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,