All's Well(65)

“Act Two, Scene One,” I say again. “Helen and the King.”





CHAPTER 20


ACT TWO, SCENE One. In which Helen goes to Paris to visit the King, claiming to be able to cure his illness. In which the King refuses her help—who is she to come to his court? Who is she to claim she can heal him when all others have failed? When our most learned doctors leave us, says the King. We are truly past hope now. We have given up. Do not awaken our hope, strumpet. But Helen stands firm. She says to the King, Try me, trust me. The King says, Fine, if you’re willing to die. I trust you, but if you fail, you die. Helen says absolutely she is willing to die by the rack if she fails, it’s only fair. But if I succeed, Helen says, then let me win something for my success: the right to choose my husband from among your vassals (by which she means Bertram). The King agrees to this. He puts himself in her hands. He submits to this lowborn woman. And then we, as the audience, realize how truly desperate, how truly ill, how truly vulnerable and afraid, the King really is. We also realize how powerful Helen must be, to risk her life for this. And how much she must want Bertram. It’s a scene in which everyone’s desire is laid bare and the power dynamics—between king and subject, low-and highborn—are reversed. Helen will die at the King’s hand if she fails to cure him. But the King will inevitably die if she fails too. His illness puts him at her mercy either way. It’s a dialogue that never fails to remind me of the many I’ve had with Mark, with John, with Luke, with my surgeon. All of the times they told me to trust, have faith. All the times I submitted myself to their hands. All of the times they failed. None of them was ever put to death for this. They still asked me to pay them. I was no king.

I sit in the far corner of the auditorium, away from Grace, away from everyone, watching Briana and Ellie perform this scene. Briana as the King, Ellie as Helen. I ask for the lights to be lowered, please. So Grace and the students can’t see my face as I watch Briana show me. With Briana as Helen, the first times we read this scene, it seemed it would never work. Its mediocrity, its soullessness, would keep me up nights. Briana was never convincing as someone who could heal, let alone be trusted. Nor was her pining, her desire for Bertram, believable. But as the King today, on the stage, though she can barely stand, though she’s deathly pale, she’s luminous. She has gravitas. She plays shades of emotion I’ve never seen. She brings the crackle of death and vulnerability to the King’s lines. She is distrustful of Helen. We feel she has given up hope, she dares not hope again, yet we know she has hope still. She’s capable of letting that hideous flower bloom riotously in her soul once more. We want Helen to pay with her life if she fails to heal her, absolutely. Because it would only be fair for letting the King have hope again. The King will pay with her own life after all. We feel how desperately she wants to be well. We feel her giving herself over to Helen’s will. My deed shall match thy deed. When Ellie touches Briana’s wrist, Briana flinches. She appears to look at me, right at me in my seat in the dark, which is impossible, and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I know. I know what you did to me, you bitch.

“Wow,” Grace whispers into the back of my neck. “It works.”

Yes. It does.



* * *



“Well?” Briana says from the stage when the scene is ended. “Do I get it or not?”

I gaze up at her, sitting on her throne alone now, Ellie having run off the stage to join the other students in the wings. All of them looking at Briana, who looks even paler than when she first started. Breathing more quickly through her mouth. Everyone is watching us—my face and her face. Waiting. Will I yield? Will I submit to this sickly creature?

“Everyone,” I say, smiling. “That’s good for today. We’ll see you back here Monday. Thanks.”

They all scurry off. Mumbling their goodbyes to Briana as they pass, their Glad you’re backs, to which she replies with a clipped Thanks, her ghostly face still fixed on me. Ellie tentatively tells her to take care, she hopes she’s feeling better. Briana ignores her, even as she still holds her water bottle. Trevor offers her a limp goodbye, and I feel her pointed silence from here. Trevor feels it too, apparently.

“Do you want me to stay?” he whispers.

Suddenly she clutches his hand, still looking at me. “Wait outside for me,” she says. “Drive me home.”

“Didn’t you drive yourself here?” he deigns to ask her.

She looks at him, appalled. Dare he question her? Has the yes-man grown a spine in her absence? Impossible. Still. Best not to tighten the yoke, tug on the choke chain too quickly. Best to give him the illusion of free will.

She closes her eyes as if she’s going through something.

“I don’t think I can drive myself back,” she whispers, shaking her head. As though she’s afraid for herself. It’s quite a performance. Is it a performance? I can’t tell. Neither can Trevor.

He looks over at Ellie, who walks hurriedly out of the theater with her head down. She left without her coat.

“Okay, I’ll wait for you in the hall,” he whispers, and I think, Spineless.

Briana doesn’t thank him, of course. He shuffles off, and Briana still sits there on her throne. Crooked. Unmovable. Looking at me, always looking at me. Her eyes shining with sickness and hate. And desperation, a naked longing I’ve never seen. She’s actually unsure if the part will be hers. She will not leave until I tell her whether she will be King. Even though surely she is King, isn’t she? Her performance spoke for itself, didn’t it?