The Bastards' Paradise

by Kathe Koja

  And for himself the surprise of a lightness of heart at the heart of such simplicity, in keeping nothing beyond what one can carry, the traps and the bag, and every dawn still to offer its ancient novelty, the world renewed once more like a show when the curtains part, even through war and weariness and roads made primarily of mud, backaches and frozen toes and bellies tired of dried apples and hard bread: a world whose fine avenues and dire alleys, noisy taverns and velvet-draped townhouses have all been theirs, to take up and hold, then toss down careless as a pair of dice; how many lives they have lived, if only for a night! There have been nights upon that road when, his arms around sleeping Istvan, his own gaze half-open to track the queenly moon, he had felt—foolish to say so, perhaps, but it is true—he had felt immortal, as if the puppets and the concertina and even the truncheon had bestowed upon them some sweet form of everlasting life. For if That tramping is for boys, and so it is, so it has made them in some strange, kind way to be young again, grey as their beards might be, and scoured up with illness and scars: as if the fountain of eternal youth is a spring trickling under a lonely bridge, a clean cistern in an empty courtyard, a tin cup drunk beneath a canvas awning, waiting for the rain to clear and the journey to resume.

  Now the boy is looking at him, Tilde’s boy with Tilde’s eyes; and he not so much older himself when he found himself alone at the door of the monks’ house. Well, no such worries for this little fellow, with his mother and family and home, this boy to whom he offers not a smile—he knows at once that this is not a smiling child—but a nod, a half-grave salutation that the child returns as gravely, and “Baba,” says Tilde; Rupert sees all at once that she is very close to tears. “Tell the gentleman your name.”

  “Rupert,” says the child; he has a hoarse voice, like a sturdy small crow’s. “My name is Rupert Bok.”

  “That’s my name too,” says Rupert, reaching to shake his hand, the little paw disappearing into his own clasp, that hard hand with its twisted finger that has made music and made a fist, held a knife to send life spilling from men’s throats, held Tilde when she wept that yes, she was to have a child, this child; he glances then to her throat, expecting somehow to see the locket there with the little curl of hair, as she, guessing his gaze, minutely shakes her head: “Not dressed like this,” one hand to indicate her street youth’s weeds, the other swiping quickly at her eyes. “I keep it safe at home.”

  “Is it safe, there? For you? —Will he drink some milk?” nodding to the boy, who is now inspecting his pen, curious fingers to prod the nib, to make a dark line on the folded newspaper left behind by some other customer—the Patriots’ Intelligence, stiff headlines like marching soldiers, solemn men pictured on the steps of a bank—but “They get their milk from dogs here, it’s worse than when that skinflint was in charge. Quick it, tea,” Tilde snapping fingers for the server, peremptory and gruff, talking from a corner of her mouth like a cornerside tough to Rupert’s suppressed amusement, what an actress she can be when she likes! And then with shame he recalls another rôle she played, at that theatre across the way, the smoke and shatterings, her scream, that terrible scream and “I’m sorry we had to fool you,” he says quietly, holding her gaze since he cannot hold her hand, not here as they are, two fellows at a table. “There was no other way, but if I could have it back again, I’d try to find one.”

  “I wouldn’t. It worked. —Baba, don’t,” as Ru now investigates the copybook, looking over one shoulder to gauge what the tall gentleman will do, that other Rupert Bok, who nods then hoists him upon his lap to more easily reach the pages as “Go on,” that Rupert says, “write away,” so Ru carefully scrawls onto a blank page the letters that he sees, the question mark like the curly tail of a pig, as his mother and the stranger talk across the table, over his head, his mother who wears trousers sometimes and sometimes a dress, his mother whom he is cautioned not to call “Mama” when she wears those trousers, but “Garçon” instead. This does not confuse or distress him, since everything in his world is always changing its clothing and its face, while remaining inside just the same: Pipper is a burglar or a barking beast, the other boys are other things, Frédéric giving them hats to wear and things to say, even his adored Hay is sometimes someone else entirely, when he wears the mask and makes the angel fly. If Ru had words for such phenomena, which at his age he does not nor needs them either, he might consider it all a kind of transubstantiation, the being’s true essence shining through whether it is cloaked in felted fur, painted wood, newspaper, or hung from strings, and in fact might be better off disguised in such things, and more entertaining, too.

  The talk now is not entertaining in the sense that pleasantries are offered or happy news exchanged, in fact all they seem to speak of is soldiers and fighting, Rupert blowing on the tea which is only marginally more acceptable than the cocoa and “I hear men talking,” he says quietly, “in the hostel, on the corners—I stay back from the arcades and the quality cafés, those sorts of places, but everywhere else all I hear is fear. These,” tapping the discarded Intelligence, “seem to say so, too, except for the ones who insist that all’s well no matter what. So how do you fare, all of you, when things are so dark?”

  “We keep the doors locked. Most of the time,” telling him then of Frédéric and the shows, a tale he has heard differently from Istvan—Alas, our boys have forgotten the lessons we schooled them, it’s all Judy and no Punch—a tale that Tilde augments with the companion tale of those companions’ estrangement, Frédéric embroiled in some unknown foolishness with the pageant, Haden up in arms and in the streets “But with not so many lads as before, they’re mostly gone, or run away—Alek ran away, remember Alek? Sometimes they find work in the hotels or the hospitals, or just beg, or rob. Grown fellows do so, too, not just the boys—”

  “Like that cut-throat you cut,” his gaze gone flat, an anger that warms Tilde like a hearth fire. “We’ve seen it too, on the way here. Times are bad everywhere, ‘modern men’ or not.”

  “And soon to be even worse,” with a stoic’s shrug. “That’s why you’re back home to stay. Aren’t you?” in sudden doubt, the little mustache drooping damply as a frown but “It isn’t safe here,” says Rupert softly. “Laws or no laws he’ll play, he can’t help himself, and then what will happen to all of you? Once,” the memory in flower, as fresh as if it happened just that day, “once as lads we walked a townhouse wall, a brick wall nearly high as a tree,” picking their way like mountain goats, himself sure-footed in the lead, Istvan behind through the lock-snapped window with pinched gewgaws and a bottle plucked in passing, some apricot concoction that made them both sick, afterward. “They never would have seen us, the guards, but he had to stop and make the fountain statue talk,” Istvan’s eyes sparkling in the twilight, Listen, Mouse! as the half-draped naiad called out plaintively My pretty cunny’s cold! to spook the burghers who whistled up those guards, who chased the gutter boys and almost caught them, the escape then no doing of their own but a gift of what they used to call Krampus luck: the satyr’s wink, the purest chance to send a wagon across the avenue, its axle cracking, the horses shied then wild, tossing the load. “They had sticks as stout as tree branches, may be they were tree branches, if they’d laid hold of us we would have been in a sorry state! And our pockets were sagging full of—Never mind,” glancing down at the child on his lap, feeling the laugh in his chest, side by side with the cough that he manages to stifle; Ru looks up as his body shakes. “So that’s twice the chance for trouble: he’ll be on the stage come Hell or worse, and of all the places I ought be, that’s the last, the spot where I di—”

  “Don’t,” sharp, so sharp that Ru drops the pen, climbs down from the gentleman’s knee to stand beside Mama Garçon. “Don’t say it. And trouble—if we’re safe at all we could be safer, the hayrick’s passable, but—we need you. I need you—”

  —as Ru twists and tugs his fingers free from Mama, she squeezes so hard it is like having them stuck in a door! Once he was stuck
so, in the pantry where he ought not have been, taking licks from the molasses jar, the door hinge hurt like fire. But then Hay came and popped his hand free, poured cool wine across the red-and-white marks and Quick it, Hay had said, suck your fingers, it will drown the hurt. And it had, right away, though the taste was very sour…. Hay knows everything.

  Now Mama is pushing back her chair, the gentleman has put away the pen, it seems as if they might be done talking so Ru puts on his cap and marches past the table, one-two-three-turn, as he has seen the soldiers do on the Bridge. One-two-three-turn, one-two-three—and then is nearly knocked sidewise by the door, by men entering, not soldiers but constables marching up to the counter, pushing the tea man out of the way. Hay hates constables, so Ru hates them too, so he reaches down to his little boot heel, that has stamped through every muck puddle on the way across the square, to take a fat clump of the same and fling it at one of the constables, a very accurate throw for such a little lad—

  —as the covertly watching café crowd stiffens as one, the men hiding their brief mirth or consternation behind their newspapers, Tilde quick to snatch at her son and “Little bastard,” snarls the constable, wiping at his neck, “think you’re funny? Let’s see some papers. Yours, too,” to the tall man at the table with his book, he is too old for a scholar so why would he have a book? “Who’re you, oldster? Their father?”

  Everyone is watching now, the patrons and the servers, everything is quiet as “Yes,” says Rupert, rising, “I am. And the child meant no harm, his—brother will give him a good sound hiding as soon as we get him home. So—”

  “Shut it, no one asked you for a speech. Papers, or else!” so Rupert slips his spectacles into his pocket, seems to rummage there for his citizen’s certificate—

  —then two-handed tips the table to use it as a shield, advancing at once on the constable and his fellow, driving them back toward the counter from behind which the serving boy leaps like a frightened stag, holding them at bay so Tilde and Ru may escape —

  —but Tilde does not escape, instead she too leaps the counter to grab up one of the steaming hot pots, hurling the boiling water to drench the second constable, he roars and sags and “Go!” she shouts to Ru, “go home!” as the child struggles to open the café door, Rupert swinging the table by its legs to take down the first constable, fold him in half like a page in a book: and then he and Ru and Tilde and every man at every table exit en masse, leaving behind only fallen newspapers, half-filled cups, and a clay pipe smoldering in a saucer, as if the café has been the site of a magic trick, where all were made at once to disappear—

  —while Rupert, Ru scooped to his arms, cuts across the square and around the corner, doubling back for the alley where Tilde with coat and copybook races to turn the lock, and fling open the doors of the Mercury: on dimness and the smell of old solvents, the warped floors and new flaws and singed familiar curtains, the strange glad feeling of homecoming as Rupert, half-breathless, stops to take it all in: while Frédéric, alarmed, halts on the staircase to watch Tilde tearing off her mustache and throwing on a handy skirt, a cape from “The Turning Wheel” show, fortune’s favorite sprinkled with stars, while Ru regards this man—his father! He did not know he had a father—with a mixture of awe and much interest, wondering if his father might take out the fine pen once more, and may be that writing-book, too—

  —as Frédéric reaches the bottom of the stairs, reaches for the brandy Istvan has left, reaches to extend his hand: “Welcome back, Herr Bok!” and “Rupert,” says Rupert, as he and Frédéric share a drink and Tilde drinks, too, all of them straight from the bottle, washing away for later any questions that could be asked. Then “Baba,” Tilde calls, “come with me,” to the kitchen washtub, to scrub his hands with the detestable lye soap, while Mamma instructs him sternly that he must never, ever throw things at constables, not when the constables can plainly see who does the throwing—

  —as on the table the cards, Tilde’s cards she never carries as a lad, lie jostled from their kidskin sack into a jumbled spread of hare and Scribe, the king of crowns and the king of doves and the Jongleur facedown between them, the Whirlwind and the Harlot and old Hangs-a-man above, as if whatever deity controls such paper destinies thought it helpful to display them, to remove all uncertainties sorrowful or otherwise, and make straight the way to the conclusion of the tale. If there are certainties displayed, and there are, having to do with the lives and deaths of the members of the household old and new, their equerries and acolytes, no one reads them, for Frédéric is busy telling Rupert a condensed version of what has passed here since their fiery parting, and Tilde is busy stirring soup and giving the bedchamber one last airing, and Ru is busy charging about with a stool, pretending to knock down the ninepins-made-constables, who once were brigands to menace a knight upon the road, as everyone in the theatre must double rôles from time to time. The cards are swept back to their sack without consultation, as spoons are deployed, and onion soup and a form of chocolat accomplished though “No mineral water,” says Tilde regretfully, “or cigars,” but “I oughtn’t smoke them anyway,” Rupert says, thinking of Istvan; word must be sent to that canal side hostel, to bundle up the puppets and traps, and bring the show back home —

  —but as if he has already received that word, or foreseen it, when the key next turns Istvan is there, Haden beside him, with a pocketful of pictures and a censer made of gold, a folded sheet of scribbled names, a shriveled pippin apple and a pear and “Mouse,” says Istvan with a nod, as if his presence at the table makes perfect sense. “I brought you something,” taking from his coat the citizens’ papers and the plague mask, dropping both beside the deck and the teacups and clean-scraped bowls, the rind of black bread, the little china tub of roasted beets. Rupert leans back in the chair to reach for Istvan’s hand, kiss and set it to his shoulder, Istvan who gives a look meant only for Rupert, its depth unguessable by any other, and then a smile for those others, playful and measuring and “Hoopla,” he says. “The Mercury’s reopened!” as Ru trots to Haden who looks to Frédéric who gazes back at him, as Tilde uncorks the brandy again, and the flammable homemade beer; as Pipper and the confrères shrug one to another, and rise from roost or nest as if they could choose to be nowhere else, in the shadow of the shrouded Wheel and bodiless hung masks, broomsticks, and discarded false money, the dozen’s dozen bits of business and bric-a-brac that in the right hand, or hands, become whatever might be needful, whatever vision suggests or suggestion demands, what the gods decree or even the godlings, for power resides not only in the great, but is found everywhere that any magic, black or white, is made: and the smaller and more decrepit the better, for who suspects the decrepit, or the dead, or the wooden man with only one arm and one eye? “For one can’t have a theatre without a name, and the old name was the right one, don’t you think? Let the groundlings cry the Mercury, then! And let us play.”

  In the city that night, perhaps any city anywhere, there is no more satisfying homecoming, although mainly a quiet one, nothing untoward to rouse the interest of any passing constables or informers, or even the unfriendly shoemaking neighbor; no one hears the celebration, sees the Faustus and Israfel twirl to the music of whistles and tapping sticks and the lads’ laughter and applause, watches Ru tumble to sleep in the depths of Ixion’s fierce wheel as Frédéric, unusually tipsy, tugs Haden up the stairs for a most dramatic enactment requiring neither dialogue nor costumes; sees Tilde light the way on those stairs to the rosewood landscape, to be rewarded by kisses from both the room’s inhabitants, and a great and gentle embrace from Rupert, to whom she clings with a heart so light she feels herself to be a bottle of champagne, full and bubbling, as if she could not hold another drop. It is Istvan’s task at last to draw the purple drapes and bring the evening to a close, as Rupert drops to sleep in dreamless warm content, not after all on the catafalque bed so well-remembered, but the narrow, loving confines of the cot, the copybook beneath, as the muted tympani of the street beg
ins outside, the dawn a guest arrived too late to join the fun.

  It is a dull dawn as well as a tardy one, with rain in its train, and much grumbling from the denizens of the square, the already-wet conductors surly to the ’buses with their surlier passengers. The grey snake of the river is pocked and bubbled by that rain, pleasing the swans and the sturgeon, splashing the passersby on the Bridge, who unfurl umbrellas with shiny spearlike tips, or use newspapers to ward its dripping, the faces in those papers’ pictures smeared and clouded as if by grief, their headlines—CITIZENS ASKED TO SHOULDER THEIR CITY’S BURDENS! “ANY MAN NOT A SOLDIER IS A SPY”—another sort of grief long in the making, its mending nothing any here will live to see.

  At the spattered hotel window, Portia del Azore, in a wrapper of burnt-orange silk and lime green lace, brushes her hair the requisite hundred strokes—a lady always does so, especially one without a lady’s maid to do it for her—then sits to mend a minute tear in the wristlet she plans to wear today, as Bijou barks at the servants padding down the halls with breakfast trays, one left quietly before her own door, another at the door of Roland Smalls, whose dreams have been lurid if not especially erotic, and whose day will not dawn until much after noon. Felix Krystof takes his morning tea at his desk with many letters, some authentic, some not, all sold or on offer, while John Abram, once Abraham Joachim, who has spent the night in vigil, plates his master’s toast and boiled figs, and struggles to hold back the yawns.