to make it up to him, she took him to San Marco to see his father in procession.
The great church was the Ducal Chapel of the Doge and Tonio’s father was Grand Councillor.
It was like a dream to him afterwards; but it was no dream. And all his life he remembered it.
He had hidden from her hours after the fall. The great Palazzo Treschi swallowed him. The truth was, he knew the entire four storeys of the crumbling Renaissance house better than anyone else, and familiar with every chest and closet in which he could hide, he could always get away for as long as he wanted.
Darkness meant nothing to him. Being lost here or there didn’t bother him either. He had no fear of rats. Rather he watched their quick passage through the corridors with vague interest. And he liked the shadows on the walls, the ripples of light from the Grand Canal flashing dimly on ceilings painted with ancient figures.
He knew more of these moldering rooms than of the world outside. They were the landscape of his childhood and all along his labyrinthine path lay landmarks of other retreats and pilgrimages.
But being without her, that was the pain for him. And anguished and shivering, he crept back to her finally as he always did when the servants had despaired of finding him.
She lay sobbing on her bed. And there he appeared, a man of five years, bent on revenge, his face red and streaked with dirt from his crying.
Of course he was never going to speak to her again as long as he lived. Never mind that he could not stand being without her.
Yet as soon as she opened her arms, he flew into her lap and lay against her breast as still as if he were dead, one arm around her neck, the other hand clutching her shoulder so tightly he was hurting her.
She was little more than a girl herself, but he didn’t know it. He felt her lips on his cheek, on his hair. He melted into her gentleness. And deep within the pain that for the moment was his mind, he thought, If I hold her, hold her, then she’ll stay as she is now, and that other creature won’t come out of her to hurt me.
Then she drew herself up, stroking the stiff unruly waves of her black hair, her brown eyes still red but brimming with sudden excitement. “Tonio!” she said impulsively, rocking like a child. “There’s still time, I’ll dress you myself.” She clapped her hands. “I’m taking you with me to San Marco.”
His nurses said no. But there was no stopping his mother. A gaiety pervaded the room, candles dipping and trembling as the servants followed them about, his mother’s fingers deftly buttoning his satin breeches, his brocade waistcoat. She took the comb to his softer curls with the old chant, they were black silk, and kissed him twice abruptly.
And all the way down the corridor, he heard her singing softly behind him as he skipped ahead, thrilled with the click of his fancy slippers on the marble.
She was radiant in her black velvet gown, a blush suffusing her olive skin, and in the light of the lantern as she sank back into the dark felze of the gondola, her face with its slanted eyes resembled perfectly those Madonnas in the old Byzantine paintings. She held him on her lap. The curtain closed. “Do you love me?” she asked. He teased her. She pressed her cheek against his, mingling her eyelashes with his own, until he gave way to uncontrolled laughter. “Do you love me!” she clasped his shoulder.
And when he said yes, he felt her melting embrace, and for a moment became motionless, as if paralyzed, against her.
Across the piazza he danced on the leash of her arm. Everyone was here! He made bow after bow, hands reaching to tousle his hair, to press him to perfumed skirts. The young secretary to his father, Signore Lemmo, tossed him high in the air seven times before his mother said stop it. And his beautiful cousin Catrina Lisani, with two of her sons in tow, threw back her veil and, picking him up, smothered him against her fragrant white bosom.
But as soon as they set foot into the immense church Tonio was silent.
Never had he witnessed such a spectacle. Candles everywhere wreathed the marble columns and in the gusts from the open doors, the torches roared in their sconces. The great