Soot

by Dan Vyleta

And then? They followed him, a gaggle of goslings, jabbering at his back. Complained to the hotel staff; threatened him with the authorities. Only it seemed better not to rush into things where the authorities were concerned. David was dispatched to go find Balthazar, Meister Lukas to wait for him in the lobby. The rest of them laid siege at the door. They knocked and knocked until the man yelled to keep down the noise. Since then they have not heard a thing.

  “Why did you not break down the door?”

  “He can’t escape, Balthazar. It’s the sixth floor. And the fire escape is rusted through, we checked.”

  “He has my papers! My plays. Everything.”

  Balthazar makes to say more but chokes on his own Smoke. He begins hammering on the door and kicking it with one foot. “Open up, you bastard,” he keeps shouting, tugging and pushing at the brass knob so that the door buckles under his force.

  Almost at once a sound answers him from the depths of the room beyond the door. It is faint yet clearly audible, like a stage effect carefully managed in its volume. A splash; the rush of water down a risen body; the flat slap of a wet foot hitting tile. A moment later the latch is thrown back on the lock and the door pulled open. Beyond stands the naked bulk of the stranger, a rectangle of terry towel thrown across one freckled shoulder, water pooling at his feet.

  “Ah, at last! The director. I was just cooling off. Come in, make yourself at home. Only, enough of the banging. It gets on my nerves.”

  And with that he turns his back on them, returns into the room. A grunt as he throws himself into a chair: the chair’s grunt, not his, leather stretching under naked arse.

  His broad smile splits him open chop to chop.

  [ 12 ]

  At first Eleanor thinks Balthazar will simply launch himself at the naked man. His fists are clenched, wrinkly black skin stretched taut and pale across the knuckles; his whole gaunt figure liveried in viscous Smoke. But he hesitates, stands arrested on the threshold, one foot in, the other out, confused, intimidated by the coolness of this man. His eyes search out Eleanor’s. It is her fault, this.

  She must know what to do.

  The stranger meanwhile sits, unmoved in his hale humour; picks Balthazar’s Soot off his bath-damp thighs. Now he rises and commences the process of towelling himself dry.

  He makes quite a production of it, starts with his domed head, then his armpits, thinly studded with reddish-blond hair; moves to his shoulders and flanks, then bends to rub dry his calves and feet. At last he straightens, attempts to wrap the towel around his thickset waist but finds he can only just knot the top corner, the towel gaping over smooth, pale flesh. The man laughs.

  “Some hotel, eh? All this talk about the ‘best suite in the house’ and then they give you a towel that won’t even cover your bits. A scratchy little rag it is, too. Too many washes in lye.” He rolls his shoulders, rubs his palms dry on his chest. “And you should see the bathtub! What grime—unspeakable! Like something in a French chambre d’hôte. If it hadn’t been so infernally hot…But come in, stop dithering, we have to talk. Only close the door. I am sick of the gawking. There is a good man.”

  This much Balthazar does: enter, close the door behind. He drags Eleanor inside with him. She is willing, can sense his thought. The man wants her; it’s why he’s here. The stranger registers her entry without comment.

  The room is a reception room of sort, part of a suite of three. The brass bulk of a bathtub is visible through the doorway on the right; the bedroom lies straight ahead. The reception room itself is surprisingly small and overfurnished with a set of sofas flanking a too-large desk and heavy chair. Balthazar’s travelling chest adds to the clutter, stands metal-studded, massive, at the centre of the room. The parquet floor is scuffed where the stranger rudely dropped its bulk.

  The chest’s owner has yet to speak. Balthazar stands motionless, his anger long arrested, drifting as dust upon the air; dark eyes riveted upon the stranger’s form. Eleanor, too, is staring and has done so through the long procedure of the towelling off: at his bulk, his nudity. Even now her eyes remain glued to the abundance of his flesh. She has slipped into the corner, to one side of him, faces his flank; sees above all the muscular hollow of the man’s spine; the clotted scrawl of veins blooming black upon his hip; the play of sinew in his short, thick neck. Her fascination is not prurient, nor yet steeped in disgust; is shameless, smokeless, held by the man’s freckled paleness, the sheer mechanical vigour of his movements.

  The man, for his part, delights in their attention.

  At long last Balthazar shakes off his wonder. The next moment he has stepped forward, reached for the handle of his chest, and dragged it, trembling, a foot towards the door.

  “No.”

  The man says it calmly, points with his hand to the desk, where between a decanter of hotel port and the man’s discarded stockings, lies the black bulk of a revolver. He does not move towards it or in any way betray his intention of taking hold of the gun; stands not much closer to it, in fact, than Balthazar himself. His confidence is total.

  “All I want, my good man, is a conversation. To conduct business. Yes, of course, I stole your treasure chest. I am a thief, a rotter, whatever you will. You will note, however, that I have waited for you to arrive before opening it. Now that you are here, we will have a look through. You dislike this but have no means of avoiding it. So why not give in with good grace?”

  He pauses there, extends a palm in invitation to sit. Three breaths and Balthazar accepts it: drops the chest with a loud clang, prunes his face, spits a slug of Soot upon the oriental rug, then lowers his lanky frame into the sofa’s leather.

  “There,” the stranger nods, sitting down on the chair across. “ ‘It’s always worthwhile speaking to an intelligent man.’ ”

  Balthazar hears the phrase, and frowns. “That’s from Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov. Smerdyakov talking to Ivan.”

  “Then you have read it! You read Russian? Or has someone done a translation? It’s a splendid chapter, is it not?”

  “One murderer talking to another.”

  “Murderers, yes,” smiles the man. “But also: brothers.”

  [ 13 ]

  The man begins with an introduction. Because, as he says, names make for kinship amongst men.

  “Hard for a soldier to shoot those who have a name. Unless they are family, of course. We kill strangers and those we love.

  “And so,” he continues, “Smith, Bedrich Alexander, at your service. Well, Schmidt, actually, but try making your way as ‘Schmidt.’ Not in East India, nor in Cairo, let alone in Bristol or New York. So plain Alex Smith.” He salaams playfully, touching sternum, lips, and forehead. “And you are who, exactly? I heard your actors refer to you as ‘Balthazar.’ A nom de plume, I take it. One of the three wise men. Ambitious! Balthazar what?”

  “Balthazar Black.”

  “Oh, very good! A Mr. Black then, meeting a Mr. Smith. This will be a very English conversation. We should call down for tea.

  “Now, Mr. Black, I enjoyed the performance earlier today. It is a remarkable thing, your theatre. A new art form, the summation of a whole era. I had been looking forward to coming for the whole of the past week—I even prepared for it, one might say, cleansing my palate. And when the curtain rose…my heart leapt, I swear, just like a little boy’s.

  “Only, there was something missing. I have a report you see, that reached me all the way from the Canadas. I’m a busy man, and much as I love cultural endeavours, I might not have dropped my work and come, had it not been for this report. It discussed your show’s ending. The final cadence, so to speak. A freeing of the Smoke—something like a miniature Gale. There was nothing like that today.”

  Balthazar does not speak for the longest time. When he does, his voice is full of fear.

  “Did the Company send yo
u? What do they care about my theatre?” Then, his eyes on Eleanor; resentment, accusation, in his Smoke: “It’s Renfrew, isn’t it? But this isn’t his turf!”

  “Sent me? Renfrew?!” The man guffaws. “Let’s just say I am here on private business of my own.”

  [ 14 ]

  It registers in Eleanor’s heart as a curious stitch of disappointment, underneath the relief. The stranger is not here because of her. Her uncle has not sent him. She is not wanted. All of Smith’s interest lies in Balthazar’s travelling chest at his feet.

  He begins to unpack it. He does so deftly, neither careless with the objects he uncovers nor handling them with false reverence: makes a pile of books; another of notes, letters, and loose papers; a third of objects, trinkets, souvenirs, many of which are wrapped in newspaper to protect them against breakage. Amongst the latter counts a wooden cigar box with an intricate-looking lock. Smith studies this lock, then raises the box to his ear; rattles it very gently, then places it on the chair by his side. He stands bent over his task, legs straight, towel tight over his buttocks. With every movement, the quiver of his stomach. Gristle, not fat, moving ponderously. The pale skin is marbled with dark veins.

  He takes up the papers next, finds a sheaf of maps, opens each atop the other.

  “Weather maps,” he mutters at one point, not expecting any answer. “Gales; marked with dates and durations. You are looking for patterns! An interesting hobby.

  “And hello, what is this? A cast list? No. Witnesses! You are searching them out, are you? All the people who were involved in the Second Coming. A historian, are you? An admirable pursuit, if fruitless. My interest is for the future.

  “And here: playbills for all of your shows. How sentimental of you to keep them all. But my, you have travelled! A wise man indeed. And this? Drafts, I take it. Future work. A curious method of notation. Well, I suppose it all makes sense once you put it on the stage.

  “Next up: bookkeeping, accounts. Very meticulous. But my, is that what you charge? I’m in the wrong racket! Your actors’ wages are quite paltry by comparison. Not a union man then! Oh no, don’t blush, you have my support, we businessmen must stand as one.”

  Balthazar will not be drawn by any of these remarks, sits stiffly, his face ashen under the darkness of his skin. Time and again his eyes roam to the pistol on the writing desk. They do not remain there. Eleanor can see him consider and dismiss his options. He cannot fight. Nor can he leave. His life’s work is spread on the floor in front of him.

  He must have it back.

  Smith presses on, relentless.

  “Here then, your correspondence. This pile here is private. Fan letters, solicitations, declarations of love. Will you smell this perfume! And here the business letters. Contracts, invitations. Minetowns? How interesting. Courageous even. But I don’t suppose you lack for pebbles, Mr. Black.

  “Then here: an envelope full of photographic prints. How curious! Did someone really think to take pictures on that fateful morning? And look what he trained his camera on! Hmm, I better put these here aside. Like you, I have a taste for this sort of thing.

  “And that concludes our initial inventory, Mr. Black. And returns us to the cigar case. Locked. It would be a shame to break its contents in the attempt to force the lock. You won’t help me? Ah, just look at that scowl! Well then, let’s risk it. Here we go, just a little jimmy with the penknife and voilà, it’s open. Just like a jewellery box: a row of little hollows, in purple velvet no less! Very neat work. Custom-built to hold—what exactly? Vials! But only one vial is left. And how delicate it is: shaped like little hourglasses, so they can be snapped in half. Are you keeping this one for the grand finale? Or perhaps you have decided that New Yorkers are too volatile. You never know what you might release!

  “Well then, that’s all. Another question or two and I’ll be on my way. But first, let us conclude the purchase. These photos here, the vial, and your weather maps, from curiosity if nothing else. Are American dollars acceptable? Here”—he fishes his pocketbook from out the jacket that lies crumpled on the floor, counts out a number of paper bills, makes a stack of them on the desk—“that should cover it, wouldn’t you say?”

  Balthazar sits still, eyes roaming between Smith, the papers, the gun.

  “Piss off!” he manages at last. “My things are not for sale.”

  “Ah, Mr. Black. In my experience people who use that phrase are simply bargaining for more. But I forgot you are a theatre man and accustomed to melodrama. Forget all that. This is business. Remember your accounts.”

  And just like that Smith shrugs off his earlier good humour, his garrulousness and zest for life: shrugs them off regretfully but without hesitation, leaving an entirely practical man behind. He reopens his pocketbook, places four more bills on the desk, considers the pile, then takes one bill back.

  “There—everything within reason.”

  He shoves the photographs and maps into a yellowed envelope embossed with the hotel’s name, places the vial back in the cigar box, then reaches for the gun, not threateningly, but merely as a man collecting his things.

  “And now that the purchase is concluded, Mr. Black, let us have a quick few words about this vial. I am interested, of course, in the locations and method of your harvesting. I note you are returning to England. I assume it’s to restock. Does Minetowns produce the contents or do you have to head into the wilderness? Don’t tell me you just stand in the open with a jar and lid, hoping for a Gale!”

  [ 15 ]

  Balthazar will ignite. Eleanor can feel it in her pores. Already his Smoke has begun to creep treacly down his shoulders and arms; is curling tendrils deep into the room. Eleanor does not flinch from their touch. She opens herself up, in fact, and feels her body probed by outrage. By instinct—with a deftness intimating talent—she sifts the Smoke and finds beneath the current sense of violation the traces of another rage, old yet ever present, born of a lifelong struggle between anatomy and soul, between performance and being; all this, along with a deep disgust (panicked, fierce: a cornered rat) at his own malleability, the insatiable hunger to be liked. An old man, Balthazar, crisscrossed by life’s scars. Two more breaths and he will blow; paint the room black.

  Eleanor knows it and watches Smith observe it; watches him play with the gun on the desk, mechanically, spinning it with quick flicks of his fingers against barrel and butt. She herself remains ignored: a bystander; a child at a meeting of adults. Redundant, harmless.

  Forgotten.

  She takes a step. Perhaps it looks to Smith like she is trying to put distance between herself and Balthazar, afraid of his explosion. Perhaps she is simply not important enough to command his attention. A dimple-cheeked girl of eighteen. She takes another half step, then reaches, not at all fast, for the desk. The next moment she holds the gun. Her hand touched his, Smith’s, for the briefest of instances. A warm hand, mobile, gilded in ginger fuzz. Closing too late to capture hers.

  She stands out of reach and levels the gun. Balthazar is shocked out of his anger, a drain plug pulled within his liver’s blood. She sees him shift upon the sofa.

  Smith does not move.

  “You won’t use it,” he says calmly. “You don’t even know how.”

  She cocks the hammer. Not her first gun, this. They owned one, Cruikshank and she, in the first few years after running away. Cruikshank made her do target practice. She was a child then, the hammer difficult to shift. It moves easily now.

  “You won’t use it,” Smith says again, looking at her as though for the first time, giving her his full concentration. “It was very brave of you,” he decides. “More than brave. Efficient. Like you have picked guns out of people’s hands all your life. But you won’t shoot.”

  Eleanor looks into herself and decides that he is right. Again she acts immediately but without haste. Haste, she knows, would
make her clumsy. She opens the door without turning around to face it, feels rather than sees the players fight for balance where they stood, ears pressed against wood. Meister Lukas is there, Victor, Etta May. She ignores them, reaches through their throng and finds Geoffrey lumbering against the far wall. Without face paint and wig, he does not look much as she imagines the young Thomas did: is too old, for one thing, too thick-necked; looks bored and dim-witted, stands curled into his slouch. And yet there is something to his line of chin that makes plausible his casting. He accepts the gun without comment; takes a bead on Smith with one closed eye.

  “I won’t shoot, Mr. Schmidt. But Geoffrey here will.”

  “Will he? This oaf? Yes, I suppose he might.”

  [ 16 ]

  For ten breaths things teeter on the brink. Geoffrey does not move or talk, stands arm outstretched, finger on the trigger. Smith just sits, thighs bulging from his towel, rubbing a hand up and down the back of his thick neck. Thinking. Balthazar has leapt up but stands uncertain, aware that any movement now may lead to murder, his body still metabolising its rage.

  A fool tips the balance: a fool in a dinner jacket and pomaded hair. They can hear him from far off, running down the corridor and calling a name: a harbinger of comedy. “Smith, sir,” he keeps calling, very purely, in the high, light tenor of a former choirboy. Then he rounds the corner and barges into their constellation. In his haste he proves oblivious to nudity, and guns.

  “Smith, sir! But there you are, thank God. You were impossible to find!”

  Only now that his addressee fails to rise or greet him does the newcomer hesitate and look around. Geoffrey’s gun has lowered in surprise and is now pointing at somewhere between Smith’s privates and his still-wet feet. The other players form a semicircle in the corridor, Eleanor amongst them. It is to her that the man attempts to doff the hat he is not wearing; to the others he offers a quick smile. Then his urgency takes over and he pivots back to the one he was seeking.