'Now you, Rafiel,' Victorium said, nodding, and Rafiel took up his lines.
OEDIPUS: Calm? Come possibile for me to be calm?
I've killed my pop and shtupped my dear old mom.
ANTIGONE: It's okay, dad, we're all with you.
It'll be a lousy life but we'll be true.
Wherever you go-
'No, no,' Charlus cried, breaking in. 'Excuse me, Victorium, but no. Bruta, this is tap, not ballet. Keep your feet down on the floor, will you?'
''Aspet'!' Victorium snapped. 'I'm running this rehearsal, and if you keep interrupting-'
'But she's ruining it, don't you see?' the choreographer pleaded. 'Just give me a minute with her. Please? Bruta, I want you to tap on the turn, and give us a little disco hip rotation when you sing. And I want to hear every tap all by itself, loud and clear....'
There was, naturally, more objection from Victorium. Rafiel backed away to watch, not directly involved, and turned when he felt Docilia plucking at his arm.
'Be real careful,' she whispered. 'Don't let Mosay push you into anything. I think he wants you to really do it. The blinding,' she added impatiently when she saw that he hadn't understood.
Rafiel stared at her to see if she was joking. She wasn't. 'Believe me, that's what he wants from you,' she said, nodding. 'No faking it. He wants real blood. Real pain. Pieces of eyeball hanging out on your cheek.'
'Docilia!' he said, grimacing.
'Was ist das "Docilia"? Voi sapete how Mosay is. Oh, maybe he wouldn't expect you to permanently blind yourself. After the shooting was over he'd pay so the doctors could graft in some new eyes for you - but still.'
'Mosay wouldn't ask anybody to do that,' Rafiel protested.
'Wouldn't he? Especially considering- Well, when he comes back, just ask him,' she said, and stopped there.
Rafiel had grasped her meaning, anyway. Especially considering could only be that, in the long run, they were beginning to be looking on him as expendable.
When he finally did get through to his agent she was only perfunctorily apologetic. 'Mi scusi,' Jeftha said. 'I had a hard night.' That was all the explanation she offered, but her dark and youthful face supported it. The skin was as unlined as always, but her eyes were red. 'Acrobats,' she said, wearily running one hand through her thick hedge of hair.
'You shouldn't sleep with your clients,' Rafiel said, setting aside the historical fact that she had, on occasion, with himself. 'Now, this woman Hillaree....'
When Jeftha heard about the dramaturge's surprise visit she was furious. 'The puta!' she snapped. 'Going behind your agent's back? She'll never cast a client of mine again - but how could you, Rafiel? If Mosay finds out you've been dealing with a tuppenny tinhorn like Hillaree he'll go berserker!'
'I wasn't dealing with her,' Rafiel began, but she cut him off.
'Pray he doesn't hear about it. He's in a bad enough mood already. When he got to look at his locations somebody told him that the Thebes he was trying to match was the wrong Thebes - two of them with the same name, Rafiel, can you imagine that? How stupid can they be? The Thebes in Egypt didn't count. The Thebes somewhere north of Athens was the one where Oedipus had been king, and it was an entirely different kind of territory.'
'He's back?'
'He will be in the morning,' she confirmed. 'Now, was that what you were so fou to talk to me about?'
He hesitated, and then said, 'Forget it now, anyway.' Because he couldn't quite bring himself to ask her the question that was mostly on his mind, which was whether it was at all possible that Docilia's hints and implications could possibly be right.
8
The work of a dramaturge does not end with making sure a production is successfully performed. A major part of the job is making sure that audiences will want to spend their money to see it. In the furtherance of this endeavour, sweet are the uses of publicity; for which reason Mosay has arranged to do his first costumed rehearsals in a very conspicuous place. The place he has chosen is the public park on the roof of the arcology, where there are plenty of loungers and strollers, and every one a sure wordof-mouth broadcaster when they get home. Nor has Mosay failed to alert the paparazzi to be present in force.
Rafiel thought seriously of taking the kitten with him to show off at the day's rehearsal - after all, who else in the troupe owned a live cat? But the park was half a kilometre square, with a lake and a woodsy area and sweet little gardens all around. There was even a boxwood maze, great for children to play in, but all too good a place for a little kitten to get lost in, he decided, and regretfully left it in the care of his server.
The trouble with the rooftop was that it was windy. They were nearly a kilometre above the ground, where the air was always blowing strong. Clever vanes deflected the worst of the gusts, but not all of them; Rafiel felt chilled and wished Mosay had chosen another workplace. Or that, at least, they hadn't been instructed to show up in costume: there wasn't much warmth in the short woollen tunic. The winds were stronger than usual that day, and there were thick black clouds rolling toward them over the arcologies to the west. Rafiel listened: had he heard the sound of distant thunder? Or just the wind?
He shivered and joined the other performers as they walked around to get used to their costumes. Although the rooftop was the common property of all the hundred and sixty-odd thousand people who lived or worked in that particular arcology, Mosay had managed to persuade the arcology council to set one grassy sward aside for rehearsals. The council didn't object. They agreed that it would be a pleasing sort of entertainment for the tenants, and anyway Mosay was a first-rate persuader - after all, what other thing did a dramaturge really have to be?
The proof of his persuasive powers was that, astonishingly, everyone in the cast was there, and on time: Mosay himself, back from his fruitless quest but looking fresh and undaunted, and Victorium, and Charlus, the choreographer - no, assistant choreographer, Rafiel corrected himself resolutely - and all the eleven principal performers in the show and the dozen members of the chorus. Rafiel had practised with the sandals and the sword in his condo, while the watching kitten purred approvingly; by now he was easy enough in the costume. Not Andrev, the Creon, who kept getting his sword caught between his knees. There weren't any costume problems for Sander, the Tiresias, since his costume was only a long featureless smock, and Sander, who was a tall, unkempt man with seal-coloured hair that straggled down over his shoulders, wore the thing as though he were ignoring it, which was pretty much the way he wore all his clothes anyway. All the women wore simple white gowns, Docilia's Jocasta with flowers in her hair, the daughters unembellished.
But when Rafiel first saw Bruta, the Antigone, turn toward him his heart stopped for a moment, she was so like Alegretta. 'Che cosa, Rafiel?' she asked in sudden worry at his expression, but he only shook his head. He kept watching her, though. Apart from the chance resemblance to his life's lost love, Bruta struck him as a bit of a puzzle. Bruta looked neither younger nor older than anyone else in the cast, of course - Rafiel himself always excepted - but it was obvious that she was a lot less experienced. That interested Rafiel. Mosay was not the kind who liked to bother with newcomers. He left the discovery of fresh talent to lesser dramaturges; he could afford to hire the best, who inevitably were also the ones who had long since made their reputations. Rafiel thought of asking Docilia, who would be sure to know everyone's reasons for everything they did, but there wasn't time. Mosay was already waving everyone to cluster around him.