Under the Poppy (58 page)

More than what we had from his pockets?

May be. If one could credit him.

Him or her. Well, there’s no quizzing him now, is there. Fucking Ag—I hope Omar pinched it all for smoke.…When next I see friend Arrowsmith, it will be to give back his bit and bridle, too. You and I, messire, we work only for love now, yeah?

For love, yes, and for themselves, as Istvan has always wanted, himself and Rupert and the show: with money enough to be their own patrons, go wheresoever they please and
May be a theatre, too, Mouse, if you still will have just the one roost:
a place of their own, a home where Istvan will play and he will work, industry, yes, together with these actors sleeping now in their calfskin case, this Castor and Pollux, an ironical smile and a keyhole heart, and who in the audience to say which is which? “We’ll just share/Like goodly brothers,” like Istvan in that theatre, recall it? and he above and pining on the catwalk, thinking that all was over, love, life, everything…. Foolish to call the play at all, for comic or tragic, while the curtains are still parted; always there may be a twist to the story, a
coup de maître
, a masterstroke.

Now Istvan takes the window seat—he always claims the window seat—as Rupert settles in with a
Courier-Dispatch,
he makes a point to read the papers of whatever locality they may visit. This one tells mainly of mundane doings, a robbery here, a grain strike there, and the society columns full of the upcoming Opera Mauve, one of the capitol’s great traditions, where families from all over will bring their marriageable daughters and their hopes for greater things. As he turns the page, Istvan nudges him—“Look at that fellow, there, by the hack-carriage—the peaked red hat, there—” a street-singer kicking up his heels, jogging his knees together, like a mec stranded clumsy without strings, trying and failing to interest the passing crowd.

Rupert gazes over the folds of his paper. “Looks like ‘Paddy’s Lament.’ Some kind of lament, anyway.”

“He wants a handler,” says a voice from beneath the seat, muffled but still antic; Istvan laughs a little, softly. The train begins to move, past the platform and the stringless singer, the hurrying, incurious, oblivious crowd, the lanes that stripe like lines the city and the countryside, to make all a hurlyburly of motion and speed, a living echo of the strands that bind each playing life unto the next. But that greater sense of a greater whole is seen, perhaps, only with a god’s eye view, pitched far above those strands and lines, a sight first glimpsed in Eden, say, or in the view one has from the balcony, watching the twist and gambol of the puppets and the puppeteers.

My great thanks:

To Rick Lieder and Carter Scholz, for close reading and invaluable comment, and to Kelly Link, for editorial insight.

To Aaron Mustamaa, Jane Schaberg, Diane Cheklich, and Deborah Newton, for much encouragement along the way.

And to Chris Schelling, uniquely.

This book was made possible by the generous support of the Rappahannock Foundation.

Kathe Koja
’s (underthepoppy.com) books include
The Cipher, Skin,
and
Extremities
; her young adult novels include
Buddha Boy, Talk, Kissing the Bee
, and
Headlong
. Her work has been honored by the ALA, the ASPCA, and with the Bram Stoker Award. Her books have been published in seven languages and optioned for film. She’s a Detroit native and lives in the area with her husband, artist Rick Lieder, and their cats.
Under the Poppy
will debut onstage at the Detroit Opera House Black Box Theater in 2011.