by Kathe Koja
After dinner, he leads me aside, Señor, just past the arch of ivy and white roses: his eyes are shining, too. “What a day,” he says; he wrings my hand, he is more than a little drunk. “Gitte, and you here, it’s everything.” He wrings my hand again. “Everything I ever wanted.”
I hold him to me for a moment, just one moment; like being the papa. Sharper than a serpent’s tooth, her white teeth: she watches from across the hall, from inside her circle of bridesmaids, of well-wishers and sycophants, she cannot hear what we say. “I wish you all happiness, Señor, always.”
“I know you didn’t—you weren’t sure about her, at first. But I’ll tell you something,” he mumbles. “A secret. She’s going to have a baby. A little baby boy, we saw the image at the doctor’s already . . . She doesn’t want me to tell anyone, but I’m telling you. Only you,” and he wrings my hand again.
I draw him to me once more, I murmur in his ear. “Do this one thing for me.” Radiant, yes: now I know why. A little baby boy. “One thing only. Say to me that you will name him Gianfranco.”
A tear trickles down his cheek. “Jesus, sure, I will. Oh, I will.”
She is leaving her magic circle, she is crossing the dance floor now. You were the king for so long. Why do you hate me? Unless you insist on being a prick. “Promise me, Carlos, for all I have ever done for you, for your work, all the years, everything.”
“I will, I swear I will.”
Now she is between us, she links her arm with his, pretends surprise at his tears, turns to me a scolding, playful look that is truly neither: “Now what’s all this? Did you make my husband cry?” And she dabs with her sleeve at his eyes and laughs, and he laughs with her, and I laugh, too, just a joking old man, a funny old friend of the family, a doting grandfather . . . Half an infant when I met him, yes, but a real infant, a baby, baby Gianfranco, think of that. My name, my hand on the pram, my voice the first voice he hears, singing, soothing, teaching— And Mummy busy at the atelier and the office, Mummy pushing Papa along in his pram, why, who better than funny old grandpa to help Baby grow, to be everything his father was not, could not be, was too weak to be. Always there beside him, always my voice in his ear—
“He cries,” I say, “for pure love of you, Señora.” Carlos beams. She does not know how to answer me. I beam as well. “Look, they’re calling you, see? Time to go and cut the wedding cake.”
I shepherd them back across the floor to the cake and the bridesmaids, I take my seat again beside my Lu, the silver knife is lifted, the happy music starts. There’ll always be a place for you in our lives, oh my yes, Señora, toujours.
FAR AND WEE
My job, senhor, was to pull the drapes. Smooth and slow when the shows began, and quickly when they ended; sometimes very quick, the men got too excited, they wanted to climb onstage. The players laughed about it, after: Did you see him? The walrus belly, yes, did you see? And the old one, Old Cheeseface, why I thought he would die! They laughed as they scooped up the flowers and the calling cards, the shiny tokens stamped with a C. Sometimes I picked up the tokens, too, but not to keep; that would be stealing, and I am no thief.
I told him that, Master Konstantin, the first night I came, out of the snow. The last few miles, before the City, felt to me like a dream, what is it called, the very bad dream? A nightmare. I had wrapped my boots with strips of rag, my fingers were so cold they had stopped bleeding. When did you last eat, sonny boy? Master Konstantin asked me. We could cast you as Rawhead and Bloody Bones . . . All these beggars. It is bad in the City, now.
Oh no, I said. I remember I could hardly stand upright, the room—orange coals in the grate, the smell of hair oil and hot tea, the electric candles, Annelise yawning and tugging her curls—it was all like heaven to me, being inside, being warm. I came here to work. The soldiers told me, go to the theatre. And I am strong, messire, I can work hard, I am no thief—
That will be a nice change for us here. Annelise, call Ambrose, have him take sonny boy here belowstairs . . . Keep your hands off the players, Sonny Boy. That was the way I came to the Capitalia.
At first I did only the work no one else wanted: emptied slops, filled the grates, carried hod and water, cleaned the vomit in the jakes. The players treated me like part of the wall, sweeping on and off the stage all shiny in their costumes, their masks like the faces of birds and beasts, of demons. Some of those faces frightened me, the horns and the painted fangs, but I never showed it; I am not a child, I am a man. And some of the costumes the players wore . . .The Capitalia makes a special kind of show, you see, it is all about love, you see, between men and women. That kind of love. You understand these kinds of shows, senhor, I know; you live in the City.
And at the Capitalia, the players are the most beautiful of all, the most skillful in their acting; they can make anything seem real, as if it is really happening right there in front of you. This is why the men come night after night, past the soldiers, through the snow, this is why they stamp their feet and whistle and throw jewelry, and silver cigarette cases, and their calling cards, and the tokens Master Konstantin sells. Because they watch Alma, and Suzette, and Geraldina, they watch the things that they do and think, Oh, that could be me up there, holding that beautiful lady, that could be me doing all the things that they do . . . So the men get hot, watching. And no one made them hotter than Annelise.
It is not only that she is beautiful, senhor, although she is very beautiful, there is no one more beautiful at the Capitalia, in the whole City. It is the way she holds herself, the way she walks, the way she looks over her shoulder that makes you think you are the only man in the world, the only man for her. The men throw so many tokens, I have seen her wince up her eyes: “Like a hailstorm,” she said, it was the first time she spoke to me, stepping off the stage, fanning herself with the feathers of her bird-mask; some of her curls were stuck to her forehead, little half-circles of gold. “Look, they hit me,” turning her bare pink shoulder to show me the red marks there. “Idiots.”
I did not answer her, I did not know what to say. That Annelise would speak to me! All I could do was smile, and help her gather up the tokens, dozens of tokens, we made sure to get them all. The players cash the tokens with Master Konstantin, to pay for their food and their lodging in the theatre, buy scents and silks, corn plasters for their blisters, all those things that ladies need. At first they slapped me off the tokens, but then they saw that I did not steal, so they trusted me, the ladies. Annelise trusted me.
Master Konstantin trusted me, too, more and more as the weeks went on. He put me on the door, to help Ambrose with the men; some nights he let me watch him count the money. He gave me a frock coat like his own to wear, with silver thread on the arms, and pomade to put on my hair; he showed me how to use powder to wash my teeth: “—to ease the carrion whiff. We will civilize you yet, Sonny Boy,” he said, and I smiled; Ambrose frowned. Later, on the door, Ambrose said to me, “Don’t mind him, that old vulture. You are civil enough already, for this place, Sonny—what was your name in your village?” but I only shrugged. I did not want to lie to Ambrose, but I did not want to talk about the village, ever, about the fields and the mud, the shit on my bare feet—I was nearly grown before I had boots to wear, the ragged boots I wore into the City, tied to my ankles with rags. I was Dusan, there, and here I am Sonny. Would Annelise let Dusan run her errands, or lace up her little shoes for her, sweet little shoes, like a child’s? Would she smile at him, the way she does at me? I never want to be Dusan again.
“I am done with that,” I told Ambrose, “the farm and the beasts. I am in the City now.”
“Plenty beasts in the City, young man.”
• • •
At first I thought he was just a drummer, one of those who go from place to place selling sundries, candies and horse tobacco, poultices for the toothache and such. Except he carried a rusty flute, and he was so dirty, he looked as if he had never been
in a city before, never slept inside. His cart was dirty, too, its paint worn away, one side missing a wheel, and he pulled it himself, crookedly, like a beast. He looked like a beast, the players laughed about it: “See those woolly arms,” Geraldina said. “Like a ram’s. All he needs are the curly horns.”
“Do you speak?” Alma asked, tugging at his coat sleeve, ragged like the rest of him. “Or can you only bray, hmm?” and she laughed, and Geraldina laughed, and Suzette, and he laughed with them; Annelise did not laugh, only sat watching and smoking, letting the smoke drift out from between her pink lips.
They all bought things from the old man—Ambrose, too; even Master Konstantin bought tobacco from “Pyotr,” he said his name was, rumbling it out past his beard, the red mouth deep inside like a smelly cave, and “Don’t you ever wash your teeth?” I asked him. My voice was louder than I wanted. “For the, the carrion whiff?”
“What’s biting Sonny?” Geraldina asked, head to one side, smirking, Suzette giggled and I stomped away, angry; Master Konstantin asked me as well: “What ails you?” after the night’s shows were over, counting out the money in his office. On his desk was the bottle of gin, he always drank while he counted. That night he offered me some. It tasted sour.
“You don’t like old Drummer Pyotr and his flute, do you? That song he plays, ‘Far and Wee,’ it’s an old song, isn’t it? Ancient airs and graces . . . He’s staying only for the night, tomorrow he’ll be on his way. So what ails you?”
I shrugged, I did not know how to answer. No I did not like him, the way he dragged his ugly cart behind him, the devilish way he smelled. The way he looked at the ladies, at Annelise; the way she looked at him, but “He can stay or go,” I said. “Either way, I don’t care.”
“That’s the first time you’ve lied to me, Sonny Boy.” He was smiling, counting through the coins, something was funny to him; was it me? “It’s our Christian duty, is it not, to offer shelter to the vagabond and the orphan? Go on, have another drink,” and I did; in the end I drank quite a lot, enough to make me dizzy, to send me into the jakes, I thought I was going to vomit so I closed my eyes as the walls spun around me, listening to the sound of water dripping, the sound of heels click-clacking on the floor, clip-clopping like hooves—
—and I opened my eyes, senhor, I swear I opened my eyes and I swear I saw what I saw: that man, that Drummer Pyotr with his hairy legs ending not in shoes or boots or even feet but hooves, I swear that man had hooves like a goat’s. And I looked up, straight up into his face, his laughing face beneath the shadow of the horns, and “Shall I play you a song?” he said, and his laugh was the sound the goats make when they breed. I jumped up to grab him, but I fell, face down and filthy, and by the time I scrambled up again he was gone.
First thing dawn, my head hurting, I went to Ambrose in his little room by the door, Ambrose who sat on his cot and listened, scratching his chest, and “You were drunk, young man, that’s all. Drink does that to a person, helps them see what is not. Like Geraldina and her belladonna—”
“No. I mean, yes, I drank gin with Master Konstantin, but I know what I saw.” Ambrose did not say more, but I knew he did not credit me. Who would? Master Konstantin? He would laugh, Oh the drunken farmboy saw a goat, no surprises there. No use to tell Geraldina or the others, to tell Annelise—
—who I saw that very evening, before the show, in the courtyard beside the goat-man, as he filled his little bucket at the pump. They spoke, or at least she spoke to him, what did she say? with her hand on his arm and her head to one side, like a cunning bird, a bird flirting for crumbs; so when she had gone I went out to where he sat, cross-legged before his cart; he wore boots, stout workingman’s boots, but that did not fool me.
“I saw you,” I said. “I know what you are. You should go away, quickly, before I tell Master Konstantin.” He did not answer me. “You don’t belong here, in the City.”
“Nor do you.” His voice was serious but his eyes were laughing, laughing at me. “You are not from the City either. You are a creature of the fields, just like the beasts.”
“I—I am civilized! I work here!”
“I work everywhere,” and he laughed as I walked away, back into the theatre, what could I do? when no one would believe me? and all the players liked him, Suzette and Geraldina, silly Alma sitting on his lap, giggling as he pretended to feed her like a baby, chocolate smeared on her face but everyone thought it was funny, even Master Konstantin laughed. Even Annelise laughed, then smiled at me when “That drummer,” I said to her, quiet in her ear. “That man is not good.”
“What man is?” but she was smiling still, teasing me. She wore her spangled costume, the ribbons trailing black down her back, her pink skin flushed with sweat; I could smell her, a sweet clean secret smell. “He is a traveler,” she said softly, as if to herself. “He has been everywhere, St. Petersburg, everywhere, every city in the world.”
“Did he tell you that? Out by the pump?”
Her smile changed. “How do you know I spoke to him? Do you watch me, Sonny? Are you like those men in the theatre, do you like to watch?” and she left me there in the hallway, her smell still in the air, like something I could almost touch.
And I went out to the courtyard, to watch some more: for what? his empty cart? which was all I saw, there in the moonlight, the three-wheeled cart like a broken promise. Ambrose found me there asleep in the morning when “Get up,” he said to me, not unkindly. “Move that cart into the shed, Pyotr will stay with us awhile.”
“Stay? Why?”
“Ask Konstantin,” but when I went to him Master Konstantin arched his eyebrows: “We can always use a musician, hmm? And the girls like him.”
“He stinks like the mating barn.”
“That must be why,” and Master Konstantin smiled, but grew curt when I kept talking, tried how I could to say what I knew but “How is it your affair?” if the old man, old goat, old Pyotr made music for the ladies, tootling his stupid flute, the music made the girls wilder, which made the men throw more tokens, which meant more coins to count at the end of the evening, so “What ails you, Sonny Boy?” Master Konstantin said, drinking gin; this time he did not offer me any. “Shall I pull you off the door, send you back to the slops? Or all the way back to your greasy little village? Don’t ask me about Pyotr again.”
What could I do, senhor? as the days turned into weeks, as the spring came on, the time of power for things like him. I kept watch as best I could, trying to find proof of what I knew: as he played his music, the creeping, tootling, dirty noise of his flute; as he ate like the beast he was, that red mouth dripping spit, once I threw down a handful of straw before him to see if he would gobble it up, but he only laughed at me.
And I watched as one by one the players crossed the courtyard in secret, Alma and Suzette and Geraldina, it was no secret what they did there, all of them. All of them. Even Annelise. Watching her walk back to her room, wobbling like a foal, I cried, senhor, I know it is not manly but I cried. Because I had so much wanted—I had thought that perhaps one day, if I was civilized enough, I might go to her, Annelise, and we, she and I—
—but him, Pyotr, rutting there in the cobbles and the mud—and he was old, grizzled and dirty and old, and so I went to Geraldina instead, Geraldina who laughed but was not surprised, who did not say no to me; Geraldina never said no. Afterwards she asked, “But how will you pay me, Sonny? It can’t be free, even for you.”
“I’ll give you something,” I said, something for us all, because something must be done, and quickly. Because now Pyotr was wearing a player’s hat, with golden braid, he was sleeping inside, under the stairs, boots on always but I did not need to see again, I knew what he was. And he would end by making beasts of us all, Annelise, everyone. Even me.
But senhor, truly, I gave him one last chance. As God is my witness, I went to him where he sat beneath the stairs, wrapped in a stable blanke
t, still wearing the braided hat, and “Go away,” I said to him, through my teeth. “Go away from here now, tonight.”
“From her, don’t you mean?” but he did not laugh, only crinkled up his eyes at me and “Your name, your true name, is not Sonny, is it? What did they call you, back on your farm?”
“Yours is not Pyotr. Is it.”
“Wise child,” and he did laugh then, showing me his ground-down teeth, nubs in the jaw, and “Tonight,” I said. “I won’t warn you again,” and I left him there, to collect what I needed, to finish my evening tasks. Geraldina tried to stop me in the hallway but I put up my hand at her, to say Wait, wait until after the show—
—which that night was very wild, I had to close the curtains early; Ambrose and even Master Konstantin had to help me, yanking them shut on the backs of the gasping, grasping men, tokens spilling out of their pockets, the players fleeing: Alma got her ankle wrenched, Suzette was stripped almost bare—
—as the flute shrieked on, old Pyotr on the side of the stage staring over all our heads as if he saw something amusing out in the darkness, playing on and on as the men were herded out, cursing and pushing, as Master Konstantin came back wiping his brow, stood shouting at Pyotr which was what I needed, all I needed, to go and fetch the gin and the wine, and “When it begins to cost instead of pay,” Master Konstantin said, “that is where I draw the line. You see Alma hobbling? She’s finished for the week. And Geraldina will have a black eye, the stupid cow. —Ah, that’s good,” as he took the drink from me, his bottle of gin, and the little tin bucket, Pyotr’s own bucket half-filled with wine that I took from the cask in the cellar, took and mixed and mingled and “None for you,” Master Konstantin scowled at me, “you can’t hold your liquor, go on,” back to the doors to sit with Ambrose and to wait, wait until it was later, very late and they were all asleep, even him. Especially him, snoring like a bull under the stairs.