The Malacia Tapestry Read online

  'Emotions are not subjects for games.'

  'Dear Perry, you knew that Guy was making love to Armida, you must have done, while you were recovering in the castle, and before. That's how people behave. That's how you would have behaved.'

  'If I knew they were deceiving me, then such was my will to trust that I suppressed the knowledge. Shouldn't we be ashamed of our natures and of giving in to them? It's all so — ugh, so dishonourable!'

  She laughed. 'You talk too much of honour — Armida must be sick of that cant in her own house. Perhaps that's why she preferred a rascal.'

  'Don't you set against me, too. I blame myself, believe me, but I blame de Lambant infinitely more.'

  'Don't go against your own nature, love. I know my nature too well to think of changing, so I enjoy myself, and cheerfully suffer what sorrows it brings.'

  'Now you're being virtuous!'

  'I know you are like me, an actor born. We're very alike, dear Perian. You're almost a brother to me — though I've adored our moments of incestuous passion.'

  'I tell you I will change my nature. You are dear to me, but you are honest, you know yourself. Those others deceive themselves about their own natures, yet sneer at me for mine. How right poor Otto Bengtsohn was! — Malacia is decadent and it's time for change! I will change, pretty Singla, I will!'

  'All right, all right, but sleep first. Here's your door.'

  Up the stairs we went, fumbling in the dark among familiar odours.

  At the top, a gleam of light showed beneath the door. Fears started up in me. All men were my enemies. Had that cunning de Lambant sent a pair of rogues to beat me, as Kemperer had done? I might have been contemplating an end in the river not half an hour before, but a beating was something different.

  Or could it be Armida, suddenly overcome with penitence, willing to flee at once to another city? Unprovoked, I remembered her words when she was naked in the Chabrizzi chapel: 'I wish I were a wild creature '.

  'Who's there?' La Singla called.

  A voice within said, 'Friends. Friends of de Chirolo's.'

  'I have no friends,' I said.

  'Who?' She too was anxious. 'Names?'

  The door opened. A girl stood there with a lantern, peering at us, apprehension on her face. It was Letitia Zlatorog.

  La Singla and I went in. I threw myself on the bed, not speaking.

  Bonihatch stood there with Letitia. He still clutched his flower-mask in one hand. He looked at me contemplatively, shaking his head.

  La Singla took charge, pulling off my boots, undressing me, and trying at the same time to usher my two guests out.

  Bonihatch, while apologetic, explained firmly that both he and Letitia had been serving at the wedding celebrations to earn some money, and were off duty. They called in to see me, after witnessing something of the fight and my expulsion. They hoped that I would now see who were my true friends, who my enemies, and would accordingly join the Progressives, where I would be most welcome. All this I heard through a sort of stupor. I just wished to be left alone, yet that too I feared, knowing that the inner monologue of misery would immediately resume within me.

  'I've got no friends, Bonihatch. You're just an opportunist, too.'

  'Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.'

  'Go away,' I said. 'I've no quarrel with either of you, but I know now that Bengtsohn is dead. The state police will get you too.' I told them what I had seen.

  'You understand why they killed him?' Letitia asked.

  'Don't worry him — he's exhausted,' La Singla said.

  'You ought to understand, too,' said Letitia, turning to her. 'Bengtsohn was so clever that he almost got Hoytola on his side. They might have brought changes to Malacia. Even the hydrogenous balloon represented a change the Council could just tolerate because the Turks were at our gates. The aerial zahnoscope was another subversive idea which would greatly have aided us. Even the comedy of Prince Mendicula — it was not just that the acceptance of that play might have opened the door to plays with more persuasive social meaning. Mendicula itself had a prologue — which Bengtsohn was to have recited at the feast tomorrow — explaining the corruption of rank and riches, the degradation of the poor.'

  'To save his own disgusting skin, Hoytola handed Otto over to the authorities. He denounced him utterly,' said Bonihatch. 'The revolutionary committee may decide that we should make an example of Hoytola. Would you be against that, de Chirolo?'

  I can't think tonight. It's impossible to change Malacia. I'm just going to have to work on myself.'

  La Singla was in my cubby-hole of a kitchen, infusing coffee, but she stuck her pretty head out to cry, 'The original magician's curse on Malacia was that it would never change.'

  'Most people seem to think lack of change a blessing,' said Letitia. 'Only the poor desperate classes long for change.' She was impersonal tonight. There was no clinging. Her manner was independent even towards Bonihatch.

  'It's all damned nonsense,' cried Bonihatch. 'There was no original curse. All the legends about the origins of Malacia — the rubbish about men coming from animals — are a pack of nonsense, designed to keep everyone dark of mind, the easier to be ruled. Bengtsohn often told me how enlightened Tolkhorm was. There they pay no heed to the centuries of drivel you learn here from birth. All must be changed, burnt down.'

  In my dazed state, I was listening to them all. Letitia was talking earnestly to La Singla, as if repeating a lesson.

  'Of course people will embrace lack of change, generation after generation. Lack of change implies peace. War is the common instrument of change in the rest of the world. My uncle told me that that's why the Turks can never conquer Malacia, because the curse, or a belief in it, keeps war and change at arm's length. Most people understand that emotionally.'

  'I'm just an actress. It's none of my affair. I want to see Perry asleep. And I don't require any wars, if you do.'

  Bonihatch interposed, throwing the flower-mask down and looking confident as he lectured La Singla.

  'Lady, war is a human constant. It exists in Malacia but on a domesticated scale. You just brought home one of its victims. We may not have cannonades or pike charges here, nor actual rape and carnage in St Marco's Square; but the sly warfare of society is such that in every family there is strife, enmity, distrust, betrayal, spies moving muffled between women's open legs.'

  Something like a laugh rose in my throat. Armida, Bonihatch's class enemy, had once made almost the same observation. La Singla brushed it all aside.

  'I know much more about open legs than you, young man. Here s some coffee. You are as bad as Perian. You must learn to laugh at life, as I tell him, and not think such dreadful thoughts!' She bustled forward into the room, bearing steaming earthenware mugs.

  As she knelt beside me, I accepted a mug gratefully and stroked her plump cheek.

  'That's more like it. Amorousness never hurt anyone, only your attitude to it. Rebelliousness hurts everyone,' she said.

  'It will hurt the rich and the privileged most,' said Bonihatch. 'We'll see to that.'

  The warm drink did something to revive me. I found my voice.

  'It's the arrogance of the rich I hate,' I said. 'What was Bengtsohn's prelude to the mercurization of Mendicula to be?'

  'You only had arrogance — your own word — towards the old man. Letitia and I loved him. The moral of the play is obvious, but Otto would have pointed it a little in the prelude. Men like Mendicula and his General Gerald are so used to ignoring the feelings of those under them that their own feelings shrivel to nothing. Even when it comes to love, that love is warped by their urge to power. Love becomes a social lever, another case for advantage.'

  'And women become mere pawns, to be used by anyone, to be won or lost like fortunes,' said Letitia. 'You tried to exploit me, Perian, or have you forgotten?'

  Clutching my head, I said, 'By the bones, you're attacking me too. You were ready enough to exploit me. I've been finding out how everyone is wrong. Wom
en aren't pawns. They do as much damage as men, don't they?'

  'If you're thinking of Armida,' said Letitia sharply, 'she is a pawn of her class, irredeemably lost, exploiting because exploited. She has made a fool of you because she can never find her true feelings in that untrue society.'

  'Enough of that talk,' La Singla said, 'Armida's a nice young lady, and not a bad actress either.'

  'You always were jealous of her, Letitia,' I said.

  'She turned you into one of the carriage dogs of the wealthy, Letitia said sharply.

  'Leave poor Perian alone — he's had a nasty shock,' La Singla told them.

  Bonihatch said, 'I'll give you some of our literature, de Chirolo. We're stronger than you might think.'

  'For God's sake, go away, Bonihatch. I can't take a word more. I'll come and see you tomorrow. Leave me, both of you. I just need to pull myself together.'

  They went at last. I stretched out on the bed and La Singla stretched beside me.

  'You'll get into trouble,' she said seriously, looking down on me. Then she began to laugh. I found I could laugh too.

  'I'm always in trouble.'

  'Those two are as mad as you are, in a different way. You can't go and see them tomorrow. Albrizzi must be performed.'

  'Singla, my nightingale, there is something in their interpretation of society. I have to admit that there was a social element in my affair with Armida, much though I love her. Am I so corrupt? Is that why I suffer?'

  'Look, it's time we got some sleep. The sun will be leaping up over a fresh Malacia in a few minutes. You still have to distinguish between life and art, that's all — yes, and between art and artifice. I'm a whole year older than you and I know.'

  'It doesn't stop you making a pretty fool of yourself!'

  I put my arm about her shoulder and, without thinking, laid a leg over her legs. Kissing her cheek, I said, 'I shall go and see Bonihatch, I'm determined. I need a larger life. Meanwhile, marry me, pretty Singla.'

  'Then you would be in trouble!'

  'I'm not used to you in a ministering angel role.'

  'No jokes. I need comforting too, and this comforts me.'

  She put her head on the pillow beside my head, and closed her eyes. I lay there, inspecting that flawless face so near to mine. The light of my candle, already diluted by grey shadows stealing through the casement, built a small enchanted landscape of the curves that made up her brows, her eyelids, her cheek, her chin. I tucked my arm round her and fell asleep.

  A NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

  Magician with four figures near a smoking altar (G. B. Tiepolo) frontispiece

  A family of satyrs (G. B. Tiepolo)

  Punchinello talking to two magicians (G. B. Tiepolo)

  Three magicians burning a snake (G. B. Tiepolo)

  L'Astrologo (Francesco Maggiotto)

  A shepherd with two magicians (G. B. Tiepolo)

  Woman kneeling in front of magicians and other figures (G. B. Tiepolo)

  Standing philosopher and two other figures (G. B. Tiepolo)

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