The Mercury Waltz (6 page)

See another cardfall of the past, to show a place not far by road or train track, but to this quiet boy at another window, clean panes and fussy lace, book balanced on his knee, it might be another world entirely, a city imagined bright as the moon from this dim, calm, suffocating little town, where every day is the same as every other: Half-past six, the maid Dolly wakes him for prayers, then breakfast, Mamma in her cabbage-rose cap, Papa in vest and with newspaper, their cups of tea, his mug of heated milk, the cook boils it always with the sickening skin but he does not complain, he peels it carefully to one side with his spoon while Mamma details all the details of the day to come; no one is truly listening, not even Mamma, but it is how the days begin.

Then he and Papa together take their leave, Mamma kissing each as they go: to Papa’s building first, the cocoa importers’, sweet with brown dust and men powdered as brown in rugged caps and work boots; sometimes they smile at Frédéric and he smiles back. At school he is always on time, always diligent, always ready with his lessons and his answers; he is quite a bit brighter than the other pupils, a fact lost on no one but no one dislikes him for it, not even the duncecap boys who pound him without malice, then let him watch as they tussle and run and play whirligigs on the courtyard bricks. At dinnertime he walks home alone, to toasted cheese and more boiled milk; sometimes he takes his meal upstairs, to the very top of the house, the mullion windows in the music room from which vantage he can see all the way to the town square and the church, its steeple a shadow on the road that leads to the city, like a warning finger pointing out the way no one must go.

The music master is from the city, a sad and angry little man who chews horehound candies as he beats time with his fist on the tabletop, as Frédéric sings scales over and over again. The music master once lived in the city, he says, but not to his betterment:
No, there they take their music in the opera hall or in the streets, either it’s the high-nosed
meistersingers
or some lout with a drum. There’s no room for an honest man to make music there.

But you are an honest man, Herr Teacher.

I left, boy, I left.

The music master has counseled Mr. and Mrs. Blum that, if the boy develops his fine though unremarkable voice, he might one day become a chorister or even choirmaster, a lifelong musical servant of the church. Mrs. Blum is thrilled by this prospect, though her husband’s stated ambition is to see their son at a desk in the cocoa warehouse; both imagine him as busy, prosperous, and safely settled in town for life.

Of the boy’s own wants or dreams his parents have not inquired, though he is the pith of the apple of their eye, and even if they had, perhaps Frédéric would not have been able to voice them, only to point, mutely, from the window out to the world: or into the pages of his favorite books, not the grammar and schoolbooks at which he excels, but the ones that speak to him as truly as the friends they truly are: that speech of play and of poetry, of wild glances and terrible vows and half-understood adventures, the Greek gods in their majesty, Apollo of the Sun and his great arms holding steady the steeds of day…. Mamma does not like him to read those books, of heathen gods and suchlike, so he is prudent to keep them hidden, though it troubles him to have secrets from his parents, and even, if he can admit it, from the pastor at the church, in whose confessional he has whispered his small evils of greed and impatience, and received the command to go and sin no more. Truly he tries, he wants to be a good boy, to grow up to be a good man like his papa, but cannot one be a good man and a man of the city? a man of poetry, a man with friends like the cocoa-carriers and the Greek gods, strong, swift, smiling men whose strength and smiles are what he dreams of, what dreams sustain him through the poundings and the lessons and the smell of wax and horehound, the sentinel ticking of the heirloom mantel clock, its fragile gold hands and blue-enameled face, made, Mamma has told him many times, by a queen’s clocksmith in Paris. The geography book shows him Paris, shows him London and St. Petersburg and all the great cities of the world, cities like the city of the gods that he draws on the leaf of his book: quaint walkways and crenellated houses, a city where the white moon smiles on
meistersingers
and louts with drums, what is a lout? a special kind of player, a player of the streets? And will he ever know, ever hear that playing in a street not at all like the one outside this window, where the greengrocer’s man tips his hat to Dolly who flaps her apron in return, while Papa walks back up the street with his newspaper and Mamma rings the bell below for tea: and Frédéric closes his book on another story, the tale of Icarus who flew too high—but what if it was that he flew not high enough? For if he had only gone a little farther, he might have met Apollo, and landed safely, brightly, in his arms….

And then the bell rings again, as resistless as the priest’s at consecration, next Dolly will come to fetch him so with a sigh he closes the book, his own and precious catechism, and leaves the window and the view; to drink more boiled milk, to sing for Papa and Mamma, to lie by the fire while Papa talks and Mamma embroiders, and dream of faces rising and dissolving in the flames.

“You ought to start reading these, messire,” says Rupert in shirtsleeves and braces, tossing down to the backstage table the previous day’s
Gentleman’s View.
“This fellow says that our shows are ‘quite well-staged, but all in all troubling.’ Though he doesn’t fully say what the trouble might be.”

“The trouble is there is none. And what troubles
me
is the minginess,” Istvan regarding with irritation a pillowslip stuffed with household plunder, plucked from the day-servant sent fleeing into the morning’s rain, the girl who just last month replaced the previous servant, that one spooked off by the streetside catcalls of the drinkers at the Heads or Tails; herself replacing the old beldame whose poor punctuality and ripe hygiene daily warred for pride of place, past the original girl whose sense of original sin was pricked as much by the puppets’ oddity and lawlessness as by two men living together and alone. “If a chit’s going to steal, then let her steal something that matters, coin or furbelows or liquor, not fucking teaspoons—”

“And tea,” as Rupert pours himself a cooling cup steeped brown as river water; he seems more amused than elsewise. “May be she was thirsty.”

“And may be one ought to find a real servant, not these worthless come-and-go hussies,” especially now when they are so busy, the estimable Seraphim’s second gust of praise sent them five full houses in as many nights, their first success beneath this roof; the forest show will certainly be extended, despite the clouded
Gentleman’s View,
or the starchy confusion of the
Clarion,
or the three complaining letters to the editor in the
Globe.
Meanwhile Istvan has begun to plot another, wilder tale, working to woo Rupert to its merits, a passionate play on the passions of chance: “Call it
Mercury’s Roulette,
yeah? with our fellows tarted up as gods on the stroll, and a fine gypsy Wheel of Fortune, I’m for the Park just now to have a look. And for this there must be music, Mouse, real music, whatever you may say—”

“And no doubt you’ve just the musician in mind,” though with a little smile: it pleases Rupert, eases him to see Istvan so engaged, so happily enraged over details, on this, yes, ever-motionless road. “Well, let me ask at the café, then, may be the owner will know of a likely servant for us. And,” slipping into his coat, “before you make your way to the Park, there’s that fellow coming from the
Daily Solon,
recall, he wants to talk with you.”

“Me?”

“Us. But it’s you who’ll do the talking,” when that fellow summarily arrives, a rain-splashed young man eager as a lad much younger, and somehow familiar in his second-best suit,
Herr Frédéric Blum
on his plain white
carte-de-visite
though he speaks for the influential “Seraphim,” perching straight-backed at the backstage table with a little blued leather notebook and a mechanical pencil much inferior to the one Rupert uses, a cheap tin-cased Scout. “I’ve come for the article on his behalf.”

“And welcome on his behalf,” says Rupert, “though we’d be more than glad to thank him face-to-face. He’s done a favor for our theatre, that’s certain—people are lining up to see this show.”

“But never Seraphim himself,” muses Istvan, taking the seat opposite, tugging his morning coat a little closer, his shoulder aching redly as it always does in the chill. “A true man of mystery—he hasn’t lost his wings, has he? Or may be flown too closely to the sun?”

Herr Blum smiles then, a scholar’s smile, perhaps, at the allusion. “No, no. He only believes it’s best to keep anonymous so that he may write the truth, and no one may try to sway his opinions. You might be astonished, gentlemen,” with a stern glance to the newspaper on the table, “to learn how often that is done, even nowadays. Paying for reviews, that’s the old way, and good riddance to it! Your shows, now, are certainly
most
apt for the temper of the times—have you heard Herr Vickery, on the subject of the ‘Art of Living’? No? It’s very thought-provoking—though not many theatres here follow suit, it’s sad to say. At the Athenaeum—”

“Distressing, yes, that appetite for treacle. We try to offer heartier fare.”

“As indeed you do,” earnestly. “We’re fortunate that you chose our city to make your home, since you come from elsewhere on the continent, yourselves and your—families?” glancing between and past them into the backstage jumble of slats and flats, cracked candle-ends and pots of spangling paint, the usual disorder of the world behind the curtains, as Istvan smiles and “
Les mecs,
” he says, “are our family—the puppets. We have none other.”

“You are not married men, then?”

“No,” says Rupert.

“Though we did have our chances,” says Istvan.

Herr Blum nods, making the first of many notes, as he then deploys his Scout upon a long and thoroughly thorough list of questions—What is their history as players, as puppeteers? What other playwrights’ work do they enjoy, or deplore? What do they make of the city’s current political climate? seeming to take Istvan’s pleasant, facile feints as gospel while openly hoping for those other family members to make themselves known, for “One sees the puppets as actors, truly, and not as mere objects made by hand. Though of course there’s a firm guiding hand behind them,” with a respectful nod to M. Hilaire, who nods graciously in return, M. Bok sitting quiet now behind his cigar. “Truly, you must have practiced many hours to be so skillful.”

“That’s so, although I wouldn’t call it practice,” says Istvan affably; he has taken a liking to this donnish young man—how young they are, all these young men!—in his plain, staid vest, hair a bit too short, the faint outcrops of a barbered beard—and himself of course a maker, one can see straight through the little fiction to the angelic presence beneath: whose ruse is that, one wonders? Like hiding light beneath a bushel, always a wink must peep through, and this one shines. “Rather it’s a manner of communion, call it, the way close friends are cognizant of one another’s moods and movements. Or more so lovers,” amused to watch as Herr Blum colors rather violently. “A gesture in bed serves as well as a word or better, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I—why, yes, that is, one understands,” scribbling hastily in his notebook, as past his bent head Istvan and Rupert share a look. “Though surely not all players are so—attuned to their partners? Have you ever been to the puppet shows at the Palace? Mr. Cockrill and—”

“Gawdy, yes,” says Rupert wryly, tapping ash. “We went there once—”

“Which was one time too many,” Istvan’s shrug, he and Rupert both annoyed that clumsy Cockrill, all elbows and dry string-work, should be considered any sort of peer, “especially when he drags in those girls in their corsets and sagging pantaloons. Someone’s been to the Poppy, no doubt. ”

Herr Blum looks up from his notebook. “What is the Poppy?”

“Another theatre,” says Istvan smoothly, “in another town, and besides, the wench is dead. Cockrill’s a bit of an ass, Herr Blum, as I am sure you know, and know further that to make any puppet dance, one must dance to the same tune at the same time. Again, like lovers…. Talking of that, I saw that Seraphim’s review approved of our fellows’ congress, if some in the audience did not, even though,” with another glance for Rupert, “the mecs kept themselves all very chastely buttoned down.”

Whatever mild mischief Istvan intends, perhaps to watch that pretty blush again, what comes in its stead is so sudden and sincere that both men are startled as “Sirs,” says Herr Blum, “be fully assured that both Seraphim and the
Daily Solon
stand resolutely against all undue censorship—
all
censorship, on the page as well as on the stage. For a newspaper’s much like a play, isn’t it, made to show us the world, so that we may find our way in it, and learn how we are to live?” past Rupert’s deepened silence, Istvan’s murmur—“
Theatrum mundi
”—and “Yes!” Herr Blum’s passionate nod, “the theatre of the world, yes. And as for the—the other, why, Scripture itself says that if there is not love, a thing is only sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, if we give away our bodies to be burned it is the same! So I further believe—that is, Seraphim believes that love is always worthy to stand in the temple of Art, if it is true love. And your actors, sirs, your puppets, are very true indeed.”

“As is your saying,” says Istvan warmly, while Rupert gives a sober nod, and Herr Blum stares down at the Scout stilled on the notebook page, as if it has written for him lines he did not expect to speak. For a brief and kindred moment there is silence, one of those moments in which, it is said, an angel is passing by.

Then “I must away now, I’m afraid,” Istvan rising, taking up his hat, taking Herr Blum’s hand in a comrade’s clasp, “but I hope you will come again to see us, as often as ever you please. May be with your seraphic friend?” with an irrepressible smile as Herr Blum smiles, too, and “May I,” he asks, reaching for his own severely brushed topper—one more stroke and his head might pop straight through— “perhaps next time see the puppets—that is, here backstage? And watch as you rehearse with them?”

“We can but ask. They’ve got the temperament—actors, you know…. I go by the Park, will you walk with me?” leading the young man to the door, Frédéric’s last question trailing as they cross up the aisle—“Why is it called the Mercury, your theatre?”—to bring Istvan’s quote from “Priapus, do you know him? That is, the classics? I’m sure Seraphim does, it’s a fairly juicy bit,” as the door is closed, as the quote is proffered, as before they part Istvan sees once more that alarmed and charming blush.

Two grubby boys perch on a scrolled iron bench across from that parkside parting, one boy the worse for bottled ether, the other continuing to watch as the younger man hurries off and the older, a tall toff-type, passes without pausing the marionette booths, the carousel with its chipped and toothy horses and gaily painted cavalier’s coach, the dolly-wagglers’ girls who pretend to be lost for the men who pretend to find them, turning down the avenue of larch and budding lady’s-lace into the muddy, pathless precincts of the tinkers’ forest, where wisdom and loss await the gullible, and one can have the future laid bare by the spirits or the cards, and buy all sorts of faintly noxious nostrums to cure or prevent migraine, heartbreak, baker’s stomach, and the worst kind of Chinese clap. The tall man speaks to one of the tinkers, sitting arms-folded beside a somewhat warped Wheel of Fortune; but no money changes hands, and no one else approaches except a drunken beggar in an apron, who sheers off when the two men turn on him as one. As the beggar weaves past the boys on the bench, the watchful one calls out to him—“Hey!”—and waves a coin, like waving a strip of gristle under the nose of a hungry dog. “What they sayin’, those two over there? The toff and the gipsy?”

“What toff?” blinks the beggar, reaching for the coin; the boy hooks a foot around his ankle, trips him to the ground, then yanks his own weaving comrade upright as “Come on,” he says, peering past the larch, but the tall man is only spinning the Wheel, the festal stars, the Venus moon, the climber rising always to tumble back into the dust and rise again. The boy tugs along his listing friend as the tall man at last takes his leave, not back the way he came but through the maze of flower booths with their gray-and-brown striped awnings, their white tulips and green violets, potted ivy and strangler fig, heart’s-ease as bright as brand-new satin, past the stately gated entrance to the Lady’s Garden, past the Cemetery that is not a cemetery, lost at last to the afternoon traffic so “Come on,” the boy says again to his friend, disappointed but resolute. “We got to go tell Haden.”

“Tell ’im what?”

“Tell him you’re fucking worthless! An’t he said, ‘Watch them showmen’? You want to eat tonight or not?” as the boys disappear in the other direction, never having marked the blue-eyed girl there on the bench by the carousel, dipping bread into a half-tin of sauced sardines, noting their actions and interest without any interest at all.

But when a fine
maman
in a pink walking suit and her pair of squawking sons approach the carousel, and the attendant wipes down the seats and cranks the wheels to make it turn, then Tilde is held rapt by the music, the winged horse revolving to the words of the song: “Oh follow, oh follow, oh follow my lead/Let me lead you all the way home,” until the gallop slows and the wheels stop, and the tune fades out again upon the air. As
Maman
and her boys turn away for other pleasures, Tilde reaches into her skirt pocket for the deck of Taroc cards: the first card into her hand is the Wanderer, the second is the Lord of Flowers, the third is the Woman Alone on the rock, high seas to threaten her naked legs, black clouds to scour the stars overhead—but this is a card of good fortune, of such rare good fortune that she herself is shocked by its advent, so much so that it nearly drops from her grasp, though still quick enough to draw it back when “What you got there, missy?” asks one of the dolly-wagglers, leaning over her shoulder, breath foul as tombs against her cheek. “Dirty pictures?”