The Troupe (12 page)

“I suppose.”

George thought about it, and asked, “What are you, exactly?”

“What am I?”

“Yes. You’re not a performer, or just a performer. I’ve seen vaudevillians do a lot of things before, but I’ve never seen one pull reflections off glass. So what are you?”

Silenus smirked, sat back in his seat, and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “You’re wrong, kid. I am just a performer. I’m just putting on a show you haven’t seen before.”

George had been told by many vaudevillians that when traveling the circuits one town soon begins to resemble another. The only thing that mattered, they said, was where the hotel, theater, and train station were. He found they’d been right, as Silenus immediately asked the conductor for directions to the hotel and theater, and nothing more. Then they all trooped off toward the hotel, groggy and mussed from their cramped berths.

George detected no unnatural silence there, so presumably the men in gray had not tracked them, and they all piled in while Silenus grudgingly paid the owner. Then they went upstairs to a darkened hallway, and Silenus slowly walked ahead while the others waited behind. George asked what they were waiting for and was promptly shushed by Colette.

He watched as Silenus walked from one room door to the next, examining them. He studied the first door on the left, and then went across to the one on the right, and then having studied that he walked across again to the next door on the left. But somewhere in this pattern he backtracked and returned to the door on the right… yet now
George saw it was not exactly the same door. He did not think that the previous door or indeed any other door in the hotel featured such black, shiny wood, or such a reddish-gold, intricately engraved handle, or such a ferocious series of locks on one side. And while George marveled at it, he realized that the door was awkwardly placed between two of the plainer ones; in fact, it seemed to have appeared in the middle of the wall between them when he had not been looking.

Silenus took a massive ring of keys out of his pocket and went about the laborious task of unlocking each of the locks. In some instances the keys had to be turned several times; in others Silenus only had to breathe on the locks to get them to open. But eventually the huge black door creaked open, and Silenus said, “All right, come and get your things.”

The troupe walked in, and the room inside was far more ornate than anything George had expected. It was more of an office than a hotel room, with a huge medieval-looking desk taking up most of the floor space. There was a bay window at the back behind the desk, though nothing was visible through its panes except some scattered stars shining a very cold light. Cabinets and closets covered every inch of the walls, some sporting nearly as many locks as the office door. An upright clock ticked against the wall, and an extremely large black steamer trunk stood next to it. On the floor was a pile of luggage, and Silenus sat down behind the desk and relit his cigar while the rest of the troupe fell upon the pile, claiming bags and trunks and prop boxes.

“I thought you all left your luggage behind at the hotel in Parma,” said George to Stanley.

Stanley took out his blackboard and wrote:
WE DID
.

“Then what’s it doing in this room?”

He thought and wrote:
WE LEFT IT IN THIS ROOM, WHICH WAS ALSO IN THE HOTEL IN PARMA
.

George was too confused by that to say anything, and Stanley tipped his hat and began to find his own bags.

“It’s best not to ask questions when you don’t need to know the answer,” said Colette.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” said George.

“You didn’t. Stanley is impossible to offend. But let me tell you the real Golden Rule here, George—it’s not ‘Do unto others,’ but ‘Mind your own business.’ ”

“I see,” said George. “Is this the procedure for every traveling troupe?”

“Beats me,” she said. “This is the first one I’ve ever been with.”

George was disheartened to hear his questions could cause any resentment. “Cheer up,” said Colette, who seemed elevated by the promise of a bed. She punched him in the arm, and it was surprisingly painful. “It’s better than being on the streets.” Then she followed the others down the hall.

George looked back at Silenus, who was turned toward the bay window. “If I were you,” he said, “I would not mention to her that you’re getting paid. Our budget is slim enough as it is.”

“How much did it cost to rent this room?” George asked.

“But she is still right, of course,” said Silenus, ignoring him. “I’d mind your own business first and foremost.” He stretched his short legs up to lean them on the bottom of the bay window. Then he kicked off his shoes and, with dexterous, monkeyish toes, removed his socks. As they fell to the floor George saw his feet were discolored: the soles were burned a sooty black, as if the man had once walked across miles of hot coals.

“Something else on your mind, kid?” said Silenus.

“I suppose not,” said George.

“Then run along and get some sleep. You’re in room eight.” He tossed a key over his shoulder, which bounced off of George’s leg. George scooped it up, threw one last glance over his shoulder at Silenus and his burned feet, and went out into the hallway. The door swung shut behind him, though he saw no one move to close it.

George’s room was next to Kingsley’s, whose door was shut. He
could hear Kingsley speaking to someone inside, though he could not understand the words. George opened the door to his own room, which was small and bare except for a bed and a washstand, and he set down his suitcase and lay upon the bed.

He was extremely tired. He had not slept properly since he’d left Freightly. His eyes soon grew heavy, yet as they began to close he heard a conversation in the next room, which was now easy to hear from his bed.

“… And will we be out of the dark then, Father?” said a deep, Cockney voice.

“I don’t know,” said Kingsley’s voice. “I would like you to be, but I don’t know.”

“Why not?” said a second, this one with a New York accent. “Why don’t you know? You should know, that’s what fathers do. They know things.”

“Yes, but I don’t,” said Kingsley. “I don’t know.”

“It will just take more, won’t it,” said a Southern, feminine voice. “It will simply take more.”

There was a long silence. Then Kingsley’s voice said, “Perhaps. Yes.”

George waited to hear more, but before he could he fell asleep.

George must have been exhausted, because he slept for the better part of the next day. He woke well into the afternoon, and after cleaning up he stumbled down the hallway to try to find Silenus and ask him what he was meant to do today. Yet Silenus’s room was nowhere to be found: the wall continued uninterrupted between rooms six and eight, where the black door had stood.

He went downstairs to find Colette in the hotel restaurant, half of which was a billiards hall. She was wearing a rather workmanlike green dress with short sleeves, and was lining up a shot on a billiards table when George walked in. “I almost thought,” she said, and took
the shot, “that you were dead.” She stood up, spun the pool cue, and watched the consequences of her shot. She nodded in satisfaction and said, “I wondered if I’d need to come up to make sure you were breathing.”

“Where’s Harry?” said George. “What happened to his door?”

“It’ll be there when it needs to be there,” she said. She paced around the table, head cocked as she considered another shot. “Harry himself is out with Stanley. Until they’re back, you’re to stay within my sight, and not do a thing.” She leaned against the table in a decidedly unladylike way and fired off another shot.

George sat down next to the table. “Where did they go?”

“Asking a question like that definitely counts as doing a thing,” said Colette. “Which you’re not supposed to do.” She lined up a shot, and grinned up at him along the pool cue. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s what it’s like, working for him,” she said. “It’s like trying to play pool in the dark, with someone describing how all the balls are laid out to you.” She shook her head, rejecting the angle of her shot, and resumed pacing around the pool table. George was reminded of a very pleased cat circling a treed squirrel. “Today is Sunday, so it’s our off day. We have rehearsal at the theater in the morning. The professor’s in his room recuperating, and Franny’s off doing whatever it is Franny does. But you and me, we’re staying right here. If you want some lunch, there’s money in my bag over there.”

“How is the breakfast here?” said George.

“Terrible,” said Colette. “Get used to that. All hotel food is terrible.” The waiter, who was nearby, heard her and scowled.

George bought an egg sandwich that was the color and consistency of sand and watched as Colette played billiards. She did not speak much, but stayed supremely focused on her game. After a while he began to detect a sort of savagery to the way she played: it was as if when she struck the balls she did not wish to knock them into a pocket, but to make them explode. Any pockets she happened
to make were a bonus. George was thankful for her extreme focus; she didn’t notice how wide his eyes grew when she draped herself over the pool table, her dark, downy arms wrapping around the pool cue, triceps undulating and snapping taut as she made her shot. She did once ask if he thought it was hot in here, as he was sweating very slightly, and George coughed and muttered something about how he was reacting badly to the sandwich, which he immediately regretted.

Colette played billiards for several hours while George watched. She seemed years older and worlds more confident than he was. He hoped to impress her by discussing Wagner, about whom he’d just read several fashionable articles, and even though George had never heard or seen any of the man’s operas he felt sure he’d be a fan. But Colette only responded with a shrug, grunt, or nod. George wished he’d worn his tweed coat; he thought it made him look very mature, and perhaps then this girl, who had so enchanted him last night, would pay a little attention to him.

Yet the girl playing billiards was very different from his idea of the girl in white and diamonds. He’d never seen a woman smoke cheroots at all, let alone with such ferocity, nor drink beer in such quantities, nor play billiards with such skill. After a while he asked her where she was from in Persia. She looked at him for a moment, and said, “Oh, Tehran.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s on the outskirts of Persia, on the coast. Where the Caspian Sea meets the Mediterranean. There’s a lot of shipping there. But it’s not Persia anymore.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope. Now it’s the Otterman Empire. It’s huge. It goes all the way up into Europe. It almost touches Germany.”

“Were the Ottermans the ones who threw your family out?” he asked.

She took a thunderous shot, which went awry. It was her first missed shot in some time. “Something like that.”

“It sounds marvelous,” said George.

Colette gave him a thin smile, and reracked the balls.

She continued playing without interruption as afternoon wore on. Then several local men entered. They saw her pacing around the table and furrowed their brows, and went and spoke to the hotel owner. The owner quickly came over and angrily told her, “We can’t have you playing here!”

Colette looked at him and the men watching her. “Why not?” she demanded, yet now her accent had changed in a way George could not identify.

“We don’t allow coloreds in here!” said the owner. “I can’t believe the front boy even let you stay! How could I not have noticed you? Get your things and get out, right now!”

Colette drew herself up to her full regal height. “Zis is an outrage!” she said in an almost unintelligible French accent. “I am not a colored! I am Persian!”

The owner and the men grew confused at that. “A what?”

“I am a Persian!” she said. “And I am no girl for you to orders about! I am Colette de Verdicere of ze Zahand Dynasty, Princess of the Kush Steppes and third removed from ze rightful trone!” She took out an ornate amulet that was chained around her neck and thrust it in his face. “I am no simpleton for you to boss around! I come to zeese shores of my own accord, and you should be tanking me for every breath I draw in your shabby leetle ’otel!”

Then she turned to George and, with the demeanor of someone airing a lot of grievances to a confidante, rattled off a long string of angry French at him. George did not know a word of French, but the end of her speech had the inflection of a question. He looked at her, then the hotel owner, then the men who had complained, and then back to her, and offered a tentative, “Oui.”

“Exactly!” cried Colette.

The owner muttered something about the vagueness of hotel policy when it came to Persians. He looked to the men who’d complained, but they merely shrugged.

“Are you saying you are willing to turn away royalty?” said Colette. “Is zat honestly what you are telling me?”

One of the men stepped forward. “I’m sorry, miss, we… Well, we didn’t understand. We don’t get too many foreign types in here. It would be a terrible thing to turn down the custom of a foreigner on account of a mistake.”

“A royal foreigner, at that,” said one of the others, and they all nodded.

“We just have a policy in this hotel that we don’t allow coloreds in,” said the spokesman for the group. “That’s all. It was an honest mistake.”

Colette gave them a cold look. “Well, I suppose I may forgive zis one time…”

“Well, we would thank you for that, really,” said the spokesman.

“Zo I do have one request of you.”

“What would that be?”

She gestured to the billiards table. “I have seen zis game played before here, but I have never been taught, nor have I had ze opportunity to learn. I am very fascinated by it. Would one of you be able to teach me?”

The spokesman beamed at her. “Why, certainly. We’d love to show you.”

The group of men then huddled around the table and began to teach Colette the game she had been expertly playing for the last four hours, only now she was jittery, awkward, and woefully inaccurate. She laughed and put her hand to her brow each time she made a mistake, often with a breathy, “
Zut alors!
” and the men would all smile and shake their heads and tell her it was no issue; it was, after all, a very difficult game for a lady, requiring a balance and physicality not often found in her sex. When evening came on they ordered a round of drinks for themselves and the Princess Verdicere.