the figure begins to rise to the surface with an aspect that is almost ghostly.
And it was happening here. And there was the young man with that same agreeable face; and in this nether world in which he lived, the ghostly arm of his father was crooked to embrace him.
10
WHEN HE CAME HOME the next afternoon, his mother was asking for him.
“She awoke while you were out,” Lena whispered to him by the door. “She was furious. She broke her perfume bottles, she threw things. At me, she threw things. She wanted you here with her, and you were out strolling in the piazza.”
He listened to all this, almost incapable of following it or caring about it.
He had only just seen Alessandro in the piazza, and Alessandro had excused himself quickly, affectionately, rushing off before he could be asked again.
And Tonio did not know whether or not, even given the opportunity, he would have risked another question.
One thought only was obsessing him: This brother lives. He is in Istanbul, now, alive. And whatever he did to be sent out of this house was so terrible that his image as well as his name had been obliterated. And I am not the last of this line. He is there; he shares this with me. But why didn’t he marry? What did he do that was so terrible the Treschi must wait upon an infant in a cradle?
“Go in, and talk to her. She is better today,” Lena said. “Speak to her, try to get her to stay up, to bathe and to dress.”
“Yes, yes,” he murmured. “All right, in a little while.”
“No, Tonio, go in to her now.”
“Leave me alone, Lena,” he said under his breath. But then he found himself staring at the open door, the room draped in shadow.
“Ah, good…but wait,” Lena whispered suddenly.
“What is it now?” Tonio asked.
“Don’t ask her about that other…that other you mentioned yesterday, do you hear me?”
It was as if she’d read his mind, and for one long instant he stared fixedly at her. He studied her simple face, so heavily lined and drained of color by old age, her eyes small and expressionless without the openness of Beppo’s eyes. On the contrary, they were closed and hard like rounded pebbles.
An eerie feeling was stealing over him. It had been with him for two days, actually, only now it was gaining a powerful momentum. It had to do with fear, it had to do with mysteries, it had to do with some dark suspicion in childhood of things unspoken in this house, some slowly mounting apprehension of his mother’s youth and his father’s age and his mother’s misery. He did not know what it all meant. He feared, positively feared, it was all connected. Yet maybe the horror of it was that it was not connected. That it was just life, this house, the way life was, and everyone felt alone and frightened from time to time of nameless things, and saw others beyond the windows caught up in an illusion of preoccupation and frenzy.
But life for each of us was this dark place.
He did not say all this to himself clearly. He felt it; and he felt in himself impatience and rage against his mother. She cannot help herself. She is breaking things, is she? She thrashes about in this glorified closet.
Well, he must help himself. He must find the answer. Some simple answer as to why all his life he had thought he was the only one, why he lived among ghosts while this defector lived and breathed in Istanbul.
“What is the matter with you?” Lena whispered. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“Go away now, I want to be with my mother.”
“Well, set her straight, get her up,” she pressed. “Tonio, if you do not do it, I don’t know how long I can keep your father out of here. He was at the door again this morning. He is weary of my excuses. But oh, to let him see her like this!”
“And why not!” Tonio said with a sudden anger.
“You don’t know what you say, you pitiful child,” she said. And as he stepped into the bedroom, she shut the doors behind him.
* * *
Marianna was at the keyboard. She leaned on her elbow, the glass of wine and the bottle right beside her, and with one hand she played little tinkling notes rapidly.
The afternoon was closed out by the draperies and she had for light three candles.