I don’t flub it this time. When I finish, there is more silence. “So you’re off book, that is clear,” Linus says finally. “And the blocking?”
“Yes, that too,” I say.
They look so incredulous. What do they think I’ve been doing all this time?
Warming a seat, comes my own answer. And maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised by their surprise. Because isn’t that exactly what I’d thought I’d been doing, too?
Petra and Linus excuse Marina and me. They have some things to discuss. If they decide to proceed with tonight’s performance, there will be an all-cast rehearsal at the theater at noon, and I’ll have to do an additional tech run-through at the amphitheater later in the day with just Linus.
“Sit tight. Keep your phone on,” Linus says and he pats my back and gives me a look that’s almost fatherly. “We’ll speak soon.”
Marina and I head to a nearby café for coffee. It’s raining, and inside the windows are fogged up. We sit down at a table. I rub a circle of condensation off the window. Across the canal is the bookstore where I first found the copy of Twelfth Night. It’s just opening up for the day. I tell Marina about the flat tire and stopping at the shop, the strange chain of events that led to me being Jeroen’s understudy, and now possibly, playing Orlando.
“None of that has anything to do with that performance you just gave.” She shakes her head and smiles, a private smile, and it’s this, more than anything else, that makes me stop feeling like a member of the shadow cast. “You were holding out on us.”
I don’t know how to answer. Maybe I’ve been holding out on myself, too.
“You should tell him,” she says, gesturing to the bookstore. “The guy who sold you the book and told you about the play. If you go on, you should tell him it’s partly because of him.”
If I go on, there are lots of people I’ll have to tell.
“Wouldn’t you want to know?” Marina continues. “That in some little way, something random you did had such an impact on someone’s life? What do they call that? The Butterfly Effect?”
I watch the man open the bookstore. I should tell him. Though the person I really want to tell, the person who is somehow intricately tied up in all this, who has really led me to this, I can’t tell.
“While we’re confessing,” Marina says, “I should tell you that I’ve been a little intrigued by you from the start, this mysterious actor who keeps to himself, whom no one has ever heard of, but who is good enough to get cast as the understudy.”
Good enough? That surprises me. I’d thought it was the opposite.
“I have a strict policy of no showmances,” she continues. “Nikki keeps saying you can be an exception because you’re an understudy and not in the show, but now that you maybe are I’m even more intrigued.” She gives me that private smile again. “Either we close tonight or we close in three weeks, but either way, after it’s over maybe we can spend some time together?”
That surge of longing for Lulu is still in my bloodstream, like a drug wearing out its half life. Marina is not Lulu. But Lulu is not even Lulu. And Marina is amazing. Who knows what might happen?
I’m about to tell her yes, after we close, I’d like that, but I’m interrupted by the ringing of my phone. She glances at the number and smiles at me. “That’s your fate calling.”
Forty-three
So much to do. There’s an all-cast rehearsal at noon. Then a tech run-through. I need to run back to the flat, grab some things, tell the boys. And Daniel. Yael.
Broodje is only waking up. Breathlessly, I tell him the news. By the time I’ve finished, he’s already on his phone, calling the boys.
“Did you tell your ma?” he asks when he hangs up.
“I’m calling her now.”
I calculate the time difference. It’s not quite five o’clock in Mumbai, so Yael will still be working. I send her an email instead. While I’m at it, I send one to Daniel. At the last minute, I send one to Kate, telling her about Jeroen’s accident, inviting her to tonight’s show if she’s at all in the area. I even invite her to stay with me and give her the address of the flat.
I’m about to log off when I do a quick scan of my inbox. There’s a new message from an unfamiliar address and I think it’s junk. Until I see the subject line: Letter.
My hand’s shaking a bit as I click on the message. It’s from Tor. Or relayed from Tor via some Guerrilla Will player who doesn’t abide by the email ban as she does.
Hi Willem:
Tor asked me to email you to say that she ran into Bex last week and Bex told her that you hadn’t gotten that letter. Tor was pretty upset because the letter was important and she’d gone to a lot of trouble to try to get it to you. She wanted you to know it was from a girl you’d met in Paris who was looking for you because you’d dicked her over and pulled a runner. (Tor’s words, not mine.) She said that you ought to know that actions have consequences. Again, Tor’s words. Don’t shoot the messenger. You know how she is.
Cheers! Josie
I sink down onto my bed as very different emotions battle it out. Dicked her over, pulled a runner. I feel Tor’s anger. And Lulu’s too. Shame and regret well up but then just stop there, held at bay by some invisible force. Because she’s looking for me. Lulu is looking for me, too. Or she was. Maybe just to tell me to piss off. But she was looking for me like I was looking for her.
I don’t know what to feel as I wander into the kitchen. It’s all just too much for one day.
I find Broodje cracking eggs into a frying pan. “Want an uitsmijter?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“You should eat something. Keep your strength up.”
“I have to go.”
“Now? Henk and W are on their way over. They want to see you. Will you be around at all before your big debut?”
The rehearsal starts at noon and will take at least three hours, and then Linus said I’d have a break before I go for a run-through at the amphitheater at six. “I can probably get back here around four or five?”
“Great. We should have the party plans well under way by then.”
“Party plans?”
“Willy, this is big.” He pauses to look at me. “After the year you’ve had—the years you’ve had—we should celebrate this.”
“Okay, fine,” I say, still half dazed.
I go back into my room to pack up a change of clothes for under the costume, shoes to wear. I’m about to leave when I see Lulu’s watch sitting on my shelf. I hold it in my hand. After all this time, it’s still ticking. I hold it in my hand a moment longer. Then I slip it into my pocket.
Forty-four
At the theater, the rest of the cast has assembled. Max comes up behind me. “I’ve got your back,” she whispers.
I’m about to ask her what she means, and then I see what she means. For the better part of three months, I have been mostly invisible to many of these people, a shadow-cast member. And now, the spotlight is glaring and there’s no safety in the shadows anymore. People are looking at me with a particular mix of suspicion and condescension, a familiar feeling from when I was traveling and walked through certain neighborhoods where my kind didn’t tend to wander. As I did when I was traveling, I just act like I don’t notice and carry on. Soon enough Petra is clapping her hands, gathering us together.
“We have no time to lose,” Linus says. “We will do a modified run-through, skipping over scenes that Orlando is not in.”
“So why did you call all of us in?” mutters Geert, who plays the swing roles of one of Frederick’s men and Silvius; he has almost no scenes with Orlando.
“I know. Sitting around watching other people act is such a bloody waste of time,” Max says, her voice so sincere that it takes Geert a few seconds to have the good sense to look chastened.
Max gives me a crooked smile. I’m glad she’s here.
“I called everyone in,” Petra says, with an exaggerated patience that lets you know she’s reaching the end of her supply, “so you could all accustom yourself to the different rhythms of a new actor, and so we could all of us help Willem ensure that the transition between him and Jeroen is as seamless as possible. Ideally, you won’t even be able to tell the difference.”
Max rolls her eyes at this and once again I’m glad she’s here.
“Now from the top, please,” Linus says, tapping his clipboard. “There’s no set and no marks so just do your best.”
As soon as I step onto the stage, I feel relieved. This is where I’m meant to be. In Orlando’s head. As we move through the play, I discover more things about Orlando. I discover how key that first scene when he and Rosalind meet is. It’s just for a few moments, but they see something in each other, recognize something. And that the spark sustains the passion, for both of them, for the rest of the play. They don’t see each other—knowingly see each other—again until the very end.
Such a dance that Shakespeare wrote into a handful of pages of text. Orlando’s about to fight a man far stronger than he is, but he peacocks in front of Rosalind and Celia to impress them. He’s scared, he must be, but instead of showing it, he bluffs. He flirts. “Let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial,” he says.
The world pivots on moments. And in this play, it’s the moment when Rosalind says, “The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.”
That one line. It cracks open his facade. It reveals what’s underneath. Rosalind sees Orlando. He sees her. That’s the whole play, right there.
I feel the lines like I haven’t before, like I’m truly understanding Shakespeare’s intentions. I feel as if there really was a Rosalind and an Orlando and I’m here to represent them. It isn’t acting in a play. It goes back further than that. It’s much bigger than me.
“Ten-minute break,” Linus calls at the end of Act One. Everyone heads out for a smoke or a coffee. But I am reluctant to leave the stage.
“Willem,” Petra calls to me. “A word.”
She’s smiling, which she rarely does, and at first I read it for pleasure, because isn’t that what a smile communicates?
The theater empties out. It’s just the two of us now. Not even Linus. “I want to tell you how impressed I am,” she begins.
Inside I’m a little boy grinning on a birthday morning, about to get the presents. But I try to keep my face professional.
“With so little experience, to know the language so well. We were taken with your ease with the language at your audition, but this . . .” She smiles again, only now I notice that it looks a bit like a dog baring its fangs. “And the blocking, you have it cold. Linus tells me that you even learned some of the fight choreography.”
“I observed,” I tell her. “I paid attention.”
“Excellent. That’s just what you needed to do.” And there’s that smile again. Only now do I begin to doubt it reflects any pleasure. “I spoke to Jeroen today,” she continues.