Chapter Two: A Change of Costume
"I heard she's out of the corps de ballet permanently."
"Well, you have to be able to see to dance."
"It's so sad! First her eye, then her màma passing away…"
"Will she be in the chorus?"
"No, I heard she was to be a boxkeeper. You still have to see on stage."
"Meg would never be a boxkeeper."
"She won't," a soft male voice announced. It was Arjay, carrying an armload of tutus with his eyes blindfolded by a scarf. "Costumes, freshly cleaned."
"Arjay, you rogue!" Little Jammes took the tutus and began to hand them out. "Where is Madame Clovier?"
"She's got a cold. Monsieur Reyer told me to bring 'em up and just shut my eyes, but I didn't trust myself. Meg's going to start work with me tonight."
"Really?"
"What's she doing?"
"Meg Giry," Arjay announced grandly, "is the new apprentice fly sceneshifter."
The girls, to put it mildly, were dumbfounded.
"A sceneshifter?"
"Aye, and quite a good one, too, I'm betting." Arjay scratched at his blindfold. "Are you ladies decent yet?"
"Explain this," Madeleine queried. "You need two eyes to dance, correct?"
"Aye."
"Well, then, doesn't a sceneshifter need two eyes?" Arjay gave the girls his best roguish grin.
"Actually, to be one-eyed merely determines which side of the stage is your best work done from. Uncle Joseph had a glass eye, remember?" Several of the girls nodded. "Well, ofttimes the lights are blinding after the dark of the backstage. With your outstage eye covered, you don't lose sight of the ropes so easily. Meg will be the best stage-right flykeeper in the history of the Opera Populaire, mark my words."
"You're so kind, Angier," Sibyl remarked, stroking his calloused hand like a stray kitten. "Taking care of poor, disfigured Meg that way."
"Sibyl Tholomyès, you shut your horrid mouth!" Little Jammes cried.
"I'm going to smack you in another minute!" Madeleine declared. "Meg's no more disfigured than you are, with no nail on your pinky finger. Honestly!"
"I only meant-"
"We all know what you meant!" Chantal declared as Arjay prudently left the scene. "You flirt with Arjay like Carlotta with the new baritone and you're hoping to have Meg's place when the new mistress of the corps arrives."
"I do not!"
"Sibyl, we all saw you. You'd better stop it."
"Indeed."
The girls looked around for a moment, petrified by the sound of an all-too familiar voice with no body. They stared and shuddered, until Little Jammes looked directly at Sibyl and shook her head.
Sibyl shrieked.
The bandage wasn't really too bad, Meg reflected. Sister Solange had shown her how to tie the gauzy scarf over the cotton that covered her still-stitched eyelid in a certain way, so that with only a little combing of her curly hair it seemed almost unnoticeable. She didn't have the heart to put on an ugly brown leather patch like the soldiers wore. Mercifully, stagehands and flykeepers did not wear their hair in ballet buns. The coiffure of choice for those whose hair was longer than an inch or two was a kind of queue, held with a ribbon or leather thong. Since hair caught in the ropes could be either excruciatingly pulled out or the cause of a death by broken neck, this style was a requirement, but the crew, in their tradition-bound, old-guard way had added meaning to their method.
"You have a white ribbon, Meg," Arjay explained. "Grosgrain, because satin slides right off, and white because you're new. As soon as you work up a notch, you'll earn yellow, then orange, leaf green…all the way up to black."
"Black is the top?" Meg inquired.
"Black is the most noble color of all to a 'hand, Maggie, you should know that." Arjay gestured to the shrouds noir, the thick velvet curtains of darkest black that concealed the backstage from view. "In the blacks, you're invisible."
Meg sighed softly, thinking of what it was to be actually onstage. Her fate was now to be as unnoticable as the curtain-rings. Arjay understood and patted her shoulder.
"Meg, what makes the audience applaud?"
"I don't know…a triple chainnè with arabesque, or a Handel aria."
"Think harder. Why do they applaud when the lights go down, before anyone's had a chance to do anything? Why do they applaud even after the curtain's fallen?" The young man gestured to the lights being lit and set on the battens above them, to the ropesman pulling on his black leather fingerless gloves and gripping the heany fire curtain's draw like the throat of an enemy in practice; to the go-fors tying on the slippers that gave both silence and traction when they ran for the stage manager at speeds near light. "It isn't always the performer himself they cheer for. It's the theatre itself, what it means to put on an opera. Carlotta or M'sieur Courfeyrac could not sing a note alone, nor could the corps de ballet dance even a scrap of Verdi, or the chorus give the scene, not without the men behind the blacks, wearing black, invisible. What is a diva on a stage without hands? The curtain would muffle any sound she made, unopened, the lights would not show her, the set not explain her, nothing. She is just a woman in the dark, whistling to herself, until the 'hands appear without ever being seen.
"Oh, they never see us, true, but they don't need to see our forms to know our work. We are the movers unseen, we are the magic makers of the stage. We are as important as any diva or prima ballerina, perhaps more so, because they need the limelight. If they hear a 'boo' or their notes go flat, they are shattered, because they need the audience to tell them how good they are. We know how good we are by how little they notice us. The less we hear about the stage crew, the more perfectly we know we performed.
"The dancers have to perform their steps and the singers have to hit their notes, and the audience knows that. We have to do all of that and more, plus make it invisible. We don't need applause, just our calloused hands and the stage manager's bible. That is why black is the top color." Arjay grinned and picked up a worn, grease-spotted drawstring bag. "Speaking of, these are for you. My first set, freshly cleaned by Madame Clovier's apprentices."
Meg looked into the bag and drew out a black garment, plain in cut and sturdy in construction, but soft as old tights. It rippled and pooled in her hands like finest silk, and even on her soft palms it seemed nearly to catch.
"What is it made of?" she asked in awe. Arjay's grin broadened.
"It's only linen, Meg. You really have to work to get it soft like that, and only soft blacks go on the stage. We can't hear shirts or trousers rustling. That's partly why so many 'hands pass their blacks down when they grow or change." Meg drew out a pair of trousers, nearly as soft as the shirt, with a drawstring belt, and clearly quite sturdy. "Those are black sail canvas. Took me three months of stones and dye to get them nice."
"Stones?"
"You beat the cloth with a broom over a rock or washboard, then you rub them with pumice stones. Then you dye and re-dye them as the fabric wears, so it doesn't fade to gray. Once you break in sail trousers, dear Meg, you've got something. Uncle Joseph left me his. They won't tear, even if you hang by your belt-loops for twenty minutes during the soprano aria in Manon Lescaut. I oughta' know."
"That was amusing, especially when the snowflakes stuck to La Carlotta's lip-rouge."
"Hey, it wasn't my fault the snow boxes had jammed."
"But it was good of you to fly up yourself."
"If I hadn't, the scene would have been wrong and Uncle Joseph would have been disappointed. We have to be prepared for adversity."
At that moment, the audience applauded the entry of the conductor. "Speaking of! Meg, stay clear of rope b-10 in the second cage. It's been loose all week. And don't forget the blue lighting cues in scene three!"
It was all very orchestrated, like the technical rehearsals had been, only more exciting. Meg quickly drew ropes b-11 and c-6, lowering the flats for the next scene, and tied them off to the 'spikes,' long protruding bars that the ropes could be wound securely around before they needed to be moved again.
The blue lighting cue required that the white and red lights be lowered. Fortunately, white, red, and blue alike were on separate gas lines, so it was a matter of merely turning two knobs. The scene became a cold, wintry forest. Astonishing! At the tech rehearsal, the contrast had been impressive, but with the actors onstage in winter garb, it was almost lifelike.
There was little time for glances in, however. Meg had to scurry to help get the carriage into place for the new tenor's entrance. She, Arjay, and two other stagehands quickly moved it onto the 'track', which was a pattern of lines painted on the stage to make sure the carriage went where it was supposed to go. Monsieur Courfeyrac was already backstage ahead of cue, unusual for a well-known tenor such as he. Carlotta always had to be given a minute call. He was a handsome man, much younger and slimmer than Piangi, and his costume made him look even nicer.
"Break a leg, Monsieur," the stagehands whispered. He was already well liked by the hands for his lack of holier-than-thou attitude, even if tonight was his first performance at the Opera Populaire. Meg caught a glimpse of Monsieur Courfeyrac's face as they wished him well and realized something: the famous tenor was terrified.
"Merci," he replied sotto voce, shaking hands with both of the other stagehands, then with Arjay and finally with Meg. His smile was so abjectly nervous that she wanted to hug him. With a last, scared-rabbit look, he pulled the carriage door gently closed so as to make almost no sound. Carlotta might have slammed it. Arjay gave Meg a grin, as if to exult in their new tenor's politeness, especially after the bitchy diva they were used to. She returned the look as the other characters' chorus ended, and then they signaled the linesmen to roll the carriage forth.
Midway across the stage, the lines attached to the carriage front and back ceased pulling, and it appeared to draw to a stop. With a brave expression, Monsieur Courfeyrac swung the door open and looked out, his top hat making his already handsome features look especially noble and chivalrous. He began his character's opening aria, singing with great fervor about how wonderful it was to be home, in German of course, hitting every note with perfect expression and making several of the audience's ladies gasp. He almost leapt from the carriage as the aria continued, athletically illustrating the character's youth and joy. The actor playing the house's butler appeared and Courfeyrac handed him his top hat distractedly, still singing his heart out to the audience.
Critics had always reviewed this particular composer as hell on tenors. He wrote up to five octave-ranges in single arias, demanded flawless diction to be comprehensible, and generally made himself offensive to the poor sods cast in tenor leads. Some brave souls regarded Von Hauptmann as a challenge, others simply refused to audition for his pieces. To accurately sing the opening aria for the part of Friedrich, the tenor had to have a range down well into baritone territory as well as alto-high. It was rather unfair to give such a difficult part to a new tenor, Meg thought. She didn't blame Monsieur Courfeyrac for being nervous.
As the most difficult part of the aria was played, however, Courfeyrac met each note flawlessly, neither straining nor losing his diction on the treacherous stanza. His German was perfect, especially for a Frenchman, and his baritone notes sounded as rich as a genuine basso profundo could make them. Meg was, to say the least, impressed. The performance was certain to be a success.
A soft scraping assailed her ears, drawing her attention from the handsome tenor. Rope b-10 was slipping its' pin! Another moment and a huge set piece would crash down behind Courfeyrac, marring his opening totally. Meg did the only thing possible. She grabbed hold of the rope and hung on tightly.
The rope slipped fully.
The set piece came down.
Meg went up.
Being accidentally suspended in the air backstage during a show was the stagehand's nightmare. Meg felt the rope stop moving and realized her weight had balanced the set piece somewhere high in the battens. Good. Her hands were starting to ache, so she followed Arjay's advice and let go with one.
Big mistake. Her left arm went slack instead of staying flexed, and Meg felt herself almost fall. She managed to catch the loose end of the rope, which had been her aim by letting go, and gathered it around herself. The end had a C-ring on the end for attachment to the winch, which was used for raising and lowering exceptionally heavy pieces, but right now there was a different purpose. Meg slapped the C-ring's clasp against the taut end of the rope and it engaged, making a loop. With only a little maneuvering, she was able to seat herself in the loop, relieving the now-agonizing pain in her hands.
'But how to get down?' she wondered. Below the scene was changing, to Monsieur Courfeyrac's first meeting with Carlotta's character. She didn't dare risk a noise, and she couldn't lower herself without some more weight to counter-balance the heavy set piece, so she was effectively trapped in the fly system. Merde!
A rustling disturbed her, and suddenly she felt strong arms close around her. Arjay? No, he did not wear gloves, did he? One gloved hand covered her mouth and Meg heard a whisper in her left ear:
"Now be very quiet. We'll fall smoothly." It was a deep, vaguely familiar voice, definitely a man's.
Meg braced herself and the man let go of the other rope he had been supporting himself with, adding his weight to Meg's against the piece. Indeed, they began to fall, but with the man's hand slowing their descent, it was more like gliding. In less time than it would take to tell it, Meg found herself back on the backstage floor, watching the man secure the rope with the C-clamp around the bar that held the pins. A second later he was gone.
"Meg!" Arjay's whisper was urgent. Meg looked at her friend and mutely gestured to the rope, thinking he was angry with her for missing a cue while she had been aloft. But the look in his eyes was fear. "Meg, that was…"
The Phantom of the Opera had struck again.