The Mercury Waltz (35 page)

In the streets the mood is varied, the veneer is polite, the fears and whispers and accusations saved for the quiet behind closed doors. Mourning jewelry is newly popular, as are carquet boxes, worn between the corset and the heart, with a jewel tucked inside, or a fold of currency, as if cached in preparation for flight. There are half a dozen new ballads, plinking and parched and sentimental, some lamenting love lost, others in praise of virtue and fidelity: one in particular, “Turtledove, Turtledove,” sells out its sheet music as fast as it may be printed. The Athenaeum has mounted a patriotic revue, starring Edgar Rue, with much draped bunting and presentation of flags; the mayor has seen that show several times, though the Cleopatra’s opulent new production of
Hamlet
is a thudding failure, as is the cinema house, newly opened and already closed. But the gambling clubs, though clandestine, remain crowded, as do the churches, from fine temples down to little parish huts.

And if a god is invoked beyond the Christian God of battles—who is daily implored by the archbishop in the great cathedral for protection and defense: from whom, by whom? as the curate sighs and places fresh candles below the flowers, red and white roses piled like pagan offerings, the sacrificial colors of blood and bone—how could it ever be the pale and grimy Mercury, already in flight past his detritus of chestnut shells and trampled headlines and travelers so eager to be elsewhere that they sometimes board the wrong trains, or leave their valises behind to be ravaged by scavenger boys; who would claim such a fellow for a patron, who would choose to be his friend? in the crunch of cinders and the screech of iron, the steam that snorts and billows like the dragon’s breath, the air of endings and dark beginnings, as the sun sets in a yellowed smear behind the shoulder of Minerva, a far more efficient deity for the times that lie ahead: Minerva who sprang full-grown and fully armored from the forehead of her father, Minerva whose brother is the militant and thirsty Mars. It is not the time for artifice, it is not the time for art; it is time and more than time for other, sterner disciplines, and for businesslike, raptorlike, disciplined men. The birds in flight know it; the groaning beggars know it; the thieving boys know it; the silvered city closes her eyes.

“I saw something quite amusing this morning,” says James Aubin in his blue linen jacket, raising his teacup, trying for lightness; Christobel de Metz makes a smile of encouragement; Benjamin de Metz does not look up from his journal. On his finger is a new ring, James Aubin has noted, displacing the signet ring he himself has much admired, but
I threw it in the river,
said Benjamin when he asked, and whether that is true or not, James Aubin did not dare to ask again. This new ring, heavy silver, is not one he admires, though Christobel has told him it has a very long history, some sort of arcane family history: it is ugly and sits poorly on Benjamin’s hand, below his knuckles chewed and scored to scabs; it looks dreadful,
he
looks dreadful, though his passion, these days, is acute. But he cannot sleep, and so James Aubin cannot sleep, and so he consults Christobel when Benjamin leaves them, abruptly, at the pleasant little alcove table, sprigged white mums and spotless tablecloth, rice porridge and raisin compote and eggs poached to perfection: “He is not happy here,” says James Aubin softly. “Why can’t we go? We could travel straight on to Paris, and arrive in time to see—”

“We shall go,” says Christobel. She stirs honey into her tea, a heavy drop of gold, a silver spoon. “We will go, as soon as his business here is concluded.”

“Is it to do with that theatre, still? Emory says—”

“Emory,” says Christobel coolly, “ought speak less and do more,” though he has done much these past days, Emory her one consultant—

I saw that man, Madame, that Herr Hilaire, beforehand. I thought it wise to do so.

And what did you make of him?

Immoral, Madame. An immoral man, surely.

—and then her emissary to the Mercury, shuttered now in advance of its closing: one must knock and knock, nearly batter for admittance until
Their girl met me at the door,
Emory reported, Tilde who did not suffer Emory’s condescension, who raised an eyebrow to his eyebrows raised at her and
They’re none of them here,
she had said with a hauteur that might have done credit to an infanta, barring the doorway with her great belly, only dimness and quiet behind and beyond; there is something unwholesome about an empty theatre, like gazing into an unfilled grave.
Whatever you have, you can give it to me.

I was told to give the message to—

They’re none of them here,
inexorable, hand out so he must needs put the card and envelope into her palm, Christobel’s card and envelope with Christobel’s answer, Christobel’s capitulation, Christobel’s wish that whatever Javier Arrowsmith had left to M. Hilaire shall be remanded to her discretion if not disposal, for
As you suggest,
she had written—her fine Spencerian hand, her rose-stamped stationery smelling of lavender—
it may well be useful someday, for my son to know such details about his world. Though I will ask of your kindness that he never come to know you, nor M. Bok; I will ask that you keep between my house and your own the greatest distance possible; I will ask that you become a stranger to us all as soon as you depart this city and I receive what now is mine. And I pray that I shall never again see your face in this world, nor especially M. Bok’s, who has brought such unhappiness to my dear husband, whose only desire was to be his patron and his friend.

What of the answer?
Emory had asked the haughty girl-servant, once she had tucked the envelope into her apron; a badly stained apron, though what else should one expect? Players are dirty creatures.
I was told there would be an answer—

—and there was, a nondescript metal key that now sits in Christobel’s jewelry pouch, most fittingly beside the black key from Javier’s fob, Javier whose strange and secret caprice might have created much suffering for Benjamin, for them all: How could he have done so? Did Isobel know? Surely Isobel could not have known! though she, too, was as great a partisan of those wretched actors,
Cupid’s sister was quite fond of M. Bok,
yes, so much so that people sniggered for it, even her bosom-friend Fernande used to mock her for a lovesick girl. And she herself had defended Isobel! It is like looking into the face of a sister and seeing that face is a mask: What else might lie behind it, what other slyness, what other dangerous, unguessable truths? And how is one to
know?

It is this, more even than her husband’s grief, that grieves Christobel so that she cannot sleep, lying alone in the great hotel bed, sumptuous lace and lawn and the spicy, cloying smell of roses, roses she now rejects in favor of ferns, many ferns, green and clean and flowerless, as in the suite adjoining her husband spends and thrusts his lust like a weapon against the body of James Aubin, who shudders to receive it, who lies afterward in silence as Benjamin drinks whiskey and speaks, disjointedly, of what he will now do, of how he will work his will on the world for
I’ve had my fill of the theatre, be sure of that. And I am nothing like the old man,
he says, to himself, to James Aubin, to the ghost of Isidore de Metz, to the dead spirit of a great dead love, or what a child stranded in sorrow might call love, in broken echo of what was and what might have been, lover and savior and father: a ring in the foul river, floating bright and gold and gone.
I’ll better him, I’ll make a fine tale of that journal, you’ll see. “Go and be their master, make the bastards bow”—they all are bastards, every one of them.

Now “Verdi’s at the Opera, in Paris,” says James Aubin, “or is it Muscopini? Oh, and what I saw this morning was straight out of
opéra bouffe:
a whole gaggle of urchins—my, they were cunning, just like little monkeys!—all wearing black masks and clambering up and down the street outside, with some sort of placards that—”

“Be quiet,” says Benjamin, stepping back to the table, letter in hand, a letter just delivered. “You chatter like a monkey yourself, I’ll have you put on a chain. Belle, see that the trunks are packed,” as she notes the letter’s crest, the Prefecture’s crest, and the satisfaction in his eyes, a hard satisfaction without any pleasure or joy. “I’ve one more meeting to accomplish, then we’ll be on our way.”

“To Paris?” asks James Aubin hopefully.

“To Chatiens,” says Christobel.

That same bleak, satisfied look, if Christobel could see it or Benjamin care, now fills the gaze of Martin Eig, who sent that letter, who this very moment conducts his own much-planned and long-awaited meeting with Guy de Vries: teapot atop his large and glorious desk, Mayor Eszterhaus in the chair beside—a supplicant’s chair; a conspirator’s gravity—there to announce that “As of the first of November, when the full Prefecture meets in session, you shall be asked to step down, Guy; your title will become emeritus, and Martin Eig, here, will be the new Commissioner. —Wait, wait,” to forestall de Vries’ speech if not the red blaze of shock that climbs steadily up his neck and chin and cheeks, as if he were a building set afire. “Before you speak, see this,” the stamped official order from Prefect Konstantin, the elderly ally Konstantin who has taken the measure of the current situation, and shall himself be replaced without a struggle by his young nephew, whose official investiture will also take place on the first of November: an auspicious day, the Feast of All Saints. “And know that you shall receive a generous—an
extremely
generous—pension, and that the Commission will forever be grateful to you for all your years of dedication.”

“This is madness,” as de Vries stares at the paper in his hand, at the mayor, who looks away, at Martin Eig, who retains his immense and bureaucratic calm; he wears a fine new suit, raptor’s black, with a dark green tie. “I’ll do nothing of the kind. Who sanctioned this?”

“You see the signatures,” the requisite nine, all the men on the Prefecture Council; there were many meetings to produce those signatures, all in private, and some private wailings and gnashings of teeth, but those who signed can fully see how the wind blows: new men and old money, that is to be the way, de Metz money backing this new play, and where de Metz leads, others have and will continue to follow. Several of the men who signed did so noting that it was high time de Metz put down his bottle and showed his hand, high time he left behind his boyhood foolishness of romantic actors and playhouses, to be the man his father was, a leader for this new age—though as a last hurrah, perhaps, he is donating a theatre to the city’s usage, the magnificently refurbished theatre called the Garden of Eden, a generosity approved by the
Globe,
side by side with an editorial equally approving the appointment of Martin Eig; both will be published this afternoon. There was some thought that de Metz might take up residence in the city himself, but that appears not to be the case; such is small and bitter comfort to Guy de Vries, who reads the order again and again, now, as if frantic repetition might create a different outcome. The names here, the men—men he has worked with, dined with, found sport with, it is villainous, monstrous—

“Richter? And Edgar Vaubins! And who the devil is Monsignor A. Elfred? Where is Iffy’s signature, the Archbishop is a full voting member of—”

“He has been recalled to Rome, Monsignor Elfred will replace him. Monsignor Elfred is a fine young man, a fine young bishop from—”

“After all I have done for the Church!”

“You might have followed its precepts,” says Martin Eig, “or those of the Morals Act. As it is, your behavior has been a stain on the Commission itself. That boy in your house—”

“There is—there was no ‘boy.’ And there will be great unrest over this,” the mottled red of de Vries’ face draining to a sludgy pink, as if his body tastes the truth before his mind may fully admit it. “The common people favor me, the common people have always—”

“The common people?” says Martin Eig. There is no special malice in his tone, not even a whisper of amusement but “You,” says de Vries, hunching forward, head sunk between his shoulders like a wounded beast’s, the drooping lip sucked in; he looks suddenly old. “All this time, there at my bosom like an asp, all this time you and that foul de Metz—New men! I’d see you pilloried.”

“We don’t use the pillory any longer,” and “Try not to think of it as a demotion,” says the mayor; he is sweating a little, more than a little, he looks again and again to Martin Eig as if for courage, Martin Eig who has been this moment’s architect, who had assured him, day after day, that it would be done; and now it is done. “You are not a young man, Guy, this day had to come eventually. And now you may retire honorably to the country, with your dear wife, and your children—there are five of them now, to rejoice you, yes?” as Martin Eig beckons in Bernd the secretary, to pass him a handful of signed letters and receive several letters and notes in return, a cruelly prosaic act and meant to be so, during this tragic moment, de Vries’ last moment; it comes to Martin Eig, if distantly, that cruelty can be a kind of sport. An interesting notion, one he shall consider and perhaps pursue—

“Disloyal upstart! ‘Sharper than a serpent’s sting’!”

“‘Well done, O good and faithful servant.’”

—as he will pursue a political career of careful, brutal, escalating triumphs, through endless civic battles unto international war, partnering again and again with those whom in his heart he despises; at heart, the eel is boneless. He will at times be in the company of Benjamin de Metz, who has his own working theories of cruelty; and in the presence of Madame de Metz, Christobel who will openly dislike him, Christobel whose face he will seek always and without conscious choice when he enters a ballroom, a drawing room, those rooms that will have become his municipality. Soon, now, he will leave his own small room of printed curtains and sour bed and air of solitude enforced, and buy a townhouse befitting his new station, three stories of brick and stone, a walled pocket garden with a fig tree and climbing roses, and a full complement of silver to match the stately teapot. Shortly after, he will also marry (Herr and Frau de Vries will not in fact attend the wedding, although they will be invited) and will himself sire children, not so many as five, but enough to seed a small Eigian dynasty. He will never even pretend to love the correct and quiet, nunnish wife he chooses, a munitions broker’s youngest daughter, that broker much elated by the honor; nor will she expect to be loved. She will bear the children and keep the home, sit embroidering through the long evenings she spends alone; she will ask no questions, offer no opinions that her husband has not first provided to her. She will never possess an elevated sensibility, being less helpmeet than superior domestic servant, though marriage will, in fact, very much improve Martin Eig’s digestion, if not his own sensibilities or his collapsed and fistlike heart, this man who will pass his life in a state of grotesque inner famishment, yet with no scent to him at all of hunger; or perhaps it is that what he hungers for has no scent, as the devil is said to have no smell.

There is a distinct and unpleasant odor, now, in the lobby of the Garden of Eden, the scent of rotted roses carried away as the stage is swept of their wrinkled, fallen petals, the silver stands put into storage by his own players and several boys recruited and paid for by Simon Cowtan, his sanction and title an invisible wand of authority. He has announced to Mrs. Cowtan that this new palace must surely be, by civic right, the rightful home of the city’s First Theatre; his company ought not even have to pay rent, as the work they do is of such obvious benefit to the city—