The Broken House

by Tom La Farge

  As for the date, that has been left blank.

  The senator has issued a brief statement. “My wife, my daughter, and I all look forward to celebrating not only my family’s joy but the reconquest of the Hook.”

  What a world! thought Drytung. V’Detsiny speaks of his daughter as if he has only one. Has the man never imagined Piptiyya coming across that phrase: “his daughter, Annag”?

  Piptiyya came out of the kitchen, and at the sight of her unhappy face he leapt up. She held out a square buff envelope. “A man just brought this.” The envelope was of the shape that held orders. He drew out the sheet, sealed and signed by the adnomiast.

  “Shandimus wants me to meet him in the Fondooq,” he told her. “Tomorrow at ten.”

  “Take the donkey, then,” she said. “The motorbike will never get through in early morning.”

  34.

  Shandimus’ Offensive

  The donkey knew its way in the dark. A little after Drytung set out, the moon set and the clouds rolled over the sky. Piptiyya had shaken him at two and fed him coffee, walked him up through the garden to the figtree gate. Something in ’Nna’s plot blossomed at night. The forceful smell of it surrounded him as he struggled to mount, he wasn’t used to donkeys! Piptiyya straightened him, and he sneezed, but he’d traveled three quarters of an hour before he lost the pepper-camphor smell, and by then he could see nothing. The donkey ambled behind a train of mules laden with small barrels of wine. It was Nahloon wine carried by Walls mules, to be sold in Walls wineshops at prices Drytung could no more imagine than afford.

  Summoned by Shandimus. Rocking on a bony donkey. ”At your orders, Domestic!” The donkey did not reply. Why the Fondooq and not the Inner Curtain? What had Shandimus to do with the Fondooq? Drytung’s mood changed at about the time he’d grown used to the donkey’s motion, and to having no idea where he was on this well known track. He could be going in any direction at all, going nowhere, just moving. As if prepared for them by ’Nna’s pungent plant he began to pick up smells, of dung, of cooking oil, mown hay, newtanned leather, pine balsam, mold, a wafting of civet, a hint of sulfur from the fumaroles up the volcano. None carried memories or messages but just a sense of openness, vagabond airs.

  Thus the glow of the City bothered him when he saw it swell beyond the last spur of the volcano, as the mules twisted right and came visible in silhouette. Then that squat shape was the shrine of Qbulbuloo, much visited by the scrofulous poor. He was still less happy to reach the Postern Gate and be waved through at once, with a smart salute, by the sentry who knew the Proximus Drytung well from the field, even so oddly mounted. The canal, the traffic circle, the boulevard, the double gate to the Fondooq, all were stages of decay in his temper. By the time he reached the garden pavilion (the Animal School was still uninhabitable) and saw it lit, he was quite cross and snapped at Lhiss, who was waiting for him. Sent her off for hot water and while she was getting it thought that ’Nna had been expecting him. She must know that he’d been summoned. She had some further game afoot, then, and he was a pawn in it still. The sun rose while he was shaving, and as he scraped off his country face, he thought that the dream that had failed for Shandimus had also failed for him. It didn’t mean much any more to be Syr Drytung, author of Letters From the Field, and in a few weeks’ time it would mean still less. Who would read his work under the Protectorate? It would molder on the shelves at the back of Wassillis Mole’s shop. Would the Protectorate even respect his titles to the farm and the Animal School? He had fought on the wrong side and could lose everything.

  Lhiss came again at the appointed time. “Where am I to meet Shandimus?” he asked, as her hand advanced toward his cravat, whose knot he knew he’d botched.

  “In the Roohaneeya.” Shandimus in the theater! “We’re rehearsing Dunya.” Drytung did not recognize the name. “It’s the old puppetplay. You’ve seen it in the fairground. ’Nna is reviving it. They’ve made some changes. ’Nna plays Dunya, the interloper. Padli plays Marboot, the husband whom she tempts, and I’m Waqafa, his pure young wife. Kalba is his mother, Nsa.”

  “Impressive cast. What about Hamamra?”

  “She and Jbeeba will be drumming in the second half.”

  “Doesn’t ‘Dunya’ mean world in dialect?”

  “World of shit. It’s an allegory.”

  He walked into the theater by its principal entrance and into the grand foyer. Lhiss led him straight to the central arch and opened the door. The Despot’s Station! He tweaked his cravat and entered.

  Shandimus and Annag rose with smiles. Hers was painted on! Tastefully: he’d never seen her lips so clearly modeled, nor her eyes so large and blue. Her hair swept up in a coil of palest gold, and her torso had lengthened within a dark suit. On the skin of her chest hung a swag of pearls, and a substantial jewel flashed on her finger, whose nail glowed a full half-inch beyond the tip. Shandimus too had been worked up by the tailor, haberdasher, bootmaker, and barber. His beard was gone, his moustache stood alone in clipped elegance, and his hair rose in a military brush. He’d had his eyebrows clipped! No end of surprises. They were taking his hands, telling him how well he looked, how famous he was — Syr Drytung. Then they all sat down on gilt fauteuils. Annag crossed legs sheathed in smoky silk.

  “Root is to join us shortly,” said Shandimus. “His nurse has gone to fetch him.” He took Annag’s arm under his own. “Poor fellow, he’ll never walk again. That’s why we’re meeting here — one reason. The doctors say he will be in an invalid chair for the rest of his life. We think he will not live very long. The Hospitals Bandum could make him comfortable in the Incurables, but there’s no point in moving him. Let him live out his days in the house he built, my darling says, and I agree.”

  Caught up in these generous sentiments, Shandimus failed to hear the door open behind him. A woman backed in; it was Lhool, tugging a chair on wheels. Drytung saw pale hands clutching the armrests before the chair swiveled and Root advanced on them, blanketed to the chest, face grey and lined, eyes gone dead with pain or drugs. Annag rose gracefully.

  Root smiled. “They’ve made a woman of you, Annag,” he whispered. “I’ll always think of you in battledress.”

  “Syr Root!” Shandimus boomed. “We are in your debt. Your gallant action at Zbaqdeem helped to cover my retreat. But now I have another favor to ask of you — of both of you.” Annag sat and recrossed her legs, smiling her brilliant new smile.

  “You know the Senate rejected my suit to be admitted among them.” He waved aside any condolences either man might be going to offer. “No, no, it is not an important setback. We are all old campaigners and know better than to think that wars are won in a single battle. Or lost,” he added. “Who knows more about fighting losing battles than I? But this war I do not intend to lose. I have my hand on the key. Your strength must help me turn it. I am expecting to be joined shortly by our old friend ’Nna.”

  Our old friend. It struck Drytung that all four of them had been ’Nna’s lovers, that Shandimus was the one she had really loved, and he had betrayed her. “She is now close to the Despot himself. Very close.” He all but winked at them. “One of the Women. Madame Lula here is the Infanta’s wetnurse, but the debt goes deeper than that. It is no secret that the Birth was the result of their ministrations, ’Nna’s and Madame’s. In short, the Despot owes them his heir. ’Nna has influence with him. And you have influence with her.” He paused. “Will you help me?”

  Lhool rose. “Excuse me, Domestic, ’Nna has asked me to help her dress. She cannot come up just now, but if it will please you to watch our rehearsal, she will do herself the honor of visiting you here at the intermission.”

  Shandimus nodded. “Is the play about to start?”

  “In ten minutes. I will come back to seat you.” Shandimus again nodded; Lhool curtsied and was gone. Where was her baby? A girl, he’d been told, Root’s daughter, who now would never know her father.

  “The Domestic is planning his
offensive,” then said Annag. “You know we are to be married on the Hook — at our house. You visited there,” she smiled to Drytung, who ducked his head, remembering ten days of lonely paperwork and meals with the servants.

  “I must take it back first!” said Shandimus. “They say I lost it, but it is not lost. I have kept the Hook,” he said, tapping at his temple, “in here. Every foot! I know it now as a bee knows his range, close up, every fold, all the openings and closings. I learned it all on the Long Fall Back, and as I withdrew I laid down the lines of my return. Then I had no troops, no equipment. But now,” he puffed out his cheeks. “I have Schools, I have Mules, I have Stables, and I have Walls. Behind enemy lines there are plenty of men keen to fight, local men. Up in the hills the tribesmen still have their muskets and their knives. I will have an army, and my army will have a commander with the battlefield graven in his nerves.

  “Before, when I fought, what I fought for was here. Yes, exactly here. You may recall that I spoke of this: of the largeness and richness of life that plays remind us of. What we can expand to be! I have been to a few shows since I’ve been home,” he said, using the colloquialism with ironic emphasis. “At the Old Variety. The heroic dramas of the Brothers Crow gripped me as never before. The emperor Dysgenis! What a story! But,” he said, “now what I fight for does not lie in the City. I am not any more to maintain and defend a wall around,” he waved his hand, “images of expansive majesty. I must claim my honor on the Hook, for that is where it lies; in our house, where we will be married when I have broken the Protectorate; and then, Shandimus V’Detsiny, iftooby!” He spread both hands; Annag managed a smile.

  “But,” he went on, “I need a sign of support. Something to let my troops know that I enjoy the monarch’s confidence and am not opposed by this new-spirit party. ’Nna is at the heart of that. Let us see what we all can do. It means a great deal,” he pushed his face at them, eyes wide, “to my betrothed!”

  “Yes,” she said, very serious. “I want to recover my family’s house, of course. I want to be wed from there and nowhere else. But ….” She paused, pale.

  “It’s her sister, Lakikia,” Shandimus murmured confidentially.

  “I must find Lakikia. We think she must be still on the Hook. She may be dead. If so, there’s a V’Detsiny mausoleum, and I will find her bones and put them where they belong.” What would you do if you found her alive? Drytung wondered. Married to a poet of no family, raising his dark bastards — your sister who might have been Despina?

  Then Lhool was back. “’Nna desires that you will take your seats. She requests the Domestic and his kyra to occupy the Sieges.” Lhool drew the curtain from before an alcove, splendidly lit and gilt-framed. In it two broad thrones faced out. Shandimus beamed and led Annag through the little side-door that Lhool held open, while Drytung turned Root’s wheelchair.

  “How are you?” he whispered, but Root shook his head.

  “I’ve read your Art of Dramatic Poesy,” he whispered. “Very fine. ’Nna was satisfied. Not me — not quite. You’ve seen most of it. But ….” He paused, face clenched. “In my notes. Box marked Notes for D. You must take them. For the second edition.” He managed a smile.

  “I will. And your daughter?” Drytung asked with a jovial effort. “Now that we are both papas?”

  “My daughter,” he replied and waved his hand dismissively. Root’s lips formed an O and uttered, twice, a cuckoo’s call: “Coo-coo! Coo-coo!” The play began.

  35.

  The First Half of Dunya

  In the first half of Dunya Marboot is a fine young locksmith. His wife and mother, Nsa and Waqafa (played by Kalba and Lhiss), seem functions of his pious will. There is no friction in that house. All the tasks are distributed and accomplished in a sort of dance. Keys are cut and locks repaired, cheeses brought to perfection, a baby is begotten. Every action reaches its goal without let or waste, every space is adequate to its use. Then a stranger knocks on the door. A country woman: Dunya. Famine has driven her from her hut. It does not lie within the mores of that house to turn her away. But she is dark and beautiful. Nsa has forebodings.

  Drytung was enthralled. Not by Marboot’s falling unremarkably under Dunya’s spell, she too just a function, brought into being by laws very well known. All that ran as smoothly and predictably as a perfectly articulated puppet play. The action occupied only one station of the dozens in that theater, and that one had been thrust out directly opposite the Despot’s Station. It was as close to them as a puppet stage, but it was not a puppet show they watched. Ever since Dunya’s entrance the lighting had swirled about the actors with currents of rich color. Drytung could not see how it was done, but their hair, skin, and clothes kept shifting hues. They looked drowned, they looked burnt, they looked royal, they looked anything but what they were. Only ’Nna’s Dunya stayed the same, her hair and skin drinking light, and her rags reflected every color.

  Marboot is enchanted by Dunya. He wants to leave with her. Nsa and Waqafa, forced into autonomy, plot their counterattack. Nsa has seen the puppets in the fairground; they will become actresses. Waqafa selects scripts from the lives of saints and emperors. The two women act out simple plays to entertain their guest, and they grow increasingly sublime. The light around them seems refracted from angels’ wings.

  They are dazzling, and their power is pulling Marboot back. But he still desires Dunya and cannot part from her. He asks his wife and mother to let Dunya perform with them! Dunya is reluctant, but Nsa and Waqafa see their chance and take up the plan. And of course they choose the old allegorical puppet play of Dunya. Faced with the necessity of personating herself as the embodiment of a world of filth, Dunya first tries to act so poorly that they’ll declare her hopeless and give up the play. But seeing that Marboot is absorbed into the acting and impatient with her muddy obtuseness, when his mother and wife are so vivid, Dunya suddenly concentrates her energies in a performance that leaves the two women looking like puppets indeed. But the script being what it is, she also reveals herself once and for all as the true Dunya, no woman at all but a devilish zinniya. And is thrust back into the night whence she came.

  “Bravo!” shouted Shandimus, as the stage went black. “Bravo! Very fine!” He paused, seeming to reflect, then brought his palms together again. “Very neatly turned,” he said, as Annag and he rejoined Drytung and Root. “What’s left to be done in the second half? It felt complete to me. An allegory, I’d call it. Lacking the epic grandeur of the Brothers Crow, but effective. But,” he added, “the world of dunya has no form at all. It’s like history, war, the field — they’re not persons, not agents. Yet they push you, deeper and harder than any person could. It happens in your phantasy, where things are truly felt — that’s your theater, where images act.”

  Drytung wondered at this. I still don’t know him.

  “Ah, here she is!” said Shandimus, too loudly, as Lhiss and Lhool came in with trays and tables, followed by ’Nna, still in costume. She walked straight to Annag and kissed her, gripped her shoulder, and murmured words that made her grin and giggle. Then ’Nna turned to Shandimus and saluted. “Domestic, at your orders,” she said, charmingly using her old voice. Before he could think how to reply in the same spirit without using the old epithet, she had turned to Root and Drytung, each of whom she kissed. She gave Root a brief appraising look, then whispered to Lhool, who nodded and went out. And then ’Nna sat. Lhiss set out little dishes heaped with savories and salads and handed around napkins and forks. “Please, refresh yourselves,” said ’Nna. “We have a little time. The second part takes some setting up. Why,” she exclaimed, “this is a reunion! We haven’t been all together since the Wildlife Refuge, when the parrot sat on your shoulder, Domestic, and the lynx finished up your stew. I had my chameleon in the kitchen. Ever since then, I have felt kindly toward chameleons,” she said, smiling at Drytung. “That night we went out on reconnaissance, Domestic. Do you remember?”

  But Shandimus seemed ton
guetied, and Annag also was out of her new poise. It fell to Drytung to answer: “You make Dunya look like an empress, ’Nna!” And he waved at her gorgeous silken rags. The others then must find a voice to praise her, and the ice began to crack.

  “Yes, yes,” said Shandimus, “and you have risen in court almost to be an empress, Kyra ’Nna, while I have fallen back through the obscurities of the field.” It was a labored phrase, too clearly composed in advance. He was more likeable awkward than in his tailored bluster. Drytung suddenly felt how near he was to these four men and women. It was not love; it cut deeper. Their fates were tied. Together they had grown, a spreading habit, he’d have called it if they were roses.

  “You have fallen back with glory!” ’Nna replied. “Have you not read the Letters From the Field? No, Domestic, you will advance, and you will rise. I know what happened in the Senate, and I know it must grieve you that the Motherland should be so ungrateful. Do not let it! Forget the Senate!” She filled her cheeks and puffed the Senate out into the darkness of the well. “There, they are gone. These are the old men, and the gas they spout is not the new spirit. Out with them!

  “We will make a senator of you, if you like. But we will make you something greater first. The Despot has remembered the old imperial office of praetor. It means nothing now; but the praetor is appointed by the monarch with whatever powers and dignities it pleases the monarch to bestow on him.

  “Therefore the Despot will declare Shandimus Praetor! The situation demands no less. And he will give you a further sign of favor, for you must be put beyond question or objection, to act effectively. The nautomachy, you know, is to be held one week from today.”

  “I did not know,” said Shandimus. “I have not been invited.”

  “Invited!” crowed ’Nna. “You shall be summoned! The Despot wishes you to stand alongside the Throne! Your troops are ready for an offensive?”