The Malacia Tapestry

He came closer. Then he took a turn away. Then he returned, and clutched my hands in his. Then he dropped my hands and raised his to the sky.

‘Perian, my life is beset with difficulties and hedged by enemies. Let there be trust between us, as well as business also.’

‘You told me when we met that you had enemies and the State had eyes.’ The proposition was somehow more reasonable here in the stuffy darkness of his workshop than it had appeared in the sunlit street.

‘We must each trust each. We are both in a same situation – namely we don’t have security in the world. I am old and have a wife for to support, you are young and free but, believe me, the gods – and society, more important – are against us both. That is a political situation. I have two passions, art and justice. As I grow more old, justice becomes more important. I hate to see the poor grinded down by the rich, hate it.’

‘That’s a natural law. I intend to be rich one day.’

He scratched his head and sighed. ‘Then we will defer justice for a day later and instead talk about art. Is that more to your taste?’

‘Tell me about your drama.’

He sighed again, staring about the untidy workshop, shaking his head. ‘Young men care so little.’

‘You have no business saying that. Why do the old always hold the young in contempt? I’m a fine actor, as you can discover if you enquire, and my art is my life. My life is my art. Tell me about this drama of yours, I ask you, if you want my help.’

‘My dear young man … Well, let’s keep to art if you wish it! I have a love for all the arts, all the arts, including the drama, though I am always too much poor to pursue them. For the first mercurised production, I have written a contribution to drama, entitled, Prince Mendicula: or, The Joyous Tragedy of the Prince and Patricia and General Gerald and Jemima.’

‘A striking title. What is a Joyous Tragedy exactly?’

‘Well, Doleful Comedy, if you will – minor details aren’t too clear in my mind yet – clear, but not too clear … I have some troubles with detail. Indeed, for simplification on to glass, I plan a drama without detail …’

‘Am I to be Prince Mendicula?’

He beamed, showing his shortage of teeth. ‘You, my dear boy, you have insufficient years for to be Prince Mendicula. You shall play the dashing General Gerald.’ And he began to unravel the beauties of a plot which would enrich, if not indeed terminate, world drama. I paid what heed I could. As he talked with increasing rapidity, he took me to a lumber room and showed me some props for his drama. They were very poor, the clothes almost threadbare.

My interest in Bengtsohn’s affairs was generated by the understanding that they would involve divine Armida Hoytola. I began to see that there might also be profit for my career here; Bengtsohn was supported by a powerful patron, the Hoytola family, and, if the novelty of his mercurised melodrama were to catch popular fancy, it would be advantageous to have my name associated with it.

I broke in the old man’s account and said, ‘Will you not let me play the Prince?’

He drummed the fingers of his left hand upon his stringy cheek. ‘Gerald is more suitable for you. You might make a good general. You are not venerable enough for Mendicula.’

‘But I can make up my face with beard and black teeth and a patch and what-you-will. Whom have you marked out for this princely part?’

He chewed his lip and said, ‘You understand this is a – what’s the word? – yes, unproved venture. We all take a chance from it. I cannot afford to pay for more than one real player, and that is yourself. Your looks and modest reputation will help. Whereas to play the Prince I rely on one of the boys in the workshop, the not ill-favoured man called Bonihatch.’

‘Bonihatch? With the yellow whiskers? What acting experience has he? He’s just an apprentice!’

‘For mercurised play, little acting is required. Bonihatch is a good man, what I depend on. I must have Bonihatch, that’s my decision.’

‘Well. The others? Princess Patricia?’

‘For the Lady Jemima, with whom the prince is captivated, I will hire a seamstress who lives in this court, by name Letitia Zlatorog. She will be happy to work for a pittance. Her family has a sad history what exemplifies injustices. Her uncle is a friend of mine, a friend of poverty. A pretty girl, too, with quite an air about her, is little Letitia.’

‘And what blazing bundle of talent and beauty is destined for the role of Princess Patricia?’

He gave me another mouth-numbing smile.

‘Oh, I thought you had discovered that. The success of our enterprise, alas, depends heavily on my employer. So we are exploited. To satisfy his whim – and not from other reasons – the role of the Princess Patricia will be played by Armida Hoytola. It is a consolation that she is not ugly.’

‘Armida as Patricia … Well, you know that my art is all to me. It comes as a surprise to learn that Armida, whom I scarcely know, is also to act in your drama. Even so, I will work with you for the sake of this marvellous new form of drama you have perfected.’

‘Arrive here punctually at eight in the morning and that will suit me. There’ll be time enough for speeches then. And let’s keep secret the enterprise for a while. No boasting, if you can withstand it.’

It is a curious fact about old people that, like Bengtsohn, they do not necessarily soften if you speak them fair. It is almost as if they suspect you of being insincere. This trait manifests itself in my father. Whereas you can always get round friends of your own age.

But Bengtsohn was civil when I appeared next morning, cutting me a slice of solid bread-and-blood pudding for breakfast; he even paid my half a florin in advance for my work, from his own pocket. I helped him, his wife, and Bonihatch load up a cart with the things he needed, including the zahnoscope, a tent, several flats, and some costumes, before the others arrived. As we worked a true seigneur rolled up, the great Andrus Hoytola himself stepping down from his carriage.

Andrus Hoytola was a well-built, dignified man, lethargic of movement, with a large, calm face like a pale sea. He wore a flowered silk banyan over pantaloons that buckled at the knees. He had white silk stockings and his feet were thrust into slippers. His hair was in a short stumpy queue tied with grey velvet ribbon. He looked slowly about him.

I gave him a bow. Bengtsohn made a salute and said, ‘We are getting forward with our matters, sir.’

‘One would expect so.’ He helped himself to a pinch of snuff from a silver box and strolled across to regard the zahnoscope. I had hoped for an introduction; none was forthcoming. My consolation was the sight of his daughter Armida, who alighted from the other side of the carriage.

Her reserve was perhaps to be accounted for by the presence of her father. She evinced no surprise and little interest that I was engaged to act with her in the drama of Prince Mendicula; her attention was rather on her dress. Like her father, she was fashionably garbed, wearing a plain decolleté open robe of ice blue with long, tight sleeves which ended in time to display her neat wrists. When she walked, her skirts revealed a hint of ankle. A fragrance of patchouli hung about her. And what a beauty she was! Features that tended towards the porcine in her father were genuinely inspiring in Armida, especially when they lit as she said smilingly, ‘I see that the walls of neither monastery nor barracks have closed about you yet.’

‘A blessed reprieve.’

The cart was loaded and harnessed to a pair of mules, black of visage, long of ear, and inclined to foam at the mouth. We climbed on or walked behind, while the Hoytolas returned to their carriage. Bonihatch explained that we were heading for the Chabrizzi Palace beyond the Toi, where our play would be enacted.

The Palace of the Chabrizzis was set in a striking position at no great distance from Mantegan, where Katarina passed the days of her married life. The Palace was built under a last outcrop of the tawny Prilipit Mountains, to stare loftily across the city.

Within its gates we rolled to a stop in a weed-grown courtyard. Two urchins played by an elaborate fountain. Windows confronted us on all sides, straight-faced. To one side, cliffs loomed above the rooftops.

Everything was unloaded and placed on the flagstones. Armida climbed from her carriage. Her father merely sat back in his seat and suddenly, at a whim, drove away without speaking further to anyone.

Bonihatch made a face at Bengtsohn.

‘Looks as if the Council didn’t make up their mind regarding the hydrogenous balloon.’

‘Or maybe the zahnoscope either,’ said Bengtsohn grimly.

‘I’d prefer you not to discuss my father’s business,’ Armmida said. ‘Let’s get on.’

Later, the mule-cart was driven off. While a primitive outdoor stage was being set up, Armida talked to a timid girl in work clothes. I went over to speak with them and discovered that this was Letitia Zlatorog, the little seamstress engaged to play Lady Jemima.

It would be difficult to imagine anyone less fit for the role, although she was pretty enough in an insipid way. She was pale, her hands were red, and she had no mannerisms. She appeared all too conscious of the honour of meeting a player from the great Kemperer’s company. I took care to appear rather grand; nevertheless, when Armida’s attention was elsewhere, I slipped an arm about her waist to set her at ease.

Even more strongly than before, I felt that I, as the one professional member of this ludicrous cast, was entitled to play the Prince, and so be married to Armida. I knew how the simulated passions of the stage often translated by sympathetic magic into genuine passions off stage; to think of the cocky apprentice Bonihatch embracing Armida was not to be borne.

Having failed to convince Bengtsohn on this point, I took Bonihatch himself aside, intimating as tactfully as I could that as mine was the name which would win audiences, mine should be the right to play the title role of Mendicula.

‘Think of this as a co-operative enterprise,’ he said ‘in which all work as one, not for profit or fame, but for the common good. Or is such an ideal too much for your imagination?’

‘I see no disgrace in fame as a spur! You talk more like a Progressive than a player.’

He looked at me levelly. ‘I am a Progressive. I don’t wish to make an enemy of you, de Chirolo. Indeed, we’d all be glad to have your co-operation. But let’s have none of your fancy airs and graces round here.’

‘Take care how you speak to me. I imagine a good thrashing would impress you.’

‘I said I didn’t want to make an enemy of you –’

‘Now now, young gentlemen,’ said Bengtsohn, bustling up. ‘No quarrels as we inscribe a new page in the massive volume from Malacia’s history. Give me your hand to setting up this ruin.’

He had some flats representing a destroyed town. Bonihatch and other apprentices went to his aid. I tucked my arms under my cloak and made myself look tolerably moody, remarking to Armida, ‘This is a melancholy old place. What has become of the Chabrizzis? Did they all kill themselves in a fit of spite, or have they gone to look for the Lost Tribes?’

‘Poor Chabrizzis, they squandered several fortunes in the service of the Nemanijas and Constantinople. One branch of the family turned to Mithraism. Of the remainder, one of them – my great grandfather – married into the Hoytolas, though for a noble to marry a merchant’s daughter was generally condemned. They both died of the plague within a twelvemonth, leaving a little son. So their history may be reckoned, as you say, a melancholy one. All the same, I love this old palace and played here often as a small girl.’

‘That news makes it sound immediately more friendly.’

One part of the inner courtyard was bathed in sun. Here Bengtsohn’s paraphernalia was set up. In rooms nearby we disguised ourselves in his scruffy costumes, except for Armida, who wisely insisted on retaining her own dress.

‘Capital!’ cried Bengtsohn, clapping his hands as each of us emerged into the sunlight.

He began to pose us, moving us about like chairs. Bonihatch, absurd in Prince Mendicula’s tinsel crown, stood to one side, gesturing to the nearest wall and the flat of the sacked city. Feeling hardly less silly with cork sword and general’s tricorne made of paper, I stood behind him, while Armida in a small tinsel crown was placed close beside me.

When he had us as he wanted, Bengtsohn aimed the zahnoscope at us, adjusting its barrel and flinging a velvet cover over the glass panel at the rear.

‘Stand still, all of you!’ he cried. ‘Not a movement, not one movement, for five minutes, or all will be spoilt.’

Then he ran round to the front of his machine and removed a cover from the lens. We stood there until I grew tired.

‘When do we begin to act?’ I asked.

The old man swore and replaced the lens-cover, shaking his hands before his face in wrath.

‘I tell you just to stand still without even a movement for five minutes, and you begin immediately to talk!’ he cried. ‘While the sun is bright, we must make so many pictures as we can, but each image takes five minutes for to form on the prepared slide. For the image to be crisp, you must be still – as quiet as rats. Don’t you understand?’

‘You never told me that item in your secret recipe.’ I said angrily. Armida and the others were looking at me in disapproval. ‘We shall be here all day, standing like statues for five minutes at a time. That’s got nothing to do with acting, the secret of which lies in mobility.’

‘You do not act, you stand like dead statues. Thus for several days. That is why you are having so well paid. We have fifty slides to make to contain the whole drama of the Prince. Now, prepare yourself again. This time neither a word nor a twitch, de Chirolo.’

I said, ‘But you begin before we have learned or even read our parts. What is the story? What sort of a drama is this?’

‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ Armida said. ‘We do not speak. We supply only the images, in a series of tableaux. When the slide-drama is eventually shown to audiences, Otto will recite what is happening, to bring out the beauty of the tableaux. Can’t you understand the principles of a mercurised play?’

Titters from Bonihatch and Letitia.

I froze, and again Bengtsohn went through his mysteries with the machine. There we all stood like waxworks, while he counted the time on a large hour-glass. It is no easy matter standing still for five minutes, particularly in the open air, where idleness alone induces a tendency to sneeze.

At the end of the first five minutes, I was already preparing to make my excuses and abandon this exercise, despite the proximity of Armida. But Bengtsohn seemed so pleased, scuttling his first slide away into a dark baize-lined box, that I had not the heart to upset him. All the same, I was happy that my friends de Lambant and Portinari could not see our antics.

‘Famous, famous!’ quoth Bengtsohn. ‘Now we will perform an indoor scene, where the Prince leaves his lovely princess in General Gerald’s care.’

As I made to move into the palace, the old man caught my arm.

‘I should have explained to you as I have to the others, for to make our matters crystal-clear. Owing to the present limitations of the zahnoscope, what needs plenty of light to achieve its miracles, we have to mercurise even the indoor scenes outside.’

A sofa was drawn up, a curtain pulled behind us. ‘Indoors’ was parodied. This scene was more to my taste. Bonihatch made a noble gesture, arms spread wide, while I as Gerald bowed and clutched Armida’s hand. Five minutes of that was easily borne, as I felt the little living thing sweat gently in my grasp. In reminding me of all the other treasures of hers which might fall into my grasp, it was enough to make me stand rigid.

The five minutes up, Bengtsohn clapped his hands and fiddled with another slide.

‘The next scene will also be indoors, what is situated at a country tavern. We shall see Prince Mendicula meeting with Jemima. Letita, if you will step forward please, and look a little haughty. Not at him but rather above or through him, yes, through him, to indicate that you are of good birth … I hope the zahnoscope does not become too hot, or the salts will fail.’

All was ready. Bonihatch and Letitia assumed rigid poses, becoming their idea of the noble prince and the Lady Jemima. With a few tawdry props behind them and the sun shining overhead, history would be made. Bengtsohn looked raptly at the velvet cover over his slide, as if the secret of the universe lay there. Time stood still. Armida and I, waiting on one side and watching the tableau, found ourselves also transfixed. The minutes took longer to pass than when we ourselves stood before the zahnoscope.

Eventually the sand lay in the lower half of Bengtsohn’s hourglass, and he called for the pose to be broken. We all came alive again.

Patting his dark box grimly as he tucked the third slide into it, he said, ‘These I will mercurise in the workshop this evening. If they develop well, then we again proceed tomorrow. If luck is not on our back, then we re-enact the same scenes. So, to do another while the light is good. Meanwhile, to keep occupied your minds while we work, I shall recite to you the story of our drama, just as I shall recite before audiences … provided anything so novel is allowed for to be shown to Malacian audiences …’

The morning passed in little five-minute loaves of time as Otto Bengtsohn unfolded his preposterous tale of Prince Mendicula, while his characters confronted the sunshine with tinsel crowns and cork swords.

Prince Mendicula: or, The Joyous Tragedy of the Prince and Patricia, as Intertwined with the Fates of His General Gerald and the Lady Jemima (announced Bengtsohn, blowing a fake fanfare through pursed lips in order to convey an impression of grandeur commensurate with the occasion). A co-operative production by the Bengtsohn Players, mercurised by Otto Bengtsohn of Tolkhorm, under the grand patronage of Andrus Hoytola, to whom our humble efforts are unworthily dedicated with all gratitude and undue prostrations, and so on and so on, to the limits of the capacity …

The great and handsome Prince Mendicula, what you here see in the full glory of his youth, power, and privilege, has just conquered the city of Gorica, what lies in ruins for all to see and sorrow over in the background.

Mendicula has been aided by his general, the noble, powerful, and privileged Gerald, who is almost as personable as his prince. As you see.

General Gerald has become the close friend and adviser of his prince, what has encouraged Gerald in every way and made him a favourite in preference over many other estimable courtiers. Here you see the two of them inspecting the ruined city. The conquered city, that is to say; conquest is a princely habit. With them Mendicula’s wife is, the beautiful Princess Patricia. You observe with what delight she views the vanquished of Gorica, whose hearts go out to her.

Here you see her telling her husband, the Prince, how enchanted she is by his prowess in war. He clutches her hands. So consumed by love of her is he that the prince bestows the city – without consulting the feelings of the inhabitants, of course – upon her for a gift, what marks the first three years of their happy life married.

The general expresses content with this arrangement. Here he announces that from henceforth he will abstain from warlike action – as generals enjoy to do after battles – thinking what they may get their heads shot off next time. He declares that he will hang up his arms to marry a charming lady of Gorica what he has just met. They will settle in Gorica – or Patriciagrad, as the unfortunate city will shortly be ceremoniously rechristened, once the corpses are cleared from off the streets.

Amid general enthusiasm, Prince Mendicula leaves his wife Patricia in Gerald’s care and goes for a tour of his new territory – you see it in the background – to meet alike nobility and peasants, but chiefly nobility, of course. At a certain country inn by a lake, Mendicula decides to rest for the night. We see him entering – observe tankards arranged by the window – and here he meets the enchanting mystery woman, Lady Jemima, what claims to be the daughter of the landlord, though the prince cannot believe this. In fact, he believes that anyone so pleasing cannot spring from such low society. As you may notice, the little Lady Jemima is as dark of hair and complexion as the Princess Patricia is fair. Well, we get the ladies’ hair colour correct, we hope.

She spurns his advances, gracefully but inflammably with what looks like a slap of the face. The prince orders local wine and becomes hopelessly inebriated in the course of the evening. Fortunately he is anonymous, so that nobody notices nothing remarkable in his insobriety.

This is early dawn, as you can see, shining bright. Prince Mendicula, whose head feels so thick as that of any low serf, wakes to repent of his folly and have a conscience attack as he recalls his neglected wife Patricia back in Gorica. We witness his agony – the clenched fists, the look to heaven – as he becomes afraid that Patricia might have been unfaithful to him yielding during the night to the advances of the General Gerald. He rides furiously back to Gorica, a prey to remorse and jealousy.

Arriving early at the Gorica Palace, his spurs clattering over the marble corridors – well, matting, as you can see – the prince finds both Patricia, his beloved, and his general are slumbering virtuously in their different compartments in different parts of the building. How sweet she looks asleep, those lovely pink cheeks – she is always well fed, our princess! Mendicula awakens her with a kiss and pours out his love. At this point in Bengtsohn’s story, I thought to myself, Well, it is all very splendid for Bonihatch that he plays the prince! He enjoys most of the excitement of both the women! This is what I get for acting with a pack of Progressives. Now I understand why the State suppresses them. Sooner or later, Bonihatch is going to linger a whole petrified five minutes – which in the circumstances rates considerably longer than eternity – with his lips upon Armida’s lips, as the slumbering Patricia. He’ll be more than mercurised, the low churl! I should have played the prince!

And what impression will I make on my audience as the stupid General Gerald, lying guilelessly abed, eyes closed and moustaches rolled in a white handkerchief. This fustian does me no favour.

Even as Prince Mendicula embraces Patricia and pours out his affectionate declarations (continued Bengtsohn, moving us about for the next tableau as if we were dummies) she can smell that he has been drinking away the night. Instinctively, the sensitive girl a trifle draws away from him.

Examine, if you will, the psychology in his countenance! For how does he respond to this slight withdrawal of hers? Why, a tiny seedling from doubt blooms in his mind. Perhaps the withdrawal implies that she after all did lie with the general. Much pleasure of the intimate sort may be had in two hours without spending all night about it, particularly if you are the passionate disposition what he knows Patricia to be, because she lives off the best meats and fruits, unlike the poor.

Ah, this next picture! ‘Trust vanquishing Doubt!’ No more soon does dark mistrust spring in the prince’s mind up than he suppresses it with scorn. He believes it to be a reflection of his own guiltiness and unworthy totally of him – also of her what he loves and honours. (Here we shall move the zahnoscope so that we see only Mendicula’s noble face in the appropriate slide …)

Abolishing all base doubts like apples from an orange tree, Prince Mendicula from this moment holds Patricia and his soldier-hero more highly than ever in his self-esteem. More, he encourages them to be friends, to share confidences, and to enjoy generally each other’s company without fear of restraint on his account. Witness the three of them, arms about each, people of noble birth behaving nobly, eh?