Cry to Heaven (36 page)

“But I’ve made very special arrangements for tonight,” Domenico said. “Don’t you remember? I told you.”

There was a slightly timorous quality to Domenico’s voice. Tonio turned to see him better by the light of the one candle. He was splendidly decked out. His slender frame supported clothing with all the grace of those figures in French fashion engravings. And for the first time, Tonio realized they were eye to eye though Domenico was two years older than he. If he didn’t get rid of him, he would lose his mind.

“I’m tired, Domenico,” he whispered, annoyed with himself for being so rude. “You must leave me alone now….”

“But Tonio!” Domenico was obviously surprised. “I’ve arranged
everything. I told you. I’m leaving in the morning. You can’t have forgotten that….” His voice trailed off.

Tonio had never seen his face so agitated. It gave a piquant spice to his looks and aroused some careless passion in Tonio.

But suddenly it dawned on him what Domenico was trying to tell him. Of course, this was his last night because he was going to Rome immediately! Everyone had been talking about his leaving, and now the moment had come. Maestro Cavalla wanted him there early to rehearse with Loretti. Loretti had fought Maestro Cavalla for the opportunity to write
his
opera for Domenico, and Maestro Cavalla, whose taste was far better than his talent, had conceded.

The moment had come and Tonio had completely overlooked it.

He began to dress immediately, vainly trying to recall what Domenico had told him.

“I’ve got a private room for us with supper ordered at the Albergo Inghilterra,” Domenico explained. This was that lavish place by the sea where Tonio had rested after his night on the mountain. He stopped for an instant when he heard the name, then he pulled on his slippers and took his sword down from its hook.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where my mind is,” he murmured.

He was more ashamed when he entered the rooms. They were not those he had let before, but they commanded a full view of the sea, and through the freshly washed windows the sand was perfectly white in the moonlight.

The bed was in its own small chamber already lit with several candelabra, and the supper table was set in the main room and decked out with linen and silver.

All very pretty and he could not concentrate on a word that Domenico was saying to him.

He talked about the rivalry between Loretti and his teacher, and how unsure he was of the audiences in Rome, why did he have to go to Rome, why couldn’t he have made his first appearance in Naples. After all, look what the Romans had done to Pergolesi.

“Pergolesi…Pergolesi…” Tonio whispered. “I hear that name everywhere….”

But this was an imitation of conversation. His eyes moved
over the white panels of the walls, their dark green painted leaves and blue and red flowers. All appeared dusty, shadowy in this mellow light, and Domenico’s taut, pale skin looked good enough to…

He should have bought him some gift. It was dreadful that he hadn’t, and what the hell was he going to say about it?

“Will you come!” Domenico said again.

“What?” Tonio stammered.

Domenico threw down the knife in disgust. He bit into his lip, an exquisite child angry and confused. Then he looked at Tonio as if he could not believe what was taking place here.

“Come to Rome,” he repeated. “You must come! Tonio, it’s not as if you were some charity student. If you tell Maestro Maffeo you must go, he’ll let you go. You can come with the Contessa, why there are any—”

“Domenico, I can’t go to Rome! Why would I go to Rome—” But before the words were out of his mouth, bits and pieces of the conversation came back to him.

Domenico’s face was so stricken that Tonio couldn’t bear to look at it.

“You’re just anxious and you’ve got no reason to be,” Tonio said. “You’re going to be a sensation!”

“I’m not anxious,” Domenico whispered. He had turned away and was looking into the shadows. “Tonio, I thought you would want to be there….”

“I would if I could, but I can’t pick up and leave.”

It was unbearable to see him like this. He looked so miserable. Tonio ran his hand back through his hair. He was tired; his shoulders ached, and he wanted to sleep more than anything, and suddenly the prospect of remaining in this room a moment longer seemed impossible.

“Domenico, you won’t think about me when you get to Rome, you know you won’t,” he said. “You’ll forget me and everyone else here.”

Domenico would not look at him. He was staring off as if nothing Tonio had said penetrated.

“You’ll be famous,” Tonio said. “My God, what did the Maestro say? You could go on to Venice if you wanted to, or right to London. You know as well as I do…”

Domenico put his napkin down and rose from the chair. He
came round and before Tonio could stop him he had dropped down on his knees beside him. He looked into Tonio’s eyes.

“Tonio,” he said, “I want you to come with me, not just to Rome, but everywhere after that. I won’t go to Venice if you don’t want to go there. We can go to Bologna and Milan and then to Vienna. We can go to Warsaw, Dresden, I don’t care where we go, but I want you to come with me. I wasn’t going to ask you until we were in Rome, until I saw that things go well, and if they don’t go well, well…I can’t think about that. But if they do, Tonio…”

“No. No, stop this,” Tonio said. “You don’t mean all this, and it’s out of the question. I can’t just drop my studies. You don’t know what you’re saying….”

“Not forever,” Domenico said, “just in the beginning, six months perhaps. Tonio, you have the means, it’s not as if you were poor, you’ve never been poor, and you—”

“It has nothing to do with that!” Tonio said, suddenly angry. “I have no desire to go with you! What ever made you think I would do it!”

Instantly he regretted it.

But it was too late, and it had been said with too perfect a candor.

Domenico had gone to the window. He stood with his back to the room, a somewhat delicate figure partially concealed by the shadows, and he appeared to be looking up as if to the sky. And Tonio felt, I must make this up to him.

But he did not know the extent to which he’d wounded Domenico until Domenico turned and again approached him.

Domenico’s face was knotted and small and stained with tears, and as he drew near, he bit his lip and his eyes glimmered and melted.

Tonio was quietly stunned.

“I never dreamed that you would want me to come,” Tonio said. But dismayed by the irritation in his voice, he stopped, defeated.

How had it come to this?

He had thought this boy so strong, so cold. It was as much a part of his charm as this exquisite mouth, these skilled hands, the pliant and graceful body that always received him.

And now ashamed and miserable, Tonio felt more alone
with Domenico than he had ever felt. If only he could pretend to love him just for this moment.

But as if reading his thoughts, Domenico said:

“You care nothing for me.”

“I didn’t know you wanted me to,” Tonio said. “I swear I didn’t!” But on the edge of tears himself, he suddenly became angry. That cruelty welled in him that he’d so often let loose in bed. “Good God,” he said, “what have we ever been to each other!”

“We’ve been lovers!” Domenico answered in the smallest, most private whisper.

“We have not!” Tonio came back. “It’s all games and foolishness, nothing but the most shameful…”

Domenico put his hands to his ears as if he wouldn’t listen.

“And stop crying, for the love of God, do you know what you’re acting like, an insufferable eunuch!”

Domenico winced. His face was very wet and white as he spoke. “How can you say that to me? How you must loathe yourself to talk this way to me! Oh, God, I wish you’d never come here, I wish I’d never seen you. Damn you into hell. I wish you were burning in hell….”

Tonio sucked in his breath. He shook his head. And as he watched helplessly Domenico went to the door as if to leave him.

But he turned back. His face was so perfectly made that even in this misery he had an irresistible beauty. Passion colored it and sharpened it, and he looked as innocent and wounded as the smallest child who has just begun to understand disappointment. “I…I can’t bear the thought of leaving you,” he confessed. “Tonio, I can’t…” And then he stopped as if he couldn’t continue. “All the time, I thought you cared for me. When you first came, you were so miserable, so alone. You seemed so to despise everyone. And at night, we could hear you when you thought everyone slept, and you were crying. We could hear it. And then when you came back and you put on the sash, you tried so hard to deceive us. But I knew you were miserable. We all knew it. Just to be with you…it was to feel pain. I could feel it! And I thought…I thought I was good for you. You didn’t cry anymore, and you were with me. I thought…I thought…that you cared for me!”

Tonio put his head in his hands. He let out a low moan and
then behind him he heard the door close and Domenico’s steps on the stairway.

T
HE WEEK HAD BEEN UNENDURABLE
. Since Domenico’s departure for Rome, restless nights had worn Tonio down, and this evening as he came back from the supper table he knew he could not work any longer now.

Guido would have to let him go early. Anger and threats could not keep him here.

Domenico had left at dawn after their evening at the
albergo
. Loretti had gone with him, and Maestro Cavalla would come after. There had been laughing in the corridors, the tramp of feet.

Domenico’s stage name would be Cellino, and someone had cried out, “Bravo, Cellino.”

Suddenly Tonio had left his spot at the windowsill and run all the way down the four flights of stairs without stopping. He pushed through the knot of boys at the door. The cold air shocked him for an instant, but he caught the carriage just as it was starting. The coachman held the whip.

And Domenico’s face appeared at the window, brightening so innocently that Tonio felt his throat tightening.

“You’ll be a wonder in Rome,” he said. “Everybody’s sure of it. You’ve got nothing to fear from anyone.”

And there was such a wistful, innocent smile then on Domenico’s face that Tonio felt the tears rise. He stood on the cobblestones staring after the lumbering carriage, and then the cold commenced to close on him.

*  *  *

Now he sat very still on the bench in Guido’s room and he knew he could not do any more tonight. He must sleep. Or he must lie in his little room and prepare for the missing of Domenico, for not having those warm limbs nestled close to him, that pliant and fragrant flesh ready to give him whatever he wanted, when in truth he didn’t care if he ever set eyes on Domenico again.

He swallowed and made a little wish with a silent smile that Guido would beat him when he refused to practice further. He wondered what he would have to do to make Guido beat him. He was now taller than Guido. He imagined himself growing and growing until his head touched the ceiling. The tallest eunuch in Christendom, he heard a voice announce, and incomparably the finest of those singers over seven feet by a great margin.

Wearily he looked up and he saw that Guido had finished his notations and that Guido had been studying him.

That eerie feeling came over him that Guido knew all about him and Domenico, even of that miserable scene in the
albergo
. He thought of those rooms again, all those fine wax candles. And the sea outside. And he wanted to weep.

“Maestro, let me go tonight,” he said. “I can’t sing any more. I’m empty.”

“You’re warmed up. Your high notes are perfect,” Guido said softly. “And I want you to sing this for me.”

His voice had an uncommon gentleness to it. He struck a sulphur match and touched its odoriferous flame to his candle. The winter night had fallen down around them suddenly.

Tonio looked up, drowsy and numb, and saw the freshly copied music.

“It’s what you are to sing at Christmas,” Guido said. “I’ve written it myself, for your voice.” And then, very low, he added, “It’s the first time anything of mine will be performed here.”

Tonio probed the face, looking for the edge of anger. But in the soft uneven flicker of the candle, Guido was calmly waiting. And there seemed at that moment a violent contrast between this man and Domenico, and yet something united them both, some feeling that flowed from Tonio. Ah, Domenico is
the sylph, he thought, and this is the satyr. And what am I? The great white Venetian spider.

His smile was bitter. And he wondered what Guido thought of it, as he saw his expression darken.

“I want to sing it,” Tonio whispered. “But it’s too soon. I’ll fail you if I try, I’ll fail myself, and all those who listen.”

Guido shook his head. There was the evanescent warmth of a smile, and then he said Tonio’s name softly.

“Why are you so afraid of it?” he asked.

“Can’t you leave me tonight? Can’t you let me go!” Tonio asked. He stood up suddenly. “I want to get out of this place, I want to be anywhere but here.” He started for the door and then he turned back. “Am I allowed to go out!” he demanded.

“You went out to an
albergo
not so very long ago,” Guido said, “without begging anyone’s permission.”

This caught Tonio off guard, and it took the wind out of him. He stared at Guido, in a moment of apprehension that was almost panic.

But Guido’s face remained empty of judgment or anger.

He appeared to be reflecting, and then he drew himself up as if he had made a decision.

He looked to Tonio with an uncommon patience, and when he spoke, his voice was slow and almost secretive.

“Tonio, you loved this boy,” he said. “Everyone knew it.”

Tonio was too surprised to answer.

“Do you think I’ve been blind to your struggle?” Guido asked. “But Tonio, you have known so much pain. Can this be such a loss to you? Surely you can turn to your work as you’ve done before, and you can forget him. This wound will heal, perhaps more quickly than you realize.”

“Loved him?” Tonio whispered. “Domenico?”