The Bastards' Paradise

by Kathe Koja

  And did he kiss his fist, this entertainer, taking his bows, smiling his smile that was meant for all and no one in the room, that spoke of rooms and vistas and plays so far removed (yet not always so far: just around that building’s corner is a room that he and Mouse once knew, neither to their pleasure, although they did get paid) that its radiance might have been the moon’s, distant yet friendly; for a third time, yes. And if in doing so he felt a rushing frisson, a nearness so acute that it echoed in both his heart and his trousers, well …The communion of saints, they call that in the cathedral.

  As the rain becomes more insistent, it is into that cathedral that he steps, pausing to scuff his boot heels before entering, and carefully snuff his cigar. There is a service in process, perhaps penitential, a purple-stoled priest droning by the side Lady’s altar, a cluster of women offering responses; it is a restful, rhythmic sound, somewhat like the sea. In lieu of prayer, he carefully tears from one of the venerable hymnals a page—“From Paradise He Calls to All”—and fashions it into a peaked hat, small enough to be worn by his smallest partner in the bag.

  He is not what could be considered a believer, but he visits when he may: it is tranquil in the pews, and sometimes warm; a pity one cannot smoke in here! The breathless old organ at vespers, the exquisite fall of the light—so artless and superior to any trick upon the stage—and the occasional sparring conversation offered by the reverend, or curate, whomever he may be, a youngish Alsatian with flawless English; not such a fool as the others, he seems to grasp how little one can know of life in general, let alone a deity. They have spoken of sin and of the war’s troubled aftermath, of current municipal events, of whatever may lie beyond the fleshly veil —

  I’ve been to Paradise, Reverend, have I mentioned that before? It looks remarkably like a brothel.

  I’ve never been to either, sir, but I’ll take you at your word.

  —and of the church’s continuing duty to spread the news of salvation, rather a slog these modern days, so long past the age of miracles…. In the places he passed to arrive here, the barracks-rooms and backstreet parlors, the cabarets whose better days are far behind or before them, he is called Stepan, Stepan the Miraculous, a name that amuses him vastly—its virtu, its blunt expectation of blessings bestowed—though in this city he is mainly unknown, except to that curate, to the beggars and several others, and to the excellent Paola.

  Her real name he knows, but has forgotten—it may be Ivy, which would suit her, that constant, unkillable vine, she even keeps a pot or two on the windowsill, hard green ropes that she cuts, and roots, and plants to grow anew; the singular tang of those cuttings, their scent, is hers now to him, as no doubt his cigarettes are to her, or the hair tonic with its odor of quinine; he keeps his hair much shorter now, a nearly monkish cut, has grown back the wicked goatee.

  She says little, Paola, mainly sits and sews through her daily pile, sharp pins tucked to one side of her mouth; pores narrow-eyed over Elson’s Lady’s Journal and the Queen’s Fashion; executes her errands; and very rarely steps out to take a lemon beer or watch a panto—which was how she found him, though that chance conjunction explains none of the mystery on her side, her diffident yet forthright invitation, gloved hands clasped as she stood before his stage-side table, as if in some private audition. On his, it was as simple as the need for a roost, sleeping in the barroom’s backroom left one vulnerable to drafts and determined mice; and there was something to the tilt of her head, the quality of her silence, to indicate an ability to keep that silence on matters larger than a new lodger’s place of origin, or continuing lack of a legal name.

  And such has proven true. She never has asked unanswerable questions, though at times she watches when he reads the rare letters that arrive poste restante; or when he stands half stripped at the washstand, the bared scars puckered like old silk at his neck and gut…. He recalls not at all the feel of that blade entering, remembers only Rupert’s fury at his side, the white knife in his own hand; and on the rooftop, the heat then chill of the seeping blood. He might have bled out there, if the sidewalk assassin had been somewhat more skillful, he and Mouse might have gone on together into the hills…. Paola does not ask where or how those scars originated, she only notes them, and the calluses upon his palms, the raw spots at his heels for which she offers a series of unguents, and clean Castile soap; she buys him cigarettes, and mends his stockings, boils the grounds for French coffee, heats the flat with a king’s ransom in coal.

  And she has invented a story for him beyond his own stories, he has heard her tell it a time or two: with a touching and unwonted sparkle in the telling, chin raised as she offers it to her friends, that seamstress pair, thick pink wrists and felted hats —

  Name a place, he’s been in it. London, and Prague, and Paris—even America. He toured through America once, he told me so —

  Ooh, that sounds heavenly. And Paris, ooh, think of the heavenly frocks!

  He’s lying. If he went to all those places, why would he ever come here?

  He is not lying. Playbills from everywhere, he’s saved them, I’ve seen them. The Queen even gave him a sash to wear, a prizewinner’s sash, I’ve seen that, too—

  —though she does not mention which queen that queen might be, and no one asks to see the sash. Or the playbills, either. Not even her brother, the ne’er-do-well Rémy, the puffy-eyed glue-sniffer who hustles at the backgammon tables, though apparently so poorly that he is at the flat more often than not, whining for money, for a place to stay, a place Paola continues to deny him: There’s no room here for a stray cat, there’s barely room enough for me and the sewing. Whatever happened to that woman from the Junction, Mrs. Whoever-she-was?

  She made a stray of me, the bitch. Ugly old bitch. But you’ve got plenty room for that fancypants—why does he stay, still? Can’t be for romance, unless you’re dumb enough to think you’ll turn him…. You are! Look at her face, she thinks she’s going to climb into bed with a billygoat! And so on and on, until Paola gives in and gives her brother money; or his own waking, or arrival, puts a temporary end to the scene. If he meant to stay, himself, much longer, he would put young Rémy in better order, a brisk fist in a tender place. But as it is—

  “Let us pray,” intones the priest, and the women do, in devoted susurration, as an altar boy with yellow hair brings forth a smoky censer. With a smile and sketched bow toward the assembled and the altar, he withdraws from the pew, pausing in the narthex to resume his hat and relight his cigar. Outside the rain has lessened, but the street feels colder still; soon it will snow.

  He turns east, his long stride rhythmic as a heartbeat and fully as automatic, that endless traveler’s tramp down the boulevards, one and then another and another, all the same now, city after city after city, this city’s dull with red-striped dentist’s parlors and tea-and-sausage shops, a chemist’s, a locksmith’s, a sad dressmaker’s, that last shop window powdered by months of dust, its genteel boast—Step Out a Duchess!—lettered on a card left askew on the door locked tight. Though it is possible that that shop is not fully abandoned, there seems to be a light somewhere inside, a small electric flicker, and when he puts a hand to the knob it turns easily and at once.

  “There you are,” says the man at the table beneath the light: well-tailored grey suit and grey-striped vest, the complexion that speaks of eventual dyspepsia, a thin if well-barbered brown beard. “It’s after six, I was growing concerned—”

  “Apologies,” as he pulls out a chair at that table, gives a familiar’s flick to the undressed dressmaker’s mannequin standing legless and stoic just beyond it. Upon a faded bolt of butternut twill are piled newspapers, editions from all the major cities of the continent; a recent Patriot-Herald lies spread on the table itself. As he speaks, he begins to leaf through that last, spotting old haunts and familiar names, a face or two he knows as well, some very well—the Happy Prince, there, forever now the Erl-King, scowling over some honor or award presented to him by that policema
n Eig, Prefect Eig, no bedfellow too strange for the quality; and a stiffly smiling younger man between them, a fresh and hungry comer, it never ends. “I had a bit of a late start. And a longish walk.”

  “Monsieur— Why are you here?”

  “Why, I thought you invited me.”

  “Please don’t joke. You said weeks ago that you were going to Budapest.”

  “The Black Sea, yes. I am.”

  The man sighs, a weary sigh though the man is young, even younger than he looks. Perhaps it is because he has so many concerns, high finance can be a strenuous career, and he has nothing of his new father-in-law’s vitality or innate savoir vivre to buffer its demands, especially those offered by this most unbiddable charge. “All was prepared, you had traveling funds, and a clean passport—”

  “I still do. The passport, at least.”

  “It’s very dangerous for you here, monsieur, you know this.”

  He does know it, has known it, plays his own game with and upon it, a hide-and-go-seek through the streets, though what he does here is in no way illegal, is nearly liturgical in fact; it is the fact of himself doing so that seemingly can no longer be tolerated. Two of the seekers he sees frequently, a burly one with reddish hair, and a tall, Arab-looking fellow; he knows there are more that he does not see, feels their nearness like the fox feels the trap’s iron rim beneath the innocent leaves. Yet joking still, to shrug and smile: “An old jester and his old-fashioned dolls? How can such a fellow’s doings matter?”

  “Those who matter say you do—you saw M Guerlain’s letter! And the warrant—”

  “Pure fiction.”

  “It dates back to your—activity at that cathedral,” and indeed it does, the “postal affair” as it was called then: We set them to boil, didn’t we, Mouse correct on that point as on so many others. “And they hang new stories all the time, truthful or not. Some say you’ve a troupe always ready to be mustered, no matter that you travel alone—you’ve been alone for some time now, M Guerlain says,” pausing for the nod, yes, that is so. “And some swear Herr Bok’s still alive, that he was seen playing beside you in Victory Square,” which brings a different, more authentic smile. “And they all say that you carry messages, that you have intelligence—”

  “That’s nice to hear.”

  “—and that you go into the workingmen’s bars, talking of insurrection. Those songs you sing—”

  “Not me. These fellows, perhaps,” nudging the case with one fond foot: is it insurrection? or the passing-on of, yes, intelligence, the knowledge that the wheel is meant for, made for, spinning, just as cards are made for turning and re-turning, and mecs for play; that joy is no man’s servant or dupe, and true play will trump and supersede all other dicta, even that of the player himself —

  —as a sound comes to the outer door, perhaps a knock, perhaps not; both men go instantly still. A hard hand slips into a greatcoat pocket, to close around an antique knife; a nervous flush floods bewhiskered cheeks. The sound does not repeat. In the quiet renewed, the young man lowers his voice: “You won’t go to the Mole, monsieur, say that at least! All week there’s been talk, they’ll surely be waiting for you—”

  “One goes where the play leads,” down the player’s road, the only way possible, but to this young fellow, already so steeped in safety, he may as well be baying at the moon so “You’ve been a good friend to me,” kindly, folding the Patriot-Herald prepatory to rising, “and I’d not burden you any longer with my safekeeping. I will go to Budapest, I’ll go tonight, yeah? Look,” opening the case, showing beside the puppets some articles of clothing, a trio of well-used books. “I’m nearly packed already…. Be sure to give Pinky my farewells,” with both hands around his, a warm and formal clasp; the young man will remember and detail that detail to his father-in-law, who will listen keenly but without comment, though the theatrical matron beside him, that old and dear friend of the family, will shed many tears in the hearing: Was he smiling, when he left you? as M Guerlain takes her hand tightly in his own.

  The young man then watches his exit, not through the dressmaker’s door but instead into the narrow alleyway, stepping at once into a cloudy puddle that fully soaks his leaky left boot; with a little curse he wedges the newspaper more firmly into the greatcoat, that it might not suffer the same fate. The cold has indeed worsened, but several blocks away is a fine warm restaurant, the Red Lion almost too warm: shedding his coat though he wears his hat still, and adds a pair of small silver spectacles to aid his reading, very old and very scratched silver spectacles that sit rather crookedly on his nose.

  “Tea, sir?”

  “Coffee, s’il vous plaît. With a brandy side.”

  Newspaper again in hand, the article he reads, with no little pride, details a most fantastic production: “The Roulette Wheel,” penned by the firebrand dramatist Frédéric-Seraphim Blum, in language now a scalpel, now a rose, now a Roman candle to shed fire across the dark mind of Man, or anyway the men and ladies who crowded the theatre for its premiere, crowd that theatre still, though there has been if not outright condemnation then an official and enduring frown pointed like a cocked pistol at this production; it is the crowds that prevent that pistol’s full deployment, and keep the playwright and his company somewhat safe. The tale details an angel who fell from love, not sin, to rise again beside his fellow, a pair dressed in motley and dun who fling the truth in song and caper, represented by puppets called Israfel and Faustus; though which is whom, the article does not say…. And how entirely satisfying it would be, to be part of that audience! Even for one night only, just to pop in and peep, perhaps wave benediction from the flies—though that, alas, is patently not possible, some journeys are truly irreversible. If such were not the case, he might have landed in the bluebird’s nest as well, to kiss the ladies and salute the gents, and play alongside his dear stout Puss one more time. Instead “Salut,” he says aloud, raising his brandy glass.

  “Another, sir?” asks the serving girl, thinking herself summoned, summoning his nod in answer, spending the next to last of Pinky’s traveling purse to eat and drink like a lord, with a lord’s gustatory erudition: thick pea soup as salty as tears, a fat chop dressed with leek pâté, an apple tart whose topping cream, alas, is thinned detectably by goose grease; he sends back that last in favor of tarte au chocolat, Mouse would have relished that choice. Adjusting the spectacles, he peers again at the photograph illustrating the article, the handsome and studious owner, the Grecian cast to the new sign above the door, that Mercury Theatre and its Marquis who together grow more famous every day, more formidable and artistically resolute: Frédéric, who will understand best what he does now, though it is the kit who will mourn him most.

  And what a lagniappe, to cross paths that way with the estimable M St.-Mary! that tony impresario there beneath the hotel awning, with his ivory walking stick and fashionable Van Dyke, flicking soot from a sleeve of sky-blue serge, only the eyes still a predator’s, scanning the street with a stare as keen as Rupert’s might have been—and that golden gaze become suddenly a joyful boy’s as Istvan placed himself before it, his own face changing at the kit’s first glimpse: a stranger might have seen it as a door swung wide in what seemed to be a solid wall, that and the smile they shared then, instant, brief, as intimate as everything that followed. Ushered by Haden into that hotel past its silently dubious doormen, into its gleaming barroom, the best available brandy at a table draped in damask and Making the Grand Tour? his own question to the question in Haden’s eyes and He keeps me hopping, Haden’s shrug in answer; his scent is of vetiver-water, he wears a dusky pearl on his left hand. There’s some singer here he says we must engage, some Swiss girl we can’t afford—

  And yet, with a wink, you seem quite prosperous, toasting, the brandy on his lips like a kiss; a greater heart’s-ease even than he owned to himself, to see this young man once again. Time has been good to Haden, he is a true general now, worthy of everything offered by their tutelage; a general and a guardi
an, his angel is a lucky man indeed.

  Drinking then, they spoke of this and that, of journeys and friends well-met: Ru grows like a weed, you ought to see him! And dead clever, too, he can read like a barrister. That blue-eyed bitch, now, she hasn’t changed a particle…. They asked me if I’d any news of you.

  And what did you say?

  I said wherever you were, you were stirring the pot, which made him laugh, which made Haden smile, a puckish smile and She said, “No one to tell him not to, with Sir away.”

  Oh, milady, with another sort of smile, cherishing that word, “away.” And as always she speaks the truth: risks run, now, that Mouse never would have countenanced, yet how else? as he carries the flag, plays roles for both those gentlemen in the case, Ruprecht and Steven, must be the knight and the trickster together. Had her own cards not called it so? the Turn of the World, and the Wanderer who leads one on the way? And the book and keys of the Priest…. May be one ought notify the curate, in proper collegiality!

  Brandy finished and news shared, repairing then together to a different, more earthy barroom, then a dicing room, then a black-walled café not far from the Mole itself, that Mole whose clientele were briefly parsed by Haden with a professional’s frown: Uncle, you know best your own business, you weren’t born yesterday—

  And all anew tomorrow.

  —and it’s not on me to school you—