The Malacia Tapestry Read online

  Indicating them, the gaunt stranger was saying over and over, in deep tones, 'These beasts are guaranteed from the distant Orient.'

  'Go away, I tell you — take your creatures back to the Orient!' screamed Kemperer.

  'Sire, they were born among the orchid forests of Bamboola.'

  'Take them back there, Bamboolarize them, take them anywhere, get them out of here! Apply to the menagerie at West Gate, where they'll accept anything with fur on its body, however mangy. Just get them away before they stink the house out, or eat my players. They're starving — look at the way they glare and lick their chops! Out! Out!'

  The beasts were yawning with lolling tongues, from either boredom or constipation. The stranger said in melancholy tones, 'Sire, I supply courts, from Siracusa in the south to Malma in the dreadful north, with beasts often less fine — less docile, less fragrant — than this brace of pussies. I can assure you that animals are an adornment to whatever entertainment you care to mount. That I guarantee from the bottom of my convictions.'

  'You may guarantee it from the bottom of your boots and it makes no difference. Get out! My entertainments entertain without having lions widdling against the scenery. Out!'

  He beckoned one of his helpers, who came forward and made shooing motions with his arms. Slightly interested, one of the panthers moved forward by the length of a whisker. Kemperer fell back screaming for help, into the arms of La Singla, who by now was also screaming. She could shriek considerably louder and more musically.

  The gaunt man turned, beckoning to his assistant, and off they stalked. The panthers trotted behind them like dogs. Their progress through the outer court was marked by yells of terror from the mendicants, mingled with whoops and enraged barking from Albert and the hounds.

  Several of my friends had been watching the fun, including Portinari. I went over and slapped him on the shoulder. De Lambant was not there.

  ' "You of all under the rank heavens are of the heavenly ranks",' I quoted.

  'Save your Albrizzi tags, de Chirolo,' said Portinari. 'His lordship now decrees that we play The Visionaries as a curtain raiser, before getting to Albrizzi. Since we're rusty in it, we have to run it through now in preference to Albrizzi.'

  I clutched at my forehead. 'What a rogue Kemperer is. The last time The Visionaries was hissed off, he swore that we should never play it again.'

  'But this is at a wedding; besides, de Lambant says that a visiting Duke of Ragusa will be present. 'Twill give everyone a chance to settle down before the drama.'

  'True. And at weddings tastes are always lower.'

  'I like my little business as the first suitor.'

  'Oh, yes, I remember that.' I did indeed, and was thankful that Portinari was confined to small parts. 'My role of Phalante the Bankrupt is so brief —'

  Kemperer himself came up, still wearing La Singla about his scraggy neck, in time to catch my remark.

  'Ah, Perian, Perian, my dear young fellow, you know how tremendously amusing you are as Phalante, the old apothecary.' He clapped me on the back, laughing and frothing at the mouth. 'When you juggle your wooden spoons, thinking them silver, and cry, "Why, this silver service alone is worth a king's ransom — at least, half a ransom, well, a slice of ransom…" Nobody can carry the humour of it off like you.'

  'Let's drop that business with the spoons.'

  'No, no, de Chirolo, you do yourself an injustice. The world loves your spoons, don't it, Maria, my faithful dove, my cow?'

  With similar cajoleries, we were hustled into the courtyard to say our lines. The mendicants served as audience, poor simple Gilles held the prompt-book. Standing about or strutting as we felt inclined, we ran through the old speeches.

  The Visionaries was a comedy of illusion, with every character mad or deluded, believing themselves to be greater than they were. The father with his three plain daughters had to see them married off between four dotty suitors. Kemperer himself played the old father. It was a simple piece which had to be taken fast. Once, we had played it in the traditional manner, with everyone falling about, until we discovered that audiences liked it better if we took the material seriously. Except for the claptrap with the spoons.

  At two of the afternoon, when the bell of a nearby church was chiming, Kemperer cried 'Enough' and released us. He buried his head in his hands.

  'That I should live to see men of straw mouthing like blocks of wood! Pity any Duke of Ragusa who has to sit through your bouts of arthritis, my dear friends — not to mention the de Lambant family. All right, tomorrow we will try it again. Meanwhile, I shall scour the city for a man with two panthers, to infuse some life and piss into the proceedings!'

  For all Kemperer's reproaches, we were a cheerful crowd who pushed in to see the Ombres Chinoises. On our way to the shadow theatre, we refreshed ourselves with wine in a tavern by the Maltese Steps. The performances were held inside a large oriental tent in a shady garden. The tent was covered with carpets and tapestries to make the darkness inside more intense.

  Shadow plays were becoming so fashionable that the maestro feared it might affect our business. Now here was the Great Harino's Ombres Chinoises, newly set up, offering the public The Saga of Karagog, preceded by The Broken Bridge, and charging high admission prices.

  As we filtered into the gloom, Kemperer plucked me aside and whispered in my ear, 'Perian, darling fellow, you sit by me, for I depend on your criticism of the performance.'

  'You might pay for my ticket if you are retaining me in a professional capacity.'

  'Your criticism is too amateurish for that! Don't go above yourself, that's my sincere warning, the word of a true friend. I also need a more personal word with you about my naughty wife.' He squeezed my wrist hard, indicating need for silence.

  A lizard-girl came round selling comfits, and we made ourselves comfortable until harpsichord music sounded and the curtains parted. We were pleased to see that scarcely a dozen people were attending the show, apart from our own company.

  The screen was a sheet some one-and-a-half metres long by a metre high. Shadows pranced across it, picked out by brilliant flares behind. Principal characters moved near to the screen, and so were densely black. Lesser characters and the props moved at greater distances, so that they appeared in greyer definition. Variety was achieved by this simple means. The scenic effects were striking, with clouds and water well imitated.

  The Great Harino's chief novelty was that parts of his puppets, their faces and the clothes of the more important personages, were cut away and replaced by coloured glass, to give dazzling effects on the screen. I was not alone in gasping at what we saw.

  Although few of the puppets were jointed, their movement was good and the commentary funny, if time-honoured. Most amazing was the way in which one soon accepted the puppets for reality, and the screen for life, as if there were no other!

  Less impressed, Kemperer began to whisper in my ear.

  'I don't want to do her an injustice in any way, and Minerva knows that I cherish the tiresome baggage dearly, but my darling Maria is too fond of hopping in and out of beds that are unworthy of her lovely if unruly body. Now she's hopped into one bed too many… I've been hearing rumours, Perian…'

  At that moment, La Singla thrust her pretty head between ours and said, 'What are you two whispering about? Isn't it a dainty show?'

  'Go away, my honey pot, my starfish,' whined Kemperer. 'Go and flirt in the dark with Portinari — he knows where to stop, if you don't! De Chirolo and I are talking business.'

  La Singla snorted like a piglet and withdrew.

  'You need to be more coaxing than that to keep a wife faithful, maestro!' I said.

  'What do you know of wives?'

  'I'm growing more responsible. I'm contemplating marriage. Would you possibly advance me some money?'

  'In my young day, the contemplation of matrimony required no expenditure.'

  The Broken Bridge was reaching its conclusion. I had seen it many times in different
forms, but never so well done as by the shadows. The boatman rowed across the river with every appearance of reality; his back was jointed to make the movement lifelike. Behind him, snow sparkled on high mountains. Sweat poured off the faces of the audience, so intense was the heat of the flares necessary to achieve the lighting effects.

  'I am tired of coaxing the jade!' complained Kemperer in a moment. 'Would not any woman give her maidenhead to be married to a successful man like me? But now she's gone too far — much too far, Perian. I can be vindictive when the spirit moves me, you understand!' To help me understand, he pinched me hard on the wrist, so that I cried out with surprise and pain just as a fanglefish began to munch up the ill-natured labourer mending the bridge. The audience burst into laughter, thinking I was alarmed.

  'She has had the impudence to fall in love with another worthless coxcomb. I discovered one of his confounded letters tucked in with her chemises, just this morning, when I was looking for spare laces to my corset. I mean to have the coxcomb waylaid and soundly beaten. No man meddles with my wife's affections!'

  Each of these points he emphasized with further pinches. I was careful not to give the audience further cause for laughter — a precaution the more easily carried out because, in his agitation, Kemperer seized me by the throat and pushed my head backwards over the seat. Like Paul in the farce of the three kings, I was 'trapped between chocolate-time and eternity'.

  At last I broke away, gasping.

  'We may be the best of friends, maestro, but that is no reason for killing me outright! Do you imagine I'm the coxcomb you seek? I would as lief climb into bed with you as with your spouse, so great is my respect for the sanctity of marriage.'

  'Pardon, pardon, I am a man of passion and I forget myself. I trust you implicitly or I would not be confiding in you.'

  'I may undergo matrimony myself soon.'

  'It's no joke to be cuckolded, and even worse to have to admit it. You can't afford to marry, sonny. Why, I'm as virile as ever I was. No, Perian, before this wretched shadow play ends, listen! — I have my thugs and my spies to command, never fear, as a man of my standing must do, but I want you to tell me if you have seen La Singla acting in any way untoward. In any way! I want you to watch her closely, since she trusts you, as do I.'

  '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 acrobats 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 frien
d 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.'