Cry to Heaven (61 page)

Guido’s principal task now was to keep from Tonio his own fear.

*  *  *

Two days before the first night, the one and only rehearsal for the singers was called.

Tonio and Guido went in midafternoon to the theater to meet this opponent whose followers might try to drive Tonio from the stage.

But immediately Bettichino’s manager appeared to say the singer was still suffering from a little indisposition and would merely walk through the part. At once the tenors insisted on the same prerogative, and Guido ordered Tonio to keep absolutely silent as well.

Only old Rubino, the elderly castrato who would play the second man, announced cheerily that he would sing. The players in the pit put down their instruments to applaud him and he launched into the first aria Guido had given him with a full heart. His high notes were long gone. This was written for and delivered by a contralto full of such polish and such clarity that everyone was almost weeping when he finished, even Guido himself, to hear his music sung by this new voice.

But it was right after this little performance that Bettichino appeared. Tonio felt himself brushed ever so gently by a passing figure and turned with a slight start. He then saw a giant of a man pass him, his throat wound in a thick wool scarf. A mass of yellow hair showed above it, so pale that it seemed almost silvery, and he had a very narrow, very straight back.

Only when he had reached the far side of the stage, passing old Rubino, in the same indifferent manner, did he turn as if on a pivot, shooting Tonio his first decisive glance.

His blue eyes were the coldest Tonio had ever seen. They seemed full of some northern light. And fixing on Tonio, they faltered suddenly as if meaning to move away, but were caught instantly as if by a hook.

Tonio did not move or speak, but he felt a strong shudder as if the man had sent him some hideous shock like an eel found still alive on the sandy beach.

He allowed himself to look down slowly, almost respectfully, and then up again to this figure of at least six feet and three inches that would so exquisitely dwarf his own tender illusion on the stage.

And then Bettichino with a very casual movement of his right hand pulled straight down on the edge of his wool scarf.
It hissed about his neck softly, and fell loose, revealing the full expression of his large, square face.

Handsome he was, majestic even, as everyone said, and full of that smoldering power that Guido had once described as the magic of only some performers, long years ago. When he stepped forward it seemed of consequence to the entire earth.

Still he stared at Tonio; and so unrelenting, so cold, was his expression that all around him seemed suddenly at a loss. Scrambling to meet some unspoken challenge, musicians coughed into their curled fingers and the impresario nervously worked his clasped hands.

Tonio did not move. Bettichino commenced to walk towards him with very slow measured steps. And then standing directly in front of Tonio, the man reached out and offered his clean, pale hand.

Tonio clasped it at once; he let out a soft murmur of respectful greeting. And the singer, turning before his eyes turned with him, gestured silently that the music might begin.

That afternoon, Paolo dragged himself from the cafés to report the
abbati
were threatening to hoot Tonio off the boards.

“Well, naturally,” Tonio whispered. He was playing a little sonata to amuse himself, content to listen to the music coming up from the harpsichord rather than to make any himself.

When Guido came in, Tonio asked him matter-of-factly if Christina Grimaldi would be in the Contessa’s box.

“Yes. You won’t have any trouble seeing her. She sits facing the stage. She wants to hear what goes on.”

“Is she doing well?” Tonio asked.

“What was that?” Guido said.

“Is she doing well!” Tonio said crossly, but loudly.

Guido gave him a cold smile. “Why don’t you go see for yourself?”

A
N HOUR BEFORE
the curtain was to go up, the heavens opened a torrent on the city of Rome. However nothing, not crashing flashes of lightning nor the wind that blasted the darkened windows of the theater, could stop the press of spectators fighting their way to the front doors.

A heavy jam of carriages blocked the street, one gilded hulk after another bobbing to a halt to disgorge its bejeweled and white-haired men and women into the sputtering light. And the high galleries were already packed with pale faces in the shadows, as catcalls and shouts and lewd verses rang out over the darkened house.

With dim little flames the tradesmen led their wives to the upper boxes, quickly assuming their places to watch the parade of finery that would soon fill the tiers below them, as breathtaking surely as any spectacle of music and movement on the stage itself.

And Tonio, having just entered backstage, moved at once to the peephole beside the curtain, though he was dripping wet.

Signora Bianchi was hysterical and started at once to rub at his hair.

“Shhhh…” He bent forward, peering into the theater.

Liveried servants were moving from sconce to sconce of the first tier, bringing to life velvet draperies, mirrors, polished tables, and padded chairs, as if a hundred drawing rooms floated, disembodied, in the dark.

And below, in the parterre, hundreds of the
abbati
were already seated, a candle in the right hand, a score spread open in
the other, their sharp argument and commentary already cutting back and forth.

A lone violinist had already taken his chair. And now came a trumpet player, his cheap little wig barely covering his dark head.

Someone in the highest gallery shouted suddenly; a missile soared through the gloom, and from the first floor came a violent curse and a figure leapt to its feet, fist flying, only to be pulled back. A fight had broken out above; there was thundering on the wooden stairs behind the walls.

“Turn around to me!” Signora Bianchi said hysterically. “Look at you, did you throw yourself into the river! Your voice will close up in an hour. I must get you warm.”

“I am warm,” Tonio whispered, kissing her little withered mouth. “Warmer than I have ever been.” And he led the way through the clutter to his dressing room, where old Nino was stirring the brazier and the air was already like the blast from an oven.

Tonio had awakened early that morning, and felt an immediate exhilaration when he began to sing. For hours he had gone up and down his most intricate passages, until he felt as elastic and powerful as he had ever been.

He kissed Guido on both cheeks before Guido left for the theater. He gave Paolo instructions to make himself one of the audience and watch everything.

And then when the sky was still clear, and a soft lavender over the twinkling windows that dotted the hills, he had wandered into the mired streets nearest the Tiber and, gathering a group of ragged children in front of him, commenced to sing.

The stars were just coming out. For the first time in three years, he heard his voice rising between close stone walls; and his eyes wet, he pushed his melody up and up until he was hitting notes he’d never attempted and hearing them soar, rounded, perfect, into the night that was closing over him above. From everywhere people had come. They crowded the windows, the doorways, they packed the little streets on either side. They offered him wine and food when he stopped. They brought out a stool for him, and then a fine embroidered chair. And again he sang for them; any song they named, he gave voice to it, and his ears were ringing with their screams, and
clapping and Bravos, all those faces around him swollen with the heat of their adoration when at last the rain had come.

Now he kissed Signora Bianchi. He kissed Nino. He let them tear away his wet clothes and rub his head with towels. He let them scold. He let them curse.

“I tell you, it will be perfect,” he whispered to Signora Bianchi. “I tell you it will be perfect for Guido and for me.” And in his heart, he made a little vow that he would savor every minute of it, be it triumph or debacle, and all the rest of the darkness of his life must part here so that he could cross this all-important sea.

In a wordless moment, he envisioned all those who would be in the house. He looked at the exquisite dress before him, woman’s ruffles, woman’s ribbon, woman’s paint. Christina! He said that inaudibly so it was just a little explosion between his lips. It didn’t matter to him now the pain and the fears.

What mattered was that he was at last going onto the stage, and for now, this moment, that was where he wanted to be.

“Now, darling,” he said to Signora Bianchi, “do your magic. Make all your little promises come true. Make me so beautiful and so much the woman that I could fool my own father should I climb on his knee.”

“You wicked boy.” She pinched his neck with her soft hot fingers. “Save your silver tongue for the audience. Don’t speak horrors to me.”

And resting back against the chair, he felt the first soft sensuous strokes of her little brush on his face, the pull of her comb, the heat of her touch.

When he rose at last and turned to the mirror, he felt that familiar and no less alarming loss. Where was Tonio in this hourglass of dark red satin? Where was the boy behind these darkly painted eyes, these rouged lips, and this flowing white hair that ran in deep waves back from the forehead and in full long curls down the back?

It seemed he was drifting as he stared at her in the glass, and she whispered his name to him, and then drew back like some phantom on the other side who might suddenly take life away from him as he himself stood still.

He touched the bare skin of his shoulders with his gloved
fingers; he shut his eyes and felt the familiar bones of his own face.

And then he realized that Signora Bianchi had withdrawn from him as she sometimes did. It was as if she herself were startled by the final effect. And when he turned to her very slowly, he had the distinct impression she was frightened.

It seemed in some other distant world a roar had arisen from the crowd. Old Nino said they had lighted the great chandelier; the theater was overflowing. And there was yet so much time….

He looked down at Signora Bianchi. Her face showed no pleasure, and her little squinting eyes darted over him anxiously as she appeared to shrink away.

“What is it?” he whispered. “Why do you look at me that way?”

“Darling one…” Her voice became mechanical. “You are magnificent. You could fool even me….”

“No, no…why do you look at me that way?” he whispered again, certain no one living could have told it was not a woman’s whisper.

She didn’t answer.

And suddenly he advanced all of a piece like a doll gliding towards her and she backed up suddenly and let out a little cry.

He was glaring at her.

“Tonio, stop it!” she said, biting her lip.

“Then what is it?” he demanded again.

“All right, then, you are like a demon, a perfect woman who is larger, larger than life! You are delicate and beautiful all over; but you are too large! And you frighten me as if the angel of God were to come into this room, now, and fill it up with his wings, knocking the feathers out of them so that they were tumbling down through the air, even as you heard a scraping of his wings against the ceiling. And his head was bigger and his hands were bigger…well, that is what you are…. You are beautiful and perfect, yet you are a…”

“A monster, my dearest,” he whispered. And on impulse he took her face in both hands and gave her another deep kiss.

She held her breath, her eyes closed, her mouth open, and then her heavy breasts heaved with a sigh.

“You belong out there….” she murmured. And then she opened her eyes. For a long time, she just looked at him and
then her face crinkled with pleasure and pride and she threw her arms about his waist.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“Ah!” She backed away. “What do you care about me! All of Rome is about to love you, all of Rome is about to fall at your feet! And you ask do I love you? Who am I?”

“Yes, yes, but I want you to love me, in this room, now.”

“Oh, so soon it starts.” She smiled. She lifted her hands to caress the white waves of hair, to slip a long jeweled pin in place. “The endless vanity”—she sighed—“with its endless greed.”

“Is that what it is?” he asked softly. She stopped.

“You’re afraid,” she whispered.

“A little, Signora, a little.” He smiled.

“But, darling…” she started.

But the door had flown open, and a breathless Paolo, his hair wet and rumpled, came into the room.

“Tonio, you should hear them, the trash! They’re saying Ruggerio paid you more than Bettichino, and they’re spoiling for a fight. And the place is full of Venetians, Tonio, they’ve come all the way just to hear you sing. There’ll be a fight all right, but, Tonio, they’re not going to give you a chance!”

T
HERE WAS NO MORE TIME
. Twenty-five years of trudging steadily towards this moment, then it was down to a couple of years, then month after month and day after day. Now it was actually happening. Time had run out.

Guido could hear the orchestra tuning in the pit. Signora
Bianchi had told him Tonio was ready, but he must not go in. And he and Tonio, having embraced each other that afternoon with the most intimate words, had agreed on that; neither would fire the other in these last moments with his own doubts.

Guido made one last routine inspection in the glass. His smooth white wig was perfect, the gold brocade frock coat, after a series of adjustments by the seamstress, did finally allow him the free use of his arms. He struggled to flatten the lace at his throat, to shake it loose at his wrists, and now he loosened his belt just a little, certain no one would notice, and gathered up the score.

But before stepping into the pit, he stood behind the curtain and looked into the hall.

The great chandelier had just disappeared into the ceiling, taking with it the light of day.