“Sorry, Isard, could you give me a moment? I need to think about what we’ll be doing when we come back from the break.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry, Sir, I didn’t mean to take up your time.”
The actor began to leave, and now Kim felt guilty that he’d rebuffed himlike that.
“Just… a little later… Maybe we could meet after rehearsal, and talk over any worries you have then?” He tried to keep his voice coolly professional.
Isard turned. He stood for a moment, regarding Kim, head tilted to one side.
“It’s OK, Mr. Delatour.” He shook his head. “I need to do some work at home alone on the part. Then maybe we can work through any doubts I have during rehearsal?”
“Yes, of course. That would be best. See you back here in fifteen.”
Once the actor had gone, and Kim was finally alone, he lay down on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. The building’s wooden beams had been stripped back to bare wood and then stained. In between, cream-painted brick formed shallow vaulting. Catalan vault, they called that, the same as they had used on the ceiling of New York’s Grand Central Station. How did he know that? Maybe Laia had told him on their tour of the theater that first day. The second day after he met Dídac, when he was trying to get him fired. Well, he had his wish. He thought of the young actor. Everything had happened so fast, it didn’t feel real. Where was he? Four days and Kim had not dared to ask Laia or the theater for his number. He’d felt that first day if he could just get through rehearsal, maybe he could find Dídac and talk. But instead, he’d gone back to his hotel, had a whiskey in the hotel bar, while he thought how he could convince him to come back to the play. And in the end he’d gone to bed drunk, not having contacted Dídac, not having his number. What would he say to him? At this point the play didn’t matter at all. Could he convince Dídac to… what? Stay… Come with him to Manchester maybe? Would he even have a season there now? It felt like a dreary chore he had been charged with overseeing. He would give up Manchester and all the rest if Dídac didn’t want that.
He had no idea how he was going to pull the production together now. The actors were demoralized, and resentful at Dídac’s rapid departure. Isard, his replacement, wasn’t bonding well with them. And Kim himself couldn’t see what anyone saw in him. Except that he was beautiful in a slim yet slightly bovine sort of a way, like one of those sacred cows that amble through the streets in India.
He recalled the morning when he had surprised Dídac down here. Was it the second or third day of rehearsal? Standing in the doorway, watching Dídac move, the way his limbs had seemed to flow effortlessly, expressing the deepest feelings within himself, a vulnerable yet powerful spirit that appeared to be yearning to break free from his mere corporeal self, striving for immortality. Dídac had brought all that to the play, along with his lightning social energy. He had dynamized the cast and made them feel they were creating a masterpiece together. All that had fallen apart. Kim seemed unable to coax even the simplest emotional response from them now.
Dídac had brought that quality into his own life too. His confidence and friendliness, young as he was, chatting with themaître d’at that restaurant, asking after his family, and discussing life as if he, Dídac wasn’t one of Catalonia’s most sought-after stars, a familiar face in every living room in the country, but simply a friend with whom he hadn’t caught up in too long. From that moonlit dinner, his mind slipped to the moonlit terrace of his hotel, Dídac standing there, his torso bare, hands restrained behind him, reveling in the erotic game they were playing together, that mischievous grin flickering across his features, along with real nervousness for what was about to happen. And feeling him under him on the bed as he entered him, seeing the love in his eyes, and leaning down to kiss those gorgeous lips. Losing himself in the smells and tastes of Dídac, his bergamot cologne, his sweat, salty anddelicious, and something else, Dídac’s wild animal smell, that seemed to live in his hair, unique to him, like a sweating stallion, which drove Kim wild.
He groaned, realized he had a hard-on, and quickly rolled onto his front in case anyone should enter the rehearsal room. Damn, here he was lying on the floor dreaming of Dídac when he had a play to rehearse. Any moment now the actors would come trooping up the stairs, and deploy before him like a firing squad. He would have to come up with the goods, and he had not a single clue in the entire wide world what he would do. Come on, director, pull it together! He got up, noting that at least his erection had gone down.
He would take them through a full run of the play, and Isard could struggle along as best he was able. Damn, he hated this play! Whatever had possessed him to devise a show on such a ridiculous subject! How the previous productions ofThe Swanhad come together he had no idea, because this one was rapidly collapsing in on itself like a sodden castle of cards. This wasn’t the attitude. As the first of the actors’ footfalls sounded on the stairs, he turned to stare at the wall and forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand.
28
Kim stood in the center of the rehearsal room breathing heavily.
“Sir,” Laia coughed, and continued in a whisper. “Can I get you anything… a glass of water?”
“A whiskey?” Kim laughed recklessly.
It was just the two of them. The other actors had all departed to homes or bars where they could lick their wounds. The last half of rehearsal had been a bloodbath. Kim did not deserve to call himself a director. The play was a wreck. Now even the puppeteers were scared of him—not just nervous, which was sometimes a good thing, but terrified. Looking at Laia, he could see that she too wanted to be anywhere else but here, keeping company with this unhinged foreign director, who had just insulted the cream of Catalonia’s theater world. But she was a professional, and let very little of her distaste show.
“I’m sorry, Laia. God, I’m… so sorry… I should apologize to everyone, the entire cast.”
Laia pressed her lips in a firm line, not disagreeing with him. For a few moments, she said nothing, then, “It really isn’t my call, but… if we’re going to save this production, we need to think strategically. An apology certainly couldn’t do any further harm.”
Kim pressed his face into his hands and bent over until his elbows were almost resting on his knees. What started as a deep breath became a low groan rising in volume and pitch until, straightening up, Kim let out a huge roar, his hands flying up and out toward the ceiling, back arched, the sinews in his neck popping. When he was finally silent, he dropped his hands to his sides, and opened his eyes.
Laia was silent throughout, waiting, but when he eventually turned toward her, she asked:
“Do you want to get that whiskey?”
Thank you, Laia, that would be grand.”
Out on the street, Kim began to turn toward the Rambla, but Laia pulled him to the left, up the street that branched perpendicular to Hospital Street. In the small square to their left, opposite the theater, he spied a lone bronze statue. While heavily abstracted, it was clearly a woman’s torso, with the hint of a snug dress hitched up mid-thigh below, and triangular horn-like forms above, suggesting arms raised in a dramatic gesture.
“What’s that?”
“The statue to Margarida Xirgu, Lorca’s actress.”
“The ghost?”
She smiled: “The ghost.”
“I like it.”
