Passion Play

  Certainly, he was aware of the superior stamina and resilience of these young women, their capacity to ignore fatigue, to function with little rest or sleep, to thrive on indifferent food—all powers he could not hope to match, yet in his relation with them of no particular consequence. He enjoyed seeing the un-marred freshness of even the simplest girl’s face, her lithe and supple body, the tautness of her skin when contrasted with his own condition, the proof of his mortality. He regarded the qualities of youth merely as signs and symbols, even symptoms, of life as a spectacle of beauty and not as a venture in experience and knowledge. But still, beautiful or not, the girl to whom he chose to offer the intimacy of his VanHome usually shared with him a view of herself, of him, of the two of them in the world, a view that was essentially at one with his own, a sensitivity and perception agreeable to his. What, then, determined the gulf in these attractions—of what was the barrier composed?

  Fabian thought that it was memory.

  When he contemplated his past, scanned or traveled its corridors, each emerging from an interval of years, even decades, he saw not one fixed and continuous being, but multiple selves, skins that he had shed, phases of the body and the mind now exhausted, abandoned, though alive in memory. His past, then, was a storehouse of what had chastened, enhanced or maimed him while he was in the process of living it.

  What eluded him was his childhood. Memory faltered there, the storehouse plundered. He saw only a sequence of fading cameos of himself as a child, without connection to his present reality, snapshots in a stranger’s family album.

  When reaching to her own past, however, Vanessa or any other girl who was once Fabian’s youthful companion could confront only one form of her past: the pristine image of herself as a child. Her present with Fabian was the only adulthood she had ever known.

  He got up and prepared for his new adventure, shaving, showering. The tunic, cinched with a golden belt, fitted him well; the breeches were perhaps a bit tight; the boots a trifle loose. With a rakish swagger, he hiked the cape over his shoulders. In full costume, he took his measure in the mirror: the radiant horseman amused him. All in white, he seemed younger, the hat’s enormous brim shadowing his face, the sword completing the image of a swashbuckler.

  Stella drove up to his VanHome and honked twice. He stepped out into the dwindling afternoon, hoping that no one would see him. He climbed up beside her in the trailer’s cab and eased himself into the seat, careful not to wrinkle his costume.

  “Not bad,” Stella said. “If I met you at night on a lonely road, I guess I could fall for you.” A rose wrapped in cellophane lay between them on the seat. From the partition behind them, the horse snorted in its stall.

  “Is Trekky as ready for the show as I am?” he asked.

  “All white, ready and eager.”

  Stella drove the trailer onto the highway and threw him a searching glance. “We’ll stop behind the fence,” she said. “Just before the guests go inside to dinner, Betsy will change from rock to country music. That’s your signal, and you’ll start out on Trekky, swirling your cape around, but still keeping to the bushes. Then the music will change to Chopin, and as the Chopin plays, you approach the lawn at a gallop, you stop, salute, and throw the rose to Vanessa—and make sure she can catch it!”

  “How will I know her?” he asked, attempting to sound offhand.

  “She’ll be the tall one, all in white, just like you. Slender, but with that luscious hair men love! You can’t miss her. After she gets her rose, you salute again and, mysterious stranger that you are, you disappear into the night, never to return to her again. That means you’ll deliver yourself and Trekky back to me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. I’ll take Trekky home and on the way drop you at your pony express.”

  They swerved onto a country road, and Stella gradually slowed the trailer to a more stately, deliberate pace, as if in homage to the princely houses and estates guarded behind moats of trees and plush, clipped shrubbery. The road was narrowing to a dead end when Stella pulled to the side and switched off the engine. They had been driving for barely ten minutes.

  “Here we are,” she said. “You can get a peek at the house from here if the fence isn’t too high.”

  Fabian stepped down from the cab. Twilight hovered, a slight chill brushed the air, dew lapped the ground. Moving cautiously so as not to snag his clothes on the underbush, he slipped through the trees until the house stood revealed before him.

  It was a sprawling place, the windows great sheets of glass, with terraces stacked on every level. Clusters of guests of every age—Fabian thought there must be about a hundred—were drinking and talking on the front lawn, a few dancing to the throb of rock music.

  Stella moved over to him, taking in the scene. “You can’t see Vanessa from here,” she said. “But once you’re close, you won’t miss her.” Fabian followed her as she walked back to the trailer, dropped its tailgate and guided Trekky out.

  In the unfamiliar surroundings, Trekky whinnied and shied. While Stella calmed the horse, Fabian adjusted the stirrup leathers.

  “We still have some time,” Stella murmured, glancing at her watch. “When we hear country music, you’d better be ready.”

  Fabian mounted Trekky, and the horse dodged and fidgeted. He held it in check, calming it, testing its gaits. Trekky began to perform, lifting its forelegs high and rolling them to the side at the top of the stride, arching its neck, ready to go into the fine step for which the breed was famous.

  “It’s time for the mask and flower,” Stella said, unwrapping the rose from its cellophane. Fabian fastened the mask on his face and tucked the flower in his belt. He saw himself in the trailer’s chrome coating: a silver ghost from a silent film looked back at him.

  He prompted Trekky to circle and prance around the trailer, to feel his weight and obey him. He began to rehearse mentally his appearance out of the gathering twilight: a crest of white emerging from a horizon of somber green.

  Stella was intent, listening for the change of music. “Any minute now,” she said. “And remember, you’re the knight-errant, in love.”

  Fabian shifted alertly in the saddle. The pounding rock seemed to swell, then abruptly stopped; country music followed.

  That was his first cue. Immediately, Fabian backed up the horse, then spurred it forward. Within a few paces, the trees gave way to dense shrubbery, then underbrush. Trekky bolted and nervously thrust through the bushes. Dew invaded the slits of Fabian’s mask, splashing against his skin and mouth, slipping down his chin, dampening his chest.

  The guests noticed him quickly, one after another pointing to him with their drinks. He guided the horse past the bushes, teasing the crowd by keeping to the far reaches of the lawn. As the music continued, he pivoted Trekky on its haunches, edging closer. The guests stared in his direction. He rode in a broken line along the deepening shadows of the trees, pivoting the mare again and again, trotting in a serpentine pattern. There was a shaft of silence, interrupted only by murmuring laughter from the guests, as the country music halted.

  Fabian heard the opening bars of the Chopin, his final cue, rippling across the dappled lawn, and he spurred Trekky forward.

  Suddenly light showered down from one of the terraces, illuminating the guests. Fabian calculated quickly that the hosts must have wanted to make his task of finding Vanessa easier, but they had not: Trekky, jarred by the glare and the sudden turbulence among the guests, panicked and veered sideways. Fabian reined the horse in sharply, gentling it into a trot, guiding it straight at the group. Trekky pranced in a flat walk, deliberate, as they headed directly toward the center of the circle of light, the gleaming guests. Fabian finally saw Vanessa. He recognized her instantly, first by the sudden rapid pace of his heartbeat, then by her hair drawn up high on her head, the slender curve of her neck rising from a column of white chiffon. She was alone, somewhat to the front of the other guests, one hand shielding her eyes from the glare. S
he searched the lawn as though hoping to decipher clues to the masked rider’s identity. Fabian put Trekky through its show paces, its step smooth and elegant; swiftly and fluidly the horse passed first into the fast walk that absorbed all roughness of movement, then into the broken pace, neither a fast trot nor a canter. He reined Trekky to a halt directly before the closest group of guests; their faces upturned, they fixed on him in astonishment. Only Vanessa, as if alerted by something familiar in his figure, stepped forward, straining to see him more clearly.

  Fabian rose in the stirrups, dropping the reins, his gloved hand touching his plumed tricorne at a full salute. One of the guests raised a camera and clicked the shutter button; the electronic blaze blinded the horse. Trekky reared back, jerking its head in fright, then plunged and shied. Fabian grabbed the reins as other camera flashes shot out of the party in quick succession. Trekky, now frantic, heaved and bucked desperately, apparently determined to throw Fabian off. A sudden lurch pitched him forward. Unprepared, accustomed to his own well-behaved ponies, which never rebelled, Fabian lost the stirrups and with them his balance, tumbling sideways onto the grass, his hat flying, the sword dangling at his thigh like a useless mallet. A roar of laughter swept the crowd. Still clinging tightly to Trekky’s reins, Fabian was for a moment so startled at the ease with which he had fallen that he lost all sense of place. Other cameras still flashed, but Trekky had turned away and dropped her head to champ the cropped grass. Picking up his hat, its plume quite bedraggled now, Fabian got up. He pulled Trekky over to him and quickly remounted.

  The crowd was still laughing, with obvious good nature. They seemed to think his fall had been shrewdly staged for their diversion. Fabian saw that Vanessa, too, was laughing. A stray lock of her hair dangled over her shoulder. All in white, engulfed in the pool of light, she might have been a little girl enthralled by a parade. Yet she appeared taller now than when he had last seen her. It might be the cut of her gown, he thought, or she might be wearing high-heeled shoes, or perhaps she had simply changed from the girl he had known to a woman. He gently tossed the rose to her. She reached out and caught it easily. The guests started to applaud. Fabian raised his hat in salute and bowed. Spurring Trekky vehemently, he took off at a full gallop.

  At the trailer, he dismounted, and threw Trekky’s reins over the hitching hook near the tailgate. Stella examined Fabian with her flashlight, then began to maneuver the horse into its stall.

  “That was some fall you took,” she said quietly. “Did your Dulcinea get her rose?”

  “She got her rose, and somebody got a picture of me falling off my horse. My reputation as a knight-errant is ruined.”

  “Your reputation doesn’t matter, your back does. Did you strain it?”

  Fabian tested the small of his back with his hands, stretching, then inclining forward. “A bit, I think. I fell so suddenly.”

  Stella closed the tailgate of the trailer. “You once taught me that, when I’m about to fall off a horse, I should look away from the line of the fall to avoid injury. Did you remember your own lesson?”

  “I forgot. I looked at Vanessa—in the direction of my fall.”

  “Too bad. Did you at least get a good look at her?”

  “I did,” he said. “Might want to meet her again.”

  “She’s not for you. She’s rich. Young. Tender.”

  “Now that she’s of age, I just might like to drop another flower in her lap, that’s all. What car does she drive?”

  Stella laughed. “I thought all you did was stick-and-ball!”

  “What car, Stella?”

  “A yellow convertible. Can’t miss it. The only one in Totemfield.” Stella got behind the wheel. “Let’s go, my cavalier of the rose,” she called out. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Home? I thought we were going to join the Weirstones. After all, the night is young.”

  “The night is. You are not.” She started the engine.

  They left each other at his VanHome. Stella promised to have Big Lick and Gaited Amble groomed and to return the outfit the following morning.

  He slowly took off each item of his white costume, now soiled and crushed, and sank into a scalding bath. In spite of the heat of the water, the familiar painful spasms in his back began, the inevitable result of his fall.

  It was a pain to which he had become accustomed, but familiarity offered no relief; constant or spasmodic, the pain slid down along his thigh and leg, stiffening the ankle and foot, or shifted across his lower back, immobilizing it. If the inflammation were to get any worse, he knew he would be unable to make his way about his VanHome and tend to his ponies; he might be left wholly to the kindness of Stella and the local druggist and delivery boy. He was particularly careful not to sneeze or cough; any movement of the leg, any tilting of the pelvis or rotation of the hip intensified the pain.

  Fabian knew there was no cure for his condition other than rest, carefully controlled exercise, and the partial relief provided by the support of an elastic brace. Over the years, doctors had given him drugs to mute the pain, but the drugs usually brought on violent stomach upheaval or gastric bleeding; they also left him spiritless, in a stupor. And he was wary of submitting himself to the obliteration of a narcotic. Pain imprisoned, inertia consumed, yet Fabian saw benefits in his distress: it offered him an occasion to observe his own responses; it also stimulated his quest for distraction, for the company of others. Drugs, no matter how heady, isolated him equally from himself and from others. Fabian had made choices: it was one thing to live in a VanHome, quite another to be its prisoner. Pain awakened him.

  Fabian recalled with amusement an incident some years back, when he had accepted an offer to conduct a seminar at an Ivy League university that prided itself on its long tradition of polo and horsemanship. The dean left Fabian to choose his subject, and he settled on the title Riding Through Life. Even though the seminar could accommodate only twenty students, more than a hundred undergraduates bred on movie and television images of cowboys applied to take the course. To thin the herd, Fabian arranged for an introductory session.

  Standing before the applicants in his most elegant riding apparel, he announced that the title of the seminar was merely a metaphor for its real subject, which was the fertile role of pain, illness and age in the human condition. Students who were accepted would examine the philosophical and emotional as well as the corporeal aspects of suffering, aging and dying. To induce a profound comprehension of the subject, Fabian continued, maintaining a straight face, the students would be confronted during the course of the seminar with the various manifestations of pain: how it is given, how received, by participating in experiments on various animals—a dog, a cat, a mouse, a squirrel, perhaps a horse. They would also be required to visit and to participate in the workings of a hospital, an asylum, the town morgue, the autopsy laboratory of the police department, and a cemetery. Fabian said he was particularly pleased to announce that an undesignated member of Suicides Anonymous had volunteered to spend the last moments of his or her life with the seminar and, in its presence, perform the rite of death.

  With a smiling flourish, Fabian reassured them that their Suicides Anonymous one-way guest would not be an alumnus of their distinguished university; they need not fear, he told them, that the school’s good name would suffer because of the suicide. Also, in accordance with the university’s strict fire and weapons regulations, the visitor, in his final act, would have recourse to some means other than a torch gun.

  The students listened to Fabian in stunned silence; here and there, from the rising tiers of seats, came a nervous cought or sudden sneeze. Someone raised a handkerchief to his mouth; no one was willing to get up and leave the auditorium openly, yet everyone squirmed in agony, waiting for the end. Fabian finished; a frantic scampering to every exit broke out. Only a few candidates for Riding Through Life were left.

  No longer a knight on a white charger, Fabian stepped out of the bath and dried and dressed himself. Though his bac
k pain persisted, he left his VanHome. The night was cool, the stars shining with almost tropical brightness.

  He followed one of the country lanes, becoming a target for fireflies and overhanging branches, aware that he was walking toward the house where the party had been held. He refused to ask himself what it was that he sought. The image of Vanessa gracefully catching the rose dissolved into his memory of her small breasts and narrow waist, slightly muscular thighs, feet that seemed at least one size too large for her body. And he remembered her face: exaggerated features and expressive eyes, smooth skin, the white teeth that showed when she laughed, the thickened lip—and the scar.

  At the Weirstones’ house spotlights still commanded the lawn. Through the large windows, Fabian saw the guests seated at clusters of tables in the living room or carrying laden plates to other rooms or out to one of the terraces.

  He circled the house and went to the parking area. He saw a yellow convertible with a dark top, headed straight toward it and opened the door. Two tennis rackets lay on the back seat, next to a container of tennis balls and a pullover. He reached inside and picked up the sweater; the soft wool gave off a musky perfume mingled with perspiration. He put it back, shut the car door and lay down on the grass behind the bushes that marked off the parking area. From the pond across the road, night sounds—hooting, croaking—lulled him, and, despite the aching in his back, he dozed off. He awoke sharply to the brittle patter and flurry of guests leaving the house, heading for their cars. As more people moved toward the parking area, he hid in the bushes. The scramble and rush of farewells soon died down. Only a half-dozen cars were left now.

  Fabian saw Vanessa and two young men walk out of the house. She had draped a white shawl over her shoulders and still carried the rose he had tossed to her. The three stopped by a large sedan parked next to her convertible.