[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."My dear, you and I aregoing back to Crage Hall tonight only to pack a valise.Then we're away.""But the gates'll be locked-""It's over the garden wall," said Elphaba, "and we're going to see the Wizard,come what may and hell to pay."- 205 -Boq could not believe he was heading to the Philosophy Club at last.He hopedhe wouldn't vomit at a crucial moment.He hoped he would remember the wholething tomorrow, or at least some kernel of it, despite the headache formingvengefully in the hollows at his temples.The place was discreet, though it was the best known dive in Shiz.It hid behind afacade of paneled-up windows.A couple of Apes roamed the street in front,bouncing troublemakers ahead of time.Avaric countedthe party carefully as they fell from the cab."Shenshen, Crope, me, Boq, Tibbett,Fiyero, and Pfannee.Seven.Boy how'd we all fit in the cab, could hardly fit us I'dthink." He paid the cabbie and tipped him, in some obscure homage still to AmaClutch, and then pushed to the front of the silent knot of companions."Come on,we're the right age and the right drunk," he said, and to the shadowed face at thewindow, "Seven.Seven of us, good sir."The face came forward to the glass and leered at him."The name is Yackle, andI'm not a sir nor am I good.What kind are you up to tonight, Master Fellow?"Speaking through the pane was a crone, with random teeth and a shiny white-pinkwig slipping westwards off her pearly scalp."Kind?" said Avaric, then more bravely, "Any kind.""I mean the tickets, sweetbread.Strutting and strumming on the sprung floor, orstrumpeting in the old wine cellars?""The works," said Avaric."You understand house rules? The locked doors, the if-you-pay-you-play policy?""Give us seven, and hurry up about it.We're not fools."- 206 -"You never are fools," said the beastly woman."Well, here you are then, andcome what may.Or who may." She affected a stance of virtue, like a painting of aunionist virgin saint."Enter and be saved."The door swung open, and they went down a flight of uneven brick steps.At thebottom of the flight was a dwarf in a purple burnoose.He looked at their tickets, andsaid, "Where are you soft things from? Out of town?""We're all at the university," said Avaric."A motley crew.Well, you've seven-of-diamond tickets.See here, the seven reddiamonds printed here, and here." He said, "Have a drink on the house, watch thegirlie show, and dance a little if you want.Every hour or so I close this street door andopen the next." He pointed to a huge oak door, barred with two monstrous timbers iniron hasps."You all go in together or you don't go in at all.That's the rule of thehouse."There was a chanteuse singing a send-up of "What Is Oz Without Ozma," andteasing herself with a parrot-colored feather boa.A small hand of elves-real elves!-tootled and rattled out a tinny accompaniment.Boq had never seen an elf, even though he knew there was a colony ofthem not far from Rush Margins."How weird," he said, inching forward.They lookedlike hairless monkeys, naked but for little red caps, and without any appreciable sexcharacteristics.They were as green as sin.Boq turned to say, Look, Elphie, it's like youhad a passel of babies, but he didn't see her and remembered then that she hadn'tcome.Nor had Glinda, apparently.Damn.They danced.The crowd was the most mixed Boq had seen in some time.Therewere Animals, humans, dwarfs, elves, and several tiktok things of incomplete orexperimental gender.A squadron of well-built blond boys circulated with tumblers ofrotgut squash wine, which the friends drank because it was free.- 207 -"I don't know if I want to go any more daring than this," said Pfannee to Boq atone point."I mean, look, that hussy of a Baboon is almost out of her dress.Perhaps weshould call it a night.""Do you think?" said Boq."I mean, I'm game, but if you're feeling uneasy." Ohhurrah, a way out.He was feeling uneasy himself."Well let's get Avaric.He's overthere nosing up to Shenshen."But before they could make their way across the crowded dance floor, the elvesbegan to let out a banshee screech, and the singer thrust out her hip and said, "That'sthe mating call, dollies! Ladies and gentle-friends! We're doing, and I do mean doing"-she glanced at a note in her hand-"five black clubs, three black clubs, six red hearts,seven red diamonds, and-on their honeymoon, isn't it sweet"-she simulated gagging-"two black spades.Up to the mouth of everlasting bliss, fraidies and gentlehens.""Avaric, no," said Boq.But the crone from the front, who called herself Yackle, came knocking throughthe hall-having apparently locked up the front door for the time being-and sheremembered the holders of the designated cards, and brought them forward with asmile."All rides, all riders, on the ready," she said, "here we be, at the shank end of theevening! Lighten up, lads, it's not a funeral, it's an entertainment!" It had been afuneral, Boq remembered, trying to invoke the warm, self-effacing spirit of AmaClutch.But the time to back out, if such a time existed, had passed.They were swept through the oak doors and along a slightly slopingpassage whose walls were padded in red and blue velvet.A merry tune wasplaying farther on, a dancing ragged melody.A smell of roasting timm leaves-sweetand softening, you could almost feel them turning up their purplish edges.Yackle ledthe way, and the twenty-three revelers processed, in a confused state ofapprehension, elation, and randiness.The dwarf followed behind.Boq took stock, as- 208 -best his stumbling mind could manage.An erect Tiger in hip boots and a cape.Acouple of bankers and their evening consorts, all wearing black masques: as aprotection against blackmail or as an aphrodisiac? A party of merchants from Ev andFliaan, in town on business.A couple of women rather long in the tooth, bedecked incostume jewelry.The honeymoon couple were Glikkuns.Boq hoped that his crowdwasn't gawping as much as the Glikkuns were.As he glanced around, only Avaric andShenshen looked eager-and Fiyero, possibly because he hadn't yet grasped what thiswas all about.The others looked more than a little squeamish.They entered a small dark theatre-in-the-round, with the space for the publicdivided into six stalls.Above, the ceiling was lost in a stony blackness.Tapersfluttered, and a hollow music issued through fissures in the wall, increasing anunearthly air of dislocation and otherness.The stalls circled and faced the centralstage, which was enshrouded in black drapes.The stalls were separated from oneanother by vertical strips of latticed wood and slats of mirror.All the parties werebeing mixed up, all friends and partners separated [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]