Under the Poppy (37 page)

“Then she’s never been to the gaiety district? Those cafés where the poetry is declaimed, and modern music played, and little men who are not men may speak of anything at all? That’s a pity.” His gaze kindly on hers, recalling the girl she was, clever, industrious, always alone, always hiding her crippled hand in that glove, always pleased to see him when he came to visit Isidore, making sure to carry along for her a book—Descartes, Coleridge, some likely English novel—or a bit of lace or Turkish delight, some trifle to please her while they conversed in the garden, walking arm-in-arm amongst the rows of roses she tended, she knew them all, their habits and their names. And here, still, the rooms filled with roses, and she still alone, still doting on her brother, still hating her father, not so much growing older as accomplishing a kind of distillation, as one might do with a cooking sauce, say, or a poison, stronger as it ages, a very few drops would have a very great effect—

—as she tells him, now, about that moment in the alcove, how she came upon Hector and the puppeteer “Tête-à-tête,” lighting one last cigarette, “and quite tense. Obviously he knows M. Dieudonne—or, what is it, truly? Dusan?”

“Truly I do not know.”
His Christian name is Istvan
, who said that? the sister, yes, the redheaded madam who was a kind of double to Liserl; how strange that was. Perhaps one day he will visit there again. “I do know that Hector keeps many tools in his tool case. Some are more esoteric than others—only a buttonhook hooks a button. If that signifies.” Finishing his tea, the faintest chime of cup to saucer, taking up his gray silk muffler against the cold of earliest dawn; no windows in this little room, but having slept so many nights in fields or fortifications, one learns to feel the sunrise coming, as one feels the turn of the tide. “You say there was a dispute of some kind between them? I wonder what was said? Though no doubt Dusan ended by agreeing—Hector does not suffer much refusal.”

“Yes,” she says, crushing out her cigarette. “I know.”

Lucy

She said that she would come, and come she did, dressed up like those nuns you see by the cloisters, gray swansdown hood, black gloves, sitting up in the back with her brother, and didn’t she applaud? And laughing like a girl at Mickey’s folly with the dragon, when he hops into the mouth and back out again all sooty-like, with his eyes popping out of his head: “Sirrah! It’s jolly dark in there, by George!”

And barely we were finished before she came backstage, to felicitate, she said. Her hand on my arm, she’s got a funny grasp, but strong, and
Brava,
she says to me,
your comic opera was superb. Wherever do you find your little actors? And your puppets, where do they originate?
And we sat right down at the table and chatted, though I was that flustered, I’ll admit, still in my stage cloak, and no one having made any tea we had to drink a bit of gin, it was all I had though she said she liked it; she’s a very great lady, Madame de Metz. And the boys and girls all peeping out at her, like mice from their holes, well might they! When have they ever seen such a lady up close?

It isn’t what Rupert thinks, that I felt badly when they cut me at that ball; or what Istvan thinks, either, that all’s a joke; truly it’s a joke to him, lords and ladies and beggars all the same. To me it is—it’s the way when you go into the shops, there’s the champagne here and the gin over there, and what’s the harm in that, really? If you mix it all together you’d get naught but a headache, wouldn’t you?

I never thought I’d rise as I have, the Blackbird is plenty high enough for me. Though I recall how Vera used to dream of marrying some flash character, some passing-through fellow who’d take her away with him:
Think of it, Lucy,
she’d say, lying on my bed, feet on the counterpane, smoking another of Pearl’s cigarettes.
Riding in a coach-and-four, having servants and jewels, that’s the life for me!
And always jealous of Pearl, nasty-like when the mayor made eyes at her. I wonder if she ever got to Paris, Vera, or found her toff protector if she did. All the girls on the streets here, most of them covet that same thing, to get off the gin shelf and into the champagne, as if that’s the most that any girl could ever want.

But Mme. de Metz, she sees through that: talking of her brother’s friends, how they have no purpose, nothing to fill their days but mischief and foolery but
You, Miss Bell,
she said to me,
you have found the pearl of great price: if we do what we are suited for, happiness follows, it is as simple as that. We need not even look for it, it will trail us like a spaniel in the street. You are a happy girl, I can see. But not always?
with that wise gaze on me like a, what you call it, a saint’s, one of those church paintings where the eyes seem to watch you wherever you go. I told her I had learned early on to make myself happy, the way you make a meal out of whatever you’ve got to hand, but that playing the puppets seemed to fit me right away, fit me
Like a glove,
I said, and tapped her hand—it was a silly joke, and she didn’t laugh much, but
Whatever your previous condition,
she said,
you have found your right road at last.
My “previous condition”! I had to smile, then.

We talked for quite some time, there at the table, and she told me some things, very useful-like, things you wouldn’t think a fine lady would know: that cold water, iced water, on the hair will keep it shiny, and a dab of quince-seed jelly makes it lie flat; I’m going to try that one straightaway, on Rose Red and her elf-locks. And she was even game to work a marionette, one of the toys I keep for the boys to learn on: she fell into a fair tangle, half vexed and half crowing,
Why can I not make it go as it should?
But pleased as Punch when she got that toy soldier walking, up-and-down, up-and-down, she even got him to make a bit of a bow before the whole thing collapsed and I brava’d right back to her,
You’ve got a nice touch, Madame
! so that we laughed a bit together, there with our puppet and our gin, it must have made a rare sight. I wish someone had been there to see it, like Pimm, or Istvan.

I don’t know where he was, that afternoon; nor did Rupert, who was vexed at being summoned, I know, though he never complained; still, someone had to entertain Master de Metz, I had all I could handle with Madame. Later on, when Istvan showed his face, I tried to tell him what a frolic it had been, but he was in a rare sour humor—
It’s a family of dazzlers, isn’t it?—
so I let it go, let him go up to the rooms where Rupert was already, pacing and smoking; I could hear them through the ceiling, snapping at one another—

You’re busy, aren’t you, for a man who says he has nothing to do? Where were you?

No busier than you, my lord, with your new attaché
—meaning Master de Metz, who had said that he’d like to learn to play, or something, I heard my own name then:
Give him to Lucy,
Istvan says,
or let him go to the devil. Or
—all happy-like, like he’d found the right solution—
Georges. There’s the fellow who will take him in hand, yeah?

He needs some industry
—

“Industry”? You truly are a schoolteacher now. Tell me, what else would you have him learn?

He says that he saw you, at the Calf, with that other boy, what is it, Pinky? What else don’t you tell me, messire?

It was there I stopped listening; none of my road, when they get to talking like that. Instead I went down into the theatre, to tidy up, and make sure Mickey’d set nothing on fire, and sit awhile over another little glass of gin, thinking of Mme. de Metz, and happiness. What she’d said had a rare wisdom, though one look can tell you she’s not a bit happy herself, except with her boy. Some folk need only the one thing, to make them whole; Rupert is like that. For Istvan it is two things, Rupert and the playing.

And me? I won’t ask more of the world, not ever, with six days of the Blackbird, and the seventh spent walking out with Pimm…. We’re to picnic on the promenade this Sunday, if the weather is fine. He’s to bring a bit of drink, and I’m making us a bean-and-rooster pie.

The jeweler’s girl is all fluttering lashes, handing Istvan the little brooch: “Your lady will surely adore it,” the twinkling golden goldfish, swaddled in blue velvet and tied with a bow, slipped into his pocket with a wink for the girl who leans, now, across the counter, a quick flash of creamy bosom—“Come see us again, Monsieur!”—as he steps into the street. Joining the widening stream that leads to the boulevard, he threads his way beneath the lindens dropping their leaves, between café men and shopgirls heading out for the evening, redoubtable mamans and their spindly issue hurrying home, constables and the vendors who scuttle before them, tucking away their less-reputable merchandise behind little cups of fresh gooseberries, vials of dubious ambergris, trays of watch fobs made of stamped tin and silver-gilt, colored broadsheets touting other, more ambiguous wares, available in other venues just a
rue
or two away.

Through it all Istvan walks swiftly, easily, hat brim tugged low, gaze in constant motion: a street boy’s habit, one he will never lose. Marking those vendors and constables, marking the whores in their Josephine bonnets, marking the marks who think themselves men of the world and so they are, just not of this world, this dark and shining tributary of tobacco-brown mud and mounded horseshit, of the motionless flame of the electric lights just starting to glow before the entrance to the arcades, where he steps in to have a glass of tea, a bite of meat, boots shined and pocket nearly picked by one lad as his comrade wields the blacking-brush below. Istvan’s smile is one of almost comradely contempt—
You’ll need to be neater than that, my lad
—as he grasps the narrow fingers, squeezing till the boy yelps, squeezing still till the boy lets out a groan, then dropping a coin for the shiner—“
Merci
”—and off again, up a twisty wreck of an iron stairway, barely secured to the buildings it links, rust flakes pattering like rain as Istvan knocks upon a door that opens to admit him—“Hello, Monsieur”—into a room filled with bodies, stuffed with straw and rags or planed from wood.

Every city has this quarter, this limbo district of the players, linked to all other such districts by rumor, competition, and a lively spirit of quid pro quo, and in this world Istvan is a kind of prince, known, yes, by many names, in many venues—from the oldest ones of all, the long-ago street days with Marco, through the drawing-room playlets, to his sojourn at the Poppy, to the Blackbird and the Calf today and even the Fin du Monde, where “Monsieur,” says the little man inside the room, making room in the friendly chaos of body parts and horsehair wigs, arms and legs and ribbons, “you’re on tonight, I think.”

“Indeed. Ah, apologies,” noticing the crust of horseshit on his heel, scraping it clean against the threshold. “I just had the fucking things blacked, yeah?”

“There’s plenty shit in the streets these days, Monsieur,” says Mr. Boilfast. “A man needs to be careful where he puts his foot. Even at the Fin. Oh,” digging into a pocket, producing an envelope. “From M. Jardin, with
his
apologies.”

“Tardy bastard…. The Calf’s a funny place nowadays, does he perceive that, do you think?” with a certain feigned indifference, or is it feigned? With M. Dieudonne, whoever knows? as Mr. Boilfast, majordomo of the Calf, master of the Fin, watches the younger man pick and sort through the piled-up toys, this puppeteer who wears a mask inside his mask but may need to bundle up even further: there are, yes, some odd folk about in the cafés, drawn perhaps by the wealthy boys who sport there, whose money Jardin is happy to abstract, while turning a blind eye to the dangers they may import. Some things are worth more than money—safety; autonomy—but this is not an argument that resonates with M. Jardin.

When Mr. Boilfast speaks, his tone is mild: “I really couldn’t say, Monsieur. What hours he has between counting coin, he dices, or gets his pecker pulled. It doesn’t leave much time for thinking. But you, you’ll be wise, won’t you,” as Istvan selects a mummer’s mask, an antlered stag, so ferociously flamboyant that Boilfast has to smile; Istvan lets it drop and “I leave that to Feste,” with a little shrug. “He keeps me honest. Or at least afloat. I’m in some dark water these days, you see…. There’s a man, you may know him already. A modest gentleman, bit of a limp—”

“And a silver cane? Pleasant gentleman. Yes.”

“He has a colleague—wears a ring on his thumb. Older fellow, military,” sharing what he can of the General, saying all he cannot with his gaze. “You’ll tell me if you see him? I’d spare you his mischief if I could—”

“Monsieur,” with a pained little bow; he is strangely graceful, this plug of a Boilfast, this man with his half-moon head and stubby fingers, and deep, dry, dark-currant eyes, strangely dignified too. “You are one of my
artistes
, Monsieur. Without you, there is no Fin du Monde. Have no worries,” bowing again, straightening to show in his hand a razor, modest wooden handle, slick hairsplitting blade; he smiles, Istvan smiles. “Tonight we’ve some visitors from Venice, a marquesa, I believe. And a pretty songbird on for dinner—”