CHAPTER TEN #2
“You just never know when or where accidents will happen. What if he’d chosen not to be there at that time, in that place? Yet the poor fellow did, and his death grants us opportunity.
“That’s cold, Jago.”
“That’s entropy, and you accepted it. It’s neither good nor bad, simply fate. Like the death of an empire. Egypt falls so Greece can rise. It then falls to make way for Rome. Today, we celebrate them all. Creation grows wild in the compost of tragedy.”
Alex eyed him cautiously. “Meaning what, exactly?”
Jago put his arm around Alex’s shoulders, turning their backs on the temple and facing the palace, which rose in full illumination over the darkened gardens. “It’s too beautiful a night for this.”
“Jago?” When he got no answer, Alex slipped his arm off his shoulders and turned to face him. “You didn’t… surely?”
A conflicted look filled Jago’s eyes. “If you are one of us, then you’re the one working the magick of will here, mister director, not me.”
“Look, no more riddles!” Alex gripped Jago’s wrist. “No more bloody metaphors or grand talk about lost empires or tourists from the future. What did you do, Jago?”
“You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.” Even as Alex let go of Jago’s arm and backed away, he felt himself shaking. Whether it was with rage, fear, or the hurt of betrayal, he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps a combination of all three, or perhaps none. “You owe me the truth.”
“The truth of what? That Si-Man lost his footing on a bender, hit his head and drowned in a few inches of water in the shadow of an Egyptian temple? I hope for his sake that Anubis isn’t a theatre critic.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Can you possibly think me so malevolent? If someone meets their fate—whether it’s a self-described artist or a hustler thieving wallets from unwary fairies on a night out—it is fate.”
Paco, the hustler. Alex remembered the flashing lights, his fleeting glimpse of his broken body. “Jago? Look at me, please.”
Jago turned his head, seeming tired all of a sudden. “I don’t murder people, Alex.”
The look on Jago’s face all but crushed him, appalled that for all his pains to dissuade and deflect his questions, to explain the inner workings of a world to which Alex, in no small act of confidence, had been invited, it still had to be said aloud.
“I saw you both nights.”
“Exactly. You were with me both nights. So why even consider such a thing, my beautiful alibi?” Jago took both of Alex’s hands in his and kissed his fingers.
“Promise me, then. Put my mind at ease, if nothing else.”
“Alex...” Jago gripped his hands tighter.
“I promise you I didn’t murder those two men.
I also promise that I will have your back whenever you need me, for as long as you want me.
And, if you’ll let me, that means doing everything I can to make this damn show the best thing it can be, even over two weeks, if that’s what you want. We’ll make it happen somehow.”
“Somehow?”
“I’m powerful, not inexhaustible. Whatever transpired between the four of us tonight to create what we saw…” Jago looked up at the temple again, as if its stones might reveal an idea.
“Inexhaustible? What are you telling me?” asked Alex.
Jago said nothing, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“Right. Forget it,” Alex shook his head. “If it’s that dangerous, we’ll find another way.”
“Is that all it takes for you to give up?” Jago at last smiled at him. “We’ll make it work.”
Alex shook his head, trying to do as he was told while Jago’s revelations ran roughshod through his mind. “I just want this to be great, and I felt that for the first time tonight.”
This time, their kiss was long, passionate, and exploratory, wrapped around one another with longing.
“Why, mister director,” said Jago when their kiss finally broke. “Do you know how much fondness and admiration I have for you?”
Alex didn’t know what to say, squinting as a car’s headlights swept over them.
Jago put his hands on Alex’s cheeks, drew him close and kissed him again. “I’ll not rush you into feeling the same. Just understand that I don’t lightly share what I shared with you. I know how I feel. That is enough for now.”
Alex took Jago’s wrists and lowered them gently, unable to disguise the worry lining his face. “But if recreating what happened tonight is going to exhaust you, every night? Jago, we can’t do that.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, but remember, it might not be my power you’re drawing from.
If you are a fledgling witch, it could well be your own, meaning I’m more worried about how it’s going to affect you.
Two weeks of rehearsal, then a two-week run?
That wouldn’t be easy for either of us, to put it mildly.
How many performances a week are you planning to have? ”
Alex considered this as Jago stroked his jaw. It was a silly, almost condescending touch, but it carried such tenderness. “Is this the real reason you only wanted one night?”
“I am worried the novelty may wear off, and I do think remaining elusive has its benefits. But yes, you must also consider our durability as conduits. Frankly, Alex, I wouldn’t do this to you.”
If Jago had appealed to the temple’s stones for an idea, it was Alex who received their revelation.
The temple might still have creeped him out, still haunted him with conjured images of Si-Man’s body face down in its waters, but his heart raced too quickly to be slowed by such doubts.
Not anymore. “Then… no more rehearsals.”
“Pardon me?”
“You said it yourself, it’s better to have one glorious opening night than polished repetition.
I can’t speak for you, but what we just saw came from the most spontaneous energy I’ve ever felt in a theatre.
So, that’s what we do every night. No rehearsals, just live inspiration.
Every night will be its own opening, and once people start to talk about it… Oh, Jago, can you imagine?”
“Alex, I’m not sure this is—”
“People will come back night after night after hearing what their friends experienced, until they realise no two performances are anything alike. Who else can truly offer that? An improv group? I’d rather gouge my eyes out.”
“Alex, you’re quite literally tempting fate into our shared minds for the sake of nightly dance. Are you ready for what that might do to Joanna and Vicente, never mind us?”
Alex caught himself pacing. Jago had a point, and Alex would be damned if he put Joanna and Vis at risk for a bloody show. “Okay, how’s this? Three nights, Thursday through Saturday, six shows over two weeks. One performance each night, no encores, no matinees, no exceptions. Can we do it?”
Jago gave a slow, cautious nod. “I’d still feel more comfortable if I knew if it was my magick or yours powering the performance.”
“Jago, we need at least that to break even.”
“Let me take care of breaking even.”
“What? No.”
“Alex, let me share something I’ve learned from the greats. Artistic integrity does not allow room for pride when it comes to money.”
“Seriously, it’s too much. We’ll manage.”
“It’s not too much. I’ll wire it to you in the morning. Nobody else needs to know. See if you can bargain Maria down. She likes you, and you can pay your friends with what’s left over.”
Alex shook his head, at once floored by Jago’s kindness, in awe of the strange powers they’d barely begun to explore, and disgusted at the way in which he’d thought those powers had been used. “Why?”
Jago took his hands once more and kissed him. “Let me walk you home.”
Alex knew when his eyes were lighting up.
“Not…” Jago laughed. “I mean, yes, I’d like that too, but I have an early train in the morning.”
“A train?”
“To San Sebastián… or Donostia, as the Basques call it. Some business I need to take care of.”
“Here I thought you were going to gorge yourself on pinxtos and cava and laze by the sea.”
Jago grinned, kissing his cheek again. “That would be an experience better shared, no?”
“Like the show?”
“Hah.” Jago pushed a lock of Alex’s hair off his forehead. “It is where fate has led us.”
For much of their walk, Alex could not have asked for a better night.
A breeze from the north swept away much of the heat that had stifled the streets.
When they passed by San Ginés again, the queue of oddly dressed tourists staring into glowing devices was gone, replaced by the plump owner shutting up shop.
They crossed Gran Via into Chueca, rounding two or three more corners before Alex saw Jago pause.
A disdainful look crossed his face as he took measure of a poster for an upcoming exhibition at the Reina Sofia, showcasing Dali’s early works.
Before Alex could comment, Jago screwed up his mouth and spat hard at it, hitting Dali’s image square in the moustache, bringing an almost comical sense to the artist’s familiar, wide-eyed affect.
Jago showed little satisfaction as he took Alex’s hand again, and led them on.
Alex knew better than to ask. He waited until they were at his door before inviting Jago up one last time, knowing he would refuse.
With one final kiss, Jago was gone, leaving Alex to climb the stairs to his apartment alone, contemplating where fate had led him.
He tried to sleep, heating up some milk an hour later when he couldn’t.
He flipped through the well-thumbed book of Lorca’s poetry that sat on his coffee table.
When it fell open to a photo of the poet on its inside sleeve, he almost dropped it, for there was Jago’s face, smiling at him.
He turned away, closed his eyes, tried to shake whatever sleepy fog his brain had accumulated and looked again.
The face was almost the same. It was thicker and fuller, plumper in the cheeks.
The teeth were less perfect, more that of a provincial man who put art before any vanity—the same Lorca he’d seen in a hundred photos.
He flipped on the television, only to see the grey bars that signalled the end of another day’s programming on TVE.
Beyond a couple of short naps on the couch, sleep eluded him.
He tried to masturbate three or four times, only to have his mind replace the image of Jago’s body with that of Vicente trying to drown Joanna, or Si-Man face down in the Debod pools.
Each was a boner killer that, coupled with his exhaustion, made him nauseous.
His friends were fine, and Jago genuinely cared for him. He understood both those truths, and yet…
He returned to the kitchen, fixing himself coffee as the sun’s first rays broke over Retiro Park. By eight o’clock, he felt human enough to pick up the phone.
Vicente answered, still groggy, but far from annoyed. “Hey.”
“There’s something I need to tell you, in person, as soon as you can,” Alex blurted quietly. “And you’re not going to believe it.”