by Kathe Koja
Her mood lightens as she airs out the bedding, polishes the heavy desk chair—perhaps Sir will sit here with Ru and tell him stories, or help him with his letters; Ru is good with letters, even the hayrick sees that, always bringing him those little picture-papers, teaching him songs—he loves the rhymes, the way the words link up together. He can say the words of the church songs, too, that Latin of Gloria patri, et filio, et spiritu sancto, Frédéric has taught him such—
—Frédéric who looks up this time as she approaches with her freight, his face so dire that she must stop in the doorway to ask “What ails you?” but he shakes his head, points instead to the cards she holds: “What news?” so she uncovers one with one hand and one with the other—the solemn Patriarch, the swift and leaping ace of hares—and “Sir is coming,” she says, as if that might be the cards’ full import. “What news to you?”
“Bad news,” says Frédéric drily, though he does not detail these dozen pages arrived from his mother, spotty with fallen tears, that tell in great detail how she has prayed for him, prayed so fervently at the Virgin’s altar that his father had to come and carry her away, Frédéric recasting the scene in his mind—the father mortified to find the mother weeping in public, conveying her home to be scolded: and he is quite correct, though his vision does not go so far as his father’s real shame and anger, Have you entirely lost your sense? If you howl like that, everyone will know how dire things are for us! but The Virgin knows already, the mother surprisingly sturdy above her sopping handkerchief. And the only recourse is to mend this sinful rift, and bring him home—yet he sees enough to know that next must come a visit; how soon, one cannot say, the trains are so uncertain, but it is certain that they will come…. With a start, Frédéric sees that Tilde still is gazing at him, that blue stare so acute that he must look away, tossing the letter onto the rumpled bedclothes and “It will be good to have them here,” he says, “again.”
“That Ridley asked me again—”
“I know. He asked me, too,” as Haden is similarly buttonholed in the square just outside, past the dregs of the dispersing Widows’ Regiment: importunate Mr. Ridley and Nella silent beside him in her sacklike capelet, the purity cape they call it, required fashion in the city though Ridley says it makes her look like Jocasta, whoever that is; Ridley all giddy these days with smuggled-in boxes of prints, old pictures of the circus and dancers and acrobats, ladies in gauze and spangles that would never be allowed, now, even such pictures are not allowed! And all of it stirred up by that strange puppet fellow, when the studio has trouble enough already—who but the weeping Widows and the grim police even want pictures made nowadays? And if they do, do they pay? And if they pay, whose task is it to make half a dollar go for five, and somehow keep the pot hot and the lights burning? But one might as well be talking to a picture as to Ridley when he gets artistical.
Now “I’ve been angling to take part in that pageant,” Ridley says, “the Cathedral pageant,” as Haden in his greatcoat stares distracted and nonplused; the wind is rising, the river’s dampness mingling with the bonfires in the Park, the smell of fog and burning, as if the city itself is a pyre. “It’s to be something big and gaudy, they say, to take people’s minds off, well, everything. You two,” with a wink, “St. Vitus and St.-Mary, there’s a couple of saints right there, you’d do a cracking job, eh? And there’s money in it, too, I hear, the monsignor’s flung open the coffers. —Your other friend, now, when might he be arriving, and when shall I come to—”
—but Haden is already turning away, key to lock, his mood as black as his coat, black as his own bad news: Alek the best and wiliest of his lads, Alek the thief and dodger, has been fairly pinched at last. Caught in the dawn outside a faro den, the cards still in his pocket, and no papers to show; stuck behind the cloudy window of a grey Protectorate room, pale with fear and shrugging in faith—I knew you’d come to spring me! I said so to that Mr. Pinch, I knew—though Haden’s protestations went first for nothing, there at the end of that hallway, leaning hard on the registrar’s grate: Here’s his certificate right here, Alek St.-Mary. Let him loose.
Says you’re his father, there? Young, to be the father.
What the fuck difference? Let him loose.
I’ll have to ask the official, a stupid brute recognized at once from the old days baiting Costello, but Costello was a bally Socrates compared to this sack of guts: made even more stupid and brutish by authority, crimping the paperwork in his fat fingers, seeming more and more pleased by balked Haden’s yellow glare, Haden finally forced to toss down like a trump card the name of Martin Eig—
Herr Commissioner Eig? Get off, you don’t know him!
He knows me. Go ask him yourself, tell him Haden St.-Mary sends regards.
—though what Eig would have answered is anyone’s guess, Eig the lofty and punitive, whose contact with the streets now is only through faraway windows, off-limits to the rogues and interlopers he used to solicit and pay—but in the end the bluff was enough, neither the registrar nor the official wishing to disturb the Commissioner for such a matter, Alek freed past a final threat—If we catch your boy again, you’ll go ask for yourself!—and hustled at once by Haden into the street, a corner past the sidewalk traffic, stuffing into Alek’s pockets all the bills he had in his own and Burn those citizen papers, brusque, then go get yourself lost. As far as you can, as fast as you can.
Haden, no—I’m that sorry they pinched me, I an’t pay good enough attention! But now I will, I swear I—
No. Go. And don’t come back.
Haden!
You’ll do fine. Just stay out of the army, with a swift paternal embrace that surprised them both, Haden’s arm rough about his neck, Alek’s eyes filling with tears: the last Haden saw of him or ever will, the tall youth on the corner beneath the Festus Clock, glassy-eyed as an orphan to watch Haden walk off swiftly through the crowd—
—all the way back to Liberty Square and Ridley and the alley, and Frédéric on the stairs in shirtsleeves and scarf, carrying the angel puppet now repaired, wing feathers ruffled by the breeze of his motion, as if Israfel is about to fly away: he might be a prophet coming down from the mountain, he might be one of Haden’s lads himself, he looks so young. And so dear…. How is it, even past the gulf that lies between them, as if scripted in some unhappy play, that to see Frédéric is so thoroughly to want him, in the veins, the prick, the heart, everywhere, as consumed as consuming? That very dawn—hair tousled on the pillow, Christopher medal bright about his throat, murmuring in his dreams like the boy he must have been, good boy, loyal son to his parents, those stiff-necked bourgeois to whom he sends his dutiful letters; why keep sending those letters, why waste the time or the ink? But to say so would wound him, everything wounds Frédéric these days, his skin is thinner than his script-paper. Even an idle question after waking, after love—
“Seraphim” …You’ve never told why you’re called such.
My mother named me in thanksgiving. She was—it was very difficult for her to conceive.
The stuffed shirt was a limper, eh?
Must you be so vulgar?
Yes, nettled himself, I must, up from bed and thus not seeing Frédéric take a breath to frame a softer answer, Frédéric’s hand reaching out to draw him back, hold him close beneath the coverlet—but then the frantic knocking, Pipper bringing word of Alek, Haden hasty to depart and now “Alek’s gone,” he says, taking up the brandy bottle, the yellow brandy Istvan supplies, winkled from those hotel bluebloods; and what a story that is, chapter and verse and more to come—though not a whisper yet to be said, kept between the two of them for now. “And I had to climb all the way to Eig to get him out. No, don’t fret,” to the sudden fear in Frédéric’s eyes. “It was shamming, he never saw me.”
“Alek—poor boy, he was going to play Titus Tithewell, and break Pipper on the Wheel. He said he was looking forward to that.”
“Well, you’ll have to write something else then. Why not try for th
e church pageant?” a harsh joke through the sadness—Alek one of his very first recruits, will he find work worthy of him, will he keep out of the fucking army?—looking up in surprise at Frédéric’s eyes, his telltale blush and “Don’t say,” even more harsh, “that you’ve thrown in on such ballocks! What, having them sing hymns in the street an’t bad enough?”
“How did—Are you spying on me, now?”
“Spying!” flinging down his cup to clatter and crack, staring at one another as Ru climbs silent down the stairs, hunkering on the last step as “Haden,” Frédéric the first to put out his hand, to be the better man, “you’ve said yourself that our shows are—”
“Your shows.”
“Our shows! Our theatre! And our empty pockets,” pulling his own inside out, the effect somewhat spoiled when a rain of coins falls and scatters to the floor, it is in fact rather comical but neither can see that now; Frédéric’s face is very red, Haden sucks hard at his scar, Haden whose own pockets are more empty still, the faro games already so chancy will feel Alek’s pinch, will shut their doors this week for certain, may be for even longer. “And I didn’t solicit the commission, he approached me—”
“Who approached you?” to bring a version of the story—leaving out only the gebackene Mäuse and the strange John Abram, who after conveying him to the door asked, as if already certain, Blum, that’s a Hebrew name, isn’t it—that even though abridged darkens Haden’s gaze to glittering gold, that folds his arms and “I forbid it,” flat. “You’ve got no business with that Cathedral crowd, even if your name is Seraphim. And that Krystof, he’s a paper-man, a forger—”
“He’s a man of letters—he studied at the Sorbonne. He has a letter of Shelley’s on his wall! And he’s offering me an opportunity—”
“To be fucked.”
“You are impossible! How can you say—”
“Because I know. Because I can read the street. Anyone but you could see it—Ru could see it,” as the child, summoned by his name, scrambles up to hang upon Haden’s trouser leg, tug two-handed at the hem of his coat. “If you weren’t so soft-hearted—”
“Soft-headed is what you mean,” reaching in anger and confusion for his hat, grabbing instead Alek’s peaked costume cap, Titus Tithewell’s blue brim and pigeon feathers; he drops it as if it scalds him; Ru picks it up. “But I’ll do as I think best, and make money for us honestly, not scrap about in the gutter for—”
“So I’m dishonest now?”
“You always were!”
“Only a bumpkin could be fooled by that fraudster!”
—as Frédéric at last snatches up the right hat, then his playbook and gypsy sack to exit furious past the alley door, though he does not slam it: never a door-slammer, Frédéric, no, he is too correct for that, the good boy, he could never be pinched for dealing cards nor being out without his papers, who got those papers for him in the first place? and “Damnation to them all,” Haden’s mutter to the angel who lies on the table, arms flung out as if in supplication, kyrie eleison, and where is his friend Faustus? Shall they both play in that holy pageant, march about with priests and upright merchants and whited sepulchers, or are dishonest devils not allowed? Frédéric’s father is an upright merchant, cocoa and coffee beans, and may be some fucking salt-bags on the side—becoming aware that his chewed lip pains him and that Ru is still tugging, Ru whose unknown father is surely damned, a thorough darkside masher, yet how wish it had not happened, that sin, when the fruit of it peeks up smiling at him now, blue hat sliding down over one eye and “Come see, Hay,” says Ru in his hoarse little voice, pointing up the stairs—
—to proudly show his little traps and toys and nest of papers in the room right across from Haden’s own, the room with the bed on which lies a letter sent to Frédéric, a good boy would not read someone else’s letter—especially with Tilde right there in the doorway, herself half a boy already in those trousers she fancies, may be she can spin Pipper on the fucking wheel! as “What happened to Alek?” she asks; she is sucking a stick of chicory, an oddly comforting smell. “I heard he got pinched.”
“Pinched right into the coop. But I got him out, and sent him off.”
“Good on you, for once, and the farther the better, for him. But we’ll miss the extra hands…. You two,” nodding to the letter, the bed, the empty room. “Quarreled, again.”
“Full marks for figuring that out. Now tell me what the fuck business it is of yours.”
Unperturbed, she bends to take from the floor a curled cravat, hang it neatly on a chairback and “He’s lost without you,” with no undue emphasis, she means just what she says but the words can have many meanings: and Haden gives her a look not without gratitude, a look that reminds Tilde of the cats she used to see in the village, the hunting cats come down from the hills, never to be held or even touched, but who might take meat from your fingers, or sleep awhile in the sun on the steps; Vasily used to say they were the souls of thieves who had died in those hills, come back to earth to hunt again. And what she says is only true, it is the hayrick and herself who keep this house in one piece and not a dozen, with Frédéric’s head in the heavens, and never learning yet when to stick the strainer in the tea.
Now “Baba,” she says, “time for your letters,” as Ru is led unwilling away and Haden turns back to his letter, to read and parse as if it were a novel that world of the bourgeoisie, a supremely safe world of rules and regulations from which Frédéric escaped, to come here, to do what? Accept a “commission,” an “opportunity”? And here so long, yet still so blind to the dangers, more at risk than any of the lads—
—those boys who prowl the streets still in twos and threes, a pair in the square right now, pretending to shine each other’s shoes while watching who comes and goes; but Haden’s army has lessened considerably, so many of the lads run off by the fighting or gone into a new kind of service, indentured in the townhouses where they used to peep through keyholes, pass pills, or kneel upon the beds. Now they carry packages, or attempt to groom horses, or escort through the streets the nervous matrons and their daughters, proving by their paid presence—some even wear an unofficial livery, a certain style of leather-billed cap—that those females are not prey or wanton strays, and may thus pass unaccosted by constables or sidewalk men. Frédéric in passing skirts just such a trio, two timid ladies with a hard-looking youth between them, a youth who eyes Frédéric with a covert invitation that he, head down, still furious, does not mark, that youth with an internal shrug to keep the ladies moving, conducting them to their afternoon’s engagement at a spirit party, wherein the great-uncle of the first woman is beseeched to appear with benisons from the world beyond, via a cloudy mirror and a series of shading scarves—the spirits, one is advised, cannot tolerate the glare of electric light—and a vial of holy water taken directly from the font of St. Mary of Dolors, to circumvent any devilish roamers in the air. The ladies’ own possible dolors are soothed proactively by the tray of primrose wine, offered to strengthen the nerves before those beseechments begin, and if there is more in the cups than mere wine—some rowdier spirits, say, masked by the sickly sweet syrup—the ladies never know it; though the escort youth must endure many hiccups and veerings on the way home, and no tip at all, since the ladies have already given all the funds they carried to the spirits’ corporeal guide.
The spirit parties are discussed in many other venues, from the dry skeptics’ to the passionate believers’: surely such antics are a bogey; surely such faith must prove their truth! One discussion in particular takes place in the shadow of the Cathedral itself, though no wine is distributed nor holy water either, at the residence of Alfred Elfred, stiff in new cassock and biretta, cowed unto stupidity by the presence of his own superior, the chill immaculate cardinal on his way to Rome, stopping specifically to consult about these affronts to both canon law and the Holy Spirit: “Such affairs have the whiff of hell about them,” says the cardinal, his accent strengthened by emotion, his noticeably wall
eyed gaze tracking from Alfred Elfred to the mayor to Prefect Konstantin to Felix Krystof, whose own trustworthy man, the convert John Abram, stands at the doors to prevent any secular interruptions. “And they dilute the awe in which the world of the spirit must be held. If any simonistic charlatan can conjure the blessed in Paradise—! You must do more to combat this,” coldly, as Alfred Elfred nods like a duncecapped schoolboy, and the mayor hurries to note that Herr Krystof, here, is assisting in the creation of an event that will edify the believers and overcome the dissenters, a great pageant of order and faith—
“And right on time,” says the Prefect, “before the conscriptions begin. The people have been unsettled since that funeral, they’re in need of comfort and direction, and this will give them both—many thanks to you, Herr Krystof, for your efforts. All you gentlemen shall be kept fully advised as events move forward, and yourself of course as well, Your Holiness,” a form of address more elevated than the red hat actually merits, but M le Cardinal does not correct him; pride is a sin, but it is human to sin, and even the saints are human.
If the city’s own spirit were to be conjured, that genius loci of the squares and mercantile avenues, the cafés and workrooms and classrooms and Park, it might show itself a mute and tired, fugitive figure, holding in place of the customary drinking vessel a train ticket, perhaps, or a blindfold such as a man requests before meeting the firing squad. Or it might wear beneath that blindfold the half-crazed gaze of the student of pleasure, just before all pleasures end; or the frown of the studious surgeon, as the city splits like rotten fruit halved by a hatchet, blighted entrails offered that no right-thinking god could accept; or perhaps it would wear the face of the businessman, the calm receiver of telephone calls and the maker of same, the habitué of the office and the officers’ room at the bank, having transmuted in fear and hard self-preservation from flitting spirit to the breathing air of commerce itself. If no one visits a fane, it dries and dies, or so antiquity teaches; conversely, if an entity is fed it must grow greater, and all the sustenance to be found in this city is based in money and steel—excepting only a small vagabond miscellany of faro cards, Taroc cards, trickled liquor, shat-upon Wheel, iris blossoms—the iris being the symbol of the loose woman or light-footed man—and wood shavings collected, perhaps, from the making of puppets or the construction of fine falsities meant to pass for what is true, holding in themselves a verity that no money can purchase nor steel puncture and destroy: for the true gods, whether they are named or nameless, name their own modes of sacrifice, and have always the final laugh and the final say.