In the Shadow of Shakespeare (6 page)

They
promptly took out the book with Lord Alfred Tennyson on the cover.  There
were a number of loud
thumps
as they let the book fall onto their desks.

Alice
rolled her eyes.  “Let’s hope you exhibit a little more finesse while
reading the bard.” 

They
snickered.

Alice
gathered her skirts around her, they rustled as she walked. She sat down at her
desk. 

 “How
do you pee in that thing?”  Renita said.  The class laughed.

 “Carefully. 
Alright, everyone, please turn to page eighty five.  We will be reading
Othello
.”

 “The
play about a black man?”  Dion said.  “A black man in a
turban.”  He gazed at the picture in the book.

 “Well,
in Shakespeare’s time they would have called him a Moor, thus the title,
Othello,
the Moor of Venice
.  Shakespeare probably thought that he was from
northern Africa.   Skin color is really irrelevant.  It’s just a
human concept, a way of judging each other.  Don’t you think?”

They
looked up from their books, puzzled.

 “Nah,
it ain’t no concept Ms. Petrovka, it
everything.
”  Dion said.

 “Everything? 
How is it everything Dion?  We’re all human.  Isn’t that everything?

 “Shoot,
you know how it is.  People judge you by your color.  You
know
that.”

 “I
am not so inclined to notice if people judge me by my color because I’m
white.  I notice that people judge me by my sex though, being a
woman.” 

The
girls in the class nodded.

 “Some
of us have it doubly bad, being black and a
woman.
”  It was Kim
Reynolds who spoke.  She had a wide, shiny, black face, and wore her hair
in dreadlocks. 

 “There
are many issues in this play.  There is the issue of what it means to be
black, in Shakespeare’s time.  And also, what it means to be married to a
black man, and how one woman is treated because of it.”

 “Who’s
that?”  Renita said.

 “Desdemona,
who is married to Othello.”

Renita
shot her hand straight up.

 “Yes
Renita?”

 “I’m
playing Desdemona.”

The
class whistled and cat called.

 “Then
you
know
I’m Othello.”  Dion said.  There were louder whistles
and cat calls from the class.

 “What
makes you think that I’m assigning roles for this play?”  Alice smiled in
spite of herself.  She was pleased they were getting into it. 

 “Ms.
Petrovka, don’t be playing…naïve on us.  You know that you were going to
get us to act this thing.”  Dion leaned forward in his seat. 

 “Alright. 
You got me.  I was.” 

 “Renita,
what are you ‘doin?”   Roberto glared over at her.

 “You
know what I’m ‘
doin.
”  Renita glared back.

Roberto
stood up, knocking his desk over.  “I ain’t playin this shit.”  He
sulked towards the door and the class hissed and booed.

Alice
felt the tension press against the walls, poised to bounce back and explode.

“Roberto
wait!”  He turned at the door.

 “I
want you to play the most important character in the play.”

 “What
are you talking ‘bout Ms Petrovka?” 

 “Please
Roberto, you know if you leave you’ll be suspended again.  And there’s
nothing I can do about that.”  Her eyes pleaded with him.

Roberto
glared at her and hit the door jam with his fist.  “Then what?  What
do you want me to do about that
puta
taken my woman?  The class
jeered and Dion rose from his chair, anger straining his face.

 “Okay,
okay!  Sit down Dion!  Roberto, I want you to play Iago, he breaks
Othello and Desdemona up and gets them to kill themselves in the end.” 
She spit it out quickly, stumbling over the words as they raced out of her
mouth.

Dion
and Renita looked over at one another, shook their heads.  Roberto glared
at them, then at Alice.

 “Alright. 
I’ll do it.”

 ***

After
class, Alice peeled off her costume and hung it in the closet.  I’ll have
to be sure to tell Mercer it was a hit, she thought as a bitter smile crept
across her face.  But she wasn’t sure her introduction to Shakespeare was
quite the hit she wanted it to be.  It seemed too explosive, letting the
three some involved in a love triangle play the parts of Othello, Desdemona, and
Iago. 
Maybe they will learn something from it all.  Maybe they
will realize how literature can help you figure things out. 
She swung
the car keys in her hand, trying to content herself with these thoughts.

She
pulled up to the public library well past five.  Since it was Friday it
was relatively quiet, few cars were in the parking lot.  Alice often went
here to gather her thoughts, sort things out.  The place was full of
knowledge and wisdom and it had a warm comforting feel to it.  When things
seemed chaotic in her life, it was here Alice went to look for answers and
meditate amongst the quiet volumes.  They never told her anything – never
lectured.  When she needed advice she would delve into a text, or pull one
open haphazardly, searching for an answer. 

Today
she was on a mission.

She
pulled the heavy doors open and entered the library.  It was dark and
quiet inside. Slowly climbing the stairs to the second floor she thought about
how the events in her dream had paralleled those in the Marlowe’s poem. 
She had had the dream before she had read “Hero and Leander.”  Shouldn’t
it have been the other way around?  

She
went to the computer terminal and typed in the name Christopher Marlowe, and
for the next hour she pulled books from the library shelves, looking for
anything that might be able to shed light on what she was feeling inside.

She
placed her stack of volumes on the desk in front of the window looking out on a
flower garden.  The cherry trees were filled with blossoms and a bevy of
yellow daffodils were in full bloom.  The flower beds were gracefully
designed towards a center fountain where a water nymph held a vase in her hand
from which water poured.  Late afternoon light descended on the garden and
the shadows began to grow long among the trees, catching the light between the
leaves as they softly blew in the breeze. 

A
man and a woman entered the garden and stood by the fountain.  The woman
had long dark hair –
like mine
, Alice thought, unconsciously bringing
her hand to her head, she felt the small braids, continuing along the side of
head, joined in the back by a cluster of pearls. 
Geez, I forgot to
take this stuff out.
 The couple embraced then stood apart gazing at
each other.  The man put his hand on the small of the woman’s back and
drew her to him.  They began kissing.
Spring love. 
Alice
smiled and turned towards her books. 

She
read Calvin Hoffman’s careful account of all the parallelisms he had drawn
between Marlowe and Shakespeare – sentences and phrasing that were similar
between both writers – often identical.   How Hoffman believed that
Marlowe’s death in Deptford had been faked and that Marlowe was the true author
of all the plays and sonnets that had been attributed to the man known as
William Shakespeare. 

She
read about the account of the death, of the coroner’s inquest.  How silly
it all sounded.   Four men had strolled in a garden outside of
Eleanor Bull’s rooming house.  They had supper inside, and Marlowe had
argued over the bill with the men and attacked one of them with a knife, and
was in turn stabbed in the eye and killed in self defense. 

Engrossed
in her reading, Alice barely noticed that it began storming outside. 
There was a crash of thunder and she lifted her eyes from the page.  The
man had pulled his jacket off and was holding it over his companion’s head. The
couple ran laughing from the garden.

Alice
began comparing Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” to Marlowe’s “Hero and
Leander,” and noticed how similar they were. 

She
then turned to the sonnets and was struck by the sadness, the fear, and the
shame of being an outcast permeating the poems.  And of the longing for
love – for one love.   She felt as she never read them before.

During
the course of her reading she felt a strange sense of Déjà vu.  Her eyes
strayed to a picture of Marlowe on the cover of book she had put aside. 
It
is you, isn’t it?

Calm
descended upon the library.  The storm had stopped.  Alice continued
reading.

Since
brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But
sad mortality o’ersways their power,

How
with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose
action is no stronger than a flower?

She
was reminded of the Blake poem, about “heaven in a wild flower,” of the madness
of swirling space, and of this thing called time.  She thought of Bernie
and the strange physics of quantum mechanics. 

Attention
library patrons, the library will be closing in fifteen minutes.  Please
check out all materials at the front desk.  Thank you.

Alice
stretched in her chair, yawned, and looked out the window. 

It
was there she saw him.  He stood in the mist by the lilac bush, holding a
flower.  He held it to his nose, then, up to her.  Smiling, he cocked
his head, as if beckoning her.  Then vanished.

Alice’s
face went slack with astonishment and her mouth dropped open.  Later, she
would remember her reaction and how silly it seemed.

The
chair crashed in back of her as she stood.  She ran past the research
librarian who shot her a puzzled look.

 “Ma’am?”

Taking
the stairs in leaps and bounds she jumped from the last three.  She ran
towards the door and threw it open, flying into a sticky, humid air that clung
to her skin and wet her hair. 

She
scanned the garden, saw the lilac, and ran over.  Nothing.  He had
vanished into thin air.  She turned around and around then circled the
garden.  I’m crazy, Alice thought.  Plumb crazy. 
They will
all say I have gone off the deep end.

She
walked back to the lilac where she had seen him.  Her feet were soaked and
she glanced down at her tennis shoes.  There, by her feet, was a small,
delicate flower – a white and red rose.    Her heart began
thumping, then pounding in her chest.  She carefully picked it up and
placed it gently in her palm. 

 ***

Driving
home Alice glanced at her watch; it was almost six.  Sighing, she realized
she would never get over to the campus quick enough.  She would have to
content herself until the morning when she could get a hold of the botanist.

Pulling
into the parking lot she noticed that Albert’s jeep was gone.  Odd, she thought. 
She unlocked the door and noticed a note on the kitchen table.  Before she
even looked at it, she pulled a sandwich bag from the drawer and carefully
placed the tiny flower into it.  She then placed the rose in the
refrigerator on top of the butter dish.

She
grabbed the phone book and dialed the number for the botany department at the
university.  As the phone rang she picked up the note from the kitchen
table.

Darling,

Had
a conference I forgot to tell you about.  Had to fly to Houston for the
annual transpersonal psychology blah dee dah. Be home by Mon. 

Love,

Albert

Great,
just great.
 
Alyce chucked the note in trash canister.  It was overflowing.  He
needed to pull more of weight around here, she thought.  She was getting
sick and tired of doing all the chores around the house on the weekend.

 “Botany
department.”

 “Hello,
I was wondering if I could get someone to identify a flower that I found.”

Silence
on the other end.  Alice wondered if they had heard her. 

 “Well…What
is it?”

 “It
looks like some kind of rose.”

 “Is
it wild?”

 “Ah…I
really don’t know.”

 “Only
do wild stuff.  Try horticulture.”   The person hung up. 
Alice listened to the sound of phone buzz in her ear.

She
dialed the number again.

 “Hello?”

 “You
didn’t give me the number to horticulture"

“Did
you ask?”

Alice
waited patiently.  Wrote down the number.  Hung up the phone. 
Crazy
plant people.

 “Hello,
Hort Department.  Can I help you?”

 “I
have a flower I need to identify.  I think it’s some kind of rose.”

 “Sure. 
I can meet with you tomorrow, first thing.  Say around ten?”

 “That
sounds fine.”

 “Oh
wait – is it wild, or a cultivar?