them, he’d probably be down there anyway. Max told him not to bother. He then dragged Sarah along Forty-second Street past the hobos and the destitute. Her fur coat like a shield. Whores lined the streets, stationed like soldiers, jockeying position to be closer to casino doors. Through the muck of the street, and the rotten smell of the gutters, where each open doorway smelled of either liquor or vomit. He held her tight. Protecting her. But her gait was soft and easy, and she wasn’t bothered at all. Max had thanked god that they were not in Paris or London because there the diva would have been instantly recognized, and while he would have insisted on a cat-and-mouse escape, she would have stopped and bathed in the celebrity, touching hands and thanking them until she stumbled home drunk from adulation. But here, a month before opening night on her first American tour, she was just another faceless shadow, without the incessant publicity of the promoter. They took the Second Avenue El as instructed, rising high above the city in a tremolo of steel industry, the rattling vibrating his nerves while she peered out the window in excitement at the city below her. They got off at Canal Street lost and feeling especially foreign. He held her can of dope. She held his hand. Feeling exclusively endangered, they walked up past Centre Street. Max flagged down a motorized taxi and crawled into the buggy, shouting directions to the driver seated above them. “Take us somewhere where we can eat,” Max said, leaving it at that. The hack tooled around until he stopped abruptly and called out, “Mott Street. Can’t do better than this,” knowing full well what two poshees were doing in Chinatown after sunset. He wished them good luck as he accepted the fare and reminded them of the tip. Once out of the car they were surrounded by the bustle of Chinatown. Overwhelmed by the sweet greasy smell of roasted duck, spent tobacco, and the bitterness of burning opium. Two Europeans spotlighted against the blackened street, oblivious to the gang wars and yellow peril that the newspapers warned about. They walked aimlessly up the sidewalks, pushing through the hordes of Chinese, looking for someplace to sneak into and smoke down their stash in peace. Coming around the corner Max saw the stagehand, who waved when he greeted them. “If this isn’t a coincidence,” the young boy said. “Something tells me you’re not here to eat.”
Sarah smiled from habit.
Max took him by the arm and pulled the boy in closer for a whisper. “And neither do you. Especially judging by your bloodshot eyes. Did you follow us here?”
“I was hoping I would run into you. I can set you up. I know enough China talk.”
“Sarah?” Max inquired. “Do you trust him?”
By now she was in awe of her surroundings. Inhaling the dirty sidewalks; glittering in the gilded Cantonese characters that hung from the storefront above them. Sarah twirled in place, entranced by the mysticism and by her foreignness. “Sure,” she replied. “He’s one of us, isn’t he?”
On the sidewalk, the stagehand introduced himself as Nick Brown. A native New Yorker and a regular Booth man. And while he had never known Booth, Mr. Booth’s wife and daughter would know him by face and certainly vouch for his character. He wasn’t some kind of vagabond theater hand. He was loyal, he said. Deeply committed to art. Plus, he added, he couldn’t imagine a greater honor than “to take out the eighth wonder of the world.”
Sarah said he was a darling. But she was hardly paying attention, spinning, her spirit being whisked away by the street parade.
Max let Nick lead the way, for the first time taking notice of the boy’s slim hips and smooth shoulders.
Nick took them into Hsing’s Laundry. A known regular, he guided them into the back room where the air clouded in thick smoke. Three couches lined the room. Only one was occupied, by a white couple. Middle-aged louts slouched with spread legs, and heads dropped against the back of the couch. Vacant eyes staring at the ceiling. A yellow light lit the room, cast from the soft glow of the opium lamps set on trays throughout the space. They were made of brass and set low. The side engravings of poppy plants slithered like ghostly shadows.
A young petite Chinese girl with firm posture greeted Nick. She motioned him and his guests to go behind a partition to a private room. Her face carried the seriousness of a craftsman with a newly mastered art. Once behind the divider, she looked at all three clients at once and motioned them to sit on the couch. Despite no obvious authoritative presence in the room, there was the eerie sensation that the girl herself was being watched. “Tell her we have our own,” Max instructed Nick.
“A little unusual.”
“We’ll pay anyway.”
Sarah sat in the middle. The couch springs gave lightly. Dust rose from the knotted wool upholstery, smelling of age. Max had Nick give the girl the canister. “For three, please,” he instructed her in broken Cantonese.
The girl brought over a large bamboo pipe, ornate like a flute, sealed with ivory plugs at each end, with a wooden bowl set in brass near the top. She made two pills and dropped them into the bowl to cook over the lamp’s rising blue flame. In a dutiful manner she knelt down reticently without eye contact and offered the first pipe to Sarah. A large puff of smoke leaked from the corners of Sarah’s mouth. “Wow.” She sighed, then laid her head back. The girl followed suit with Nick. When Max took his hit, he felt the smoke swallow deep down into his lungs, burning and searing. His head felt light, and for a moment his heart raced like he was coming home to Jesus. Then each of his muscles relaxed in descending order, from scalp to feet. He could feel the sinew and muscle expelling the tension, breathing out the daily cramping, and settling into pure relaxation. His face became very hot and glowed red. Then the warmth washed evenly through his entire body in one magnificent rush, vein by vein.
Twenty minutes later they did it again, and Hsing’s Laundry on Mott Street became about the sweetest, most peaceful place on earth. For Max, a gangly boy reared back and forth between the North End of London and the seedy Reeperbahn of Hamburg, he had made it. He had endured taunts most of his life. Had had brutal chaps pinch his ass, then slug a fist across his jaw when he turned around. They said that’s what happens to queers around here. At sixteen, his father had caught him bum high, mouth on a dick, and beat the shit out of his boy before tossing him out and reporting to the rest of the Klein family that the boy had run away and been lost at sea. He went to Paris. Mixed-up sad and crazy. Trying to toughen the outside to bury the inside. Dancing in the streets. Finally free from the crap he’d grown up with. That was ten years ago. Met Sarah. She needed someone who could organize. She hired him. He looked out for her. Did everything from read lines with her to pack her clothes to escort her lovers out in the middle of the night to brokering midnight performance deals to ensure that she could pay the next week’s bills. He’d seen some crazy shit. But he was alive and happy. The wounds were healed. And now he sat a graceful bird perched on a couch in almighty America after negotiating $1,000 per performance plus 50 percent of the gross. That along with incidentals would bring in almost $4,000 per night on this golden American tour (as long as they didn’t mess it up with some kind of foolishness like being bagged with illicit narcotics). He had finally landed. Safe. His hand resting on Nick’s knee while remarkably still in adoration of Madame Bernhardt. Warts and all.
The Chinese girl came around again to check like a good waitress in midmeal. No more than sixteen, her abashed closed-mouth smile made her look twelve. Sweetness and innocence. Sarah smiled and thanked her. “I finally have relaxed for the first time in ages,” she said. “Tell that to the sisters at le Grandchamps convent.”
The Chinese girl nodded. She clearly had no command of the English language besides
“You know before I came on this trip I went to Elsinore to visit Hamlet’s tomb. I also went to Ophelia’s Spring, and visited some of the castles.”
Max interrupted her. “She doesn’t know a word that you’re saying, sweetheart. Nor does she really care, I’m sure.”
“Oh shush, Molly.” She turned her attention back to the girl, who stood respectfully. “I’d played those roles over and over again, and I wanted to see the actual history. Thought that maybe I would understand more about Hamlet. I even hoped that he would speak to me from his tomb.” She started to giggle then erupted into a full- blown laugh that shook the couch.
The girl stood with the same staid smile, hands at her sides.
Max tried to interrupt, but Sarah stopped him with a wave of her hand. He sat back and listened to her voice, even in English as pure as gold and silk, without a trace of opiate slur.
“Ophelia’s Spring was an ordinary creek. Everything was ordinary. And what I learned was that my imagining of Hamlet’s world was far more detailed than what I actually saw. I mean I could maybe give you a handful of bits about the way the plants grew around the grave. Or the architecture of Kronberg Castle. But now if I close my eyes and recite:
