Beneath Ceaseless Skies #108

by David D. Levine

  Darius looked at his watch. “Mon dieu!” he cried. “Three in the morning! And me with rehearsal at nine.” He stood, gathered his hat and jacket, bowed to Zéphine. “It has been a most enchanting evening.”

  Some time later, Zéphine realized she had not yet heard the exit bell over the door ring. Wondering if there had been some problem with the bill, she peered over her shoulder and saw Darius standing unmoving by the door. He seemed stunned.

  Following his gaze, Zéphine turned back to the table, where Dahlia and Jean-Michel and Henri were still animatedly discussing the play.

  Her play.

  Without him.

  This was unprecedented. When Darius departed, the party always stopped.

  Zéphine looked back at Darius, caught his eye, and shrugged apologetically.

  He tipped his hat to her—not without irony—and vanished into the night, the bell tinkling merrily behind him.

  For a moment she actually felt sympathy for him. But soon the feeling vanished, replaced by excitement as she contemplated Dahlia’s question about what the fairies would do if Claudette did somehow manage to marry Pierre.

  * * *

  The next Thursday, Zéphine was just preparing to retire in her own bed when a knock sounded at her door. Puzzled and somewhat concerned, she opened it just a crack. “Henri!” she squeaked.

  “I’m sorry to arrive so late and unannounced, mon petit chou, but I have urgent news.”

  “I, uh— the place is a disaster. Uh, just one moment.”

  But it was much more than a moment later that—panting, heart pounding—she opened the door and bid him enter. “Terribly sorry to make you wait, mon coeur.”

  He looked around before settling himself on the chaise lounge. “Scarcely a disaster,” he commented.

  “Oh, I’m a complete slob when I’m not expecting company.” She smoothed her chemise. “You said you had urgent news?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve spent the evening in the company of... a most intriguing gentleman. Have you heard of Dr. Philippe Gavreau?”

  “No....”

  “I was introduced to him through some of my fellow devotees in the Jules Verne club. His methods are... unorthodox, to be sure, but I’m told he’s effected some amazing cures.”

  Zéphine’s throat went dry and she grabbed Henri’s hand. “Cures? Cures for what?”

  “Ah! Oh, no, do not disquiet yourself! Dr. Gavreau specializes in the maladies of galanteries!”

  “But they don’t get sick!”

  “Not as such. But there are things that can cause them to waste away, no? Or not materialize in the first place? Dr. Gavreau assures me that he can make our galanteries appear. Though it may take several sessions....”

  Zéphine couldn’t meet Henri’s intense, pleading eyes. “Impossible. Galanteries are the domain of matchmakers, or psychologists, not medical doctors.”

  Henri squeezed her hand reassuringly. “As I said, his methods are unorthodox. But won’t you please give him a hearing? Just one appointment?” He brought her hand to his lips and gave it a gentle kiss. “For me?”

  She had to smile. “Oh, very well.”

  * * *

  Dr. Gavreau’s office was located in the 18th arrondissement, not the most exclusive of addresses, but although it was small it was tasteful and well-furnished. The doctor himself, small and round with a bow tie and pince-nez, greeted them and bid them make themselves comfortable, offering tea and biscuits.

  Two galanteries, both small and very well-behaved, lay companionably together at the doctor’s feet. “My wife’s,” he introduced them, “and my mistress’s.”

  Zéphine was rather nonplussed at the revelation, but Henri said “I must congratulate you, Doctor. They tolerate each other’s presence very well.”

  “Indeed.” He smiled and tapped the side of his nose. “Evidence of the success of my techniques.” He closed his office door and seated himself behind his desk.

  “Galanteries are not natural creatures, of course,” he began, regarding Zéphine and Henri earnestly over steepled fingers. “Their existence has been seen as proof of the existence of God, and also of the opposite. They do not appear for any other animal on Earth—only humans. They have male and female forms, according to the gender of the beloved, but they do not mate and they do not reproduce. They eat, but they do not excrete. And though they are diminished by lack of nourishment, they cannot be starved to death, nor suffocated.”

  Zéphine coughed, made uncomfortable by the discussion. “Of course they do none of those things, Doctor. They are only the projection into the physical world of the desires and emotions of their masters.”

  “How very up-to-date you are, Mademoiselle. And yet they have weight, they occupy space, they have an electrical field similar—but not identical!—to that of a living animal. Can any other human emotion bring such creatures into existence? Hatred? Envy? Jealousy? No!” He slapped his palms on the desk, making Zéphine jump in her seat. “Only love has that power, Mademoiselle.”

  “And why is that, Doctor?”

  “I have absolutely no idea!” He shrugged, spread his hands, and laughed. “But the fact is that galanteries do have a physical existence, and their vitality reflects the state of the relationship. Does this not suggest that the opposite may also be true?”

  “Starving a galanterie to terminate the relationship is nothing more than an old wives’ tale,” Zéphine said, sniffing. And then her gaze fell to her lap. “Besides,” she admitted in a small voice, “it doesn’t work.”

  “No, Mademoiselle, it does not. But there are alternatives.” He stood and ushered them into his surgery.

  Dr. Gavreau’s surgery did not include the usual examining table, tongue depressors, or jars of iodine and glycerine. Instead, it held two adjustable chairs, similar to dentists’ chairs, connected by heavy cables to a box the size of a large oven. Made of black japanned metal and decorated with a simple design of vines in gold leaf, it stood on four sturdy legs and was covered with knobs, dials, and access panels. The top of the box was cluttered with belts, pulleys, cables, and wires, crowned by a transparent disc half a meter in diameter and striped with shiny metallic bands.

  The room had an astringent smell of electricity and metal and disinfectants.

  “Behold my machine d’amour électrique!” he proclaimed with a grand flourish.

  “Machine d’amour?” Zéphine gasped. “It’s terrifying!”

  “You need not be afraid, Mademoiselle. I assure you it is entirely safe. I myself have sat in that chair many times.” He opened a large door on the front of the box, revealing a chamber lined with gleaming metal. “The galanteries go in here. The machine’s aetheric vibrations strengthen or weaken them, according to the settings of this dial.”

  “How ghastly.” She looked away from the horrifying machine. “It’s a good thing we have no galanteries to subject to this monstrosity.”

  A swift glance passed between Dr. Gavreau and Henri. “Dear,” said Henri, speaking for the first time since they’d begun, “there’s... something we need to talk about.”

  “Not in here. Not in front of... that.”

  They returned to the office and shut the door, but it was difficult to ignore the looming presence of the machine in the next room. Dr. Gavreau offered Zéphine a cigarette to calm her nerves. Though she didn’t smoke, she accepted it and left it smoldering in the ashtray.

  Henri pulled his chair around so that he faced her nearly directly, and took both her hands in his. “I realize this may not be the best time to discuss this, but I have a confession to make, and a serious question to ask of you.”

  Zéphine’s heart hammered in her breast. Unable to form words, she simply nodded.

  “When I first met Dr. Gavreau and discussed my—our—situation, he said to me that, in his professional experience, failure to form a galanterie is most often the result of interference from an existing, unacknowledged... relationship.”

  Zéphine star
ed, wondering, but before she could speak Henri swallowed and continued.

  “I then told him what I must confess to you now.” He swallowed again, several times, and looked up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly, before returning his gaze to Zéphine. His eyes shone with unshed tears. “I have been concealing a galanterie from you. The pigeons on my neighbor’s rooftop? They don’t exist. That is where I hid the creature when you visited.”

  It was a moment before she could speak. “Who?” she whispered.

  “...Darius.”

  “Of course.” She closed her eyes hard, nodded, drew in a shuddering breath, let it out through her nose. A cool glass was pressed into her hand. Reflexively, she took a sip. Water. “And have you ever...?”

  “No, Zéphine. Never.” Henri’s expression was as sincere as any she’d ever seen on anyone’s face. “The poor thing is entirely unrequited. But try as I might, I have been unable to make the creature go away.”

  She began to sob.

  Then the sobs changed character. The silent spasms that shook her chest began to take on the qualities of laughter. “I don’t believe this,” she gasped.

  “It’s true, my love.”

  “No,” she said, and now she was definitely giggling, nearly hysterical. “It’s... it’s not that I don’t believe you, my sweet. It’s because”—and now she was snorting hard through her nose—”because I have one too! Exactly the same as yours!”

  Again a glance passed between Henri and Dr. Gavreau. Henri’s expression was... disappointed? Dismayed? Resigned? While the doctor merely looked infuriatingly smug.

  “That’s why I never wanted you to visit me unannounced,” Zéphine continued. “I have to shut the miserable little creature up in the broom closet.” The spasms of sobbing laughter had subsided, and she wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. The doctor offered his handkerchief, and she took it gratefully. “Poor thing,” she said.

  “Poor us,” said Henri. He smiled, though his cheeks were wet.

  Zéphine too smiled, and shook her head. The whole situation was too tragic to be funny and too ridiculous to be tragic. Yet they were all stuck in it.

  * * *

  They argued all that evening and well into the night. Henri wanted to give Dr. Gavreau’s horrific machine a try, to weaken or perhaps even get rid of their unwanted galanteries; Zéphine could imagine nothing more appalling. In the end, Henri yielded to Zéphine’s stringent objections; they would simply talk the situation over with Darius.

  But to Zéphine’s astonishment, before they could even contact Darius, the next morning’s post brought an urgent invitation from him, insisting—nay, demanding—that they both join him for lunch that very day.

  * * *

  Darius was the last to arrive, storming into the café with a hearty “Bonjour!” and a storm of cheek-kisses all around. “I am so thrilled that you agreed to meet with me!” he said as he seated himself.

  “Yes, well, we also...” Henri began, but Darius cut him off.

  “Whatever you have to say, it cannot possibly be as important as this.” He leaned forward, gathering both of them in with a conspiratorial hand on each shoulder. “I have just signed an agreement to lease the Théâtre des Capucines!”

  “Bravo!” cried Zéphine. She knew he’d been searching for months for an appropriate venue to produce his play Daphnis et Chloé. “But isn’t the Capucines rather... large?”

  “Not for what I have in mind.” With a broad grin, he drew a sheaf of papers from his jacket pocket and laid them on the table.

  Zéphine and Henri leaned in to read the first page.

  Hand-written on the line for “title of performance” were the words Le Progrès tortueux de l’amour.

  And the engagement began in just six weeks.

  All the air seemed to have been sucked out of Zéphine’s lungs. “But... but... Daphnis et Chloé?”

  “Pah,” Darius said, with a dismissive wave. Then he laid a hand gently on the back of Zéphine’s. “I have been watching your progress for years, you know. And in the last few months, you have demonstrated to me that my true talents do not lie in authorship. I am a director, dear girl, not a playwright. But you... you are a genius! And your marvelous farce will be the vehicle that will bear me—no, all of us—to the fame we so richly deserve!”

  “But the script isn’t even finished yet!”

  “Details, my dear, mere details. It has excellent bones, that’s what counts. All that stands between us and stratospheric success are the cast, costumes, sets, lights, theatrical effects, publicity... oh, and of course financing.” He turned to Henri. “I trust you are not averse to bankrolling dear Zéphine’s spectacular debut?”

  “Well, I... within limits....”

  “Bravo!” Darius clapped his hands together, then rubbed them briskly. “Now, which lucky girl shall we cast as Claudette?”

  Zéphine sat delightfully stunned as, in a storm of paper napkin scribbles, her own play began to take shape on the table before her.

  * * *

  Four weeks passed in a blur. Zéphine had never dreamed there were so many details, so many decisions, so much work, to produce a play. When she wasn’t revising the script, she was rehearsing with the actors, or meeting with scenic designers, or approving fabric swatches, or arguing with the printer over the color of the heroine’s hair in the advertising posters. And yet, for all of the time she and Henri were spending together with Darius, they had not found even five minutes to discuss the situation with their galanteries.

  “He’s impossible!” she sobbed to Henri in bed one evening. “He’s always so busy, between the directing and the art-directing and the publicity....”

  “And the spending my money....”

  Zéphine sighed. “Yes, there is that.” She paused, pursed her lips. “But I think he’s right about the fairies.”

  Three fairies played prominent roles in Le Progrès tortueux de l’amour. Hundreds of actresses had read for the parts, but Zéphine had found none of them acceptable. The ones who looked the part—tiny, sylph-like women with fine bone structure—didn’t project the commanding power that she felt the sometimes-terrifying Fair Folk should possess. But the actresses with the voice and stage presence for the characters were all large women who would look ridiculous on stage beside the diminutive girl they’d cast as Claudette.

  Darius had come up with the brilliant idea to use marionettes. They could be as small as desired, they could fly, and their voices could be provided by the most powerful actresses, no matter their looks. He’d found a talented puppeteer and puppet constructor named Marie-Christine, whose creations were delightful and had exactly the degree of lifelike animation required. But her work wasn’t inexpensive—in fact, hiring her and her team to build and operate the three puppets, on two weeks’ notice, would stretch the already-strained budget to the breaking point.

  Henri blew out a breath. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually, and doing some research. There’s a play in London right now with a fairy in it. She is portrayed by a tinkling bell and a spot of light.”

  Zéphine wrinkled up her nose. “Oh, that would never do. Our fairies are far more formidable than a little spot of light.”

  “Exactly. But it gave me an idea. There is a natural phenomenon called foudre globulaire—a floating ball of pure electricity. We sometimes get it in the power house, and it’s very impressive to see. It’s quite bright, and it gives off a kind of a humming, sizzling sound and a smell of ozone, but it’s harmless. I think I can build a device to create and control these lightning-balls on demand.”

  “That might be just the thing! But wouldn’t it be expensive?”

  He winked. “We could put a note in the program—’This play is dedicated to our employers, who have given more than they know.’“

  “Mon cher ingénieur.” She kissed him. “But we’ll have to convince Darius to go along with it.”

  At the mention of Darius’s name, her galanterie for him leapt up from the
floor and curled, purring, between her and Henri. It had been strange at first to allow it to come with her to Henri’s apartment, and the poor frail thing was still a bit skittish around Henri’s galanterie for Darius, but admitting its existence had been a great relief.

  Henri scratched the creature under the chin; its eyes closed with pleasure. “That man can be infuriating.” He sighed. “If he weren’t so damned attractive, I think I would kill him.”

  * * *

  One week to the première. They had moved into the Théâtre des Capucines, which bustled with workmen painting flats, seamstresses fitting costumes, and actors rehearsing their parts in every available corner. And, of course, theatre people being what they were, there were two or three times as many galanteries underfoot as usual, and more appearing every day.

  Darius, the director and dramaturge, held court at a two-legged table set up over the best seats in the orchestra, where all the cast and crew came to do their obeisance. Zéphine, as author, and Henri, as director of theatrical effects, sat to either side of him like the queen and crown prince. The three of them had been spending nearly every waking minute together for weeks, and their relationship had grown into a close camaraderie of easy kisses and casual arms over the shoulder.

  If they hadn’t all been so busy, it would have been heaven. As it was, Zéphine’s nerves felt taut as piano wires.

  The problem was the ending. The resolution of Claudette’s love triangle with Pierre the dashing millionaire and Jean-Paul the bumbling but earnest delivery boy never came out satisfying, no matter how many fairies she threw into it. If she chose Pierre she seemed heartless; if she chose Jean-Paul she seemed a fool. And with the ending in flux, Darius, the actors, and even the costumers felt free to suggest, and even demand, change after change in the script. Bit by bit her marvelous idea had turned into something that seemed nothing more than a terrible muddle.

  She thought of it as “the” script now, not “her” script; so many people had dabbled their fingers in it that it had more in common with the filthy water in which a painter cleaned brushes than a refreshing drink. She couldn’t imagine what Darius had seen in this script to make him risk his reputation and so much money—so much of Henri’s money, it must be admitted—on producing it.