Outnumbering the Dead

'Permesso?’ Charlus said politely. And took up a self-important strut, half tap, almost cakewalk, swinging his lavender kilt as he sang the lines: 'I swear, without deceit or bias, We'll croak the rat who croaked King Laius.'

'Yes?' said Rafiel, reserving judgment.

'And then Creon gives you the bad news. He tells you that, corpo di bacco, things are bad. The oracle says that the murderer is here in Thebes. I think right there is when you register the first suspicion that there's something funny going on. You know? Like…' miming someone suddenly struck by an unwanted thought.

'You don't think that's too early?'

'It's what you think that counts, Rafiel,' Charlus said submissively, and looked up toward the door.

Mosay and Docilia were looking in, the dramaturge with a benign smile, Docilia with a quick kiss for Rafiel and another for Charlus. Although their appearance was a distraction, the kiss turned it into the kind of distraction that starts a new and pleasing line of thought; Docilia was in white again, but a minimum of white: a short white wraparound skirt, a short wraparound bolero on top, with bare flesh between and evidently nothing at all underneath. 'Everything going all right?' the dramaturge asked, and answered himself: 'Of course it is; it's going to be a merveille du monde. Dear ones, I just stopped by to tell you that I'm leaving you for a few days; I'm off to scout out some locations for shooting.'

Rafiel took his eyes off Docilia and blinked at him. 'We're going to make Oedipus on location?'

'I insist,' said Mosay firmly. 'No faux backgrounds; I want the real thing for Oedipus! We're going to have a Thebes that even the Thebans would admire, if there were any of them left.'

Charlus cleared his throat. 'Is Docilia going with you?' he asked.

That question had not occurred to Rafiel to ask, but once it was asked he wanted to know the answer, too. Mosay was looking thoughtfully at the choreographer. 'Well,' he said, 'I thought she might have some ideas. ... Why do you want to know that?'

Charlus had an answer ready. 'Because we've started to work out some of the pas de deux routines, and Docilia ought to have a chance to try them out.' Rafiel did not think it was a truthful one.

Evidently Mosay didn't, either. He pursed his lips, considering, but Docilia answered for him. 'Of course I should,' she said. 'You go on without me, Mosay. Have a nice trip; I'll see you when you get back. Only please, dear, try to find a place that isn't too hot. I sweat so when I'm dancing, you know.'

Whatever plans Charlus had for Docilia, they were postponed. When at last they were through rehearsing, Docilia kissed the choreographer absently and pulled Rafiel along with her out of the room before Charlus could speak. '}'ai molto faim, dear,' she said - but only to Rafiel, 'and I've booked a table for us.'

In the elevator, Rafiel looked at her thoughtfully. 'Didn't Charlus want to see you?'

She smiled up at him, shrugging. 'But he acted as though he didn't want you to go off with Mosay,' Rafiel persisted. 'Or with me either, for that matter. Is he, well, jealous?'

'Oh, Rafiel! What a terrible word that is, "jealous". Are you thinking of, what, the Othello thing?'

'He's the father of your child,' Rafiel pointed out uncomfortably.

'Mais oui, but why should he be jealous if I'm shtupping you or Mosay, liebling! I shtup him too, whenever he likes - when I don't have another date, of course. Come and eat a nice dinner, and stop worrying.'

They walked together to their table - not on a balcony this time, but on a kind of elevated dais at the side of the room, so they could be well seen. It was the kind of place where theatre people gathered, at the bottom of the atrium. Tables in the open surrounded the fiftieth-floor rooftop lake. There was a net overhead to catch any carelessly dropped objects, and from time to time they could hear the whine of the magnets pulling some bit of trash away. But nothing ever struck the diners. The place was full of children, and Docilia smiled at every one of them, practising her upcoming motherhood. And swans floated in the lake, and stars were woven into the net overhead.

When the servers were bringing their monkey-orange juice Rafiel remembered. 'Speaking of Charlus. He had an idea for your scene at the end. You know? Just before you go to hang yourself? As you're going out....'

He looked around to see who was looking at them, then decided to give the fans a treat. He stood up and, in the little cleared space between their table and the railing, did the step Charlus had called 'gedruk’, mincing and swaying his hips. It was not unnoticed. Soft chuckles sounded from around the dining room. 'Oh, maybe yes,' Docilia said, nodding, pleased. 'It gets a laugh, doesn't it?'

'Yes,' said Rafiel, 'but that's the thing. Do we want comedy here? I mean, you're just about to die....'

'Exactly, dear,' she said, not understanding. 'That's why it will be twice as funny in the performance.'

'Aber a morceau incongruous, don't you think? Comedy and death?'

She was more puzzled than ever. 'Hai, that's what's funny, isn't it? I mean, dying. That's such a bizarre thing, it always makes the audience laugh.' And then, when she saw his face, she bit her lip. 'Pas all that funny for everybody, is it?' she said remorsefully. 'You're so normal, dear Rafiel. Sometimes I just forget.'

He shrugged and forgave her. 'You know more about that than I do,' he admitted, knowing that he sounded still grumpy - glad when a famous news comic came over to chat. Being the kind of place it was, table-hopping was, of course, compulsory. As pleased as Rafiel at the interruption, Docilia showed her tomographs of the baby to the comic and got the required words of praise.

Then it was Rafiel's turn to blunder. 'What sort of surrogate are you using?' he asked, to make conversation, and she gave him a sharp look.

'Did somebody tell you? No? Well, it's cow,' she said, and waited to see what his response would be. She seemed aggrieved. When all he did was nod non-committally, she said, 'Charlus wanted to use something fancier. Do you think I did the right thing, Rafiel? Insisting on an ordinary cow surrogate, I mean? So many people are using water buffalo now....'

He laughed at her. 'I wouldn't know, would I? I've never been a parent.'

'Well, I have and, believe me, Rafiel, it isn't easy. What difference does it make, really, what kind of animal incubates your child for you? But Charlus says it's important and, oh, Rafiel, we had such a battle over it!'

She shook her head, mourning the obstinacy and foolishness of men. Then she decided to forgive. 'It isn't altogether his fault, I suppose. He's worried. Especially now. Especially because it's almost fin the second trimester and that means it's time-'

She came to a quick halt, once more biting her lip. Rafiel knew why: it was more suddenly remembered tact. The end of the second trimester was when they had to do the procedure to make the child immortal, because at that point the foetal immune system wasn't developed yet and they could manipulate it in the ways that would make it live essentially for ever.

'That's a scary time, I know,' said Rafiel, to be comforting, but of course he did know. Everyone knew he knew, and why he knew. The operation was serious for a little foetus. A lot of them died, when the procedure didn't work - or managed to survive, but with their natural immune systems mortally intact. Like Rafiel.