Eleanor Catton - The Rehearsal

“Because she is not yet sixteen,” the Head of Movement said, “you understand that any form of sexual relations an adult might have, or have had, with this girl would be a crime. I’m speaking in my capacity as your tutor here.”

Stanley nodded again. He was vaguely aware that he had gone white and that his mouth had started to fill with saliva in an awful tongue-shrinking preface to vomiting. He felt nauseous and all of a sudden found his sense of smell sharpened acutely: he could smell the damp wool of his tutor’s jacket hanging on the back of the door, the paper twist of nuts on the dresser, cold coffee pooling in the bottom of a cold mug. He felt his head reel.

The Head of Movement surveyed him for a moment. He had a wide-eyed straining look about him, as if the worst was still to come. He leaned forward, puckering his lips slightly in a dry kiss as he made a careful choice of words.

“Stanley,” he said, “I want you to think about something very carefully. You don’t have to answer, I just want you to think about it. If the parents of this young girl ended up being in the audience when you produce your first-year production at the end of this week, would it change anything? If they were there?”

It was a strange question and Stanley didn’t understand it. He stared at the Head of Movement blankly and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“This girl that you have been—”

“Isolde.”

“Yes. She has a sister, am I right?”

“I don’t know,” Stanley said. “Why?”

The Head of Movement was now looking at him with open disgust. “Oh, come on, Stanley, let’s not dance around like this. This is ridiculous.”

Stanley swallowed and reached up to wipe a film of sweat from his upper lip. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must be missing something.”

“Isolde’s sister’s name is Victoria,” the Head of Movement snapped. “Does that ring any bells?”

Stanley stared at him for only a brief half-second before he realized—and the realization descended upon him like the awful downward shudder of a guillotine. Victoria , he was screaming. Victoria , the celebrity focus of their production, snipped from a column in the newspaper, snatched up and stolen and grafted on to all the posters, black and red, The Bedpost Queen . Would it change anything if Victoria’s parents were there—that was the Head of Movement’s question.

And then the second blade of realization fell, if possible more horrible than the first. They think Isolde is a pawn, Stanley thought, a pawn that I wielded to get information for the play. My pawn.

“Of course, I am not supposed to know anything about the content of the first-year devised theater production,” the Head of Movement was saying, “and really I do know very little about what you are rehearsing and working on. But I can’t avoid walking past an open door every so often, or hearing a scrap of conversation in the hall. You understand.”

Stanley sat shrinking in his clammy seat, trying with difficulty to swallow the nausea that was rising like a hard stone in the back of his throat.

“Does Isolde know?” he said stupidly.

“About what?” the Head of Movement said.

“About the production. What it’s about, and what we’re doing.”

“I have no idea,” the Head of Movement said. “I have only spoken to the saxophone teacher. We were discussing the situation, and she explained the family had had a difficult year, given the scandal surrounding the older daughter’s rape. I recognized the name and made the connection myself.”

Stanley was furiously trying to think back to all the conversations he’d had with Isolde—had he ever mentioned it? Had he ever said Victoria’s name?

“Are you going to tell them?” he asked. “Are you going to ring the parents?”

“I think that’s for you to think about, Stanley. As I said, you’re an adult, and you can deal with this yourself.”

“What about the music teacher? What if she’s rung them already?” he said. He had never seen Isolde’s saxophone teacher, but he imagined her as a vicious oily shadow standing by the curtain and looking down past the branches into the courtyard below.

“I don’t know,” the Head of Movement said. He was looking at Stanley oddly now. “So you’re saying you didn’t know,” he said. “About the sister.”

“No,” Stanley said. He felt himself shrivel further. How stupid was he? He had never even asked this girl’s last name. He had never asked—about her family, about her life at home, about the house where she woke up and showered and ate breakfast and practiced her saxophone with the scruffy leaves of her sheet music around her on the floor: these were scenes he had never imagined. He had never imagined this girl beyond the time he had spent with her: she had simply been—what? A function of himself, maybe. She had simply presented a role for him to fill.

The Head of Movement said, “But you did have a relationship with this young girl.” He enunciated carefully, placing a slight emphasis upon young , as if he were pressing his fingerprint upon the word.

“Not… I mean… it wasn’t… she consented,” Stanley said. “Yes, we had a relationship.”

“Until she’s sixteen, Stanley, her consent doesn’t count for much,” the Head of Movement said. He drew away and looked down his nose at Stanley as if he meant to wash his hands of the whole affair.

“They can’t come,” Stanley said. “The parents. They can’t be there. They can’t know about it.”

“No,” the Head of Movement said. “They can’t.”

“What are we going to do?” Stanley asked. “Do we cancel?”

“The play is not my responsibility,” the Head of Movement said. “The ticket sales are not my responsibility. This girl is not my responsibility. My job is only to let you know what you need to know. I don’t make people’s choices my business. I don’t want to know what you did with this girl. But if this is in any way damaging to the Institute—I’m compelled to act.”

Stanley nodded dumbly.

“Really, Stanley,” the Head of Movement said at last, for the first time expressing real exasperation at this pale and twitching victim seated before him in the small room. “I mean, how could you not know that somebody was watching you? For Christ’s sake. You must have been being bloody careless, if somebody was watching the whole time.”

“Stanley,” Isolde said, “do you want to go all the way with me? Some time?”

Stanley ran his finger down her cheek. Deep inside he was irritated at her for even mentioning it, for giving the prospect a shape, a voice. It seemed indecent. He would have preferred to leave the act unmentioned until it was over. He would have preferred not to speak at all, to stop her mouth with his and tug at her cuffs and her waistband and unpeel her swiftly like a ripe fruit. Her question was logistical, organizing, reductive. He would not have asked it. He was a romantic.

“Do you think we’re ready?” Stanley said, cunningly answering her question with a question, but looking at her with such a grave and contrite expression that she would be fooled into thinking he was truly engaging with the matter at hand.

“Yeah,” Isolde said. She began to smile before she’d finished the word, and then he was smiling back at her and moving in to kiss her and laugh with her, laugh against her, his teeth against hers.

“I do too,” Stanley said. “I think we’re ready.”

“Do you want to?” Isolde said shyly.

“Course I want to,” Stanley said. “I was only waiting until you were sure. I didn’t want to put any pressure on you. I wanted you to be the one to ask.”