have begged for anything. But he felt Guido near; Guido’s hands, so heavy, so strong, were tugging at him, and rising abruptly he thrust his heated face into the crook of Guido’s shoulder. Those dusty curls brushed him, and it seemed all of Guido cradled him, even the fingers so firm and warm, and this was Guido with him in this place, Guido holding him and loving him and kissing him now with the tenderest mouth and they were absolutely together.
It seemed Tonio was dazed and did not know where he was going, only that they were walking through the clean cold streets and the glare of torches against a wall had a frightening beauty.
The air was full of the hot scent of cooking fires and burning coals, and the windows looming at every turn out of the dark were filled with lovely yellow light and then there was the blackness, the rustle of dry winter leaves, and Guido and he locked together with those rough and cruel kisses, embraces that knew nothing of tenderness, only starvation.
When they reached the tavern, the swing of the door threw out an inviting warmth and they pressed together into the deepest alcove amid the noise and rattle of swords and tankards smacked to the wooden tables. A woman sang, her voice dark and full like the tones of an organ, and one of those shepherds from the hills played his pipes, and the people all around them were singing.
Shadows fell over the table. They fell with the swinging of the lamps and the swell of the crowd, and gazing across this narrow space, it seemed a sweet agony that he could not now touch Guido. And yet as he sat against the wooden wall of this small place and looked into Guido’s eyes, he saw such love there that he was content to smile and hold the wine in his mouth that was full of the tart flavor of the grape and the wood of the cask from which it had been taken.
They drank and drank, and when it was that Guido began to talk he did not know except that in a low, roughened voice, that defiant whisper deep from his chest, Guido was telling him all those secrets he had never dared to tell and again Tonio felt his mouth spreading into that smile he couldn’t resist, and the only words that came to his mind were: Love, love, you are my love, and then at some moment in this warm and raucous place, he said those words and saw the flame in Guido’s eyes. Love, love, you are my love, and I am not alone, no, not alone, for this little while.
8
IT WAS LOVEMAKING every night, full of insatiable hunger and animal cruelty, and yet redolent afterwards of an unspoken tenderness that had shaped the whole. And they slept locked in one another’s arms as if the flesh itself were a barrier that must be broken down with the tightest embrace, and there were always those rough, ravenous kisses, and then in the morning, the two of them rising with one mind, to get to work again in Guido’s studio before the first light.
And with the lessons, all was changed.
It was not that they were any less demanding, or that Guido was any less severe or hot-tempered when Tonio fell short of the mark. It was that the whole was more intense, and suffused with their new intimacy and absorption in one another.
Tonio had promised in that gush of unwise language and emotion fused to words that he would open to Guido, but he came to realize he had always been open, at least when it came to music, and now it was Guido who opened to him. Guido for the first time acknowledged the mind that governed Tonio’s body and his voice, and Guido began to confide in that mind the principles that underlay his relentless practice repetitions.
Actually this tendency to talk was nothing new in Guido, but at the opera or during their long seaside drives afterwards the subjects had invariably been other singers. And there had been an illusion of impersonality, and even something of coldness mixed in with the way that all this heat coming from Guido must be attached to other music, other men.
Now Guido spoke of the music they shared, and it seemed in these early weeks of their hottest and most eager love that this talking was more important to Guido even than