Imperious members of the House Hoegbotton, already resembling scions of Empire in their somewhat presumptuous frocks and pleated trousers—if made a bit cadaverous, cloth sliding off elbows, from having to ration their food—made the forced march to their seats. Fixed stares. A few nervous smiles. Many of them wore medals they had awarded to themselves for wartime bravery.
The Frankwrithe & Lewden side was entirely different. They sidled in, wore mostly black, tried to stay in the shadows—except for their leader, L. Gaudy, who entered in what I can only call a “costume” of bright red, transformed by the green glow of the fungal light to a pulsating, brackish purple. He stood for several minutes, staring over at the Hoegbotton side, hands on his hips. A wide grin had seemingly paralyzed his face. (There was some discussion as to whether this bold figure truly was L. Gaudy, or one of the many actors hired by Gaudy to portray him at official events, the real Gaudy having developed an understandable fear of assassination attempts over the past two years. Regardless of whether it was Gaudy or pseudo-Gaudy, a healthy shiver of fear fled down my spine at his appearance.)
In the neutral section, we saw Martin Lake and his lover Merrimount take their seats, surrounded by the remnants of the New Artists, all looking rather tattered and downcast. (Their day was done. No opera could resurrect them.)
Martin and Merrimount had chosen to wear half evening gown, half formal suit, and I could almost smell the aggressive cologne that had become Martin’s “signature smell,” even though his sponsorship of it gained him no monies during the war. (You make it sound like an actual ceasefire, this opera. Janice, we were all armed to the teeth, like pirates sailing down the River Moth looking for a ripe place to build a city. You couldn’t move through the hallway toward the restrooms without bumping into someone’s concealed bulge of a gun or knife, or worse. And when you did get to the men’s room, it was full of spies exchanging information.)
We took the sadly amateurish hand-printed playbills off our seats and sat, Lacond still occluding all sight of Mary on the other side. In the expectant green light, the muted chatter of people still entering the opera house, the pauses in conversation as three or four times it appeared the opera was about to begin, I had a glimpse, an echo, of my former life. For an instant, sitting there, my buttocks rapidly beginning to ache from the hard seat, I had the illusion that I had conjured up the resources, out of full-on ruin, to create an opera. For just that period between taking our seats and curtain rise, I felt powerful again. An awful feeling. I could see Edward’s slack face in the insane asylum, feel the ribbon of red rising from my wrist. I did not want that life back, not really.
Besides, the illusion was ruined anyway by a brief encounter on the way to the bathroom before the opera began. Narrowed and wrinkled by the years, Merrimount’s jester face suddenly came into view.
He nodded and said, “Did you have anything to do with this opera, Janice?”
“No,” I said. “Not me.” Caught. Accused.
“Ah, right,” he said. “I thought maybe you had.” A pause, and then, “Do you think this is what the New Art has all been leading up to? An insane opera performed during wartime?” His smile was all teeth, and then he was gone.
I hated the elation that made my face flush, brought out a little shiver of happiness. Merrimount had talked to me. (Very sad, sister.)
I told Duncan about the encounter, across Sybel’s thin chest and Lacond’s broad belly, and before he could respond, out of the darkness I heard Mary say, “If so, it’s been a waste. Everything leading up to this one performance. They should have saved it up for after the war.”
I laughed, and Sybel, like a good former manager, said to Mary, “Merrimount means that except for him, Martin, and Janice, every member of the former New Art movement of any consequence is involved in this opera. It’s the only thing they’ve been able to agree on long enough to bring to the public attention.”
Mary nodded, held her tongue. She knew Sybel didn’t like her, and she knew Sybel didn’t like her because I didn’t like her.
“Admittedly, a captive audience,” Duncan said, “with nothing else to do except hunker down in their homes.”
“True,” I said. “I suppose there is a hint of desperation in it.”
Desperation during those days could not be hidden at the opera. In such close quarters, the truth of our diets would begin to manifest as a sour smell of stale bread and vegetable broth and, oddly enough, doorknobs. Some enterprising individual had discovered that many of the doorknobs in the city had been made from sawdust and ox blood. If heated and distilled, a doorknob could be eaten, given an extremity of hunger.
“Martin and Merri are living on the kindness of friends and neighbors, you know,” Sybel said.
“If he’s painting at all,” Duncan said, “it’s with borrowed canvases and stolen paints. He’ll get the odd job here and there, but work must be scarce.”
“Yes it is, my dear Duncan,” I heard Mary whisper, “but you don’t need to worry.”
He didn’t need to worry because Mary’s parents had conspired to acquire an apartment for her out of the way of both the local Hoegbotton and F&L militias, in an area that had not yet been the target of attacks or skirmishes. Mary, meanwhile, had yet to realize that, having taken Duncan in, she might have more worries than the average person where the gray caps were concerned. (She had less to worry about. Trust me. I protected her well.)
My gaze burned through the darkness that protected Mary.
“What are your plans after the war?” I asked Duncan.
Was that the hint of a smile on my brother’s face?
Mary answered for him, making Sybel sit up and pay attention, as if he had a bet riding on the answer: “The same as now. To continue my studies. To write books, like Duncan’s.”
Well, it was true that she continued her studies during the war. In fact, the war often had no impact on her whatsoever, not emotionally. But she didn’t want to write books like Duncan’s. She wanted to write books like Duncan. That became clear soon enough.
A hush fell over the audience. The lights could not dim, but the curtain could rise. It chose that moment to do so. I could either stare into the now silent darkness or turn toward the stage.
The curtain rose. The green light was very much like the green light in this place, as I type this afterword. Here, I am on the stage. There, I was part of the audience.
Not that there’s much difference.
The opera began.
* * *
Despite Gallendrace’s valiant efforts, it soon became clear that the opera would be a rather muddied affair. What more could one expect under the circumstances, hampered by lack of funds, lack of time, donated costumes and sets, and the shortage of many other supplies? But a certain unnecessary complexity also wreaked havoc with the production—too many parts and not enough actors. Further, men played most of the female parts and women played most of the male parts, which created a dissonant musical effect, tenors and sopranos popping up in the most unexpected places. It became increasingly difficult to keep track of all but the most major characters.
Still, the main story line had the kind of familiarity that is difficult to lose in translation, especially when you’re in the middle of the conflict in question. As in real life, the opera carefully related the particulars of a deadly war between merchant families.