you care for me? Why did you care in Ferrara? Why do you care now? He felt helpless as he had felt that night in Rome in the little monastery garden when this man had so furiously demanded, “Why do you stare at me?”
He shook his head, he tried to speak, but he could not. He wanted to argue that he had studied all else given to him, that he had obeyed rules that were crushing and relentless, why, why…. But he knew why. They demanded only that he be what he was! And they would settle for nothing else.
“Maestro!” he whispered. The words seemed to dry in his throat. “Don’t ask this of me. It is my voice, and I cannot give it up to you. It is not yours, no matter how long and far you traveled to bring it back with you, no matter what you endured in Venice to bring it back here for your own purposes! It is mine, and I cannot sing. I cannot! Don’t you understand, what you ask of me is impossible!
“I will never sing again, not for you, not for me, not for anyone!”
* * *
It was dark in the room, though outside the cloister the sky was an even purple over the topmost gables of the house. Shadows hung down the four stories of the building into the garden itself, where only here and there a shape distinguished itself, boughs heavy with oranges, and those lilies flickering in the dark, like waxen candles. And here and there, behind the many-paned windows was the glimmer of candles. And from recesses everywhere there came the late-night sounds of the better musicians, those more pounding, constant melodies issuing from instruments on all floors.
It was not cacophony. It was just a great hum, as if this building were alive and humming, and Tonio felt the strangest sense of peace.
Was it possible that he was so weary of anger and bitterness he had let it slip away for a while? He had said, just give me this moment alone? He did not think of Venice, he did not think of Carlo, he did not pull and jerk at all the recesses of his mind where these thoughts lingered. Rather his mind was just a series of empty rooms.
And he felt this peace in this place which would have been so beautiful to him if only he could feel this for it all of the time.
Yes, just for the moment, let go.
Imagine, if you will, that life is still livable, that life is even—well, good. And that if you wanted to, you could, perhaps, approach that instrument that is still lying open, and that seated there, your fingers on the keys, you could, if you wanted to, sing. You could sing of sadness, and you could sing of pain, unspeakable pain, but you could sing. You could do anything that you wanted, really, because all that prevents it has fallen away like scales off a body that is really human, and has been by some inhuman justice rendered monstrous but is now free to return to itself.
He lay with his eyes open, on the narrow bench where sometimes perhaps Guido himself slept in between his arduous sessions, and he thought, yes, imagine all this for as long as you can.
The sky deepened. The garden changed. The orange tree beyond the arch, once full with shadow, had now lost its shape. Nothing could be seen of the fountain, nothing of the white lilies. And those lights in the windows across the yard had the only clarity now, so many beacons in the dark.
He lay still, wondering that he was being allowed to stay here, wondering that he had been allowed to linger in this empty room and fall into such deep and empty sleep.
And it occurred to him gradually that perhaps with the glass shut and the door closed, he might just go to that harpsichord and lay his hands on it, and he might…But no, if he pushed this too far, he would lose all of it. And again he closed his eyes.
The very thought of his voice was unendurable to him. It was unendurable to him to think even for an instant of those nights roaming through the calli of Venice when, so in love with the sound of singing, he had played right into his brother’s hands. And if he did not leave all this, he would be thinking of it again in that