room, staring into that shadowy mirror. Do you love me, he whispered, but without ever moving his lips, and he saw Christina’s eyes open like the mechanical eyes of a doll, and Christina’s mouth, glistening, formed the one word: “Yeeeeess…”
Paolo was near him. Paolo was a sudden heaviness against him causing him to right himself on his feet. From far far away he heard Paolo’s crying. Paolo’s hands pulled on him till he closed his own long white fingers over them, peeling them off and holding them tight as he stared forward into the mirror.
Why didn’t you warn me, he spoke to his reflection, this giant in the black Venetian tabarro with such a white face, and this child clinging to him, head bent, his limbs affixed to the black cloth as though he could not be torn off of it. Why didn’t you warn me that the time had run out. That it was nearly finished.
And then tugging Paolo with him, he moved clumsily towards the bed. He fell down into the pillows, Paolo nestled close to him, and it seemed Paolo’s crying went on and on in his sleep.
6
HE WAS STILL TIRED when he reached the theater. He had taken Paolo to a little café where they had both of them eaten too much. He felt light-headed and the world was blazing around him. Colors bled into the rain that sent the maskers scurrying. Paolo wouldn’t eat until he saw Tonio eat, and Tonio had given him much too much wine.
It seemed to him that he could not possibly sing. Yet he knew that nothing would keep him from it.
And as soon as he heard the crowd stomping and howling, and caught a glimpse of Bettichino already painted, his body a proud scaffolding of silk and armor, the habitual excitement came to his rescue along with the force of his will.
He took more care than usual with his dress, highlighting his face with white paint as subtly and skillfully as Bettichino always did, and when at last he stepped before the lights, he was his old self again, his voice struggling only a little at first, and then pouring out of him in full strength. He could feel the carnival merriment in the audience, he could hear it in their hoarse and loving shouts of Bravo. For one second he permitted himself the detachment of seeing this entire theater as it rose before him, this smoky wilderness of faces, and he knew this was the night for risks and tricks and all manner of flights of fancy.
Christina came backstage after the first act. It was the first time he had ever let her close to him when he was in female dress, and he put on a jeweled mask before he let her in, and was not surprised to see that his appearance enticed her.
She let out a little gasp, gazing at him. Or rather as she gazed at this woman in plum-colored velvet and white satin rosettes.
“Come here to me, my dear,” he said in a mellow whisper just to frighten her. She herself was the little officer complete with epaulettes, her legs shapely in her tight breeches. And she looked more like a timid boychild as she approached him, almost fearfully, and lifted her hand to touch his face. He was smiling down at her, seeing the pair of them perfectly in the mirror, and as he lowered himself into the chair, his skirts spreading out all around him, he placed her on his lap. He saw the taut angular wrinkles of cloth between her legs and wanted to touch them.
He contented himself instead with the silk of her white neck.
She lifted the wine cup and let him taste it, then kissed him eagerly, and he turned her slowly so she could see the vision in the mirror: the tall woman, powdered white with a cat’s mask of sequins and red lips, and the young boy with his exquisite face on her lap.
She turned and touched the beauty marks on his face. She pulled away the mask and seeing his painted eyes, let out another half-concealed gasp.
“You frighten me, Signore,” he whispered in that same dark feminine fashion; and she, with a little throb in her throat, made as if to assault him.
Her little hand gathered up his skirt, it felt for the nakedness underneath, and finding the hard organ, grasped it cruelly, so that he whispered under his breath, “Careful, my darling, let’s not ruin