“I’ll be the King, then,” she says. “I heard that part just opened up.”
Beside her, Ellie’s back to looking at the floor.
“And look at me, I’d be perfect for the role now, wouldn’t I, Miranda.”
Not a question. An accusation. A blatant accusation. But what is there to admit? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me.
“Briana, do you think it’s a good idea?” Grace says from the audience. “You really don’t look well.”
“Don’t I look well, Grace?” She looks at me and grins, but it’s twisted, like she’s smiling through something. I know the something. Her mouth begins to tremble. She looks about to cry, but she holds it together.
“The doctors say it could be good for me to get out. And who knows?” She turns to Ellie, who’s shaking at this point, her eyes glassy. Looking at Briana as though she isn’t sure whether to hug her or run away. Briana just smiles weakly at her.
“Maybe Helen here will heal me,” she says. “The theater is a magical place. Am I right, Miranda?”
“The King has a lot of lines,” Grace says.
“That’s right,” I say. “Very true, Grace. A lot of lines. There’s that whole speech, isn’t there? About soldiership?”
“I already memorized them,” she says. “I’ve had so little to do for the past few weeks.” Her gaze is a sword. Pointed right at me. “I’ve had a lot of time with the King. A lot of time. I feel like I have a new insight into his character now. I can show you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Briana,” Grace says. “Miranda?”
I look at this sickly creature, sitting crookedly on the stage. Withered. Pale. Lopsided. The once burnished glory of her auburn hair now falling darkly, flatly, in greasy locks around her gaunt face. Her lithe body a husk of itself, drowning in that black fleece sack. Her voice a shrill, faltering shadow of what it was. Looking at us both with the remnants of a countenance that used to make me tremble, cower. Now? She attempts threat, confrontation, but she can only manage so much through the veil of pain.
“Miranda?” Grace prompts.
“Show us,” I hear myself say.
“Everyone,” I say, keeping my eyes on Briana. “Act Two, Scene One. Helen and the King.” I feel them all around us, frozen as though in tableau.
Ellie looks at me, terrified. Don’t make me do this, Miranda, please.
But that’s all the more reason to keep calm. All the more reason to look like all is well. Ha.
“Act Two, Scene One,” I say again. “Helen and the King.”
CHAPTER 20
ACT TWO, SCENE One. In which Helen goes to Paris to visit the King, claiming to be able to cure his illness. In which the King refuses her help—who is she to come to his court? Who is she to claim she can heal him when all others have failed? When our most learned doctors leave us, says the King. We are truly past hope now. We have given up. Do not awaken our hope, strumpet. But Helen stands firm. She says to the King, Try me, trust me. The King says, Fine, if you’re willing to die. I trust you, but if you fail, you die. Helen says absolutely she is willing to die by the rack if she fails, it’s only fair. But if I succeed, Helen says, then let me win something for my success: the right to choose my husband from among your vassals （by which she means Bertram）。 The King agrees to this. He puts himself in her hands. He submits to this lowborn woman. And then we, as the audience, realize how truly desperate, how truly ill, how truly vulnerable and afraid, the King really is. We also realize how powerful Helen must be, to risk her life for this. And how much she must want Bertram. It’s a scene in which everyone’s desire is laid bare and the power dynamics—between king and subject, low-and highborn—are reversed. Helen will die at the King’s hand if she fails to cure him. But the King will inevitably die if she fails too. His illness puts him at her mercy either way. It’s a dialogue that never fails to remind me of the many I’ve had with Mark, with John, with Luke, with my surgeon. All of the times they told me to trust, have faith. All the times I submitted myself to their hands. All of the times they failed. None of them was ever put to death for this. They still asked me to pay them. I was no king.
I sit in the far corner of the auditorium, away from Grace, away from everyone, watching Briana and Ellie perform this scene. Briana as the King, Ellie as Helen. I ask for the lights to be lowered, please. So Grace and the students can’t see my face as I watch Briana show me. With Briana as Helen, the first times we read this scene, it seemed it would never work. Its mediocrity, its soullessness, would keep me up nights. Briana was never convincing as someone who could heal, let alone be trusted. Nor was her pining, her desire for Bertram, believable. But as the King today, on the stage, though she can barely stand, though she’s deathly pale, she’s luminous. She has gravitas. She plays shades of emotion I’ve never seen. She brings the crackle of death and vulnerability to the King’s lines. She is distrustful of Helen. We feel she has given up hope, she dares not hope again, yet we know she has hope still. She’s capable of letting that hideous flower bloom riotously in her soul once more. We want Helen to pay with her life if she fails to heal her, absolutely. Because it would only be fair for letting the King have hope again. The King will pay with her own life after all. We feel how desperately she wants to be well. We feel her giving herself over to Helen’s will. My deed shall match thy deed. When Ellie touches Briana’s wrist, Briana flinches. She appears to look at me, right at me in my seat in the dark, which is impossible, and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.