David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

Geoffrey’s elegant frame had moved across the stage, his homely translator at his side. For the briefest moment, Geoff stopped as if suspended in space then he was on his frenetic way again. Opening night was only two days away and Geoffrey was jumpier than Fong had ever seen him. He called over the actor playing Rosencrantz and loudly asked for the satchel he carried. The young actor gave the large leather thing over to Geoff, who thanked him, then yelled some instruction in his childish Mandarin all the way to the other side of the stage. His translator quickly corrected his Mandarin without Geoff knowing it and she warned all those within earshot to watch their manners when it came to criticizing Geoff. It struck Fong that the woman was quite protective of Geoff. It made him smile. Then wince.

Geoff called the fight director onstage and spoke to him in a whisper. The fight director called the actors playing Hamlet and Laertes, who entered from stage left. Geoff nodded then headed off into the wings. The fight director set the two actors in their starting positions then dropped a handkerchief. When it hit the stage, the two drew their swords and Laertes lunged at Hamlet. Fong didn’t know this fight director, but he was immediately concerned because the actor playing Laertes seemed to be all anger and little skill. His lunges at Hamlet seemed truly intent upon hurting the other actor. The fight director stepped in just as Laertes seemed about to take a swing at Hamlet’s head.

Geoff returned from the stage-right wings and flipped the large satchel to Guildenstern saying, “Give this to your better half.”

“It contains the letter, sir?” asked Guildenstern.

“Indeed it does. The death letter!” Geoff said in his best booga-booga voice. Guildenstern moved offstage with the satchel, then Geoff turned to the actors playing Hamlet and Laertes, “Fight fixed, boys?”

Hamlet gave a nod but the actor playing Laertes glowered and stomped off. “What’s his beef?” asked the fight director.

Before his plain-faced translator could interject, Geoff responded in his ghastly Mandarin, “I broke his rice bowl, I guess” or it could have been “dog go bowl puke” – it was hard to tell since Geoff completely ignored the tones of the words. He had the sounds right, but without the tones who could tell what he was trying to say? The translator quickly clarified Geoff’s meaning while the fight director laughed out loud. The translator glowered him into silence.

Geoff, oblivious to all the linguistic comings and goings, moved gracefully across the stage touching a set piece here, giving a word to an actor there, and finally turned toward the auditorium.

He stopped – as if in mid-air, again.

The assuredness that gave him such elegance evaporated and he reverted to being the fifty-yearold man that he was. He put a hand up to his eyes to shield them from the stage light and stared out into the darkness.

“Could he see me?” Fong wondered. He didn’t know, but it made him squirm. This man had known his deceased wife in a way that he had not, on a plane to which Fong could not ascend. They had met on the field of art and created something that endured for many years in the minds of all who had seen it.

“Who’s there?” Geoffrey’s voice was raspier than Fong remembered. Then something struck Fong.

“Isn’t that the opening line of this silly play?” Fong called back from the darkness.

“Fuck me with a stick!”

It took Fong a moment to translate that, although he couldn’t begin to guess what it meant.

“What is your sorry ass doing here?” Geoff called out.

That Fong got, but he was surprised. Was it possible that Geoffrey Hyland was happy to see him?

“I repeat, what is your sorry ass doing here?”

“Haunting you, I guess.”

“Well, you got the right play for it.” Geoffrey turned to the actors and then called out into the house, “Let’s start at the top.” Geoff hopped off the stage followed at a respectful distance by his translator. Fong wondered why the phrase “at a respectful distance” had such a strong whiff of the hated phrase “no dogs or Chinese” which was common parlance in much of Shanghai before the liberation. He looked at the woman.

In the Chinese theatre, where female beauty was everywhere, this middle-aged woman stood out for her profound blandness. Her features were hard to describe. Plain was the wrong word for them. Homely was better. He looked more closely at the woman. He’d seen, and to be honest, ignored her for years. Although she gave her name to foreigners as Deborah Tong, she actually had the unlikely name of Da Wei. She’d been Geoff’s translator since the first time Geoff directed in Shanghai almost ten years ago. Fong had traded only a few words with Da Wei over all those years. Her English was perfect and up to date with all the colloquialisms that drive any new English speaker mad. She also, apparently, had a good working knowledge of the theatre – an essential for anyone translating for Geoff. No doubt she had to deal with the ostracism ladled out by Chinese to one of their own who dealt with Westerners, but it didn’t seem to weigh heavily on her. But that’s all Fong knew about her – not where she came from, not where on the academy’s campus she lived, not even her marital status – although at her age he assumed she’d be married – not even where or how she learned her English.

Geoff headed toward Fong. The translator stayed “at a respectful distance” from both of them. Fong made a mental note to check on Da Wei’s background then promptly forgot it when Geoff took the seat directly behind him. The work lights dimmed, but just before they were completely out Fong noticed a young Chinese man in a suit slip off the stage and follow Geoff and another, older, man rise from his seat near the stage and move back toward them.

A lengthy silence followed. Then a simple table lamp sitting on the floor near the edge of the stage came on. The dim light revealed a raised roughly hewn wooden platform that was slanted toward the audience. On it was a near-naked figure, face down – screaming. A single violin note came from the back of the auditorium. The figure turned toward it – toward the audience, toward us – and began to silently plead: No, no, please no.

Dark figures approached. One put his hand over the man’s mouth while the other two dressed him – dressed him for his job – to lead us through the dark alleyways of Hamlet’s heart.

“He dies for us every night,” said Geoff from the darkness. Something slithered up Fong’s spine. “Like Prometheus. Those with special gifts must suffer for our edification. It has always been thus.” Then as if conducting he said, “And in just a moment . . . ”

The stage lights shifted, taking the anguished man from sight and exposing a small man in a large ratty overcoat and hard-soled shoes shaking from the cold and trying not to drop his rather large spear.

“Spear’s a bit long for him, isn’t it?” asked Fong.

“I don’t use props very much, you may have noticed, Fong. Only when they are the quickest way to reveal the truth. Otherwise I find them a clunky nuisance.”

Fong thought about that. Yes, in all of Geoff’s productions there were, in fact, very few props or sets.

“It’s night, Fong. And Elsinore Castle has been under assault from the Poles for almost a decade. It’s the fourteenth century . . .”

“. . . and I assume no one could attack at night in the fourteenth century,” Fong said, completing Geoff’s thought. He turned to Geoff and saw close behind him the young man he had seen slide off the stage and the older man who had been sitting down front. Both were clearly Beijing men. Was Geoff now deemed worthy of having keepers by the powers up north? But why would a theatre director need a keeper? Let alone two?