The Hamlet Murders

by David Rotenberg

  Fong put the three novels on the bed in front of him. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Our Game and The Secret Pilgrim. He opened the first one and looked at the title page. Geoff had said something to him about tinkers and tailors. Fong remembered. That’s what Geoff had said about the two guards in the first scene of his Hamlet. But he had said nothing about soldiers and spies. He held the book upside down and riffled through the pages. Nothing fell out. He then leafed through it. A few things were underlined, but it quickly became clear that Geoff was noting syntax and language usage, not actual subject matter as none of the underlined sections seemed to relate to any other.

  In The Secret Pilgrim, Geoff had underlined a lot of the dialogue between a character called Ned and a man who endured capture by the Khmer Rouge in order to rescue his daughter. But it was in the third book, Our Game, that Geoff’s slashing notes were everywhere. It was getting late. Fong turned on the light, sat back on the bed and began to read. Twenty pages in he saw Geoff’s note: I’m Tim!!!

  Our Game tells the story of a middle-aged British spy – Tim – who loses his younger wife to another spy who betrays his country and ends up fighting alongside the Chechens in the former Soviet Union. The final image is of Tim picking up a rifle and joining the rebel band – at long last “doing” something with his life. Fong finished skimming the book as the sun rose. Geoff’s notes were all over the text – some underlinings, some in the margins, many right across the print itself. All were urgent, emphatic. Fong found it sentimental. Dangerously romantic. So unlike the Geoff he thought he knew.

  “I am Tim. . . . So, what romantic calling were you on, Geoff?” Fong said aloud. Not surprisingly, no one answered.

  Fong got off the bed, stretched, then phoned the office and left a message for Captain Chen to get in touch with him. He snapped his cell phone shut and looked back at the room. His eyes lit on the important remaining items: Geoff’s copy of Hamlet, the VHS tapes and the laptop. He sat at the small desk and opened Geoff’s copy of Hamlet. He was surprised how few notes were there. Fu Tsong’s Shakespearean scripts had been a flurry of personal impressions and questions. Geoff’s notes, written in a tight and concise hand so unlike the slashed comments in Our Game, appeared only four times in the entire text.

  The first note was at the end of act one where Hamlet has received the information from the ghost about his father’s death. There, Geoff wrote: Could it be that Hamlet now has direction in his life – is happy? The second was in the Polonius scene with Reynaldo where Geoff penned the simple word: Spy. The third was in act four when the story of Hamlet’s escape from the plotting of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is told. There, Fong was astounded to see Geoff’s note: Switch! Should I tell Fong? And Geoff’s last note was in the final act upon Hamlet’s death: Suicide? Suicide as failure? Suicide as success?

  A knock on Geoff’s door brought Fong to his senses. Chen entered, surprised to see that Fong had clearly spent the night there.

  “What’s the time?”

  “Just before eight, sir.”

  “Contact Li Chou. Get his people in here. Arrange a full meeting – Lily, Li Chou and his people, our guys – one o’clock.”

  Fong stood up.

  “Did you find a suicide note, sir?”

  Fong looked at Captain Chen, “I don’t know. Maybe in its own way, I did.” He headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going, sir?”

  “Home. I need a few hours of sleep before the meeting. Hand me those videotapes and notepads. You work on Mr. Hyland’s laptop, Chen. I want to know everything that’s on there.”

  Chen pulled out a small rectangular electronic gadget of some sort, detached a metal stick and touched the screen with it.

  “What’s that, Chen?

  “It’s called a PalmPilot, sir. It’s really quite useful.”

  Fong nodded although he had no idea what something called a PalmPilot could be useful for.

  “It keeps notes, sir, calendars and the like. And it can even be programmed to monitor radio signals.” Fong smiled and nodded but thought, “Fine, Chen, you use that thing. For me, I’ll use a datebook to keep appointments and a radio to get radio signals.”

  At his apartment, Fong was grateful that the water had come back on. While the small gas water heater attached to the shower did its work, he returned to the bedroom and slid one of the tapes into his VHS adaptor then into his machine. He punched the On button. A program called Six Feet Under came up. Fong watched, trying hard not to yawn. When he got the gist of the show, he let the tape run and headed toward the shower.

  The water was scalding hot but Fong didn’t care. He put his face up to the pounding heat and allowed it to punish him in the hope it would take away his weariness. Over the sound of the water and the gas heater, he heard the VHS tape droning on. Between gurgles, he caught snippets of dialogue. Something about a cat. Something about these tits cost a fortune. Something about do you know who this was?

  Fong reached for the soap and turned off the water to conserve gas. He began to lather up. Then stopped. No sound was coming from the VHS tape. Maybe this was an M.O.S. section. He smiled when he remembered Fu Tsong’s explanation of the term: “Mit out sound, Fong.”

  “Mit out sound, what language is that?”

  “Well, it’s English with a German accent. Lots of the early Hollywood directors were German and mit is the German word for with. So without sound became mit out sound. M.O.S. – and it stuck.”

  Then a loud cackle of a microphone being tapped came from the VHS tape.

  Geoff’s voice said, “Don’t do that.” Then, “Three, two, one – play.”

  A beat of silence.

  Then he heard her. His deceased wife, Fu Tsong – as clear as he heard her inside his head every time he entered a theatre: “Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun and with him rises weeping’ these flowers of middle summer, and I think they are given to men of middle age.”

  Then she giggled, “I’m too old to play Perdita.

  Fong felt himself stagger. His hand reached out and hit the water tap.

  Then Geoff’s voice responded, “Nonsense. Westerners can’t tell the age of Asian women. Until they get old, that is.”

  “Are you suggesting that I’m old?”

  “No. Never will you get old. Not to me.”

  The boiling hot water pelted down on Fong but he didn’t move. Couldn’t move, as Fu Tsong returned to her speech: “I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that become your time of day.”

  And then he was crying. The water mixing with his tears and swirling down the drain into the nothingness beneath.

  Li Chou looked at the crime-scene photos of Geoff Hyland, then pushed them to one side and took a large, sealed manila envelope from his briefcase. The envelope had belonged to his CSU predecessor and Fong’s close friend, Wang Jun. As part of Li Chou’s deal in accepting the post, he had demanded all private papers that could be found from Wang Jun’s time as head of the CSU. This was the only extant copy of Wang Jun’s confidential report on the death of Fu Tsong. It had been found after Wang Jun’s death, hidden in the man’s mattress.

  Li Chou slid the long nail of his left pinky finger along the crease of the envelope, opening the thing as easily as any letter opener could. The opening sentence of Wang Jun’s report brought a smile to Li Chou’s lips: Fu Tsong, Zhong Fong’s wife, was having an affair with the Canadian theatre director Geoffrey Hyland.

  In Li Chou’s mind, he ticked off one of the three ingredients necessary for a murder to take place: motive.

  “For the flowers now, that frighted thou let’st fall from Dis’s waggon! Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty.”

  Fong stood before the image on the screen. Entranced. Unable to reach over and turn it off. Wanting it to last forever.

  “Violets dim, but sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes or Cytherea’s brea
th; pale primroses that die unmarried, ere they can behold bright Phoebus in his strength – a malady most incident to maids; bold oxlips and the crown imperial: lilies of all kinds, the flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack, to make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, to strew him o’er and o’er.”

  Fu Tsong’s image held, suspended in digital space, her arms raised, her face alive with joy and then it was gone.

  The phone rang so loudly that Fong jumped.

  “Short stuff?”

  “Lily?”

  “Did you get my message?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Pick up your messages. I don’t leave them for my health, Short Stuff.”

  “I will, Lily.”

  “Good. When?”

  “As soon as you answer a single question for me?”

  “Sure. Xiao Ming is fine. You can pick her up early on Sunday if you want.”

  “Thanks. I look forward to that.”

  “So does she.”

  Fong was pleased. Although it wasn’t easy, he and Lily were working their way to an understanding on how to share the raising of their daughter.

  “But that’s not my question, Lily.”

  “Well spit it out, Short Stuff.” He did wish she’d stop calling him that although it was true she usually only used that appellation for him in private. What’s your question, Fong?”

  “What kind of flowers were on Geoff Hyland’s body?”

  Fong fast-forwarded through the VHS tapes. There were no more speeches by Fu Tsong. Just lots and lots of Six Feet Under. Fong mulled that over – lots and lots of Six Feet Under. Why was Geoff all of a sudden interested in a program about dying. I AM TIM and dying. Soldier Sailor Tinker . . . Spy.

  Fong began to leaf through Geoff’s notepads. In the back of the first one he found six typed pages filled with edits. As he read, he realized that this was Geoff’s writing: In the end all there is, is love. Every scene is about it, every character seeks it, every being lives in the hope of it.” Said by some old acting teacher, don’t ask me who.

  I have been teaching professional actors for over 20 years. I began to teach in New York between directing jobs in the American regional theatres. I taught in my Manhattan apartment three nights a week – my wife was very patient. In my second year of teaching, I was contacted by a young man from Yonkers. He asked if I would teach him and three of his friends. I asked about his background. He was not an amateur but he was clearly not travelling on a traditional professional trajectory. What he clearly was – was hungry. So I agreed.

  On that first night, he showed up with his three friends, one of whom was a dark-eyed girl whose anger was so close to the surface that her face was in almost constant motion – as if whatever boundaries she had to keep the anger in check had been breached.

  That first class we talked through some basic concepts, did a bit of improvisation and broke down a simple text. Then I suggested that we find scenes to work on. The girl told me that she wanted to watch a little first. I said that was okay but she would have to get up and perform in the class after next. She agreed. I gave the three young men a copy of David Mamet’s American Buffalo and told them to prepare some of it for next week.

  When we parted, they handed over the money for class. As a teacher, it was something that I will never forget. It was obvious the money they gave me, was “food money.” As they left my apartment, I looked at the money and thought of the responsibility it imposed on me – and to be frank – it frightened me.

  It was the beginning of my understanding that it was no longer good enough, as a teacher, to deliver hashed-over versions of the old acting dogma. That their “food money” obliged me to reassess what it was I was teaching. That too frightened me because there had been precious little, if any, serious reassessing within the acting teaching community for many, many years.

  The following week, my Yonkers kids showed up on time and announced that they were ready to show me American Buffalo. I said, sure, assuming that they had put a few pages of the play on its feet. They started into the play — from the top. They did the whole play cover to cover, without a break. What they did manage to break in the course of their performance was the mirror over the mantelpiece, a lamp and a windowpane. When they were finished, they turned to me as if to say: So what do you think, Coach?

  What I thought was that hunger was an important part of being a professional actor and that these young hungry actors deserved better understanding of their art than there was available in the present acting texts.

  That was the beginning of the thinking that led to this book.

  Three of these four aggressive young actors barged their way into the profession. The fourth – well . . . anger out of its cage – decompartmentalized, if you will – can be terribly destructive.

  That was one of the few times in my life that I have taught beginner actors. I still don’t teach beginners and this book is not intended for beginner actors, although if you have enough hunger, you’ll be able to use the ideas and methods outlined in this book to make you a better actor.

  Like most good ideas, the concepts in this book are easy to learn but may take quite a while to apply. It is easy enough to learn the rules of chess. It takes a lifetime to gain any mastery of the game.

  Nothing of any value can be put on a 3-by-5 index card – except the thought that nothing of any value can be put on a 3-by-5 index card.

  Acting teaching can be roughly broken down into those explorations that are about finding notes on an actor’s piano keyboard and those explorations that are about how to play the notes that an actor has already discovered. This book, and my work for the past 20 years, is primarily about how to play the notes you have found. How to understand what the notes you have mean, which notes are not good any longer, which have never been good, which notes can replace bad notes, which notes are available to you but you don’t know it – and most important – how to finger your stops and depress your frets so that you can play the notes you have together in a fashion that as Hamlet says “will discourse most eloquent music.” (Hamlet, Act 3, Sc. 2)

  The actor’s territory is the human heart. It is an uncharted land defended by terrifying dragons but it also contains great glories, music and deep human truths. To the hungry actor it is the only land worthy of investigating.

  This book attempts to give the actor a compass and survival kit for that strange land. It includes sketch maps and points of reference in that divine territory – whose exploration can for the artist, and should, last a lifetime.

  Fong put down the pages. Who writes an introductory chapter to a book based on the knowledge gained in a lifetime of work and then commits suicide?

  The next page was blank. The page after that was not. This page was filled with Geoff’s red felt-pen scratchings. The top part of the page seemed to be an effort to write a section on “being present,” a term that Fu Tsong had often used. But that ended quickly and was replaced with a set of large angry words: How, with her gone? How? How the fuck without her!

  Fong felt sick. He had no doubt who the “her” was that Geoff referred to. It was his dead wife and Geoff’s dead lover – Fu Tsong.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RESPONSE

  Geoff’s death was duly noted by some of the Canadian press, but because he had done much of his work in the United States the notices were small, buried and perfunctory. Had he been either a member of one of the Old Anglo families who still ran the theatre world in Canada or had he spent six weeks in Czechoslovakia, rather than sixteen years in America, his death would have been worthy of several column inches in the entertainment sections and would no doubt have been followed by engaging eulogies delivered by middleaged ponytailed men.

  One theatre that had contracted Geoff to direct in the upcoming season actually breathed a sigh of relief at his passing. The artistic director had promised his business manager a show to direct but had overlooked this obligation after the acting company raised a considerable fuss. Bu
t Geoff’s death provided the answer gift-wrapped – Geoff was gone, we had tried to get him to direct but he was gone and at this late date who could we possibly get – hey, the business manager is available – aren’t we all one big happy family again!

  There was one other place in Canada that Geoff’s passing was noted – although not publicly. It was on the West Coast of the huge country on a mountaintop university campus by a handsome man in his late thirties who went by the name Richard Lee. He dressed and moved casually, but there was a real distance in his eyes. As if something far-off were the object of his attention.

  That something far-off was in fact his brother, Xi Luan Tu.

  Richard sat on the wooden deck on the north side of the Simon Fraser University campus and stared at the snow-covered peaks across the way. The dazzling sunlight, a rarity for this part of the world even in summer, flooded over him. He had come to Simon Fraser University because of the significant Dalong Fada presence on the campus, which allowed him to arrange for adequate security for his meeting. And therefore he sat, at the appointed hour, in the brilliant sunshine, on this campus – almost empty of people – and read the university’s promotional brochure. Richard was not interested in the university’s self-congratulatory bibble-babble about its achievements and its goals, but he found the short blurb on the history of the school’s namesake, Simon Fraser, really quite interesting. It seemed that all Mr. Fraser managed to accomplish in his life was to be the first Caucasian to enter the land that is now called British Columbia. He accomplished this overland feat in 1808 at the behest of the North West Company of Montreal. It appears, though, that the company was looking for beaver pelts, not some of the world’s most spectacular country. He had failed in his appointed task. He was a man who discovered beauty but not rodents.

  A large raven, inky blue-black, fluttered to a stop on a nearby concrete ledge and looked at Richard. The bird’s sharp beak snapped open and emitted a flat caw. Richard held the bird’s eyes. Two black pebbles in a deeper darkness. In Mandarin, Richard said, “Fly away without my soul today and I will pray to you tomorrow.”