Under the Poppy (10 page)

Jonathan Shopsine

When you are silent, no one sees you, that is what I know. Onstage the audience never looks to me, they only hear the music, Monsieur Chopin, and Mr. Mozart, and all the bawdy parlor-songs; I never mind that, the music always comes first. But people think that because I cannot talk, I cannot hear. Or that I’m stupid. But I am lettered, I can read, and reason out what I read, too. Like that
Merchant of Venice
that Mr. Istvan lent me: “Hath not a Jew eyes?” I like that. It is like me. A Jew, a mute, a whore, we are all down there on the bottom…. I can read music as well, any music written down. And I can read faces.

Miss Decca watches faces, too; she watches everything. There at the back of the house, studying the men who come in, and Lucy and the girls, and Mr. Rupert always; or down in the kitchen, counting the potatoes, measuring out the coal in the coal-bin. She is worried, I know, all she talks about downstairs is money, and the war. Omar says not to fret, that a whorehouse makes lucre even in bad times. Puggy just shrugs, all he ever cares for are the shows, especially now that the puppets have come.

But I go into the streets and I see those soldiers, they are not from cities, or towns, they are from holes and dens in the countryside, where the people are more like beasts than men. They cut a whore in the Alley two nights ago, cut her to the ground, they burned out a tea-seller’s stall for no reason, except that they like a fire. I believe that Miss Decca is right to be afraid. The girls are growing frightened, too. I try to cheer them, Vera, and Pearl, make them laugh if I can. Especially Pearl. She’s not a stout trouper like Lucy, or set on her own chart, like Vera. She is different…. I wrote a little tune for her, Pearl, it said,
We will fly away, like birds we will fly away, birds can fly through the storms and so shall we.
It seemed to ease her.

But I know they are wondering, as I do, what will become of us here. David, the bootblack at the Gaiety, told me he is going to Archenberg before long, he said that I should flee, too. The man who makes the picture-puzzles has left already, and the seamstress has closed down. The streets are looking like an old crone’s mouth, gapped and black: it shivers me to walk out, now.

Instead I stay in, and practice. You can never practice too much, and I love the sound the piano makes when the theatre is empty. It rings like a bell, or trickles like water, or crashes like rude thunder: I can make it sing, or talk, or say whatever I want to say.

When I first came here, I used to make the piano cry, it was all I wanted to do. All the sad songs my grandpapa taught me, beautiful songs, “Under the Willows,” “Until the Trump Shall Sound.” I missed my grandpapa so much. But Papa was gone, and there was me, and Alexander, and Charles, and all the little ones, the girls to feed and keep together: we were many, too many, and my grandpapa was so ill. Poor Mamma. We three were the big boys, we could take care for ourselves. I believe Alexander made for Vicksburg. Charles was a blacksmith’s apprentice when I saw him last, he worked beside a livery and was wanting to marry the blacksmith’s girl. May be he did, and has little ones of his own by now. I hope we will meet each other again someday. I wish they could see me here, playing the piano up on stage. I wish Grandpapa could hear me. May be in Heaven he can.

I was his favorite, he always said; he taught me to play. He said,
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast. What does that mean, Jonnie? It means that folk will heed music when they heed nothing else. You watch and listen, see what power the music has.

And Grandpapa was right, music has power. Right from the start, it fed and kept me: When I played in the kirk, the pastor gave me pennies, when I played at the lodging-house, I earned my room. I liked it there, that lodging-house. It was down by the river, I used to walk out of a night and catch the breeze. And Mr. Carstairs was a kindly fellow, he tried to keep a good house—to keep safe—he tried—

From the start Puggy was good to me, because of—of the way I cannot talk. He even got Miss Decca to bring the doctor, to see if aught could be done. But Omar used to tease, and the girls, too: make fish-mouth at me, or pretend to be hard-of-hearing, cupping their ears:
What’s that you say, Jonathan?
Mr. Rupert put a stop to that. And when they found that I could play, Miss Decca gave me to Puggy, and let me out of the kitchens, though I was fine with Velma; Velma is much sharper than anyone may think. She cleans all of the rooms, she knows all the tricks, she sees everything that goes on here, top to bottom. Miss Decca should listen to Velma, and stop pinching her and calling her names. Velma could help her the way Omar helps Mr. Rupert, because even Miss Decca cannot be all places at once.

She tells me things, Velma, secrets, some because we are friends, and some, I think, because I cannot talk and tell others: such as how hard it was for Omar to drop the needle, that he sweat and bit the sheets for three nights running. Or how much money Vera hides in her necklace box, and how Jennie steals from her, cunning as a midnight rat. Or which of the tricks likes to hit, or be hit, or be tickled, or dress up like ladies, and which like to do other things, unclean things, it gives me the shivers sometimes, what she tells me. To look at them they all look like fine honest gentlemen. But they are not, no. That Mr. Franz—and he works for the mayor, too!

And that Mr. Jürgen Vidor: Velma sees him, what he does with his jewelry-pins, what poor Laddie has to bear, and how Mr. Rupert has to stand and watch it all. At first I did not credit it, but she showed me through a chink in the door, the three of them there; it made me very sad. I am kind to Laddie, always, and now I try to be kinder. He also is like a Jew or a mute, the boy whores have it worst of all.

I would be kind to Mr. Rupert, but he lets no one close to him, not even Miss Decca. Mr. Rupert is worried as well, but why, I don’t know, nor Velma, either. She says his writing desk is full of secrets, but those rooms he tends to himself, she has no key to that door. Mr. Istvan is the one
he
watches, whenever they are in the same place, he cannot take his eyes away…. Mr. Istvan is so clever with those dolls, his “mecs” as he calls them. His mecs speak for him, I think, the same way the piano speaks for me.

“Mr. Franz to see you,” says Omar, eyebrows raised as high as they will go, his tone courteous and noncommittal as the mayor’s attaché steps into the parlor-office, bowing to “Miss Decca, Mr. Bok,” beaver hat in hand, seating himself without invitation. There are little red blotches on his cravat, breakfast remnants perhaps, or dinner’s. His boots leave wet spots on the carpet, his coat is damp. “Many thanks for this opportunity.”

At their table, account books set hastily aside, Rupert and Decca share a glance; it is she who answers, removing her pince-nez as Omar gently shuts the door, stands outside with folded arms, to listen, and ward away. “ Opportunity, Mr. Franz?”

“To deliver the mayor’s message.” His gaze crawls the room, touching everything—the furnishings, petit-point and damask, the weary potted ivy, the plaster statue of Athena with her chipped breastplate and owl—before returning to the two at the table. “The mayor felicitates you on your shows, he enjoys your shows very very much. But the mayor is not happy with the—horse.” Mr. Franz’s lips twitch; it seems he is suppressing some emotion. “I need not speak of it more fully before Miss Decca, need I, need I explain what the horse is doing to that girl up there on that stage?”

This time it is Rupert who replies. “What exactly is the mayor’s concern with the performance, Mr. Franz?”

“He doesn’t care for it, not at all. Not at all.” Mr. Franz seems to be struggling internally. “It is not—Christian.”

“It is not a real horse,” says Decca dryly. “Perhaps the mayor was unaware of that fact, having not been in attendance. It is merely one of the puppet players, operated by—”

“The mayor is not a lackwit, Miss Decca.”

“I never suggested that he was, Mr. Franz—”

“Perhaps,” says Rupert, overriding them both, “I ought to speak with the mayor myself.”

Mr. Franz draws back in his chair, nostrils wide; for that moment he looks like a horse of a sort, a beast about to kick or stampede. “That is very unnecessary, Mr. Bok, and very uncouth. I am here to speak for the mayor. You must speak to me as if I was the mayor himself.”

Decca’s lips part; Rupert makes a minute move, one finger tapping softly against the table; her mouth closes. Rupert turns slightly in his chair, so he is facing the attaché head-on, and says, in a mild, reasonable voice, “Well then, if I were addressing the mayor personally on this issue, I would propose that a horse-puppet pretending to diddle a whore is somewhat less a threat to community standards than those drunken soldiers who broke up the Four Cups last night, one of whom was shot for his antics by a constable, but not before causing considerable uproar and distress to many citizens. I might then go on to invite the mayor to a private showing of the performance, so that he might judge for himself how—”

“I do not care for your tone, Mr. Bok.”

“I don’t give a fuck, Mr. Franz, what you care for or don’t. I do know you like to have your prick yanked, hard, while you bite my whores on their arms, leaving bruises and occasionally drawing blood. Which is none of the mayor’s business, or that of anyone else. I only mention it to illustrate my point: that the Poppy is a place apart, and things happen here that have nothing at all to do with the workaday world we all inhabit, in a sane, generous, and Christian fashion. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Franz?”

The attaché’s face is a curious shade of yellow, a cross between bile and beer. Decca sits very still, her fingers steepled against her lips. As no answer appears to be forthcoming, Rupert rises, calling for Omar who swings the door wide as Mr. Franz rises as well, his motions somewhat stiff, as if he himself were a puppet, a marionette and “Good day, Mr. Franz,” says Rupert. “Please give my kind regards to the Mayor, and Miss Decca’s as well. Show Mr. Franz out, Omar.”

“This way, messire,” says Omar, as Mr. Franz pushes past him; the door swings shut again. Decca looks as if she cannot decide whether to clap or cry; finally, she laughs, an airless little noise. “Was that—entirely wise?”

Rupert rubs his forehead. “Do you think that ass Redgrave dreamed up this foolishness for himself? As if the waters weren’t shit-murked enough.” He turns for the door again. “We can finish with the books later. I must step out.”

Where?
but she does not ask because she knows he will not answer, believes at any rate she knows the answer, if not the final outcome. So she says nothing, only rises behind him, his dark, contained, and troubled form, one hand out helplessly, secretly, where he will never see—

—but he does see, turning to surprise her, that empty, reaching, supplicating hand, surprises her even more by taking her hand, taking her into his arms for a moment, a brotherly embrace as she, shocked, holds to him, her head tucked beneath his chin and “Trust me,” he says, “will you trust me? Things are getting darker here, I am doing the best that I can.”

For that moment she cannot answer, cannot speak a word: inhaling the scent of his waistcoat, of his body beneath, feeling the beat of his heart. Once, long ago, they slept this way, curled up on a quay, his arms around her like safety, his heart like the sound of the sea in her dreams. Finally “Yes,” she says on a breath, a tremulous exhalation. “Yes, I trust you.”

“All right, then. Good.” He releases her, slowly, slowly she steps away. “I’ll be back directly.… And tell your jester brother I want to see him.”

“He adores you,” she says.

Instantly his face pales, her eyes open wide with alarm—not at all what she meant to say, not at all what he thought to hear—and then his gaze goes flat and he is gone, slamming the door as she strikes the table, horrified at herself, has she lost her mind entirely?—as the teacups wobble, splashing the ledger, her hand creeps towards her throat but finds instead the lover’s eye inside her breast, circle of gold and blue, and her fingers seize it blindly through the silk, curl about it like a dying insect’s legs—

—but after a rigid pause she reaches, instead, to right the tipped and dripping cups, move the stained ledger, find something to blot the mess. From down the hall come nearing voices, Omar and Vera; she clears her throat, she takes a breath to call.

“Will the gentlemen be wantin’ wine, then? Or whiskey?” The clerk smells strongly of raw chicory, he is apparently having trouble focusing his eyes on Mr. Arrowsmith, who shakes his head: “Have someone bring tea,” to the rooms upstairs, not his, not Jürgen Vidor’s but another, dimmer, emptier suite, drawn curtains, one table, three men, four chairs and “It is barely noon,” says the colonel in a disapproving mumble, as the serving maid departs, “and that yokel at the desk is already bottled.”

“Perhaps he drinks to lubricate his wits,” suggests Mr. Arrowsmith. “Or quiet his fears. Tea, General?” to the third man present, who sits at his ease, a raptor’s gathered calm: black uniform fastened in gold, long silver hair, silver ring on his left thumb, black tea for General Georges who nods with the
politesse
of long acquaintance, waits with the same until Mr. Arrowsmith has poured for himself and then “The weather is against us,” the General says. He has an unexpectedly musical voice, a poet’s voice, an orator’s. “But things will go very quickly, even in the snow. We will not have the passes, we haven’t yet the troops for that, but I am not persuaded that we need them, the railway should suffice. And Essenhigh has the town fully secured, yes, Colonel?”

The colonel is not a small man, but next to the seated General he seems diminished. “Yes, sir. The men have settled in well.”

Mr. Arrowsmith sips his tea. “But there was some unpleasantness…? The staff downstairs was all a-buzz.”

The general leans forward; the colonel scowls: “What unpleasantness?”

“Apparently a few of your more feral forces amused themselves poorly at a tavern, and were shot dead for their trouble, but not before—”

“No, it was a commotion at that whorehouse, Under the Poppy: some ill-minded bastard brought in a horse to fuck the girls. First dolls, now a horse! We ought to close that place down.”

The General blows softly on his tea. “A horse?”

“From whom have you that intelligence?” asks Mr. Arrowsmith of the colonel, who returns him a level stare and “My men,” he says. “They advise me of everything that passes in town.”