The Letter Killers Club Read online

  STERN: You mean people will see me like that? Like you?

  ROLE: Yes.

  STERN (abstracted): Now. Another question: where are you from? Actually: no matter where you’re from, you’ll have to go. I’m refusing the role.

  ROLE (rising): As you like.

  STERN (makes to follow after): Stop. I’m afraid someone will see you. I wouldn’t want anyone but me— You understand.

  ROLE: Don’t be too quick to include me in space. Seeing me is, so to speak, a matter of choice. We exist, but provisionally. Whoever wants to see me will, whoever doesn’t … Indeed, it is a violence and in bad taste to be forcibly real. If with you people, on earth, that is still going on, then—

  STERN: Wait, wait. I wanted to see another …

  ROLE: I don’t know. Perhaps the orders for post-horses got mixed up. That happens when passing from one world to the other. There is a huge demand just now for Hamlets. Hamletburg is practically deserted.

  STERN: I don’t understand.

  ROLE: It’s very simple. You requested a Hamlet from the Archives, but they sent you one from the Workshop.

  STERN: But then how can we … straighten this out?

  ROLE: Again, very simply. I’ll take you to Hamletburg, and you can look for the one you want.

  STERN (confused): But where is that? And how do you get there?

  ROLE: Where? In the Land of Roles. There is such a place. As for how you get there, that can be neither told, nor shown. I think the audience will forgive us if we … ring down the curtain.

  Rar calmly surveyed us. “The Role, in essence, is right. If you’ll allow me, I’ll say: Curtain. Now on to the second position: try to picture a receding perspective inside close-set converging walls crowned with Gothic arches. The interior of this fantastic tunnel is plastered with squares of colored paper all emblazoned, in different typefaces and in different languages, with the same word: HAMLET-HAMLET-HAMLET. Under the polyglot playbills streaming away into the depths are two rows of armchairs vanishing in the distance. Sitting in the armchairs, wrapped in black cloaks, is a succession of Hamlets. Each holds a book in his hands. Each is bent over its pages, his pale face intent, his eyes fixed on the lines. Now here, now there, a turning page rustles and one hears the soft, but incessant:

  “‘Words, words, words.’

  “‘Words … words.’

  “‘Words.’

  “Once again I invite you, conceivers, to take a good look at the file of phantoms. Under the black berets of those aggrieved princes you will see the ones who introduced you to Hamlet’s problem, to that long, narrow corridor winding its windowless way through the world. I, for instance, can now clearly make out—third armchair on the left—the sharp profile of Salvini’s* Hamlet frowning over a text only he can see. To the right and farther on, the fragile outline beneath folds of heavy black material resembles Sarah Bernhardt* : the heavy folio with bronze clasps strains her fine weak fingers, but her eyes catch tenaciously at the symbols and meanings hidden within. Downstage, beneath the red smudge of a playbill, is Rossi’s face in anxious folds, a withered cheek in the cup of one hand, an elbow on the arm of the carved chair; the muscles in his knees are tensed, at his temple an artery pulses. Upstage, in the depths of the perspective, I see the softly delineated face of the feminine Kemble,* Kean’s* sharp cheekbones and clenched jaw, and finally, at the vanishing point, head thrown back, an arrogant smile on his lips, eyes half closed, the ironic mask—now flashing, now fading in a shimmer of glints and shadows—of Richard Burbage.* It’s hard to tell from this distance, but he seems to have closed his book: read from cover to cover, it lies immobile on his knees. I shift my gaze back: some faces are in shadow, others are looking away. Yes, and I shift back, incidentally, to the play.”

  The door in the depths, rising like a curtain, emits a harsh light and two figures: the ROLE sweeps in with the air of a cicerone, followed by STERN looking shyly about. He wears black hose (undone shoelaces straggling) and a short-skirted doublet donned in haste. Slowly—step by step—they pass down the rows of Hamlets buried in their books.

  ROLE: You’re in luck. This is exactly the scene you want. Take your pick: from Shakespeare to the present.

  STERN (pointing to several empty seats): Why are they empty?

  ROLE: They, you see, are for future Hamlets. Play me, and I too will be sitting pretty, if not here then on a stool off to the side. Instead, here we’ve come all this way—from world to world—and have to stand. You know what, let’s forget this land of achievements and go to the land of conceptions: there’s plenty of room there.

  STERN: No. I must look here. What’s that? (Over the tops of the arches—high up—rush sounds of applause, then silence.)

  ROLE: That was a flock of clappings. They fly in here too sometimes: like birds of passage—from world to world. But I can’t stay any longer: I’ll be missed in conceiverdom. Come with me. Do.

  STERN shakes his head, his guide leaves; he is alone—among words, in words. Like a beggar staring through a shop window, he gazes hungrily at the rows of roles. He takes one step, then another. He hesitates. His eyes, working their way through the semidarkness, now descry, motionless in the depths, the magnificent figure of Richard Burbage.

  STERN: That’s the one.

  But then another Hamlet, who has long put his book aside the better to observe the newcomer, rises from his seat and bars the way. STERN steps back in alarm, but the ROLE too is embarrassed and almost frightened: stepping out of the semidarkness into the light, it reveals the holes and patches on its borrowed and badly made cloak; its stubbly face wears an ingratiating smile.

  ROLE: Are you from there? (STERN gives an affirmative nod.) It shows. Perhaps I could ask you: why am I no longer acted? Have you heard? Everyone knows, of course, that Zamtutyrsky* the tragic actor is an arrant drunk and a scoundrel. But it’s not fair. To begin with, he didn’t learn me. You can imagine how pleasant it is to be not-learned: either you are, or you are not. In that benotbeness, in the third act, we got so muddled that if not for the prompter … And since then, not a single performance. Not one call: to existence. Tell me, what’s become of him? All washed up is he? Or has he changed types? If you go back, give him a talking-to. It’s not fair: he created me, he should play me. Otherwise—(STERN tries to push past the parody, but it keeps talking). For my part, if there’s anything I can do …

  STERN: I’m looking for the book in the third act.* I’ve come for its meaning.

  ROLE: Why didn’t you say so? Here. Only don’t forget to return it. Zamtutyrsky, like you, built his whole performance around this book: he didn’t know me at all, so he’d wander around the stage and whatever happened—he’d look in the book. “Since Hamlet can look in the book in the third act,” he’d say, “then why not in the second, or in the fifth? He doesn’t take his revenge,” he’d say, “because he doesn’t have time: he’s a busy, bookish, erudite man, an intellectual; he reads and reads, can’t tear himself away: he’s too busy to kill.” So if you’re curious, have a look: the Polevoi* translation, Pavlenkov* edition.

  STERN pushes past Zamtutyrsky’s leech-like role and proceeds into the depths of the perspective to the proud profile of BURBAGE. He stands there, not daring to speak. BURBAGE doesn’t notice at first, then his eyelids slowly rise.

  BURBAGE: Why is he here, this being that casts a shadow?

  STERN: That you might welcome him as a shade.

  BURBAGE: What are you trying to say, newcomer?

  STERN: That I am a man who has envied his shadow: it can grow smaller or larger, whereas I am always equal to myself, the same man of the same inches, days, and thoughts. I have long since ceased to need the sun’s light, I prefer the footlights; all my life I have searched for the Land of Roles; but it refuses to accept me. I am only a conceiver, you see, I cannot complete anything: the letters hidden inside your book—O great image—shall remain forever unread by me.

  BURBAGE: You never know. I’ve lived here for three hun
dred years, far from the extinguished footlights. Time enough to finish thinking all one’s thoughts. And you know, better to be an extra there, on earth, than a leading actor here, in the world of played-out plays. Better to be a dull and rusty blade than a precious but empty scabbard; indeed, better to be somehow or other than not to be magnificently: I would not struggle with that dilemma now. If you truly want—

  STERN: Oh, I do!

  BURBAGE: Then let’s trade places: why shouldn’t a role play an actor playing roles?

  They trade cloaks. Buried in their books, the Hamlets don’t notice BURBAGE (who has already mastered STERN’s walk and mannerisms) moving toward the exit with his beret pulled low over his face.

  STERN: I’ll wait for you. (He turns around to Burbage’s empty seat and sees the book, its brass clasps twinkling.) He forgot his book. Too late: he’s gone. (He sits down on the edge of the chair and examines the closed clasps with curiosity. All about him, he again hears pages rustling and the soft: “Words-words-words.”) I’ll wait.

  Third position: Backstage. Perched on a low bench by the stage door is PHELYA, a notebook on her knees. Rocking back and forth with her hands over her ears, she is learning her role.

  PHELYA: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, Lord Hamlet …

  Enter GUILDEN.

  GUILDEN: Is Stern here?

  PHELYA: No.

  GUILDEN: You better warn him: if he skips rehearsal again today, the role goes to me.

  BURBAGE (appears in the doorway, behind the speakers’ backs. In an aside): The role has gone, it’s true: but not from him and not to you.

  GUILDEN exits through a side door. PHELIA again bends over her notebook.

  PHELIA: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,

  Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,

  No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,

  Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle,

  Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

  And with a look so piteous in purport,

  As if he had been loosèd out of hell

  To speak of horrors—he—

  BURBAGE (finishing the line): “He comes before me.” Isn’t that how it goes? My knees are knocking each other. No wonder—after walking all that way. But it would take too long to tell you about it.

  PHELIA (staring at him in astonishment): Darling, how well you’ve entered the role.

  BURBAGE: Your darling has entered something else.

  PHELIA: They wanted to take it away from you. I sent a letter yesterday. Did you receive it?

  BURBAGE: I’m afraid letters cannot be received there. Besides, how can you take a role away from an actor who’s been taken away?

  PHELIA: What a strange thing to say.

  BURBAGE: “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.”

  Enter TIMER, GUILDEN, and several other actors, interrupting the dialogue.

  “Timer is the director, we won’t invent his appearance, let’s just say he looks like me: those who wish to may look closer.” Rar smiled, surveying his listeners.

  No one returned his smile, it seems, but me: sitting in a close, silent circle, the conceivers in no way betrayed their reaction to the story.

  “I see Timer as an experimenter, a stubborn calculator wedded to the substitution method: he needs the people he puts in his productions the way a mathematician needs numbers: when it is this or that number’s turn, he inserts it; when the number’s turn is over, he crosses it out. Now, on seeing the man he mistakes for Stern, Timer is unsurprised and even angry.”

  TIMER: Aha. So you’ve come. But the role has gone. Too late: Guilden is playing Hamlet.

  BURBAGE: You’re mistaken: the actor has gone, but not the role. At your service.

  TIMER: I don’t recognize you, Stern: you’ve always seemed to avoid playing—even with words. Well then, two actors for one role? Why not? Attention: I’m taking the role and breaking it in two.* It’s not hard to do: just find the fault line. Hamlet is, in essence, a duel between Yes and No: they will be our centrosomes, breaking the cell into two new cells. So then, let’s give it a try: get me two cloaks—black and white. (He quickly marks up the notebooks with the roles, giving one to BURBAGE with the white cloak, the other to GUILDEN with the black cloak.) Act III, Scene 1. Places, please. One, two, three: Curtain up!

  HAMLET I (white cloak): To be?

  HAMLET II (black cloak): Or not to be?

  That is the question.

  HAMLET I: Whether ’tis better …

  HAMLET II: Whether ’tis nobler …

  HAMLET I: In the mind to suffer

  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. O no.

  HAMLET II: Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

  And by opposing end them!

  HAMLET I: To die,

  HAMLET II: To sleep—

  HAMLET I: No more?

  HAMLET II: And by a sleep to say we end

  The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

  HAMLET I: That flesh is heir to!

  HAMLET II: ’Tis a consummation

  Devoutly to be wished.

  HAMLET I: To die?

  HAMLET II: To sleep.

  HAMLET I: To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,

  For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

  When we have shuffled off this mortal coil?

  HAMLET II: There’s the respect

  That makes calamity of so long life:

  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

  Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

  The pangs of despised love …

  HAMLET I: The insolence of office, and the spurns

  That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes …

  HAMLET II. When he himself might his quietus make

  With a bare bodkin?

  But that the dread of something after death,

  The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

  No traveler returns—

  HAMLET I: That’s not true, I’ve returned!

  All look in amazement at BURBAGE who, having cut short the monologue, is threatening to split into a dialogue.

  TIMER: That’s not from the role.

  BURBAGE: That’s right. It’s from the Kingdom of Roles. (He has resumed his former pose: chalk-white mask thrown arrogantly back over shroud-white cloak; eyes closed; lips curled in a harlequin’s smile.) This was three hundred years ago. Will was playing the Ghost,* and I, the Prince. It had poured rain since morning, and the stalls were awash. Even so we had a full house. At the end of Act I, as I was declaiming about the time being “out of joint,” a pickpocket was caught stealing the public’s pence. I finished the scene to the squelching of sodden feet and the muffled sound of “thief-thief-thief.” The poor devil was dragged up onstage, as was our custom, and tied to a post. During the second act he looked embarrassed and averted his face from the pointing fingers. But scene by scene, he began to feel at home and almost part of the performance; more and more brazen, he made faces and criticisms till we untied him and hurled him from the stage. (Turning abruptly to TIMER.) I don’t know what or who tied you to this play, but if you think that your paltry stolen thoughts—worth a pence apiece—can make me richer, me, for whom all these doggerels were written, then take your coppers and get out.

  Flings the role in TIMER’s face. Consternation.

  PHELIA: Stern, pull yourself together!

  BURBAGE: My name is Richard Burbage. And I am untying you, you little thief. Out of the Kingdom of Roles!

  TIMER (pale, but calm): Thank you: I shall use my untied hands to … Go on, tie him up! Can’t you see he’s out of his mind?

  BURBAGE: Yes, I condescended to you, people, from what is far over all your heads—and you refuse …

  “The actors fall on Burbage, trying to tie him up. In the heat of the fray, he begins screaming, you understand, screaming at them all … Now if you’ll just … I’ll …”
r />   Mumbling inarticulate words, Rar reached into an inside pocket: something rustled under his black frockcoat. He fell suddenly silent and looked at us with wide eyes. Necks craned nervously. Chairs edged closer. Zez jumped up and motioned for the noise to stop. “Rar,” he snapped. “Did you smuggle letters in here? Hiding them from us? Give me the manuscript. Right now!”

  Rar seemed to hesitate. Then, amid the silence, his hand darted out from under his frockcoat: in his fingers, which were trembling slightly, a notebook folded in four showed white. Zez grabbed it and ran his eyes over the symbols: he held the manuscript almost at arm’s length, by one corner, as though afraid to sully himself with its inky lines. Then he spun around to the fire: it was almost out, only a few coals slowly turning violet continued to blaze above the fender.

  “As per Article 5 of the Regulations, this manuscript is committed to death: without spilling ink. Objections?”