Hag-Seed

by Margaret Atwood

  Ingenious girl, thinks Felix. She'll go far, but far in what? "They're only illusory bees," he says. "An illusion of bees."

  "So what? Ariel doesn't care," says Anne-Marie. "It's the same thing for him: the illusory is real."

  "This make any sense to you, Ariel?" Felix says to 8Handz. "Were you in on this, ah, this amendment?"

  "I didn't think it up," says 8Handz. "But it sounds good. Why not? It's cool."

  "This is how it really goes down with Antonio," says Anne-Marie. "When he makes his move." She peels off her shirt, kicks off her boots, slips off her jeans: she's in her dancer's skin-tight top, her green satin shorts. Up on her toes she stretches, down go her hands onto the floor. She straightens, stands on one foot, grasps the other foot behind her, extends her arm: archer pose. She's hooked every man in the room.

  Now, both feet on the floor again, she leans forward, cups one ear, listening. "The two murderous villains approach Alonso's cabin. But Ariel sees them and warns Miranda, and she tells him to guard the cabin with lightning until she can get there. When she arrives on the scene, Ferdinand is trying to fight them off, but he's losing. So Miranda wades in, and with one high kick she breaks Sebastian's wrist." Anne-Marie demonstrates. She executes three pirouettes, does a swift arabesque, then lashes up and out with her right foot, heel first.

  There's a subdued cheer from the class: they're leaning forward, and no wonder, thinks Felix. If he were their age he'd be leaning forward too. Actually, he is leaning forward.

  "That's Sebastian's sword hand," says Anne-Marie, "but he's got a dagger in his other hand, and Antonio has a sword and a dagger. And now here's Caliban, claws out, so it's three to two, and Ferdinand's bleeding. So Miranda calls in the heavy artillery. Goddess Power!"

  She pirouettes across the room to her large tapestry bag, whips it open. Out come Iris, Ceres, and Juno in their woolly knitwear, only now their eyeballs are painted an opaque white. She's got them rigged up with harnesses and attached to long thin strips of leather. "First, Iris! To the attack!" She whirls Iris around her head like a bolo. "Wham! Take that, Antonio! She's flying away with his sword! Now Ceres! Now Juno!" She twirls them around in a figure-eight. "Get 'em, Goddesses! The two of them go for it! Goddess Power, right in the nuts! Ssss-bam! Shriveled up like raisins! So much for your little rape project for today, fellas!"

  "Suck it, Toni-o!" calls PPod, and the rest of them cheer.

  "But she still has to deal with Caliban. He lunges, leering and drooling. Watch out, creep!" Anne-Marie tosses the goddesses back into her knitting bag, springs up on top of Felix's desk, and stands poised on the edge. Then she bends her knees, raises her hands above her head, and does a 360-twist backflip onto the floor. Now she's horizontal, scissoring her legs, crossing them, rolling, sitting up, all smooth as iron caramel. It's a move from her Kidd Pivot routine.

  "Dislocated both of his scaly Caliban arms," she announces. "Painful."

  She jumps to her feet, raises both fists, and releases into the air two handfuls of glitter confetti. "Maestro," she says to Felix. Then she bows to the watchers. The applause is as thunderous as such a small group of men can make it.

  "Thank you from Team Miranda and the Goddesses," says Anne-Marie. She does a stage curtsey. She's hardly even breathing heavily, though her forehead's a little damp. She sits down at her desk again and starts putting on her shirt.

  "Well," says Felix. "That was a refreshing interpretation. I think we'll take a coffee break."

  They stand around with their paper cups of Felix's premium coffee, and Anne-Marie passes the chocolate cookies. Luckily there are enough to go around.

  "These are poxy good," says Leggs.

  "She is one whoreson of a cookie baker," says SnakeEye.

  "Wish there was hash in them," says 8Handz. There are chuckles.

  "A virtuoso performance," says Felix to Anne-Marie. "But would the goddesses really have that kind of power? They're just a show put on by Ariel. They aren't real goddesses."

  "They are now," says Anne-Marie.

  --

  Felix checks his watch. "Okay, we need to move it along," he says. "Two more reports." The paper cups are collected and deposited in the trash, the cookies have vanished. "Next is Bent Pencil."

  "I fear I will be something of an anti-climax," says Bent Pencil. "After Anne-Marie. I'm not much of a dancer." No one contradicts him. No one laughs. Gamely, he plods to the front.

  "Thank you for this opportunity," he begins. "It has been instructive for me to play the role of the worthy Gonzalo--thankless though worthy characters so often are--and also to have been able to take part in the, ah, innovative segment of interactive theatre to which you, Mr. Duke, have treated us this week to such great effect. I believe the VIPs who found themselves participating on the spur of the moment, as it were, found it eye-opening as well." He permits himself a retrospective chuckle.

  "Dead right," says Leggs. "We learned them a lot!"

  Bent Pencil flicks him a smile. "This report is by Team Gonzalo," he continues. "Gonzalo does not have any allies or confederates in the play, apart from Ariel, who prevents his murder, and Prospero, who is working behind the scenes. However, Colonel Deth, TimEEz, and Riceball have done me the honor of assisting me in compiling this report." He sends a thin avuncular beam their way.

  "Report: The Life of Gonzalo After the End of the Play. By Team Gonzalo.

  "We can divide the characters of The Tempest into optimistic characters and pessimistic characters. The optimistic characters are stakeholders in the more positive side of human nature, the pessimistic characters in the more negative side. So, Ariel and Miranda and Ferdinand are optimists; Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian are pessimists. Stephano and Trinculo and Caliban waver back and forth, investing in the hope of fortune for themselves but willing, as well, to visit violence and death and/or slavery upon others.

  "Gonzalo is at the extreme positive end of the spectrum, so much so that we wonder how he's survived as a councillor at the court of King Alonso, populated as it is by cynics, opportunists, and placeholders. That he has survived gives some credibility to the proposition that Alonso's repentance is genuine, that he means what he says, and that Ferdinand and Miranda may therefore look forward to a safe and happy transition to their reign, supported by Alonso to the best of his ability. Unless Alonso had some good in him from the beginning--and despite his facilitating of the callous treatment of Prospero--he would not have employed Gonzalo as his councillor.

  "But Gonzalo has little power. Except for Prospero, none of the positive characters--Miranda, Ferdinand, Ariel, Gonzalo--are in positions of power, and even Prospero's power is hardly of the usual kind. As Caliban says, without his books he's nothing.

  "Is extreme goodness always weak? Can a person be good only in the absence of power? The Tempest asks us these questions. There is of course another kind of strength, which is the strength of goodness to resist evil; a strength that Shakespeare's audience would have understood well. But that kind of strength is not much on display in The Tempest. Gonzalo is simply not tempted. He doesn't have to say no to a sinfully rich dessert, because he's never offered one.

  "What we in Team Gonzalo propose for the future life of Gonzalo is as follows.

  "Let's suppose that our pessimistic friends are wrong--that Antonio does not win the day, that Prospero is not thrown overboard--in fact, that all goes as it seems to be planned at the end of the play. Let us overlook also the enjoyable fantasy about Miranda and her goddess friends that has just been created for us with such verve, in Anne-Marie's performance. I add this on my own, as Team Gonzalo was not aware in advance of this intervention." He smiles at Anne-Marie, not altogether warmly. "Back to our report. The play of The Tempest declares for second chances, and so should we.

  "Thus, everyone sails back to Naples, enjoying the fair winds provided by Ariel via Prospero, and the wedding of Ferdinand and Miranda is celebrated. Prospero bids them goodbye and goes back to Milan, where he takes up his dukedom ag
ain and no doubt incarcerates Antonio or otherwise neutralizes him. Prospero tells us that every third thought of his will be his death, but that leaves two thoughts out of three for governing Milan. Let's hope he's better at it this time around.

  "At the court of Naples, Sebastian is held in check by Prospero's knowledge of his treasonous intentions toward his brother the King, which Prospero has written down and provided to Miranda to be used against Sebastian if needed. As for Gonzalo, so grateful are Ferdinand and Miranda, and indeed King Alonso, for the good deeds done by him over the course of time that they offer him whatever he wants.

  "We, Team Gonzalo, decided to test Gonzalo's goodness. He chooses to go back to the island with a group of other people as good as himself, and there he sets up a kingdom-republic, with himself in charge, where there will be no differences of rank and no hard labor, and where there will be no immoral sexual behavior, no wars, no crimes, and no prisons.

  "That's our report.

  "Signed, Bent Pencil, Riceball, TimEEz, and Colonel Deth." He beams around the room again.

  "Thank you," says Felix. "And how does it go?"

  "How does what go?" asks Bent Pencil innocently.

  "Gonzalo's ideal republic."

  "Team Gonzalo leaves that to your imagination," says Bent Pencil. "Let's say that Gonzalo is no magician. He can command no Goblins, nor can he bring the dead to life. Also he has no army. He depends on the better natures of other people. But maybe Bountiful Fortune, otherwise known as Auspicious Star, will smile on him. She's a character in the play too. Without her, Prospero would never have got his chance. She's very important."

  "Quite right," says Felix. "She is. Well done! Full marks for Team Gonzalo. As my uncle used to say, it's better to be lucky than rich."

  "I'm neither," says Bent Pencil mildly. He gets a laugh, which gratifies him.

  "You're not lucky yet, maybe," says Felix, "but you never know with auspicious stars. Who's up next and last? Ah. Team Hag-Seed."

  Leggs makes his way up to the front of the room, red in the face and more freckled than ever. He's giving it his best shot, taking a dominant stance, one leg forward, foot angled out, then a tilt of the pelvis and the other leg swinging as if welded at the knee. He surveys the assembled cast and crew, scowling his Caliban scowl. Then he slowly rolls up his sleeves.

  Good theatre, thinks Felix. He's making them wait.

  "Team Hag-Seed reporting here, sir," he says to Felix. The mode is quasi-military but at the same time subtly mocking.

  "Here's the real clear truth," he begins. "Hag-Seed, I mean Caliban--nobody's on his team. Even his so-called friends and allies, those two drunk assholes--they're not loyal to him, they make fun of him and call him names, they're out to make a buck off him. So inside the play, he don't have a team. His only team he ever had is dead, which was his mother, who other people called a witch. But she must've loved him enough to at least not drown him like a kitten. She did the bare essentials, she kept him alive. You gotta hand it to her, considering. She was all alone on the island, birthing the baby and so forth. She maybe had her failings, but she did what she could for him. She was tough."

  Nods from the audience: tough though fallible mothers are being remembered.

  "Then she died and Caliban grew up on his own. He was welcoming to Prospero at first, but now Prospero's on his back 24/7, and Ariel's not gonna help him out either, though they're both slaves in a manner of speaking. They're both kept in line by threats of torture; only difference is, Ariel sucks up and Caliban holds out, so it's only Caliban who gets the pinches and cramps.

  "But I'm glad to say I have a team helping me with this report, and that is the Hag-Seed backup group and costume designers for the numbers we did, namely PPod, TimEEz, VaMoose, and Red Coyote. You guys were great, I couldn't of done it without you, we really scored, and this will always be a great memory in my life." He pauses. Is it a studied pause or is he choking up? I've taught him too well, thinks Felix, if even I can't tell the difference.

  "So this is our report," says Leggs. "Report of Team Hag-Seed. What happens to Caliban after it's over? At the end of the play he's left dangling, so we don't really know. He's going to be a good servant to Prospero, or what?

  "Okay, we thought of various ways it could of gone. First, Caliban's left on the island and the rest of them sail away. He gets the island and he's the king of it, like he wanted, but there's nobody else on it any more, so what's the point? You can't be a king unless you're the king of somebody else, right?"

  Nods from the cast. They're listening intently: they really care what happens to Caliban.

  "Okay, so we tossed out that one. Next--that's number two--he sails on the ship for Naples with the rest of them. Prospero gets killed and Miranda gets raped, like in what Team Antonio said--sorry, Anne-Marie, but in real life there wouldn't be any goddesses, so that's what would happen--only she's not raped by Hag-Seed. It's only by Antonio, because he's so evil, like he said. After that he kills her because he wants to be the Duke and he can't have any rivals, so she has to go, it makes sense. Caliban's pissed off by that, but he can't do nothing because by this time Stephano and Trinculo have him chained him up in the bottom of the ship.

  "When they get to Naples, they put him on show for money, just like they said they would. They tell folks he's a savage from the jungle, a part-fish monster, and also he eats people. Everyone throws things at him like a gorilla in a cage, and they call him shit names, like Prospero and Miranda and Stephano and Trinculo did, and they poke him with sticks to make him snarl and curse, and they laugh at him. Plus they feed him crap food. So after a while of this he gets a bunch of diseases--he's never been vaccinated, right?--and one day he comes out in spots and a fever, and then he flops over and dies."

  Silence in the room. It's all too plausible.

  "But that was too dark for us," says Leggs. "Why should the other ones in this play get a second chance at life, but not him? Why's he have to suffer so much for being what he is? It's like he's, you know, black or Native or something. Five strikes against him from Day One. He never asked to get born."

  More nods. Leggs has the audience. Where's he taking them? Felix wonders. Somewhere strange, you can see it in his eyes. He's about to spring a surprise. "So here's what we're thinking," says Leggs. "We're thinking about that line, said by Prospero: 'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.' What's he mean by it? Just that Caliban works for him or is, like, his slave? It's gotta be more than that." He leans forward, making eye contact, then more eye contact. "This is what we think. It's gotta be true. Here it is: Prospero is Caliban's dad."

  Murmurings, small head-shakings. They aren't convinced. "Stick with me," says Leggs. "Let's walk it through. His mom is a sorceress, right? Sycorax. She's wicked! Prospero is a sorcerer. They do a lot of the exact same kind of things--charms, spells, changing the weather--including putting the twist on Ariel, except that Prospero does those things better, and we're supposed to think it's okay for him but evil for her. Suppose they met earlier at, like, a sorcerer type of convention, and they had a thing together. One-night stand. He knocks her up, skedaddles back to Milan; she's up the spout, she gets caught, they dump her on the island.

  "Prospero washes up onshore. Sycorax is dead by then, but he takes one look at Caliban and he knows right away whose kid this has to be. He slangs the dead mother, that's natural; he doesn't own up to the kid, but thinks he might make something of him anyway--the kid must have some good qualities, right, because it's half his. Proud of him at first, because Caliban's self-reliant, knows his way around the island, comes up with food, pig-nuts and fish, whatever--eager to please. So Prospero humors the kid, teaches him stuff. Language, and that.

  "But then the kid takes a crack at Miranda. That's natural too, maybe not nice, was there consent, who knows, he said she said, but whose fault was it anyway, letting Miranda prance around in full view? Prospero should'a seen it coming. Should'a locked her up, if it was that important. Prospero ought to eat
some of the blame for that number.

  "But that's not what he does. Instead he gets in a twist, piles on the insults, starts with the tortures, overlooks the good points Caliban's got, such as musical talent. But by the end, Prospero's learning that maybe not everything is somebody else's fault. Plus, he sees that the bad in Caliban is pretty much the same as the bad in him, Prospero. They're both angry, both name-callers, both full of revenge: they're joined at the hip. Caliban is like his bad other self. Like father, like son. So he owns up: 'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.' That's what he says, and that's what he means.

  "So after the play, Prospero tries to make up for what he did wrong. He takes Caliban onto the ship, runs him under the shower, scrubs off that fishy smell, orders him some fancy new clothes, makes him, like, a pageboy or something, so he can learn to eat from a plate. Says he's sorry and they need to start fresh. Appeals to the artistic side of Caliban, what with the beautiful dreams and all. Once Caliban is cleaned up and well dressed and has manners, people don't think he's ugly any more. They think he's, like, rugged.

  "So Prospero sets him up as a musician, back in Milan. Once he gets a break, the kid does really well. He can bring out, like, the darkness emotions in people, but in a musical way. He has to keep away from the booze though, it's poison to him, turns him crazy. So he makes the effort, and he stays clean.

  "Next thing you know he's a star. Prospero's really proud of him. The kid is top billing at all the duke-type concerts. He's got a stage name, he's got a band: HAG-SEED AND THE THINGS OF DARKNESS. He's, like, world-famous.

  "That's our report. We hope you like it."

  This time the class is in full agreement. There's a chorus of "Yeahs" and "Way-to-gos," and a round of applause that swells to a rhythmic clapping, then a stamping of feet. "Hag-Seed! Hag-Seed! We want Hag-Seed!"

  Felix stands up. This shouldn't get too far out of control. "That was excellent, Team Hag-Seed. Full marks! A very creative interpretation! And a fitting end to the formal part of this class. Next up, cast party! Are we ready?"