The Mercury Waltz (12 page)

Backstage, Istvan oscillates between playful and moody; he too has drunk a deal of brandy, Rupert notes, though without knowing why; perhaps Istvan himself does not know why, or why as he adjusts his black domino he sighs for “My plague mask, though the plaguey beak’s too long, yeah? I’d knock the ninepins over before our knight could take a swing…. Christ, Mouse, did you overstoke the coal? It’s hot as fucking jungles in here.”

“The house is full.”

“I liked it better nearly empty,” with a sudden frown. “Like the Fin du Monde, though you never saw me play there…. Or at that smuggler fellow’s mansion, what was his name? His wife was an idiot, I recall that, with her peacocks screaming and shitting in the garden, her
jour de fête
, you never saw that either…. It was for the General, that show,” with a cold little one-shoulder shrug, as if he sheds a memory in the telling. “That old fuck—I do believe he salutes me, now, from whatever broiling spit he rides. May be beside his old friend Vidor, cheating Satan at patience? And—” another name rising, then suppressed, was it de Metz? the unholy trinity of Hector, Jürgen, and Isidore, with friend Arrowsmith the Saul-turned-Paul, and ugly stalwart Madame his Damascene road; was she? Or was he, is he, Saul to the end? or Socrates, with time the hemlock, and whatever other poisons poison him into his bed? And the Happy Prince now grown a king, king of it all perhaps; one wonders how that tale was finally told. At least there have been no more letters…. Mouse is looking at him, that measuring, reticent look he loves as much as he loves to tweak it, he cannot resist as “That Twelfth Night jig,” he says. “You should have seen your face.”

“Oh, I’ve been your audience more than once,” Rupert unperturbed, checking the soldiers’ little ruffs, straightening the tuglines, adjusting his own costume of dun black, the better to blend into the shadows. “And I’d hear all those stories, all the places you made your shows—may be you can tell me, some nights, instead of going out to dice us bankrupt,” but he is almost smiling, a smile marked by Tilde’s own as, clockwork-faithful, she pokes her head around the curtain, saying “All are seated, sir, I’m to close the doors,” an odd task perhaps for a slip of a girl but then again no one has yet tried to shove past her when she does, or, if the thought crosses into being, crosses again into oblivion at her energetic slam, and the hard weapons of her bony elbows; she wears the little knife from Die Welt, still, in her thieves’ pocket, another kind of surety.

Now she withdraws as Rupert nods, as Istvan tosses back his hair, adjusts the mask for the last, first, eternal time and “Ready, my mecs?” to the silent knight and trickster, overheard by a white shadow waiting dumb and patient in the darkness, Luc in stolen linen unnoticed by his god, who turns for the stage as Rupert steps into position, as the buzz and babble of the audience fades, as the lights go down into the sound of rain, the sweet and ghostly whistle of “The Flowers’ Roundelay”—

—while a noise sounds from the alley door, a thumping or knocking, not part of the show: answered hurriedly by Luc, who finds there a thuggish courier depositing a little crate,
For the Mercury
marked across its side, and “What’s this?” quiet so as not to be overheard inside, met then by a snort half a sneer—“
Maricon
”—in an accent Luc has never heard before, the man shambling off as Luc hoists the box inside, watched as he does so by the old knife man, trundling homeward down the alley with his handcart and bell and irritable dog, who for once does not make a sound.

Inside, the evening’s show rolls on, darkness and battle, romance and provocation, Istvan tonight particularly fey and provoking: is it the summoned memory of those old shows, those cold nights, their strain and scorn and the long loneliness of the road what makes him, now, so insistent on parading its remedy, making sure that all present understand if not share—how can they share? watchers only, never doers, players, makers, but let them see what love is, let them know that in the hills, oh, it is so fair—

—as Frédéric, bright-eyed, watches both the puppets and his companion, Haden beside him watching this show for the first time, Haden who sees the gambler Stefan Hilaire most clearly, now, upon the stage, to watch him play is to see him think. And what a play it is! both young men fully, entirely conscious of the passion building onstage, of their own coat sleeves brushing, touching, the heady potion of brandy and clean sweat and “It’s bally hot in here,” Haden whispers, too low for Frédéric to hear, so he must lean closer, very close, Haden’s breath upon his skin, the smell of that skin in Haden’s mouth like a draft of new wine—

—as onstage Rupert rattles the assailants and hangs the moon, keeping one eye always on the crowd, moved, perhaps, by his own memories, other battles, other streets and other crowds, marking when the Leopards laugh and the sober citizens flinch, when the boys from the bank stamp their feet in approval, when the blood spills and the puppets kiss—

—and the beveiled ladies rising up then in protest, calling “Shame! Shame!” in loud and righteous tandem, themselves a second show of disorder and surprise, their escorts stern beside them to forestall any others’ response—

—but Istvan is equal to them, too, as is Rupert, they need not even share a glance as “
Honi soit,
” calls the trickster mockingly, “
qui mal y pense!
” as the puppets kiss again. “Have you never tasted honey, Mesdames? Oh, a shame indeed!” to bring the laughter against them, the Virgos’ cruel confetti of applause as the ladies retreat in confusion down the aisle and out the door, to a carriage awaiting them at the curb, the burly man with the cherub’s face who helps the ladies inside, their hired escorts released back to the streets—

—as the puppets take their leave and then return, Frédéric on his feet for the ovation, joined by Haden laughing in pleasure at the fuss and “Fucking good show!” he calls with real approval, the puppets bowing again and again, their song of the Greeks swallowed up by the noise—

—echoed by a lonely, radiant figure at the back of the house, whose sudden startled gaze is caught by Haden’s, Luc who makes to flee before one pointing finger pins him like an arrow to the wall as “A moment,” Haden urgent to Frédéric, “wait for me, don’t leave,” taking Luc by the sleeve, past the milling, gesturing, stirred and agitated crowd, hauling him into an empty corner where “You’ve been fucking scarce,” says Haden, under cover of the clamor. “I said watch, didn’t I, not move in! And others are wanting you, that old de Vries cunt has asked for you three times—”

“I am sorry,” Luc murmurs, trembling in his grasp. “I’ve been watching, Haden, truly,” so truly false that Haden bites his lip in displeasure and distraction, for there is that older fellow now talking to Blum, to Frédéric, hand on his arm, what kind of play is that? so “Do as I say,” sharp, “or I’ll yank you from here and make you a forester for good, you hear me? And you’ll never see your fine M’sieur again, even onstage. Now go get me something I can use,” palm rough against the narrow back, turning back himself to where Frédéric stands waiting with “Mr. Edgar Rue,” with a bow. “May I present my friend, Mr. St.-Mary,” Haden hand out to the actor but with eyes for Frédéric, whose face is flushed, whose eyes meet his—

—as Rupert now joins Tilde at the door, hasty from his mummers’ black to shirt front and coat, spots of stage blood still on his spectacles, to see, unpleased and unsurprised, several constables arrive, the crowd diverting around them like a forking river to rocks, two sidewalk disputants dropping their voices as they pass—

“—just telling a story, aren’t they, just making up a show—”

“It’s sticking the beehive, is what it is—”

—as the constables approach Rupert on the steps, Tilde at his side like the knife man’s dog, her bark too kept in check as “We’d some reports of a disturbance, sir,” the older of the pair eyeing Rupert as the younger eyes the Virgo girls marching away, their laughter clear and fierce upon the air; it is said that the Virgo girls practice free loving, something the younger constable enthusiastically if privately supports. “Some ladies were maltreated, is that what it was? We an’t like to shut you down, sir, have you a license to show?”

—while Edgar Rue, wielding his walking stick, parts the crowd like a lordly Moses at the shore, looking past his shoulder for the Blum fellow, that pleasant little attaché of Seraphim’s whom he, Edgar Rue, would dearly like to meet: the one real critic in this city who appreciates true artistry, Seraphim’s review of his one-man “Faustus” was particularly astute! But Frédéric is off beside the shuttered shoemaker’s with Haden, still talking tête
-
à-tête of the show and the crowd and the many possible meanings of it all; of similar theatrics and poetry, both have read a fair amount of Ovid, it seems, and seem somehow loath to part—

—as inside, Istvan stands feline and pleased by the commotion, smiling beneath his domino as he attends to the puppet pair, as he tweaks the snagged scrim back into place and replaces a ninepin actor strayed into the seats; his smile changing as he sees the unhappy figure waiting for him in the dark, hands clasped like Hansel alone in the wood and “How now,” Istvan asks, half fond and half annoyed as Luc’s cold lips urgently find his own, a scent like crushed flowers, arms around his neck and “How now,” again and in a different tone, handing Luc the discarded blue silk scarf, leading him by that scarf like a dog on a length of twine into the deeper quiet backstage. “You and that St.-Mary, you made your own showing there, didn’t you? I thought he’d nip your pretty head off…. You know him,
bébé.
Tell me how.”

“Oh, M’sieur—”

“No tears. Tell me,” the old, old tale of fear and protection, beauty and the knife, the sad short truth told again and again through the hour that follows: spent not at the Cocked Hat but a place even more threadbare, an unnamed four-room hard by the quiet, busy, all-night commerce of the Cemetery, called the Goatherd’s for the goat-bearded fellow who runs it, its beds like sacks of flour, they might be sacks of flour, but it might be Elysium from Luc’s cries of sweet ravishment in the grit and dimness, damp hair around his face so beautiful that Istvan must bite his lip a little: why should such a perfect creature be born, through no fault of his own, into such a lowly spot when he is so clearly meant for better things, for a frame to suit if not match his beauty? The world is surely made in the image of its cruel god.

But when the wine is drunk—no brandy, just cheap
vin ordinaire,
and just a fullish pint to share, Istvan has no mind to stay the night here—and Luc entwined around him says, “Oh, M’sieur—oh, Stefan,” coloring wildly at his own temerity, enflamed by terror and love’s boldness, “Stefan, I want so much more than this from you!” it is Istvan who shakes his head, though the words tumble on and on: Luc will leave—at once, tonight, this very moment!—the protection of Haden St.-Mary, he will live at the theatre, he will do anything, everything, be a happy slave forever but “Why be a slave at all?” Istvan asks. “Why not be your own man?”

Yet knowing almost as the words are said their full irrelevance, to those eyes, that face so “I know,” slipping from Luc’s clasp, slipping on his shirt, “how it is for you,” for how can he
not
know, having seen it so many times in so many places, cities and slums and roadside hovels, the same tale told to the same conclusion, and absent the mecs and Rupert who can say how his own fate might have turned, what brutish games he might have played? So to show that he knows, that he is not entirely heartless, he tells a story or two or three, his own story of the streets: of disasters barely dodged, attacks evaded or endured, of the elegant men who paid throughout the years for his various sorts of artistries, all those men in high places since “I did a deal of tramping, and I know what it is to wake in a bed and not know where the fuck one lies; I know it very well. But still, I cannot keep you,
bébé,
now or ever. Oh, now, I will see you, surely,” as the stricken tears begin to fall. “But the theatre is for the stage, and the stage is for myself and Mr. Bok, no one else.”

“But you keep Tilde! And she—”

“Tilde,” says Istvan, “keeps herself. And whatever else she keeps in that ragamuffin little heart is not for me or you to speculate upon, yeah?” gently brushing back the damp hair, noting the angle of the moon against the dusty window and “Now, I am due back,” reaching for his hat. “But you may stay and sleep if you like, I’ve paid the room till morning.”

“But what am I to
do?
” in half a moan, Luc nude and wretched, taking the reddish dregs of the wine. “What must I say when he asks me, M’sieur, I know that he will ask me—”

And Istvan, hand on the door, turns back from a greater distance to say with a pleasant shrug, “Why, whatever seems to suit,
bébé,
” and then is gone, past the goatherd dozing in a chair, past the Park and its green darkness, its furtive smiling revelers, brisk through the streets and back to the Mercury—

—where Rupert paces smoking and disturbed, while Tilde sits lieutenant, snood abandoned beside the cashbox on the table, and on her lap a toy, a changeling angel of the same provenance, is it, as the first? with an empty face, the wings mottled and dirty-white, the paper halo somewhat the worse for travel in its dented crate. The Mercury’s license to present lies on the backstage table, shown by Rupert to the constables surely licensed, themselves, by something other than a mere citizen’s complaint, something dark at perch above this roof, this theatre that is his theatre, their burrow and home—

—as Istvan enters jaunty as an actor to applause, letting the door slam to, tossing down his hat, and “Why so solemn?” with a little wink to them both:
très sérieux,
those doubled, troubled stares, Mab might as well be Mouse’s get. “It was a rouser of an evening, don’t you think? I’ve just left my dolly, now let’s see yours, Mab.”

And still the evening continues, for some into the dawn: see in lamplight Martin Eig, teacup scummed before him, making notes of Costello’s report, the ladies’ demonstration at that tawdry little playhouse, one stage among the many where, if he is careful—and he is always careful—he shall have his own morality play, with Banek and Cowtan and, yes, de Vries and those backstreet actors, too, all with their parts in the play to change these rooms for a proper setting of honor and position: Commissioner Eig, it sounds right; better than right, it sounds inevitable. He almost smiles as he writes, and checks and clicks his watch, and wonders why no word has come, yet, from St.-Mary—