Authors: Anne Rice
A slight murderous feeling came over him when he thought of it, bound up with the memory of his strength pitted against others, not the awful defeating blows that had brought him down in that room in Flovigo, but that moment when he had almost been free, and then drawing back from that pain, he thought coldly, sensibly, I will meet this when it comes to me.
But nothing happened in the following weeks except that this boy had changed his position at table so that Tonio might see him, and see that sinister smile which he never failed to offer with some gracious gesture.
And Tonio’s hours with Guido deepened into fixed patterns, brilliantly illuminated now and then by wonderful little victories, though Guido was colder than ever, and taking Tonio out more and more often in the evenings in spite of it.
They attended comic operas which Tonio loved more than he thought he would (since they so seldom used castrati) and another performance of the same tragic opera at the San Bartolommeo.
Afterwards, however, Tonio would not go to any balls or suppers with Guido. Guido was puzzled by this. He seemed slightly disappointed. Then he remarked coldly that such entertainments were good for Tonio. But Tonio said he was tired, or that he would rather be at his practice in the morning. And Guido shrugged, accepting this.
Tonio was cold all over and sweating when these little discussions happened. He had only to think of those women around him and he felt a suffocating fear. And then he would think, without meaning to, of Bettina in the gondola; it was as if he could feel the gentle sway of the boat, smell the water around him, breathe the air that was Venetian air, and again there came the sensation of that warmth in entering her, the wetness of the little hairy cleft between her legs, and that incredible flesh on the inside of her thighs where he had sometimes nuzzled his head before taking her.
He would grow still at such times, silent, looking out the window of the carriage as if in the most peaceful thought.
And coming back one night from the San Bartolommeo, it occurred to him that he would not be entirely safe until he was inside the conservatorio. An odd thought when Lorenzo, offering his sly smile whenever their paths crossed, was obviously waiting there for the chance to harm him.
Yet the early part of these evenings out meant everything to Tonio. He was loving the theaters of Naples, and all the nuances of the performances were alive for him. There were times when after several glasses of wine he felt talkative, and he and Guido were constantly interrupting each other in their impetuosity.
And at other times, a baffling apprehension of the strangeness of it all would descend on Tonio. He and Guido behaved for the most part as if they were enemies of each other. Tonio was often as haughty as Guido was surly.
And one night when they were riding along the curve of the sea, and the air was salty and warm, and Guido had bought a bottle of wine for them, and the carriage was open, and the stars seemed especially low and brilliant in the clean sky, Tonio found himself quietly agonizing over the coldness between them. He stared at Guido’s profile against the white foam that seemed to lash the black water and thought, This is the gruff tyrant who makes my days so miserable when with just a few words of praise he could make everything easier. And yet here he sits a gentleman tonight in his handsome clothes talking to me as if we were merely good friends in a drawing room. He is two people. Tonio sighed.
Guido seemed to have no awareness of Tonio’s thoughts. He was describing to him in a low voice a talented composer named Pergolesi who was dying of consumption and had been so ridiculed in Rome when his opera premiered there that he had never recovered from it. “The Roman audiences are the worst,” Guido sighed. And then he looked off to sea as if distracted. He added that Pergolesi had entered the Gesù Cristo Conservatorio years ago and was about Guido’s own age. If Guido had given his all to composing he might have to worry now about the Roman audiences.
“And why didn’t you give your all to composing?” Tonio asked.
“I was a singer,” Guido murmured. And then Tonio remembered that flaming speech which Maestro Cavalla had made to him the night he’d gone up to the mountain. He was suddenly embarrassed to have forgotten it. He thought so much about himself, his pain, his recovery, his small triumphs that he had thought almost nothing about this man beside him, really, and then he thought, And so this is why he despises me?
“The music you’ve often given me…it’s your own, isn’t it?” Tonio asked. “It’s marvelous!”
“Don’t purport to tell me what is good or bad in what I do!” Guido suddenly became incensed. “I will tell you when my music is good just as I will tell you when your singing is good!”
Tonio was stung. He took a deep swallow of the wine, and without warning, even to himself, threw his arms around Guido.
Guido was furious. He pushed him off roughly.
Tonio shrugged, laughing. “You embraced me once, twice, if you remember,” he said. “So I embrace you now and then….”
“For what reason!” Guido snapped. He took the wine from Tonio and took a drink of it.
“Because I don’t despise you as you despise me. I am not such a divided person!”
“Despise you?” Guido growled. “I don’t care about you one way or the other. It’s your voice I care about. Are you satisfied?”
Tonio settled back against the black leather seat, his eyes on the stars. His mood gradually darkened. Why do I care what this boor feels, he was thinking, why is it necessary that I like him? Why can’t I just take what he gives me…? But then a coldness came over him. He felt a chill that signaled the old pain, and he found himself thinking suddenly of the opera they’d heard, of this or that little musical problem to distract himself, anything but of how lonely he suddenly felt, and it was unreal to him for an instant that he had ever lived in a great house in Venice with a father and a mother and servants so much a part of life they were his flesh and blood and…This was Naples, this was the sea, this was his home now.
* * *
Two days later Guido informed Tonio at the end of a particularly ragged and hot day that he might sing a very small part in the chorus of the conservatorio opera.
“But it’s to be put on tomorrow night,” Tonio said. Yet he was already on his feet.
“You’ll only sing two lines at the end,” said Guido. “You can learn them in an instant, and it will be good for you to taste the stage immediately.”
Tonio had never dreamed this would come so soon.
And being backstage was the real excitement. He couldn’t get enough of what was happening around him.
He peered into dressing rooms heaped with plumes and costumes, with tables piled with powder and paint, and watched in awe as a great row of ornamented arches was slowly lifted into the black void above the stage by weighted ropes that brought it soundlessly down again. It seemed an endless maze was formed in this vast open place behind the rear curtain in which the carcasses of other operas lay abandoned. He found a golden coach covered with fluttering paper flowers, and transparent scrims with only the barest trace of stars and clouds on them.
Boys ran to and fro with swords in hand, or lugging gilded cardboard urns full of cardboard foliage.
And as the rehearsal commenced, Tonio marveled to see order brought out of chaos, performers drifting in on cue, the orchestra giving forth its spirited accompaniment, the whole sharpened and fast-paced and full of one delightful aria after another, the voices astonishing in their agility.
He could scarce concentrate on his usual exercises the next day, until finally Guido limited them to those lines Tonio would sing that night in the chorus.
He did not see the full cast in costume until an hour before the curtain.
The audience was already arriving. Carriage after carriage rolled through the gates. There was lively chatter in the corridors, and candles everywhere gave the building a festive warmth, bringing to life nooks and crannies that had always disappeared into evening darkness. The great drawing room was filled with the local nobility, come to see this early preview of singers and composers who might later attain celebrity.
Tonio, hurrying into the wings, found himself caught up in the frenzy. Cast as a soldier, he wore one of his more colorful Venetian coats of red with gold embroidery, and a ribbon was now fixed over his shoulder to the hilt of his sword in the manner of the last century.
“Sit down,” said a voice, gesturing to a little table before a mirror, and he was quickly draped so that a great deal of powder could cover his black hair, finally bringing it up to complete whiteness. He flinched when deft hands commenced to powder his face, and he stared in fascination when all the painting was finished.
The sight of his eyes so heavily circled in black intrigued him and disturbed him at the same time.
But all around him were painted faces, complexions that seemed almost to glitter.
Peering through a small chink beyond the corner of the stage, he saw the boxes were filled. White wigs, jewels, flashing satin and taffeta everywhere. Tonio drew back feeling the oddest throbbing inside of him, the strangest vulnerability.
It could not be that he was performing on this stage before all these men and women who only six months before…He stopped and shut his eyes. He must command his limbs to be still, his heart to cease its pounding. And he felt the first sting of tears in his eyes before he could prevent it.
But turning suddenly around he gave himself to the whirl of activity behind the curtain. In a distant mirror he saw a young boy who was himself looking innocent, fresh, with a serene expression like those white-wigged men who stare at you from the corner of the eye in portraits. And just the touch of a smile shaped his lips as inside of him the pain went away at his command. Each time, perhaps, he thought, it will be easier.
The fact was he loved what was happening! And if some sense of humiliation threaded him through and through it was only a bass chord thumping softly beneath a lovelier, stronger music. He touched the powder on his face; he gave that distant mirror image one last deliberate glance and the smile became fuller and slower and he looked away from it.
The Maestro di Cappella strode into the wings and reached out with both hands for a young goddess who had just appeared, her white curls flowing down her back, her skin like
bisque with a blush to the cheeks so subtle and beautiful that Tonio gasped to see her.
It seemed an eternity he gazed at this luxurious doll before he realized with a start that there could be no women on this stage, this was Domenico!
The Maestro di Cappella was driving home his last instruction. Domenico’s dark eyes slipped to one side and opened just a little wider when they saw Tonio, and those pink lips curled with complete sweetness.
But Tonio was too stunned to give any wordless answer. He was studying the shape of this creature, the small waist, the ruffles of pink lace that grew broader and broader as they mounted to the breast, and there the barest little cleavage of the ravishing flesh pressed by the border of pink ribbon. This is impossible, he was thinking.
Then clutching the voluminous white satin skirts in both hands, Domenico moved past the Maestro di Cappella and in front of everyone planted a kiss on Tonio’s cheek so that he drew back as if burnt. Everywhere there was laughter.
“Enough of that!” the Maestro said.
Domenico had become a woman! And turning now with the most graceful and subtly flirtatious air, he whispered in a husky tender voice that he was merely assuming his role already, becoming the woman he must play on the stage, of course. Again, laughter.
But Tonio had receded into the shadows. The first backdrop of painted arches had been lowered into place. Against this classic garden most of the action would occur, never mind that it was set in the ancient Greek countryside and all these frock-coated, wigged creatures were rustics!
Giovanni, Piero, and other castrati who had major roles in the performance had assumed their places ready to go on, and their attendants were brushing the powder from their lapels furiously.
Someone said that this was Loretti’s big chance, the Contessa
had
come, and if this went half as well as it should, next year he’d be composing for the San Bartolommeo.
Loretti meantime had come backstage to plead with Domenico to follow his beating of time, and Domenico had nodded graciously.
Now Loretti was back at the harpsichord. The house lights
were down with only scattered attendants at the doorways holding single tapers. Someone fell in the backstage shadows, the curtain shivered on its ropes, and the orchestra commenced with all the violent brilliance of a great gathering of musicians in a royal theater.
It seemed the night was one of the longest Tonio had ever endured, with all manner of mishaps and over and over again the magic of perfection before the footlights, as the presence of an audience pulled this frantic little band of talented boys together. The arias rose and fell splendidly over the tinkling keyboard continuo, Domenico’s voice soaring like the pipe of a god in a mythic forest. The spotlights bathed him in ethereal light, he made his exits with extraordinary grace, and time after time, threw his beaming smile at Tonio.
Tonio’s head was aching when at last he stepped onto the stage, and swept up with the grandest excitement, felt to the marrow of his bones that he was now part of this magnificent illusion. He could hear his voice amplified by the voices around him, and seeing only the barest shimmer of the audience he felt its presence everywhere in the gloom, and the applause that followed this finale was a veritable thunder.
The elation could not have been more shared had they all locked hands before the curtain. Bows were taken again and again. Someone whispered that Domenico’s fame was made. He had sung better than anyone currently on the stage in Naples, and as for Loretti, look at him!
Maestro Cavalla pushed behind the curtain embracing his singers one by one until he came to Domenico. He made as if to strike this exquisite girl who cowered with a soft husky ripple of laughter.