Kristopher Jansma - The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

“Not a chance,” I reply.

High above, on the wall, a little train chuffs over to the park, carrying three cars filled with bored tourists. Jeffrey angles his face away from them but stays put, even as several of them snap photos of the little outpost and the two of us amid the pigeons.

Then out of nowhere, he says, “She’s going to be at the Philharmonie Luxembourg tonight for their opening.”

My hand spasms and drops the lighter. It hits the rocky path under our feet and makes a noise that reverberates loudly out into the whole valley. With one tremendous flapping, the pigeons launch from the benches and take to the sky, up alongside the golden lady.

“How do you know that?”

“It was on the television while you were writing.”

“It said she was going to be at the opening?”

“No, but she’ll be there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because,” he grins, “they’re doing Hedda .”

And with that he starts to walk back toward the stairs that lead up the fortification and out of the valley. It takes me a minute to catch up. I have to remember how walking works. I think I might throw up. It’s been nearly ten years, during which I’ve tried being someone else, and traveled the world, and lost the love of a good woman, and nearly died, and — for all of this — I would have expected to have gotten somewhere. But here I am, half sick again, and getting nowhere.

• • •

The Philharmonie Luxembourg is shaped like an enormous white teardrop. In this quaint fairy-tale land, it is menacingly modern — like an alien craft that has landed on the mountainside, overlooking all the castles and cathedrals. The opening night is sold out, and Jeffrey and I are only barely able to beg our way into two standing-room tickets, at the back of the Grand Auditorium. For once I am grateful that Jeffrey never journeys anywhere without two sets of black-tie apparel — the second not for me, technically, but a backup, in case there should be stains. We stand among the decked-out citizens of Luxembourg, and I feel as if I’ve returned to Dubai. Gone are the lederhosen and funny hats; here we swim through a sea of tuxedos and top hats, with more cummerbunds than a junior prom, and the women drag silken fishtails behind them and wear roses in their hair. As I scan the crowd for the princess, I feel like a waiter in borrowed clothes, crashing someone else’s party. Again.

“Dier dierft hei nët fëmmen!” snaps a woman waving an enormous Chinese fan at Jeffrey. He is attempting, once again, to light a cigarette.

“You can’t smoke in here,” I hiss.

Jeffrey is about to protest when suddenly the crowd turns and their heads sweep up toward the box seats where two of the military parking valets have just stepped out from behind the curtained entrance. They mechanically scour the perimeter and one speaks into his sleeve, and the princess steps into view. She wears a golden gown that radiates as she waves perfunctorily at the crowd below. And there it is — unchanged from years ago — that bored look in her eyes. She smiles, and for a moment I feel a shock of static electricity as her eyes pass over the spot where I am standing. There’s no way that she can make me out in the crowd, and yet, for an instant I see her eyes flicker in surprise. I think it is impossible that she can have spotted us, until I turn to Jeffrey and see him waving madly up at the box, lit cigarette in his mouth.

“What?” he grins, enjoying a puff, as ladies in fox stoles push away angrily.

But before I can say or do anything, the space between us is suddenly invaded by a smooth, dark hand, which clips Jeffrey’s cigarette between its thumb and forefinger and — with frightening precision — crushes it, lit, in the palm. When I turn, we are both looking straight into the face of the Black Panther.

“I’m going to have to ask you to respect the rules of this establishment,” he says in perfect English. “Or you are more than welcome to leave it.”

Everything, from his gleaming patent leather shoes to the glint in his eyes, is no-nonsense. The stage lights begin to rise behind the neat circumference of his Afro.

Jeffrey gives the briefest pout before saying, “That’s understood,” and I want to ask him what he’s even doing here, but the Black Panther steps back into the crowd. I look up, one last time, desperately, toward the box where the princess is sitting, but now her eyes are fixed on the stage. If she did see us, there is no sign of it now. There is a brief flutter of applause as the curtain rises and the set is revealed.

Two actors step out onto a wide stage. It is all done up like a respectable drawing room, with a huge fireplace and a gleaming piano and a portrait of a frightening old general on the wall. One of the women bends before a closed door, to listen.

“Menger Meenung no hunn si sech nach net geréiert,” she stage whispers.

Jeffrey and I exchange a brief look. It had not occurred to either of us that the play, like the newspapers and the books and the television, would be in Luxembourgish.

“Madam, ech hunn lech et jo gesot,” the other replies. “Denkt drunn wéi spéit d’Dampschëff zerekkoum gëschter owend…”

Jeffrey makes a jerking motion with his head in the direction of the exit, but as we begin to shuffle toward it, we notice that the Black Panther is positioned squarely by the doors. He gives us another cool stare and, to my surprise, Jeffrey shrinks back again. I’ve never seen him this submissive before, not even in the presence of his mother. He seems downright shy.

“We’ve already paid for it,” he murmurs. “I think I’ve read this one before, anyways. This is the one where the lady winds up miserable at the end, right?”

I stifle a snicker.

A minute or two later there is polite applause from the crowd as the actress playing Hedda finally steps from the wings. She is a tall, fierce-looking blonde, and from way in the back I can make out her bored expression as she gazes out over the fine drawing room — its many luxuries no comfort to her. She’s not bad, but she’s a faker. I can tell she’s only acting bored. Really, she’s thrilled. It’s opening night! Why shouldn’t she be? Because my Hedda isn’t. I look up at the box seats, and wonder, what must it be like for her? To sit there and watch someone playing a role that she has been before. Is she thinking about that other stage, half a world away, where she spoke these same lines but in English, and made these same gestures, and paced these same steps? She sits up stiffly, as if she’s staring at a mirror, not recognizing her own reflection.

• • •

After the show I stay up all night. On my stack of hotel stationery I write out everything I’ve written before, and this time, when I get to the line about the powder falling in the dead air, I keep going. My pen scratches long trenches into the heavy white pages. It digs through so firmly that on the next page I am crisscrossing the ghostly grooves made by its predecessor. My pen spikes and falls like staccato bursts of gunfire. On a grand stage inside my own head, I can see everything. The princess at her dressing table. The mother-in-law hovering nearby. The cherry blossoms falling outside the window. The cool, gray steel of the morning air, ominous, and testing. It comes so quickly that my greatest challenge is to keep up. Her thoughts become my thoughts. The only interruptions come from the next room, where, from time to time, Jeffrey bangs on the wall and shouts that I’d “better stop all my incessant scratching,” but this only makes me increase the tempo. May it drive him mad. May it drive him back to the page again.

There is a photograph on the table in front of me to show me how my face is supposed to look. Mrs. J-- wants the servants to do it for me. “That’s tradition,” she’d said. I told her I put my own makeup on. For a thousand nights, under a thousand lights, on dozens of stages. For Beckett and for Shakespeare and for Miller and for Simon and for Stoppard and for Mamet and for Ives: I do it myself.