Murder Is Academic

by P. M. Carlson

  “Have you been backstage before?” he asked.

  “Only in high school. And that was really just the gym with a curtain.”

  He grinned. “I know what you mean. Started out in that sort of place myself. Acting to an audience that ate peanuts and flew paper airplanes. Well, okay. Come on out here.” He led the way to Maggie’s side, and Mary Beth realized that they were standing in the first act setting for Cyrano, the little toy stage in front of her, the arches at the side. It looked strange and flat. She turned to ask him a question, but he was watching Maggie again. Feeling extraneous, Mary Beth feigned interest in the little fake stage and walked away from them for a moment to study it. She was not far enough, though, to avoid hearing him ask softly, “Maggie. How is your heart?”

  Mary Beth tensed, half expecting a lashing out, one of the stinging replies that she and Sue had received for such meddling. But instead Maggie replied quietly in French, “On se debrouille. Et toi?”

  “I’m coping too.”

  “Good.” And then, cheerfully, she called, “Mary Beth, come look at the flies. See? The whole show is up there.”

  “Where?”

  Nick pointed up. “There’s the pastry shop, and right behind it is the cloister.’’

  She squinted, and could dimly make out the flat canvas sets in the murky realms above.

  “Hey,” Maggie exclaimed, “enough of this painted garbage! Where’s the electrical stuff?”

  “Still like lights best?”

  “Of course. You actors would be nothing without lights.”

  “Rule one for actors,” said Nick to Mary Beth. “Never offend the lighting crew. Their revenge is too horrible to contemplate.” He waved his hand toward the wings. “The auxiliary board is there by the stage manager’s desk.”

  Maggie crossed the stage and studied it with interest. “Main board up in the back of the house?”

  “Yes. You want to go up there?”

  “If it’s not too much for your old bones.”

  They started toward the auditorium through a curtain by the stage manager’s little desk. Maggie stopped abruptly in the tiny hall beyond. “Sound system?” she asked.

  “Yes. Or at least it was. One of the speakers is on the blink. They were using a little backup outfit tonight.”

  “Yeah, I thought the sound wasn’t up to the standards of the rest of the show.”

  They were looking at a set of huge loudspeakers, and a piece of electronic equipment. “Did they check the amp?” asked Maggie, poking a finger at it delicately.

  “I don’t know. They seldom consult me. Can’t imagine why.”

  “Bet I could fix it.”

  “Bet you could too. A most acute juvenal.”

  He led the way up a little flight of stairs to the light booth. “Hi, Bruce,” he said to the bearded young man in it. “Friends of mine want to see the booth.”

  “Sure,” said Bruce.

  Maggie stepped in and said, “Hey, terrific!”

  “Is it good?” asked Mary Beth, peering around her. Nick lounged against the door frame, watching them, unhurried.

  “Yes, this is what we were going to buy if a rich donor ever gave the Hargate theatre any money.” Maggie was engrossed in reading a complicated chart with mysterious penciled instructions. She put the papers down and looked in satisfaction at the panel of switches. “You’re preset for Act One,” she said.

  “Right,” said Bruce.

  “Could I show my friend the first cue?”

  Bruce glanced back at Nick, who nodded. “I guess so,” said Bruce. “You turn the board on over there, and ... ” But she had already switched on the board and killed the work lights that had been on backstage. Mary Beth looked out the booth window, fascinated, as Maggie slid levers around and the Act One set sprang to life, the spattered flat canvas they had inspected a moment ago suddenly turning into Cyrano’s little theatre.

  Nick was watching now too. He said, “Looks good. Never saw it from up here.”

  “Let’s see where you enter,” said Maggie, glancing at the card in front of her and reaching for a lever. “It’s a three-count, right, Bruce?”

  “Yes. Just count a thousand and one, a thousand and two, a thousand and three.”

  “The thousands are to make sure you don’t get excited and count too fast,” Maggie explained to Mary Beth.

  “I always preferred to count one-chimpanzee, two-chimpanzee,” said Nick. “More interesting.”

  “Friend of mine from North Carolina claimed that down there they count one-watermelon, two-watermelon,” Maggie said evenly. Bruce chuckled.

  “Someone ought to do a study,” said Nick. “Publishable, don’t you think? ... ‘Dialect Variations in Lighting Counts.’”

  Maggie turned to him, laughing with the others. “Great idea,” she agreed. “Now watch.” The light on the side steps increased and Mary Beth remembered, yes, the long-nosed Frenchman had first entered just there.

  “Want a job?” Bruce asked Maggie.

  She smiled at him. “No, thanks. I’m pretty busy already.”

  “You’ve run lights before.”

  “Designed ‘em, hung ‘em, run ‘em, cussed ‘em,” she said. “But now I only do consulting work.” She had returned the board to its original condition, and now turned it off and switched the work lights back on.

  “Got too many consultants already,” grumbled Bruce.

  “Yeah, I always thought so too. Thanks, Bruce. Good job tonight.” She went out of the lighting booth and looked at Nick. “Hey, I’m glad I came,” she said.

  He said, “You haven’t been backstage for a while.”

  “Not for a year.” He nodded soberly, and she added, “But it turns out to be fun, Nick. It’s a wonderful world.”

  “Yes.”

  “You still game for coffee?”

  “More than ever.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  IX

  6 Kaoo (June 14, 1968)

  His car led the Land Rover to a little country restaurant with knotty pine walls and furniture and curtains done in red calico. The waitresses had frilly aprons. Other actors were there already, and the one who had played Christian waved at them. “Hey, Nick! Bring your poppets over here and join us!”

  Nick turned to them inquiringly, but Maggie had already put on a poppet face for Christian and was gushing, “Oh, thank you, but Mr. O’Connor is already more than we two li’l gals can manage.”

  Nick grinned and took them to a booth in the rear. They ordered pie and coffee. Then he leaned back and regarded Maggie with satisfaction. “Your mother,” he said.

  “What about my mother?”

  “Last time I saw you, you and your elbow were going home to campaign for her.”

  “Oh, right. She won.”

  “She’s mayor of Owensboro now,” said Mary Beth proudly.

  “Terrific!”

  “Yeah. She’s good. Lucky town,” said Maggie.

  “What’ll she do next? Senator or something?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s happier at the local level because she hears from more people. It’s so easy to get insulated at the national level, lose touch with what people want us to stand for.”

  “What a world! It’s all in knots right now.”

  “It always is, somewhere,” said Mary Beth morosely.

  “Yeah. Thank God for music and theatre,” said Maggie. “Otherwise I’d give up.” After a moment she added musingly, “Sure hope they get your sound system fixed.”

  “They seemed stuck. Said we’d have to limp along with the little outfit for a while.” He was watching her alertly.

  “Maybe they should send it out to be fixed.”

  “To the electrical hospital.” As their eyes met, Mary Beth felt that they were saying something else.

  “Exactly,” said Maggie. “Pie isn’t bad,” she added with satisfaction, popping a forkful of cherries into her mouth. “How’s yours, Swede?”

  “Good.” Mary B
eth had chosen strawberry-rhubarb. “And the coffee’s good too.” It was strong and hot.

  “Thank you,” said Nick.

  “Haven’t you had enough applause tonight?” chided Maggie. “You’re taking credit for the coffee too?”

  “Damn right,” said Nick. “Me and the Syracuse Farm Theatre Company. We trained the chef.”

  “Ah.”

  “Well, what sort of coffee do you think they’d have here?”

  Maggie glanced at a frilly apron passing by and wrinkled her nose.

  “Right,” he said. “That’s what it was. But we had a conference after the first day and swore solemnly to send back all weak coffee. We divided ourselves into good policemen and bad policemen.”

  Maggie’s eyes were dancing. “Bad ones swore at them. Good ones said sweetly what a fine restaurant this was, but they sure wished they could get some espresso like Mama used to make.”

  “Right. And after three days of this treatment a good policeman finally got a good cup. We all cheered and he tipped heavily. It’s been okay ever since.”

  “You were a bad policeman.”

  “Oh, yes, I was incredibly bad.” A look of ineffable evil passed across his face. “Maidens quaked and strong men blushed when I darkened these doors. But I’ve reformed.” He hung his head a little, the lucid eyes mournful with mock penitence. Maggie grinned at him.

  “What a useful project!”

  “Yes, I thought so. I figure it did more for posterity than our Cyrano ever could. The O’Connor route to personal immortality.”

  “Ambitious man, isn’t he?” Maggie said to Mary Beth. Then she looked back at him thoughtfully. “Is that something you think about, Nick?”

  “A little. More than I did.” They were serious again. “I wouldn’t change anything about theatre, of course. But it’s always a little frustrating to know that in a few days it will disappear without a ripple.”

  She nodded. “That always made me sad too. To work so hard and even successfully, and then have it all disappear forever.”

  “Like painting the Mona Lisa, showing it to a few friends, and then burning it.”

  “But there are other ways of disappearing,” Mary Beth said. “The Mayan stelae are carved in stone. But when the whole culture is wiped out, there’s no one to appreciate it. I mean, we gringos go look at the ruins and feel very impressed. But it’s not like the Cyrano tonight, when we understood the significance of every little gesture and every moment. We are impressed because we appreciate all those moments. With the Mayan things, we are impressed too but we can’t really appreciate them.”

  Nick nodded. “That’s the advantage of theatre, of course. It’s constantly renewed. Always has a chance of communicating directly with the audience.”

  “Yes, I know,” Maggie chimed in. “Live music and live theatre, that’s when I believe in humanity.”

  “Yeah.” He was pleased, oddly flattered.

  “However,’’ she added briskly, “if you want your contributions to last forever, go into math. Discover some eternal truth or other.”

  “Hey! Great idea. I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.”

  “The Ryan route to personal immortality.” They were grinning at each other again.

  “There’s always children,” said Mary Beth. Maggie kicked her under the table. Hard.

  “Yes, there are other possibilities,” Nick said steadily, and Maggie relaxed again. “For example, I’ve been thinking about Hargate a lot this last year. I loved teaching the grads, and I’ve been trying to think why it was so important to me. The really top priority is to let people have that experience, whatever it is, that happens between actors and audience. Exactly what I’m doing now. But when I watched my students working on the skills that my mime teacher taught me, I felt connected, somehow. Attached to the past and the future. It was a very heady experience for a fly-by-night actor like me.”

  “Passing the torch.”

  “The great relay race of life. Yeah. It’s exciting in a very different way from the high I get on stage.”

  Maggie looked at Mary Beth. “The Ixil calendar,” she said.

  “I was thinking of that too,” said Mary Beth. “Or the weaving.” His brow wrinkled inquiringly, and she explained, “The people I’m studying are the Ixil in the highlands of Guatemala. They’re poor and illiterate and isolated. But they’ve kept big hunks of Mayan culture alive despite the Conquest and the bloodshed since. Passing it on orally. Some very complicated things, like their calendar.”

  “So in fact the culture lives on?”

  “No, it was destroyed as a culture. They can’t read those stelae either. But parts of the culture, the skills, are not all gone. You can’t erase time, they say. They’ve just added in things the Spaniards and gringos have forced on them, disguised just enough to be acceptable to the conquerors. So a lot of the Mayan themes are still there.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “So the old folk who knew the calendar managed to pass on the knowledge, despite the odds. I’d settle for that. I’d be proud to think that maybe four hundred years from now, or even forty, an actor was doing something that I had helped pass along. The O’Connor eye-roll.” He demonstrated.

  “Then why aren’t you teaching now?” asked Maggie.

  “Well, George has kept me very busy. My agent,” he explained to Mary Beth. “It’s been good for me, this year. Necessary, even. But one of these days I’m going to check out some schools. I don’t want to stop acting, just add some teaching.”

  “I bet you’re dabbling in it now.”

  He grinned. “Well, the young sprats in the company know I like to give out free advice,” he admitted. “Windy O’Connor, everybody’s uncle.”

  Maggie smiled at him fondly, sipping her coffee, then said almost idly, “I suppose everybody’s uncle gets to have a key to the theatre.”

  Without hesitation, he pulled out a key ring and removed one, dropping it onto the table before him. “I don’t use it often,” he said. “It’s to the stage door, and people are usually there already when I arrive at five.”

  She glanced around. “Do you suppose they’d bring us some more coffee? Your one sure gift to posterity? Of which Mary Beth and I represent the vanguard?”

  He laughed and waved at the waitress, who brought it promptly. Maggie swallowed a little and turned to Mary Beth. “Hey, I’ve left something in the Land Rover I want to show to Nick. Could I have your key a minute?”

  “Sure.” Mary Beth handed it to her.

  “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared. Nick gazed after her, amused. They were fond of each other, these two.

  “Does she still set up a lot of pranks?” he asked.

  “Pranks? Not really. I guess there were the alarm clocks.”

  “Alarm clocks?”

  She told him, and he seemed very pleased. “I’m glad she decided to come see the play,” he said.

  “She didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” He looked at her, suddenly intent. Mary Beth hesitated. She didn’t want to make any mistakes. But there was no graceful way to find out.

  “Look,” she said, “were you her lover?”

  “Good Lord, no!” He was astonished, and Mary Beth relaxed a little. But he seemed perturbed by the question, and glanced back at the door where Maggie had disappeared before he turned back, frowning, to Mary Beth. “She said you were one of her best friends,” he said.

  “Yes. I guess I am.”

  “She wouldn’t suggest a thing like that. So it must be she doesn’t talk about it at all.”

  “She only said she was recovering from the cliché unhappy affair and didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I see.” He picked up the salt shaker and turned it in his powerful well-trained hands, squinting at the patterns of light. Then he put it down. “Okay, look. I’m not going to say anything about her business. But I think I can safely explain my own presence in her life.” Mary Beth nodded, grateful, and he went on. “I taught at Harga
te for a term, and she was doing lights for the theatre there.”

  “She never mentioned that before tonight. This is only the second time this year she’s even gone to see a play. And I dragged her to both of them.”

  “Hell. Did she know I was in this one?”

  “Not till we were halfway here. Then she blistered my ears cursing, till she saw I didn’t know about you.”

  “I see.” He poked at the salt shaker again, then went on. “Anyway, when I met Maggie, I was married. And then my wife died.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry.” Mary Beth was appalled at her blundering. There’s always children, she had said. She wanted to disappear.

  But he continued, still friendly. “Maggie helped me so much then, when I was completely stunned and confused. She ignored her own problems and stood by. She helped pull me through. We’ve been through an awful lot together.”

  “But you didn’t want to see each other.”

  “No. Everything was still so painful and raw when we saw each other last. I think we were both afraid of hurting the other one. Bringing back those terrible days.”

  “So it was more than just her elbow.”

  “Let’s not get into her business.” Friendly but firm. He could keep a trust.

  “Tonight neither one of you seems hurt,” she said after a moment.

  “God, no! I guess our fears were groundless. When I saw her the only thing I felt was joy.”

  “The worries came back a minute later.”

  “Yes, observant friend. But not for long.” He smiled at her.

  “She was happy to see you.”

  “Yes, thank God. She’s a more important friend to me than I’d realized.”

  Mary Beth glanced at the door where Maggie had disappeared. “What’s taking her so long?” she asked.

  Before he could answer, Christian appeared at their table.

  “You’ve lost one of them, Nick,” he said, smiling at Mary Beth.

  “They slip through my fingers like quicksilver,” said Nick. “Mary Beth, this is Cal Henderson.”

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mary Beth. Hope you’re enjoying this country life.”

  “The play was wonderful,” she said.