Illyria by Elizabeth Hand Page A

His voice echoed from the rafters, so piercing and full of heartbreak I felt as if that burning wire had been thrust into my skull. When he finished, he stepped backward and gave a small, plaintive bow, then straightened as, slowly at first, then with the sudden irrevocable rush of water flooding a broken building, the place erupted into applause.
    "Holy fuck," someone behind me breathed.
    I couldn't speak. I stood beside the curtain and peeked out into the audience.
    People were still applauding--jocks, mostly, all fired up with the beer they'd snuck into the auditorium. I saw Mr. Sullivan with Sister Mary Clark beside him, whispering in his ear. A few rows behind them were my parents and sister, who seemed to have reverted to some sort of racial memory of how to behave at the theater. They held their mimeographed programs and clapped and appeared enthusiastic, if bemused: as though they'd suddenly awakened here, fully dressed,
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    and were trying very hard not to draw attention to themselves.
    But Rogan's mother looked strained and unsure how to react. I saw her glance furtively at the people sitting next to her, who beamed and nodded, while Aunt Pat kept her hands poised just above her lap.
    Meanwhile, Rogan's father stared stony-eyed at the stage, not even looking at Rogan but beyond him, as though someone else were to blame for what he'd just witnessed. My skin prickled and I took a step backward, then told myself that was stupid, there was no way he could see me through the curtain. I continued to search the audience until I found Aunt Kate.
    "Don't miss your cue," someone hissed at me.
    I nodded but didn't move. My mouth went dry; I felt as I had in those terrible moments before the curtains first parted.
    Because Aunt Kate was weeping. Not wiping at the corners of her eyes, as I'd seen her do during a performance of King Lear, or crying demurely as she did at a sad movie, or even staring stoic and wet faced as she did at Tierney funerals.
    Now she was bent almost double as her body heaved with sobs. Even from backstage I could see how her face had gone dead white. Her eyes and mouth were red slits, like the openings in a mask. She looked as though she were having a seizure or a heart attack; but before I could move, the stage manager grabbed my arm and pushed me toward the stage.
    "For chrissakes, you're on!"
    It was all a blur after that. Love scene, swordplay, mad scene, reconciliation: all flickered around me, a slide show glimpsed through a fever dream--until the play's last moments.
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    Everyone exited, save Feste. He stood alone, the stage dark except for a single thin followspot that picked out his face: the white makeup smudged, the rouge gone from his cheeks and lips. Only his eyes were more brilliant than ever, blazing aquamarine as he tilted his chin toward the light and sang.
    "When that I was and a little tiny boy,
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
    A foolish thing was hut a toy,
    For the rain it raineth every day."
    I stood with everyone else backstage and watched. Our curtain calls were forgotten, the audience was forgotten. Rogan himself was gone. There was only song and light, and the dust swirling around him in a nimbus of gold and black. As though he'd given voice to it; as though he'd given voice to all of us, and we would flicker back into darkness when he fell silent.
    "But when I came, alas, to wive,
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
    By swaggering could I never thrive,
    For the rain it raineth every day."
    I didn't know I was crying, until Malvolio gasped and pulled me to him. Dimly I grew aware of other sounds backstage, muffled sobs and breathing. Someone else put their hands on my shoulders. Not to
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    comfort me; more the way a scared child reaches for an adult in the night.
    "A great while ago the world begun,
    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
    But that's all one, our play is done,
    And we'll strive to please you every day."
    The followspot wavered as Rogan raised his hands.