Rafael Yglesias - Hide Fox, and All After

Raul continued smoking, although overcome by its strength. The chunk, for its size, lasted a long time. When it was gone, Alec rolled a joint. Raul smoked little of the joint, having had enough. He fell back, trying to absorb the hash’s power. He lit a cigarette, surrounded by the rich gray. His lungs were palpitating, his body couched in comfort, ease, and sensuality. The music played as a sweet, soft undertone; the light was quiet, somber.

Alec finished, raising the volume on the record player, lighting a cigarette, and settling down. The music filled and overwhelmed the room, its many repercussions desperately final, its movements absorbing and natural to Raul’s. The music made real their scenes as they did them, their tones hopeless echoes in the full joy of music. And all sounds and all words had latent in them countless meanings, countless symbols. These meanings were spoken now.

The production rose up behind them, the audience before them — ambiguous with insult and pity, the long seduction sure in the grace of their movements.

Alec turned, his body contorted by it. Without losing his cynicism, quietly, like a low flute, he filtered in despair. “ ‘Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are…condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one — that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it’ll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we’d know that we were lost.’ ” As if out of reverie, he twisted back suddenly and sat down.

Raul looked almost accusingly at him and said, “We are trapped by the images defined for us.”

“Exactly. Very good.”

“Okay, good. That’s settled.”

“What’s settled?” Alec asked, with a quizzical look.

Raul bolted, smiled, and asked, “Don’t you know?”

They laughed in complementing crescendos, in mounting waves of a hysterical recognition of irony.

Alec, between gasps, asked, “Why do you ask?”

“Why should you question my question?”

“Why not?”

“Are you dumb?”

Alec bent forward, asking quite naturally, “What?”

“Are you dumb?”

“Foul! No repetitions. One-Love.”

Raul grimaced, muttering low curses. Alec lit a cigarette. “Whose turn is it?”

“It’s mine,” Raul said.

“Statement. Two-Love. Game point.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Why not?”

“It was my turn, you can’t…”

“Statement. Three-Love. First game to me.” Alec smiled, goading Raul into greater irritation. Slowly, an insidious grin dawned on Raul’s face.

“Why,” he began, “are you trying to play this game, knowing that I can only be annoyed by it, that I am unable to win, unable to sustain your constancy in questions, in the rules, that all I can do is ask a question that never ends, which…?”

Alec laughed, putting up his hand to mark the end.

Raul turned, marking a spot with his finger. “Bells. I hear bells.”

Alec giggled. “You mean music.”

“No,” Raul said, drawing the word out contemptuously. “The telephone is ringing.”

Alec looked at the clock. “Oh, God,” he said without energy. “I forgot.”

Raul leaned forward with a silly grin. “That the telephone was ringing?”

Alec hissed abortive giggles. “Joanne’s calling me.”

Raul fell silent. Suddenly he burst out with: “Who the fuck’s Joanne?”

Alec laughed, draining himself of all physical movement. He fell back on the bed.

Raul leaned forward again, naturally continuing the movement to the floor. “Ya know what?”

Long pause. “What?”

“The phone stopped ringing.”

Laughing galvanized them. They lay on their backs, cars skimming the gutters below. “Listen,” Alec said. “She’ll call back. You answer it.”

“What do you mean, I answer it? I’m unwilling.”

“Very simple. Just say I’m at my grandparents’.”

“Hello. Oh yes, Joanne, how are you? Oh. Well, Alec’s not here. He’s at his grandparents’. Who the fuck am I? Well it’s unimportant really.”

“You are exactly who you are.”

“That’s very heavy.”

“No, I don’t mean that. Say who you are, who you really are. Say you’re staying with me, since you’re working on the play, for three weeks.”

Silence. “Hello, this is Raul Sabas, secretary to Mr. Shaw.”

“Exactly.”

“Well. We’re secure in this sense: no spontaneity.”

“We don’t want to find out we’re a part of their order.”

“I want this down on the record, though,” Raul said. “I have no faith in England. I don’t believe it.”

“ ‘Just a conspiracy of cartographers, you mean?’ ”

The phone began ringing loudly. Raul twirled about. “Blatant reality!”

“Hello.” Alec held a match to Raul’s cigarette. “This is Raul.” He dragged on the cigarette, and smiled. “Raul Sabas.” Alec sat on a chair across from Raul, signaling that he would pick up the extension.

“Who are you?”

“A good friend of Alec’s. I’m working with him on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”

“Oh.” The voice was distracted, annoyed, suspicious. “Is Alec there?”

Raul smiled, Alec returning it. “No, he’s not. He’s staying tonight with his grandparents.”

“You’re there alone?”

“I’m living with him until the production.”

“Oh yeah? Where are his parents?”

Raul’s voice became icy. “They are in Europe.”

“Why didn’t you answer the phone before?”

“Is this an interrogation? I’m trying to get my sleep.”

All sweetness left the voice. “You’re full of shit. Stop playing games with me. Put Alec on.”

Long pause. Raul sighs. “My dear,” he said, the words carefully calm, “I’m afraid I cannot put on someone who is not there.”

“I don’t like being used.”

The panther leaps. “Who used you?”

The voice halts, aware that too much has been let out. “I have a message for Alec.”

“Be brief.”

“Oh, it’s very simple. I think you’ll remember it. Tell Alec I pity his perverse way of dealing with human beings. Good…”

“According to Joyce,” Raul said, “pity is the emotion which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings, and unites it with the human sufferer. That emotion is compassionate, not contemptuous. Good-by.”

The phone bangs on the receiver, Raul rising in fury. “Bitch!”

“Cunt!”

“Fool!”

“She’s a nice young kid.” Alec looked smugly at Raul.

Raul deflated. His arms fell noisily to his sides. “Such a lame ending.”

The quick, joyous music made light their limbs, the room brightening with exuberance. They swung and danced about, joints passing easily between them. Hectic, pure joy: they smiled and nodded in appreciation of another’s movement, or words, the world swirling to their beat.

The record stops — a sudden silence. They are at opposite ends of the room as Alec bursts out, “Rosencrantz!”

“What?” Raul jumps, and the air lifts, a smile with it. Congratulatory laughter — Alec turns, arms outstretched, triumph dawning in his voice: “ ‘There! How was that?’ ”

“ ‘Clever!’ ”

“ ‘Natural?’ ”

“ ‘Instinctive.’ ”

“ ‘Got it in your head?’ ”

“ ‘I take my hat off to you.’ ” They have met in the center, smiles impetuously passing from one to the other. Raul bows, laughing joy caught in his throat.

Alec inhales proudly, “ ‘Shake hands.’ ”

They do, the climax perfected.

Raul goes to the desk, lighting a cigarette. Alec tosses his out the open window, turning to Raul. “Question.”