“A little unusual.”
“We’ll pay anyway.”
Sarah sat in the middle. The couch springs gave lightly. Dust rose from the knotted wool upholstery, smelling of age. Max had Nick give the girl the canister. “For three, please,” he instructed her in broken Cantonese.
The girl brought over a large bamboo pipe, ornate like a flute, sealed with ivory plugs at each end, with a wooden bowl set in brass near the top. She made two pills and dropped them into the bowl to cook over the lamp’s rising blue flame. In a dutiful manner she knelt down reticently without eye contact and offered the first pipe to Sarah. A large puff of smoke leaked from the corners of Sarah’s mouth. “Wow.” She sighed, then laid her head back. The girl followed suit with Nick. When Max took his hit, he felt the smoke swallow deep down into his lungs, burning and searing. His head felt light, and for a moment his heart raced like he was coming home to Jesus. Then each of his muscles relaxed in descending order, from scalp to feet. He could feel the sinew and muscle expelling the tension, breathing out the daily cramping, and settling into pure relaxation. His face became very hot and glowed red. Then the warmth washed evenly through his entire body in one magnificent rush, vein by vein.
Twenty minutes later they did it again, and Hsing’s Laundry on Mott Street became about the sweetest, most peaceful place on earth. For Max, a gangly boy reared back and forth between the North End of London and the seedy Reeperbahn of Hamburg, he had made it. He had endured taunts most of his life. Had had brutal chaps pinch his ass, then slug a fist across his jaw when he turned around. They said that’s what happens to queers around here. At sixteen, his father had caught him bum high, mouth on a dick, and beat the shit out of his boy before tossing him out and reporting to the rest of the Klein family that the boy had run away and been lost at sea. He went to Paris. Mixed-up sad and crazy. Trying to toughen the outside to bury the inside. Dancing in the streets. Finally free from the crap he’d grown up with. That was ten years ago. Met Sarah. She needed someone who could organize. She hired him. He looked out for her. Did everything from read lines with her to pack her clothes to escort her lovers out in the middle of the night to brokering midnight performance deals to ensure that she could pay the next week’s bills. He’d seen some crazy shit. But he was alive and happy. The wounds were healed. And now he sat a graceful bird perched on a couch in almighty America after negotiating $1,000 per performance plus 50 percent of the gross. That along with incidentals would bring in almost $4,000 per night on this golden American tour (as long as they didn’t mess it up with some kind of foolishness like being bagged with illicit narcotics). He had finally landed. Safe. His hand resting on Nick’s knee while remarkably still in adoration of Madame Bernhardt. Warts and all.
The Chinese girl came around again to check like a good waitress in midmeal. No more than sixteen, her abashed closed-mouth smile made her look twelve. Sweetness and innocence. Sarah smiled and thanked her. “I finally have relaxed for the first time in ages,” she said. “Tell that to the sisters at le Grandchamps convent.”
The Chinese girl nodded. She clearly had no command of the English language besides thank you or no sir or you like. Mostly she knew how to smile.
“You know before I came on this trip I went to Elsinore to visit Hamlet’s tomb. I also went to Ophelia’s Spring, and visited some of the castles.”
Max interrupted her. “She doesn’t know a word that you’re saying, sweetheart. Nor does she really care, I’m sure.”
“Oh shush, Molly.” She turned her attention back to the girl, who stood respectfully. “I’d played those roles over and over again, and I wanted to see the actual history. Thought that maybe I would understand more about Hamlet. I even hoped that he would speak to me from his tomb.” She started to giggle then erupted into a full-blown laugh that shook the couch.
The girl stood with the same staid smile, hands at her sides.
Max tried to interrupt, but Sarah stopped him with a wave of her hand. He sat back and listened to her voice, even in English as pure as gold and silk, without a trace of opiate slur.
“Ophelia’s Spring was an ordinary creek. Everything was ordinary. And what I learned was that my imagining of Hamlet’s world was far more detailed than what I actually saw. I mean I could maybe give you a handful of bits about the way the plants grew around the grave. Or the architecture of Kronberg Castle. But now if I close my eyes and recite:
O heart lose not thy nature;
let not ever the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I can smell the must of the castle. The fear that sweats off Hamlet, and the ruthlessness that shames Polonius. Odd-shaped stones and bricks mortar the gray walls, and the floor has a light cover of dust that dulls an otherwise ornate tile. It is cold. Joints ache. Cheeks are flushed. And the moisture hangs heavy in the air.”
The girl stared, looking down at her feet once. For a moment she appeared nervous, as though still being observed. She scratched her nose, then looked up again to meet Sarah’s eyes. And smiled.
Nick watched in fascination as he gripped Max’s hand.
“Sometimes I get bored and start to distrust myself. I feel like a fraud, and I start to become like an accident victim trying to walk again. Where each step is lumbering and nothing is natural…I learned more about myself from that trip. My own eyes are liars. It’s the well inside my head that knows the only truth.”
The girl politely smiled in response to Sarah’s laugh. She bowed graciously, then backed away, suddenly anxious.
“Please, one more,” Sarah requested.
They sat for another hour without speaking. Max held on to Nick’s hand the whole time, melting away, stripped to the vapor essence that was neither Max Klein nor homo nor rectifier nor confidant—just a solitary breath in the room.
When they finally left, Max said Nick could keep whatever was left over. He gave it to the girl as a tip.
They shared a taxi uptown. In the hallway of the Albermarle hotel, Nick and Max kissed furiously. Then Nick went into Sarah’s room. An hour later he knocked on Max’s door.
The next day the cast had rehearsed L’Etrangère at the Booth with more life than it had ever known. At the end of the day, standing backstage, Max hugged Sarah. He wept. “I’m sorry,” he said between sobs. “I just haven’t felt this happy before.”
ON THE VENICE PIER, Sarah yawned. Still in Max’s arms. “I am too tired to disagree,” she said. “You will still look out for me, right? Never secrets or agendas.”
Max released his hold. He took her hand and looked her in the eyes. They were sadder than he could remember, drawn back and worn. He squeezed her hand tighter. He never felt as desperate about protecting anybody as he felt for her. He would sit here all night and cradle her if she needed. He would make sure that nothing disrupted her career. She couldn’t afford it financially and emotionally. He would make sure that she didn’t smoke hop just to brighten her eyes and remember her smile. These were different times. The world was not so free and easy anymore. Judgment sat perched with a gavel that was far heavier than it had ever been before. People were stronger. Savvier. They were more vindictive. And the punishments more severe. She didn’t see that; in many respects she was too naive to even understand the critical world surrounding her. But she was not immune to its effects. She was wounded. Her hand clasped against the bruise with no idea why she was struck. It wasn’t her world. She just lived there and performed for it.