Under the Poppy (4 page)

Guillame

I always knew it would be the theatre for me. It was all I wanted, even before I had a name to put to it: the miracle of make-believe, the astonishing power of pretense. What you believe—what you
make
believe, yes—it can put you right where you most want to be.

As an urchin boy outside the factory gates, waiting for my old da, I’d do a bit of a dance, a buck-and-wing, water dribbling through my boots, to see if I could make them stop and watch me, the heedless passersby: whistling shrill and villainous through my teeth the
Vive le Monde
, or “Madame By-Your-Leave,” anything with a gleeful melody. First one would pause, then a few more, then a biggish crowd; they’d clap for me, or sing along, sometimes they gave me pennies. My da would come trudging out with his beer bucket, grime to the eyebrows, and he’d say
Are you a poofter then, son? Dancing like a woman in the street?
And then take the pennies. It was a good lesson for me.

Other lessons I had little of, and wanted less: I was more or less lettered on my own stick, and I could cipher, and who would have spent tuppence on the curate to teach me any more? Any coins I kept, I used for mugs of milk, or buns. I’d have had to save them all for a theatre ticket, the high-type theatres, but there was nothing like that where I was, so I learned from whatever I saw in the streets: the corner opera, and the Punch-and-Judy man, the blackface boys with the trained larks…. It was a sort of theatre, too, when my da fell ill, and the fever settled in to stay: coughing and babbling, eyeballs rolling as if to catch death coming on, like a bad actor overdoing the role, and nothing for me to do but sit and watch, sponge his mug and tell him stories to put his mind off it. With small success, I suppose, but between the stories and the wine the landlady gave us—the Missus Potts’ special, wine with who knows what mixed in, Godfrey’s Cordial or some other dope—he entered eternity rather peacefully, poor old geezer, wrapped up in the coverlet he and dear Maman once shared…. If there was a dear maman; actually I never saw her, my fabled maman, whoever she might have been. He and Missus Potts, lord knows I saw plenty of
that
.

And tears or no tears, she sent me packing from her lodging house just as soon as he was cool:
This is no place for a boy alone
, blotting her eyes with a bit of rag, a new renter in the room by sundown and me and the bucket out in the street where I sang the heartbreakers, “The Last-Flying Sparrow,” “Only a Bit of a Girl,” and let the tears trickle down: oh, people stopped, and a few of them sniffled along with me, but not so many pennies came my way. Why should they? Life makes us weep for free. So that was a good lesson, too.

There were many paths I could have trod, from there. Stay on the streets, and find a protector: the city was full of them, all cities are; in the city, the weak need the strong, and vice versa. Or seek out a different kind of master, buckle down and learn an honest trade. Or hie myself to the ever-damned factory, like my dead old da: furious at sunrise, drunk by nightfall, trying to drown the one in the other…. Instead I consulted myself, grubby little orphan on the corner, tuppence in his pocket, and said, Guillame, messire, you’re free and clear now. What do you want to do? And the hunger gave me my answer.

You see, that hunger inside us, that ambition, or whatever you may choose to call it, is a compass really, a compass of true desire. And if you will be happy, you must follow that desire, no matter which way the needle points. For me it was the train-yard, I don’t like to say what I did to get onto those trains! and banged-up, too, I’ve still got some lovely scars. Going east, always east, because I had heard in the lodging house that that was where the theatres were. I had never seen a proper theatre, never even seen anyone who had, but in my mind they were like the Ottoman’s palace, you know, velvet curtains and twinkling candles, lovely ladies with diamonds and low-cut gowns. What I found was something rather different, in my long apprenticeship—I am almost eight-and-twenty, after all, and have played, or stage-managed, or set up booths in many a city and town. What people will pay money to watch—why, you’d not believe it if I told you.

But it was to me quite amazing—it is still amazing!—that one may conjure what is from what is not, crack an egg and make a pair of gilded rings appear, take wool and wire and paper and voila! a knight, a king, a fairy princess, alive and living for as long as the lights are low. The stage is not only a world apart, it is a myriad of worlds, and in those worlds a man can have anything he fancies, if only he believes in what he sees.

One sees it here at the Poppy, every night: That Pearl can be a seraphim, or Laddie a Spanish grandee, that Spinning Jennie can make a man compete to spend money he barely has for the chance to stick it in her, lazy doped-up Jennie whom he would pass on the street for free! Or Jonathan Shopsine, poor mutilated bastard, hunching down at a spavined piano and calling Wolfgang Mozart back from the dead, how is that not miraculous? If there is any God in this world, He lives in a theatre. And it may as well be the Poppy as anyplace else.

So when people say to me—and there are those who will say it, you’ll see them at the tables on Saturday night grasping after a bouncing tit, and on the Sunday streets with the missus in her walking-out suit—
You seem, sir, very nearly a gentleman. How can you bear to toil in such an establishment?
—wrinkling their bourgeois noses at the whores, the liquor, the utter baseness of it all.

And I bow to them, a dancing master’s bow I learned from a man in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was gaoled there for venery, and I smile a smile I made up myself, the one I used on the penny-throwing crowd, the one I’ll wear in my coffin, and I say
Ah, but the spirit moves where it lists, messire!
And then I offer the missus my primrose boutonniere, and she accepts it, every single time.

“Mister Arrowsmith,” says the mayor, “you have quite the continental taste.” His cigar smolders like burning punk, he sports an extravagant tie, red as a poppy. “For Champagne, I mean. I would have thought you was more a whiskey man.”

“When in Rome,” says Mr. Arrowsmith pleasantly.

“Is that where you hail from?” asks the colonel. He has three teeth missing, at times it makes him mumble, but his gaze is clear enough, his bearing stiff. Beside him Jürgen Vidor smiles a sketch of a smile, pours again for the three of them and “Commerce,” says Jürgen Vidor, “is at home in all locales. Much like the military, eh, Colonel? Did you try the elk, Mr. Redgrave? Shot just this morning, in the forest, they say.”

“Shot at dawn,” says Mr. Franz, the attaché; he giggles. No one acknowledges his remark.

Champagne and elk and rye whiskey, cigars and cheroots, five seats filled at a table for six. Onstage, Jonathan in a gravedigger’s suit plays a Chopin etude; the stage curtains are drawn primly behind him. At the outer door Omar adjusts his cuffs, shakes his head at the looming queue of disappointed revelers: “Private party tonight, sorry. Come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I’ll be broke!”

“Then come back when you’re not…. Private party, sorry, gents.”

At the head of the aisle, Decca, in a lemon yellow silk that in no way becomes her, jet combs like horns in her red hair, mutters instructions to Velma, herself an overseer tonight, the two hired hotel servers her domain so “Watch them every second,” Decca says. “Every fork that goes missing comes out of your pocket. Now, what of the wine?”

“Fine for now,” says Velma, resplendent in unaccustomed bombazine. “It’ll do.”

“Don’t give yourself airs, just do as I say…. Where is that ass Puggy?”

“I don’t know, miss.”

“I’m not speaking to you,” though no one else stands with them, Decca distracted, gaze up and down the room, the four tables bright with wax candles, unthinkable expense, that and the champagne, will they notice how poor it really is? Puggy says the show will overcome all defects, but where is Puggy? or Lucy, neither there when she needs them most so “Get back on the floor,” she says to Velma, her roving gaze now seeking Rupert, who had agreed, had he not, to dine with them, Jürgen Vidor and his guests? At least Istvan is where he promised to be, she has just checked, knocked, eased open the door on darkness to see him swaddled and sleeping, face thrust deep into the pillow, long hair fanned on the coverlet, a rind of meat and whiskey nearly empty on the floor. Pearl maintains that she gave him quite the frolic, so fucked, fed, and bottled, he should slumber like an infant, thank God.

And now, thank God again, or someone, here is Rupert, unsmiling, his linen immaculate, signet ring gleaming on his left hand, bloodstone and gold; up close she can see the sallow pallor of the headache but in the candlelight “You look so handsome,” Decca says, then winces inside, O the wrong thing to say but “Shall we greet our guests?” he says as he offers his arm, down the narrow center aisle, isthmus to the revelry, the five at the center surrounded by three satellite tables occupied by the colonel’s men and a few of the Poppy’s regulars much aware of the signal honor, less boisterous than on a normal Saturday, more refined, their pricks are still covered at least. The men at the center ignore them, ignore everything but the bottles on their table, their own lurching conversation as the colonel is not one for talk, and Mr. Franz is a giggling idiot, so Jürgen Vidor, who thus far has drunk only sparingly, must direct and prompt the flow, keep the mayor from making a fool of himself, keep Essenhigh and Arrowsmith on cordial terms, while shielding from each, as per instructions from his faraway master, the true reason for the other’s presence. Usually this is a game he enjoys, or can tolerate, but tonight his attentions are focused irresistibly elsewhere, he can feel Rupert nearing before he sees him, smell him as an animal might and “Ah,” says Jürgen Vidor, when the tall form pauses, Miss Decca unfortunate in yellow beside him, no redhead should ever wear such a shade. “Our charming hostess.” Rising, one hand to take, and shake, Decca’s own. “And our host.”

“Mr. Vidor,” says Rupert. “And gentlemen. We are honored to have you with us this evening.”

“Thank you, Rupert. Will you join us for a glass of champagne? Miss Decca, your bill of fare is exquisite tonight.”

Rupert does not move. To Decca it is as if he stands in his own weather, a high wind he must brace himself against; she can feel the resistance coming off him like heat from an oven, cold from a grave so “You’re too kind,” she says to Jürgen Vidor, noting the pomade on his thinning hair, the faint shine of elk fat on his lip. “I only hope all is sufficient for your enjoyment. Is there anything else you might require, gentlemen? You have only to ask.”

“Tell the piano man to play a waltz,” says the mayor. “Or a polka, something a little more merry, eh?”

“Certainly,” says Decca, rustling off to murmur in Jonathan’s ear, Jonathan who gives her an odd look, thin shoulders tight beneath the ancient coat, but whose hands fall at once into an easy pattern, “Miss Marigold’s Lament,” about the beautiful girl who simply can’t say no. Rupert takes his seat at the table’s empty chair. Jürgen Vidor pours him champagne, and offers a toast: “To companionship…. I believe you will enjoy the show, Mr. Arrowsmith. Something different, here at the Poppy.”

“I always enjoy novelty,” says Mr. Arrowsmith, with a cordial nod to Rupert.

Behind the curtain, Guillame and Lucy attend to the last of the last-minute details, tugging a sleeve there, a strap here, adjusting the candelabra “Just so,” murmurs Guillame. He is almost breathless, his round face is grinning pink. “Lucy, are they dining still?”

One eye to the curtain: “The plates are on the tables, but most are smoking, now. Mr. Rupert has sat down.”

“Then tell Jonathan—no, I’ll tell him myself,” edging past her in the air of make-up and tension, more so than normal, this is no normal night and “Puggy,” Lucy whispers, catching his arm as he passes. “Shall I go now?”

“Yes. Go on,” and she is gone, melting into scenery’s shadow as Decca appears stage left, face pinched pale in the darkness—but Guillame waves her off because it is time, now, for Jonathan to play the overture, for the noise on the floor to dim, time to light the candles and pinch the nipples and let the play begin.

As the curtains part, “Miss Marigold” becomes a different tune, more intimate but still recognizably a waltz, appropriate for dancing and they do: the dark boy and the fair girl, Vladimir and Vera, as Jennie stands apart, harness concealed by her bouffant gown, ruched and spangled for a princess though no princess surely ever showed such rash décolletage. Vladimir stands in for the watching men, cupping and pressing where they would cup and press the lovely Vera, whose playful gestures seem to put him off while daring him to go further still; the men enjoy this, the soldiers whistle and shout. At Jürgen Vidor’s table the mayor grins; Mr. Arrowsmith’s narrow face is calm but attentive. Rupert reaches past the champagne for the whiskey bottle.

The men begin to clap along with the music that quickens seemingly to urge them on, a sharper tempo as another pair of dancers takes the stage: a tall masked gentleman, a small languorous blonde in blue brocade—

—as Rupert’s shoulders jump, a swift tremor unseen by all but Jürgen Vidor, whose sharp gaze moves from Rupert to the stage to Rupert again—

—as the new couple onstage waltz in place like well-matched lovers, lovely to see, but the lady is disinclined, unwilling to kiss the man who seeks her prim pink lips, turning her head again and again as if in negation:
No, no I don’t want you, messire, try howsoever you might.

The first couple, perhaps infected by this discontent, now drift apart, the boy to the spangled princess, who greets him willingly, the girl to drape herself over the chaise and pout—until another gentleman appears, a small strange man seemingly self-conjured from the candelabra’s shadows, nestling down beside her as the dancing couple grow more vigorous in both pursuit and refusal, the man frankly groping beneath the brocade skirt, seeming ready to ravish his lady onstage, right there before the watching men who loudly approve, shouting comments and suggestions: insistence despite denial, who is she to say no to him anyway, the whore? Pretty she is, pliant she ought to be so “Give it to her!” bawls one of the Poppy’s regulars, forgetting his company manners, “stick it in!” as Mr. Franz hoots like a boy, and Mr. Arrowsmith leans forward with a little smile. The colonel’s soldiers stamp their booted feet. Jürgen Vidor, beating time on the tablecloth—one-two-three, two-two-three—murmurs in Rupert’s ear, Rupert with one hand on his whiskey glass, the other a cold fist on his knee.

Now Jonathan flows smoothly into yet another tune, sprightly yet melting, and the strange little man, lying back in Vera’s arms, caressed by her willing hands, opens his little dark mouth and begins to sing, a cracked beguiling voice that cuts nicely through the clamor:

“Your light of love has briefly shone

On other hearts, dear, than mine own—”

Decca, quietly berating Velma at the back of the room, stiffens to silence, turns her full and shocked attention to the stage. Guillame, in the wings, watches everything at once, can this work? It is working. Beneath the chaise, cloaked all in black, Lucy sweats and smiles.

“You may have dreamed that their love was true,” sings the little man; as sentimental and melodious a voice as it is, still there is something antic and cold beneath, as if he is secretly laughing at all of them, laughing at the very idea of love. “But none were destined, dear, for you.”