by Kathe Koja
At the shoe shop off Rottermond Square, itself renamed in honor of Liberty, he stops to have a boot heel examined, the lumpish proprietress doubtful of its repair: “Did you walk to the moon and back in these, sir? We can replace the heel and sole, and have it done by Thursday, Friday the latest. But I don’t see that it can be fixed.”
“No?” Istvan glancing over her shoulder, through the window with its stout half-shutters half shut. “There’s less than no sun today, madame, why keep it so dark in here?” but “It’s not the sunshine that worries me,” going on as she brushes and blacks the boots (and truly, they are in a sorry state, one will need to replace them very soon) to inform this stranger of the daily and ongoing darkness: the anxious crowds crowding the Cathedral, the outrageous displays of the rich, with their turn-the-clock parties and “Indian” entertainments, the papers are full of such stories! while all else must suffer a constant stream of fears and shortages, the winter’s coal is sure to be rationed, apples are spoiled before one can buy them, the mayor’s speeches seem only to rile the men and boys, who then take to the streets, smashing each other and anything else they can reach until the constables make order with their batons and foot-cannon, oh it is a terrible time in the city! but “What of that tavern, there?” pointing to what was once the Heads or Tails. “Do they still sell brandy, are there games of dice?” to narrow her eyes, no, no, there is nothing of the kind available any longer, all vice has been purged from this avenue and good riddance, good riddance to that theatre too, where once were played “Quite nasty shows,” lips prim as she wipes her hands on her canvas apron. “I can’t say what they did, I never went there! But it might have been a—a brothel, for all the filthiness that went on, until the night they all got what was coming to them, and truly. God is not mocked.”
“Is that so.”
“It is so. The place burned half to the ground, and two men died in the fire—dreadful men, foreigners, and worse,” as Istvan pays for the blacking with several coins and a fresh blue bill. “It’s a writer fellow and his wife live there now, and if they aren’t the nicest people, still they’re peaceful, and peace is what we need here.”
“Yet didn’t Our Lord himself say he came not for peace, but the sword?” with an eloquent shrug, pushing out again into the rain to step past that silent tavern—is that a glimpse of a pale ghost, a ghost’s ghost mute and lovely in the doorway?—and into the alley where the key admits him at once to a scene of conflict, a doubled scene in fact as several lads crouch on the wagon wheel now become a sort of bowl, or cup, perhaps the Marquis is hungry since all his shows revolve around food? though “You’re Ixion, Pipper,” calls Frédéric, “remember? It hurts, we need to hear you groaning,” as “I need a climber, when’s he done?” Haden in greatcoat and a face so expressionless that it shouts itself like the crudest mask, a face that finds brief relief in scowling at Tilde who scowls back, reaching to take from Ru a tinker’s hammer—“Don’t, Baba, that’s not for playing. If you’re going, hayrick, why not go?”—as “Hello,” says Istvan mildly, “it’s Uncle Reynard. Don’t stop on my account, chickens, I’ll just perch and watch,” as the youths stare and Ru retreats to his mother’s skirts, Istvan noting the maternal mien, Tilde much more a woman now, if still slender and steely, her girlhood gone for good perhaps into that little boy; whose eyes, yes, are nearly as blue as hers. “Milady, have I mentioned yet that mothering becomes you? You look extremely well, unlike everything else in this town. And our mutual friend sends his love, he says the plum cake was delicious.”
“The fruit here’s no good,” although she is pleased, very pleased, and much relieved; last evening’s testing query to the cards of Sir brought such a fearsome jumble of signs and countersigns, the cards as if quarreling or confused, that she has been reluctant to ask anew: the Wanderer again, and the Lord of Flowers, against the crossed staves of the Knave of Crowns, and the heavy clouds of the Whirlwind reversed…. As Istvan sets to the tabletop the promised brandy, the hotel crullers, and a gin bottle filled with milk—“For milord”—“Fresh or not,” she says, “we take what we can get,” and then, sniffing the milk with approval, “Wherever did you get this?”
“From a goat. This, too,” a little puppet made of twigs and twisty wool, a little animal to prance across the table top, to dance for Ru, who instead takes and shakes a small red ball, painted wood filled with dried beans, a wooden cup attached by a string as “He doesn’t play the puppets,” Tilde says.
“Not much like his namesake, then?”
“I’d ask your aid in that matter,” Frédéric calls, “if you’re willing,” setting aside the curled and much-marked script—“The Turning Wheel, or Fortune’s Favorite”—to reach instead for the angel puppet, snarled strings, spotted shift and vestments and “He’s been somewhat out of commission,” Frédéric says, glancing to Haden, who glances away. “And left a bit to molder, I’m afraid.”
“Molder indeed,” Istvan taking up the wooden body with a sniff at the wings, the feathers replaced with those of doves, or is it geese? and neither properly cleaned before insertion, the whole job at one with the still-leaking roof, thrice-daubed paint and cracks in the walls, the general air of siege and make-do. “Poor Corydon.”
“His name,” says Frédéric, forehead pinkening, shifting on the chair as the accused might in the dock, “is Israfel,” himself changed from last evening’s silks to today’s humbler woolens, a striped scarf at his neck to ward the chill; his beard is a poet’s, short and somewhat ragged, the brownish rings beneath his eyes speaking of the poet as well, the anxiety of creation, or destruction, or both. “The name comes from a sestina by—”
“He an’t here to wipe our noses,” Haden stepping nearer, stuffing gloves into one pocket—stiff leather gloves, not at all what a gentleman wears, more like a workman’s or a strangler’s—and taking from the other a flask, a hard swig, nudging Istvan who swigs himself, lips turned down and “That’s some sour milk and no mistake. Here,” with a little shudder, offering the brandy bottle. “Wash your mouth out with this.”
“Sorry my doss isn’t up to your standards,” as Haden repockets the flask, and folds his arms. “We’re fucking pinched here, we’ve done the best we may with what we’ve got.”
“No one says you haven’t, kit…. I’ve missed this place,” with a smile to that moody golden gaze, to the puppet laid out like a small corpse upon the table, his own fingers already busy at the strings. “Though one can’t say why, it’s in worse shape than Monsieur Co—Israfel, here. In Paris they have the boulevards, here it’s still a rat warren—orphans all over the train station, and hymn-shouters, and one can’t take a straight piss without spraying a soldier—Beg pardon,” to Tilde taking from him the bottle to pour four teacups, a doubled splash in each. “And quite a spate of suicides, it said so in all the papers. Is that why you’re playing such a moral reveille? Is it working?”
“Drink,” says Tilde, her nod less invitation than command; each takes a cup, even she and “For Sir,” she explains to their gazes, then tosses back the brandy like an expert: “Salut! And this is for you, Baba,” handing Ru one of the crullers. “And you,” a stern pointing finger to Pipper, “watch he doesn’t get where he oughtn’t,” as Pipper climbs out of the wooden bowl, his look unsure between Haden and Frédéric, finally inspired to say “I’ll take him to the Park then, an’t I, ma’am? We’ll go throw rocks at the statues. Come on, Ru,” popping onto the child’s head a kepi cap much too large, as the other lads decamp with them, leaving the four alone at the table: Haden to shrug off the greatcoat and sit opposite Istvan, Frédéric to his left, Tilde across and “The cards saw you coming,” she says: the Lord of Hares leaping down the road, and beside him the Wanderer, both so often in the spread these last few months that she had begun to wonder if her own wants put them there, her dreams; sometimes that happens. “But not alone. Say where Sir is, now.”
“In one of those canal hostels—I believe it’s called the Augean Stables,
” to bring from Frédéric a scholar’s appreciative nod. “When I left he was eating black bread and reading the Scriptures, of all things, it’s the only book we could put hands on here. You’ll send me back with some lighter fare, Marquis? or should I say Herr St. Vitus?” as he pours more brandy in his own cup and Haden’s without asking, the bottle held clumsy in his bandaged grasp, not so nimble as with the puppet so “Give it,” Tilde says, reaching back to the worktable for a pair of snips, wicked little points that she deploys like a surgeon upon the soiled bandage; Istvan lets her do so, lets her cut away the fastening as “Hold still,” Tilde says. “This will hurt,” pulling off the last windings to expose purpled skin and an unwholesome smell; Frédéric blinks, Haden wrinkles his nose and “I had the fucking thing doctored,” Istvan says, “in Paris, you see what sort of doctors they have there. Ah! Give a fellow something to bite on, yeah?” as Tilde probes with the tip of the snips, Frédéric hasty to distract with a tale of their doings, “since you and Herr Bok rolled away in the carriage that night, what a night that was! And he’s quite well, isn’t he?”
“Especially for a dead man. Though your cobbler neighbor has me dead, too.”
“We had a letter of your travels, from Mrs. Pimm, several letters I think?” looking to Tilde, who nods, intent on the sore flesh. “After the fire there was plenty of talk, some even from the Protectorate—the Morals Commission, it was called then—it seemed as if they might give trouble. And now, there’s plenty of trouble from the factions,” the municipal parties and subparties, all devoted to liberty and the law, all at each others’ necks, Frédéric’s explanation running lengthy and curling back in upon itself, as tangled a saga as any on Olympus; as Haden tops off his cup again and Istvan’s too, Istvan sipping through tightened lips as Tilde fetches a bowl, not of water, and continues to dig away. “The papers keep shouting war, war, war—since the funeral, the Standard’s counting off the days! But all the fighting’s amongst the League of Patriots and the Savoys, the Savvys—though some people call them the Sanitaries, since most of the clergy is behind them.”
“The honest men,” Haden sneers, still in black like the angel of doom, those dark weeds rhyming, if he had known or Istvan remarked, with the same garb of that singular Paris show; Roland Smalls would have marked the rough-shaven jaw, the champagne hair sheared harsh and military, that piquant scar at the generous lip that he sucks, now, a tension to him Istvan has not seen before. “Parlor soldiers, with their little strings around their wrists—the Adjunct-general’s got one now, have you seen? It’s gold, I’d pinch it from him in a wink if I could—”
“And bring disaster home with you—”
“You’ve got that ass-to-front, you’re the one who’s—”
“Christ, Mab!” and “Enough for now,” Tilde says equably, laying aside the snips to dab from a squat and sticky jar something numbing and warm, wrap his wound in neat strips of what used to be nightshirt, and over that slip on a glove, one of Haden’s old gloves, a faded harlequin silver worn nearly through at the fingertips. “How did you do such? With a meat fork?”
“Just misplaced love,” Istvan draining the last of his cup past a testing shake of the bottle; the kit must be famished for good liquor, famished for other joys, too, he and his Frédéric so at odds, both honest men so “Your plays,” he says to Frédéric, “are meant to poke those fellows in the eye, both sides?” and “Indeed,” says Frédéric; he puts a finger to the angel’s wing, he strokes a feather. “But all plays now, all theatres—the Cleo’s been dark for ages, since ‘Queen of Sheba,’ and Fairgrieve had to close down the Garden. And Edgar Rue was driven out of town for singing lieder. Lieder! From ’Winterreise’! Only Alban Cockrill still plays sometimes, little shows for kiddies in the Park. To try to do otherwise—”
“Means the coop,” says Haden. “So why fucking bother? When five people might see it of a night, and two of them just to get in from the wet—”
“Because,” hands flat on the table, “it ‘bothers’ me!” with such passion that everyone is still, Tilde with her jar, Istvan looking through his lashes, Haden staring at the floor until Frédéric says, more quietly, “We’ve had this talk before, M. Marcus—Stephanos—with Herr Bok, too. At this very table! It’s my vocation, my duty to write what I know is true—”
—as Haden shoves back in his chair, hard scrape against the floorboards: “Well, I’m for off, to do my duty, if I had a fucking lad to do it with me,” while Tilde rises, snips and fouled bowl in hand and “Directly,” to Istvan, “I’ll come see to Sir. With chocolat, tell him so.”
“It’s a fine idea, Milady, but you see that hostel’s only for fellows, the whole street is apparently. No ladies allowed, what with the moral turpitude and such,” to bring only her shrug—“Tell him”—as she turns away, to climb to the rooms she shares with Ru, outgrown cradle and the rosewood bed with its fine old-fashioned hangings, the silver stands emptied of greenery used now to dry laundry, the great desk her province and cupboard, where, beside some other items—a delicate glass thimble, cunningly painted with roses; an old tin of cocoa; a cache of clippings from the defunct Daily Solon, Seraphim’s interview with the two men of the Mercury, and others that tell of the fire; missives from the Blackbird Theatre and several from farther afield—sits a jeweler’s pouch that once held the locket she removes, now, to slip carefully inside, and tuck all behind the framed photograph of Ru in his christening gown, and the carte-de-visite of Rupert and Istvan, whose health and prospects have so plainly suffered since they left; never mind, they are here, he is here, she is here, and she can help. She reaches into the mahogany wardrobe for the boy’s breeches and vest, she takes the windings from her hair, to braid it up tight will take some time—
—as downstairs Frédéric helps Istvan with a makeshift sling to carry the former Corydon, a makeshift smile as “My very best regards to Herr Bok, of course. And please give him this,” slipping inside the sling a stout little leather-backed tome. “It’s Pushkin, I’m sure he’ll enjoy it, though the translation’s not as fine as it might be.”
“Well nor you, yeah?” with a kindly smile; poor young men, they make their lives so much harder than they need be; it is an uncle’s province to chide, perhaps, or to chivvy and “I don’t wish to ‘wear the halo,’ as you once said,” Frédéric’s shrug that tries for equanimity, that succeeds only in looking sad. “But a man’s no man at all, is he, if he can’t do as his conscience bids him?”
“Our hero’s got a conscience too. Why so at odds?”
“Ask him. Ask him why he’s still dealing cards, when that’s illegal, too! He’ll say it’s for the money, and yes, we haven’t much, but—This,” tapping the papers on the table, starred headlines and long columns of sternly-shouting type, the Civic Guardian, the Patriot, the Messenger-Herald redundant and resolute, “it’s not the way—I can’t write under my own name, no one will print it or pay. But there’s a gentleman called Felix Krystof, who’s offering a commission, a very fine commission that—”
—abruptly silent to turn away as Haden hoves back into view, a book in his hand too, a poetry book, live with me and be my Love and “Keep it,” he says to Istvan with false carelessness, as at the alley door comes a thump that could be thunder or a constable but is instead Pipper in skid and gallop, Ru in tow, both splashed from necks to knees and “There’s a mighty old ruckus,” Pipper pants, “in the Park—some Libbys tried to burn up a hanged man made of paper, and some Savvys said they an’t—can’t say what it was about truly, and the thing wouldn’t burn anyway in the rain. We split up when they started in tussling, and the foot-cannon come out. But don’t tell her,” in sudden apprehension, far worse than any roused by effigy-murder or riots. “She’ll slap my fucking ears off for gettin’ Ru within a mile of it.”
Haden frowns, reaching down to pull off the crooked kepi, ruffling the damp brown curls as Ru looks up at him, the first smile from the child Istvan has seen, and a very sweet one: what a strange and charming
tableau, les enfants perdus as “Ah, Madame Non,” Istvan’s own smile, “no one can best her. Or stop her. Better not even to try…. Now, kit, where are you bound with those ugly old gloves?”
“Come see, if you’re game, and not too stiff to climb,” nodding to the door, greatcoat resumed and one unearthed for Istvan too, an old costume cloak that once was Rupert’s, to tinge his smile with a certain nostalgia, to hide the sling across his back and “Where’s your beaky mask?” Haden over his shoulder as they cross the threshold and “Do you fancy charades at all?” Istvan’s question in answer as the door closes on them and the puppet, the rain worsening to true thunder as Frédéric sighs and resumes his pen, nodding Pipper back onto the wheel, while Ru climbs atop the table to make hats of the newspapers there, soldiers’ hats—
—as that cough of thunder rattles the windows of the workmen’s hostel, Rupert annoyed and careful in the dulled light of the room’s one lamp to set aside his pen, blot with his cuff the runny ink in the copybook, a schoolboy’s copybook carried as carefully and private since, was it Hamburg? or someplace earlier, and does it matter where this record was begun since it will continue until the writing is accomplished, this gathering of all their plays, all written down in one place; strange that it should come to be finished in this place, where playing is no longer allowed…. Whether or not they might roost, in that Mercury now shuttered to a shade of itself, certainly they must not, no matter what Istvan says, or had planned. Yet if ever there could be a home for them, there is where it would be.