The Mercury Waltz (30 page)

However shall we meet, sir? Will you come to see a show?
with a consummate, a pleasurable sneer, those yellow eyes just like a goat’s; in the old paintings, Satan always wears goat horns, curling and corroded and black. So he had leaned forward on his desk, fortress, pulpit, prow of the ship of state, surrounded by the ever-growing piles of letters and reports, a day’s work, a lifetime’s, and
We shall meet,
he had said,
when you end up in one of the rooms downstairs, which I’m morally certain that you shall, the company you keep insures it. And when you do, Mr. St.-Mary, I shall not know you as I did here in my office; I shall not know you at all. But you will know me.

He felt a smile growing, but held it back; he kept his gaze professionally grave. Yet when St.-Mary rose from the chair
he
was smiling, a peculiarly hateful sort of smile and
It’d be a sad fucking pity to meet that way, sir, after all our work together—I’ll hope truly that we don’t. But if we do, like you say, I’ll still know you…. Give my regards to Costello, and tell him those fish market girls an’t any cleaner than the whores at the Bridge. Cheerio,
and then he tipped his hat the way a showman would, and was gone from the office, whistling loudly—the newest tune from the streets, “A Lad Makes His Way,” another filthy ditty—he could be heard all the way down the stairs. One of the subcommissioners, Herr Gurund, even asked about it later:
Who was that fellow in the garish suit? The whistler? One of yours, was he, Eig?

No,
he had answered evenly.
Not one of mine.

Now he puts St.-Mary entirely from his mind, as if locking him behind a stout door, and considers the sheet before him, the fresh stationery, the Morals Commission medallion below the Prefecture crest: Minerva, the lady of warfare and wisdom, of strategy and the civilizing drive. It is not a long message, for what he has to say is brief, reserving a more meaningful conversation for a meeting face-to-face,
This afternoon at your hotel, in hopes of furthering our mutual interests. Respectfully as ever,
signing his name in a line as straight as a ruler, as a road from the place one begins to where one ends; always, it is the ending that signifies. His own road from his own people, a mother whose one dream in life, to bear children, many children, had been both satisfied and frustrated in himself alone, and a father whose sole ambition had been to work indoors—
Get a roof over you, Mart, it’s no good being out in the streets
—had been as true and straight, as he made a way that could not include them, that can never include them for now they are dead and he is here upon a path that they could not imagine: that any son of theirs could sit in an office so clean and large, with so much power grasped in his hands; and this power only the start of it, with every step he takes, another, higher one beckons, like the dead saints on the steps of the cathedral. What is the hymn? “Thrones and dominions, they lie before Thee.” Thrones and dominions…. And they taught him to be good, his parents, to seek the good and to serve it. Every day he honors them for that.

What greater good he could have done, with a fitting helpmeet at his side—that road he cannot walk, will never walk;
that
was made manifestly clear at the banquet. The look on her face, the look in her eyes: that he had once thought such eyes beautiful, and innocent and clean—that he had thought
her
clean! When she is the most complicit of them all! Staring at him there in the alcove, with her pagan jewels and her black gloves,
What comforts my husband comforts me….
A taste for the foul, certainly, she and her “navel of Venus,” and had she not tried to speak to that young prostitute in the Park? Tried to make her way into the Cemetery? Went sniffing after those Virgo women? Foul,
foul;
and another great misjudgment, one far more disastrous, almost utterly disastrous—If he had spoken as he meant to, if she had allowed him to speak as he meant to—!

Now, no matter the ruins of his feelings, no matter that the sad red worm of lust and longing still wriggles and breathes in the depths of his heart, the empty rooms of his body, Martin Eig has determined that he must walk the road before him as a solitary, as he sits in this office solitary, as he locks away as if behind another door never to be opened the scathing, heartless, uncomprehending stare of Christobel de Metz—whom he would have rescued, and preserved, and, yes, loved, if she had not preferred another succor, preferred fostering her husband’s evil, preferred what was to what will be; so be it, then. Soon he will take de Vries’ advice in this if nothing else, he will marry, and improve his digestion, he will find a woman, a daughter of the people as he is a son of the people, who will give him children, the children his mother longed for, and make a home for him as he remakes the world; this he will do as soon as he sheds his title for the one that should and will shortly belong to him, for that, too, is de Vries’: he may even invite the man and his stupid wife to the wedding, it would be the correct and courteous thing to do…. Commissioner Eig. Commissioner and Frau Eig.

For now he waves the letter gently, making sure his signature is dry; he seals the envelope and makes a neat little mark so that, if the seal should be broken, even invisibly, both he and its recipient will know. When the runner answers his call, the tea is finished and he is nearly smiling again, and genial to point out that that young man’s cheek is soiled with some sort of grease or smut: “I’m that sorry, Herr Commissioner,” the young man says, turning red, scrubbing hard with his cheap handkerchief. “I was just out in the streets, and it gets grubby, an’t it—that is, I mean to say, doesn’t it.”

“Yes, it does,” says Martin Eig, forbearing to correct the young man on his use of title. “Now be sure to put this directly into the hands of Herr de Metz. Not his secretary, not his wife, only himself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Herr Commissioner.”

“And bring me a reply if there is one,” knowing there will not be, enjoying the runner’s nearly reverential nod—“Yes, Herr Commissioner”—as the young man takes the letter and hurries off—silently, no whistling for this one—down the hallway to the door, to the street and his destination: the heavy black-and-gilt doors of the Hotel Baron St. Williams, as enclosed and exclusive as a private townhouse. The runner must show his Prefecture badge to gain admittance to the gated, leafy courtyard, and has a bit of a wrangle with the
maître d
’
hôtel
even so: “The Commissioner says I’m to put it into milord’s hands only,” the runner says, and says, until finally he does, milord behind the door of the suite in absolute indifference to his presence, taking the letter as if from the air itself and then turning away, as the runner is peremptorily nodded off by an unsmiling serving man.

As he goes he glimpses, past the closing door, a sliver of the beautiful room beyond: the deeply swagged windows, a silver stand of white roses, a tall dark-haired woman attending milord as he opens the letter and reads; what would it be like, the runner wonders, to spend your days in such a room! Most like it would be paradise…. If he passes in the street outside a young fellow in a checkered scarf, with trousers too tight and gait too loose, he does not notice beyond an automatic snort of disgust, nor does he watch that fellow gain admittance to the courtyard without showing any sort of badge at all. If he waited not much longer he would have seen the whore leaving, hands in pockets, but by then he is back reporting in the office of Martin Eig.

CHRISTOBEL DE METZ’S JOURNAL

Feast of St. Michael, 29 September, 18
—

Tonight, at Chatiens, there will be burning: old roses, and browned daisies, and the unbearing branches from the orchard, all the death and clutter of the long summer raked into a pile by Damien and his helpers, all of it set alight. If I were there, I would remember how you smiled to watch these fires—
See what the ashes tell you, my dear. It’s always quite instructive!—
and I would let Isidore stir those ashes with a stick, and point to him the pictures he had made…. Adela writes that Isidore is growing more and more quarrelsome, and cries and fights his morning tonic, he says he shall only have it from his Mamma. And he is having nightmares, again, that wake him screaming. My poor boy!

Today I have sent to Chatiens for James Aubin. Emory has communicated to me that there is some sort of medical problem rife among the young men of the city, and that B. ought not consort with them; and B. will do much better, infinitely better, with James Aubin’s steadiness, and kindness, and helplessness at hand—it will soothe him, I believe; I hope. He greatly needs such kindness now.

That wretched banquet evening! I had thought to see B. happy, finally, and myself safely on the way home to Isidore; I had set my mind and my heart to it. Instead there was the mad diversion of the puppet-play, the commotion and uproar—and the crowning absurdity, Herr Eig approaching me after
his
unwarranted performance, his jaw clamped white: the stage lost a fine comedian when that man took up the law. How he enlarges his jurisdiction to include me is a wonder I need no longer contemplate, thankfully, for I made as short a work of him as I could—

Madame, I would not have stopped for anyone on earth but you! But why did you, how could you think to intervene—

Herr Eig, I fail to see how anything that happened here tonight is any of your affair, beyond your duties as a guest,
as I tried to make plain that not only had I acquaintance with M. Hilaire and his actor friend, but that they were sent, in some way, by B.—for I could see no other meaning to the note they offered: “Let M. de Metz be pleased by our beggars’ opera,” the performance seemingly to complement his prize-plans for M. Bok. Now I know that this was not the case, nothing like. But after I spoke so, Herr Eig—really, it was quite amazing, I believe it would have surprised even you—Herr Eig actually put his hands on me, he
grasped
me much as he had grasped M. Hilaire, as he sputtered of
Your husband—oh, Madame, you need not tell me! Your husband’s proclivities—
all the while staring at me the way an urchin might stare through a patisserie window. That stare was offensive, the feel of his hand, damp with sweat, was offensive,
he
was offensive. And meanwhile everyone watched as if it were a pantomime show!
Dear Madame, it pains me even to speak of him, when I would so much rather—

Then don’t, Herr Eig. Don’t speak: of him, or to me, ever again. And though I will not ask for your explanation, be fully aware that, whatever you may assume of “proclivities,” what comforts my husband comforts me.

Which proved to be the key in the lock: his hands dropped from me, he stepped back, he went, blessedly, elsewhere, as the servants came in and Herr de Vries rose to gather the theatre man and his weeping Ophelian wife.
And, of course, once he had made that announcement, to dutiful and scattered applause, I could say nothing at all of what B. had instructed me, which at any rate was disrupted, or at the very least delayed.

The evening’s only gift was to free us from the de Vries “hospitality”; this hotel is a pleasant one, if small, and the staff is discreet. B. and Herr de Vries are still conferring over affairs, but only at the bank, stiffly and briefly, as their alliance is entirely in ruins. Everyone in the townhouse could hear them shouting at one another that night; it seemed that they might even come to some sort of violence. The threats they hurled, the insults—

Does nothing shame you? To charge a woman to do your work of folly—! And a man of the streets to hold your leash, it is nothing short of demeaning, you demean us all. Your father—

My father laughed at you! Even Letty van Symans laughed at you, you drooping, grizzled old whore!

Emory and that man Jozsef were themselves at odds, bristling like guard dogs, but neither would let me enter, though I tried. Frau de Vries was so stupidly frightened that she left straightaway for the country, just as she was, tipsy in her gown and jewels, though what else can one expect of such a woman? The way she behaved at the table was a scandal in itself, shouting like a termagant at me: “My house, my banquet, who are you to ruin my banquet?” Another one like Herr Eig, a failed comedienne.

From Herr de Vries, B. came to me. He was utterly intoxicated, more so than I have ever seen him, even the night you left us; he knelt at my skirts with mud on his coat, mud on his shoes, he knelt there drenched in whiskey and he wept. I could barely keep myself from tears when I heard, at last, the source of his grief: to have planned this gift, this most precious jewel, for M. Bok, and then to be utterly rejected
—
! While I was defending M. Hilaire and his puppet actor, M. Bok was breaking B.’s heart.

Finally, when he could speak, B. said,
That theatre—I’ll burn it to the ground. Shall I? What shall I do, Belle, tell me and I’ll do it.

We should leave
, I said, and stroked his face; it was so hot, his eyes so red; I could feel his heart pounding.
We should go home.

To Chatiens? That’s not my home. I thought I would finally be free of it, all of it—
and he wept again, but differently, silently; it was as if I watched him bleed. Finally he rose up, using a chair for support, as if he were climbing a high hill, and
My father,
he said,
was a monster. One of those monsters that weary the world. But he did try to teach me what the world is.
He dug from his pocket the gray journal, and then another, smaller, red book, and set them atop the dressing table, beside the emeralds; I have put those emeralds away, I shall never wear them again.
Even Lucifer went to school, you know. In Eden.

And then B. laughed; it was a dreadful sound.
I had love. Now I’ll have flesh. Flesh and more flesh!
and he laughed again, and beat his hands, his open palms, against the wall; the sound brought Emory hurrying in from the hallway. Together we put him to bed, and then Emory sat on the foolish little maid’s stool and told me all that had happened at the theatre:
My lord was very much distressed. He said that he would throw himself down like Lucifer from Heaven, and then he had me fetch him whiskey, a great quantity of whiskey, as you see, Madame.

And M. Bok, was he distressed as well?

I couldn’t say, Madame.

Sit with him,
I said,
and tell me at once if he wakes.
And then I took up the red journal, B.’s old journal, I sat there at the dressing table and read every poem. Had you ever read those poems? Some of them were marked with little crosses, as if they might have held a special meaning…. It was terrible, and terribly beautiful, like gazing into B.’s very soul; how can it be possible, for love and pain to exist in such proximity? The human heart must be an engine fueled by tears.

As I read, I could all but feel you behind me, as if your hand were on my shoulder
;
do you know, dearest sister, that once I saw your hand?—like a strange little crab’s claw, some creature from the sea, pale and naked and lost without its glove. That bandbox of gloves—I had them altered, all but one pair, my favorite pair, the silver roses worked with diamonds. If I fold my fingers just so, I can wear them, too…. I had thought, almost, to wear them today, but of course they are much too formal for daywear, for a private visit to a theatre. Not the Garden of Eden—and what a name, how cruelly apt for what began in love and ended in banishment!—but to the Mercury Theatre, to speak, myself, to M. Bok. And if M. Hilaire is there, I shall inquire fully what he meant by daring to use my husband’s name as his shield and passkey, when clearly he is no friend to B., nor ever was.