Hamlet

by John Marsden

  There was a fourth line too, a secret line, that Hamlet lied to himself about. Were the map ever to be drawn, this route might appear as a series of faint dots, like an unmade road, or a horse trail across the mountains. Much of the time it was invisible, though it was more likely to be seen at night. It started in the tower room, like the others, and like them it went down the stairs. From there it led onto the roof and across the ridges and valleys, pausing near Ophelia’s window, where the girl could sometimes be seen, by the light of the one mean candle her father allowed her.

  Oh yes, she could be seen all right, seen as the white slip slid down her body, seen stretching, arms above her head, as she danced the pale nightgown down her body. Could be seen bending to the candle, her face glowing in its sweet light, her swollen lips open to blow the room into darkness. Even after the darkness she could be seen, in Hamlet’s fevered mind, the swelling breasts and the smooth legs, the soft crack: he saw all but the pink light between her legs.

  From there Hamlet would creep on past the servants’ wing, watching for the assistant cook with the huge prick, the oafish nineteen-year-old stroking himself on his palliasse, in the dimness of the candle his cock casting a giant shadow on the wall. Hamlet stared at the shadow as much as he did at the cock, wondering and wishing, excited by the awful sight.

  Down to a small window, in the shape of a slice of bread, where he would make his exit into the kitchen gardens, but before that he passed the room of one of the scullery maids. Forty or more years old, breasts like bags filled with water, genitals lost in her giant thighs, the triangle of hair spreading high up toward her navel, standing every night in the galvanized iron tub, obsessed with cleanliness, washing herself with dreamy concentration. The boy felt a deep hunger as he gazed at her. He could never feed at those breasts, could never satisfy her with his little thing. She, always in the room; he, always outside it. Always in the past, never in the future.

  Then through the window to the staircase, down the stone steps, through the green door, and into the squares of carrots and peas, potatoes and pumpkins, beets and squash. Some squares weeded and neat, others unkempt or barren. Around the perimeters, a hundred meters away in any direction, the pens of chickens, ducks, geese, the sheds of pigs, the huts where tools were kept.

  In this strange land, in this tiny kingdom of pigs and turkeys, of beans and berries, the grotesque was not unknown. In this controlled world of moon at night and sun by day, of rain and snow and frost and summer warmth, Garath — always first to emerge from his hovel, Garath, the man charged with the care of the kitchen gardens — occasionally found hens strangled and sows stabbed, vines ripped down and soft fruit plucked and trampled.

  The garden boys learned not to speak of this, not to speculate, just to obey Garath’s grim orders: “Strip the birds and scorch the sows, bury the fruit and restore the vines.”

  Garath sent the meat to the kitchen, but he did not eat it himself.

  This is where the fourth line of Hamlet finished.

  And so time strode onward, and Hamlet became older, filling into the body and shape of a young man, no longer an adolescent. Yet still he did nothing. Horatio was called away to do his first phase of army duty. Bernardo’s father inherited a bigger farm, near Olsbrook, and the family moved there. The young man had not visited his cousin in Elsinore for a long time, and his memories of the night with Hamlet and Horatio and the spirit were becoming uncertain.

  Laertes finished university in France and went to England to study military tactics.

  Hamlet and Ophelia were the only constants. They never went away. Within the walls of the great gray castle, they had no one but each other. Ophelia lived and breathed Hamlet. She disappeared into Hamlet. She gave herself to him in every way but the one she wanted. If Hamlet smiled and spoke to her, she was happy. If he frowned or appeared not to notice her, she did not want to live. There was nothing to do in the castle, no new people, an angry king and a fretful queen, grumbling mumbling muttering servants, tired old men and boring young ones. Hamlet was the salmon in the river, the balloon on the breeze, the new moon silvering the sky. He was quickness and light, a shadow on a wall, an illusion, a dream, a fancy. He was a glimpse, nothing solid. How could she anchor her boat to a wave? Yet that was what she wanted.

  Hamlet’s behavior was becoming more and more odd. Even the soldiers whispered about it. He was so beautiful that no one wanted to notice. Illness of that kind was for others, not for the beautiful or the rich or the royal. It seemed impossible. Yet he spoke in a way that often made no sense: if he entered a conversation, his words jumped and skipped and went backward, or a year forward.

  It made people uncomfortable and made Ophelia angry and miserable. He needed her; she could help him. If he took the comfort she alone could give, then he would wax, not wane; he would laugh and spring around and be the powerful, potent prince he had once promised to become. He would be the full moon, shining so strongly over the land that all would kneel before him, and she, she would be content as his Venus, the brightest star in the sky, but only a star.

  She would give him everything; didn’t he understand that? Did she have to spell it out for him? That was the one thing she could not do. He could have it, but she would not be whorish. He must find it himself and then, expecting resistance, he would be moved and delighted and grateful to find her open. Oh, how open she would be! Everything would be his. She would be his. Let him use her as the means to his fulfillment. Did he not understand the gift that lay waiting and panting and bleeding and ready?

  She was huge with her readiness and openness and generosity. Did he not understand that she lay naked on her bed every night, made huge by her willingness? How could he, at the top of the tower, in his room made of stone, not feel the waves of her openness radiating through the castle? Wouldn’t the servants toss restlessly in their sleep as the waves flowed into them? Would not the animals in their pens grunt and groan with uneasy recognition? How, then, could a prince, the most beautiful boy in the land, the boy strung as sensitively as a violin, not be drawn to her, drawn to her room, by the energy with which she shone for him?

  “Do you believe ghosts?” Hamlet asked.

  Horatio was back at Elsinore, after his first period of military service. He stood a lot taller but had lost weight; perhaps because of the poor food the soldiers were given, perhaps because he was growing so fast. With him was Laertes, cool and aloof now, patronizing to the younger men, and resentful that he was not still in London.

  Hamlet was pleased to see Laertes, delighted to see Horatio. He eyed his friend affectionately, noting the new confidence in his posture, the easy way he wore his clothes. Horatio’s mushroom-brown hair was cut short, and he had the stubble of a beard, but his honest dark eyes held the same regard and loyalty for Hamlet as they always had.

  The two of them went walking down a long wide strip of grass, each with a racquet. They had invented a game that all the young officers had picked up and now played with eager devotion. It was simple enough — hitting a hard little ball they’d made by binding a stone with thin cord. The aim was to get it into holes they’d drilled in the ground, five holes in all.

  Horatio paused at his friend’s question. Staring down at the wet grass, he shook his head, puzzled. “Do I believe in ghosts? Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

  “No, not ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I said, ‘Do you believe ghosts?’”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “You should, Horatio, you should. But my question is, if a ghost tells you something, can it be believed?”

  “I don’t know.” Horatio had found his ball, and he lined up his next shot. He was getting more interested now. Perhaps Hamlet was about to talk about that extraordinary night on the battlements, the night that remained a dark spot between them. The night that had triggered a new Hamlet, a changed Hamlet.

  Horatio hit his ball. It flew for a couple of long moments, then hit a tree and dropped to the ground. He tu
rned back to Hamlet.

  “I don’t know,” he said again, but slowly, now taking the question seriously. “Where are ghosts sent from? If from the devil, then it would be reasonable to disbelieve everything they say. I hope you’re not suggesting we should trust Satan’s emissaries.”

  They walked on.

  “Yes, but having escaped the devil’s clutches for a while,” Hamlet said, “they might speak the truth. Perhaps they slip away from the underworld in order to do so. After all, do they not generally encourage virtue in those to whom they appear?”

  “The stories seem to have it that way,” Horatio admitted. “I’ve never heard of a ghost telling someone to do wrong. But what is the difference between a ghost and an evil spirit? Haven’t we gone past your ball?”

  “Have we? I can’t remember where it landed.”

  “Near that alder, no?”

  They combed through the grass with their racquets. Hamlet, however, did not seem to have his mind on the job. “And,” he said, “it is also possible that the ghost has come from nowhere, because he has not yet gone anywhere. Suppose he is condemned to walk the earth’s mantle for a time? He is under the influence of neither divinity nor Satan.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Horatio asked boldly, meeting the prince’s eye.

  Hamlet blushed but did not answer. Instead he pressed Horatio harder. “If it were so, would you believe such a ghost?”

  “I might. If I were convinced that the thing meant me no harm.”

  “Hmmm. So it comes down to that. It always comes down to that.”

  “To what?”

  “Oh, to oneself, always to oneself. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio, or in mine, but somehow we are expected to make it all intelligible, to carve statues from air and make books from bark. It is too much. This is the proper work of gods, and we are not gods; indeed, all our human errors come from the vain belief that we are.”

  “Here’s your ball,” Horatio said.

  Hamlet dreamed of Ophelia. He had hard dreams of her, and soft ones. He dreamed in prepositions: beside, with, on top of, under, in, out. The dreams were unbearable sometimes; they sent him crazy, but he could not stop them, nor did he want to. There were times when he went to the corridor that ran to her room, but it always seemed something thwarted him, or conditions were not right, and on more than one occasion he bumped into her father. It was as though Polonius lurked near her bedroom, ubiquitous, insidious, and obsequious. “Why, Highness, taking the night air? Such a fragrant night, is it not? Would you care to share a sherry?”

  On these occasions, Hamlet, struggling not to blush, as anxious to repudiate the sherry as he was to obscure his greed for the beautiful Ophelia, tried to pretend it was mere coincidence that found him in this part of the castle, and he went away furious at his loss of dignity. Behind him he left the old man, triumphant, rampant, smug with the knowledge that once more he had chased away the cocky young invader. The fortress remained inviolate. Behind her door Ophelia tossed and turned and moaned, not hearing the stubborn men outside.

  But the night came when Hamlet went right to the door of her bedroom, penetrated the outermost chamber and stood with hand upon the knob, knowing that if he opened this, the final door . . . what? He realized that he knew nothing of what would happen. Breathing painfully, he tried to imagine Ophelia starting up from her bed, with pale fingers to her throat, frightened but perhaps also . . . what? If she cried for help, if she screamed, if she flung accusations at him, if she complained of him the next day, if she ran from him in fear, if she fainted, if she coldly told him to leave, if she became ill with loathing at the sight of him . . .

  Feeling faint himself, he turned the knob but somehow could not push against the reluctant door to open it. He gripped tightly, disgusted at his lack of resolve. Polonius was not the problem this time. The old man was nowhere to be seen. The problem had to be in himself. He knew what he wanted, but he could not take it. Then he heard the noise of someone coming down the corridor. Ark. He made a sound like a crow. Letting go of the knob, he slunk back and hid behind a harpsichord, like a thief. Laertes entered the chamber, soft but sure. Leaving at dawn to return to London, he had come to say good-bye. He went straight to the bedroom door, opened it, and, with the complete confidence that only a brother can possess toward a sister, went inside.

  Hamlet groaned and writhed and wailed and gnashed his teeth. He wanted the insouciance of a brother and the ardor of a lover. He crept away down the long, lonely, empty corridor, climbed back up to his cold tower room, with nothing but his own hands to hug him, nothing but himself to keep him warm.

  Everyone in Elsinore welcomed the news that a well-known troupe of actors had arrived at the castle. It was unusual to see them so far from their homes. Normally they performed at a theater at the other end of the country, but now business was poor and they were reduced to shuffling their way around Denmark town by town. This appearance at the residence of the royal family was the last of their tour.

  Hamlet had seen them frequently. He knew them well. They were favorites of his. Watching them approach, however, from his position on the parapet, he was at first too distracted by his own confusion to wonder what entertainment they brought. There is more tragedy here than they could show us on a stage, he thought. Here at Elsinore the play becomes real, the drama haunts us every moment of our lives.

  Suddenly he changed his mind. He jumped up from his squatting position with an acrobatic leap and went looking for them.

  The members of the group were milling around in the main entrance hall, waiting for lodgings to be found, rooms to be made ready. Hamlet counted eleven, all men and boys, the oldest a rosy-cheeked fellow who could have been seventy or more, the youngest a pair of twelve-year-olds. The boys were hired to play the female roles. Any other arrangements, involving the use of unchaperoned girls or women, would have been unseemly.

  Hamlet stood in the shadows for a few minutes, watching with affection, before the manager of the little company saw him and came to him with hands outstretched and words pouring from his mouth.

  Hamlet smiled and shook both his hands. “You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see you. Welcome, good friends.” He moved among them, shaking more hands. “My old friend, your face is fringed since I saw you last. Now you have bearded me in my own lair. Ah, young Felix, you will not be playing the role of a lady much longer if you keep growing at this rate. My word, your voice will soon betray you. Claudio, you have not aged a whit. Braybar, what a fine Romeo you were. What entertainment have you brought us, good sirs?”

  “We plan to perform The Murder of Gonzago, God willing, and may it please Your Royal Highness.”

  “Ah! Most suitable. You’ve brought it to the right place.” Hamlet caught sight of Polonius scurrying through the hall on one of his errands. Polonius always looked as though he were on the way from somewhere important to somewhere even more important. But Hamlet, in a tone he did not often use, arrested the old man just as he was about to vanish down a corner corridor. “Polonius! I need you.”

  Polonius swerved and trotted straight to the prince without missing a beat. “Highness, I am ever at your service.”

  “Then kindly find some lodgings for these fine fellows. Be generous to them, for they are the ones who tell the stories of our times. Never mind getting a good epitaph after you’re dead if you got a bad report from this lot while you’re still alive.”

  “Highness, I will arrange their accommodation, though it is not part of my normal duties. It really falls within the province of the comptroller of the household. But I will treat them as they deserve, depend upon it.”

  “As they deserve! You will have to do better than that! Treat every man as he deserves and no one’ll escape a whipping. Treat them with as much honor and dignity as you’d treat yourself, Polonius. If you treat a man better than he deserves, why, then, the more admirable your generosity.”

 
Polonius, not quite so unruffled now, bowed and nodded to the actors to follow him. But Hamlet held back the manager, waiting until the others had gathered their bits and pieces and shuffled off after Polonius. An idea had come to him while he was organizing their welcome to Elsinore. “Tell me, my friend,” he said, when they were alone together. “You mentioned The Murder of Gonzago.”

  “I did, Highness, but we can do Romeo and Juliet if that is your wish. It’s not a bad bit of work, although a bit far-fetched. Or we have a new comedy, a satiric piece, rather short, but most diverting, judging by the reactions we got in the south, where we —”

  “No, no, The Murder of Gonzago is an excellent choice. But tell me, if I wrote a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, you could learn that and insert it in the play, could you not?”

  Rather startled, the actor was nevertheless good enough at his craft to show no emotion. “Certainly, if that is what Your Highness wishes.”

  “Good. Then, for now, follow the others. Mention nothing of this to the old man Polonius. I’ll write the speech and deliver it to you by dinnertime. We can have the play tomorrow night.”

  “Very good, Your Royal Highness.”

  And off he went, leaving the prince with his thoughts, which tumbled around in his mind, busy as a line of laundry in a windstorm. What can I say for myself? Hamlet wondered. I, who have done nothing? What can I say in my defense? I have seen these actors stand upon a stage and make themselves weep over the dead children of Hecuba. Real tears come out of their eyes! Hecuba, who lived, if she lived at all, two thousand years ago! Hecuba, who was turned into a dog and drowned. What’s Hecuba to them or they to Hecuba? Yet the tears run down their faces as they ponder her fate! If they can do that in a play, what would they do if they had real cause for passion? What would any of them do?

  By God, if they were in my situation, they would weep. They would drown the stage with tears and burn the audience with the fire of their words. They would make the guilty mad and appall the innocent. The eyes and ears of the spectators would fill to overflowing. And yet, here I am, and what do I do? Why, that’s easy. I play games with a racquet and a ball. A king has his kingdom and his life stolen away, and I am silent. My father is murdered, and I sit down to table with his murderer. What does that make me? A coward, nothing else. One who has the liver of a pigeon.