Harmony (32 page)

“They take real-world politics more seriously than you think.”

“I never doubt their seriousness. But there are other ways to serve a cause than the obvious one. And the cause itself may not always be the obvious one. What if the cause is Art, and politics merely the means to express it?”

Cris sulked the rest of the morning, without even the grace to pretend that he wasn’t. I managed some good work on my
Lysistrata
until I hit a serious conceptual snag around noon and was shaken by an irresistible upwelling of futility. My new confidence foundered. Even if Mark’s figures were alarmist, I couldn’t believe I was brilliant enough to survive the more rigid culling that seemed inevitable.

Suddenly I could see no reason, if the Admin was going to throw me Out anyway, why I should bust my ass on a Sunday for a paper project that would never be realized.

Besides, where I really wanted to be was at rehearsal.

THE RAID:

Micah and Crispin were so engrossed in their work, they didn’t see me leave the studio.

I thought about that, alone in the sunshine of the empty courtyard. Not only was I losing faith in my work, but my supposed lover didn’t notice when I left the room. I watched a feathery argument among a quartet of finches that hung around the yard because Micah fed them. Maybe I didn’t mind. Crispin’s approval, though often withheld, had bolstered my self-esteem. But I’d gotten too used to letting him take the lead in things, deciding where we’d go and what we’d do. Maybe it wasn’t going to be that way anymore.

A door shut softly behind me. Not, as I feared, Cris come to steal my re-evaluated solitude, but Mark, closing up Marie’s studio.

“Hey, G.”

“Hey, Mark. Thought you weren’t bothering with home projects anymore.”

“I’m not.” He hauled out his bike. It was candy-striped, orange and magenta. Bela’s, its twin, still waited in the rack. Mark didn’t allow it a moment’s glance. “Coming or going?”

“Rehearsal… I think.”

He raised a brow at my air of confusion, but left it at that. “I’m meeting Songh. Walk you to the fork?”

A batch of tourists clattered by outside. I waited until they had passed, then locked the gate surreptitiously behind us.

“Chamber of Commerce’ll have us arrested,” Mark murmured.

“We only do it on Sundays…”

It was good to hear him laugh—it had been awhile. I studied him as he wheeled his bike along. Mark was what you’d call a fine-looking young man—straight-cut blond hair, earnest blue eyes, precise features, sort of like Christopher Robin grown up. People didn’t stare at him in the street like they did Cris. Their glance swept across him and beyond, but often their faces changed, softening, relaxing just a bit, as if some subtle reassurance had been gained in the passage. I decided he looked good. This new determination suited him. “So what were you up to in there?”

“A little further research.”

“More numbers, Mark? Don’t we have enough?”

“No, I was reading the constitution.”

I laughed.

Mark dipped his head stubbornly. “Mali said, be thorough. I thought I’d find out exactly what rights we apprentices do have.”

“Do we have any?”

“I’m just getting started. All this legalese is slow going, even for a lawyer’s son.”

The foot traffic thickened as we neared the market square. Avid faces all around, chattering like finches, about what they’d bought and how much it had cost them.

“Want to hear something weird?” Mark asked.

“Always.”

“I was at Willow Street last night.”

“To see that musical? I hear it’s a big hit.”

“Packed to the rafters. And the show’s no good.” He shook his head wonderingly. “Typical Bill Rand stuff—real old hat. At any rate, the first weird thing was the box office refused my apprentice pass and made me
buy
standing room.”

“Buy? Like, with credits?”

“Had to borrow from an usher I know.”

Our tiny apprentice stipends couldn’t hope to cover the costs of Harmony’s increasingly tourist-oriented ticket prices. “Are the apprentice freebees voluntary?”

He shrugged. “First I’ve heard of it. But wait—at intermission the lobby’s so tight you can barely move. All around I hear talk about ‘those radicals at the Arkadie.’ There are a few other apprentices there, but mostly it’s locals and a lot of overnight tourists. I hear this couple behind me complaining about the crowd. The woman asks why there are so many apprenctices in the audience. Her much older friend reminds her that our training program requires us to see as much of other people’s work as we can. ‘Well, I don’t like it,’ she says, ‘they shouldn’t be allowed to take up seats meant for tax-paying citizens!’ ”

We reached the fork in the path. “Micah says the face of Harmony
is
changing,” I sighed.

“I think it’s the heart that’s changing, G.” Mark swung a leg over his candy-striped bicycle. “That’s what really frightens me.”

I sneaked into the Barn and sat at the back by the door.

Pen and Tua faced each other in the middle of the hall, working through the quiet first-meeting scene between the clansman’s young daughter and her suitor-to-be. The rest of the Eye sat cross-legged along the side, watching with unusual attentiveness. Or so I assumed, until Omea passed along to Sam a stack of papers she’d been reading. The bright blue caught my eye.

The Barn smelled stale and smoky. I wished it was real, all that fake greenery arrayed about the room in optimistic clumps. The Barn needed a little of my grandpa’s green air.

The scene wasn’t going well. Tua had made great strides since the week before. It was no longer obvious she was new to the role and to the company. She had her lines down, and disencumbered of her script, she settled more easily and consistently into character. But Pen was withholding, his concentration poor. He gripped his rolled-up script like the proverbial blunt instrument. His line readings were not character readings, they were Pen readings. Tua pushed too hard to keep the energy up. The wooing of the shy village Juliet by her eager Romeo slid toward something else entirely.

“Hold, please.” Howie padded onto the floor to huddle with the actors.

I pulled my chair up to the production table. “How’s it going?”

Liz growled softly in her throat. “Pen came in half lit again.”

“Ah. Did Howie say anything about moving into the theatre early?”

“Tuesday, after the day off.”

“Damn.”

“I know. Sean’ll never speak to me again.”

I sniffed elaborately. “It smells funny in here.”

“I’ve been instructed not to notice.” She nodded toward Ule as he passed something to Moussa and eased back on his elbows to exhale luxuriously. A thin trail of smoke followed Moussa’s hand to his lips.

“They don’t know it’s illegal to smoke in a dome?”

“They know.”

I watched, fascinated.

Out on the floor, Howie’s voice rose in spite of itself. “But why can’t you?”

Pen snapped, “Because she can’t get it fucking straight!”

“You’re the one needs to get straight!” Tua snapped back.

“Guys,” Howie reasoned, “this isn’t useful.”

Liz leaned closer. “Pen claims he can’t do this scene ’cause Tua’s from the city and doesn’t understand the proper role of women in village life.”

“Jeez.”

“I know. But Mali says it’s a clan problem: he’s Fire, she’s Water. Some old dispute from their grandfathers.”

Fire and Water? “Older than that,” I noted.

“And get this: Cu raised a big stink this morning when he found out there’s no men on our running crew. He says it’s taboo for women to handle the puleales or the gorrehma.”

I felt a shiver of guilt, a genuine frisson, at the memory of my woman’s hands on the smooth, forbidden curves of the Gorrehma.
Goodness, what was that?
I wondered. Not belief, surely not. “Who does he think’s been painting the damn things?”

“Has he been around to see you doing it?”

“No, but…”

Liz shrugged the weight of the world and let it settle back on her shoulders. “Out of sight, out of mind with these folks. They use these taboos as a convenience.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Liz.” I smiled carefully. “We were warned about their taboos.”

“Does that mean we have to buy into them? Damn! You and I wouldn’t be here working if we did! Hey, you know me, I put up with a lot of shit from actors. But sometimes”—she glared at Te-Cucularit, who was doodling in his notebook, intent as a five-year-old—“I’m convinced they’re taking advantage of us. They know we’ve been told to give their differences a lot of room, so they flaunt them, just to goad us into proving we’re every bit as philistine and bigoted as they expected us to be.”

“I like it when they flaunt their differences.”

“You wouldn’t if you were here in the tank with them every day!”

“Maybe it has nothing to do with being different,” I suggested. Color was in motion again—Sam passing the sheaf of blue papers on to Moussa, Moussa passing a tiny red pipe back to Ule. “Maybe Cu’s just an asshole. A Tuatuan should be able to be an asshole same as anyone else, I guess.”

Liz stared at me as if I were simple. “Then we should be able to treat him same as any asshole!”

Behind us, the door swung open. Liz glanced around. “Good Lord.”

A Security patrol spread quick-step across the rear of the hall, twelve green uniforms crisp and tight against the peeling white paint.

“Uh-oh. Smoke detectors must have alerted them.” I looked at the line of actors, apparently engrossed in the rehearsal. The little pipe had disappeared. The squad captain headed our way. Only in Harmony would the police interrupt a rehearsal and know exactly where the stage manager was. Except in Harmony you didn’t call them the police.

The Green leader was younger than me. She leaned in to murmur to Liz, something about a security search.

“Now?” Liz demanded. “In the middle of a rehearsal?”

The woman shrugged, then signaled her squad to proceed. Four of them poked unconvincingly among the artificial flora. The other eight headed straight for the Eye.

“Hold it,” Liz objected. “You said ‘search the
hall
.’ ”

I felt it, a subtle shift of the energy in the room. Out on the floor, the volume escalated abruptly.

“No way!” Pen yelled. “She does that, she takes the scene entirely!”

“Whoa, easy.” Howie had not yet noticed the Greens beginning their search. “It’s perfectly within her character.”

“But it’s my moment!” Pen threw his script. The crack as it hit the floor stopped the Greens short. Eleven heads swiveled toward their leader.

“You think every moment’s yours!” Tua retorted. “Whether it’s in the script or not!”

Howie’s hands made swimming motions. “Let’s talk this over quietly.”

Tua gestured rudely. “He couldn’t play a quiet scene if his life depended on it.”

Lucienne and Tuli burst into high-pitched giggles, like teenagers overreacting. The Eye was moving about without really moving. The patrol captain’s head jerked toward them and back as Pen began to pace in tight, angry circles.

“Is this part of the play?” she demanded.

“Not last time I checked the script,” Liz replied.

“Little Miss Jealous Nobody!” Pen barked. “Trying to undermine me from the beginning, but I’m putting a stop to it!”

Mali rose from the floor, every muscle intent on Pen. I expected Sam, his peace-keeping strong-arm, to follow. But Sam stayed put, edging closer to Ule, murmuring with Moussa. The Greens flicked silent questions at their captain, drawing closer to the light from the windows, away from the shadowed perimeter of the hall.

“You’ll do what your director tells you,” Mali rumbled.

Howie stepped in front of Mali. “Please. Let me handle this.”

Pen shoved past him. “Who are you, telling me what to do?”

“Your elder.”

“Please,” Howie begged.
“Please!”

“Elder?” Pen snarled in Mali’s face. “Useless old man!”

A collective growl erupted from the sidelines as the other actors scrambled up in protest. A soft ululation began, Lucienne and Tuli holding hands and chanting, louder and louder until Omea joined them. The Greens’ eyes widened. Something nudged my elbow. A script lay on the table where there’d been none before. Sam stood a few paces away, watching the fracas.

The patrol captain shook Liz’s arm. “Aren’t you going to stop this?”

“They’d be after us in a second if we interfered.”

The Green went a little limp and backed up a step. Sam turned, meeting my inquisitive glance head-on. His blue eyes reminded me of the papers they’d been passing, like the pipe, no longer in evidence. My hand stole to the script beside me, easing it under the crook of my arm. Sam’s eyes lidded in a half smile. He turned away.

“Goddamn!” Howie yelled. “Can’t you people get along?”

He won a silence he hadn’t expected. The Eye stared at him.

“Settle your damn differences outside the rehearsal hall,” he grumbled anticlimactically.

“Howie,” Liz called softly, “we’ve got another problem.”

After that, the search was over quickly. Mali drew himself up scowling before the green-uniformed boy who approached him so tentatively, then laughed out loud. He reached into his jeans pockets and pulled them inside out, spreading his arms. “Help yourself, bro.”

Of course, nothing was found. Except the patrol leader’s ID card, which miraculously turned up in Sam’s shirt pocket. Even Ule was squeaky clean. The suspicious books in Mali’s backpack that the skinny Green insisted his superior inspect were revealed to be three novels by Thomas Hardy, all properly signed out of the Harmony Free Library. The patrol leader took Howie’s word that this was not subversive material.

The Greens did not search Howie or Liz or her assistants. They did not search me, sitting silent at the production table with my hand resting gently on Sam’s script. I was pretty sure where the blue papers had gone, but I did wonder how he’d managed to totally disappear Ule’s smoking pipe.

“By the way,” Howie asked as the Greens were leaving, “who did you say sent you up here?”

The patrol leader blinked at him. “Why, your office, Mr. Marr. I understood it was at your own request.”