Under the Poppy (33 page)

“Isobel,” rising from the lover’s bench, a man’s voice, she nearly drops her cigarette. “Pardon, not to alarm. I thought I would take in your handiwork, while I cooled my heels.”

His voice has not changed, his voice will never change: mellifluous, and cordial on its surface; he had ambitions, once, to be a player, a poet, to alter the world with his words. His silver hair catches the faint filtering moonlight; he still wears the silver ring on his thumb, her father’s ring.

“I did not know you were in the city.” She hears the tension in her own voice, the girl in it, girl on a garden path. “Or I should have asked you to join us. When did you arrive?”

“I would have liked that,” says the man, the General, in mufti or not he always seems martial, fixed for battle; he does not reply to her question. With the tip of his finger he strokes a drooping little blossom, already withering from the cold to come. “It’s pleasant, though, to come upon you here. Like Lilith in the gloaming.”

“Will you take wine,” she says, turning back for the French doors, cigarette burning close to her fingers but she barely notes it, keeps her attention on the General who follows at his leisure, accepts a bit of brandy, speaks of this and that, of friends in common—Letitia van Symans, Honoré Guerlain—of how “The city’s changed since last I visited. More hectic, more—modern.” Tapping his ring musingly against his glass. “All those café men on the boulevards! And the theatres, why, there must be half a dozen that I’ve not seen before. Do you go much to the theatre these days, Isobel?”

Her name in his mouth, how does he contrive to make it sound so? “When I may, yes. One enjoys a well-made play.”

“Your man said you had some stage-folk here tonight, along with the beguiling Fernande.”

“Yes—a Miss Bell, quite amusing, she makes puppet plays for the children. And her partners, M. Bok and M. Dieudonne—”

“Bok?” His gaze changes. “You had Rupert Bok here?”

“And M. Dieudonne, yes.” Wary now, what has she given him? “You know them?”

“Oh indeed,” with a smile of private cheer, “I had the benefit of watching them play some years ago. You say they’ve a young lady with them—a redhead, is she?”

“No,” slow, she drinks before she answers. “Miss Bell is a sturdy blonde.” How does he know these guests of hers, what does he want? what does he ever want, come in the dark like an apparition, like Vulcan rising up from the ground—or no, it was Hades who rose from the earth, to take young Persephone unaware. The gates of Hell, the gates of Eden, were they made of the same material, made to last forever—as he does, in thirty years he has not changed: that raptor’s calm, the lines around his mouth when he smiles and “Puppetry,” he is saying now, “is a discipline, and quite satisfying when it’s done correctly…. Your brother, was he at dinner tonight?”

Is this the true direction, then? Her heart sinks, then settles, a soldier’s at the first warning shot. “Yes, he is here in the city for a time.”

He sets his brandy aside. “A pity, that business with the tutor, the boy should have sense enough to keep out of such scrapes. Isidore was grieved, I know.”

Hades: and Vulcan, yes, at his forge, misshapen thing pounding with a hammer; yes. “It’s very late—would you care to stay, Hector? You can speak with Benjamin in the morning, if that’s your wish.”

“No, no, I’ve a rider outside,” bending to kiss the hand she extends, the glove and “
Au revoir
,” with a pleasant nod, “sweet dreams,” and then is gone, to the dark, to his rider, the man on horseback; while upstairs, the faithful lady’s maid must spend a long half-hour massaging Madame’s temples with violet water, trimming the lamp, fetching more matches for Madame who will sit half the night smoking, knowing she will not sleep, watching the moon bless the garden, listening to the rustling of the wind.

Isobel de Metz

He came to me out of the garden, if I live a thousand years I never shall forget that sight: down the path tugging his little stick-horse, collared like a pierrot, so infamously dirty I thought him a servant’s child, a dunghill bloom as one sometimes sees. Then the nurse came running, dismayed and frightened, and I knew whose child he was.

From the very first he called me Belle, sometimes Bella when a sweet mood strikes him; always a creature of moods, whims, always pleased to bow to his own passions. Screaming when I took him from the nursemaid’s cottage, then clinging to me in the carriage like a little monkey at a fair, arms around my neck, breathless with pain and loss. I held him all the way to Paris, my arms went numb as wax, I never moved once. I would have kept him with me forever…. And Hector,
mon Dieu:
Isidore was grieved, I know.
Enthroned in his chair, arms clamped to its sides and
He is your brother, Isobel, why can you never seem to manage him? It is well that you have no children of your own.
While Charlotte sniffled in the corner, perhaps she fears a disgrace on the family name. “Manage?” Myself I dealt with Petkov, paid him, sent him packing with a warning to keep his trousers buttoned in future, and he on the verge of tears himself, asking might he send a note, just one note, to the young master, if it could only be permitted—?

Be wise,
I said.
The coach is downstairs.

Only a note, Madame, I beg you, only to say goodbye,
hanging onto my sleeve like a stage tragedian, one does not know whether to laugh or cry at such folly. Love!
I love him, Madame,
and Benny off drunk and lolling in some abattoir with that silly Pinky and a purseful of whores, girls, boys, whatever the broom swept up.
Do you think the young master will visit you in gaol?
I asked him.
Don’t be an ass.

The young master, yes, he will reach his majority soon. Then what? Paris? Or Chatiens? Or some roadside idyll, like those poets he so adores:
I shan’t be hidden away in the country, Belle, whatever he expects.
What
does
he expect, Isidore, watching sidewise like a scorpion, like his famous zodiacal clock? He thinks he loves him, Benny: Benjamin the last-born, beloved of the patriarch, like some story out of the Scriptures. If it were worth the wondering, one might ask what makes Isidore what he is, a man who buried his first wife without ceremony or display, gave their daughter to the backstairs servants to raise, saw her twice between that day and the day he married Rachel: there in the doorway in his bridegroom’s finery, staring down at me and You must mind my wife now, Isobel, if you are to stay. Her idea, of course, to have me there at all…. I recall how lovely she was, golden hair so rare for a Jewess, and those beautiful brown eyes; she was always kind to me, she had no need to be but she was kind. And Benny was her heart’s darling, a perfect infant, perfectly formed. If she had lived…. It was I who taught him his letters, who gave him what manners he has, who suffered him when he raged, who held him when he wept—he would permit no one else—who found for him all that he needs, has ever needed. If Rachel had lived, he would never have been mine.

And mine, still, to try to manage, Petkov only the latest of his sallies—that riding master, what was his name? Awful, to have the stables so disrupted. And the poor German, the one with the yellow beard, the servants said he drowned himself, though I suspect that was merely servants’ chat. Still, the fellow was quite despondent…. Which will not be the case with Mr. Entwhistle,
there
is a Calvinist and no mistaking. Excellent references, but the man told me he had never tasted liquor in his life, as if that were a boast to be proud of. And what he meant by peeping in at the dancing, I have no idea. Perhaps gathering evidence of our moral collapse? Benny loathes him.

It was a lovely evening, that dinner, and Benny was a delight, all he can be when he means to: even dressing the part in his schoolboy attire, cologne on his hair, on his very best behavior for M. Bok, who took his eye at the Opera Mauve—that little comedy with the punch—M. Bok and his friends whose presence Fernande deplored:
Bad enough they were at the burghers’ ball, must we have them in the house as well?
Fernande, who used to bring the butcher’s boy up the back stairs to satisfy her taste for meat.
That’s the young lady who plays with poppets, is it not? Poppet herself to the both of them, no doubt. All players are whores.

Perhaps they cohabit in filial affection, as you might with, say, a serpent? I shall have whom I enjoy at my dinners, Fernande.

Benny’s enjoyment was quite plain, though I fancied M. Dieudonne was somewhat unimpressed.
There
is a cloven fellow, M. Dieudonne, handsome as a player should be; what is his true name? I am sure I shall recall it with time. Miss Bell is a good little girl, obviously pleased with her circumstances, and why should she not be? A servant once, no doubt, she has that busy air, perhaps a housemaid who found that there were better things to do in the world than serve tea. I shall certainly attend one of her shows.

And M. Bok, yes, there is a man who knows how to be silent. Much different from his colleague, but just as striking, one can see what Benny sees in him. If he would have only a bit of Benny, only enough to get us through this season, get us safely off to Paris, that would ease my mind considerably. Especially now that Hector has returned…. If there were a God, there would be no Hector, I am morally certain of that. Perhaps I shall quiz Mr. Entwhistle on his theories of original sin.

The streets around the theatres, the so-called Gaiety District, are busy every night, all night, for all the men and their ladies, out for an evening’s play at the grand arcades. Linked by alleys and walkways, three floors of wood and sheltering glass, one may stroll for hours through the crammed shops,
lèche-vitrine
as the saying goes, to seek or buy whatever takes one’s eye or fancy: false golden earbobs, painted picture-fans, translucent fish swimming in metal pots carried all the way from China. One may watch dwarves leap from ladders into the arms of giants, take in a cyclorama, eat burned pork, gamble on dice, have a shave or a scented bath (although the water in the basin ought not be examined too closely), read the latest novel, have one’s stars charted and future revealed, while dodging hurdy-gurdy men and little boys who will steal the spectacles from your face, then sell them back to you for thirty pence. There the bourgeoisie rub elbows with the workingmen, a swift commercial traffic of men in silver spats, girls in black stockings and spotted veils, carpet-knights and governesses out for a lark, vendors of cigars and half-pint flasks, of the little papers of powders that make a man feel young again, at least until the first light of dawn. The carriages that come and go are hired hacks, weary horses, stoic drivers who swab out the seats when the night’s journeys are through; the music that blares and sputters through the cabaret walls is brassy, strident, a Siren with a ribboned tit and no shame at all:
Come in, boys, come and see
! the dancers and the shows that run well past midnight, where nothing is promised that is not revealed.

The Veau d’Or and its several brethren occupy a different landscape, not so far but still a world away: where the music is stranger and more muted, the girls less on display, though nearly everything is still for sale, even the poets whose howls and sighs are produced for art’s sake alone. Here the drinks are of sloe gin or whiskey or shared absinthe, and the watchers poetical themselves, praised for their praise or censure by the poets they heckle or applaud; sometimes they even climb the steps to duel onstage, spooling out couplets on the spot, political, scatological, pelting one another with rhyme until a winner is declared by the crowd, or, in case of a tie, by the master of ceremonies, occasionally paid for his partisanship, though just as likely to give in to spite or whim. It is a pocket universe, this poets’ haven, and one in which few questions are asked of its visitors, and much ill behavior is tolerated if one has talent enough, or cash.

Such as the young gentlemen holding court in the corner farthest from the door, in their gaudy waistcoats and jongleur’s shoes, a parade of bar girls flitting past to flirt or play at being scandalized, sipping drinks and twirling curls: these boys throw money with both hands. Most generous of all is the redhead in the eye-popping coat, red and blue in a pattern less plaid than outright war, his tie askew though “I’ve done it up several times already,” he confesses to the girl on his knee, a little blue-eyed creature with cheeks as pink as a doll’s. “Fact is, it looks a hangman’s noose. Will you tie it properly for me, Miss—Miss—what is your name?” and “’Ware, Pinky,” burbles another boy at the table. “May be the tie is telling your fate! You’ll be hanged by morning for drunker—drunkenness.”

“Or spreading the clap,” chimes another, bringing forth a happy litany of all the possible crimes of which the redhead could be accused, the boys laughing, the girls laughing, everyone laughing but the dark young ringleader, half-mast gaze fixed fully on his glass until “
Merde
!” his sudden shout at the stage, where a lanky fellow in a yellow jacket shares his opinion of the current civic administration, in endless quatrains. “You’re finished, sit down!”

“Shut up, toff!” shouts a friend of the speaker’s, another shouts at him: “
You
shut up! He’s been up there half the fucking night!” and “Finish, Antoine!” a bawl from the crowd as Pinky gently shoos away the bar girl, leans on one elbow and “Benjamin,” he says to his friend, “drink your drink, be easy. He might not even play at all tonight, who knows?”

“I know,” though he drinks, no green fairy this time but pale Irish whiskey, it makes his eyes gleam. “He plays here of a Tuesday, I know…. I know where they live, too—at the Blackbird Theatre. You can reach the roof from the building behind.”

“You climbed the roof? Without me?” to bring his friend’s shrug, not a planned expedition but an irresistible urge: “I had to.” Had to see, to follow their departing carriage through the quiet streets, to scale as quietly that steep slate roof, gripping hands skinned bloody, agile as those long-ago days in the country garden, climbing the trellises, the elms, their vast green loneliness, a loneliness so intense that it had, sometimes, no feeling to it at all, only a kind of flavor, the taste of grit between the teeth, the tang of unripe apricots. “Her rooms front the street, theirs are a floor above. His,” as if to himself, draining his glass, conjuring again the memory: Rupert in the drawing-room, the dark presence of him, the line of his jaw, his infrequent smile when the talk managed to please. And then, on the shadowed path, Those? Those aren’t angels: to be able to see that, to say it—Of course one must follow after him, there is no question to the thing at all.