Kathe Koja - Under the Poppy: a novel

Under the Poppy

a novel

Kathe Koja

Small Beer Press

Easthampton, MA

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed

in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

Copyright 2010 by Kathe Koja. All rights reserved.

www.kathekoja.com | www.underthepoppy.com

Mercury Dressing from Mercury Dressing: Poems by J.D. McClatchy, copyright 2009 by J.D. McClatchy.

Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

Small Beer Press

150 Pleasant Street #306

Easthampton, MA 01027

www.smallbeerpress.com

info@smallbeerpress.com

Distributed to the trade by Consortium.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Koja, Kathe.

Under the poppy : a novel / Kathe Koja. -- 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-931520-70-6 (alk. paper)

I. Title.

ps3561.o376u53 2010

813.54--dc22

2010025912

First edition 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Text set in ITC Caslon.

Paper edition p rinted on 30% recycled paper by Thomson-Shore of Dexter, MI.

Cover design by Base Art Co.

Cover photograph by Jonas Jungblut.

Author photo Rick Lieder 2010.

To Chris, for the trade

And to Jane, who gave me the room.

But suddenly he disappears,

As so much else has down the years...

Until I feel him deep inside

The emptiness, preoccupied.

from Mercury Dressing, J. D. McClatchy

ACT ONE

THE FLOWERS OF THE STREET

The room is small but chilly, the coal grate piled low. At the table together, scarlet damask and black tea, her shining pince-nez, his cheroot: Rupert with the nights receipts, Decca the months accounts: Adderley was here again? Her pens steel nib makes a disapproving sound, scratch-scratch. Was it for Lucy? Sometimes I think she tries to fall ill, tries to ferret out the most diseased

Not Lucy. He dwarfs the dainty duchess chair, its carved arms and wan petit-point roses: long legs, tight-squared shoulders, the sober frock coat and glass-polished boots of a prosperous undertaker. Black hair to his collar, a deep groove between his eyes, at odds with his young mans face. Omar. An abscess.

Then Omar can pay for the doctor himself, next time. Or switch to the spoon. Fox-colored hair piled high, secured with silver combs; on her violet silk breast are several pins, pinked topaz, opal, silver-gilt, and, pinned inside her bodice, a miniature blue eye in a circle of gold, a lovers eye, far more opulent than the others. More tea? She pours without waiting for an answer. He takes the whiskey glass instead, he rubs his forehead. Your head. Call Vera, let her see to you.

Fucking doesnt ease a headache.

It relieves tension.

I am not tense.

Lips parted to dispute this, she closes them again. Scratch-scratch. The fire screen in the parlor wants replacing, the carpet there is fairly scorched through.

Mmm.

Did we do well tonight? She glances briefly at the door. It seemed a thin crowd when I was on the floor.

Well enough, considering.

She glances toward the door again. Redgrave was in early, I saw him sporting with Pearl.

Yes. What do you look at?

Nothing. And then both hear it, the noise of commotion past the muted hum and thump of the dwindled downstairs crowd, the upstairs rooms: a girls voice, Pearls voice, high in protestNo, sir! Stop! Sir! Not playactingthe heat of actual distress as Rupert stubs out his cheroot, Decca half rising: Let Omar deal with it. Rupert, let Omar

but bald Omar is already at that door, half-bandaged arm, rapping with the truncheons handle: Hey! All square in there, Pearl?

A smothered cry from within as another door opens, a vexed and peering guest from the Blue Room across the hall, the whore Lucy behind him, trying to jockey him back inside. Decca arrives, hand outstretched in futile warding, as Rupert turns the knob, Omar at his shoulder

to peer through the guttering darkness, no candles, just a dim and flickering tallow light, and see the whore Pearl, wide-eyed and bare, trying to claw up the wall and away from a lean-muscled man in a white plague mask and a lumpy, determined dwarf, still half-dressed, who appear to be assaulting her simultaneously: the dwarfs arm is aiming up her back passage, the man is pounding at her front and What harm? Omar says, looking to Rupert stilled a step past the threshold as They didnt pay for two! cries Pearl. The little one, he didnt pay!

Rupert nods, one step closer through the cloaking dark as Omar grasps the dwarf by the neckHey, messirebut No! shrieks the dwarf, a high and terrible voice, though his ugly head lies flaccid in Omars grasp, black hair and rolling eyes staring backward at the three of them, like a felon pursued to ground. No, no! Dont make me stop, shes tight as a virgin!

Lets go, messire! as the masked man still pounds busily away, long hair slapping his naked back, Omar tugging at the dwarf, tugging harder and Jesu! Omars shout as the dwarfs head pops loose into his hand, pink blood spurting across the sheets, he throws the head from him with a curse and Pearl goes mad, the hideous half-clothed body still attached to her by its arm, its hand still jammed inside as Rupert reaches, grabs a leg and pulls

and stumbles backward from the force as the masked man shouts with laughter, as Rupert flings the body to the floor, stares at the bed, at the man on the bed, who tugs aside his mask and Shhh, he says sweetly to Pearl, who is retching now into the sheets beside him. Shhh, its just a toy.

Its a God damned puppet, Omar cries.

Hello, Rupert, the naked man says.

Silence, blank and dead until the boom of Omars laugh, aghast, relieved, Pearl wipes her mouth on the sheet as Rupert stares at the man, a stare like a blow, turns viciously on his heel and leaves the room and Alls well, Decca says to the watchers in the hallway, half a dozen peering and unnerved, Vera and Jennie and Vladimir, their tricks and johnsuntil Lucy starts laughing, Lucy from the Blue Room laughing and clapping and Bravo! she cries, and the others relax into shrugs: Why, it was just a joke, a show, just another peculiar amusement at the Poppy, no cause for anyones concern.

Decca turns, peremptory, to Omar: Go fetch Velma, have her change the linen in here. Take her too, yes, as the nude and trembling Pearl climbs to her feet. And you , sharp in their departure, as the door shuts decently behind them, as the unmasked man retrieves his fallen accomplice, setting the head politely on a chair, oh you imbecile, helpless and smiling, crossing the room to gather him into her arms.

Lucy

So I am working this man, you see, watching the little clock by the bed frame, I aim for just six minutes and no more to do the job. Which is what they pay for really, those six minutes, no matter how long the business really takes. Umphf-umphf -umphf , hes a fat one, fat jelly roll underneath me, I dont like the fat ones usually, theyre much harder to bring on. But sometimes you get lucky, sometimes they swoon, and you can go through their pockets while they catch their wind. Sometimes they even die. Last month one died on Vera, she was milking his prick and boom, he fell right over on his face. Their hearts give out, you see, because of the fat.

This one, he wants a fairy tale, he wants me to pretend Im an angel from heaven, whistle like a canary and wear little white wings on my back. All right, I dont mind, the feathers itch but he pays extra so I get extra. They always want you to pretend to be something, act out some sort of play; thats why they come here, to the Poppy.

So there I am, an angel fucking a fat man and thinking maybe Ill be lucky and he will die and I can pilfer him before Omar or Decca get there, especially Decca. Omar I could bribe, hes still friend enough to take money or a handful of snuff or dope to keep his mouth shut. But what he really wants is to be a manager, stop sleeping in the back rooms, start sleeping With Decca? I say to him, you want that cold cunt wrapped around you at night? And he laughs. I think what he wants mainly is to be Mr. Rupert, but thatll never happen. Omar works hard, yes, downstairs and upstairs, but he likes the drink and the snuff and even, sometimes, the needle, he likes to take Pearl, or Jennie, or both of them together. He likes his fun, does Omar. So he could never run a place like the Poppy, not the way Mr. Rupert does.