The Mercury Waltz (13 page)

—who is much in the mind of Frédéric also, sitting energized and sleepless beside his tidy bed, making his own detailed notes on the performance, noting down as well Edgar Rue’s strong comments: quite decent of him, decent and noble-hearted, to support his fellow artists in such a way. And such a pleasure it was to introduce him to Mr. St.-Mary! The whole night, in fact, was pure pleasure, the show itself, of course, the passionate engagement of ideas, even the ladies’ strange disturbance played its part; and then the walk, talking, all the way to Crescent Bridge and back, he and Mr. St.-Mary, he and Haden talking of poetry, stopping off for a drink, even the muddy beer seemed robustly ambrosial. Walking and talking, it is extraordinary, they could have gone on together all night…. His legs ache, his heart is bright and warm as a candle flame, burning, casting light upon the page—

—as Haden himself turns up the street, finally, to his own digs, trailed by a straggling honor guard of ether-scented boys: himself half dizzy with lager and alarm, with the pulse of the flesh, the heat of Frédéric, the fellow has no idea, does he, what he is, what he wants, no, and it makes no difference, how can it, a fellow so upright nothing to do with Haden at all—as he takes in with a glance the pale figure on the steps, Luc head down and worrying at the ugly blue scarf, shredding the loose silk ends, stumbling as he follows Haden and the others upstairs, to hunch on the bed around a shared cigarette and tell, in betrayal and broken defiance, all he knows of his M’sieur: a man of the streets, yes, just like them, all of them in this room! But risen so much higher, become a player in the great cities, and the great houses, too, a good friend of great men, men like “That old de Vries cunt,” mumbles Luc, drooping from wine, from swallowed pills, from depthless heartbreak. “He knows them all, he says.”

And Haden’s arm around his shoulders, Haden’s smile not a little tickled: “Well bravo, uncle,” aloud and to himself, for that friend of Tyche and former bumboy and jeering, stalking, laughing trickster on the stage, he and that Bok
his
bravo, what a pair they must have been when they were young! And still they know, don’t they, how to put on a fucking good show.

Now the odor of warming garbage rises from the street, the sparrows on the roof begin to scuffle and chirp. The boys curl together on the floor like tired young animals, Luc sagging down to join them as “Bravo,” Haden’s murmur again, alone on the bed with eyes half-closed, absently tugging at the Christopher medal, wondering to whom he should bear this story first, or if he should carry it alone awhile; wondering who sent those two croaking crows to the Mercury; wondering if Frédéric is sleeping, and where his bed might be, and what he sings about when he sings in his churchly choir…. May be he will go himself, sometime, to have a listen, and frighten all the bally angels out the doors.

Of Theatre and Truth

Contributed by Seraphim

Your angelic correspondent was prepared to review the newest production opening at the Cleopatra Theatre, Shakespeare’s immortal
King Lear
, with the lovely Miss Cynthia Orson as Cordelia, and Mr. Albertus Smith as the tragic King. But the continuing situation at the Mercury Theatre is a topic more urgent, one that strikes to the very core of theatre itself.

Readers of this column—indeed, of all our city’s newspapers—are surely aware of the puppet plays presented at the Mercury, and, aided perhaps by attendance, have formed their own judgments of those plays. That
One Night in the Forest
should rouse strong opinions is surely a measure of its worth: the show is meant to entertain, in the sense that both the mind and heart are stirred and satisfied by its tale, as well as the eyes dazzled by its fine production, and the ears pleased by its dialogue and song. Still, its most truthful import lies much deeper than an evening’s
divertissement
.

Yet now that truth is being brandished as a sort of club over the heads of those men, Mr. Hilaire and Mr. Bok, who stand so modestly behind their wooden avatars, and the recent disturbance by two matrons of a performance has resulted in vigorous civic discourse both high and low. (Reporters at this newspaper have been seeking those matrons, to conduct an interview, so far to no avail.) Our city’s most revered and respected actor, Mr. Edgar Rue, was also present that evening, and in an exclusive interview (conducted via proxy for your correspondent) he stated that:

“The very Bard himself was no stranger to those who sought to question his morals by questioning his plays. Certainly all lewdness for its own sake ought to be driven from the boards, but the plays at the Mercury I have so far attended have been in no way prurient, nay, they have displayed, as
Romeo and Juliet
displays, the ways in which Man comes to grief through his own unregulated passions.” One might further add that
King Lear
has more than once been condemned as an insult to the tender bonds of filial devotion.
Honi soit qui mal y pense!

As the Morals and Standards Act continues to be debated by the Prefecture Assembly, your correspondent urges you to join him in affirming the true value of this puppet play: Cry the truth! Cry the Mercury Theatre! (Please note that the Literary Leopards will be hosting a forum on the topic at the Lady’s Garden in the Park this Sunday afternoon at four o’clock PM, weather permitting. We shall hope for a lively and civil discussion.)

The red jade chessboard is quiet with dust; no letters wait upon the chased silver tray. Long fingers of light touch the draperies, the breeze outside flutters the leaves, but inside the room, bedroom, sickroom, the air is stale and cool. A griffin-headed cane lies aslant against the heavy armchair in which Javier Arrowsmith now sits, propped by pillows, the doctors’ draughts beside him undrunk; instead he sips Assam tea, and struggles, not against the pain—he has learned to carry that as lightly as once he wore a weapon—but the weariness, the dreadful, dead-calm weariness that no potion or tonic can efface. At times he wonders if it might be a kind of spiritual ennui, revenge of the dormant conscience against the busy brain; at other times he wishes only to be done with the struggle entirely, and proceed to whatever might await him on the other side of the veil.

But still there is work to do, work as slow and intricate as the games of chess he once enjoyed, teaching Isobel how to play: such an eager pupil, so swift to grasp the discipline of the game as well as the necessary moves, as she grasped the rules of games greater still, letters their principal markers, continuance their principal aim. He has tried, more than once through the years, to teach Benjamin, who has shown neither aptitude nor patience, Benjamin who is late, again, for this meeting already twice postponed. The sickroom frightens and disgusts Benjamin, the smell of illness, the broken body, he has made that more than plain, as well as his annoyance at the necessity of excluding not only his latest
amour
—what is this fellow’s name? All the fellows, all the names—but his unwholesomely worshipful attaché. Mr. Arrowsmith’s complaints concerning that man have been met by glacial silence beyond the bare statement that
Emory is loyal.
True enough, and true too that loyalty is a virtue, but does it remain so when it is practiced like a secret vice?

Mr. Arrowsmith lifts his cup with a half-numb hand; the tea has gone cold; he sighs, he rings the little bell for the maid. It is loyalty after all that keeps him here, in this room, in this flesh, loyalty to his lifetime’s work, and to Isobel and her muttered dying plea, repeating it like a rosary:
Benny, oh Javier protect him, Javier keep him safe!
Still as lead in her bed in the room adjacent, her heart hammering through the nightgown lace, he could see it, watch her sucking for air like a drowning man. She never once asked for Benjamin; perhaps she thought to spare him, perhaps knew that he would not come, Benjamin in his rooms drunk on whiskey and anguish, crying
Belle, Belle
like the child he will never cease to be. And Christobel stroking his hair and murmuring to him, her own tears driven back, grief’s advancing army, until Mr. Arrowsmith came limping to take her hands and tell her that she might, must, go in to see Isobel, that he would sit with her husband, that it was time at last to say good-bye.

And Benjamin like stone to kiss his sister in her coffin, twining a white rosebud stem into her black-gloved hands, then escaping into drunkenness as into a far foreign land. He did not attend the Requiem Mass nor the burial held at Chatiens, and ever since has done his best to keep his distance not only from the country house but from Arrowsmith himself, Isobel the last rein on his behavior, Isobel the last reliquary of his love, except for one other…. He still wears that ring, the signet ring, though the family ornament, old, silver, dating from the days of the Terror, should have been his now, taken from the hand of Hector Georges, the stiffened thumb, before the body was given to the grave. Mr. Arrowsmith remembers that day, the rictus and dried wounds, the flat grimace of death on the pale features, Hector contemplative as a statue, a quite unaccustomed pose. Benjamin had refused that duty as well,
eh bien,
he was busy with Isobel, burying their father, who, it must be noted, would be not only dismayed but actively averse to his new namesake, the child Isidore named so by his father, called Isau by his mother, a doubly unfortunate choice; was it spite or merely custom, is there any way to know? And what difference? The boy has now outlived his troubled infancy, milky skin and spindly limbs, the only true provenance his eyes, that singular de Metz blue; when Mr. Arrowsmith sees the child, which is seldom, he sees Isobel in that gaze, but Benjamin, does he see his father?
Eh bien
again, it is a miracle an heir exists at all, a kind of virgin birth.

Now “Fresh tea,” he says, “if you would,” to the silent red-haired maid stepping in a step ahead of Benjamin himself: regal in black, still the touch of the dandy in the pointed collar, the somber, gorgeous vest worked in silver fleurs-de-lis, Benjamin who unsmilingly orders the maid to “Open these windows” while he drags the drapes aside, staring out at the long stretch of lawn like a prisoner entombed. “It’s like a plague house in here.”

“Boredom is my chiefest ill,” says Mr. Arrowsmith mildly. “But it is surely not contagious.” The breeze stirs the drifting lengths of lawn, like thin clouds come momentarily to earth. “Will you take tea?”

“I can’t stay,” taking the armchair opposite, legs crossed, “for long. Mevsky is expecting some sort of
fête
at dinner, Christobel’s hired in a choir. You’re invited, of course,” without appreciable irony, rising again as if in lieu of leaving to finger the items on the bedside desk: the horn-handled magnifying glass, the pens and drying inks, the writing case of teakwood and mother-of-pearl, a bust of Pompey carved from black marble, this last saluted with a faint and scornful nod, and “What will you, then?” as if to both Pompey and Mr. Arrowsmith. “You asked me here, here I am.”

“I have asked you more than once—”

“If we are to begin that way, I’ll make an end now. You can write, can’t you?” nudging the pens so they nearly tip, his knuckles sore and scarred, and “You can read,” says Mr. Arrowsmith, still mildly, “but the letters I send go ever unanswered. Who reads them? Your man Emory?”

“I’ll not—” sharp as the maid reenters with the tea: frightened like a bird in a thunderstorm, she sets down the pot, curtsies, escapes as soon as she pours, a hot black stream and “I am doing my best,” says Benjamin, “whatever you may believe,” as he hands Mr. Arrowsmith a half-full cup. “And I asked for none of this, you will recall.”

“I do recall. And you have given a hard task your full strength—your sister would be proud.” Silence; this is a hazardous tack. “But the direction you travel—I have heard from Morris Robb, more than once, he says you are quite keen to buy property, a great deal of property not at all certain to appreciate. He does not know your reasons; he asks me. What am I to say?”

“Say that he ought to do the task he’s set, and keep his questions to himself. You,” measuring, “are still a signatory on those accounts, aren’t you. You needn’t be; I’ll have it attended to—”

“And who will be your signatory, then, who is your man? Not your servant—”

“Am I a fool?” flinging himself into the chair again; for a moment Mr. Arrowsmith sees Isidore there, the cold anger trebled by the energy of youth, cut with some continuing poison of grievance; he is the unhappiest youth Mr. Arrowsmith has ever known. “I need no ‘man,’ no master—” and stops as if struck; he looks away, toward the open window. Neither speak for a long moment until, finally, quietly, icily, “You have had your way, here, for a long time. Do you expect, as my father did, to live forever?”

“No. And if I did, this,” tilting the cane, “would soon persuade me otherwise. But I promised Isobel that I would serve you as long as I lived. And you promised her some things as well, chiefest that—”

“What was said between Belle and me was between Belle and me!”

“I was her friend as well as her husband—”

“And I was her brother, and she loved me absolutely, and she trusted me, as you do not.” Benjamin leans to reach for the cane, puts his hand to the griffin’s head, squeezing, squeezing. “She trusted you. As I do not…. A true devotee of the arts, aren’t you, and a dog in the manger, too.” He tips the cane forward to fall against Mr. Arrowsmith’s useless legs; the scent of hawthorne drifts in from the windows, the scent of burning, the gardeners burning twigs and dead leaves. “Did you think I never knew about those letters? Did you wonder that you had no answers? They saw only the first, the rest went into the fire.”

“I did wonder. Now I am certain. You spread a fine net, then.”

“Did you think to go where I was barred?” with a smile, a brief, unpleasant smile, again an echo of his father’s. “I’ll buy the whole city if it suits me, and you can read about it later in the newspapers. I may buy one of those, too.”

Rising, he leaves the room to step into the empty chamber adjoining, Isobel’s bedchamber, its drapes and furniture tended but untouched. All her artifacts have long been boxed or parceled: to Christobel the silver garden shears, the de Metz jewelry and endless pairs of gloves, the wedding-day miniature of Benjamin and herself; Mr. Arrowsmith keeps Isobel’s wedding ring, sapphire and diamonds, in a jeweler’s case beside his bed. Benjamin is not long in the room, and whatever he does there is quiet; when he exits, his eyes are wet, but their gaze is very hard. Bending to look eye to eye with Mr. Arrowsmith and “It’s for Belle’s sake alone,” he says, “that I keep my word—I’ve waited long enough. The day you die, the moment, I’m away.”

“Will you bury me?” with a lifetime’s
politesse,
a stoic’s calm; Mr. Arrowsmith thinks of the letters he wrote to Dusan, not many, private letters from one man to another, markers and continuance; he thinks of
les mecs,
of Isidore and his legions, of Isobel’s crippled hand clasping his with a force stronger than the death come to claim her:
Benny, oh Javier protect him, Javier keep him safe!
“Beside my wife?”

“On her left. And gladly.—I’ll tell Christobel you’re indisposed,” as without a bow Benjamin takes his leave, as the breeze continues to offer its scents through the opened windows, as the skylarks rise to settle, rise to settle, the gardeners rake fresh fuel onto the fires.