The Maestro turned away. He seemed for the moment unable to compose himself, and in that time, a cold quiet settled over the room. Tonio, exhausted, rested his weight against the wall, seeing again the arch of the cloister and those green leaves.
It seemed he was visited by a thousand random impressions, as if the mind could empty itself of thought and see visions, and those visions were made up of concrete objects, glistening with meaning: table silver, the candles on a chapel altar, wedding veils, and infants’ cradles, the soft rustle of silk when women embraced. The great fabric that was Venice was a backdrop for this vision, and there was in it mingled sounds, the cry of trumpets, the scent of sea breeze.
What did I want a moment ago, he was thinking. He tried to transport himself into that little whirlwind of excitement that existed eternally behind the curtain of a theatrical stage; he could smell the paint, the powder, hear the sharp, shrill violins beyond the curtain, hear the rumble of bare boards. What was I thinking? He heard his own voice in a succession of pure notes that seemed to have nothing to do with men and women or life and death. His lips didn’t move with his thoughts.
It seemed a long time before the Maestro turned back.
And Tonio’s eyes were glazed with tears.
“I didn’t want to leave you like this,” Tonio said softly, defeated. “You’re angry with me now and I love you. I have loved you since I came.”
“How little you know of me,” said the Maestro. “I have never been angry with you. And the love I feel for you has few rivals here.”
He approached Tonio, but he hesitated to embrace him and in that moment Tonio was conscious of the man’s physical presence, that strength and roughness that was nothing but the characteristic of ordinary men.
He was conscious too of his own appearance as if he could see his own unnatural skin and youth mirrored in the man’s gaze.
“I had words to say before we parted,” Tonio said. “I wanted so much to thank—”
“No need for such words. I’ll be in Rome to see you on the stage soon enough.”
“But there was something more,” Tonio said, his eyes lingering on the Maestro. “Something I wanted to ask of you, and I wish now that I had not waited so long. You might not grant my request, and to me it means the world.”
“The world?” the Maestro asked. “You tell me that even if it means your death you will kill your brother, and yet you speak of something that means the world?”
He turned to look at Tonio.
“Years ago I tried to tell you what the world was, not the world you came from, but the world you might conquer with your voice. I thought you had listened to me. But you are a great singer, yes, a great singer, and you would turn your back on the world.”
“In time, Maestro, in time,” Tonio said, his voice sharpened ever so slightly by anger again. “All men die in time,” he insisted. “I am different only in that I may name the place with certainty when I choose. I may go home to death and leave my life circumscribed behind me. In time. But for now I live and breathe as anyone else.”
“Then tell me what you want,” said the Maestro. “If it means the world to you, then it means time, and I would give you all the time in the world.”
“Maestro, I want Paolo. I want to take him with me to Rome.”
And when he saw the shock, the disapproval in the Maestro’s face, he added quickly:
“Maestro, I’ll care for him, you know that, and even if I should send him back to you someday, he won’t be the worse for having been with me. And if there is one enemy of the rancor I feel against those who made me what I am, it is love for others. Love for Guido, and Paolo, and for you.”
Paolo was in the very back of the chapel when Tonio found him. He was sitting slumped in the chair, his little snub-nosed face stained with tears. His black eyes were fixed on the tabernacle and when he saw that Tonio had come again, that one farewell was not enough, he felt betrayed.
He turned away.
“Be still and listen to me,” Tonio said. He smoothed back the boy’s dark