voice, just to see what Guido would say; or get ill, just to see if Guido worried. This was idiocy! Some man you are, he murmured to himself quietly.
Of course all Guido saw was this young boy standing by waiting patiently for him to speak, Tonio knew that. Good.
“Are you tired of it all?” Guido asked gently.
“Why would you give a damn!” Tonio sneered.
Guido was astonished.
“Well, I don’t give a damn, particularly,” he said. “It’s only that I’m tired of it. I want to go down into the city, to some out-of-the-way tavern for a while.”
“It’s late, Maestro,” Tonio said.
“You can sleep tomorrow morning if you like,” Guido said, “or you can go back home on your own, too, if you like. Well, are you coming?”
Tonio didn’t answer.
Sit in a public tavern with another eunuch? He couldn’t conceive of it. Rough men, the jostling and coarse laughter, the women with their short skirts and easy smiles.
All the warm, crowded taverns of Venice came back to him, the café of Bettina’s father, and all those other places that he and Ernestino and the street singers had frequented in those last days.
He missed all of it; he had always missed it. Hearty wine, tobacco, some special pleasure in drinking in the company of men.
But above all, he wanted to be free to go, free to go there or anywhere, without this suffocating sense of vulnerability.
“It’s a place the boys often go,” Guido said. “They’re probably there now, all those who went to the opera tonight.”
This would mean the older castrati as well as the other musicians. Tonio immediately envisioned them.
But Guido was walking out of the room. He had become frosty. “Well, go back when you like,” he said over his shoulder. “I can trust you to behave yourself, I assume.”
“Wait,” Tonio said. “I’m coming with you.”
It was jammed and full of congenial noise when they arrived. And the conservatorio musicians were there, and so were a good many fiddlers from the opera house whom Tonio recognized immediately. A few actresses were there also, but by and large it was a crowd of men, broken here and there by the pretty tavern girls trying to meet all the raised hands and calls for wine that seemed to come from everywhere.
Tonio could see that Guido was perfectly at ease here and even knew the woman who waited on them. He ordered the best wine, and some cheese and fruit to eat with it, and settling back into the wooden alcove in which they were seated, he stretched out his legs towards the crowd under the dim lamps and gazed at it contentedly.
He seemed to like the taste of the wine from a tin cup. He might be alone, Tonio thought.
And I am in Venice in Bettina’s tavern and if I do not get up and go out to my brother’s bravos who are waiting for me, then all of this is a dream. He shook his head, gulped the wine, and wondered if to these rude men here he appeared a boy or a castrato.
The fact was, there were many eunuchs in the room, and no one took any notice of it, any more than had the crowd in the bookshops in Venice when Alessandro came in to drink coffee and listen to the theater gossip.
But Tonio could feel the warmth in his face, and when a great gathering of men at one of the long rough tables began to sing, he was relieved to see all eyes turned on them.
Tonio drank all the wine in his cup and poured another from the bottle. He looked at the splintery wood in front of him, watching the droplets of dampness here and there bubbling up in the grease that gave it a sheen like a polish. He wondered wearily just how long it would take before he and that man who had come down from Vesuvius were one being.
The song was over. Several musicians had begun a duet with a mandolin, and these might have been regular street singers. It had a wild, savage sound to it, like something out of the hills, and again very unlike the melodies of the north. Perhaps it had more of the Spanish in it.
Tonio closed his eyes, letting the tenor’s voice sift through his thoughts, and when he opened his eyes again, his cup was empty. He was aware that Guido was watching him as he poured a third cup, but Guido said nothing.