Read Online Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja - Free Book Online

glass is empty. When the brown-haired maid brings their dinner—rare beef and mashed turnips, heavy cream and cheese, the fine Bordeaux—Rupert sends her back down for the bottle, sits drinking all throughout the meal as the other two watch him covertly, measure one another, eat and pretend to enjoy a chat: about the theatre, about the continent, about the stickpin worn by Jürgen Vidor, a golden snake shaped like a question mark, a fat black pearl caught in its fangs: “The Questioning Serpent,” he says, touching it fondly. “Disraeli had one just like it, I understand, brought back from the Ottomans.”
    “Oh, I love the Bosporus.”
    When the meal is finished at last, Jürgen Vidor invites them to take the air, offers cigars but “An early night for me, I’m afraid,” says Istvan. “My puppets took a bit of a beating yesterday—they need refreshment, like any actors. And a sponging.”
    He makes a comic face, and Jürgen Vidor smiles: “I very much look forward to seeing them again. Seeing you, that is, upon the boards.… Please,” proffering from an ebony card case a snowy calling card, beautifully engraved. “Henceforth consider me a patron of your work, messire.”
    “Too kind,” says Istvan, rising with an actor’s grace, a grave and courteous bow. He tucks the card carefully into his pocket. “I am deeply aware of the honor you do me, and can hardly hope to extend the same to you, but,” taking from his waistcoat, what? a bead? no, a button, no, a wooden eyeball, dry and staring and terribly blue and “I shall keep an eye upon you, sir,” he says, and bows again, “in the hopes that I will see you again.”
    “A—singular memento. Many thanks.”
    Rupert rises, now; Jürgen Vidor’s gaze flicks from him to Istvan and back again, a serpent’s tongue. His smile widens, overripe. “You retire early as well, Rupert?”
    “I wish that were so.” Rupert’s voice is flat and too precise. He seems to be staring at a grease spot on the wallpaper. “Duty calls.”
    “Ah, the happy demands of industry. And Miss Decca. Tender her my best regards, yes?” and they all shake hands, the two out the door and down the staircase and “When the devil falls in love,” says Istvan. “It’s the whip, am I right?”
    “Don’t speak to me. Don’t say another word. You and your fucking toys.”
    Together in silence they cross the lobby, step into the chilly muck of the streets. The main avenue lies dark beneath guttering street-lamps, torches tossed and flickered by the wind that blows straight from the forest and the hills, spooking the waiting carriage-horses, rattling the thin tin signs. The doors of the livery are stoutly bolted, as is the cooperage, and the greengrocer’s, the wine parlors and the bakery; the seamstress’ shop sits abandoned, its curtained window cracked to the sill.
    The avenue vendors have disappeared until daylight, taking their cups and sandwich boards, their trinkets and trays; the streets have emptied into the taverns, piss-puddled and hectic with smoke and noise, a hurdy-gurdy grinding out an ancient drinking song. Soldiers loiter everywhere: by the hotel and the mercantile, the silent bank, abusing the beggars who flee their approach, clustering outside the Europa and the Palais, trying to see inside: dirty hands and young faces, weapons bright and new. At the Alley’s mouth a small band of immigrants, round hats and grubby work boots, take muttered counsel, perhaps pooling their resources to hire one of the flock of tired whores; they smell of beer and field-tobacco. At the door of the Gaiety Theatre two men in top hats argue loudly, while a third, older, stoop-shouldered, stands waiting with folded arms.
    Just beyond the doctor’s storefront, shared with the midwife who lives above, two shadows, boys loitering in the windbreak corner, jump out like jacks-in-the-box upon Rupert and Istvan in their silent passage. One sticks a knife to Rupert’s neck, a hunter’s