Cry to Heaven (64 page)

If there was one disappointment, it was that Christina Grimaldi had not come.

Everywhere he looked for her. He could not have missed her, and he could not understand why she was not there.

Of course she’d been at the theater, he’d seen her! And he understood that of course she wouldn’t come backstage. But why wasn’t she here at the Cardinal Calvino’s house?

The most abominable thoughts occurred to him. He felt himself slipping into nightmare thinking of her witnessing the spectacle of him dressed as a woman. But then he had bowed to her, and she had returned the bow from the Contessa’s box, her little hands working furiously with applause after his arias, her smile quite visible to him even over the gulf that separated them.

Why wasn’t she here now?

He couldn’t bring himself to ask Guido or the Contessa, who was ever at his side.

Many had come this evening merely because the Cardinal Calvino was giving a ball. And the Contessa had made up her mind to see that as many guests as possible met her musicians and would come to the opera tomorrow even if they never had been to the theater before.

But the success of the opera was almost assured.

It would run every night right through to the end of the carnival, Ruggerio was certain, and both Tonio and Guido were approached several times in the evening about their future plans.

Bologna, Milan, even Venice was mentioned. Venice! Tonio had excused himself at once. But it thrilled him, this talk, just as it thrilled him to be presented over and over again to the royal guests.

At last he and Guido were alone together. The door was locked. And confessing a slight amazement at the heat of their desire, they made love.

Afterwards, Guido slept, but Tonio lay awake as if he could not let the night go.

*  *  *

Finally, the winter sun was spilling in dusty shafts onto the tiled floor, and Tonio was walking alone back and forth through these grand and cluttered rooms, staring now and then at a heap of gifts and letters as tall as himself as it rose from a round marble table.

He put the wine aside, and sent for some strong coffee.

And bringing up a chair, he commenced to shuffle through all this crisp and decorated parchment. He told himself he was not looking for anything. He was merely doing what had to be done. But he was looking for something.

Oh, the Venetian names were everywhere. A chilled and quiet person inside of him read the greetings of his cousin Catrina, realizing, against her word, she was here. Well, he would not see her. He was too happy now for that. And the Lemmo family, they too had been in the audience, and other Lisani, and a dozen others whom he scarcely knew.

So the world had seen him lost in that feminine guise uttering sounds that belonged to children and gods. Old nightmares, old humiliations, it had been as marvelous as his wildest dreams.

He took a deep swallow of the hot and aromatic coffee.

He read through a handful of little notes full of warm superlatives, reliving odd moments of the performance as he did so. And then sitting back, whistling with the edge of one stiff letter, he realized at this very hour the
abbati
were probably gathered in the coffeehouses to relive it all again as well.

There were invitations here of all sorts. Two from Russian nobles, one from a Bavarian, another from a powerful duke. And several were for late night suppers after the performance, and they intrigued him the most.

He knew what was expected here. And he felt the lure of it, as if a distant street band were summoning him by means of a rhythmic beat that penetrated the very walls.

He thought of Raffaele di Stefano and just how long it would take him now to dress and go to Raffaele’s house. Raffaele would be asleep, the room would be warm. But then sleep nudged him ever so gently and he folded his arms and sat back, shutting his eyes.

There was nothing here from Christina. And why should there be?

Why should there be?

Yet rousing himself he took one more look. And as he fanned out those letters which remained unopened, he saw a handwriting he knew.

He couldn’t place it. And opening the letter, he read the following words:

And then almost as an afterthought, the address of his lodgings in Rome was scribbled at the bottom.

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, “whenever 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.