The Troupe (38 page)

“It’s a performance,” said George. “He must have taught you well.”

“Yeah. He did. It may be my best performance,” she said. “Better than anything I do onstage.”

“That’s not true.”

“Maybe not. But I can’t keep it up forever. Harry knows this schtick won’t hold up in New York. I can only pass for royalty out in the sticks. But it’s more than that. I don’t
want
to keep this up
anymore. I’m sick and tired of pretending. I hate this goddamn princess I’m supposed to be. But without her, where would I be?” She sighed. “Do you remember when I told you about the Palace? How I got to see it?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t get to go in there when I was in New York, but I went to another theater. One about as good, it seemed. And there was a comedian playing there. Everyone had crammed in to go see him. He was
the
act to see, you know? And as it turns out, he was colored. And not just colored, but not even in blackface,” she said, referring to how colored entertainers were expected to perform in the same makeup that white performers wore in minstrel routines. “That was something I’d never seen before. And he did this bit, just about the funniest bit I ever saw. It was a dumb act, a pantomime bit where he pretended like he was in a poker game, gambling against some others. He did this great thing where he’d lift his head up and think about his cards—which weren’t there, of course—and he’d flutter his eyes real fast and mumble to himself a little. And everyone just howled with laughter.”

“Bert Williams,” said George, who recognized the bit from reports he’d heard. Williams was a titan in vaudeville, especially after his success in the Ziegfeld Follies. He was one of the very few blacks to have achieved such fame, whether people liked it or not.

“Bert Williams,” said Colette. “Yeah. I don’t know how, but he did it. Playing in the best theaters, for the best audiences. And I figured, if he can do it, why can’t I? All it takes is talent. Talent, and practice.” She was quiet. “How much further can I get, do you think? I won’t ever manage the troupe. If Harry gives it to anyone, he’ll give it to Stanley.”

“Stanley? Why Stanley?”

“Because they’re related, of course.”

George’s mouth fell open. “Related? They don’t look anything alike! How do you know they’re related?”

“Well, I don’t
really
know for sure. It’s just how they talk to each other, I suppose. But if my hunch is right, I’m never getting the troupe,” she said. “I’ll always just be Princess Colette, stuck out here in the sticks, doing little turns for little theaters. I’ll never be big-time. Just some silly colored girl, nursing silly dreams, a sideshow to the real thing.”

“That’s not what you are,” said George.

“And you would know that?”

“I think I do,” said George. His heart was beating very fast. He could feel his pulse in his wrists and ears. “Do… do you know what it was like, seeing you for the first time?”

“No. I guess I’ve never heard your opinion, as an audience member.”

He swallowed. His mouth felt hot and thick. Was he supposed to do this now? It seemed there’d be no better time.

He said, “I know vaudeville isn’t supposed to be
art
. It’s supposed to be entertainment, which is different. But I think art… I think it’s making something from nothing, basically. It’s taking something as simple as a movement, or a few notes, or steps, or words, and putting them all together so that they’re
bigger
than what they ever could have been separate. They’re transformed. And just witnessing that transformation changes you. It reaches into your insides and moves things around. It’s magic, of a sort.

“I never really knew that until I saw your act. But when you walked out on that stage, I knew I was seeing something…
different
. Something maybe more amazing than what the professor and Silenus had done. You were
making
something up there, out of just a few notes and steps. It was like a little glimpse of perfection, made out of the simplest elements possible, and seeing it changed something in me. I’d never encountered anything like that. And when it was done, I… I knew I had to see you, to meet you.”

Her eyes had grown wide. “W-what? Why? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I knew that… that whoever that girl up on that stage was, in order to make that she had to have something inside her that made her more beautiful than anything else in the world. And I don’t think I was wrong.”

He looked at her. Her mouth was hanging open slightly, and her eyes were searching his face. He steeled himself. He had never given one of these before, and had received one only once, but still he shut his eyes and leaned in…

“Wait,” said Colette. “Whoa, wait. Stop.”

George opened his eyes. Her hands were up, like she was ready to hold him back if he continued. “Stop?”

“Yes, George. Stop.” There was an awkward pause. She scooted away a little and looked out at the street. She took a breath like she was going to say something, but did not.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, as if she could not trust herself to open her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I really am sorry.”

“Just… stop talking, George.”

“All right.”

She stared out at the city, thinking. She did a lot of head-shaking, he noticed. Then she spun around to sit facing in at the roof, alongside him. She did not look at him. “That was… a lot to take in.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, George. Just don’t. It was a very beautiful and… and
flattering
thing to hear, but… Listen, just… I don’t know. Just forget about it.”

George did not say anything. He stared into his lap.

“Oh, Christ,” she said. “Listen, you’re… a very nice boy, and you’re clever, but… I’m sorry. I really don’t think of you like…”

“I see,” said George.

“Jesus, George,” she said. “What did you have to go and say that for?”

“Because that was what I felt.”

“No. You don’t want someone like me. I’m all beat-up and broken.”

“Not to me, you aren’t.”

“You don’t know me,” she said, now angry. “You don’t, George. You said it yourself, you’re looking for that girl on the stage.”

“But that was you,” George said.

“No, it wasn’t,” said Colette. “Not really.” She stood up. “Just forget about it, George. It’s better for you that way.”

“I love you,” he said suddenly. Even as the words left his lips, he knew they had a hollow and desperate ring to them, and he regretted it.

“Jesus Christ,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He bunched up his fists and held them to the sides of his head, hiding his face from her. He wished he could strike the sides of his skull and rid himself of the memory of these last few minutes.

“Go to bed, George,” Colette said. “It’s late and cold and you still look sick. Just… just go to bed.”

George did not answer. He just sat there bent with his fists pressing into his temples.

She sighed. “If I leave you here, will you jump off the side of this fucking building, or something stupid?”

“No,” George said softly.

“Promise?”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry, George,” she said. “I really am. I never meant to make you unhappy. I really didn’t.” Then she turned around and walked away.

When her footsteps faded he peeked through his hands at her. Before the door she stopped as if she wished to look back at him, but she did not and opened it and slipped through, and he was alone.

George stayed on the roof for a long time. In between bouts of self-loathing he would relive moments when he should have said this instead of that, or done that instead of this. For one moment it’d all been going so well… Perhaps the slightest alteration in the night’s proceedings would have changed all this, and he’d now be sitting here with her hand in his, happy at last.

Maybe he’d missed his opportunity long before now. He thought of other close moments when he should have perhaps been more aggressive, and pressed his case. Yet it was in one of those memories that he stumbled on an evening that made him feel the most ashamed yet.

It had been nearly a month ago, when they’d arrived in town to find they had a free evening. Almost on a whim George had suggested going to a show and seeing the competition, and no one but Colette had been game. As they sat next to one another in the back of the theater they’d traded quiet barbs about the sloppiness of the acts, or the poor quality of the orchestra, or how such and such line was the exact copy of one they’d heard weeks ago. They’d been happily smug critics, sharing secrets the rest of the audience couldn’t understand.

Yet then the third act had come on, and things had changed. George, for his part, had kept up his critique, but Colette’s line of observation had quickly dried up. It wasn’t until the act was almost over that he’d glanced over and seen her sitting still in her seat, eyes thin and mouth even thinner. With the laughter of the crowd echoing around their ears, he couldn’t understand her sudden change in mood.

He supposed now that he should have noticed what had been different about that act: unlike the others, it was a minstrel routine. George had seen and even played for many of them in his time. He’d encountered his first at Otterman’s, and, since he’d never seen a
black person in Rinton, he’d not been sure what these gleaming, ebony-dark people with odd red mouths were meant to be at all. Tofty the violinist had told him the act was meant to be aping negroes, but in later performances George found this explanation still did not satisfy. Many coon acts did not make any reference to negroes at all, and in the few colored shows he saw (certainly not at Otterman’s, but at other theaters) the colored performers had been wearing the same kind of makeup. What did the makeup signify? What was its intent? He’d never been sure.

He should have realized then that the makeup had a very grave meaning to Colette. Knowing what she’d just told him on the roof, he realized now that to her it had a meaning of such awful importance he doubted if he’d ever fully understand it. How must she have felt, seeing that distorted, puerile version of what people thought her to be dancing and singing and clowning on the stage? She, this elegant thing he worshipped so nakedly? God, he thought… had he laughed at that show, there in front of her? He did not think he had, but he felt horribly ashamed to even imagine it. Every laugh the act garnered surely wounded her, and to hear a friend laugh as well would have been pain beyond pain.

But thinking about it now made what had happened after the show even more troubling.

They had exited together, and George, still ignorant but sensing her discomfort, had asked her what was wrong. Did she feel ill? Or cold? Had she not found the show funny?

At that, she had stood up straight, and slowly picked her head up until her nose was in the air and her shoulders were thrown back, a posture of immaculate haughtiness. She’d smiled coldly, as if she would never be so vulgar as to admit genuine amusement, and said with a trace of a French accent, “Oh, certainly. After all, they are a very funny people.” And she had walked away, her stride stately, almost queenly.

It had been, he’d recognized, a part of her Princess Colette act.
But now he wondered how she’d meant those words. Had she referred to the actors on the stage? Or had she meant something more? Or perhaps she had briefly felt that she would rather be a false person, a fabricated character, than a real one in such a bitter and callous world, and sought comfort in her little creation.

George thought about it. After a while, he sadly realized she was right: he did not really know her at all.

George did not sleep that night. He sat in his bed thinking of how he had misjudged or mistreated Colette, or she him, sometimes cursing himself for his forwardness. Then in the early morning he heard his door creak open. He rolled over to see the short, bulky figure of his father sidle its way into the room, hat in hand.

“Harry?” whispered George.

“You’re awake,” said Silenus. “Good. Get dressed.”

“Why?”

“We’re going on a trip. Don’t wear your nice shoes.” Then he put his hat back on and walked out, shutting the door.

George half-dressed and came down to find Silenus and Stanley in the street behind the theater. They appeared to be in the midst of a new argument: Silenus had his arms crossed and was trying to ignore Stanley’s pleas, while Stanley held up his blackboard, which was marked with:
IT SHOULD NOT BE HIM
. There were other half-erased messages in the borders that read things like
NOT WELL YET
and
ME INSTEAD
.

“Ah,” said Silenus when he saw George. “You’re ready.”

“Where are we going at his awful hour?” said George. He was in a bad temper. The lack of sleep and humiliating rejection had cast a pall over him.

“We’re going fishing,” said Silenus.

Stanley did a double take on hearing this.

“But not for fish,” said Silenus. “And not at a river. We’re going fishing at a cemetery, George.”

Stanley rolled his eyes and wrote:
DO NOT MAKE THE BOY GET OUT OF BED. I WILL COME INSTEAD
.

“No,” said Silenus. “You won’t. I don’t need you at all. I need George. You need to stay here, and look after the rest of the troupe.”

TOO MUCH EXPOSURE
, wrote Stanley.

“The wolves are looking, but they haven’t found us yet,” said Silenus. “Things are only dangerous near the parts of the song they’ve found, where they’re watching. And we won’t be going near those.”

Stanley did not seem convinced. He frowned and shook his head.

“What do you need me for, anyway?” said George.

“Let’s say I need a catalyst, and you should serve nicely,” said Silenus. “It’s nothing dangerous. I just need a reed to catch the wind, and sing for me.”

“I’m not singing,” said George.

“You have no gift for the metaphorical,” said Silenus. “Let’s get to the fucking train station, all right? I need to make some stops near there before we can go.”

When they arrived Silenus bought the tickets and hurried off to a hardware store down on the corner. He would not say what he was looking for. George and Stanley sat on a station bench to wait for him.