by John Boyne
“Father, you’re weeping,” said Richard, and I put a hand to my face, surprised and embarrassed to discover that my cheeks were damp with tears.
“It is the weather,” I said. “Nothing more. The summer air has placed a curse upon my eyes.”
He looked at me, unconvinced, and returned to his food.
“Did you finish the play you were writing?” he asked after a moment.
“I did,” I replied, nodding. “I gave it to Master Shakespeare earlier. If all is well and he approves of it, perhaps I will be able to stage it in the new year. A new century approaches, my boy! A happy way to begin, don’t you agree? With a triumph upon the London stage?”
“Perhaps I could perform in it?” he asked, and I sat back in surprise, for he had shown no leanings toward an actorly life before and, in fact, had always seemed a rather shy child, nervous of any attention.
“You?” I said. “You have aspirations toward a theatrical life?”
He shrugged his shoulders, a new gesture of his that I found intensely irritating. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I like the idea of transformation. The thought of becoming someone else entirely intrigues me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you as you are.”
“I don’t know. My mind is filled with numbers and some say that I am a strange boy.”
I considered this. It was true that Richard had an obsession with mathematics and could often be found drawing strange objects in his vellum pads. Once, he drew the world itself, and the moon, and a series of unusual shapes surrounding the planet where he said men might live someday. It was an amusing idea but I had encouraged him to keep his nonsense to himself, lest others think he had lost his reason and send him to the madhouse.
“Perhaps I would have more friends if I partook of the entertainments?” he continued. “Is there a part for me, do you think? In your play, I mean.”
In fact, there was. A boy who journeyed with his father to the top of a mountain in order to learn the art of war. I could very easily imagine Richard performing the role, assuming he had the skill to transform himself from a nine-year-old Londoner to a third-century native of Switzerland.
“First we must get approval for the production,” I told him. “And then, if all is well, we could certainly see about you appearing within it.”
He smiled and seemed content with that. It was a most surprising conversation but then, if I had learned anything during my life, it was that despite thinking I understood what went on in the hearts and minds of those who surrounded me, more often than not they held secrets.
* * *
• • •
The mob was already gathering in the theatre when Richard and I arrived backstage a few hours later, ready for the opening night. I had yet to see the play from start to finish but had been present for some of the rehearsals and it seemed a very fine piece, one that might still find an audience a year or two later if luck was on William’s side.
Before long, the playwright himself appeared nearby, standing next to an image of the Madonna that someone had placed upon a wall, and he was arguing with David’s friend, Timothy, who was dressed in Calpurnia’s flowing robes. The quarrel appeared to be over Timothy’s facial hair, for the boy had recently grown a neat mustache and William had given him strict instructions earlier in the day to shave it off before the curtain rose.
“I won’t!” insisted Timothy, stamping his foot with the petulance of a child. “It took me four weeks to grow it and I won’t give it up for anyone, not even for you. Who do you think you are, Christopher Marlowe?”
“Marlowe’s dead,” cried William. “And if he weren’t, he’d hold you down and shave it off himself.”
“I think it looks wonderful,” said David, who had wandered over from his ropes and was staring at his friend’s upper lip with an adoration that seemed excessive to me. “It makes you look so handsome.”
“I will not go onstage with a wife who has better whiskers than me!” said William, who had shaved his own beard off to play Caesar. “You may remove it, young man, or you may return home. The choice is yours.”
Timothy continued to protest but William’s ultimatum stood, and in the end he had no choice but to return to the dressing room and look for someone with a knife who might rid him of his pride and joy.
“And you,” added William, turning to David. “Back to your ropes, and not another insolent word or I shall send you to the ghost world myself.”
Soon, the lights went down, and the play began. Only the actor playing Cinna gave me cause to whisper forgotten lines when, in the early part of the second act, he stood in Brutus’s orchard with his fellow conspirators Cassius and Trebonius. Timothy, however, caused some confusion for the audience, for when he recounted to Caesar the ill portends he had witnessed—a lioness whelping in the street, graves that opened up to yield their dead, fiery warriors within the clouds—blood began to seep down his chin from a wound inflicted by the unsteady hand that had shaved him earlier. Every time he wiped it away, the cut reopened, the blood refusing to clot, and Calpurnia’s robes soon grew stained. I could sense the bewilderment from the pit. Was the bleeding of Caesar’s wife a metaphor for something that they did not understand?
Finally, in the fourth act, David’s great moment came, and he operated his levers and pulleys to send William onto the stage, now playing the role of the ghost of the murdered dictator. The theatre had grown quiet by now and, having no need to prompt, I found myself entirely lost in the action, as frightened by the entrance of the specter as either the audience or Brutus himself, for David was a skilled magician and had proved himself more than worthy of his position.
I felt a darkness grow around me as Brutus spoke of a sleepy tune and a murderous slumber. I could see nothing but the ghost on the stage and, as the audience shivered in fear, I felt a curious unsettling within my mind and bones.
A sound from the opposite side of the stage distracted me, and a figure, dressed entirely in white, stared in my direction, then raised a hand. I could not make out her features and wondered what strange vision this was. But as Brutus and the ghost conversed, the figure began to walk slowly across the stage, barefoot, toward me, passing by the actors without either of them appearing to notice her. She was clad only in a simple nightdress and, although it had been many years since I had laid eyes on that face, I recognized her now as Laura, my first wife.
“Can it be you?” I asked, rising to my feet as she approached me, her face placid, her expression neutral, and I would have reached out to touch her, were it not for the fact that a second figure had started to make her way across the stage now, too. Another woman dressed entirely in white, who, to my horror, I acknowledged to be Katherine, my second wife.
“Both of you?” I asked, wondering whether it was the weakness of my eyes that had shaped such monstrous apparitions. “Art thou women?” I demanded, raising my voice. “Some angels or some devils? Speak, damn you! Tell me what thou art!”
“Husband,” whispered Laura, reaching out to touch my face, and Katherine repeated the word as she rested her hand upon my arm.
“Can it be you?” I asked of them. “Both of you? Together?” I felt no fear, just wonder, and my heart seemed to slow down within my chest as I glanced across to the opposite side of the stage, waiting for my third wife, Sarah, to appear. But, of her, there was no sight. “You are alone?” I asked them. “But where is your third sister? If two shall venture forth from the grave, then why not three?”
The ghosts smiled at me, saying nothing, then closed their eyes in unison and separated, leaving a gap between them. The theatre was silent and still; I heard neither words from the actors nor gasps from the audience, just the distinctive sound of sticks banging against the wooden floor as they performed their job of aiding a man with twisted legs to make his way toward me. The echoes grew louder, and I looked around me
, filled with fear, praying for this illusion to end.
“Harry?” I cried, for surely this was my cousin returning to torment me, too, but no, although the sounds of his sticks grew clearer by the moment, and the echoes were monstrous insults to my ears, no vision took shape between my wives. Instead, the women opened their eyes wide and the sounds grew so loud that I had no choice but to press my hands against my ears until, as one, they screamed a single word aloud:
“Vengeance!”
I cried out and fell backward, tumbling over some chairs that had been laid out for actors in the wings, and when I looked up I thought at first that the ghost was on top of me, but no, it was only the playwright himself, Master Shakespeare, exited from the stage now, the ghost’s appearance completed.
“Quiet,” he hissed, putting a hand over my mouth. “I know the scene can be frightening, but you, my friend, should not be so overcome. I expect professionalism here at the Globe.” I sat up and looked toward the stage. The apparitions were gone and, in their place, the actors playing Brutus and Lucius were now in conversation. Richard was staring at me in fright.
“Did none of you see them?” I asked, looking around me in dismay. “Did none of you hear them?”
“See what, Father?” Richard asked. “Hear what?”
And I did not dare to say, lest I was accused of losing my reason. Had this been a fantasy, I wondered? A waking dream? Or had my wives truly visited me from the other-world? These women who were so familiar to me and had seemed so real, as real as the noise those sticks had made against the stage.
A thought occurred to me now, one that had never passed through my mind before. Was it possible that my once-beloved cousin had had some hand in the malicious dealings that had cost me my third wife and her daughter? Had that been the meaning of the visitation, to tell me that Harry had, for reasons unknown, spirited the pair away? Or had it been nothing more than a strange malady of the brain?
Whatever it was, I realized at that moment I had put off my promise for far too long. Years earlier, I had promised to hunt him down and make him pay for what he had done to my wife and son. And, by setting this undertaking aside, I had betrayed them both. It was time to stop living a fantasy life in the playhouse and hold a blade against his neck.
It was time for justice to be served.
BRAZIL
A.D. 1608
AND SO, MY SEARCH BEGAN once again in earnest. I left a tearful Ricardo in the care of Dami and his reluctant wife and made my way toward the coastal town of Macapá, where I encountered a group of men, some two dozen of them, dining in an inn as they sought a native to guide their craft along the Amazon. Approaching them, I volunteered my services, and when they asked what experience I had in the navigation of vessels along the river, I explained that I had traveled most of its distance from Peru in the west to the tavern where we currently sat. I could scarcely recall a day, I claimed, when I had not spent my time upon the water and doubted whether there was a man alive who was more familiar with its dangers, surprises and trials than me. A lie, of course, or an exaggeration at best, but I felt confident that men so ignorant would certainly mistake familiarity with skill.
“Robert Thornton,” said the captain, extending his hand and looking me up and down, as if I were a horse he was considering buying. A tall man, he wore a neat mustache on his upper lip but his cheeks were startlingly gaunt, and I could make out the shape of his skull beneath the skin, the long fingers of his hand appearing more skeletal than human. He informed me that he came from a place called “England,” a land of which I had never heard, and he seemed shocked when I remarked upon this.
“Come, come,” he said, staring at me in utter disbelief. “Never heard of England? It can’t be possible. It is the very center of the world!”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well, what about London?” he asked. “Or Norwich? Plymouth, certainly?”
“I’m afraid not,” I replied, shaking my head.
“And what of King James? You can’t tell me that you’re a stranger to his name, too?”
“I know the chieftains of my own land,” I told him. “They are many and they take up much space in my head. I have little room left for the chieftains of yours, too.”
“But King James is more than just a…a chieftain,” he said, spitting out the word as if it were a sour fruit. “He is a great sovereign. The most beloved and powerful on Earth.”
“And he sent you here?”
“Well, no,” Thornton admitted, looking a little chastised. “For all his glory, the master of my terrain has little taste for exploration. In fact, I was hired by his cousin, the Italian King, Ferdinando of Tuscany. It is his intention to establish a settlement here in the years ahead.”
I considered this. The word was unfamiliar to me but, somehow, like a dog who can sense evil in a stranger, I did not like the sound of it.
“A settlement?” I asked. “I don’t understand what this means.”
“Italy has much need of wood,” he explained. “For their ships, for their houses, for their marketplaces. And your country, this uncivilized and brutal land, populated by savages, is rich in forestry. King Ferdinando intends to send many of his people here to erect a colony over which, with God’s grace, he will rule. Once it is established, the settlers can begin the process of chopping down the trees and sending the wood back across the ocean.”
He spoke very slowly. At first, I wondered whether he thought I was hard of hearing, but it soon became clear that no, he simply assumed that I was stupid. Some in my position might have felt insulted, but I was happy for him to continue under this delusion if it gave me free passage along the river.
“You have spoken of this matter to the tribesmen you’ve encountered along the way?” I asked, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise, glancing across at his men, but they were paying little attention to our conversation as they gnawed on lamb bones. “You have sought their permission to build this settlement?”
“No,” he replied, laughing a little, as if I had suggested that he seek consent from a cow or a donkey. “Why in God’s name would I do such a thing?”
“Because it is their land.”
“Until we discover it, yes. Then it becomes ours.”
“But it is already discovered. We live here. We have lived here for generations innumerable. Indeed, since the dawn of time and the birth of mankind itself.”
“I don’t think you fully understand,” he said, placing a hand upon my shoulder and looking at me with the benevolence of one who offers treats to a child while all the time planning how to get him alone. “You are savages, you see. Godless men. We have come to help you. To educate you, indoctrinate you and rule over you. Nothing more.”
“And you do this by invading our land and cutting down our trees?” I asked, shrugging away his touch. “If my people were to send a craft across the water to your country with plans to establish a fort there before stealing from your forests, would you not expect us to ask permission first?”
“But we don’t have any forests,” he said, smiling. “That’s why we’ve come here.”
I held my tongue, willing to humor him for now. Since my father’s time, there had been much talk of fine people who arrived on ships with decorated masts and sails, landing on shores that were not their own but laying claim to them nevertheless, as if these places did not already have tribes of their own whose blood was interred with the soil. They claimed that they were bringing “civilization” to us, but all they brought was bloodshed and domination. They called themselves “explorers” but the name was as false as a devil’s promise. My people had explored our land thoroughly across many generations and were familiar with every cave and every tree. It would take him and his kind a thousand years to know it as well as we did. It did not need any further discovery. No, these were nothing more than thieves and it was the sworn duty
of every native to kill such men when they had the misfortune to chance upon one. But I had no intention of drawing my blade just yet.
“How far into my country do you plan on venturing?” I asked.
“As far as we need,” replied Thornton. “Once we find land that is open enough for a settlement to be built, I will claim it in the name of the King for Italy and—”
“You will claim it,” I repeated under my breath, staggered by the man’s arrogance.
“That’s right. And then I will leave half my men behind to begin preparations while I return home to inform His Majesty that we can start transporting those lucky volunteers to their new abode.”
“And those men who remain behind after you are gone,” I said. “You expect them to still be here upon your return? Still healthy? Still breathing? Their heads still attached to their shoulders?”
“Of course. Why would I expect otherwise?”
“Because some might not take well to an occupying force seizing our land.”
He dismissed my concerns with a wave of his hand. “It matters not; the claim will have been made for Italy, for Tuscany, and you’ll have no choice. It’s the modern way, my dark friend. The law of the white man. This is a new world and it is the responsibility, nay the birthright, of Europeans to take whatever they can find. The truth is, you people are not enlightened enough to govern yourselves. You need a guiding hand. And that is what we offer. Don’t think of us as an enemy, think of us as overlords who wish only to humanize you. It is God’s work that we perform. So will you guide us down the river or not? There’ll be payment, of course, at the end. When our journey is completed. I won’t see you left short for your services.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I will help you.”
* * *
• • •
My cousin, Hernán, had often spoken of traveling deeper into the country, following the path of the Amazon, and I guessed that this would be where he might be found. It was my intention to make inquiries of the people I met as to whether they had seen him. If he had passed through this region, then I was sure that he would not be easily forgotten.