Under the Poppy (26 page)

“Many thanks.” Rupert makes a small bow. “Safe travels.”

“The same to yourself.” Mr. Arrowsmith smiles. “Perhaps I shall meet you elsewhere, sir, some spot with better weather; Brussels, perhaps? It is pleasant there in the spring.”

As Mr. Arrowsmith descends the stairs, he notes the mute piano-boy watching from the landing below, a big-eyed whore beside him; he gives both a courteous nod, that the boy as courteously returns. Behind them is another whore, the saucy one Dusan seems to favor; as soon as he leaves the stairs, she is on them, heading up.

In the lobby it is dire winter, the doors left open to drafts and gusts as the soldiers trot back and forth, swearing, shivering, decamping; Essenhigh is in his element, hardly acknowledging Mr. Arrowsmith, who in any case has done with their shared business, will need only a soldier to escort him to the train, the streets now so patently unsafe. The colonel wades happily encumbered through tedious questions with equally tedious replies, as Mr. Arrowsmith gives a small mental sigh, and sets himself to wait; noting as he does the general decrepitude of the furnishings, the burn marks on the floor, the tomcat aroma of urine, why are the foot soldiers always such brutes? until “Pardon, sir,” the kitchen maid quiet at his elbow, the watchful one he has seen before at the hotel. “Miss Decca asks if you will take tea,” in the threadbare kitchen hardly warmer than the lobby, but at least there is a door to close.

The maid disappears. The madam stands by the table, pot and chipped cups; silently she pours for him. Sipping, once again he longs for Assam, very very hot Assam. “Many thanks, Mademoiselle. This is just the thing on such a bleak night.”

“Bleak to be sure.” She pours for herself. Chapped hands and shabby the dress, yes, more patch than silk, still he notes there is indeed something of Liserl in the fineness of the face, the graceful stillness of gesture, a lady’s grace; but Liserl’s eyes are yet a girl’s. This one—Diana the huntress might have such eyes, were she born in the gutter with no string to her bow and one arrow only to employ. Looking at him, now, over the rim of her cup: “You have spoken already to Mr. Bok.”

“And to Dusan—pardon, Hanzel. Yes.”

“His name is Istvan.” Mr. Arrowsmith pauses, with his cup; carefully he sets it aside, keeps his gaze steady on the madam before him. “They are leaving very soon,” she says, “all of them.” Them. He waits; he knows more is to follow. “You know the law, sir? The—property law?”

This is a surprise. “In reference to—?”

“This,” she says, and begins to unfasten her bodice, three hooks, five, to bring forth a worn and much-folded paper, sets it before him; she does not close her dress. The skin of her throat is flushed, like a blush rose. “Will you—review this, sir? There is no one else to ask.”

The paper is still warm from her flesh, and smells oddly, sweetly, of verbena. It is beyond all coincidence, but Liserl also favors verbena…. When Mr. Arrowsmith looks up, she is gazing down at the tabletop, eyes veiled, one curl fallen loose and soft against her cheek, red copper on snow.

“I can pay,” she murmurs. “For your assistance.”

Payment he would not have asked, but—that curl, this cold and ravaged room, it is quite absurd but he feels himself stirring, reaches to touch her cheek, to take the paper and “Have you a room?” he says, softly, a ridiculous thing to ask in a brothel. Already she is rising, leading him to a little chamber just past the kitchen, a kind of pantry with a cot and a stool, where she seats herself before him, hands clasped, the pulse visible in her bare throat.

“Tell me,” she says, “what I must do.”

Outside the icy and indifferent morning, Puggy commenting how cozy is the room, Rupert’s sitting room office when “It’s crowded like cattle,” but all uncomplaining, himself cheek-by-jowl with Laddie on one side and the Chevalier on the other. “And it smells so much sweeter than the stables. Well, somewhat sweeter. Who in here has washed this week?”

No one answers him, though Laddie offers a tired little smile. Puggy, and Laddie; the Chevalier and the Bishop; Miss Lucinda demure in the far corner, Omar standing yawning beside. Jonathan and Pearl, hands linked, sit at the little table beside the box that holds Pan Loudermilk; Pearl keeps upon it a mistrustful eye, as if, unwatched, its occupant might somehow spring upon her. On the stairs, firm steps approach and “It’s done,” says Rupert, entering, snow melting on his coat, his bare head. “They’re on their way up the road.”

No one speaks. Puggy starts to make a joke, then seems to reconsider, lets the pause drift to a silence that grows, and grows uneasy. Resented as the soldiers were, still they were a certain safety; and now they are gone. Everything is gone, soldiers, audience, tricks, food, fuel. All that is left are the folk of the Poppy, there in the quiet room.

Oddly, it is Pearl who speaks at last, for them all—“Mr. Rupert? What are we to do, now?”—but it is not Rupert who answers. From the inner room, bandaged and half-dressed, draped in the coverlet, comes Istvan, Lucy behind him, to drop into the chair beside Pearl who leans away, into Jonathan’s reassuring arm and “I’m surprised you ask,” says Istvan. His hair is loose around his face, his gaze opaque as a puppet’s. “We are players, are we not? What else shall we do but play?”

All eyes turn to Rupert, but for Lucy, who, alone among them, already knows what is to happen, Lucy who dozed all night in this outer room, as Rupert and Istvan spoke together in the bedroom, soft and heated—

You take them on ahead; Omar will help. I’ll follow.

Why not together?
but Rupert’s answer none that Lucy could parse—
See this
—to spark Istvan’s reply, feverish, angry,
I’ll not slink like a cur out of town! We’ve been diddled enough by that fucking masher, I’d spit on the blade at least but Let me, said Rupert, in a tone so alien it made her wonder, ever after, if she had truly heard it, if it had not somehow been Istvan burlesquing, playing at the voice of doom.… Sleeping then, another restless doze, and waking to check on her patient, offer him water, ration the laudanum since Lord knows where more will be had, carefully capping the flask. I’m that surprised she had any at all.

Oh, Ag’s full of surprises. Being as she is a foul liar.

I’m not surprised by that,
with a smile; Lucy will always be able to smile.
How is your wound?

It fucking hurts. And the arm’s stiffening up, I can feel it.

You’ll be needing me, then.

For what?

And her nod at the mecs—
For everything
—brought his faint grudging nod in return.

Now Rupert’s gaze takes them all in, one to the next, ending on Istvan and “The Poppy as it was is gone,” he says quietly. He looks exhausted but completely calm, a man with his mind made up. “Between the war and our losses—Vera took the train last night—we have little left, here, and less to build on. So flight’s our safest course. I had hoped we might travel with the army into Archenberg, but Colonel Essenhigh—”

“Was a cunt,” says Istvan. It is not as if he interrupts, rather that he speaks his part, his lines. Rupert nods and resumes: “So we must do for ourselves. As soon as may be, we will go together to Archenberg, and, if we may in safety, on to Victoria. I shall do my best to find you all new positions, or give you coin as I can.” He allows them to digest this news, though none seem aback, only grieved, Puggy especially; again, all but Lucy. “You should know, too, that Miss Decca will not join us. She intends to stay on.”

Omar frowns. “Stay on how? A lady alone? There’s no safety in that,” and “I’ll talk to her,” offers Puggy, “if I may.”

“Certainly, and luck to you. I found her unpersuadable…. Any who choose may stay with her, of course. The rest of you, pack up your things.”

The room fills with talk, then, and Jonathan’s pencil and gestures, the gabble one always hears on the edge of a grave: the trivialities, the minor and essential details attending any death, who will perform what task, is there food enough for the journey, does Omar still have that little nickel-plated revolver? Rupert watches. Lucy watches. Istvan waits, then retrieves from the mounded clutter of the floor the white plague mask, and fits it one-handed to his face. From behind it: “But we shan’t leave without a fanfare, yeah?” and from the folds of the coverlet brings forth a dreadful figure, cunningly worked: empty hands and a howl of a mouth, black eyes immovable and “I give you the Erl-King,” says Istvan. “He will show us what to do.”

Across town, in a habitat as empty and more dismal, Jürgen Vidor has at last readied himself for travel. His packing has been haphazard, the load somewhat lightened by theft: half his trinkets have been stealthily looted, the brass telescope taken, the wax flowers left, the rosewood teapoy presumably burned for heat, the silver Greek god gone as well as the stupid blue eyeball forced on him by Rupert’s fool. His clothing is apparently intact, see the fawnskin waistcoat still hanging where he left it, and the burgundy silk cravat, last worn, when? to speak with Rupert, to offer him Prague, and Paris, to give him the life he deserves…. Methodically he turns his patience cards, the creased kings and their tattered ladies, teasing out the aces, ignoring the deuces and treys; it is his way. Pay attention to the larger figures, and the smaller ones will follow in their wake. It is a policy that has always served him, it serves him still…. Worse than a pity that the filthy train has ceased its operation, Arrowsmith urging him to leave like a camp follower with Essenhigh, as if that were a sensible option:
The roads are appalling, you’ll want the cavalry at least
—

And how can you know what I want, Javier?
Which put the end to that, at least, and sent him scurrying off to his master in Gottsburgh, the both of them on their knees to that merchant Victor Rawsthorne: it is almost comical what lucre can accomplish, what can be bought and sold. Flesh, pain, silence, allegiance, war, arms, lumber, Bordeaux, if there was any Bordeaux to purchase; everything. Nearly everything. Except Rupert Bok. Take away his funding, drive him into Georges’ embrace, threaten the peace of his household: still he refuses. There is something almost piquant in such willfulness, such a challenge, who would ever have expected it here in the arsehole of nowhere, this tragic little town reduced to embers and ruin? Life is the strangest game of all.

So now there is nothing left to do but finish out this hand, turn the cards, await the reply that is brought, soon enough, by that nearly wordless creature, dwindled twin to his earlier bravo, this one may not even have language but lucre can buy him, too, a handful makes him loyal as a dog to cross into enemy lines, to bring a reply:
The favor of your presence is requested, yes, at the last, the command performance at the Poppy, his command, a final sortie. Only a short time left to while away in patience and impatience, as the silence left by cannon is filled with howling dogs and scattered fire, gunfire, who aims at whom? Impossible to tell. No Bordeaux, but still plenty of gin, and his bestial man-at-arms at the door to ward off any last feints or follies mounted by military stragglers, yes, this dungeon hotel is still as safe as houses. And so is he.

There is a certain tonic in activity: see it at the Poppy, now, as treasures are sifted, a cart is readied, blankets bunched, minor provisions gathered past Decca’s measuring eye. Wrapped in blue silk and a stained gray woolen shawl, hair in careful upsweep, she is fully the mistress of the Poppy, of the silence and the cold to come, gazing upon them as if already miles away and
Go on,
she says with that gaze,
do as you will, play as you will, I’ll not hinder you. Do you not hinder me,
as she makes her own careful preparations, paper and ink, stout new lock on her door, Omar private to install it and “Take this,” he says, pressing upon her the little revolver. “It won’t stop a man unless you stuff it into his mouth, but it’ll give you time enough to scarper…. It’s a sin and a shame to leave you this way, miss. This is no place for a young lady, the scavengers will soon take it over. Why not come with, and be safe?” But she resists his plea as she ignored Puggy’s dire assertions, and at any rate “You will meet your own dangers, out there,” she says, adding the new lock’s key to her neck chain, chatelaine. “Safe travels, Omar,” and to Puggy, too, busy onstage, the others trotting back and forth, glad to be doing something, tired of waiting for the war to end or worsen, for some unsaid calamity to land on the Poppy like a hawk on a mouse, the way is straight before them: one last show, “The Erl-King,” and then onto the road. Pearl already dreams aloud of how it will be in Victoria: perhaps they will have a proper set of rooms, she and Jonathan, bedstead and fireplace, how lovely that would be! as he touches the piano keys, muted chords in the arching emptiness: how large the building seems, now, with no one in it but themselves. Laddie is as quiet as Jonathan, offering no plans at destination, taking little from his room, only clothing and his hashish bag, the blue-framed picture left in place, the boat on the endless sea; though he is the only one to question, softly, as Puggy sorts through the costumes and the drapes: “Why
do
we play, then, if we’re closed, or closing? This last showing, what’s it for?”

“Ask Mr. Rupert. Or rather, don’t.”

“But to an empty house—”

“It’s my thought that it won’t be empty,” nodding toward the darkness as if some spectral audience were already in place, for one strange moment Laddie seems to glimpse it too and “I’ll be glad when we’re gone,” he says, and Puggy silently agrees: no fanfare, this show, no matter what Istvan has said, something else is in play here that no one will acknowledge, something to do with Mr. Vidor, and the war. Ask Pan Loudermilk, perhaps he will say…. But he is a born lieutenant, Puggy, his is not to make the plans but to carry them out as well as he may: and the player’s heart of him wonders exactly what the frightful little Erl-King might be up to, sequestered in Mr. Rupert’s inner room with his puppet brothers and Miss Lucinda, and Istvan, one-armed and pale, but diligent as ever—