Amateur and School Theatrical Events Board, housed in one of the city’s theatres. I went there intending to enter our play in the competition; but I did not do so lightly. The idea was tempting: to participate in the festival organised by the Board, the most prestigious event of its kind, and at the same time to defy the Tapeworm – but what if it ended in disgrace? What then? Our experience of the stage was very slight; never having faced a live audience, we did not know how we would react. Would stage-fright paralyse us? Would we forget our lines? How would we cope with the unexpected? The idea of making a hash of it was terrifying. And then the competition itself was another unknown factor: perhaps, regardless of how well we acted, our compilation would seem puerile or, worse, boring, or simply ludicrous in its tragic intensity. Failure in these circumstances meant utter humiliation. I felt I was taking an enormous risk.
A sleepy calm reigned in the festival offices. Behind the desk a young secretary sat languidly painting her nails.
‘I’d like to enter our group in this year’s competition,’ I said, a touch uncertainly.
‘On whose behalf?’ inquired the secretary, without looking up from the task on which her attention was bent.
‘What do you mean, on whose behalf?’ I asked, surprised. ‘On my behalf. I mean, on behalf of the group I represent.’
She looked me up and down. ‘You don’t look like a teacher or an instructor to me.’ She returned to her nails.
‘And indeed I’m not – neither one nor the other,’ I admitted, with a pretence of chagrin. ‘Does that mean I can’t enter our group?’
‘The deadline’s passed,’ she replied, noncommittal.
Something in my heart contracted in a spasm of dismay, yet I felt a kind of relief. I’d tried and failed, and perhaps it was for the best. My prospects of victor’s laurels had vanished, but so had the spectre of shame and defeat.
‘The deadline’s passed . . .’ I repeated dully, like an echo. ‘Do you mind telling me when?’
‘At noon today,’ she announced, exuding false regret.
I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past three.
‘I had classes until two . . .’ I said, as if debating with myself.
She spread her hands in a helpless gesture, taking the opportunity as she did so to inspect the results of her work. ‘You should have come yesterday.’
‘Oh, well,’ I muttered, and began to shuffle about resignedly, preparing to leave. But at that moment the door opened, admitting none other than S. – one of the most popular actors of the day – himself, in person. The secretary leapt up to greet him with an ingratiating smile.
S. had distinguished himself not only on stage but also as something of a character: he was known to be moody and capricious, and was generally considered a fascinating personality. Anecdotes about him abounded: how difficult he was to work with, how he would play practical jokes on his fellow actors on stage and yet take pains to make himself agreeable to the theatre staff and, particularly, to his fans. His self-absorption and delusions of grandeur were legendary; his disingenuousness, his transparent attempts to cloak these weaknesses in a veil of false modesty and to portray himself as a timid naïf, were an ever-reliable source of amusement. He craved applause and admiration, and liked to be surrounded by young people, who could be relied upon to provide both; he taught at the drama school and patronised a variety of theatrical events, the festival among them. His latest triumph had been as Prospero in The Tempest, a production for which tickets had been sold out weeks in advance. I had managed to see it several times, and knew it almost by heart.
Now, as he strode in with an arch ‘Buon giorno, cara mia’ for the secretary, I was seeing him close up for the first time. For a moment I was all but struck dumb with the thrill. But when he magnanimously offered me his hand and with his typical disingenuousness hastened to introduce himself, I recovered my wits and hazarded a gambit in which I suddenly perceived the glimmer of a chance: I addressed him in the words of Ariel:
All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
Whereupon, sizing me up with a keen glance and finding me apparently to his approval, he assumed his Prospero’s severe and haughty look and, taking up where I’d left off, replied:
Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
‘To every article,’ I said, and went on:
I boarded the king’s ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam’d amazement . . .
He took a step toward me and threw an arm around my shoulders:
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
I galloped on:
Not a soul . . .
– but then I paused, as if hesitating, and, looking my extraordinary partner straight in the eye, found myself, to my astonishment, continuing in heroic iambics:
But stay, one such there was – alack, the same,
Indeed, who stands before you now, come hither
By dreams of everlasting glory driv’n,
My entry here to register. This pageant,
Liege, on which your justice will ere long pronounce
I would fain enter; but this dread Sycorax –
I gestured in the general direction of the secretary –
This monstrous hag, who here doth sit and paint
Her claws all day, informs me that the deadline
Now is past. It passed at noon, she says –
I glanced at my watch –
’Twas but three hours ago! Thus envious Fortune
Deceitfully hath pierced my hopes, and shot
Her arrows through my flesh. What now, my lord?
My hopes are spread before you, and my fate
In your good graces lies. I do beseech thee,
Give me your hand, and lend me your good favour.
For this, good sir, most humbly do I pray thee.
During this improvised tirade S. had been eyeing me with markedly increasing stupefaction. Now, as I declaimed my final line, he shook himself out of his stunned state and took up my challenge:
’Tis Sycorax, thou sayst, who bars your entry?
Nay, ’twill not do. I’ll bind her with my magic:
Thus will she break. In such a one ’tis folly
To oppose me. She’ll do my bidding.
With a mock-serious scowl he strode toward the secretary, stretched