The Mercury Waltz

a novel

Published by
Roadswell Editions
127 W. 83rd St. #56
New York, NY 10024-0056

First Edition
January 2014

ISBN: 978-1-938263-08-8

Copyright
© 2014 by Kathe Koja

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including posting text or links to text online, printing, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher.

Great thanks to Rick Lieder and Carter Scholz for close reading; to Aaron Mustamaa and Diane Cheklich for constant encouragement; and to Christopher Schelling for unique and unwavering support.

To CRS
Comme toujours

If I reach out and touch his wing,
What harm, what help might he then bring?

From “Mercury Dressing,”
J. D. McClatchy

The fox’s hide fits the puppet like a second skin, stitched velvet fur a russet gleam beneath the lights themselves masked into stars, the little theatre stage now become the wide dark world: though a sparsely populated one, not even a dozen seats sold on this, the show’s last night. Beneath peaked ears the foxy man is smiling as, seeming to follow, he feints, he beckons, he leads the outfoxed king deeper down the pale-chalked road into the heart of the empty forest.

“Such a merry fellow,” says the king, a tall puppeteer in white domino and finely cut frock coat, a nosegay of pale green violets, the spring’s first violets, tucked into his buttonhole. His round crown hat is half a wink at current fashion, fashioned fore and aft with a garish and glittering pasteboard crown, observed by an audience of bowler hats and hobble skirts, a second-best businessman’s suit, a red-tipped ermine wrap tucked close in the theatre’s echoing chill: the last breath of winter, all warmth before or still to come just a phantom and a dream. “And such a handsome fellow, too! But do you own no master? Out upon the lonely roads, who feeds you?”

“Those who find me hungry,” says the fox, the voice playful, the accent from elsewhere, undefined. “Those who find me gay.”

“In my court,” the king announces, “I always have need for such a fellow. And always I provide for those who serve me. Still”—chin cocked, gaze measuring behind the domino, in distance as well as artifice all the years, all the antic, mantic, mocking characters, like the endless progeny of some profligate god: how many faces does he see, that puppeteer, a-grin inside that fox’s?—“still, any dog of mine must learn to feed only from my hand, can you do so? You have passed your life in the fens and dens of the woods, you are wild.”

The fox turns his head to the audience, that doubled stare again, or tripled; the long tail twitches, its snow-white tip another kind of wink. “Your majesty… try and see.”

“Come, then,” and as the stars above them darken, the king palms from his pocket a pinkish paper sweetmeat, then another and another, the fox taking from his fingertips as gently as a milk-fed lamb. When the treats are done, the king in his delight begins to stroke the fox, an odd and oddly sensual caress: nose to ears to tail, the quivering back and belly, each motion more lingering until at last he pulls the fox fully into his arms. From the seats comes some nervous throat-clearing, breathy and scandalized, that the pleasured king ignores, the fox mouthing at his hands now, curling and swishing the bushy tail, licking and nibbling at the king’s naked throat—

—until all at once the tongue is teeth, the king shocked into a cry with the fox atop him now in earnest, a wild creature wild for the kill, as the audience gasps at the grue, the ermined lady in the front row gives a little shriek and hides her eyes. While the king slumps into a kind of final swoon, the fox-man roots deftly through the royal pockets, taking the jewels he finds there, the wadded banknotes, as a true fox strips a carcass, at last stripping his own fur to turn it inside out and make of it a treasure-bag, the bare puppet then addressing the audience directly: “His Majesty sets a fine table, wouldn’t you say?”—

—and then as if in sudden inspiration, pausing to pull from his stained nefarious sack a pretty gewgaw, bright diamond made of paste, to offer to the ermine-wrapped lady with such luxurious courtesy—“
Cher
Madame, one precious jewel deserves another…”—that she reaches like a child to accept it, prevented at the last by her escort, who instead takes the trinket with a frown: as the stars dim even further, as the fox-man points his face to where the moon should be and makes a moan—

—that as the darkness deepens becomes the first note of a tune, a crying squeezebox offstage in tandem, the darkness now so deep that when the moon at last shines forth, round as a silver plate—it is a silver plate—it throws its light onto a different pair, the dead king and his assailant gone and in their place the playlet’s author and his actor-companion, both in puppet form: Mr. Pollux wiped clean and divested of his treasure, Mr. Castor in parson’s black, to bow arm in arm and advise the audience as one that “The ancient Greeks in theatre/Would dress their words in verse/And let the chorus speak for them the truths they would disperse,” Istvan’s tone a silky singsong, Rupert’s sturdy baritone in counterpoint. “While we here at the Mercury another tune employ/And give you all you dream you want, as long as it is joy…. Good night,
mesdames et messieurs
—”

—as the plum velvet curtain veils the stage a world no longer, just sewn silk and planed and painted broomsticks, the gaslight in flare to show the scrubbed sconces and well-worn horsehair of the seats, as the audience, released from the tale, reenters the wider, less concentrated dark of the square outside. If, as they go, those men and ladies hurrying for home or hailed cabs, apéritifs or cups of China tea, if there are more looks cast over-shoulder, or a bit more shrinking at sudden sounds on the street, perhaps it is because they have taken to heart some lasting import of the tale just told, making of their own world of sidewalk and supper club that forest and its perils, with every feint a wild creature’s and no safety in their king. And if the escort of the lady who received the fox’s gift later finds that he is missing a cuff link, an expensive onyx cuff link carved with a head of Medusa, perhaps he attributes that loss to the prevailing mood of darkness, or as offering to that foxing god whose name the theatre bears.

Once all have gone, Istvan emerges, blood-glycerin spotted down his shirtfront, tugging off the bowler-hat crown: “It’s left a dent in my noggin,” rubbing at his forehead, freeing his bound hair tangled as a boy’s, “one wonders how the real kings tolerate it. Did you see our slumming royalty? that commissioner fellow and his
petit frère
? The missus must have been elsewhere tonight, may be at the Athenaeum—”

“What’s on there?” says Rupert, broom in one hand and lit cigar in the other, his little spectacles a-shine in the slanted light. “Still
She Wouldst Not
?”

“Still and always,” on a yawn. “That Fairgrieve’s not the man to turn away a shilling. no doubt they’ll be playing it when the last trump sounds.” He seats himself comfortably in the front row, watching as Rupert sweeps: dandy’s boots crossed at the knee, a pearl gleaming at his earlobe, fine lines about his eyes like some artist’s sketching, the marks of time on beauty’s gaze. “And the Cleopatra’s doing
Lear
, one hears, better pluck out the eyeballs early…. Talking of that, our little Guignol’s not been loved, has it? I told you it was too bloodthirsty.”

Rupert shrugs, smokes, sweeps; smiles. “It was as I wrote it to be. And tell me there’s no truth to it? Cur fox.”

“Your truth, I never cut them…. What’s next for us, Monsieur
auteur
?
Jolly Tales of the Backstreet Whorehouse
? That ought to make the groundlings sit up and bark.”

“It’s just half written,” with another shrug; the broom finds dust, a blot of street dung, a crumpled
carte-de-visite
; obligingly Istvan moves his legs. “So far there’s a bravo, or a knight, and a trickster he meets along the road—”

“Why, I know that story. It has a happy ending, too,” leaning forward to tuck into Rupert’s vest pocket the fat black cuff link, the Gorgon’s smile, as Rupert shakes his head: “Such foolishness, messire—”

“Such gratitude. I’ll fetch the other for you next time, won’t I,” with a smile that becomes a red-tinged kiss, the knight and the trickster in the chilly, homey, cluttered half-dark of the theatre, their own theatre, the Mercury Theatre of false death and chalk dust, sleight of hand and useless booty, again the world and all the world to these two men and their toys.

“Vulpecula’s Hide”

Contributed by Seraphim

As the
Daily Solon
’s
l’homme moderne du théâtre,
it is your angelic correspondent’s duty to
seek out and attend as many as possible of the theatrical entertainments our city provides, from the well-known to the obscure. (Seraphim also attended the Music Ministry’s very fine
lieder
recital, but as a private member of the audience; the reader is advised to consult Herr Arnold’s excellent review elsewhere in today’s edition.) Thus it was that your correspondent last night entered the dark, somewhat dank confines of the Mercury Theatre for the first time, to watch a puppet play.

Yet here was no mere entertainment or fairy-story romance such as one might see in the marionette booths in the park. This was a sharp satire on the enticements and uses of power, one that perhaps could best be understood by watching, as the saying goes, “between the drapes.” The unnamed King—a costumed puppeteer, very adept, though surprisingly uncredited in the playbill—seeks to make of Vulpecula the Fox his cringing follower, as some other “kings” may seek to usurp their citizens’ manhood in other ways; have we not perhaps seen that same attempt in some of the newly repressive laws proposed in our own city? But this onstage king is undone by his own greed and blindness, as well as by Vulpecula’s wit, leading to a fully deserved punition. (Although the spectacle of his ending may be too violent for more timid members of the audience, or for ladies’ gentle sensibilities; consider this a warning.)

Bravo for the fox who fully honors his appetites, that puppet actor who fears not to say what the man in the street might well be saying! And
bravo for the Mercury Theatre! Sadly, last night’s was the final showing of this drama, but surely others just as intriguing will soon follow. And having now visited, your angelic correspondent intends to keep upon this venue a happily watchful eye.