Ophelia's Fan

by Christine Balint

  As I walk I sense the freedom of having my own time. My mind empties and I forget what occupied it before. I sing softly to the rhythm of my feet: “How should I your true love know. . . .” I could be Ophelia and it could be grief which seeps from me now; my father killed by my lover, orphaned and alone. “Larded with sweet flowers. . . .” And suddenly I walk around a bend in the dirt road and see a field. It is the last field before a forest, and it has been left uncultivated. Late-summer wildflowers have flourished here in burning reds, purples, and pinks. A tiny stone house is several fields away in the distance, and I see no one working the land nearby. I lift my skirts and climb over the foot-high stone wall. Clover is soft beneath my boots, and I skip through flowers. I turn and see a trail of footprints behind me. I laugh and skip some more; these are steps in my own strange dance. When I sit under an oak tree, it is as though I am on luxurious cushions. I wonder if anyone would find me if I lay here. I pick flowers outlining my shape, stripping stems of their leaves and making a bright pile in front of me. In spite of the heat, there is some moisture in the grass. I lie down to soak it in, like a cat in a patch of sunlight.

  When I awake, it is to feel something poking my ribs. I open my eyes to see an elderly man staring down at me. I heave myself up, blushing, but he seems relieved that I have opened my eyes.

  “Pardon . . . pardon. . . .” I do not know what to say, but he nods and grins and does not seem annoyed that I have chosen to sleep in his field.

  He says something I don’t understand and points at my flowers; I offer them to him, still too dazed to wonder why he would want them back. He shakes his head. Then he puts his left arm behind his back, leans forward, and begins to pluck more from the ground. Their stems are uneven lengths, and he does not remove the crushed leaves. He hands them to me with his left hand, his right palm tipped supine in a gesture of offering.

  I stumble back along the dirt road, molded into my damp corset, my gown dusty at the hem. It is a Sunday dress; my mother will not be pleased. My left hand swings by my side clutching the quickly wilting flowers. After some time, I see a pond over a stone wall. I drop the flowers and bend over the water. It is icy on my fingers; I form a cup with my hands, not worrying about the drops spilling down my face and onto my dress. I lift my wet hands to my face and then my neck. I moisten my handkerchief and wrap it around the flower stems. Then I stand and stretch upward. The sun seems, finally, to be lowering in the sky. Reaching behind my head to tie my hair out of the way, I discover something rough as twine. I try to isolate the twine, but it gets caught and I wince as I pull it free. A piece of straw. I tie the straw around my hair to allow air around my neck.

  On my way back to Paris I think about straw and how it is but dead grass. As a child of around eight I remember standing before a woman with long gray hair in Father Barrett’s poorhouse. I am holding a small box of straw and handing her strands one by one as she plaits them into her hair. Then she moves to another woman in the room and weaves straw among her curls. They look at themselves and each other in the glass, laughing. The woman with the long hair asks me to stand with my back to her, and I feel fingers through my hair. Someone grips my arm and leads me from the room, out the front door and back to Father Barrett’s house.

  And so it comes about that I steal straw. Running this time, as I climb over the stone wall, for this barn is close to a house and I cannot bear the thought of being caught and having to explain such inexplicable behavior in a language I cannot speak. I only take a handful, clutching it among the flowers; I will use it sparingly. I peer out the door like some sort of fugitive and walk rather than run as my limbs are near exhaustion and I cannot help feeling speed would arouse more suspicion. Fortunately, it is Sunday afternoon and it appears the family is absent or resting. I tie the straw in a thick knot and continue my journey back to Paris.

  Ophelia

  I BELONG HERE AMONG the flowers. I know that I belong here because this is the only place I can be trusted. This is the only place I can go on my own. No one will see me here. I can remove my shoes if I wish, or loosen my hair and roll in straw. When I am out of sight like this, my father and my brother are prevented from worrying about my honor and whether or not it is lost. Father told me once long ago that a maiden requires a wedding ring as well as a place that is warm, dark, and enclosed in which to lose her honor. Only a heathen would succumb to temptation among flowers.

  Beyond this willow tree there are crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples. The air is sweet with their scents. Follow the brook with me a little. It is quiet here and we are free. People will tell you stories about the straw in my hair. They will say that I have lost my wits. But do not listen to them. You alone shall know my real story.

  I remember my mother. My father said this is impossible since she died when I was born. He used to laugh and tell me that I was dreaming again, then he would send me from the court out to the woods. But I remember her very clearly. I remember our faces smiling together in the glass in her chamber. She used to say that this was the only way we could ever see how happy we were together. I would tug at her curls with chubby fingers. And she would smile, knowing I could never pull hard enough to hurt.

  My mother comes to me in reflections. I see her even now, waving to me from her chamber window while I walk in the grounds. Sometimes I see her face in the brook, smiling and fading. At other times she stands behind me in the mirror while Adora combs my hair.

  My mother told me there was always something beyond the frame. That was why reflections were so important, she said. Because just sometimes, if you turned quickly enough, you would glimpse something from the other world as it slipped beyond your vision. And it could be captured in shiny reflective surfaces. I should have learned to look beyond the surfaces.

  Just before my mother died, she told me she would always be close by. That I would find her in the brook, in the glass, or on the other side of a window. Believing her was enough. Once when I tried to explain this to my brother Laertes, he scoffed and scolded. He told me not to make up stories. But I remember her words.

  She had told me when I was very young that I was bound to Hamlet by a promise. I no longer remember whose promise, or when it was first made. But it was my understanding, and it was lodged somewhere deep within my heart. Until recently I was permitted to spend time alone with Hamlet.

  As children we played Peasants in the Field. Adora found us old work clothes and made us promise to keep them secret.

  “You are not to wear them in the house or to allow anyone to see you,” she had whispered. We built our home beneath an oak tree away from the castle. Its leaves were dense enough to provide shelter even in the rain. Hamlet tied sticks in my hair and stuffed my apron with dry leaves. He rolled up his trouser legs.

  “You must tend the garden while I kill the animals,” he said. He took a long stick and began running in a large circle around the tree. He charged imaginary beasts. I was captivated. But already I knew that I needed to do as I was told. On my hands and knees in the dirt I began raking the leaves with my fingers. In the moist earth I dug holes and planted acorns. Breathless and flushed, Hamlet returned to the tree. Frowning, he inspected my garden and kicked a few stray leaves.

  “I am hungry,” he announced.

  “Sit down, husband,” I told him, wondering what peasants ate. He leaned against the tree and closed his eyes. I dug frantically for acorns.

  “I have cooked you a hearty meal,” I said. He opened his eyes and I handed him three acorns, only slightly muddy. He popped one in his mouth and chewed for a long time. I found myself praying that they were not poisonous. I knew I could never be forgiven for killing a prince.

  “A little overcooked but otherwise satisfactory,” he said.

  As we grew older, Hamlet’s moods had the inconstancy of the wind. As I sat on his bed he would brandish his sword at an imaginary enemy. He would leap on the furniture and land with the grace of a cat. And just when I was growing weary of his game, h
e would turn to me with great tenderness. He would kneel at my feet and take my hand. In my sixteenth year I lay with him and he whispered sweetly while his fingers stroked my skin. His kisses were long and deep, and they carried me beyond the castle. I knew that this meant I would be his.

  Hamlet was a performer. I heard stories of him playing the actor’s game at university. It was said that he made a splendid villain and a handsome hero. Within him there were a thousand people; far more than I ever glimpsed. He wrote to me once that he was to play a woman and had I a dress he could borrow? I laughed when I read these words, and Adora was surprised when I asked for one of my mother’s dresses to be sent to Wittenberg. He wrote back that he had made a splendid woman, that there had been much frivolity and laughter. Even the ladies had thought him convincing, he wrote. And I had wondered which ladies, for I knew there would be none at university.

  For years while he was away I waited for him. I wrote letters informing him of the happenings at court. I stitched all manner of articles until every surface in my bedchamber was covered in embroidered motifs. Sometimes I did not hear from him for several months, and at these times I would seek the company of his mother, Queen Gertrude. Hamlet was busy studying at Wittenberg and would surely write when he had a moment to spare. Hamlet rarely did what was expected of him, she said. That was why they had sent him away to be educated. They hoped that by the time he returned he would have learned how he needed to behave as the future king of Denmark.

  He was precocious, Queen Gertrude said, smiling. “And you are the only one who would ever bear his moods and whims, my dear Ophelia.” She touched my hair. “Don’t you remember the scenes he made in court?”

  I remembered when he was twelve. He had often taunted me and pulled my hair. One day he had asked me to help him catch mice. I had shuddered at the very word.

  “If you don’t,” he had threatened, “I’ll tell your father that you took your clothes off and went swimming in the river!”

  He had reached gently underneath his doublet.

  “Touch him,” he had ordered, holding a fat mouse to my nose. I had expected a foul odor, and my eyes watered.

  “Go on.”

  I had reached out a finger and was surprised to feel that the fur was as soft as a kitten’s.

  We spent hours catching mice, luring them with cheese and cupping our hands around them. We dropped the animals on top of each other in a crate. Hamlet scattered crumbs in there. By the second day I could not bear to look at the mass of twitching bodies trapped in the wooden box. I would not be his accomplice, and at the hour he was to release the mice in court, I hid in a willow tree. I heard later from my father that the king had been furious at the sight of one hundred mice, a mass of fur, running in a great frenzy across the presence chamber. That several of the courtiers had stood on chairs and squealed. That the king had guessed this was the work of his young son and had beaten him. He had locked Hamlet up for a week to contemplate whether or not he was worthy of becoming king.

  As Hamlet grew older, he began to spend more time alone with his father. The king had decided to teach him how to rule. It was during this time that I noticed King Hamlet’s brother’s attention for Queen Gertrude.

  “It is as well I have my health,” King Hamlet had joked, “for it will be years before Hamlet is ready to rule.”

  Hamlet told me he enjoyed the time with his father. Occasionally they went hunting, and Hamlet would bring his horse to a gallop until he was out of sight. Once he returned on foot with a fox on a leash trotting at his heels. Frequently they discussed literature and the art of ruling. The king would explain to Hamlet his decisions and how he had made them. He would instruct Hamlet on the correct codes of dress and behavior. And while Hamlet listened, he lived by the rules he devised himself. He once attended a spring ball dressed as a peacock; Queen Gertrude paled at the sight.

  As a young woman, while I waited for him, I dreamed of our own palace and the crown that was Queen Gertrude’s and would one day become mine. I imagined our own court. I had visions of the grand balls we would hold there. In my mind I saw him dancing; he performed for me alone. I heard the poetry he had written for me and the oaths from heaven that had passed through his lips. I longed for a time when I could spend all my nights in his arms.

  IT WAS THE DEATH of the king that brought my Hamlet home. For days I followed him, tried to reach out to him. But on seeing me he fled. I came upon Queen Gertrude weeping once. She told me she had lost the only two men she had ever loved. Yet it was not long before she was consoled by Hamlet’s uncle.

  I do not remember who told me about my father. But somehow I knew he was dead. He was killed by my own lover’s hand. Hamlet speared him with a sword and my father died bleeding, minutes later, staring into the face of his murderer. O cursed hour!

  And there is nowhere for me to go. There is no one left for me to become. I have traveled to the end of my world. We shall cull the last of the flowers. Pansies, violets. Rosemary for remembrance of them all. Let us follow the brook some more. There, now. Can you see my mother calling? I see her in the water, reaching out her arms. Come with me now, to where my mother beckons.

  Mme Harriet Berlioz

  Sceaux

  18 October 1844

  My dear Louis,

  It is quite some time since my mind has been as clear as it is today, and now I feel well enough to write to you. I want you to know how your father treated me. It will help you understand my melancholy.

  Hector sent me away to the country on the pretext that it would be better for my health. I have been banished to the very place my melody was born. I wonder where is the stable where he lay among the hay, the day the symphony came. In the birdsong I imagine I hear a clarinet piping a simple pastoral tune, and I feel strangely calm. I wait for the flute’s reply, yet I hear none.

  I know he wants me out of the way. For some time now I have been suspecting there is another woman. I have been opening his mail and searching through the drawers of his bureau. But my only discovery so far has been his manuscript of The Death of Ophelia. Gripping the bedposts is all I can do to stop myself tearing it to shreds. When the pain grows too great, I have been taking sips of a sweet liquid the maid found in the kitchen. Brandy: Eau de vie. “Water of life.”

  Hector took all the bottles he could find and smashed them on the cobblestones beneath our apartment. But there are always more. I give Joséphine a coin of housekeeping money to find me another.

  This liquid brought me a numbness that gave me the strength to confront your father. I knew that if I asked him enough questions, he would eventually confess. I went to him whenever I was awake and alert. And I hoped that if I caught him unawares he would admit his guilt. I went to him during the night. I wrenched him from sleep, for what could be too much punishment for a man who commits adultery?

  He has sent me away, and there is still no confession.

  And although I am locked away, I am strangely free here. There is no one to lament what I have become, to tell me how weak I am, how bad my behavior, how I have let myself go. I can drink as much as I like.

  I am sorry to have to tell you such things. I hope you will grow into a more sensible person than either of your parents.

  Your loving mother,

  Harriet

  1827

  A SEASON OF ENGLISH THEATER in Paris. It is the first time I can allow myself to be English. The French will not hear the Irish lilt in my voice. They will not ask me to open my lips as though to swallow an egg whole. And even if they did ask, I would not understand them.

  The Théâtre de l’Odéon feels vast by day. The bright light of France pours generously in through the windows, yet the building feels cold and empty. A woman sweeping the marble staircase does not look up from her feet as I enter. I hold up my skirts as I climb the stairs and pass the finely sculpted Greek women, cherubs, and angels who look as though they could speak. I wonder what they have seen and what warnings they would have for me. At the t
op of the stairs I pause and see my smallness reflected in the mirror. Mirrors reflect mirrors in this endless foyer. There are glints of light from all the glass and the mosaic tiles upon the floor and a faint tinkling of chandeliers. I want to garland myself in glass. I want to shine and tinkle as I walk.

  The names Racine and Voltaire are etched into busts circling the foyer. There is something smug about their marble faces. My presence here seems transient: what will people say when Harriet Smithson has passed through this theater? How will people remember me? To the left of the foyer is a circular wood-paneled wall. Every now and then I see a door and realize I have climbed too high. This is where the audience will be. How will they ever find their seats when every door is the same?

  Suddenly I am alone in this labyrinth, this spiraling theater. I run around and around, and it is only when I open doors and see the angle of the stage that I can sense where I am. A gentle thud to signal the shutting door. The swish of my heavy skirts and breathless panting. I feel like an insect in a glass jar. Everything is an illusion. Finally I understand the direction of the backstage area. I rush out from the stalls and find myself caught and steadied by a Frenchman. He wears a bemused expression. He says something I do not understand. By his silence I gather he was asking me a question.

  “Backstage?” I ask. “I am an actress here for rehearsal.” He grins.

  “Downstairs,” he says. “All le way. Then outside. Dere is a separate door from the side. Amongst le colemns.”

  “Thank you.” Heat rises through me. Of course there is a backstage entrance.

  Three men are setting up the orchestra pit in front of the stage, and they stare at me as I enter shakily. My new world is sweet possibility. Abbott is pacing the stage impatiently when I arrive. He is wearing a strange blue jacket, and his trousers are low on his ample waist. He says the actors were sampling the liquid taste of France until well into the night.