Cry to Heaven (68 page)

But there was time enough for making love.

And he feared the moment after, he would feel the pain all the more.

Some dim memory hacked at him of being in a splendid place full of music, and the music suddenly stopped, and fear creeping up to take hold of him. It seemed Vivaldi’s music, the racing violins of the
Four Seasons
. And he could feel the emptiness of the air when it was finished.

Finally she completed her picture. For ten whole days he had been in her thrall, given over to the opera and to her, and no one and nothing else.

It was near to dawn, and she held it up to him and he let out a small gasp.

Bland innocence she’d captured in that enameled miniature she’d sent through Guido. But in this he sensed a darkness, a
brooding, even a coldness that he had never known he revealed.

Not wanting to disappoint her he murmured simple things. Yet he put it aside and came near her, sitting right beside her on the wooden bench and taking the chalk out of her hand.

Love her, love her, that was all he could think or feel or propel himself to do, and once again he had hold of her, wondering on the thin membrane that separated cruelty from overpowering passion.

To love someone like this, it was to belong to that one. All freedom went the way of reason, and happiness had for itself a perfect place, a perfect moment. He held her close, unwilling to speak, and it seemed her soft hot bones, tumbled against him, told him only the most terrifying secrets.

Love, love, the having of her.

He took her to the bed, he unfolded her, and laid her down; he sought to lose himself in her.

And there came that time together he had known so often with Guido in the past, when the body was at last still and he wanted only to be near her.

The table had been draped. The candles brought in. She lifted a dressing gown to his shoulders, and led him there where the old woman had laid out wine, and plates of steaming pasta. They dined on roasted veal and hot bread, and finally when it was all done, and too much, he took her on his lap, and both of them, shutting their eyes, began a small game of hands and kisses.

Soon it worked into this: that while he blindly felt the bones of her small face, she would blindly feel the bones of his; and as he clutched her tiny shoulders, she would hold onto his, and so on until they knew all the parts of each other.

He began to laugh; and she as if given his assent then was laughing like a child, as all the parts of their bodies were contrasted. He felt that silken lower lip, her round smooth belly and the backs of her knees, and picking her up, carried her to the sheets again to find all those moist crevices, those downy folds, those warm and throbbing parts that were hers alone as the morning hovered at the windows.

It was dawn; the sun spilled in. He sat at the window, his hands folded on the sill, and he wondered that he thought silently
of Domenico, or Raffaele, of the Cardinal Calvino, who still made pain in him and something like the zing of violins.

He had loved them all, that was the wonder. But nothing in this quiet time remained of those loves that could conceivably torment him. Guido, Guido he loved more now than ever, but that was full and quiet and no longer wanted passion.

And what was this?

He felt half crazed. And the peace of his dream of snow was beyond him.

He looked at Christina.

She lay deep asleep on her bed. He felt himself husband, brother, father to her. He wanted to carry her out of this place and far, far away from here, but to where? To some place where snow fell? Or back to that villa beyond the gates where they could live together forever? A terrible fatality came over him. What had he done in this? What had he truly wanted? He was not free to love anyone, not even to love life itself.

And he knew if he did not get away from her now he would be lost to her always. Yet feeling her unaccountable power he wanted to cry almost. Or to lie beside her again and just hold her.

Any cruelty she wished she could work on him soon, that was how desperately he loved her. And then he saw that in all his loves he’d never been afraid, not even of Guido had he ever been afraid. But he was afraid of her,
afraid
of her, and he did not know why, only that it was a measure of the power she had to wound him.

Yet she would never do this to him. He knew her. He knew her shadowy places. He sensed at the core of her some grand and simple goodness, for which he yearned with all his soul.

And moving swiftly to the bed, he slipped his arms under her and held her until slowly, very slowly, her eyes opened, and blindly she stared upward.

“Do you love me?” he whispered. “Do you love me?”

And as her eyes grew big and soft and full of sadness to see him like this, he felt himself open completely to her.

“Yes!” she whispered, and she said it as if she had just fully come to know it.

Days later, on an afternoon when half of Rome, it seemed, was gathered in her studio, the sun pouring through the naked windows,
men and women chatting, sipping wine and English tea, reading the English papers, she bent over her easel, her cheek smudged with chalk, her hair held indifferently by a violet ribbon. And he from the sidelines gazed at her and realized he belonged to her. Such a fool you are, Tonio, he thought, you only add to your own pain. But it had not even really been a decision.

G
UIDO KNEW
that something was wrong, and he knew that Christina had nothing to do with it.

The Roman carnival was almost upon them, the opera had been running successfully for weeks, and yet Tonio would not discuss any future engagements. No matter how Guido pressed, Tonio begged to be let alone.

He claimed exhaustion, he claimed distraction; he claimed that he must go to Christina’s. He claimed that with both of them being received at three that afternoon by an electoress, it was impossible to think of anything.

There were excuses without end. And now and then when Guido did trap Tonio in the very back of his dressing room at the theater, Tonio’s face would stiffen, acquiring that coldness that had always struck a chord of muted terror in Guido, as he stammered angrily: “I can’t think of that now, Guido. Isn’t all of this enough!”

“Enough? It’s only the beginning, Tonio,” Guido would answer.

And at first, Guido did tell himself it was Christina.

After all, never had he seen Tonio as he was now, completely
caught up in this love so that it claimed every moment away from the theater.

But when finally Guido went to Christina in the late afternoon, while Tonio was off to a reception he could not avoid, he was not surprised to hear her denials.

Of course she hadn’t discouraged Tonio from accepting the Easter engagement at Florence. She hadn’t even been told of it.

“Guido, I’m ready to follow him everywhere,“ she said simply. “I can paint anywhere as easily as here. I need my easel, my colors, my canvases. It’s nothing to go anywhere on earth,” and then she dropped her voice, “as long as he is with me.”

She had only just let her last guests go home. The maids were clearing away the wineglasses and the teacups. And she, her sleeves pinned up, was working with her oils and pigments. There were glass containers of crimson, vermilion, ocher before her. Her fingertips were red.

“Why, Guido,” she asked brushing back her hair, “why won’t he speak of the future?” But it was as if she were afraid of Guido’s answer. “Why does he insist upon such secrecy with us, with having everyone believe we are only friends? I’ve told him if I had my way, he should move into my lodgings! Guido, everyone who cares to know, knows he is my lover. But you know what he said? This wasn’t very long ago, and it was late, and he’d had too much wine and he said there was no doubt in his mind that for all you’d done for him, you were better for having known him, that you would be all right. ‘The wind will fill his sails after this,’ he said. But he said I wouldn’t be better off if he left me with my reputation ruined, and he couldn’t do that for all the world. But why is he talking of leaving, Guido? Until that night, I feared it was you who wanted him to give me up.”

Guido knew she was staring at him, imploring him, and though he increased the pressure with which he held her hand, he could not now satisfy her. He was gazing off over the rooftops beneath her high empty windows and feeling the chill of having discovered the old enemy, the old terror.

He said nothing to Christina except that he would talk to Tonio, and then brushing her cheek with his lips gently, he rose to go.

Forgetting his tricorne hat, he went down the hollow stairs
and out into the crowded Piazza di Spagna, turning slowly towards the Tiber, his head down, his hands behind his back.

Rome caught him in its winding streets; it led him from one little irregular piazza to another. It led him past great statues and glittering fountains, while his mind seemed to shrink in the face of its perception, only to enlarge with the fullness of realization again.

Hours later it seemed he was wandering the beautiful varicolored floor of San Pietro’s. He was drifting past the majestic tombs of the popes. Skeletons so perfectly made from hard stone, they seemed to have been discovered in it and released from it, grinned at him. The faithful of the world pushed him to and fro.

He knew what was happening to Tonio. He’d known it before he’s gone to Christina, but he had had to be sure.

And the image came back to him, implanted in his less imaginative and literal mind by the more loquacious Maestro Cavalla: Tonio was being slowly torn apart.

It was the battle of those twins he was witnessing: the one who craved life, and the one who could not live without the hope of revenge.

And now that Christina tugged upon the bright twin, now that the opera surrounded him with such blessings and such promises, the dark twin, out of fear, strove to destroy the loving one, for fear if he did not he himself might cease to exist.

Guido didn’t fully understand. It was not an easy image for his mind. What he did perceive was that the more life gave to Tonio, the more Tonio realized he could not enjoy any of it until he had settled the old score in Venice.

Guido stood alone in the midst of this endless crowd streaming through the largest church in the world. He knew he was helpless.

“I cannot…” he whispered, hearing his own words distinctly against the multitude of sounds about him. “I cannot live without you.” The deep shafts of sunlight blurred his vision. No one took notice of him, that he was speaking as he stood there so still. “My love, my life, my voice,” he whispered. “Without you, there is no wind to fill my sails. There is nothing.”

And that foreboding he had known when coming to Rome—that fear of the loss of his young and faithful lover—was nothing to this ever deepening darkness.

It was carnival. The nights grew warmer. The audiences were positively mad. The Contessa had returned and gave balls nightly at her villa.

Guido gave up all plans for the spring season. Yet he did not tell the agents from Florence. If only he could force Tonio into one more engagement. Tonio would never go back on his word, and that would give him time. Time was all he could think of.

But early one afternoon, as Guido was scribbling out a new duet for Bettichino and Tonio to try if they were bored enough—and they were by now—one of the Cardinal’s more important attendants came to tell him that Signore Giacomo Lisani, from Venice, was here to see Tonio.

“Who is this?” Guido asked crossly. Tonio was off with Christina in the mayhem of the carnival.

As soon as Guido saw the blond-haired young man he remembered him. Years ago, he had come on Christmas Eve to visit Tonio in Naples.

He was Tonio’s cousin, the son of the woman who wrote so often to Tonio. And he had with him a small trunk, more of a casket, that he wished to present to Tonio himself.

He was disappointed to hear that he couldn’t see Tonio now. When Guido identified himself, he explained.

Over two weeks ago, in the Veneto, Tonio’s mother had died after a long illness. “You see,” he said, “I must tell him this myself.”

As it turned out, Tonio couldn’t be found, and Guido would not have him told just before the evening’s performance.

So it was after midnight when this young Venetian who had returned to the Cardinal’s house with the casket gave him the message as directly and painlessly as he could.

The look on Tonio’s face was something Guido never wanted to see again in his life.

And after Tonio had kissed his cousin and taken the trunk alone with him to his room, and opened it, and stared down into it he told Guido simply that he wished to go out.

“Let me go with you, or let me take you to Christina’s,” Guido said. “Don’t try to bear this grief without us.”

For a long time, Tonio looked at him as if this puzzled him, this statement; and Guido felt the weight of all that separated him from Tonio and always would. That dark life, that secret life of Tonio, connected to those he’d known and loved in Venice, was a life to which he could admit no one here.

“Please,” Guido said, his mouth dry and his hands trembling.

“Guido, if you love me,” Tonio said, “let me alone now.” Even in this there was that gentleness, that half smile, and a hand out to reassure Guido, who watched silently as Tonio withdrew.

The Cardinal soon came into the room.

Guido was alone looking at the objects which Tonio had left open for anyone to see.

And Guido, examining these things carefully, was filled with such a sense of desolation that he could not speak.

The trunk contained many things.

There was music, mostly the work of Vivaldi, in old volumes bearing Marianna Treschi’s name in a girlish script. And there were books, French fairy tales, and stories of the Greek gods and heroes of the sort one might read to a child.

But those objects which most surely chilled Guido and caused him to feel the keenest misery were the clothing and effects of a small boy.

Here was a white christening gown, most likely Tonio’s, and half a dozen little suits of clothing, all lovingly kept. There were tiny shoes, there were even little gloves.