Under the Poppy Read Online Free Page A

Paris. Even in London. And his wit … Well. I am by nature somewhat of a solitary, preferring my own company to that of others who neither share nor comprehend my views; and those with whom my business yokes me are often not to my taste, to put it mildly. But Rupert—suffice it to say that, from the start, I lacked no stimulation in his company.
    Which is a true boon, since I find myself called here more often than formerly, as the civil situation continues to decay. Commerce is, or ought to be, a thing apart from politics, above it; no matter our individual affiliations, men must buy and sell, that is how the world spins. To complicate that necessary spin with needless disputes of border and tribute is a kind of evil, one that we, as men of business, must confront with all the weapons at our disposal, not the marching armies of czar and general but the subtler soldiers of the pen and the mind. I will touch only on the present crisis by noting that its escalation is marked by powers much greater than my own, men whose vision I share, beside whom I have toiled for many years; to build takes time. In this time, now, we are doing all we may to bring remedy, before the region’s circumstance deteriorates past all recall. Already there is talk of secession, already there are shortages in the shops—
    At any rate, to go Under the Poppy at such a time is more comfort than concession, and I hesitate not at all to host my cosmopolitan colleagues when travel sends them this way. I am in fact employing the staff and players of the Poppy for a private celebration for a gentleman from Brussels with whom I am in ongoing consultation, regarding some interests we share. He, and I, and several of the local haute monde —Colonel Essenhigh certainly, and the mayor, and, alas, the mayor’s dunce of an attaché—will gather there for supper and entertainment. I am hopeful that Rupert will join us, if only for a while, but he is chary of much socializing, a reticence I respect and understand: after all, one does not pour the finest wine into a shallow trough. It is quite enough that he gives his time to me.

“Laddie,” Guillame says, “you’re the Light of Love, you’ll be here with the candelabra. Vera on the chaise, yes, just so. And you, Jen, up there, I want you dangling like a grape. A ripe grape about to fall into a hungry mouth—”
    “The straps hurt my back,” says Spinning Jennie. “I can’t do it.” Lucy, kneeling beside her on the stage, hemming her costume, pinches Jennie’s long white thigh through the cheesecloth skirt; Jennie makes a sluggish gesture as if to chase a fly and “You’re so dosed,” says Lucy, “a hammer couldn’t hurt you. Puggy, look at her eyes.”
    “Shut up, Lucy!”
    “The harness, Jen. Go on,” chewing a cigar like Omar does; if it is true that Omar wants to be Rupert, then Guillame wants to be Omar, or at least look the part, bald head, cigars, and all. He has none of Omar’s imposing physical presence, being rather comically short and round, but when Guillame is in his element, bringing life to this stage, he possesses an undeniable energy, a human dynamo in boiled wool and old blue spats.
    His title is stage manager, which means a thousand things on a hundred different days: direct and wrangle the players, cadge the props—such as the harness, a refurbished cast-off from the livery; conjured diamonds from paste, Triton’s trident from a hayfork, a paper dove that flutters into life—and construct and assemble the sets, school Lucy into a seamstress, make sure Jonathan has piano enough to play. Some nights he works the doors with Omar, vetting the lustful from the drunks. Most nights he stays up past dawn, reviewing the evening’s playlets: what brought applause or indifference, what roused the crowd, what roused them too much. The verge, he likes to say. That’s where we want them, the utter, utter verge.
    Guillame tells a thousand stories of his advent at the Poppy, his life