Cry to Heaven (47 page)

It seemed then he’d forgotten something, that he must ask her some question, a thought was deviling him, but he could not think what it was. Then he realized he had not seen his yellow-haired girl. Where was she? They couldn’t begin without her, surely she would want to be here, and surely she must be, and in a moment he would see her face.

The room was silent now save for the rustle of taffeta and Tonio saw with sudden panic that Guido’s hands were poised over the keys. The violinists lifted their bows. The music commenced in a lovely throbbing of the strings.

It seemed he closed his eyes just for an instant, and when he opened them again, he was visited by the most complete calm. It was warmth, gradual, infinitely comforting, in which he felt himself inhabit his body, his breaths coming regularly and with a renewed ease. Each face before him was distinct, the mass of congealing colors melting to the hundreds who in actuality were in this room. And he even peered for a moment at Caffarelli, who sat among these ordinary men and women looking remarkably like a lion.

The violins were prancing. The horns in perfect golden notes came in, then all together they pulsed with the melody so that Tonio could not resist moving with it just slightly, and when they stopped, resuming in a sadder, slower vein, he felt himself drifting, his eyes now safely blind.

What he saw next was the little Contessa as the harpsichord
led her to her first notes. The cellos were behind it, so soft they sounded like low breath. And then her little head rocked back and forth again, and her whole little body rocked back and forth, and a low, lustrous voice came out of her with such richness and such intoxicating sweetness that Tonio felt himself emptied of all thought. Her eyes left the music She looked up at him and at that moment he could not resist a long slow smile.

Now she was beaming at him, her plump little cheeks like bellows, and she was singing to him, she was singing to him that she loved him and that he would be her lover when he commenced to sing.

Then she came to the end of her opening songs. The inevitable silence had fallen, and over the thinnest ripple of the harpsichord, Tonio began to sing.

His eyes held to the Contessa’s, and he saw the little press of her smile and the tiniest nod of her head. But it was the soft high flute intertwined with his voice that he saw and felt as he sang along with it, going up and down, higher and higher and then down again, and now it led him in a series of passages which he matched with ease.

Yet it was as if he wanted the Contessa’s voice, and she knew it, and when she answered him, he felt himself actually falling in love. With a surge of the strings he went into a stronger and faster aria to her, and it seemed even the lovely poetry he was singing to her was all of it perfectly true.

His voice was seducing her voice, not merely for its answers but for that moment when the two would come together in one song. Even his softest, most languid notes told her that, and her slow passages so full of dark color echoed the same vibrant desire.

At last they were together in the first duet with such a gentle exhilaration that he commenced that same little rocking with her, her little black eyes full of the radiance of laughter, her deep notes blending perfectly with his soaring protestations of love. A third sound seemed to emerge from the edge of the two voices, the brilliance of the instruments surging and dying again and again to let them fly free.

It was an agony when he had to back away from her, sing to her, and her voice answered him with the same exquisite pain.

Finally the strings were prancing again and a horn was leading him and this was his final summons to her, his last challenge to her to come with him, join him, be carried up with him. It seemed the Contessa leaned forward, that she rose on the balls of her feet, that every fiber of her moved with his dizzying rises, until with the fastest pace, they plunged into the final duet.

Her voice was wed to his voice. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes had the gleam of tears. Her little body heaved with the fullness of her voice, his own winding up and up out of his immense lungs and this languid slender frame that seemed the flesh left behind in stillness and grace as the voice went free.

It was over.

It was finished.

The room shimmered. Caffarelli leapt to his feet and with a grand gesture was the first to break into the rapid thunder of applause.

The little Contessa rose on tiptoe to kiss Tonio; she put her hands to his face and then she saw the look of unspeakable sadness in him, and she threw her arms about him and laid her head on his chest.

Everything happened so quickly. It seemed Caffarelli had clasped him by the shoulder and, nodding to everyone, gestured with his right hand to bring up the applause again and again. And all around him came the soft passionate compliments—he had sung so beautifully, and he had gotten the Contessa to sing with him, which was no small feat, and his voice was extraordinary, and why had they not heard of him before, all these years at the San Angelo, where
was
the Maestro! (He couldn’t have written this libretto better himself!)

But why was it so hard for him to listen to this, why did he have the irrepressible urge to get away? Guido’s pupil, yes, Guido’s pupil, and what a divine composition, that Guido, where was he? It was all too perfect and yet he found this almost unendurable. Maybe, if only Guido were here!

“Where is he?” he whispered to the Contessa. Maestro Cavalla loomed over him for an instant, but before Tonio could read his expression he had disappeared, and then the Contessa was pressing for his attention:

“Tonio, I want you to meet Signore Ruggerio,” she insisted as if it were possible to actually converse in the midst of all this.

He bowed to the man, he accepted his hand. He felt someone tug at him, and saw it was the old Marchesa who again pressed those dry lips to his cheek. He felt a rush of affection for her, her dimly lit eyes, and that creased white skin, and even the hand with which she held him, reptilian and surprisingly strong.

Someone else had loomed up suddenly. The Contessa was talking to the other, the Signore Ruggerio, and just then, unexpectedly, they were pressed together so that she wound her arm about Tonio’s waist. Something had just come clear to him:

“Contessa,” he whispered, “that young woman, the light-haired one.” He realized that he had been expecting every moment to see her, and she simply was not here. A sinking feeling silenced him suddenly, even as he was making lame gestures to describe that wispy hair. “Blue eyes, but very dark blue,” he must have murmured, “and such pretty hair.”

“Why, my little cousin, you mean, my little widow, of course,” said the Contessa, pulling forward yet another gentleman for him to meet. This was an Englishman from the embassy. “She is in mourning, dearest, for her husband, my Sicilian cousin, why I told you all about it, didn’t I? And now she doesn’t want to go back to England.” She shook her head.

“A widow…!” Had he heard her right? He was bowing to someone else. And Signore Ruggerio was saying something of apparent importance to the Contessa and the Contessa was leaving him here!

A widow. Where was Guido? He couldn’t see him anywhere. But then he saw Maestro Cavalla far far across the room, and Guido was with him and so was the Contessa and so was that little man, Ruggerio.

Someone else had hold of him, telling him earnestly he had a magnificent voice and that he should make his debut here at the San Carlos instead of going all the way to Rome. Why did everyone still have to go to Rome?

But a widow, he was thinking; was it possible to cast a more sensual light upon her? Was it possible to make her more enticing, more available, then have her married and widowed in one sentence, removing her forever from that unattainable
choir of virgins to which he’d always told himself she surely belonged?

He was excusing himself now to everyone, trying vainly to get across this great expanse of marble floor, to get near to those distant figures, Guido and the Maestro.

And then he saw Paolo, looking the perfect little prince in his finery, rushing towards him through the crowd. He embraced Tonio quickly.

“What are you doing here?” Tonio asked, even as he acknowledged another greeting from the old Russian Count Sherzinski.

“The Maestro said I could come to hear you.” Paolo clung to him; he was obviously so excited by the whole affair he could scarcely speak.

“What do you mean? He knew I was going to sing?”

“Everyone knew,” said Paolo breathlessly. “Piero’s here and so is Gaetano, and…”

“Ahhhh, Guido!” Tonio whispered.

But he was almost laughing.

Quickly he left the gathering this time, pulling Paolo with him just as Guido and the Maestro and the dark gentleman disappeared.

By the time he reached the corridor, they were gone into some parlor, and all the doors were shut. And he had to stop to catch his breath, and just to savor the excitement he felt.

He was so happy all he could do was shut his eyes and smile. “So everyone knew,” he said.

“Yes,” Paolo answered, “and you have never sung better, ever. Tonio, I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

But then suddenly his little face crinkled and it seemed he was about to cry.

He pressed close to Tonio. At twelve he was a reed of a boy, and he could just push his head into Tonio’s shoulder. The shimmer of pain that came out of him alarmed Tonio.

“Paolo, what is it?”

“I’m sorry, Tonio, it’s only we came to Naples together. And now you’re going to be leaving. And I’ll be alone.”

“But what are you saying? Leaving where? Just because…”

Yet as he was speaking he could hear raised voices coming from one of the rooms down the hall. He tugged Paolo gently,
his hand firm on his shoulder to reassure him, and Paolo was obviously struggling still not to cry.

An argument was in progress.

“Five hundred ducats,” Guido was saying.

“Let me handle this,” said the Maestro.

Tonio pushed very gently on the door. Through the margin of light he could see it was that dark gentleman, Ruggerio, they were talking to, and the Contessa, seeing Tonio, came forward quickly:

“You go upstairs, radiant child,” she said now as she came into the corridor, closing the doors behind her.

“But who is that man?” he whispered.

“I don’t want to tell you until it’s settled,” she said. “Come with me.”

T
HREE O’CLOCK
. Yet half the company was still in the house.

“Darling child,” the Contessa had said as she shut him in, “it was only by chance Signore Ruggerio was to be here. And we were all so sure if we told you, you wouldn’t sing!”

And for hours Tonio had waited alone in this spacious upstairs chamber over the noisy street.

Five hundred ducats, he was thinking, that’s a fortune. Surely it’s some sort of theatrical negotiations, but what sort?

One moment he feared everything, and the next he was terrified of disappointment. Yet Caffarelli had applauded him! No, he was merely being gracious to the Contessa. Tonio could make up his mind to nothing. What did it all mean?

Carriages came and went. Guests paused on the doorstep below
to laugh and to embrace. And in the uneven flare of the torches could be seen a dim configuration of the lazzaroni on the steps of the church opposite, men who in this mild delicious night had no need of shelter and could simply stretch out under the moon.

Tonio left the window and found himself pacing the floor.

The painted clock tinked on the mantel. There were maybe three hours before dawn. And he had not undressed yet; certainly Guido must come to him.

What if Guido were in bed with the Contessa? No, Guido couldn’t do that to him, not tonight. And the Contessa had promised him she would come; “as soon as it is all settled,” she had said.

“This could be nothing,” he told himself now firmly for the seventeenth time. “This Ruggerio, why, maybe he runs some little theater in Amalfi or someplace, and they want to take you there for some sort of trial…. But for five hundred ducats?” He shook his head.

But no matter how tormented he was over all of this, he could not stop thinking of the yellow-haired girl. He’d not recovered from the shock of learning she was a widow, and he had only to pause in his thoughts at any moment to see her and to see that room full of paintings, to see that mourning dress of black taffeta and that radiant little face.

No violet ribbon, no violet bows. Only her little mouth was violet this time, and she is a widow. That was the only color to her, save for that hair, and all those colors on the canvases behind her, which surely must have been her own.

He was such a fool for stammering and staring as he had done. How many times had he wanted such a moment with her, and she was a widow! When he had it finally, what did he do?

And maybe, just maybe, from some private corner somewhere in the palazzo she had heard him sing.

He saw those pictures in a blaze suddenly. It seemed quite unreal to him that it was her work. Yet she had been painting in the very midst of it. The canvas before her had been enormous, and if he could only remember the exact figures in it, then he could compare it in his memory with the rest.

It was so remarkable that she might have done all that. Yet
he understood now that she had been married to that elderly man whom he had always believed to be her father, and he saw the whole of her life in a new light. He could remember so vividly their first meeting, her tears, some sense of deep suffering into which he’d blundered, drunk and careless, and tantalized by her loveliness and her youth.

She’d been married to that old man and now she was free.

And she painted not only simple Virgins and little angels; she painted giants, forests, turbulent seas.

He stood listening in the middle of this darkened bedchamber, and the church bells were ringing, it seemed, soft solemn reverberations. The little painted clock had been fast.

He buttoned his vest suddenly, smoothed his coat, and went to the door. Maybe everyone had forgotten him, and Guido was actually with the Contessa. The house was so quiet.