'It doesn't matter,' Rafiel said absently, slipping into his tap shoes.
'It does to me! You know how I am about authenticity.'
Seeing what Rafiel was doing Mosay hastily turned to touch the control keys again. Victorium's overture began to tinkle from the hidden sound system. 'C'est beau, le son? It's just a synthesizer arrangement so far.'
'It's fine,' said Rafiel.
'Are you sure? Well, bon. Now, bitte, do you want to think about how you want to do the first big scene? That's the one where you're onstage with all the townspeople. They'll be the chorus. You're waiting to find out what news your brother-in-law, Creon, has brought back from the Delphic oracle; he went to find out what you had to do to get things straightened out in Thebes....'
'I've read the script, of course,' said Rafiel, who had in fact finished scrolling through it at breakfast.
'Of course you have,' said Mosay, rebuked. 'So I'll let you alone while you try working out the scene, shall I? Because I want to start checking out shooting locations tomorrow, and so I've got a million things to do today.' 'Go and do them,' Rafiel bade him. When the dramaturge was gone Rafiel lifted his voice and commanded: 'Display text, scene one, from the top. With music.'
The tinkling began again at once, and so did the display of the lines. The words marched along the upper parts of the walls, all four walls at once so that wherever Rafiel turned he saw them. He didn't want to dance at this point, he thought. Perhaps just march back and forth - yes, remembering that the character was lame - yes, and a king too, all the same.... He began to pantomime the action and whisper the words of his part:
CHORUS: Ecco Creon, crowned with laurels.
'He's going to say,' Rafiel half-sang in his turn, 'what's wrong's our morals.'
[Enter CREON.]
CREON: D 'accord, but I've still worse to follow.
It's not me speaking. It's Apollo.
Rafiel stopped the crawl there and thought for a second. There were some doubts in his mind. How well was that superstitious mumbo-jumbo going to work? You couldn't expect a modern audience to take seriously some mumble from a priestess. On the other hand, and equally of course, Oedipus had not been a modern figure. Would he have taken it seriously? Yes, Rafiel decided, he had to, or else the story made no sense to begin with. In playing Oedipus, then, the most he could do was to show a little tolerant exasperation at the oracle's nagging. So he started the accompaniment again, and mimed a touch of amused patience at Creon's line, turning his head away And caught a glimpse of an intruder watching him rehearse from the doorway.
It was a small, unkempt-looking young man in a lavender kilt. He was definitely not anyone Rafiel had seen as a member of Mosay's troupe and therefore no one who had a right to be here. Rafiel gave him a cold stare and decided to ignore him.
He realized he'd missed a couple of Creon's lines, and his own response was coming up. He sang:
OEDIPUS: We'll take care of all this hubble-bubble as
Soon as you tell us what the real trouble is.
But his concentration was gone. He clapped his hands to stop the music and turned to scowl at the intruder.
Who advanced to meet him, saying seriously, 'I hope I'm not interfering. But on that line-'
Rafiel held up a forbidding hand. 'Who are you?'
'Oh, sorry. I'm Charlus, your choreographer. Mosay said-'
'I do my own choreography!'
'Of course you do, Rafiel,' the man said patiently. 'You're Rafiel. I shouldn't have said choreographer, when all Mosay asked me to do was be your assistant. Do you remember me? From when you did Make Mine Mars, twenty years ago it must have been, and I tried out for the chorus line?'
Then Rafiel did identify him, but not from twenty years ago. 'You sired Docilia's little one.'
Charlus looked proud. 'She told you, then? Evvero. We're both so happy - but, look, maestro, let me make a suggestion on that bubble-as, trouble-is bit. Suppose....'
And the man became Oedipus on the spot, as he performed a simultaneous obscene gesture and courtly bow, ending on one knee.
Rafiel pursed his lips, considering. It was an okay step. No, he admitted justly, it was more than that. It wasn't just an okay step, it was an okay Rafiel step, with just a little of Rafiel's well-known off-balance stagger as the right knee bumped the floor.
He made up his mind. 'Khorashaw,' he said. 'I don't usually work with anybody else, but I'm willing to give it a try.'
'Spasibo, Rafiel,' the man said humbly.
‘De nada. Have you got any ideas about the next line?'
Charlus looked embarrassed. 'Hai, sure but est-ce possible to go back a little bit, to where you come in?'
'My first entrance, at the beginning of the scene?'
Charlus nodded eagerly. 'Right there, pensez-vous we might try something real macho? You are a king, after all and you can enter like....'
He turned and repeated Oedipus's entrance to the hall, but slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, with his head rocking and a ritualistic, high-stepping strut and turn before he descended sedately to a knee again. It was the same finish as the other step, but a world different in style and meaning.
Rafiel pursed his lips. 'I like it,' he said, meditating, 'but do you think it really looks, well, Theban? I'd say it's peutetre basically Asian - maybe Thai?'
Charlus looked at him with new respect. 'Close enough. It's meno o mino the Javanese patjak-kulu movement. Am I getting too eclectic for you?'
Rafiel acknowledged, 'Well, I guess I'm pretty eclectic myself.'
'I know,' said Charlus, smiling.
While Charlus was showing the mincing little gedruk step he thought would be good for Jocasta, Mosay looked in, eyebrows elevated in the obvious question.
Charlus was tactful. 'I've got to make a trip to the benjo,' he said, and Rafiel answered the unspoken question as soon as the choreographer was gone.
'Mind his helping out? No, I don't mind, Mosay. He's no performer himself, but as a choreographer, hai, he's good.' Rafiel was just. The man was not only good, he was bursting with ideas. Better still, it was evident that he had watched every show Rafiel had ever done, and knew Rafiel's style better than Rafiel did himself.
‘Bene, bene,’ Mosay said with absent-minded satisfaction. 'When you hire the best people you get the best results. Oh, and senti, Rafiel' - remembering, as he was already moving toward the door - 'those messages you forwarded to me? A couple of them were personal, so I routed them back to your machine. They'll be waiting for you. Continuez, mes enfants.' And a pat on the head for the returning Charlus and the dramaturge was gone, and they started again.
It was hard work, good work, with Rafiel happy with the way it was going, but long work, too; they barely stopped to eat a couple of sandwiches for lunch, and even then, though not actually dancing, Rafiel and Charlus were working with the formatting screen, moving computer-generated stick figures about in steps and groupings for the dance numbers of the show, Rafiel getting up every now and then to try a step, Charlus showing an arm gesture or a bob of the head to finish off a point.
By late afternoon Rafiel could see that Charlus was getting tired, but he himself was going strong. He had forgotten his hospital stay and was beginning to remember the satisfactions of collaboration. Having a second person help him find insights into the character and action was a great plea- sure, particularly when that person was as unthreatening as the eager and submissive Charlus. 'So now,' Rafiel said, towelling some sweat away, 'we're up to where we've found out that Thebes won't get straight until the assassin of the old king is found and punished, right? And this is where I sing my vow to the gods-'