No Great Magic Read online

  II

  History does not move in one current, like the wind across bare seas, but in a thousand streams and eddies, like the wind over a broken landscape. --Cary

  The boys' half of the dressing room (two-thirds really) was bustling.There was the smell of spirit gum and Max Factor and just plain men.Several guys were getting dressed or un-, and Bruce was cussingBloody-something because he'd just burnt his fingers unwinding fromthe neck of a hot electric bulb some crepe hair he'd wound there todry after wetting and stretching it to turn it from crinkly tostraight for his Banquo beard. Bruce is always getting to the theaterlate and trying shortcuts.

  But I had eyes only for Sid. So help me, as soon as I saw him theybugged again. _Greta_, I told myself, _you're going to have to sendMartin out to the drugstore for some anti-bug powder._ "_For theroaches, boy?_" "_No, for the eyes._"

  Sid was made up and had his long mustaches and elf-locked Macbeth wigon--and his corset too. I could tell by the way his waist was suckedin before he saw me. But instead of dark kilts and that bronze-studdedsweat-stained leather battle harness that lets him show off his beefyshoulders and the top half of his heavily furred chest--and whichreally does look great on Macbeth in the first act when he comes instraight from battle--but instead of that he was wearing, so help me,red tights cross-gartered with strips of gold-blue tinsel-cloth, agreen doublet gold-trimmed and to top it a ruff, and he was trying tofit onto his front a bright silvered cuirass that would have lookedjust dandy maybe on one of the Pope's Swiss Guards.

  I thought, _Siddy, Willy S. ought to reach out of his portrait thereand bop you one on the koko for contemplating such a crazy-quiltdesecration of just about his greatest and certainly his mostatmospheric play._

  Just then he noticed me and hissed accusingly, "There thou art, slothyminx! Spring to and help stuff me into this monstrous chest-kettle."

  "Siddy, what _is_ all this?" I demanded as my hands automaticallyobeyed. "Are you going to play _Macbeth_ for laughs, except maybeleaving the Porter a serious character? You think you're Red Skelton?"

  "What monstrous brabble is this, you mad bitch?" he retorted, gruntingas I bear-hugged his waist, shouldering the cuirass to squeeze ithome.

  "The clown costumes on all you men," I told him, for now I'd noticedthat the others were in rainbow hues, Bruce a real eye-buster inyellow tights and violet doublet as he furiously bushed out andclipped crosswise sections of beard and slapped them on his chingleaming brown with spirit gum. "I haven't seen any eight-inchpolka-dots yet but I'm sure I will."

  Suddenly a big grin split Siddy's face and he laughed out loud at me,though the laugh changed to a gasp as I strapped in the cuirass threenotches too tight. When we'd got that adjusted he said, "I' faith thouslayest me, pretty witling. Did I not tell you this production is anexperiment, a novelty? We shall but show _Macbeth_ as it might havebeen costumed at the court of King James. In the clothes of the day,but gaudier, as was then the stage fashion. Hold, dove, I've somewhatfor thee." He fumbled his grouch bag from under his doublet and dippedfinger and thumb in it, and put in my palm a silver model of theEmpire State Building, charm bracelet size, and one of the newKennedy dimes.

  * * * * *

  As I squeezed those two and gloated my eyes on them, feeling securerand happier and friendlier for them though I didn't at the moment wantto, I thought, _Well, Siddy's right about that, at least I've readthey used to costume the plays that way, though I don't see howShakespeare stood it. But it was dirty of them all not to tell mebeforehand._

  But that's the way it is. Sometimes I'm the butt as well as the pet ofthe dressing room, and considering all the breaks I get I shouldn'tmind. I smiled at Sid and went on tiptoes and necked out my head andkissed him on a powdery cheek just above an aromatic mustache. Then Iwiped the smile off my face and said, "Okay, Siddy, play Macbeth asLittle Lord Fauntleroy or Baby Snooks if you want to. I'll neversqueak again. But the Elizabeth prologue's still an anachronism.And--this is the thing I came to tell you, Siddy--Miss Nefer's notgetting ready for any measly prologue. She's set to play QueenElizabeth all night and tomorrow morning too. Whatever you think, shedoesn't know we're doing _Macbeth_. But who'll do Lady Mack if shedoesn't? And Martin's not dressing for Malcolm, but for the Son ofthe Last of the Mohicans, I'd say. What's more--"

  You know, something I said must have annoyed Sid, for he changed hismood again in a flash. "Shut your jaw, you crook brained cat, andbegone!" he snarled at me. "Here's curtain time close upon us, and youcome like a wittol scattering your mad questions like the crazedOphelia her flowers. Begone, I say!"

  "Yessir," I whipped out softly. I skittered off toward the door to thestage, because that was the easiest direction. I figured I could dowith a breath of less grease-painty air. Then, "Oh, Greta," I heardMartin call nicely.

  He'd changed his levis for black tights, and was stepping into andpulling up around him a very familiar dress, dark green andembroidered with silver and stage-rubies. He'd safety-pinned a foldedtowel around his chest--to make a bosom of sorts, I realized.

  He armed into the sleeves and turned his back to me. "Hook me up,would you?" he entreated.

  Then it hit me. They had no actresses in Shakespeare's day, they usedboys. And the dark green dress was so familiar to me because--

  "Martin," I said, halfway up the hooks and working fast--Miss Nefer'scostume fitted him fine. "You're going to play--?"

  "Lady Macbeth, yes," he finished for me. "Wish me courage, will youGreta? Nobody else seems to think I need it."

  * * * * *

  I punched him half-heartedly in the rear. Then, as I fastened the lasthooks, my eyes topped his shoulder and I looked at our faces side byside in the mirror of his dressing table. His, in spite of the femaleedging and him being at least eight years younger than me, I think,looked wise, poised, infinitely resourceful with power in reserve,very very real, while mine looked like that of a bewildered andcharacterless child ghost about to scatter into air--and the edges ofmy charcoal sweater and skirt, contrasting with his strong colors,didn't dispel that last illusion.

  "Oh, by the way, Greta," he said, "I picked up a copy of _The VillageTimes_ for you. There's a thumbnail review of our _Measure forMeasure_, though it mentions no names, darn it. It's around heresomewhere...."

  But I was already hurrying on. Oh, it was logical enough to haveMartin playing Mrs. Macbeth in a production styled to Shakespeare'sown times (though pedantically over-authentic, I'd have thought) andit really did answer all my questions, even why Miss Nefer could sinkherself wholly in Elizabeth tonight if she wanted to. But it meantthat I must be missing so much of what was going on right around me,in spite of spending 24 hours a day in the dressing room, or at mostin the small adjoining john or in the wings of the stage just outsidethe dressing room door, that it scared me. Siddy telling everybody,"_Macbeth_ tonight in Elizabethan costume, boys and girls," sure, thatI could have missed--though you'd have thought he'd have asked my helpon the costumes.

  But Martin getting up in Mrs. Mack. Why, someone must have held thepart on him twenty-eight times, cueing him, while he got the lines.And there must have been at least a couple of run-through rehearsalsto make sure he had all the business and stage movements down pat, andSid and Martin would have been doing their big scenes every backstageminute they could spare with Sid yelling, "Witling! Think'st _that's_a wifely buss?" and Martin would have been droning his lines last timehe scrubbed and mopped....

  _Greta, they're hiding things from you_, I told myself.

  Maybe there was a 25th hour nobody had told me about yet when they didall the things they didn't tell me about.

  Maybe they were things they didn't dare tell me because of mytop-storey weakness.

  I felt a cold draft and shivered and I realized I was at the door tothe stage.

  I should explain that our stage is rather an unusual one, in that itcan face two ways, with the drops a
nd set pieces and lighting allcapable of being switched around completely. To your left, as you lookout the dressing-room door, is an open-air theater, or rather anopen-air place for the audience--a large upward-sloping glade walledby thick tall trees and with benches for over two thousand people. Onthat side the stage kind of merges into the grass and can be made tolook part of it by a green groundcloth.

  To your right is a big roofed auditorium with the same number ofseats.

  The whole thing grew out of the free summer Shakespeare performancesin Central Park that they started back in the 1950's.

  The Janus-stage idea is that in nice weather you can have the audienceoutdoors, but if it rains or there's a cold snap, or if you want toplay all winter without a single break, as we've been doing, then youcan put your audience in the auditorium. In that case, a bigaccordion-pleated wall shuts off the out of doors and keeps the windfrom blowing your backdrop, which is on that side, of course, when theauditorium's in use.

  Tonight the stage was set up to face the outdoors, although that draftfelt mighty chilly.

  I hesitated, as I always do at the door to the stage--though it wasn'tthe actual stage lying just ahead of me, but only backstage, thewings. You see, I always have to fight the feeling that if I go outthe dressing room door, go out just eight steps, the world will changewhile I'm out there and I'll never be able to get back. It won't beNew York City any more, but Chicago or Mars or Algiers or Atlanta,Georgia, or Atlantis or Hell and I'll never be able to get back tothat lovely warm womb with all the jolly boys and girls and all thecostumes smelling like autumn leaves.

  Or, especially when there's a cold breeze blowing, I'm afraid that_I'll_ change, that I'll grow wrinkled and old in eight footsteps, orshrink down to the witless blob of a baby, or forget altogether who Iam--

  --or, it occurred to me for the first time now, _remember_ who I am.Which might be even worse.

  Maybe that's what I'm afraid of.

  I took a step back. I noticed something new just beside the door: ahigh-legged, short-keyboard piano. Then I saw that the legs were thoseof a table. The piano was just a box with yellowed keys. Spinet?Harpsichord?

  "Five minutes, everybody," Martin quietly called out behind me.

  I took hold of myself. Greta, I told myself--also for the first time,_you know that some day you're really going to have to face thisthing, and not just for a quick dip out and back either. Better get insome practice._

  I stepped through the door.

  * * * * *

  Beau and Doc were already out there, made up and in costume for Rossand King Duncan. They were discreetly peering past the wings at thegathering audience. Or at the place where the audience ought to begathering, at any rate--sometimes the movies and girlie shows andbrainheavy beatnik bruhahas outdraw us altogether. Their costumes werethe same kooky colorful ones as the others'. Doc had a mock-erminerobe and a huge gilt papier-mache crown. Beau was carrying a raggedblack robe and hood over his left arm--he doubles the First Witch.

  As I came up behind them, making no noise in my black sneakers, Iheard Beau say, "I see some rude fellows from the City approaching. Iwas hoping we wouldn't get any of those. How should they scent usout?"

  _Brother_, I thought, _where do you expect them to come from if notthe City? Central Park is bounded on three sides by Manhattan Islandand on the fourth by the Eighth Avenue Subway. And Brooklyn and Bronxboys have got pretty sharp scenters. And what's it get you insultingthe woiking and non-woiking people of the woild's greatest metropolis?Be grateful for any audience you get, boy._

  But I suppose Beau Lassiter considers anybody from north of Vicksburga "rude fellow" and is always waiting for the day when the entireaudience will arrive in carriage and democrat wagons.

  Doc replied, holding down his white beard and heavy on the mongrelRusso-German accent he miraculously manages to suppress on stageexcept when "Vot does it matter? Ve don't convinze zem, ve don'tconvinze nobody. _Nichevo._"

  _Maybe_, I thought, _Doc shares my doubts about making Macbethplausible in rainbow pants._

  Still unobserved by them, I looked between their shoulders and got thefirst of my shocks.

  It wasn't night at all, but afternoon. A dark cold lowering afternoon,admittedly. But afternoon all the same.

  Sure, between shows I sometimes forget whether it's day or night,living inside like I do. But getting matinees and evening performancesmixed is something else again.

  It also seemed to me, although Beau was leaning in now and I couldn'tsee so well, that the glade was smaller than it should be, the treescloser to us and more irregular, and I couldn't see the benches. Thatwas Shock Two.

  Beau said anxiously, glancing at his wrist, "I wonder what's holdingup the Queen?"

  Although I was busy keeping up nerve-pressure against the shocks, Imanaged to think. _So he knows about Siddy's stupid Queen Elizabethprologue too. But of course he would. It's only me they keep in thedark. If he's so smart he ought to remember that Miss Nefer is alwaysthe last person on stage, even when she opens the play._

  And then I thought I heard, through the trees, the distant drummingof horses' hoofs and the sound of a horn.

  * * * * *

  Now they do have horseback riding in Central Park and you can hearauto horns there, but the hoofbeats don't drum that wild way. Andthere aren't so many riding together. And no auto horn I ever heardgave out with that sweet yet imperious _ta-ta-ta-TA_.

  I must have squeaked or something, because Beau and Doc turned aroundquickly, blocking my view, their expressions half angry, half anxious.

  I turned too and ran for the dressing room, for I could feel one of mymind-wavery fits coming on. At the last second it had seemed to methat the scenery was getting skimpier, hardly more than thin trees andbushes itself, and underfoot feeling more like ground than a groundcloth, and overhead not theater roof but gray sky. _Shock Three andyou're out, Greta_, my umpire was calling.

  I made it through the dressing room door and nothing there waswavering or dissolving, praised be Pan. Just Martin standing with hisback to me, alert, alive, poised like a cat inside that green dress,the prompt book in his right hand with a finger in it, and from hisleft hand long black tatters swinging--telling me he'd still bedoubling Second Witch. And he was hissing, "Places, please, everybody.On stage!"

  With a sweep of silver and ash-colored plush, Miss Nefer came pasthim, for once leading the last-minute hurry to the stage. She had onthe dark red wig now. For me that crowned her characterization. Itmade me remember her saying, "My brain burns." I ducked aside as ifshe were majesty incarnate.

  And then she didn't break her own precedent. She stopped at the newthing beside the door and poised her long white skinny fingers overthe yellowed keys, and suddenly I remembered what it was called: avirginals.

  She stared down at it fiercely, evilly, like a witch planning anenchantment. Her face got the secret fiendish look that, I toldmyself, the real Elizabeth would have had ordering the deaths ofBallard and Babington, or plotting with Drake (for all they say shedidn't) one of his raids, that long long forefinger tracing crookedcourses through a crabbedly drawn map of the Indies and she smiling atthe dots of cities that would burn.

  Then all her eight fingers came flickering down and the strings insidethe virginals began to twang and hum with a high-pitched rendering ofGrieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

  Then as Sid and Bruce and Martin rushed past me, along with a blackswooping that was Maud already robed and hooded for Third Witch, Ibeat it for my sleeping closet like Peer Gynt himself dashing acrossthe mountainside away from the cave of the Troll King, who only wantedto make tiny slits in his eyeballs so that forever afterwards he'd seereality just a little differently. And as I ran, the master-anachronismof that menacing mad march music was shrilling in my ears.