipped reluctantly into his dreams that a vast part of this puzzle was missing and he had only just seen the size of it. There were fears stirring in him, fears he could not voice, and he knew for this moment Guido loved him and he loved Guido and if he were to press for the missing part of that puzzle, misery might overwhelm him again.
He accepted it. He felt helpless, but he accepted it. And in the days that followed he understood this had been wise, for Guido was more surely his than ever before.
Yet one bitter lesson had been learned by Tonio: it was not Guido who kept him from the blond-haired girl. Tonio's guilt in the chapel that night for so much as glimpsing her paintings mocked him in memory, because he knew now he might approach her without so much as an explanation to Guido, and yet he could not bring himself to do it, falling silent and miserable every time she crossed his path.
But his love for Guido filled him and quieted him in the months to come. It seemed at times he was tantalized by the knowledge that Guido had his Contessa. And from Guido he received an even greater measure of tenderness and submission, perhaps because Guido was at last receiving the recognition as a composer he had craved for so long.
