Back on stage, Ernu issued a dignified appeaclass="underline" “Théodore, you have never ceased to be my friend—” But no sooner had he begun than Théodore cut him off. What followed was a truly rousing speech that left a silence of rare intensity in its wake — such as rarely happens in the theater — broken finally by a salvo of applause, which, while impassioned, proved remarkably brief, as if those applauding suddenly felt they’d been too bold and so fell silent.
Because of its length and complexity, it wasn’t possible for any of us to transcribe this speech. And, although pressing a single button would have sufficed, our sound technician did not record it. This is much to be regretted, but here too there can be no question of assigning blame — he had to be ready to receive orders from Flavy at any moment. Of course, this didn’t prevent us from trying to reconstruct at least a few of the finer phrases from Théodore’s speech. I recall one that hit its mark with particular force, when the President addressed his former friend with excessive familiarity and was rebuffed by Théodore’s declaring that such terms were not appropriate. He was not, after all, speaking to a fellow prison guard.
“Lowly innocence faced with exalted tyranny—” This play on words — not at all in the style of Marcel Flavy — seemed to energize the Usurper. And it was, in fact, this line that served as a transition into an extended accusation centered around the following riddle: “What poor animal with thousands of heads moves on thousands of legs in the morning, half that many at midday, and on only two in the evening?”
The trenchant solution — given without leaving Ernu time to offer it up himself (presuming, of course, that he was capable of doing so) — was, “the Republic!” The Republic began its day in Edenic democracy, found itself weakened by division at midday, and spent its evening on the despotic legs of a single individual. Soufissis specified that two legs were woefully insufficient to support the weight of thousands of heads and that they might come crashing down — and soon! — onto their inept porter.
This, at last, proved too much for Jean-François Ernu. No longer able to find the energy to respond, and as if fulfilling his opponent’s riddling prophecy, he chose, of his own accord, to descend the winding stair of unconsciousness. After acting out a dawning stupefaction dosed with a measure of belatedly realized guilt, he succumbed to the Usurper’s verbal blow. He put his hand on his heart and, without word, complaint, or cry, slid to the floor, KO’d, theatrically dead.
At this moment, Sylvestre Pascal-Bram, in the role of advisor, threw himself bravely into the breach, improvising a declaration of everlasting fidelity to his fallen master. The Usurper seemed to abandon the rigid mantle of moral superiority and congratulated Pascal-Bram — not without irony — on his fidelity. Nevertheless, the rebel then enjoined the deputy to depart immediately, so as to leave him alone with this “fallen nothing.” Soufissis told the audience that he would now do the only thing one could do with such a President — one who absents himself when most needed. He, Théodore, was going to eat him. Immediately. Preferably without witnesses. Soufissis removed a switchblade from his pocket, which swung open with a sinister click. Leaving his scruples on stage, Sylvestre Pascal-Bram exited.
Soufissis’s repetition of the phrase, “I’m going to eat him,” spoken while baring his teeth and brandishing his knife, coupled with the inert body lying in front of him, was less ridiculous than frankly unsettling. Strange as it might seem to heads and hearts that have since cooled, many of those present who were able to gauge the liberties already taken now assumed the threat was somehow real. It even occurred to me for a moment that the stranger was perhaps, in real life, the sworn enemy of Jean-François Ernu and had chosen to take advantage of this situation to conclude his dark business.
Left alone with what remained of the President, Théodore Soufissis cast a long, contemptuous look at the inert body. He showed, however, no immediate intention of acting out his threat. Instead, he launched into a monologue on how Power — with a capital P — infects generosity, comparing it to a particularly inviting but poisonous mushroom. Then, as if suddenly aware of his excessive grandiloquence, he gave his metaphorical mushroom more concrete form, speaking of derisory lycoperdons, also known as puffballs, an image meant to denounce, he said, “power with a little—very little—p.” Here and elsewhere, the Usurper did not shy away from authorial interjections — comments that seemed less appropriate to his character than to some unseen playwright. While the real usurped author didn’t especially care for these digressions, they seemed to find favor with the audience.
Backstage, our unease had settled a bit. Our inactivity approached stasis. Flavy was too fascinated to give clear orders, I myself was cowed by how enthralled Flavy had become, Boehlmer was unconscious, and Annie Soulemenov had disappeared. The stage manager retained his unflagging cool and customary efficiency, but wouldn’t venture beyond the bounds of his preassigned responsibilities — which, all things considered, was probably for the best, since this, at least, didn’t add to the already very significant disorder. Anxious calls were coming from the control booth, to which Flavy replied, “Nobody panic! Nobody do anything! Just take care of the lighting!”
But the lighting was not enough.
Ultimately, it was Pauline who saved the day. The extraordinary manner in which she did so, however, requires some explanation. And a few supplementary details. When first trying on her costume, she had voiced strong reservations concerning the dress created for her by Sylvie Plumkett, and which — she felt — failed to take sufficient account, and advantage, of her legs. She was heard to remark that a costume designer could not dress all her actresses as though they shared the designer’s own figure — a remark that Ms. Plumkett, as you might imagine, did not take at all well. In particular, Pauline objected to two elements that she claimed sapped her character’s strength — her black stockings, and the excessive length of her skirt (which was, I should say, not all that long). On this evening, however, thanks to the fact that nothing else was going according to plan, and with a decisiveness that suggested premeditation, Pauline removed her stockings and hitched up her skirt a good eight inches (from the waist, that is: rolling the skirt and fixing it with paperclips). The result was that her diminutive backside was significantly more present — although still, strictly speaking, covered — and her long legs were, as even Flavy conceded, considerably leggier.
Having effected these modifications, Pauline marched onto the stage without further ado, interrupting the Usurper’s monologue and perhaps even believing that she was saving Ernu from being devoured. A wave of emotion went through the theater. Pauline was stunning. Flavy, however, had one reservation. He felt that, because of the excessive pallor of her legs, Pauline was the only thing one could see on stage. “She needed something. Makeup. Or a tan. They looked like ivory, right off an elephant, in that light. Like ice!” he was to blurt out later.
Coldness, however, wasn’t the impression made on the stranger, who didn’t have to be asked twice to attend to the newly arrived streetwalker. What happened next was exceptional, extraordinary, having nothing — and I do mean nothing — to do with Flavy’s play. Théodore — or the Usurper, since at this point we really were in no position to say where one stopped and the other started — put his hand into his pocket and produced a handful of bills (large denominations). He then slid them, with a passion bordering on violence, into the waistband of the prostitute — or Pauline, we were now just as much at sea with her as with him. She found herself doubly surprised: first by his impulsive gesture, and then by the fact it didn’t bother her.