their own, they could live and love together, and all the rest that was given to the others be damned.
“I love you,” he said. And you almost made me believe in it, too, he thought. His voice trailed off. How could he leave her? How could he leave Guido? How could he take leave of himself?
“But when will you go?” she asked. “If you’ve made up your mind to do it and nothing can stop you…”
He shook his head. He wished she wouldn’t say any more. She was not resigned to it, no, not yet, and just for this moment, he couldn’t bear to hear her even pretend that she was. The last night of the opera was tomorrow. They had at least that much.
7
IT WAS AFTER the last race; the horses had charged through the press, stomping into the crowds several times to drive spectators underfoot, the air full of shrieks, though nothing stopped their volatile progress towards the Piazza Venezia. The wounded and the dead were being dragged away. Tonio, at the top of the spectators’ stand, held Christina close to him, gazing towards the piazza where great cloths were being thrown over the heads of the maddened animals.
Darkness was coming softly over the rooftops. And now commenced the great closing ceremony of these last few hours before the beginning of Lent: the moccoli. Candles everywhere.
They appeared in windows all along the narrow street; they appeared on the tops of carriages; they appeared on the ends of poles, and in the hands of women, children, men seated at the doors, until everywhere there was this soft flickering of thousands upon thousands of tapers. Tonio quickly took a light from the man beside him, touching it to Christina’s candle, as there exploded at once the whispered cries, “Sia ammazzato chi non porta moccolo”—“Death to anyone who does not carry a candle.”
At once a dark figure darted forward blowing out Christina’s flame as she tried to shield it with her hand. “Sia ammazzato la signorina!” Tonio quickly gave her a light again, struggling to keep his own flame out of the reach of the same rascal, as with a great breath from his powerful lungs he blew out the man’s flame with the same curse: “Sia ammazzato il signore.”
The entire street below was a sea of dimly lit faces, each protecting its own flame while trying to extinguish another: Death to you, death to you, death to you….
Taking Christina’s hand, Tonio led her down through the tiered seats, now and then blowing out a vulnerable light as those about him sought to retaliate; and slipping into the very thick of the crowd, he pulled Christina along under his arm, dreaming of some side street where he might breathe for the moment and again commence the little lovemaking with which they had tormented themselves all day long amid wine drinking and laughing and almost desperate gaiety.
Tonight the opera would be brief so that it could end at the stroke of twelve, the commencement of Ash Wednesday, and for now he cared for nothing else but the starry sky overhead and this great ocean of tender flames and whispers enveloping him. Death to you, death to you, death to you. His flame was gone, so was Christina’s, who was gasping, but in this moment, elbowed and pushed, he tumbled her against him and opened her mouth with his, not caring that the candles had gone out. It seemed the crowd held them up, moved them along; it was like being in the sea with one’s feet in the sand, leaning against the surf and letting it support you.
“Give me your flame.” Christina quickly turned to a tall man beside her, and then gave the fire to Tonio.
Her little face was eerie, lit from below, and those soft wisps of her hair were ignited with gold, and she laid her head on his chest, her candle against his so his hands curled to protect both of them.
Finally it was time to go. The crowd was bleeding away, the children still blowing out the candles of their parents and taunting them with the curse, and the parents recriminating, and the madness ebbing into the side streets, and Tonio stood quietly, not wanting to move, not wanting to leave this last remnant of the carnival, even for the last moments of ecstasy in the theater.
All the windows were lit still; lanterns hung over the street, and the carriages drifting past were covered with lights.