by Kathe Koja
Istvan in silence passes over his own handkerchief, then turns away to the puppet sack, to free the angel and extract the two books, tossing down the wadded money as Rupert, still breathless, sees and asks “Did you rob a bank?” but “The saints were with me,” Istvan taking from the sack one last surprise: a bottle of champagne from a friendly maid at the loge. He pours for them both, drinks as Rupert sips, sips again, then “She came here,” Rupert says, breathing easier now, though his face is pale. “Tilde did—she wants us at the theatre again.”
“Yes. She’s right. We ought.”
“How so? To play? That’s dangerous here, it’s—”
“Dangerous?” with a fleeting smile for Rupert in the lamplight, half-haloed, half-shadowed, the twin Misters hung against the wall, mortal and immortal and “Life is dangerous,” reaching to unfasten Rupert’s shirt, to slowly strip him and then himself, to take in tenderness what only love can give, this body his joy, this man his bulwark, that gift of flesh in the darkness no other light can reach, grown so much darker now—
—until the moon finds its way to the window, its cast radiance on their bodies entwined, as slowly Istvan rises, to plump the sorry horsehair pillow, draw up the coverlet and “Rest,” he says to Rupert. “Sleep awhile,” as he carries the last of the champagne and the fitful lamp to sit in its dimming circle, leathern bag at his knee, calmly restringing the crippled angel puppet, working wit and skill and love against decay and dissolution, determined to meet that darkness with every weapon he can find.
The next tale opens in the tinkling of birdcage bells, tiny copper bells that the nervous, pretty little lovebirds strike and jingle beneath the roof of their bamboo cage that somewhat resembles a theatre, with its fringed red drape for evening and a long center perch for a stage. Prudence Mattison, her curls nearly as copper, her round face more her father’s with every passing year—dead Omar, whose parentage she will never know; some stories find no audience at all—carefully fills the glass cups with water and seed, for “Miranda and Prospero,” Pru says, softly so as not to startle them; she named the birds herself, after pictures she saw in a storybook, the plucky girl and the wonderful magician on the shore of an unknown sea.
Her mother does not like those names, does not particularly like the birds, except that Walter Wooster sent them for a birthday gift. Pru does not like Walter Wooster—he breathes through his mouth, and stares at her Sundays in church—but her mother has made it sternly clear that she must be pleasant to him, and anyway there are the birds, bright as the jewels in her mother’s jewelry box; one day, her mother has promised, those will be hers as well. Their value does not reach her, as ever it is the colors she enjoys, the vibrant false ruby and moonlike opal, much as she dislikes the colors in this room, ugly ivory lace swagged at every window, the mold-green antimacassars, her mother’s perpetual black dresses and coal scuttle bonnets—and there is her mother now, back early from her business, footsteps heading briskly down the hall—
—but instead it is Velma Byrd, with her fingers like kitchen snips and her face blank as a sheet of old paper, that face somewhat unfolding now to announce Missus isn’t in, but you can wait if you want. Her daughter’s in here—Miss Prudence, as two men step into the parlor, both so strange and dark and darkly alive they might themselves have stepped out of a storybook, and Pru brightens at the very sight of them, the one with the bag especially. He notices the lovebirds first, touches a careful finger to their cage as they flutter back in terror, then turns his smile to her, a speculative smile she is far too young to read, nor the look in his eyes as Miss Prudence! he says, as if they are old friends. What a pretty surprise, as his friend looks around and around the room, that one tall and silent and dressed like an undertaker, Prudence taking an instant dislike to him, flinching back as he puts out his hand and Why, be easy, Miss Prudence, says the other, the handsomer one with the pointy little beard, the pearl at his ear like Prospero’s dangling gold coin. This is Mr. Rupert, dear, and I’m—
Your uncle, says Rupert, with a certain private humor; the two men look at one another and Yes, says the magician, that’s so. Uncle Reynard, offering a droll little bow, while avid Velma Byrd—These two again! who should by rights have perished years ago; they bring no good with them, that much is certain—hurries in with tea that no one drinks, Rupert examining the room and its contents, the set of Shakespeare and the African violets, glass-beaded tapestry and ponderous clock, while Istvan enchants Pru with a lamp and its shadows, teaching her to make birds of her joined hands, black birds that flutter and fly to the ceiling: It’s called Schattenspiel, shadow-theatre, he is saying as the door opens again, Decca entering so quietly that no one notices, Mrs. Mattison whose meeting with the Mercantile Society had gone very well indeed, each brick mortared securely to the next, her castle nearly built: the Rose and Poppy is near true propriety, true safety, at last. About to lift a glass with the deputy mayor, who keeps claret in his office for just such occasions, when the note came from Velma, scrawled urgent on a scrap—You are needed—and she hasty to follow it home, to see those whom she had thought never to see again, her face goes the same mottled ivory as the lace hangings but Hello, firm from the doorway: and they all turn, Pru startled, Istvan veiled, Rupert to cross to her, to put out his hand that she takes, and holds, feeling the cold of it, the steady grip, her heart pounding an old unwonted rhythm as Decca, he says, and bends to kiss her cheek. Hello.
Her brother does not approach her, his hand still on her daughter’s, his gaze such a commingling—of dislike, distrust, nostalgia, frank appraisal—that she does not know which to first address, and so instead calls to Prudence, in such a tone that the child stands up straighter, hands clasped as if in a schoolroom, as if she might be punished for any answer gone wrong. Prudence, these are your uncles. This is Uncle Rupert—
And Uncle Reynard, says Prudence. He’s showing me the way shadows work, Mamma.
Shadows indeed, Istvan with his arms crossed, surveying this sister whom he had promised himself he would not see again; consider her then half-sister, no sister, only a stolid stranger, Ag whom he used to gift when she was this one’s age and younger, with paper dolls and ribbons and shiny trinkets picked up along the way, Ag whose own gift was for silent cunning, who thought to take what was his and keep it, hold it, how had she ever thought to do so, how ever believed that she could? And what a perishing fright she looks now! Is she running a joy-house or a ladies’ sodality in that shapeless black nightgown, steely pins in her hair, jet brooch at her throat, the Widow Mattison, yes, of the apparently virgin birth and You’re closed tonight, one gathers, nodding to the hallway, the noiseless rooms below through which they had passed, he and Rupert, as if walking sidewise through time: the lobby, the empty stage of the theatre, the piano once Jonathan’s and its fine candelabra, wax candles now, no more sweaty tallow, the old chaise recovered—yet like the chaise everything once bloodied or scorched has been smoothed over, every wall genteel with flocking and flowers, the stairs covered in thick carpet, the whores apparently all mute as that Jonathan since one can hear no rustling, no quarreling, smell nothing like frolic or fun; Pan Loudermilk would weep to see it, if a mec would even be allowed upon such premises. Can a man still buy a drink?
Velma, sharp, bring some whiskey, Decca looking then to Rupert who is looking at the wall, the ivy-twined picture of a man who might be the man he remembers, old Mattison, or might not; does it matter? His idea to come here, then; and now, and for many reasons, most shared with Istvan, one resolutely not, urging him to make some sort of peace with his sister, ease the grudge that flares every time her name is mentioned—
What could she truly take from us? All was well in the end, is well. You and I—
Missed years together, Mouse, fucking years. And time is precious, doesn’t it say so in some holy book or other? sullen as a boy to turn his own face away, fingering the griffin’s head on the cane, never changing his mind so much as allowing himself to be led along th
e road that took them back to Victoria, Gottsburgh, Archenberg, the knife to his hand in every stray moment to carve and parse the dark length of Mr. Loup, as the other Misters, Castor and Pollux, kept busy as bees with their bear-baiting and bishopry, Rupert handling the concertina with whiskey on his breath, more whiskey nowadays, less use of fists if the truncheon will do—as they do in a crabbed little hamlet just outside Victoria, where a hang-bellied tailor mocks them in his shop, taking coin and then refusing Istvan’s trade: Whistle for that money, and your tawdry old vest, it’s a rag to wipe my arse with now. I’ll not sew a stitch for a coward—stop, put that down! as Istvan snatches for his own topper. I fought the war here, against those cabbage eaters! though his fighting skills have apparently atrophied since then, swinging at Istvan, blocked by Rupert, whose swing back cracks a tooth and sends it flying, sending Rupert himself straight into the town’s little jail cell, Istvan hilarious to play the barrister, go the bail, stern-faced in the tailor’s stolen hat to push freed Rupert against the very wall of the courthouse for a ravishing, gratified kiss—My hero! I thought that awful man would needle me sure—as passers-by gaped in disgust and surprise, one raising a voice—Hey there, you men! Stop that!—to be met by a doubled stare so calmly violent that the shouter hurried off, head ducked, as if fleeing his own crime.
Yet if there were many reasons, plain and cloven, for following that road into this town, to this Poppy now augmented by a sentimental Rose, this tidy civic-minded whorehouse once a place of treachery and bloodshed, of passionate reunion, every step taken was considered, if not aloud or together, as a step not so much into the past as that past’s advance into the present, a story whose ending had not yet been spun, or if spun needing still a proper staging to bring the curtains to a close; proving, if further proof were needed, that even the storytellers, expert as they might be, or furious, bemused or unwilling, are never in full command of the tale told.
Now the whiskey arrives, Velma Byrd elated as she has not been for some time—life here is very dull, for beyond the few foreign strangers who come and go, it is always the same round, men who all know one another, so no blackmail can be possible; the whores themselves are a tiresome bunch, all “Yes, Missus” and “No, Missus,” and cringing whenever Decca’s shadow falls their way, the little Miss is nearly as bad; but if these two firebrands should stay on—! She snatches another glance at her employer’s stony face—Shall I open up the west guest room, Missus?—though Istvan is quick to shake his head: Don’t bother, we’ll find our own roost for the night. But if you have anything made from grapes, bring that, as Rupert takes a glass from the silver tray—heavy silver, worked in swirls and inscribed You are a stranger here but once! At The Rose & Poppy—reflecting that Decca has done well for herself, just as Istvan had predicted: it suits her to give orders, yes. Though prosperity does not seem to have eased her burdens, at least it brings no smile to her face; nor does that child. And whosever child might she be?
Now Pru is beckoned over in the manner of a shield, Decca’s hands tight on her plump little shoulders, Pru trying to grasp the currents running between Mamma and this man, her new and wondrous uncle—and the other uncle who sits and drinks and says nothing, so tall and fearsome-looking in the little chair, as if he were a statue, or— The strongman, Pru blurts, just like in your stories, Mamma! And Uncle Reynard is the jongleur, isn’t he?
Decca gives no reply, but her hands tighten further as Istvan smiles, a foxy smile mostly teeth as he asks Do you like stories, Miss Prudence? For I know several, one of them in fact about a girl, not much older than you—
Is her name Miranda?
No, but we can call her so if it suits you. Come here, dear, to draw her back to his side as he sits opposite Rupert, the two of them making of the fusty room a strange and intimate sort of theatre, Decca the only and unwilling audience as Velma brings from the serving bar an unopened bottle of yellow brandy, as Rupert lights a small black cigarette, as Pru sits at Istvan’s feet, nearly as open-mouthed as Walter Wooster, to hear stories of a resourceful girl who could make a loaf from a crumb of bread, construct clothing from lint and moonbeams, climb like a monkey into and out of the high windows of an orphanage: Did the bars on the windows stop her? No. Did the beatings from the wicked priest stop her? No, and she never cried, not once, Miranda was a girl without tears—no matter what she did, no matter how dreadful, she never cried.
What else did she do, Uncle? as the tale continues, spun straw into false gold, that girl whose name was not Miranda watching, fingers clenched against palms, seeing the strain of him beside the sparkle: the worn-out boots, the top hat a size too small with a twist of red ribbon hung behind like a backwards noose; yet still he is matchless, her first love, her brother, still the boy who appeared at the window like an angel of the dark, promising to spirit her away with him some night, someday; the peacock prince, the one whom the watchers always gladly paid to see. Yet where are his tools, his puppets, surely he does not travel without them? the jongleur, the showman and his terrible toys? Perhaps that will be the only mercy, that they have somehow left off playing, that they have come only to offer their inscrutable regards, and go.
And Rupert—she can barely look at Rupert, the girl who never cries feeling the weight of tears in her throat, old, sad, heavy drops of salt for the shabbiness of him, the scratched spectacles and boots as ruined, one finger broken, it had to be, and never doctored, look at the way it crooks off to one side. And that cough…. Did the money she sent give no aid at all, did they lose their theatre, what has befallen? His gaze has changed as well, become if not less powerful then more abstracted, or perhaps it is being here again, in this place, this room where they once had sat together, he and she in the chairs, there, that he now shares with Istvan, the dainty duchess chairs she has had repaired, recovered in pea green velvet; everything here is different since they left, different and vastly better, she is different, she is not “Miranda” though every tale Istvan tells is of her, she knows it and he knows it though Pru of course knows nothing, Pru who is gazing at him as if she has waited all her life for just that sight, Istvan raising his own gaze just that moment to look Decca in the eye, to smile again as he says But Miranda had one failing, Miss Prudence, can you guess what it was? No? She had a covetous heart. You don’t know “covetous”? —why plainly, then, dear, she was a thief. And not to say that a little—a very little!—larceny is not sometimes a good thing, to steal a loaf of bread when one is hungry, that’s not wrong, is it? looking down again to the child whose knitted brow means her little brain is busy with this information, he is teaching her something, she is learning. But what Miranda wanted most belonged to someone else, to a boy who—
Enough, Decca’s voice without inflection, as flat as ice or the blade of a knife. No more stories, it’s time Prudence was abed, Pru knowing better than to protest though her gaze is newly mutinous as she trudges to the door, out past listening Velma who does not even bother to pinch her as she often likes to do; there is too much else to occupy Velma, at least until Istvan steps to that threshold to say I never liked you, and now I like you even less. Get the fuck back to the kitchen, or wherever spider hole you bide, closing the parlor door in her face as Rupert asks Decca for her news, a careful question, gauging the enmity between the siblings, Istvan prowling the room as Decca speaks steadily of her own and the town’s prosperity, the many visitors who come for the racing course and the band-shell concerts, the well-regarded presentations in the lecture hall, then stay in her comfortable rooming houses —
And stop in here to have their pricks pulled, after? What’s the going rate these days, Missus Pinchbeck?
It varies.
—until a nervous knock briefly suspends the tension, a pallid little whore seeking her mistress, Decca swift to leave them, Rupert’s murmur in her wake: We can pass one night here, messire, what harm? Unless you want to go back to Vidor’s old hotel? to bring Istvan’s briefest smile, his sharpest shrug and I’ve still got the scars
from last time, don’t I. I’ll go down to that Theatre Guillame, then, and see if I can’t raise up Puggy’s ghost.
Other ghosts are in play as well, Decca sitting wakeful throughout the night, just as she used to in the bad old days, listening to the noises from the stage, Istvan with, yes, his boxed familiars, and Rupert’s faint smoke drifting from the bedchamber, their old bedchamber, she should have had Velma put them elsewhere. When she sleeps at last it is to wake too late, Pru already busy stirring molasses into Istvan’s tea, the checkerboard set up between them and Miss Prudence, says Istvan genially, have a peek into my traps, see what dainties you can find. May be some French silk ribbons…. Who got the little dumpling on you? as genial to Decca, as Pru skips happily away. Or did she pop from your forehead, like your friend, there? indicating the painted plaster statue of Athena, she still has it, still scents herself with that arid verbena, nothing here has really changed. “Prudence,” though—why not “Temperance”? Or “Chastity”? If it had been a lad you might have done “Rupert,” although there’s one such namesake already—
Namesake—what do you mean? Whose child?
You don’t know her.
A pause; she takes a long breath; he sips the molasses-sweet tea. Then I have something for you, careful to close the door before offering the object kept hidden for so long, the elegant old writing case of teakwood and mother-of-pearl: surprised to see that he is not surprised at all, though she cannot know it is half the reason he is here, an intelligence unshared even with Mouse of this cache, this astonishingly dangerous ordnance sent to an obscure hidey-hole, the cane sent on to Lucy, oh what a merry scavenger’s hunt! Like assembling from splinters the one true Cross—though I haven’t read them, Decca dry to watch him sift impassive through the contents, onionskin envelopes and couriers’ dispatches, wax seals and German ciphers, seeing in his disbelieving shrug—You make a good lockbox, then—that nothing she says can ever be trustworthy to him; very well.