Under the Poppy (45 page)

But Istvan nudges closer, coaxing her—“Won’t you feed him, dear lady? Just a morsel?”—until she slips a sliver of duck in sauce between the lips that snatch and gobble at her fingers, so she squeals again, and pulls away. Istvan rises then to travel the table, the puppet begging from every lady save Isobel: giggling or shrinking they all give in, even Fernande deigning to part with a crust, the sacklike body growing round on its strings as “One would think,” Istvan pausing with a tranquil smile, just behind the General, “that he would finally be full, this fellow, eh,
mesdames et messieurs
? That having eaten so, he would be fed? That enough would finally be enough?”

Now Rupert sits very still, shoulders tense, hands loose and palms-up on his knees; Benjamin’s gaze leaps from Istvan to Rupert and back again. Isobel is as calm as a nun at Sunday Mass, as calm as her father who steeples his crooked fingers, as Istvan halts the puppet just beside the General’s plate, its mouth begun to darken, then to leak, tiny red drops becoming a deepening stain.

“Yet what can nourish one,” asks Istvan, the General rigid at his elbow, staring straight ahead, “when all’s been eaten and consumed? What is left,” as the puppet sags sideways, “for such a hungry fellow,” the puppet dropping to its knees, “but to swallow himself up whole?” as the puppet sucks itself into the bulb of its body, like fingers closing into a fist, then vomits forth not the scraps of food ingested but a clot of glycerin-blood, a hard nugget in its center, the silver king-cake bean: and collapses, strings and all, across the plate, the ruined and crumbled cake, as Istvan bows—“
Merci
”—and exits, leaving the body where it lies.

The table erupts. White-faced, the General shoves back his chair, Charlotte bursts into nervous tears, Adele Chamsaur turns in outrage to her outraged mother, Pinky tries to stifle his whoop with a napkin. Isobel is on her feet—“Ladies, please! Ladies!” with Rupert beside her about to bolt, but Isobel’s maimed hand grasps his with all her strength, the strange feel of those fused fingers as “Help me, Monsieur,” beseeching him beneath the noise, as he tries to think what best to do, Jesu, what in the fuck is Istvan’s game! If he had a knife in his pocket now he would be very glad—

—as Benjamin appears at his side, tense with excitement, a different sort of tool so “Go,” Rupert harsh into his ear, “go find him,” while half the servants scurry to clear away the mess, and the other half shepherd the ladies away, as if it were an actual corpse lying there upon the table, instead of a bag of food and strings. Pinky is laughing openly now, helplessly, hands on his knees, so he does not mark his father and Isidore, followed by the General, stepping out of the room, or Benjamin sprinting from the door to the darkness, chasing through the streets after a shadow—

—whose hands are suddenly upon him, yanking him into an icy two-foot alley, slamming him sideways into the wall until “You?” with a mildness belied by that stare, so immensely cold and alien that Benjamin, sagging airless and half-stunned, is almost unsure it is M. Dieudonne: until the laugh, hard and unamused, the hand at his scruff and “Come along,” says Istvan. “You can be my bodyguard—”

—through the lanes back to the Blackbird, where Lucy waits by the alley door, tense and ready with a gripbag, startled to see Benjamin in tow but “Sometimes the rôle finds the actor, Puss,” says Istvan, stripping off his dinner jacket, throwing on a greatcoat and boots, fast as any quick-change player in the street. Bottle, planing knife, Feste already packed, Boilfast to have his person, Puss the knowledge of the letter box, he is ready to depart except for “This,” taking the safe-key from his pocket, holding it in his hand stained still with the dead puppet’s blood. Mouse has its twin so he must not leave it here, ought not take it, either, but what else to do? while Benjamin explains rapidly to Lucy that “He told me to find him, Monsieur did, I mean. And so I ran—”

—as instantly he knows, the inner blossom of sheer relief: “Here,” catching up a handy length of leather cord, the Happy Prince, of course! with none to suspect him, or harm him, not even the General would dare do that. “This key—see it?—this key will keep your master safe. Miss Bell knows what it’s for, so you don’t need to…. You keep it with you, understand? Can you hold the thought in your head long enough to do as I say?”

“I am not a fool—”

“Yes, you are. But you are the only actor I have now, Cupid, so you must play on this stage.”

“Don’t call me so, ‘Cupid’—” not in protest, but quietly, as if what Istvan does is wrong for another reason; Lucy excluded now, they look into each other’s eyes until Istvan says, in a different tone, “Fair enough. I shall call you Puck instead. Will that serve?” Knotting the cord about Benjamin’s neck, the swelling on his face just beginning, scraped cheek, a growing purple smear beneath the eye. “Soon as you can, swap this twine for something metal, something that cannot be cut from you in stealth. Never lose it, never take it off. And don’t say that you have it, to anyone, fond friends included. To him especially, yeah?”

“No,” says Benjamin very soberly, almost frightened, as if he is just glimpsing the depth of this commission:
Treat me like a man,
his gaze had said to Istvan,
and I will be one.
Now immediately he must. “I’ll tell no one, I’ll never let it leave my sight, nor be seen.—What’s passed? Where are you going?” but Istvan shakes his head in dismissal, so Benjamin tucks the lacing safely inside his shirt, fastens his coat like a shield before it, makes a brief bow to pale Miss Bell and “Farewell, then,” to Istvan, shaking hands; his grip is cold. “Safe travels.”

“The same to you, for his sake. Go on then,” with a moment’s irrepressible half smile, whoever would believe such a farrago onstage?
The Rivals United,
like a ten-pence tale—

—but pierced, again, as the door closes on the boy and Lucy begins at once to weep, hands to her face in the dark and crowded emptiness, this theatre their safety, absent Mouse his only home, but “Come, Puss,” in a softer tone, “aren’t you the one who sewed me shut like a trooper? And shouted those soldiers to a standstill more than once? Not to mention the dragon Ag? Come now, don’t cry.”

“I liked the war better! At least then we could see who was shooting at us!” Big drops rolling down her face, she kisses him like the sister he will never see again, Ag lost to treachery and time, Puss his true sister really—as she tucks into his pocket the little oval mirror, crazed silver and chipped glass, to keep him from the evil eye. “You’ll send me word, soon as you may? May be through Otilie?”

“I will do that. Watch him for me.”

“I will do that,” bravely, kissing her hand to him, holding the door as he goes—and then she breaks, slumping down on a pile of boards, a cracked old sideboard salvaged for another use, improvised like a gilt-paper scabbard, or a princess’s gown from ribbons and gauze, or, yes, a handful of wood and strings to hold the world at bay. However will this play out, this awful farce of which Istvan has told her, in the end, so very little? Will Master Benjamin do as he is bidden, will he be true? And what will Rupert say, when he returns? How can she face him, how can she say
He’s gone
—

—as a door bangs, far backstage, she hears the sound of running feet, small feet, Mickey and Didier with a basket swung between them: “Miss Bell! Miss Bell! Didier’s mamma gave us strawberry wine, she says we are to share—” Stopping short when they see her, round eyes and frayed jackets, like two little chickens strayed from a ragged flock; her flock. “Miss Bell, you’re crying?”

“Why,” she says, wiping at her eyes, “I’m playing,” making a smile as they rush to stand beside her, one on either side, her little cavaliers. “Playing that my heart is broken…. Now you try, Mickey. Show us your tears.”

4.

Isobel

Still it seems a sort of dream, a fancy repeated into a memory, certainly I have relived it a dozen times in my mind: watching Hector’s face, first abused by that puppet, in front of them all, then thrust past his armor—by me! Oh, how much I owe M. Dieudonne for the opportunity! Cloistered in the alcove, he did not want to be there but I insisted, I drew him in, my hand upon his sleeve—
There is intelligence you must hear, Hector
—and then slowly, carefully turning the knife, repeating what I had rehearsed:
He says to say that he has now quit the map, but that M. Bok’s welfare is still his truest compass needle. He says to say that, should that needle turn south, a letter will surface, written in the shadow of the Poppy, a letter concerning yourself. He says to say that this is the first rope, but he hopes you will find the fortitude not to use it.

And what do you know of the Poppy, Isobel?

I know what I have been told, Hector.
How his eyes glittered! How much he would have liked to hurt me! Truly, it was a moment to live for…. And storming off, then, joining the departing stream of guests—never did a dinner end so swiftly—just as Benny returned and found his way to M. Bok, of whose own ferocity I saw that one glimpse, when he rose from the table to pursue M. Dieudonne—whom Benny instead somehow saw, or spoke to, I have gathered, though on that matter he has not chosen to further enlighten me, nor how his face was so sadly damaged.

It was quite the opera, that evening, with all its exits and entrances, its arias, and even a murder, as all good operas must contain. I cannot say what happened to the victim, I shall have to ask the maids—it would make a fine souvenir, that starveling puppet! Though not, apparently, for Charlotte—up half that night too spooked, she said, to sleep, imploring me to sit
For just another moment, please!
in the west bedchamber, while she drank her witch-hazel tisane, and shuddered about
That dreadful toy, all bloody-mouthed and such! It gives me the red horrors every time I close my eyes.

Why not read, then? Or say your Pater Nosters?
Sometimes one forgets how young she is, nearer Benny’s age than my own. Mobcap over her silly curls, curled up on the bed like a parlormaid.… And like all maids, her first concern is always romance: Who is this Rupert Bok, how did I know him, was he friendly somehow with M. Dieudonne? So awful what happened! but such a handsome man, that puppeteer, and M. Bok, did I not think he was handsome, too?

Yes,
I said.
He is very handsome.

And he is your friend,
she said, wistful and hungry; poor Charlotte needs a friend, or a man, or both. And my father, of course, is neither, stepping in then like a different kind of horror: he makes cold any room he enters, certainly he chilled Charlotte to total silence, and released me at last to my own thoughts…. Charlotte was not present at our Spartan breakfast, a plate of cold meats and rye croissants, a cold white draft of sun and
I am much displeased, Isobel,
like some gargoyle over the tea, gray-faced and staring at a spot above my head, as if he could not bear the sight of me.
An honored guest insulted at our table, by a common tramp of a player—it is a disgrace. The city will talk of nothing else, the city loves a scandal. And the whole contretemps lies solely at your doorstep.

The thought of Hector gave me courage; how amusing!
Why, how so?

How so? For allowing that—actor access to our home. And to your brother,
for whom, it seemed, he had had a tidy plan, to put his hand to Adele Chamsaur’s there at the dinner, it was to be a grand surprise; but himself surprised instead! It is another debt I owe to M. Dieudonne. On and on he went, blaming and berating me, but I kept my calm, I drank my tea, I even made a smile worthy, I think, of the footlights, as I told him that we shared a deep wish for Benny’s happiness, thus uniting us as
Family,
toasting him with my teacup, the tea’s heat almost a pain through the thin morning-glove. I should have stripped my hand bare and toasted him with that, too.

By the time he had his interview with Benny, the bile was exhausted, and he was all dry paternal regret. Bumping along in the carriage, up and down the promenade and
I was never so cold,
Benny’s grumble to me later, as we sat that night in the quiet house—Isidore and Charlotte gone back to Chatiens, Helmut trailing behind—with the candied figs and a bottle of champagne between us; there is so much champagne, now, in the cellars, we shall have to have a wedding to make use of it all. Or a funeral.
He winced at every turn of the wheels, but still stopped to talk with everyone we passed, Pinky’s mother, and Letty van Symans—you despise her, don’t you?

When I think of her, yes.

Pretending nothing at all had happened, as if that would make it so…. And then whining to me about the Chamsaur girl,
with a shrug so man-of-the-world that I had to hide my smile behind my cigarette.
You were just right, Belle, what he wanted was to talk of my majority, of what I must do
—that turns out to be, in practice, amazingly, blessedly little: he need not go to Chatiens, at least for now, but he must quit the theatre, a kind of public atonement and cleansing; and then seriously consider himself the master-to-be, and so marry, though not Adele Chamsaur after all:
What a wife she’d make! She acted quite the whore at the dinner, worse even than Charlotte. Besides, it’s Pinky she really fancies.

And whom do you fancy?
I asked, to be mischievous, but the look he gave me then was so lovely, and so bruised, that I repented, I pressed his hand as
A wife is one thing,
he said.
But passion
—and then he stopped, hand to his chest, his heart, and said no more. That strange evening has gifted Benny, given him a new sort of gravity, as if he realizes that life can sometimes be
très sérieux
. It suits him.

And, as for passion—I have already spoken to Miss Bell, or rather she spoke to me. Lighting in the east parlor like a brave curbside wren, wearing a pearl ring
From my fellow,
she said, blushing when I inquired.
I’m affianced! though we’ve told no one yet,
so I gave her my felicitations, and promised to keep her little secret. Such a good heart that girl has; it is one of life’s rare mysteries, or victories. I hope that “fellow” values her as he should.

Her own concern was for her partners, first M. Dieudonne in exile, and she needing a conduit for news, asking me diffidently if she might send word back-and-forth through the maid Otilie. I’ve a better candidate for emissary, self-appointed, in fact, and though I did not name Javier I told her to be easy, as
My friend is both discreet and efficient, you may safely leave all communications in his hands. As for M. Bok, I promised M. Dieudonne I would look to him.

I did, too.
Her eyes filled with tears, then, but she refused to let them fall.
He is in a rare funk, it is dreadful to see.

Send him here.

I don’t know that he’ll come, Madame. With Istvan gone, he listens to no one, now.

Send him here, Miss Bell. We shall look after him.
And so we shall, both Benny and I.