“Now,” she said, brushing aside the maids who hovered about with candles. And searching in the bedclothes produced a bound score. “You can sing this, beautiful child?” she asked. “Tonight, here?” She answered her own question with a little nod. “Here, with me?”
Tonio stared at the cover for a moment. He could not put all this together. Her voice, of course, he had heard of her voice, and over and over, she was a splendid amateur, but she never sang anymore and here, in this house, before hundreds of people, when Guido knew he didn’t want to do this! He turned to Guido.
Impatiently, Guido pointed to the music.
“Tonio, kindly wake from that dream in which you live out your life and look at what is in your hand,” he said. “You have an hour in which to prepare….”
“I won’t do it!” Tonio said furiously. “Contessa, I can’t do it. It’s impossible, I…”
“Darling child, you must do it,” she crooned. “You must do it for me. I have been through a terrible ordeal in Palermo. I so loved my cousin and he was such a fool, and his little wife, she suffered so and needlessly. There is but one thing which will gladden my spirits tonight, and that is to sing again, to sing Guido’s music, and to sing with you!”
He stared at her. He was scrutinizing her, sensing it was all lies, all a trick. Yet she seemed perfectly sincere. And without wanting to, he looked down at the score. It was Guido’s best Serenade a duo, Venus and Adonis, a lovely series of songs. And just for a second, he imagined himself singing it not just at practice with Piero, but here…
“No, it’s impossible, Contessa, ask anything else of me….”
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying.” Guido stepped in.
“But Guido, I’ve never rehearsed this for performance. Twice, maybe, I’ve sung it with Piero.” Then under his breath, “Guido, how could you do this to me!”
“Darling child,” said the Contessa, “there is a little parlor down the hall. Go and practice. Give yourself an hour. And don’t be angry with Guido. It is my request.”
“Don’t you realize this is an honor!” Guido said. “The Contessa’s to sing with you herself.”
Tricked, tricked, he was thinking. There would be three hundred people under this roof in an hour. And yet again he thought of the score. He knew the part of Adonis perfectly, its high sweet purity, and he could see the company overflowing downstairs. They were making it easy for him, weren’t they? They were sparing him the soul-searching and the long gathering of his strength. And he knew silently how it would be if he just let it happen, how the terror would be transformed into euphoria once he saw all those eyes on him, and once he knew there was simply no escape.
“Go now and practice.” Guido was shoving him towards the door. And then he whispered, “Tonio, how can you do this to me!”
Tonio made himself heavy, unyielding. But his face had taken on a blank, dreamy expression, he knew. He could feel himself softening, the battle being lost, and he knew, positively knew, this was the moment to move towards that strength he had wanted so much for himself when he heard Caffarelli tonight.
“You believe I can do it then?” He looked to Guido.
“Of course,” Guido said. “You sang it perfectly the first time I gave it to you, when the ink wasn’t even dry.” And now, with his back to the Contessa, he gave Tonio some wordless little assurance with his eyes, some quiet passage of affection, and then he whispered: “Tonio, this is the right time.”
This was the moment, there was no doubt about it, and he was too hungry for it to be frightened. He took a full hour and a half however before wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, blowing out the candles over the keyboard, and making his way to the top of the stairs.
Then just for an instant he was afraid. In fact, it was worse than that. He was terrified. Because it was that inevitable moment at such a gathering when every single invited guest is there. The early comers had not yet left; the latecomers had just arrived. The sheer volume of talk and laughter crashed gently against the very walls, and everywhere he looked there were men and women, iridescent silks and wigs as white as sails navigating this temptuous sea that flowed in