Hag-Seed

by Margaret Atwood

  Once they get going she appears to enjoy the experience. Trees, farmhouses, and barns whizz by; she's curious about them all. People live in the houses? Yes, people. So many people! So many trees! "You like this, my bird?" he asks her. Yes, she does like it. But where is the play?

  "We're getting closer to it," Felix tells her.

  They pass a gas station, then the mall near Fletcher Correctional: so colorful, with its holiday decorations still in place! So many other flying machines! Then they're going up the hill, then through the gates. He explains that the fences are to keep people inside, and also to keep other people outside. There are guards, he says. She doesn't ask why but wonders if the guards will want to stop her from entering. "They won't see you," he tells her, "invisible as thou art," and she thinks this is a great joke.

  At Security she goes through the scanner with him and doesn't even cause a blip. That's my tricksy spirit, he beams at her silently. Silently, she laughs. Such a pleasure to him that she's so happy!

  "How's it going, Mr. Duke?" Dylan asks him.

  "We're ironing out the kinks," says Felix. "I'll be in tomorrow, by the way, even though it's not a program day. I'll be delivering some equipment. Can you put it in a locker or something until we need it?"

  "Sure thing, Mr. Duke," says Madison. Felix has to explain the uses of everything he brings in, or the purported uses: the other, secret uses he'll keep to himself. They'd questioned, for instance, all those black outfits: the sweatshirts, the pants, the ski masks, the gloves. Puppetry, he'd said. The Japanese method. Black light. He'd told them how it worked. Like Bunraku.

  "No shit," Madison had said, marveling. They think Felix knows so much neat theatrical stuff.

  Now Dylan says, "What's this in the bag? You been trapping, Mr. Duke?"

  "Just my costume," says Felix. "Magic cloak. Magic staff."

  "Like in Harry Potter," says Dylan. "Cool."

  He thought they might veto the cane, but they don't. The luck of Felix is holding.

  --

  Everyone's already in the main room, awaiting directions. Anne-Marie has brought the three goddesses with her in her large purple tapestry knitting bag, dressed in their new woollen outfits. "Will these do?" she asks Felix.

  "What's the verdict?" Felix asks the assembled cast. He holds up Iris, who's wearing a rainbow gown made of long braids of wool with beads along their lengths. Her face has been painted orange, and she has a headdress of cotton-wool clouds.

  "Pox, it's the Rainbow Nation," says Leggs, and everyone laughs.

  "I assume that's a Like," says Felix. Ceres is next, in a dress of vine leaves and a knobby headdress of what are supposed to be--he guesses--woollen apples and pears. Her face is green, and she has a bee sticker on her forehead.

  "I saw a stripper like that once." Leggs again. More laughter, growls of "Take it off!"

  "This one is Juno, patron goddess of marriage," says Felix. Juno's wearing a knitted nurse uniform and carrying a miniature knitted bottle of blood. She has a painted frown, and tiny fangs have been added to her mouth. She's wearing a necklace of skulls.

  The cast is not so favorable to Juno. "Red plague, she looks like my wife," says Shiv. Murmurs of agreement.

  "Whoreson ugly," says Leggs.

  "Back to the drawing board," SnakeEye adds.

  "Suck it up, dickhead," says Anne-Marie, "or you can make your own fuckin' goddesses, plus no cookies."

  Chuckles. "Swearing! Swearing! Points off!" says Leggs.

  "I'm not collecting points, so you can suck that too," says Anne-Marie. They all laugh.

  "What kind of red plague cookies?" says PPod. "Is it okay to suck them?"

  "All right, order!" says Felix. "Puppeteers, off to your rehearsal room to practice. Caliban and the Hag-Seeds, we're reshooting your number again today to see if we can get better angles. First up, Act I, Scene 2, my scene with Ariel. We'll shoot it now."

  8Handz is in his Ariel gear. His face is already blue. He tweaks the raincoat, adjusts his scalloped bathing cap, lowers his goggles, puts on his blue rubber gloves. They go through the scene once, from "All hail, great master." 8Handz is word-perfect, but he's nervous.

  "Can we do it again?" he asks. "I was hearing this weird feedback thing. Like someone was saying the lines at the same time as me. It, like, got in the way. Maybe it's the recording mic."

  Felix's heart lurches: his Miranda, doing her prompting. "Male voice or female voice?"

  "Just a voice. Probably only mine. I'll check the mic."

  "Could be that. Some actors hear their own voices, anyway," says Felix. "When they're keyed up. Relax, deep breaths. We'll shoot another take."

  To Miranda he says, sotto voce, "Not so loud. And only if he misses."

  "What?" asks 8Handz. "You want me to pull it back?"

  "No, no. Sorry," says Felix. "Talking to myself."

  The clock ticks inexorably. The planets are converging.

  Palm trees and cactuses have been cut from paper, using kids' safety scissors. The plastic rowboat and the sailing ship have been defaced, drenched in water, sailed on the shower-curtain sea. Songs have been sung, discarded, rewritten, sung again. Insults about the singing voices of others have been exchanged.

  Chants have been chanted, feet have been stomped. Minor injuries have been sustained by dancers, due to the use of muscles long dormant. Crises of confidence have been surmounted, grudges incurred, hurt feelings soothed. Felix has berated himself for his own lunacy in undertaking such a hopeless enterprise, then congratulated himself on his judgment. His spirits plunge, then soar, then plunge again.

  Normal life.

  --

  Almost all of the play has now been filmed. There are a few scenes to go, and more edits to be done and effects to be added, and some retakes and voiceovers where the quality's not clear. The three goddesses are spectacular on video, and the black-clad puppeteers add a dimension: it's clear that the goddesses are merely apparitions, acting out someone else's script. PPod has composed a musical background for them, some eerie whistling noises with chimes and flute notes. For the moment when they vanish in confusion, 8Handz has used a multiplying effect: the image is doubled and redoubled and also slowed down, so it looks as if the goddesses are disintegrating in mid-air. Altogether a fine effect, and Felix congratulates 8Handz on it.

  Less than a week before zero hour. If this were an ordinary occasion he'd be relaxing by now--they have enough time left for polishing--but as it is, there's more to do.

  --

  Felix has taken another train into Toronto. He needed to get the costumes for Stephano the drunken butler and Trinculo the jester: a battered dinner jacket for the first, red long johns with a bowler hat for the second, whiteface for both. He sourced the red long johns for Trinculo at Winners, in men's underwear, and the dinner jacket for Stephano at Oxfam. He also picked up some more Godzilla headdresses, for the Hag-Seeds.

  Those purchases complete, he met with a mild-mannered, bespectacled forty-year-old who was possibly Korean in a discreet corner of Union Station. This was risky--what if this man was being followed?--but in the crowd of commuters they were surely inconspicuous. The contact was courtesy 8Handz: each side could trust the other like a brother, he assured the contact via a recorded message smuggled out by Felix on a memory stick.

  Money was exchanged, and Felix received a packet of gel-cap pills, a packet of powder, a hypodermic needle, and some very precise instructions.

  "Don't overdo it," the contact said. "You don't want to kill anyone or drive them batshit permanently. These gel caps are the Mr. Sandmans. Break them open, empty them into the cup, you'll get a fast dissolve in the ginger ale. It's a quick out even if they only drink half. Doesn't last long, you get maybe ten minutes. That enough?"

  "We'll find out," said Felix.

  "The other one's the magic pixie dust. Quarter of a teaspoon in a teaspoon of water. Don't overload the grapes."

  "I'll be careful," said Felix. "What exactly is the result?"


  "Like you say, let's find out. But it's gonna be some trip," said the contact.

  "Not harmful though?" said Felix. "Permanently?" He was nervous: what would happen if he was caught with this stuff, and what was it exactly? Was he being reckless? Yes, but the whole operation was reckless.

  "If anything happens, this never happened," said the contact in a soft but convincing voice.

  --

  Today Felix is working from home. He has his boiled egg for breakfast, then turns on his computer. He's tracking the royal progress of Tony and Sal as they eat their way through one rubber chicken dinner after another in the small-town sticks, promising favors, pocketing contributions, marking down rabble-rousers and dissenters for later banishment. He has a map on the wall into which he's been sticking red push pins, charting their course. It pleases him to see his enemies drawing ever nearer, as if they're being sucked into a vortex of his own creation.

  But before his daily Google he checks his emails. He's still running the two email addresses, one under Felix Phillips for taxes and other such functions, and the other for F. Duke. The second is the address he's given to the Fletcher Correctional office for use in emergencies--not that there have ever been any--and he's given it also to Estelle, even though she knows his real name.

  She's been keeping him posted. A true star, he tells her: his Lady Luck. She loves such compliments: she loves to feel that both he and the program genuinely need her. She gets a huge kick out of being an unseen but crucial part of the theatrical action.

  Today she's sent him a message: Need to see you soonest. Something's come up suddenly. Lunch?

  It would be my pleasure, he emails back.

  --

  They meet at their regular place: Zenith, in Wilmot. Estelle has dolled herself up for him, even more than usual; but why does he assume it's for him? Maybe she dolls herself up every day. Her hair is newly gilded, as are her nails, and she's sporting globe-shaped earrings like miniature disco balls, shocking pink and rhinestone-studded. Her suit is equally pink, and she's wearing an Hermes scarf with a design of racehorses and playing cards, held with a gold pin in a cornucopia design. She's applied perhaps too much mascara. Felix holds her chair for her as she sits down.

  "So," he says. "Martini?" They've taken to beginning their rendezvous with martinis. She enjoys the implied glamour.

  "Oh, you shouldn't tempt me," she says roguishly, "you reprobate!"

  "I adore tempting you," Felix risks. He'll see her reprobate and raise her one. "And you adore being tempted. What's the news?"

  She leans forward conspiratorially. Her perfume is flower-filled, fruit-laden. She places her right hand on his wrist. "I don't want you to be upset," she says.

  "Oh. Is it bad?"

  "I have it through my sources on the inside that Heritage Minister Price and Justice Minister O'Nally are pulling the plug on the Fletcher Correctional literacy program," she says. "They got together on it and agreed. In their announcement, they're going to call it an indulgence, a raid on the taxpayer wallet, a pandering to the liberal elites, and a reward for criminality."

  "I see," says Felix. "Harsh of them. But they're still coming to Fletcher? For this year's production? As previously confirmed?"

  "Absolutely," says Estelle. "They'll say they saw the thing in action, they gave it every chance, but on balance it was not worth the--also, their visit will play well within the criminal justice system. It will show they're paying attention to the correctional officers, and, and--they want the photo op."

  "Excellent," says Felix. "As long as they're coming."

  "You're not disappointed? By the cancellation?"

  In fact, Felix is elated by it. It's exactly the ammunition he needs to rally the troops. Just wait till the Goblins hear that their theatrical troupe is about to be annihilated! It will be very motivating.

  "I'm mad enough to spit, myself," says Estelle. "After all our work!"

  "There might be a way to save it," he says cautiously. "I think. But I'll need your help."

  "You know you can ask me anything," she says. "If I can do it, I will."

  "Who exactly will be in their party?" he says. "Besides the two of them. Do you know?"

  "I hoped you'd ask that." She reaches into her purse, a svelte design in silver lame. "As it happens, I've got the list right here. I'm not supposed to have it, but I called in some favors. Cone of silence!" She winks as slyly as she can, considering the thickness of her eyelashes.

  Felix isn't about to ask what kind of favors: as long as she continues to shower positive rays on him personally, it's all good. Greedily he scans the page. Sal O'Nally, check. Tony Price, check. And what do you know, here's old Lonnie Gordon, still the Chair of the Makeshiweg Festival, but also, it seems, running a consulting business and heading up the local party fundraising initiative. "I notice that Sebert Stanley's cut himself in on this," he says. "Why would he bother?"

  "Rumor has it--actually, more than a rumor--that he wants to run for party leader. At the upcoming convention in June. He has a dependable pedigree, and a lot of money."

  "Sal's running as well," says Felix. "He was always ambitious. I knew him at school, he was a prick then too. Therefore, a rivalry between the two of them?"

  "That's the word," says Estelle. "Though the insider nickname for Sebert is 'limp dick.' The back-roomers don't think he's got the, excuse me, balls." She chuckles at her own naughtiness. "On the other hand, Sal O'Nally's made a lot of enemies. His reputation is that he tosses people under the bus when he's got no more use for them."

  "I've noticed," says Felix.

  "But a lot of the people he's squashed have got friends in the party. They resent that kind of behavior. So, handicaps either way. I'd say the two of them are running neck and neck."

  "And Phony Tony Baloney?" Felix asks. "Tony the Fixer. Who's he backing?" Because of course Tony will be looking out for the main chance. He'll throw his weight where it will sink one contender and float the other, then collect his reward from the floater.

  "Jury's out," says Estelle. "Both of their shoes have been thoroughly licked by him. According to my sources."

  "He's got a wet tongue," says Felix. He runs his finger down the page. "Who's this Frederick O'Nally? Any relative of the Minister?"

  "Son of Sal," says Estelle. "Disappointing son. Postgrad of the National Theatre School, currently interning at Makeshiweg. Sal had Lonnie pull strings to get him in, because he has a hard time saying no. The boy wants a life in theatre, which a lot of my sources in the Department of Heritage think is pretty hilarious considering his dad's so anti-arts. It's getting right up Sal's--it's getting up his nose."

  "He thinks he can act?" says Felix. "This kid?" Outrageous! A snot-nosed, silver-spooned brat who thinks he can politic his way into the theatre, fly in on Daddy's coattails. Wish upon a star and the Blue Fairy will turn him into a real actor. Most likely he has the talent of a beet.

  "Directing," says Estelle. "That's his ambition. He really pushed to come on this visit. By the way, he's seen the previous videos you've made--I know they're not supposed to be generally circulated, but I showed them to him on the sly--and he thinks they're, and I quote, sheer genius. He says the program here is radically innovative, cutting edge, and a stellar example of theatre for the people."

  Felix's opinion of the lad improves. "But he doesn't know I'm me?" he asks. "He doesn't know I'm, you know--Felix Phillips?" He wants to say the Felix Phillips, but perhaps he no longer rates a the.

  Estelle smiles. "My lips have been sealed," she says. "All these years. I've kept your secret, and I've even added some camouflage for you. As far as they're concerned--our distinguished visitors--you're just this broken-down failure of an old teacher called Mr. Duke. I've sprinkled that story around and they've bought it, because who but a broken-down old failure of a teacher would be doing theatre in a no-hope place like Fletcher? Care to join me in another martini?"

  "Absolutely! Let's get some deep-fried calamari," say
s Felix. "Live it up!" How many martinis is that? Felix is feeling terrific: the presence of Son of Sal will round things out in a very satisfying way, or that is his fervent hope. "You're the best," he tells Estelle. Somehow they're holding hands. Is he drunk? "The best Lady Luck I could ever have."

  "I'm stickin' with you," she says. "You're the guy that I came in with, to coin a phrase. That was such a good Guys and Dolls they did at Makeshiweg, oh, fifteen years ago, remember it?"

  "Before my time," says Felix, "but I was in it once, when I was young."

  "You're still young," she breathes. "Young at heart."

  "But you're younger," he says. "Younger than springtime." Yes, he is drunk. "Lady Luck can be a nice dame." They clink glasses.

  "A very nice dame," she says, "if you stay on my good side." She takes a sip of her martini. More than a sip. "I don't know what you're up to, but you've got that rascally look. If it's about saving the Players, I'm backing you all the way."

  This is the day. He stands on the cliff's edge. Very soon it will be thunder time. But first, the pre-battle speech.

  In the dressing room, he adjusts his magic stuffed-animal robe. It isn't everything he'd once had in mind, but a dusting of gold spray paint has brought it back to life. He takes his fox-head cane in his left hand, then switches it to his right. He peers at himself in the mirror: not too bad. Magisterial might be the adjective that comes to mind, given a well-disposed viewer. He smooths his beard, roughens his hair, tweaks the set of his garment, checks his teeth: they're firmly cemented in place. "Tip of the tongue," he says to his reflection.

  Then he proceeds along the hallway, peering into the Green Room to make sure the grapes are standing ready. Before leaving his shack for Fletcher he'd spent the early morning carefully injecting each one with the hypodermic. The grapes had made it through Security without raising an eyebrow: after all, they contain no metal. Similarly with the mysterious pixie dust pills, stowed in a plastic bottle of painkillers. He slips his hand into the crucial pocket, just to make sure. All is in order.

  --

  In the main room the full cast is assembled. Anne-Marie's in her Miranda outfit: the simple white off-shoulder dress, the bare feet, the paper daisies and roses in her hair. PPod, Shiv, TimEEz, Leggs, and Red Coyote are dressed as sailors, with their black ski masks rolled into cap mode. Otherwise they're in black, as is everyone else in the room.