Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice Page A

conversation went on spiritedly around them so Tonio felt comfortably anonymous. Someone was talking of the opera, and this Neapolitan singer, Caffarelli. “The greatest in the world,” they said. “Do you agree with that?”
    Then someone very distinctly said the name Treschi, and again, Treschi, but coupled with the first name Carlo.
    “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” came the man’s voice again. “This is Marc Antonio Treschi, it must be.”
    “Just like Carlo,” said someone else, and Alessandro, turning Tonio gently to the gathering of young men, gave a litany of their names as there came the nods, and then someone asked did Alessandro think Caffarelli was the greatest singer in Europe?
    It seemed marvelous to Tonio, all of it. Yet Alessandro’s attentions were wholly turned to him, and in a sudden burst of exuberance he invited Alessandro to a cup of wine with him.
    “A great pleasure,” Alessandro said at once. He’d scooped up two London papers, and paid for them quickly. “Caffarelli,” he said over his shoulder. “Well, I’ll know how great he is when I hear him.”
    “Is this the new opera? Is this Caffarelli coming here?” Tonio asked. He loved this place, and even the fact that everyone had wanted to know him.
    But Alessandro was guiding him to the door; several people had risen with a nod.
    And then the meeting took place, which was to change the very color of the sky, the aspect of the snow-white clouds, and make the day take on a dark resonance.
    One of the young patricians followed them into the arcade, a tall, blond man, his hair streaked with white and his skin darkly burnt by the sun as if he had been in some tropical land and was much the worse for it. He did not wear his ceremonial robes, but only the loose and sloppy
tabarro
, and there was about him an almost menacing air, though Tonio could not imagine why as he glanced up to him.
    “Would you choose the café?” Tonio was just saying to Alessandro. This had to be done just right. Angelo was quite intimidated by Alessandro. And quite intimidated by Tonio, too, of late. Life was getting better and better.
    But the man suddenly touched Tonio’s arm.
    “You don’t remember me, do you, Tonio?” he asked.
    “No, Signore, I have to confess, I don’t.” Tonio smiled. “Please forgive me.”
    But an odd sensation passed over him. The man’s tone was polite but his eyes, faded and blue, and slightly tearing as if from illness, had a cold-look to them.
    “Ah, but I’m curious to know,” said the man, “have you heard much of late from your brother Carlo?”
    For a protracted moment, Tonio stared at this man. It seemed the noises of the piazza had fused into a dissonant hum, and that a throbbing in his ears had suddenly distorted everything. He wanted to say hastily, “You’ve made some mistake—” But he heard the halting of his breath, and he felt a physical weakening so unusual it made him feel slightly dizzy.
    “Brother, Signore?” he asked. Carlo. The name had set up a positive echo in his head, and if the mind had a shape at that moment, the shape was that of an immense and endless corridor. Carlo, Carlo, Carlo, like a whisper echoed in the corridor. “Just like Carlo,” someone had said only moments ago, only it seemed to have happened years and years ago. “Signore, I have no brother.”
    It seemed an age passed in which this man drew himself up, the watery blue eyes narrowing deliberately. And there was tohis whole manner a conscious and dramatic outrage. But he was not surprised, though he wanted to seem so. No, he was bitterly satisfied.
    And even more astonishing than all this was Alessandro telling Tonio they must come now, with urgency. “You’ll excuse us, Excellency,” he said, and his pressure on Tonio’s arm was just slightly unpleasant.
    “You mean you know nothing of your brother?” said the man, and there was a scornful smile then, a lowering of the voice that again created an air of