The Letter Killers Club (6 page)

PHELIA: They wanted to take it away from you. I sent a letter yesterday. Did you receive it?

BURBAGE: I'm afraid letters cannot be received there. Besides, how can you take a role away from an actor who's been taken away?

PHELIA: What a strange thing to say.

BURBAGE: “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.”

Enter
TIMER, GUILDEN,
and several other actors, interrupting the dialogue.

“Timer is the director, we won't invent his appearance, let's just say he looks like me: those who wish to may look closer.” Rar smiled, surveying his listeners.

No one returned his smile, it seems, but me: sitting in a close, silent circle, the conceivers in no way betrayed their reaction to the story.

“I see Timer as an experimenter, a stubborn calculator wedded to the substitution method: he needs the people he puts in his productions the way a mathematician needs numbers: when it is this or that number's turn, he inserts it; when the number's turn is over, he crosses it out. Now, on seeing the man he mistakes for Stern, Timer is unsurprised and even angry.”

TIMER: Aha. So you've come. But the role has gone. Too late: Guilden is playing Hamlet.

BURBAGE: You're mistaken: the actor has gone, but not the role. At your service.

TIMER: I don't recognize you, Stern: you've always seemed to avoid playing—even with words. Well then, two actors for one role? Why not? Attention: I'm taking the role and breaking it in two.
*
It's not hard to do: just find the fault line. Hamlet is, in essence, a duel between Yes and No: they will be our centrosomes, breaking the cell into two new cells. So then, let's give it a try: get me two cloaks—black and white. (
He quickly marks up the notebooks with the roles, giving one to
BURBAGE
with the white cloak, the other to
GUILDEN
with the black cloak
.) Act III, Scene 1. Places, please. One, two, three: Curtain up!

HAMLET I (
white cloak
): To be?

HAMLET II (
black cloak
): Or not to be?

That is the question.

HAMLET I: Whether 'tis better …

HAMLET II: Whether 'tis nobler …

HAMLET I: In the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. O no.

HAMLET II: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them!

HAMLET I: To die,

HAMLET II: To sleep—

HAMLET I: No more?

HAMLET II: And by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

HAMLET I: That flesh is heir to!

HAMLET II: 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.

HAMLET I: To die?

HAMLET II: To sleep.

HAMLET I: To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil?

HAMLET II: There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love …

HAMLET I: The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes …

HAMLET II. When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveler returns—

HAMLET I: That's not true, I've returned!

All look in amazement at
BURBAGE
who, having cut short the monologue, is threatening to split into a dialogue.

TIMER: That's not from the role.

BURBAGE: That's right. It's from the Kingdom of Roles. (
He has resumed his former pose: chalk-white mask thrown arrogantly back over shroud-white cloak; eyes closed; lips curled in a harlequin's smile.
) This was three hundred years ago. Will was playing the Ghost,
*
and I, the Prince. It had poured rain since morning, and the stalls were awash. Even so we had a full house. At the end of Act I, as I was declaiming about the time being “out of joint,” a pickpocket was caught stealing the public's pence. I finished the scene to the squelching of sodden feet and the muffled sound of “thief-thief-thief.” The poor devil was dragged up onstage, as was our custom, and tied to a post. During the second act he looked embarrassed and averted his face from the pointing fingers. But scene by scene, he began to feel at home and almost part of the performance; more and more brazen, he made faces and criticisms till we untied him and hurled him from the stage. (
Turning abruptly to
TIMER.) I don't know what or who tied you to this play, but if you think that your paltry stolen thoughts—worth a pence apiece—can make me richer, me, for whom all these doggerels were written, then take your coppers and get out.

Flings the role in
TIMER
's face. Consternation.

PHELIA: Stern, pull yourself together!

BURBAGE: My name is Richard Burbage. And I am untying you, you little thief. Out of the Kingdom of Roles!

TIMER (
pale, but calm
): Thank you: I shall use my untied hands to … Go on, tie him up! Can't you see he's out of his mind?

BURBAGE: Yes, I condescended to you, people, from what is far over all your heads—and you refuse …

“The actors fall on Burbage, trying to tie him up. In the heat of the fray, he begins screaming, you understand, screaming at them all … Now if you'll just … I'll …”

Mumbling inarticulate words, Rar reached into an inside pocket: something rustled under his black frockcoat. He fell suddenly silent and looked at us with wide eyes. Necks craned nervously. Chairs edged closer. Zez jumped up and motioned for the noise to stop. “Rar,” he snapped. “Did you smuggle letters in here? Hiding them from us? Give me the manuscript. Right now!”

Rar seemed to hesitate. Then, amid the silence, his hand darted out from under his frockcoat: in his fingers, which were trembling slightly, a notebook folded in four showed white. Zez grabbed it and ran his eyes over the symbols: he held the manuscript almost at arm's length, by one corner, as though afraid to sully himself with its inky lines. Then he spun around to the fire: it was almost out, only a few coals slowly turning violet continued to blaze above the fender.

“As per Article 5 of the Regulations, this manuscript is committed to death: without spilling ink. Objections?”

No one moved.

With a quick flick, the president tossed the notebook onto the coals. As though alive, white leaves writhing in agony, it set up a soft thin hiss; the spiral of smoke turned blue; then, from underneath, a flame leapt up. Three minutes later, having reduced to ashes with staccato blows of the tongs what so recently was a play, Zez replaced the tongs, turned to Rar and muttered, “Go on.”

Rar did not immediately resume his usual expression; he was clearly struggling to control himself—even so he spoke:

“You have treated me the way my characters treated Burbage. Well—serves us both right. I'll continue: that is, since the words that I wanted to read can no longer be read”—he glanced at the fender where the last coals were guttering and smoldering—“I'll omit the end of the scene. Phelia, frightened by what happened, has gone to Guilden along with the role. The fourth and last position brings us back to Stern.”

Still in the Kingdom of Roles, Stern is waiting for Burbage. With mounting impatience. Back on earth the performance may already have begun—with the brilliant role playing itself for him. Over the pointed arches flies a noisy flock of clappings.

“For me?”

In his agitation, Stern appeals to the Hamlets all absorbed in their books. He is tormented by questions. Turning to a neighbor, he says, “You must understand me. After all, you know what praise is.”

In reply:

“Words … words … words …”

The neighbor closes his book and walks off. Stern turns to another:

“To all men I am a stranger. But you will teach me to be all men.”

This Hamlet too gives Stern a severe look and closes his book.

“Words … words.”

To a third:

“Back on earth I left a girl who loves me. She often said to me—”

“Words.”

With every question, as if in reply, the Hamlets rise, close their books and, one after another, walk off.

“But what if Burbage … What if he decides not to return? How will I find my way back again? And you, why are you leaving me? They've all forgotten me: maybe she has too. But she swore …”

And again:

“Words … words.”

“No, not words: the words were burned, beaten with fire tongs, I saw it with my own eyes—you hear me?!”

Rar passed a hand over his brow. “Forgive me, I got mixed up; a gear tooth for a gear tooth. It happens sometimes. Allow me to skip ahead.”

So then, the succession of Hamlets has abandoned Stern; the colored playbills follow after; even the letters on the bills leap out of their lines and dash away. The fantastic perspective in the Kingdom of Roles is changing every second. But Stern is still holding the book forgotten by Burbage. Now there's no reason to delay: the time has come to take its meaning by force, to reveal its secret. But the book is fitted with strong brass clasps. Stern tries to pry the covers apart. The book resists, clenching its pages. In a final fit of rage Stern, bloodying his fingers, breaks open the strongbox of words. On the unclenched pages, he reads:

“Actus morbi.
History of the illness. Patient number. Hmm … Schizophrenia. Development normal. Attack. Fever. Recurrent. Delusional idea: some man named Burbage. Stomach normal. Process becoming chronic. Incura—”

Stern looks up to see: a long, vaulted hospital corridor. Down its length are numbered doors flanked with armchairs for duty nurses and visitors. In the depths of the corridor absorbed in a book, envelb9 oped in a loose white garment, sits an orderly. He doesn't notice when the door in the depths of the perspective flies opens and two people race in: a man and a woman. The man turns to his companion. “I don't care how sick he is, you could at least have let me get out of my costume and make up.”

Glancing around at the voices, the orderly is stunned: the visitors have thrown off their coats to reveal the costumes of Hamlet and Ophelia.

“There now, you see: I knew people would stare. Why did we have to rush?”

“Darling, but what if we hadn't gotten here in time? Because if he won't forgive me—”

“Don't be silly.”

The orderly is completely confused. But Stern, his face bright, rises to greet the visitors. “Burbage, finally. And you, my one and only! Oh, how I've been waiting for you, and for you. I even dared suspect you, Burbage. I thought you'd stolen her from me, and the role too, I wanted to rob you of your words: they avenged themselves by calling me a ‘madman.' But those are only words, after all, the role's words. If I have to play a madman, fine, so be it—I'll play him. Only why did they change the set: this one is from some other play. But never mind: we'll go from role to role and play to play, farther and farther into the depths of the boundless Kingdom of Roles. But, Ophelia, why aren't you wearing your garland? You know you need marjoram and rue for the mad scene.
*
Where are they?”

“I took them off, Stern.”

“You did? Or perhaps you've drowned and don't know that you are not, and your garland is floating on the ripples among the reeds and lilies, and no one hears …”

“I think I'll leave off there. Without any unnecessary flourishes.”

Rar rose.

“But allow me to ask,” Das's round glasses bore down on Rar, “does he die or not? And then it's not clear to me—”

“It doesn't matter what's not clear to you. I stopped all the pipe's vents. All of them. The pipe player doesn't ask what happens next: he should know himself. After every gist comes the rest. On this point I agree with Hamlet: ‘The rest is silence.'
Curtain
.”

Rar went to the door, turned the key twice to the left and, bowing, disappeared. The conceivers departed in silence. Our host, retaining my hand in his, apologized for the “unexpected unpleasantness” that had spoiled the evening, and reminded me about the next Saturday.

Issuing out into the street, I caught sight of Rar far ahead; he soon disappeared down a side street. I walked quickly—from crossroad to crossroad—trying to untangle my feelings. The evening seemed like a black wedge driven into my life. I had to unwedge it. But how?

[1]
History of an illness. (
Lat
.)

T
HE FOLLOWING SATURDAY
, toward dusk, I was again at the Letter Killers Club. By the time I arrived, they had all assembled. I sought Rar out with my eyes: he was sitting in the same place as before; his face looked somewhat sharper; his eyes had sunk deeper in their sockets.

This time the key and the floor belonged to Tyd. Upon receiving them, he inspected the key's steel bit, as though searching for a theme in its scissure. Then, shifting his attention to the words, he began carefully extracting them one after another, inspecting them and weighing them. The words came slowly at first, then faster and faster, all jockeying for position; Tyd's sharp cheekbones bloomed with ruddy blotches. All faces turned toward the storyteller.

The Feast of the Ass.
*
That's the title. I see it as a novella, I suppose. My theme is found some five centuries before our time. Place? A small village somewhere in the south of France: forty or fifty hearths; an old church in the center, vineyards and fertile fields all around.
Nota bene
: it was in this period and these places that the custom of celebrating the Feast of the Ass arose and took root, the so-called
Festum Asinorum
: the Latin name belongs to the church with whose blessing the festival wandered from town to town and hamlet to hamlet. It arose as follows: on Palm Saturday the peasants would reenact events from Christ's last days; for greater edification, they would lead an ass into church; meant to recall the animal glorified in the Gospels, the ass was chosen for its providential role once all its points had been checked against passages in the Bible. One imagines that at first the donkey showed only confusion and a desire to return to its stall. But the Feast of the Ass soon became a sort of inverse Mass, a riot of sacrilege and debauchery: surrounded by a crowd of cackling peasants, amid hoots and a hail of cane strokes, crazed with fright, the ass brayed and kicked. Lay brothers would grab it by the ears and tail and drag it up to the altar while the crowd howled, singing cynical songs and screaming curses to droning ecclesiastical motifs. Censers gorged with all sorts of rot swung devoutly to and fro, filling the church with smoke and stench. Cider and wine flowed from holy chalices, parishioners scuffled and blasphemed and roared with laughter when the exalted ass fouled the altar flags. Then it would all stop. The feast would roll on and the peasants, having blasphemed their fill, would go back to crossing themselves piously as they stood through long Masses, contributed their last coins to the church's magnificence, lit candles before icons, did meek penance, and endured life. Until the next
asinaria
.