by Fritz Leiber
VI
I will vault credit and affect high pleasures Beyond death. --Ferdinand
I sat down where Martin had been, first pushing the screen far enoughto the side for me to see the length of the dressing room and noticeanyone coming through the door and any blurs moving behind the thinwhite curtain shutting off the boys' two-thirds.
I'd been going to think. But instead I just sat there, experiencing mybody and the room around it, steadying myself or maybe readyingmyself. I couldn't tell which, but it was nothing to think about, onlyto feel. My heartbeat became a very faint, slow, solid throb. My spinestraightened.
No one came in or went out. Distantly I heard Macbeth and the witchesand the apparitions talk.
Once I looked at the New York Screen, but all the stuff there hadgrown stale. No protection, no nothing.
I reached down to my suitcase and from where I'd been going to get amiltown I took a dexedrine and popped it in my mouth. Then I startedout, beginning to shake.
When I got to the end of the curtain I went around it to Sid'sdressing table and asked Shakespeare, "Am I doing the right thing,Pop?" But he didn't answer me out of his portrait. He just lookedsneaky-innocent, like he knew a lot but wouldn't tell, and I foundmyself think of a little silver-framed photo Sid had used to keepthere too of a cocky German-looking young actor with "Erich"autographed across it in white ink. At least I supposed he was anactor. He looked a little like Erich von Stroheim, but nicer yetsomehow nastier too. The photo had used to upset me, I don't know why.Sid must have noticed it, for one day it was gone.
I thought of the tiny black-and-silver spider crawling across theremembered silver frame, and for some reason it gave me the coldcreeps.
Well, this wasn't doing me any good, just making me feel dismal again,so I quickly went out. In the door I had to slip around the actorscoming back from the Cauldron Scene and the big bolt nicked my hip.
Outside Maud was peeling off her Third Witch stuff to reveal LadyMacduff beneath. She twitched me a grin.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Okay, I guess," she shrugged. "What an audience! Noisy as highschoolkids."
"How come Sid didn't have a boy do your part?" I asked.
"He goofed, I guess. But I've battened down my bosoms and playing Mrs.Macduff as a boy."
"How does a girl do that in a dress?" I asked.
"She sits stiff and thinks pants," she said, handing me her witchrobe. "'Scuse me now. I got to find my children and go get murdered."
* * * * *
I'd moved a few steps nearer the stage when I felt the gentlest tug atmy hip. I looked down and saw that a taut black thread from the bottomof my sweater connected me with the dressing room. It must havesnagged on the big bolt and unraveled. I moved my body an inch or so,tugging it delicately to see what it felt like and I got the answers:Theseus's clew, a spider's line, an umbilicus.
I reached down close to my side and snapped it with my fingernails.The black thread leaped away. But the dressing room door didn'tvanish, or the wings change, or the world end, and I didn't fall down.
After that I just stood there for quite a while, feeling my newfreedom and steadiness, letting my body get used to it. I didn't doany thinking. I hardly bothered to study anything around me, though Idid notice that there were more bushes and trees than set pieces, andthat the flickery lightning was simply torches and that QueenElizabeth was in (or back in) the audience. Sometimes letting yourbody get used to something is all you should do, or maybe can do.
And I did smell horse dung.
When the Lady Macduff Scene was over and the Chicken Scene well begun,I went back to the dressing room. Actors call it the Chicken Scenebecause Macduff weeps in it about "all my pretty chickens and theirdam," meaning his kids and wife, being murdered "at one fell swoop" onorders of that chickenyard-raiding "hell-kite" Macbeth.
Inside the dressing room I steered down the boys' side. Doc wasputting on an improbable-looking dark makeup for Macbeth's lastfaithful servant Seyton. He didn't seem as boozy-woozy as usual forFourth Act, but just the same I stopped to help him get into achain-mail shirt made of thick cord woven and silvered.
In the third chair beyond, Sid was sitting back with his corsetloosened and critically surveying Martin, who'd now changed to a whitewool nightgown that clung and draped beautifully, but not particularlyenticingly, on him and his folded towel, which had slipped a bit.
From beside Sid's mirror, Shakespeare smiled out of his portrait atthem like an intelligent big-headed bug.
Martin stood tall, spread his arms rather like a high priest, andintoned, "_Amici! Romani! Populares!_"
I nudged Doc. "What goes on now?" I whispered.
He turned a bleary eye on them. "I think they are rehearsing _JuliusCaesar_ in Latin." He shrugged. "It begins the oration of Antony."
"But why?" I asked. Sid does like to put every moment to use when theperformance-fire is in people, but this project seemed pretty farafield--hyper-pedantic. Yet at the same time I felt my scalp shiveringas if my mind were jumping with speculations just below the surface.
Doc shook his head and shrugged again.
Sid shoved a palm at Martin and roared softly, "'Sdeath, boy, thou'rtnot playing a Roman statua but a Roman! Loosen your knees and tryagain."
Then he saw me. Signing Martin to stop, he called, "Come hither,sweetling." I obeyed quickly. He gave me a fiendish grin and said,"Thou'st heard our proposal from Martin. What sayest thou, wench?"
* * * * *
This time the shiver was in my back. It felt good. I realized I wasgrinning back at him, and I knew what I'd been getting ready for thelast twenty minutes.
"I'm on," I said. "Count me in the company."
Sid jumped up and grabbed me by the shoulders and hair and bussed meon both cheeks. It was a little like being bombed.
"Prodigious!" he cried. "Thou'lt play the Gentlewoman in theSleepwalking Scene tonight. Martin, her costume! Now sweet wench, markme well." His voice grew grave and old. "When was it she last walked?"
The new courage went out of me like water down a chute. "But Siddy, Ican't start _tonight_," I protested, half pleading, half outraged.
"Tonight or never! 'Tis an emergency--we're short-handed." Again hisvoice changed. "When was it she last walked?"
"But Siddy, I don't _know_ the part."
"You must. You've heard the play twenty times this year past. When wasit she last walked?"
Martin was back and yanking down a blonde wig on my head and shovingmy arms into a light gray robe.
"I've never studied _the lines_," I squeaked at Sidney.
"Liar! I've watched your lips move a dozen nights when you watched thescene from the wings. Close your eyes, girl! Martin, unhand her. Closeyour eyes, girl, empty your mind, and listen, listen only. When was itshe last walked?"
In the blackness I heard myself replying to that cue, first in awhisper, then more loudly, then full-throated but grave, "Since hismajesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throwher nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth--"
"Bravissimo!" Siddy cried and bombed me again. Martin hugged his armaround my shoulders too, then quickly stooped to start hooking up myrobe from the bottom.
"But that's only the first lines, Siddy," I protested.
"They're enough!"
"But Siddy, what if I blow up?" I asked.
"Keep your mind empty. You won't. Further, I'll be at your side,doubling the Doctor, to prompt you if you pause."
_That ought to take care of two of me_, I thought. Then something elsestruck me. "But Siddy," I quavered, "how do I play the Gentlewoman asa boy?"
"Boy?" he demanded wonderingly. "Play her without falling down flat onyour face and I'll be past measure happy!" And he smacked me hard onthe fanny.
Martin's fingers were darting at the next to the last hook. I stoppedhim and shoved my hand down the nec
k of my sweater and got hold of thesubway token and the chain it was on and yanked. It burned my neckbut the gold links parted. I started to throw it across the room, butinstead I smiled at Siddy and dropped it in his palm.
"The Sleepwalking Scene!" Maud hissed insistently to us from the door.