The Malacia Tapestry (26 page)

‘I won't add to your number of spies.'

‘No, no, confound you, nothing dishonourable – just report anything suspicious, and keep watching, eh? And we should build up the part of Phalante the Bankrupt. Such a funny part when you play it. You've seen nothing untoward with her?'

‘It's hard to believe that such a virtuous woman could bear to deceive a husband like you!'

He dug me in the ribs with an elbow notorious for its lethal bone structure.

‘She doesn't get much peace from such a hot-blooded fellow, let me tell you, but every woman is a rake at heart. Men are souls of virtue compared. I could kill her at times.'

Peace had now fallen on the river. The broken bridge remained unrepaired. Sunset was coming on. Sweet aromatic herbs were lit to one side, to affect the audience with their odours. A fleet of long-necked fanglefish cruised placidly upstream. The tips of the mountains turned pink as the valley disappeared in shadow. It was suddenly affecting, and it was over.

‘Rubbish, rubbish!' Kemperer cried, knocking over his chair. ‘Not a witty line in the whole thing! The Great Harino's a great fraud!
Karagog
had better improve on that dismal display or I shall not sit it through!'

But most people were amused. They cried for cold drinks to slake their thirsts, so hot was it in the tent. Portinari came to sit next to me and we drank sherbet.

‘It was a bagatelle, but it had novelty!' he said.

‘When I was a boy, an old man in Stary Most used to play
The Broken Bridge
in a barrel, with a candle for light. It's many centuries old.'

‘Like
The Visionaries
… All the same, this interpretation had artistry, don't you think?'

‘Artistry enough. “Hokum maybe, but striking theatre”,' I quoted. ‘It reminded me of Reality without making ineffectual attempts to imitate it slavishly.'

‘Reality is so unpleasant … Think how we sit here in moderate comfort, watching a succession of pictures, while behind the screen some poor sweating wretch feeds flares hot enough to roast himself on.'

‘Isn't that the nature of all art? An artist suffers agonies to yield his audience one twitch of delight!'

‘Ah, then you have agreed to play Phalante!' he said. ‘What else was old Kemperer talking to you about?'

I was saved having to answer by a loud drum-roll and the lighting up of the screen. Diverse, dazzling figures burst forth on it. Out jumped Karagog, with his long arms and his comic red hat, and the fun began.

Karagog tried to become a schoolmaster, but failed so miserably that the scholars chased him from school; tried to join a circus, but fell from the high wire into a soup tureen; joined the army, but became terrified at the sound of cannon. Images pelted before our eyes. The puppet-master had contrived a zoetrope effect, so that in the circus scenes arcrobats skipped, leaped, and danced across the screen, tossing coloured balls as they went. And the parade of soldiers, all in their great plumed hats, was magnificent. They swung their arms and the music played ‘Lilibulero'.

A battle scene was next. The screen darkened. Shots were heard, and screams of ‘Fire'. A lurid, flickering light crossed the battlefield, where soldiers stood ready. Smoke was in the auditorium now – Kemperer was coughing and cursing.

All at once, the screen itself burst into flames. The puppet-operators were revealed, dropping their puppets and running madly from the blaze. The whole tent was alight.

‘You see – realism carried too far!' Portinari said, gasping with laughter as we ran through the smoke. A pile of broadsheets stood by the exit. I snatched one as we scampered by.

In the garden all was pandemonium. Puppets were being flung unceremoniously into a cart, while assistants threw buckets of water at the blaze and the Great Harino screamed. The flames were spreading to some arbours of trellis where wistaria grew.

‘What a blaze!' Kemperer said, rubbing his hands. ‘It was madness to have flares inside a tent. Let's hope they don't get it under control quickly!'

Ashes of burnt tent fell like autumn leaves. One settled on La Singla's shoulder. She screamed. Kemperer beat at it with blows which would have extinguished Vesuvius, until his poor wife staggered from him, shrieking. Turning to me, gesturing ferociously, he said, ‘What an end to my miseries if she went up in smoke, eh?'

Portinari and I, with some of the other players, went to cool down in the nearest wine-shop. In its darkest recess stood a keg of Bavarian beer. We ordered two tankards. With mutual pledges we lifted the beer, foaming, to our lips.

‘What an old coxcomb Pozzi is!' said Portinari, wiping his mouth and sighing.

‘Why do we work for him?'

‘Yet he has his humorous point. When I first joined, I asked if he had any hints for a young actor, and he said, “Yes, one above all: remain the sunny side of forty”.'

‘Good advice – which I for one mean to follow.' I pulled from my shirt the broadsheet I had picked up in the pleasure-garden. Spreading it on the table, we read the rhyme set at its foot in black letter:

Our Shadow Figures, with their mimic strife,

They are but to Amuse, or chase your Care
,

And beg Indulgence from you Phantoms there,

Within the greater Raree-show of Life
.

From Orient and Far Cathay come they
.

Even like you, Someone behind the Screen

Controls their Acts – so think, when you have seen
,

Your Life like theirs is but a Shadow Play!

We roared with laughter. ‘It was this inflammatory stuff which set the tent alight, not the flares,' I said.

‘I could compose as well before ever you drain your tankard,' said Portinari.

‘You have little faith in my capacity for Bavarian beer!'

I raised the tankard to my lips and began drinking, while my portly friend screwed his countenance into a grimace ghastly enough to make his Muse cower in submission. As I set the tankard down empty, he raised a hand, uttering a cry of triumph, and began his recitation.

There's no Free Will
–
or, if so, 'tis as rare

As is Free Beer! Our puppets teach you this.

But this analogy is neither here not there …

‘Yes, “For puppets have no Hearts to give the Fair”.'

‘No, no, wait – “Since Humans, unlike Puppets, Drink and Piss”. It has to be an
A,B,A,B
rhyme scheme! I win, de Chirolo, I win!'

‘I concede victory, my fabulous fat friend, and so will prove to you that free beer is not so rare as you think …'

Eventually, I made my way home for a siesta by the coolest alleys. Much was on my mind, for the shadow play with Armida was entering a fresh turn. The ancestral hunt would challenge all my seriousness.

I turned in at my archway in the Street of the Wood Carvers. A female form slipped out of the shadows, revealing itself as La Singla. She was afraid that she had been followed, and insisted on coming upstairs to my room.

‘A box on the ears this morning. Now what? If penitence, it can wait. I need a nap.'

She made no answer as we went upstairs.

Closing my door, I turned to contemplate her. There was none of her usual coquetry about her. She wore her tragic air, was remote, and with her bangled, Iberian wrists, expressed a pretty disquiet. When I approached her, those same wrists and the supple hands warded me off.

‘You must be my friend only, Perian, if that is possible for you. Do not take advantage of me. I lost you when the fire broke out, and have waited anxiously for you since. Where have you been? You must tell me all that my husband said in the tent. Is he very suspicious? Has he set men to follow me?'

‘What he said was in confidence.'

She was so anxious that she approached me. I seized her hands.

‘Perian, I am in desperate straits.'

‘So you are involved in some deep affair, Mistress Kemperer. Why else should you look so pale, as if you were playing
The Last of the Cantamas?
You have come to a man who can take your mind off your troubles.'

‘If I wanted that sort of thing, don't you think I have wealthier lovers elsewhere, as good in bed, and not so conceited?' Her hands flew to her mouth. ‘I didn't mean that, Perian. Just a verbal box on the ears. You're a darling, but this is no time for gallantry. I must get home or I'll be missed. Tell me what Pozzi said.'

‘So it's a wealthy lover, eh?'

She looked sombrely at me, drawing her brows together without speaking.

‘Tell me who he is, this paragon of lovers.'

‘Oh, go to the Devil! Why should I trust you?'

‘You delight in giving me lectures. I'd like to give you one. You think me unscrupulous and vain, but at least I always trust my friends. It's a duty to do so, at least until they prove false. Better to be duped occasionally than to be suspicious always.'

‘You talk nonsense.'

But my little speech made me feel better and full of trust myself, so that I repeated everything Kemperer had said to me, embellishing little.

‘Then he doesn't know everything,' said La Singla. She gave me a straight look. ‘Nor do you, Perian. Forgive my tantrums.'

‘Of course I do.'

A kiss on the lips and she was gone. I sat on the bed and rested my chin in my hand, wondering greatly about women, about myself, and about the whole human race.

By sunset, when the sky grew crimson above the Palace of the Bishops Elect on its high hill, I had recovered from my attack of philosophy. Armida and I, de Lambant and Bedalar, sat in a respectable café we could hardly afford, drinking and talking. Portinari was to have been there too, but his father needed him in the dairy. The two chaperons, Yolaria and Jethone, sat nearby in an alcove behind a bead curtain, where they could discuss the price of lace without bothering us.

Since Portinari was absent, it was my task to tell the story of how the Great Harino's tent caught fire. This I did to such good effect that the girls laughed and shuddered and wished fervently that they had witnessed it too.

‘Have you been busy since we parted this morning?' Armida asked me. ‘Apart from enjoying the great fire?'

‘Feverishly busy with rehearsals. Tomorrow I will go to see my sister and arrange a horse for the hunt; I shall not let you down.'

‘It is essential that you should be properly accoutred for the ancestral hunt. Can your brother-in-law advise you?' She used the same tone as she had in the morning.

‘Volpato's never at home. I'll manage. I have much to do. My costumes need replenishment. While I was watching the
Ombres Chinoises
, before they went up in smoke, I had a striking inspiration for Phalante the Bankrupt.'

‘You should concentrate on one thing at a time.'

‘The battle episode in
Karagog
gave me the idea. I decided that I will play Phalante as a soldier, not as a dowdy apothecary. Then we could bring in some contemporary business about the bankrupt state of Constantinople, which always raises a laugh. It will naturally amuse a Duke of Ragusa.'

‘Stick to the apothecary,' advised de Lambant. ‘You look funnier with leeches than breeches.'

‘I'm incredible as a soldier. I scared myself in my cheval glass. I have my military turn-down boots, and a grand wooden sword in scabbard – a fine property – which hangs from a heavy scarf crossing over the coat from one shoulder.' I rose to show them how it went. ‘The effect's pretty staggering. And I have a long cravat dividing in two and falling down to my waist, in the fashion of Croatian mercenaries. It's a better rig-out than Otto Bengtsohn supplies for Gerald. All I lack is a plumed tricorne-hat. You don't have such a thing, Guy?'

‘Neither the hat nor the ambition for one.'

‘You'll like the costume, Armida, and swear that no battlefield would be complete without me. The shadow puppets were nothing! All my joints work with greatest flexibility. In the mirror, I saw the gallant fellow swagger about. Then he drew his sword of best tempered Toledo timber and cut down fifty Ottomans! What speed, what grace, what sheer ferocity! But no hat. Boldness immeasurable, but no hat. A sad tale …'

‘“He who loves himself well will find no rival”,' quoted Armida.

I was indignant. I took more wine.

‘It was not me I admired but the phantom I created! There's the pleasure in being a player, Armida. Just by changing my outer clothes, I alter the inner man.'

‘If there is an inner man,' said Bedalar.

‘Then the inner man's a weather vane,' said Armida.

‘Not a weather-vane. The inner man is potentially everyone, everything. The mutability of the soul! Each of us, given the chance, could encompass all possibilities. A change of mood, a change of wig, a change of being.' I quaffed down more wine, feeling my art and my power. ‘A young man, an old man? Very well. Rich or poor? Cavalier, judiciary, cut-purse, monk, noble, miller, beggar, artist? As you will. All trades, ranks, professions, follies and wisdom, all are within. It needs only the appropriate dress to call forth the appropriate character; he will take me over, live my life for a brief hour, and I his.

‘Everyone would do the same if they dared to, if they were trained to. It's the only freedom.'

‘Is your own life so awful that you have to escape this way?' Bedalar asked.

De Lambant was looking bored, but the two girls were full of interest.

‘Happy people always “escape”, as you call it. They return with riches. I have played such a necromancer that my least mouthful of food had to be eaten by the correct twinkle of the correct star; such an elder statesman that my every limb trembled and creaked for weeks after; such a jackanapes that my friends shunned me while the piece was running; such a sign-crossed lover that I cried myself to sleep every night.'