The Golden Mean (4 page)

Afterwards, over wine backstage, the director shakes his head and says, “Amateurs.”

“You won’t get professionals here,” I say.

He’s an Athenian, this Carolus, with a drinker’s genial blob of a nose and a husky, hectoring way of running the world. I speak dialect with the actors but not with him. His diction is high and elegant and a bit prissy, but he’s learning, slowly. “Fuck me”—I taught him that.

The actor playing the woman, Agave, at a livelier table across the room, makes a leggy chestnut mare.

“That one looks the part, at least,” I say.

“He does indeed,” Carolus says. “That may have been my mistake.”

At the actors’ table there’s much merry jostling of chairs to make room for me, though I refuse to sit down. They’re still in their costumes and are enjoying themselves voraciously.

“Better every time,” I say.

I’ve taken to haunting rehearsals ever since I stumbled on them the day we arrived. When I returned later that day to apologize to Carolus for the interruption, he too was apologetic. He suffered headaches and insomnia and his cast was made up of locals, mostly clowns and jugglers, acrobats, and one or two musicians. “I think of Euripides seeing this and I die,” he told me. “I die and die again.” When he discovered I knew the play, had seen it in Athens in my student days, we compared notes and realized it was his own Dionysus I had seen. He had been young enough then, still, to get away with it: dark-haired instead of white, thrilling-voiced, intense. The boy he’s got for the role now is pretty enough, but dense and oddly prim. He has to be taught to walk like a cock and not a hen. Aging Kadmos, trained as a clown, fancies himself a professional, though he’s never done tragedy, and considers himself the actors’ spokesman. He takes their complaints to Carolus and delivers them long-windedly, pleased with his own diction. Agave looks nice in a wig but simpers and minces and forgets his lines. Pentheus often misses rehearsals, with no explanation. He’s away today.

The actors are playing a drinking game, tossing the ball of rags they’ve been using for Pentheus’s head amongst themselves; whoever drops it has to stand and drain his cup while the others hoot and jeer. I rejoin Carolus. I like him. I like having a friend near enough my own age. Older, actually, but not old enough to be my father, and I like that, too. And still the embers of a sexuality not quite spent; you can see it when he gets angry. He likes men, told me so early on, and didn’t mind when I told him I didn’t. We talk about plays and theatre generally, tell each other about productions we’ve seen. I don’t have much to offer that he’s unfamiliar with.

I ask him what makes a good tragedy. He thinks about this for a while. A companionable silence between us while the actors slowly drift away, bidding each other stagy goodbyes, and the rain increases, drumming at the roof like fingers. He’s got good wine from somewhere, not the local.

“Funny question,” he says. “A good death, a good pain, a good tragedy. ‘Good’ is a funny word.”

“I’m writing a book.” The response I default to when my subject starts to look at me strangely. And maybe I am, suddenly, maybe I am. A little work to bring me back here when I reread it years from now, to this rain and this cup of wine and this man I’m prepared to like so much. The comfort here, this little sanctuary.

“Gods, man,” he says. “Are you crying?”

I tell him I’m unwell.

“What kind of book?” he says.

“An analysis.” I’m thinking through my mouth. “In two parts, tragedy and comedy. The constituent elements of each, with examples.”

“Tragedy for beginners.”

“Sure,” I say. “A gentle introduction.”

“How are you unwell?”

I tell him I cry easily, laugh easily, get angry easily. I get overwhelmed.

“That’s a sickness?”

I ask him what he would call it.

“Histrionics,” he says. “What do you do for it?”

I tell him I write books.

He nods, then shakes his head. “My father had the same. I wish he’d written books. He was a drunk.”

I wait for more, but there isn’t any.

“A good tragedy,” he says. “I think you’re a dabbler.”

I lean forward. I tell him that’s exactly what I am. I suggest the stilts.

He laughs, then falls silent again, long enough for me to wonder if our conversation is over and he’s waiting for me to leave. I clear my throat.

“It’s the whole course of a character’s life,” he says. “The actions he takes, decisions, the choices that bring him right up to the present moment. Having to choose.” He points at me. “That’s what I want to say. You’re surrounded by evils, a banquet of evils, and you have to choose. You have to fill your plate and eat it.”

“And comedy?”

He looks at me like I’m stupid. “Comedy makes you laugh. A couple of slaves buggering each other, I’ll have that and thank you very much. How would you say that here?”

I think for a minute. “Ass-fucking,” I say in dialect.

He grunts. He likes it.

“That’s it?” I ask.

Carolus shakes a reproving finger at me. “I won’t have you slighting the comedies. They were my living for the first few years.
Lysistrata
without the props, if you know what I mean. I got a reputation for that one. I was just a teenager then.”

“You started young.”

“I did, man.” He grasps himself between the legs and we laugh. “It was the family trade. My grandfather was Tiresias in the first production of
Oedipus the King.”

“No.”

“He was. After him, my father took up the role.” He looks at me and says nothing for a moment. Then: “I kept the mask he wore that night. I’ll show it to you sometime, if you like.”

“They let you?” I mean the company. Good masks are expensive, irreplaceable.

“He stole it.”

I nod.

“No masks for this crew.” Carolus waves a hand at the table the actors have lately abandoned for a dive in town. “I haven’t the time or the money. They’re all so stiff anyway, I doubt anyone will notice the difference.”

“You’re too hard on them. Dionysus is improving, with your help.”

His mouth goes bitter. “Don’t patronize me,” he says. “You think I wanted to end up here?”

“It’s funny how often I hear that about Pella.”

He’s not interested. “You know who’s going to be all right? The only one? Pentheus. You know why? Because I’m going to end up playing him myself if he misses one more bloody rehearsal.”

“Fucking,” I say.

“One more fucking rehearsal. You’ll have me passing for a native by Friday. Where is that cunt, anyway?”

Something lands on the table between us: the ball of rags the actors used for Pentheus’s head. It’s come unwound, trailing a rag-tail like a shooting star. The grubby, soft white bundle lands almost soundlessly, not even overturning our cups. The paint on it, eyes and mouth and some pinky gore, is smudged like a child’s drawing.

“That wouldn’t scare anyone.” The boy steps from the shadows. I wonder how long he’s been listening to us.

“It’s you, is it?” Carolus winks at me. “Monkey. What would scare us, then?”

The boy looks up at the ceiling. “A real head,” he says.

Childish bravado, but Carolus is nodding, eyebrows raised. A show of seriousness; I’ll play along.

“And where would I get one?” the director says.

The boy looks blank, as though the question is so stupid he wonders if he’s missing something. “Anywhere.”

“Logistical problems,” I say. “You’d need a new head for each performance. I doubt they’d keep.”

“We’re doing only the one night,” Carolus says.

“Lot of blood,” I say. “Messy.”

“Messy,” Carolus says to the boy.

“Well, sure,” he says. “Don’t you want it to look real?”

“We use the costumes over and over,” Carolus says. “Pentheus today, Creon tomorrow. You want us to do everything in pink? Real, but only just real enough, if you see what I mean.”

“You could cauterize it,” I say. They look at me. “Cauterize. You heat a metal plate over a brazier. Then you press the cut end to the plate to burn it. Seals it right up, stops the blood.”

The boy frowns. “Like frying meat.”

“Exactly.”

“Well.” Carolus claps his hands together once. “Problem solved.” He tosses the ball of rags back to the boy. “I’m putting you in charge, then. Pentheus’s head is now your department.”

The boy looks pleased. He leaves, tossing the ball in the air and catching it as he goes.

“Interesting,” I say.

“He likes to watch rehearsals, like you,” Carolus says. “Stays out of the way, doesn’t say much. The actors seem to like having him around. Bit of a pet.”

“He’s got a flair for the dramatic, anyway.”

Eyebrows up again: “He’s got a flair for something,” Carolus says.

The boy is back. “By the way,” he says. “I know where Pentheus is.”

I clear my throat, assembling a formal introduction. It’s time.

“Brat.” Carolus ignores me. “Where, then?”

“He’s sick,” the boy says. “I heard the actors talking about him. He can’t eat and he can’t shit and some days he can’t get out of bed.”

“Fucking ass-fucker,” Carolus says, pleased with himself. The boy turns, waves the rag head above his own, and is gone for real.

I
’VE LEARNED IN THE
past week that I can get Arrhidaeus to do anything if it has to do with horses.

“How many?” I point to the stalls.

“One, two, five,” he says, and sure enough there are five horses inside this day, including his favourite, my big Tar.

“What colour?” I say of Tar, and he giggles and rocks and claps his hands and reaches for the bridle hanging from a nail in the wall. “No.” I pull his hand away. “Soon. Not yet. What colour is Tar?”

“Back, back, back,” he says.

“Black.”

“Buh-lack.”

“La, la, la,” I say. “Blah, blah, blah. Black.” He laughs at me; fair enough. I give him a stick and tell him to draw me shapes in the muck: circle, triangle. He struggles with square, and I see his attention is almost gone, like oil almost burnt out in a lamp. He has a kind of feral intelligence, knows more or less how to get what he needs—food, drink, basic companionship, the piss-pot—but try to draw him up a level and he’s quickly exhausted. Literally: red rims his eyes, he yawns, even his skin seems to go more grey.

I leave off the shapes and have him jump up and down ten times while I count for him. Of this, too, he tires quickly, though already he’s stopped crying whenever he doesn’t want to do something. I’ve asked the groom to find some jobs for him around the horses, sweeping and so on, something to get him out in the air and moving. Before I go, I’ll ask Philip to get rid of the nurse and find someone more congenial, more willing to recognize improvement and contribute to it. There must be someone.

“Is it time to ride?” I ask. He mounts more easily now and sits up tall. Mounted, he’s more coordinated, with better balance than on his own feet. This amazes me and I can’t think through a reason for it, though the groom tells me he’s seen it before. He strikes me as the kind who’s seen everything before and doesn’t want to be told much of anything, or at least isn’t willing to show surprise, but he’s genial and alert and helpful without getting in the way, and hasn’t asked me why I bother. He says he’s seen children who are awkward and ungainly become graceful on their animals. He’s seen it too with injured soldiers who have to learn all over again how to ride. Sometimes it might be an injury to a leg or the pelvis, but he says he’s seen men with no outward impairment who’ve suffered some damage to the head and can’t remember how to raise their hands until they’re given reins. I ask him what he makes of all this. He shrugs.

“People like horses,” he says. “It’s a part of our nature. I’m happiest on a horse, aren’t you? I could forget everything and still remember how to ride. My father was like that. Babbling idiot by the end, not far off this one”—he gestures at Arrhidaeus—“but he sat like a general. Aren’t you happiest on a horse?” he demands again.

I haven’t the heart to tell him not really. I wonder where the rest of his life takes place when he’s not in the stables: what room, what meat, what sleep, who he rides in his bed. I remind Arrhidaeus to keep his heels down and watch the groom walk him around the ring on a lead. Walk on, the little man’s taught him, and stop; a major accomplishment in just seven days. From the back Arrhidaeus looks grand, and I love to hear his voice giving these commands. I’ve ordered his nurse to bathe him daily and keep his laundry cleaner; I’ve told the little snit I’ll make them exchange clothes if what the prince is wearing isn’t suitable. I take good care to refer to him as “the prince.” I love to hear my own voice giving these commands, and wonder sometimes why I have conceived such a dislike of the nurse. He has a job I would abhor, and it’s natural enough for him to despise me, who plays at his life’s work for an hour or two each day. I wonder what ambitions he would have were he not yoked to an idiot every hour of the day. I wonder what he does when I relieve him. I’ll have to sneak up on him sometime and find out.

After Arrhidaeus’s ride, I show him how to curry his animal. He’s rough at first and I have to teach him about the grain of the horse’s hide and the tender places on the animal’s body. He’s still nervous feeding Tar from his own hand, and the scabbing and peeling of the skin haven’t improved, despite the mixtures I’ve given the nurse.

“He eats them,” the nurse says, when I return Arrhidaeus to his rooms today. “Licks them right off. Do you put honey in? That will be why.”

He’s tidying the room, sweeping, snapping blankets; or at least had enough warning of us coming to put on a little show. He has food already laid out for Arrhidaeus, who sets to with both hands, immediately ignoring both of us.

“He gets it every winter,” the nurse continues, before I can say something scathing. “I’ve tried a honey poultice before. On his feet, too. Heals right up when the weather turns warm. I bind it when it bleeds, but otherwise I leave it to air. The feet, too. That’s why the sandals, and I let him go barefoot when I can. Fresh air seems best.”

“Do you read?”

He stiffens. “You already asked me that. I’ve been working on his letters with him. Ask him and see.”