by Jesse Ball
No one, what?
Her mother repeated it. She couldn’t be spoken to until the day of the festival. That was the rule.
Lessen burst out crying. She sat down on a curb and refused to continue, sticking her legs out to either side like a soldier.
Her mother cajoled her and drew her on.
It will be okay, don’t worry. It is only a few hours anyway, and then you’ll go to sleep. And we can still be together; I can read to you, and sit with you in bed until you doze off. I just can’t talk to you, and you can’t talk to me. The same with your brother, your father, your sister. It will be fine. What I’m saying is—it is all a part of the ceremony. The festival is not just tomorrow—it’s already started, but not for everyone, just for the participants. So you get more of it than anyone else does. Come on now, darling.
THEY APPROACHED A LARGE AND FILTHY BUILDING. IT seemed to be broken-down in places. There were parts of an animal, a wooden elephant, or at least its back and legs, leaned against the building.
What is that?
It’s the theater.
No, that.
There was a small door next to a sewage hole. They knocked on it and it opened.
What do you want?
They went in the back door. There were many people in the dark getting dressed, getting undressed, assuming costumes, coloring their faces, shoving one another, embracing, turning their backs, kneeling, standing, exclaiming. This mother and daughter passed through them all like a whispered question, from hand to hand, mouth to ear, out into the main stage area. Immediately they were greeted with noise and light and endless space above. Lessen reeled and held to her mother’s hand.
Dozens of people were hammering away on a massive float that occupied the center of the room. Others were working on costumes and props and simple machinery. Some seemed to be loitering and doing nothing. Others danced or seemed to play at fighting.
When Lessen appeared at the edge of the light a shout went up and all work stopped.
A man with a red face and a long silver coat jumped down from a stage off to one side. She had not seen that there.
He approached them.
The Infanta is here! Come, let us welcome her!
A huge roar came then in the theater, and it built and built, and Lessen could feel it inside of her and outside of her—and she did not blush or turn away but curtsied as her mother had shown her, and suddenly, impossibly, there was silence.
They were waiting for her to say something.
Tell them to continue, her mother said.
But she didn’t know what to say. She stood frozen in that impossible scene, and all she could feel were her ankles and her wrists and her knees and her neck and her nose where it meets the face.
Tell them! They’re all waiting.
You can continue, she said. And the tumult began again.
The man in silver bowed. He took Lessen’s hands and held them up. Someone took her mother’s arm and led her away. Lessen looked helplessly after her.
Don’t worry, she will be near. We have much work to do, and you are to be our Infanta. Come this way. There are many people for you to meet, and all of them devoted to you.
LESSEN SAT ON A CUSHION ON A CHAIR IN A POOL OF light by the north wall of the theater. She knew it was the north wall because there was a huge N painted dead across it. We are inside a compass, the man had told her.
She looked straight ahead because she was not supposed to move, and looking straight ahead meant looking at a group of young men who were practicing something with sticks, broomsticks. Every one of them was covered in soot. They were, what were they . . . chimney sweeps. Her honor guard. (Tomorrow they will accompany you, and they will do whatever you tell them. Be careful what you tell them because they will do it, no matter how awful it is. You can tell them anything, and they will do it.)
She watched them and occasionally they looked over at her, and the looks in their blackened eyes could not be understood. Who did they see when they looked at her? Lessen was lost in herself—she found she had become someone she didn’t know, but it was like floating. There was no effort. It maintained itself.
She stared straight ahead, and beside her there was a doll, a puppet, a papier-mâché girl of her exact dimensions. She knew that was true because they had made a hundred measurements with a tape, and also because she had looked at it and felt it was her. She liked the paper Infanta. She was fond of her. Occasionally she would sneak a look to see how things proceeded. It had been painted to have her hands and her feet. It wore the same clothes that she wore now. At that moment it was receiving her face. Her nose was appearing there, as delicate as might be, and her gray eyes, her tiny lips and ears. The brand on her cheek with its scar. Everything was there. Was that her expression? Was it really?
They brought the paper Infanta around to face her.
She looked at it and stood. The Infanta was made to stand. She sat. The Infanta was made to sit. She stood and turned in a circle. The Infanta rose and twirled.
Does she look like me? Do I look like that?
The painter bowed and mumbled something.
But do I look like that?
HER DRESS WAS OF APPLE-RED BROCADE, AND LARGER than any dress she had worn. It projected from her—she could not walk well.
Her arms were sleeved in pale white silk luminous like the bottom of a stream. Her legs the same, though you could not see them.
Her face was behind a veil of golden links that fell from a sort of corona atop her head. It was not heavy, and her hair had been braided into it, so the whole thing was fast and wouldn’t budge.
One hand wore a red glove, and material was gathered at the wrist, tied with a bow. Her thumbless hand wore white, and there was material there too. What is it for?
You will know everything soon enough.
No one has ever had clothes like this, thought Lessen. At least not in Row House. She had never seen such material, never dreamed it existed. It almost made her faint to feel it.
People came and went, brushing past, darting here and there. But everyone bowed to her, dropped their heads, looked furtively from some low angle. No one would look her in the eye.
How strange, she thought. I really am a different one.
She felt a rushing in her head, like a smile at its start.
That man, she said, bring him.
She felt so powerful!
They brought the man over. What should she say?
Dance for me!
There was laughter.
The man began to dance.
Faster!
Faster!
He danced and danced—faster and faster.
It did work! She could almost not believe it.
Her expression was impassive. She watched as he danced, and she felt along the length of her this enormous costume. She had some sense that her costume was not just her clothes, but also all of the people and all the things they did. It was an intuition like destiny. Beside her stood her paper mirror, persistently reflecting.
And this man, dancing and dancing. He seemed to be getting tired.
Faster!
But it was too funny. All at once she was a child again, any child. She broke into laughter, and everyone laughed too.
What was it she was supposed to say? She tried to remember. It was something simple, something . . .
I am pleased.
He dropped to the ground and groveled at her feet. What did she think of that? The box of her face held joy and a smirk. What did any of this have to do with her?
She felt a calm wash over her. She inclined her head to the man. He jumped up bowing and went bowing back across the floor to the other chimney sweeps, and they banged their feet as he went in pride. Many of them clapped him on the back, and they took up their brooms and began again their broom dance, whatever it was, their practice.
She watched them, and felt now really that they were hers. Her own chimney sweeps. Who ever had such a thing? This was the b
est game of all—to be Infanta!
Someone behind her.
The director would like to speak to you. Are you ready?
She nodded but did not look in the direction of the voice. It was hard to turn with the dress on.
I WILL ARRIVE IN FRONT OF HER. SHE WILL BE SEATED. I will give her the instructions, the same way it always goes. I will say all the instructions in turn. I will not prejudice her one way or the other. I will speak as much to the doll as to she.
And again, do not become attached to her. She is like any of them—she is everyone’s and no one’s. What happens is outside of any control.
He came to the doorway and went through. There she was.
My Infanta. He bowed. My Infanta. I speak to you about our festival. The city awaits. Tomorrow is your day, the Day of the Infanta. The whole of Row House awaits it—your day is our life’s blood. We thank you for giving it to us.
He paused and looked at his notes.
She started to speak up, then stopped.
What is it? he asked.
Why me?
It is not by chance—you and another girl, you both were born on the last Day of the Infanta.
Lessen cocked her head. Another girl?
Where is she?
The director took a deep breath.
She died last year when the helmets raided her parents’ house.
Died?
Yes, she died. They gassed them all, and then they took her by the feet and knocked her head against the wall. They didn’t even know who she was. It was just a raid.
Lessen started to cry but made no sound. She raised her chin. She thought that was what an Infanta did, so she did it.
The director saw all this. He stiffened with pride. He felt a sureness, a confidence in what would happen—how well all things would go.
Yes, when they did that, when they killed her, at that moment you were alone, though you did not know it. In any case, you were born to be Infanta—the day has been waiting for you to grow old enough. And you—you are doing wonderfully! Such a fine Infanta—they say there is only one, and she is always being born. You are she.
She lifted the veil back so she could see better.
That’s all right, he said. You don’t need to have the veil down until the rehearsal.
The what?
We will go through the schedule now.
A girl ran up and bowed to Lessen. She leaned forward and whispered something to the director. He nodded and said, Tell him he has one more chance and that’s it.
The girl scurried off.
Infanta, the schedule: today we will prepare what needs to be prepared, and then we will have a rehearsal. Then you go home.
What is a . . . ?
We pretend to do what we will do tomorrow. We do that so it is easier when we do it for the second time.
She nodded.
Then tomorrow your honor guard will go and fetch you from your house and bring you here, and we will begin. The rehearsal will start in a little while. Do you have any questions?
What do I do?
I will explain it all as we go. I will be right by you, and I will explain. You only have to be yourself, because you are what you are pretending to be.
He began to turn away but turned back.
She lifted her chin as she looked at him. Did she look like an Infanta? she wondered. If someone didn’t know she was?
One thing to remember, he said, the only thing, is that you have to be careful what you say because everyone will obey you.
She laughed.
He smiled. His head was inclined, but she could see his smile.
It is funny, he said. It is funny that everyone will obey, but it is also true, and it is also very serious. It is both funny and serious. We call these things comedy and tragedy.
Comedy is what’s funny—and tragedy is what’s bad?
Not bad—but serious. That is our festival—the Day of the Infanta.
How am I doing?
But she said it too quietly, and the director went away, leaving her to her thoughts, and her paper companion.
SHE SOON REGAINED HER SPIRITS.
I can make them do anything. What should I make them do? She thought about her sister, who was often very mean to her. The day before, when she had been chosen Infanta, her sister had hit her as hard as she could, right in front of the visitors. Her mother had screamed at her to stop, and her sister had hit her again before they put her in a side room and shut the door. Still they could hear her screaming. She wanted to be Infanta, but she was not. A great warmth overtook Lessen’s being. It was especially good to be Infanta because it meant that her sister was not Infanta.
If Lessen told her chimney sweeps to pull off her sister’s legs, what would happen? She imagined her sister screaming and trying to run away, and being caught, and lifted up (there were so many of them, surely they could lift a girl in the air and pull her legs off!).
She knew what her mother would say—that’s fine, but then you would have no sister.
She could also have the chimney sweeps find her father’s shift boss and tear off his legs. Now, that might be the thing to do. He was always keeping her father late and not letting him go home. Maybe he would be a better shift boss without legs.
She thought about what it would be like going down the street on the float, in this incredible dress, and pictured the crowds. Everyone she knew would be there. Everyone would see her, and they would learn that she was someone they never thought they would meet. Who was she?
She thought some more about her sister’s legs being pulled off. But I wouldn’t do it, she thought, I might let her think I would, though. She should know that I could do it, but didn’t. She should at least know that.
THE MAGISTRATE WAS PUTTING ON HIS BEARD BY THE footlights. It was an enormous beard, twice as long as he was tall, and it was quite difficult to put on. A young woman was helping him, and occasionally he would pull her to him and run his hands along her waist and up her sides. She would squirm away, and it would all continue.
Up came the director.
Did you see her yet?
Yes—she’s there on the far side. What’s she like?
Spot on so far.
The magistrate pulled the young woman into his lap again. This time she let him.
He is terrible, she told the director. I’m just trying to get his beard on, and he won’t let me.
You need your beard for the rehearsal. Let her put it on you. Then get on the float where you can watch the Infanta and see everything she does and says. Don’t you know your work?
The magistrate laughed.
No one wants the task I do, no one’s strong enough to live with it—and so I have conditions.
Yes, yes. Well, get your beard on and then do what you like.
The director continued on. Behind him, he heard the young woman:
And would you really condemn her? Condemn a child? Would you really do it? If you felt it was right?
A MAN IN A LONG, DARK COAT WAS WAITING FOR THE director and stopped him as he came.
We just got word. The guards are going to interfere.
He pulled out a map. They looked at the route as it was drawn.
So we were going to go this way and this way. That’s the way we’ve always gone. But the helmets, they’ll put up barricades here and here. So I think we go this way at the start, and we start earlier.
He pointed with his forefinger.
Then we can avoid them entirely. By the time they move the barricades, it’ll be too late. And once the crowds are out, they can’t do anything anyway.
The two men nodded.
It’s just—public opinion. The pats don’t like it; if they do us in, it’s one thing, but if we do us in, it’s another. They’d love to gas us all and be done. For them anything’s a provocation. Especially what happened before.
The director smiled.
I was director five years ago, as you know. I think this Infanta won’t be like
the last. Probably won’t go that way. But hard to say. The magistrate’s been flogging himself since. It’s hard to live with. But we always know—it can happen. It is as much a part of it as anything.
The man with the long coat took a brooch out of the collar of his shirt. The brooch was on a chain. He opened it. Inside there was a little knucklebone.
I was in the crowd when we dragged her down, he said. However it goes—it goes right. If the guards don’t stop us first.
LESSEN’S MOTHER SAT IN THE BALCONY AND WATCHED it all. Her face was covered in tears. She couldn’t stop crying, and she was frightened almost to death. She was shivering and crying. A man had covered her with a blanket. That’s what it was like to see this woman—she looked such a sight that someone would just cover her up for no reason.
Away there she could watch the float, and she saw they were bringing Lessen onto it. She looked radiant in her dress, like a festive lantern. Where was the little girl her mother knew?
Her heart sank. It was an immovable dread that stood over her and stiffened all her thought. If only Lessen were more like her brother, then things would be fine. But she was wild, too wild. Oh, how could it have happened? They should have hid her at birth.
Her mother started to cry again and laid her face in her hands. It was useless, useless. She tried to peer down again, but everything was blurred. She could hardly see anything. She rubbed her eyes. She tried to breathe.
A man sat in the row beside her. Could she get away from him and down to her daughter? She had tried before. Then he caught up at the stairs and she thought he would hit her, but he didn’t. He just dragged her back by the neck of her coat.
She looked over and the man was looking at her. Was it pity in his eyes? Not exactly. Nothing is pity, is it, not exactly?
OUTSIDE THE BACK ENTRANCE ONE OF THE COOKS WAS peeling something. He had a bucket and a bunch of the thing. Next to him was another bucket. To do his job he’d get something in his hand and peel it and then throw it in the bucket it hadn’t come out of. He did this all with just one thumb, which is a kind of parlor trick, unless you’re used to seeing it, and then of course it’s not.