The Bastards' Paradise Read online

  Naturally, Rupert’s wry murmur; he himself has never heard this tale before.

  —but I’ll give the General his due, the old fuck, he did have a sense of humor. Even if in the end, the joke was all on him. Terrible thing, though, his murder…. Do you have her still, that lady? We called her “Lizsette” awhile, didn’t we, as the packed-away beauty is restored to an evening’s life, flaxen hair and dress once so stylish now passé: fashions change, even for puppets, and We don’t use her much, Lucy says, tidying the curls that have flattened, nor the Bishop, either. It’s all Mick’s Van in the evenings—would you like a sport with him? No?—and the Singing Baby for matinees. Folks can’t get enough of those, can they, Pinky?

  Indeed no, that Baby’s more beloved than the mayor himself. Even looks a bit like the mayor, in certain lights.

  And we still use the Tabletop Princes, for “The Dragon and the George.” Though our George has lost a bit of his bounce, may be you’ll have a look while you’re stopping, leading the way to the worktable, that familiar landscape of clutter and gut, tins of wax and scraps of new leather all Lucy’s province and charge, Lucy’s hand on Istvan’s shoulder a sister’s pressure to ask softly, Are you sure you can’t stay on a bit longer? You’ve been sorely missed, you two.

  This place—not your digs, Puss, this city—is not hospitable for us; we’d never have stopped here at all but for you. And we surely never thought to see that captain of industry, with a watchful frown that might have been worn by Rupert; it is curious, though remarked upon by neither, that on this journey each has begun somewhat to play the other’s rôle. Of all the visitors you might have had tonight!

  He stepped in to keep me company, it’s that lonely with Pimm away, and he’s in and out anyroad as he can. But you know he knows how to keep a secret, this well-burnished gentleman reaching for the whiskey, Achille the august president of the Bank Guerlain, director of other men’s fortunes—and a devilish business it is at times, the yes-and-no and the worlds that lie between, the partnerships made with men whom one would wish otherwise never to meet, devoutly wish at times!—all of it engendering a certain rueful sympathy for his paternal predecessor, the old stick Honoré long passed and gone. And yet he is Pinky still, still with the taste for playing, the hours snatched from business to spend here at the theatre he funds, and the merry air he wore as a youth if no longer the outlandish gear, a bark-brown suit from Savile Row, the red hair now matched by a curling beard above the ivory four-in-hand. Hoisting the bottle—A bit more of the Irish, sir?—he pours for himself and M. Bok, taking a seat on the settee to mention quietly that I’d heard, you know, from Christobel, about that Garden of Eden—a hard business, sounds like.

  Yes.

  These days he’s well, at least he looks well, and traveling a fair bit as he always does; he’s in London just now, I believe. And she’s at Chatiens with Isidore, of course. You’ve not seen him, the boy?

  No.

  He’s his mother’s pride and joy, though Pinky does not mention the last visit he made to that family, he and Benjamin with their day’s business concluded, ready to share a glass, many glasses—it is amazing, and worrying, how much his friend can consume, still, perpetually—until Belle! with irritation. Stop that whining! from Isidore at the piano with his mother, Isidore grown taller and less obviously ill but still so milky and mingy, Isidore refusing the scales to play instead with a soldier on a stick, its wooden limbs loose as a puppet’s and You’ve a true nose for trash, Benjamin crossing the room to take and toss the toy aside, Isidore’s cry of defraudment swiftly stilled by a slap, his pale blue eyes—his lost aunt’s gaze, his late grandfather’s—wet yet narrowing as Christobel made a little sound not quite distress, or no distress she wished to demonstrate before a guest; Christobel in cinnamon silk and queen’s fierce jewels not lovely, never lovely, but ageless and stately, as a statue is stately, her steady hand on her husband’s arm—Benny, please—to be met with a look nearly as cold as the blow had been: He’s de Metz, he must learn. Isidore, stop sniffling like a woman. Achille, you ought rejoice that Adele’s whelped you only daughters, a son is nothing but a trial.

  Now Rupert nods, drinks, drinks again, a shadow at his eyes as My hope’s been for him to have a settled life, always. It’s why I did as I did, both here and after, to bring Pinky’s own solemn nod, Pinky’s solemn promise never to say whom he had met in this cozy parlor on this rainy night, a promise never to be broken, for whom would it serve, that sort of truth? Surely not Benjamin! nor M. Bok either, or M. Dieudonne, or his own very dear Lucy Pimm, who might end with the brunt of any punishment; Benjamin is rightly feared for his punishments…. If he reflects at all on this act of duplicity, that is at its heart an act of love, it is side by side with a temperate relief that such turgid deeps have never been his to swim, this relentless passion that leads only to and past the lip of tragedy. How much better to keep the tragedy for the stage, with music and puppets, and gin and laughter afterward at the backstage table! Yes, silence here is the right thing to do for all of them, himself not excluded.

  So when Istvan rises from the worktable, the George refurbished for a new multitude of dragons, asking Shall we have a bit of a jaunt, then? And will you squeeze the squeezebox for us, M. le Directeur? there is no shadow on the evening’s ending, just Pinky’s squawks and hoots as Istvan and Lucy and Miss Lucinda-Lizsette play a slightly less scandalous version of one of the old Poppy numbers, while Rupert beats time on the marble side table and joins with Pinky on the encore’s rousing chorus of “Thumb-Your-Nose.” And when, after a stirrup-cup and many handshakes, M. Guerlain makes his way home, from one hired cab to a supper club, to another cab, just to be safe—he remembers the General, too—his wakened wife’s question as he enters their bedchamber—The Palais, again? Those silly girls!—brings his own guileless kiss—Ah, that would be telling, my angel! But none of them is half as lovely as you—eliciting in its turn Adele Guerlain’s complacent smile; they understand each other very well, these two, their marriage is the envy of all their social set.

  After Pinky departs, still more, and more private, tales are told, intertwine like vines still growing, as old friends’ talk will do. Outside the hail spits and clatters, driven by a cold rain so intense that it halts the homeward journey, miles away, of Pimm and Mick gone to observe another theatre’s vaunted fit-up (“Magicum’s Marionettes & Marvels” turning out to be a trunk of creaky English Pierrots, two spinsters, and an albino with a set of wooden masks), themselves stranded at a mealy pub-and-rooms, their absence bringing Lucy’s only frown—Oh, Mickey’ll be rare put out to miss you! And Pimm will, too—the three of them stepped from parlor to the homier kitchen, the stove’s hot crackle a counterpoint voice as Lucy pours gin and roots contentedly through their cases, Castor and Pollux and the strange one-handed creature who is growing into Mr. Loup—she would handle him more, but Istvan gently takes that puppet from her—examining the costumes and the little knife from Vater, asking of their shows and future, their life past that fierce grand finale at the Mercury—

  Weren’t you brave, to play so? And foolish, too, a little.

  Foolish how? not Istvan’s frown but Rupert’s, Istvan’s shrug its mirror. And “brave”—we’ve played shows where the blood was real, remember?

  That’s long ago. How will you get on now?

  Why, we’ll just tramp it, Puss, as we’ve been doing. Playing for whomever we can gather, and keeping back from the cities, from those who might know us—

  Or pay us.

  Passing the hat and sleeping rough? At your age? to make Istvan raise his brows and Rupert laugh, spectacles pushed down his nose: Old dogs enough, that’s sure—and I could do with a bit less sleight-of-hand, myself, and a bit better lodgings. But this rascal’s the one who charts our course, with a look for Istvan that Lucy recognizes, that brings in turn her tribute smile: for these men whose life together so completely changed her own, and gave her so much of what she loves, a look that brings to mind o
ther glimpses glimpsed in other times and places, candelabra stage and mucky stable, backroom, drawing room, brothel so Will you stop at the Poppy, too? she asks, as if that were the natural question, Rupert quiet to light a cheroot, Istvan cool to shrug once more and It’s marvelous to me, he says, how Ag seems to occur to everyone but me. You sent on her last letter, before?

  The last I ever had from her.

  “Mrs. Mattison” and her pleasant entertainments, I don’t believe I’d find them to be either. And there’s still so much of the world we haven’t seen, moodily downing his gin as Rupert and Lucy share a look and change the subject, Rupert telling instead of their latest performances, “The Bear and the Bishop” and We mixed it up a bit, made the bear a pair of jolly beggars, and his worship here, with a playful nudge to Istvan, you ought to see him in his Pope’s hat! But the story’s just the same, a tale of power met and overmatched by play, and the “bishop” any master that the audience selects, Who’s your bogey in this town, who brings you low? to bring their shouts, and shouts of pleasure when that day’s bishop is devoured, with “Thumb-Your-Nose” offered as the encore As we did tonight—it’s a good tune, isn’t it? Rupert’s little whistle through the smoke. A rouser.

  He does not go on to relate its last performance, escaping past its singing half a step ahead of chaos: a concatenation of cracked windows, broken bottles, women’s shrieks and men’s oaths, one black-hatted soldier wildly swinging a stick that felled another, more soldiers charging into the tavern—and Rupert sturdy to kick and elbow out a path, one-armed and dragging the traps, they could have made the door if Mr. Castor had not then been flung to the planks, bringing Istvan’s own furied leap into the fray, the puppet plucked back to safety yet his handler still whacking and battering until Rupert hauled him to the street behind a shielding wagon, RYKER’S BEST DELIVERY and Why’d you swing that stool, messire! panting, his spectacles half torn from his face, I had us out! but I will be fucked, Istvan’s angry glee, if I’ll watch a mec of mine be splintered again—you say so, yeah? I yanked the bastard’s strings for him, didn’t I, careful to straighten Mr. Castor’s jacket, and secure him caseward, before mopping the stranger’s blood from his own face.

  The tale begun in the hamlet of Walter and Grigor feeds fat on this sort of meat, repeated and embellished by men who fancy their masters bitten, though without teeth enough to do the biting on their own; and by those masters, who must consider such activity a form of latent insurrection, even if only in play, a dangerous play for such unhappy times, made by men whose motives must be assumed to be dangerous as well. And add the insult of irreligion, a holy bishop made to be the dupe—! That these tales may echo other tales, and other insurrectionist puppeteers, is another kind of trouble, one that a spectacular headfirst death was meant to fix; but that, like every other death, cannot be altered now.

  Nothing of this is mentioned to Lucy, who at last, yawning and reluctant, packs back the travelers’ props to light the way to their old chamber tidy with disuse, the musty hangings hastily aired, the bed cold but warming as Rupert brings forth the final story of this evening now nearly morning, a brief if meaningful playlet that took place in this very room: a dead man’s letter in one hand and matches in the other, ready to strike as Benjamin called from the doorway, a key strung secret around his neck and It was so near a thing, Rupert’s headshake on the pillow as if still amazed, it all could have played out another way and It always can, Istvan’s murmur, that’s what makes it play. And did you and the Happy Prince, then, here…. No? with a private smile, drawing up the coverlet. Well, aren’t we glad that fucking foolishness is past. I’d rather eat beans for the rest of my life, I’d rather be hanged than dance for the quality again.

  On the morrow, newly kitted in dark coats and a pair of left-behind bowlers, their road-weary weeds Mostly fit for the ragbag, really, Lucy’s critical shrug, you’ll do better in these. Otherwise they’ll tax you for vagrants…. Do you still have that mirror I gave you? and as Rupert turns to bundle the provisions she provides—a good set-up of loaf and dried meats, a dash of gin, a half-dozen pippin apples—See this, she says, reaching from its hiding place behind a pile of kindling a cane, an expensively worked gentleman’s cane, the wood lustrous with old polish, a cold silver griffin for its head. It was left here, with no note nor word from a sender, both recognizing its provenance, neither saying aloud the name of Arrowsmith as Istvan weights it in his hand; is he remembering the man who so valued his own artistry, is he recalling lies told by and to other men and a woman, two women, and truths offered up by puppets as if they might be, must be, lies? Lies are their own kinds of truth, depending on who tells them, lies can make a road and a path and a way to walk, they can make a show, or ruin one, make a man or ruin him, too. The only ones who cannot be ruined by such are the puppets themselves, which is a joke and a blessing both; suitable, perhaps, for a bishop…. A dozen times I thought to burn the thing, Lucy’s face stern with her own memories. To this day we hear stories—none of ’em true! I should know—where they call you Steven and him Ruprecht, they’ve got you robbing the toffs and dueling on the rooftops, and Fancy that, Istvan over his shoulder to Rupert, who has taken in every word, seen the cane and recognized it too. Not every man becomes a myth, eh, Ruprecht? But it would be a shame to waste a nice jabber like this.

  He tucks the cane beneath his arm as Lucy bites her lip—Be careful, then—and I always am, and Mouse is too, so the safety’s doubled. Now give us a kiss, noting as he bends the gleaming goldfish brooch affixed to her quilted wrapper—old dog or not, still he misses nothing—as embraces are exchanged, and Istvan teases to forestall her tears and keep his own bittersweet smile, for who can say when next they will meet, and who they shall be when they do? Herself so changed, though he would never speak of it nor she own it, seeing it still in his eyes, Lucy-Belle now become so entirely the respectable and settled Mrs. Pimm—Sure you don’t wish to scarper with us, darling, as you used to? And let your Mr. Pimm follow as he may? but If you should ever need us, Rupert’s two fingers to tilt up her chin, as he might have done to Tilde, as he once did to Decca, his one-eyed gaze a father’s, a brother’s, a protector’s, send word to those fellows at the Mercury.

  They leave as they arrived, sidewise through the alley door, two salesmen perhaps with sample cases of the goods on offer, one of them looking back over his shoulder, the other raising the griffin in salute as they reach the building’s corner, check the traffic, and blend inside it as easily as the tears slip down her cheeks; trouper to the last, she has them dried before Pimm and Mick return, one swearing lustily at the perfidy of trainmen who charge full price for tickets on a train delayed by mud, the other silent and stunned to hear Lucy’s report that You missed them by an hour, no more, you must have passed them in the road! as Mick passes her to see, at the worktable, the tools that have been moved or sharpened, the masterly disorder, the disorder too of the room upstairs where once he sat all night to guard a door, a reward promised then of a special trip to the Golden Calf; does he remember that too, Monsieur Etienne Dieudonne? though He never picked you up, his murmur to himself, to Van left in his own rooms just where he was situated, Van in his string tie and brocade cap, this puppet entertainer so well-known throughout the city that they stand in line for him, call out his catch-line—“Save it for Skipjack!”—and clap like thunder in the encores…. It is shaming to admit, but how many times has he taken the stage—even still! when he sees a certain angle of hat, a jaunty shadow—lit by the secret hope that Etienne Dieudonne, Mister Istvan who spun the sun and hung the moon, yes, to little Mickey with his clowning and posturing, his antic attempts to catch and hold the man’s eye, this man whose praise is more to be valued than anyone’s, will somehow be in the audience watching, will come up afterward to shake his hand and approve the antics of Van, his own Pan Loudermilk left behind especially for little Mickey, why else would be do so unless he approved? If only he had seen a show, just one show! If only he had stayed this ti
me, God damn it, was he chased by the hounds of hell that he could not have spared a pair of nights?—this man, whom little Mickey grown to Mick, to this day, this very hour of angry disappointment, has never ceased to emulate and long to be.

  Van is the only witness to his turmoil, as Pimm is the only confidant of Lucy’s worries—Silly to go on so, up and down the roads for tuppence, the world has changed. And they’re years too old for such didoes! And Istvan’s thin as a whippet, and Rupert’s got a cough!—noting as well without comment her enormous pride in their players’ stubborn dash; Pimm is a man who knows his wife, and if Lucy does not notice his own lack of distress at missing out on this marvelous encounter, Pimm also knows when to keep his opinions and preferences to himself. It is only to Mick that he later complains They spun her up like a top, didn’t they, and left her alone to wobble. But say one word against them and she’ll pop down your neck, with a philosophical sharing-out of yesterday’s gin, there in the kitchen with its new air of emptiness, the passing of something quicksilver and essential, the feel of a stage when one special show has opened, closed, and gone.

  It is Mick alone who finds beneath the table the tarnished little bell, silver spark of jester’s motley, a remnant surely of some costume, though for man or puppet there is no way to say. To sew it then to Van’s costume, as he does, metal boutonnière at the lapel, has a meaning itself not wholly possible to parse, other than to note that, every time it jingles, Van seems somehow to hear it, though his handler never blinks or turns a hair.

  From a personal letter, MRS. DECCA MATTISON to MR. EDWIN WOOSTER

  …for the Christian Ladies’ Auxiliary is a very worthy and wholesome charity, and it is a privilege to contribute to their annual Orphans’ Appeal.

  I understand that, unlike the Mercantile Association and the Municipal Betterment Society, the Auxiliary is unwilling to publicly receive money that might be thought of as dishonorably earned, though my establishment is a necessary and valuable part of our community, as you yourself have always acknowledged—I am honored by your continued patronage, and the doors of the Rose and Poppy are forever open to you. But to aid the poor orphan girls I am more than willing to do so in private, leaving yourself and your partners at the bank as sole witnesses to the gift. If you will draw up the draft in the designated amount, I shall sign it promptly.