always sent out for the scores of his recent operas.
And from the first moment she’d realized Tonio had inherited her voice, she had showered him with a desperate and bitter affection. She taught him his first songs, and to play and sing anything by ear so his tutors could only marvel. And now and then admitted, “Had you been born tone deaf, I would have drowned you. Or drowned myself.” And when he was little he’d believed it.
So even when she was at her worst, her breath rank from wine, her eyes glazed and cruel, he would appear light, whimsical, and lure her to the harpsichord.
“Come on, Mamma,” he would say gently, as if nothing were amiss. “Come on, Mamma, sing with me.”
Her rooms were always so pretty in the early sun, the bed draped in white silk, a procession of mirrors reflecting a wallpaper of cherubs and garlands. She liked clocks, all kinds of painted clocks, and they ticked on tables and chests, and on the marble mantel.
And there she was in the middle of it, her hair undone, the sour-smelling glass in her hand, staring at him as if she didn’t know him.
He didn’t wait. He uncovered the double row of ivory keys at once and began to play. It was Vivaldi often enough, or Scarlatti, or the more subdued and melancholy patrician composer Benedetto Marcello. And in minutes, he felt the soft crush of her on the bench beside him.
As soon as he heard her voice mingling with his he felt an exhilaration. His strong bright soprano rose higher, but hers had a richer, more fascinating color. She shuffled impatiently through the old scores for the arias she loved or, having him recite any bit of poetry he’d recently learned, made up a new melody for it.
“You’re a mimic!” she’d say when he followed an intricate passage perfectly. She’d swell a note slowly, skillfully, only to hear his flawless echo. And clasping him suddenly with her warm and very strong hands, she whispered:
“Do you love me!”
“Of course I love you. I told you yesterday and the day before, but you forget,” he teased. It was her most poignant, soulful little cry. She bit her lip; her eyes grew uncommonly wide, then narrowed. And he always gave her what she wanted then. But inside, he was suffering.
He knew every morning of his life when he opened his eyes whether she was happy or sad. He could feel it. And he reckoned the hours of study by how soon he might slip away to be with her.
But he didn’t understand her.
And he was beginning to realize that his loneliness as a child, these silent and empty rooms, this vast and shadowy palazzo, was as much due to her shyness and her reclusiveness as to the age and old-fashioned severity of his father.
After all, why had she no friends when the Pietà was full of ladies of quality as well as foundlings, and so many married well into good families?
Yet she never spoke of the place; she never went out.
And when his father’s cousin Catrina Lisani came to call, Tonio knew she made her visits brief out of kindness. Marianna was like a nun behind the grille. She wore black, kept her hands in her lap, her dark hair as sleek as satin. And Catrina, in gay printed silk with a great many yellow bows, made up the whole of the conversation.
Sometimes Catrina’s “escort” was with her, a very proper and handsome cavalier servente, and a distant cousin, too, though Tonio could never remember the connection. But this was fun, because he wandered out into the Grand Salon with Tonio, chatting of what was in the gazettes, and what was happening at the theater. He wore shoes with red heels and a monocle on a blue ribbon.
But though a patrician, the man was an idler, spending his time in the company of women. And Tonio knew Andrea approved of no such person for his wife, and Tonio didn’t approve of it either.
Yet, still, he thought if Marianna had an escort she would go out, she would meet others, and they would come home with her now and then, and the whole world would be different.
But the thought of a cavalier servente so near to her, in the gondola, at table, at mass, repelled Tonio. He felt a hot and agonizing jealousy. No man had ever been close to her save Tonio.
“If I could be her cavalier servente…” He sighed. He