Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XXVI

The customs officer suddenly turned on us as if he could not imagine why we were loitering in his precious space, and shooed us off, Without giving him a chance to change his mind, we shot in through the town gate.

We had come about fifteen years too early. It was not much in the scheme of town planning, but too long for hungry performers who were gnawing on their last pomegranate. The site diagram of the future Gerasa showed an ambitious design with not one but two theatres of extravagant proportions, plus another, smaller auditorium outside the city at the site of the notorious water festival where Helena had forbidden me to go and leer. They needed all these stages -now. Most were still only architectural drawings. We soon discovered that the situation for performers was desperate. At present we were stuck with one very basic arena in the older part of town, over which all comers had to haggle – and there was plenty of competition.

It was turmoil. In this town we were just one small act in a mad circus. Gerasa had such a reputation for riches that it drew buskers from all the parched corners of the East. To be offering a simple play with flute, drum and tambourine accompaniment was nothing. In Gerasa they had every gaggle of scruffy acrobats with torn tunics and only one left boot between them, every bad-tempered fire-eater, every troupe of sardine-dish spinners and turnip jugglers, every one-armed harpist or arthritic stilt-walker. We could pay half a denarius to see the Tallest Man in Alexandria (who must have shrunk in the Nile, for he was barely a foot longer than I was), or a mere copper for a backward-facing goat. In fact for a quadrans or two extra I could have actually bought the goat, whose owner told me he was sick of the heat and the slowness of trade and was going home to plant beans.

I had a long conversation with this man, in the course of which I nearly did acquire his goat. So long as he kept me talking, taking on an unconvincing sideshow freak seemed quite a decent business proposition. Gerasa was that kind of town.

Entering by the South Gate had placed us near the existing theatre, but it had the disadvantage of marking us out for hordes of grubby children who mobbed us, trying to sell cheap ribbons and badly made whistles. Looking serious and cute, they offered their wares in silence, but otherwise the noise from the packed streets was unbearable.

'This is hopeless!' shouted Chremes, as we huddled together to discuss what to do. His disgust with The Rope after its failed second outing at Philadelphia had faded so quickly that he was now planning for us to repeat it while the Twins were in practice for their tug of war. However, the indecisive-ness Davos had complained about soon reappeared. Almost before we dug the props out, new doubts set in. I'd like you to brush up The Arbitration, Falco.' I had read it; I complained wittily that The Rope had much more pulling power. Chremes ignored me. Quibbling about the play was only half his problem. 'We can either travel on straight away, or I'll do what I can to obtain an appearance. If we stay, the bribe to the booker will wipe out most of the ticket money, but if we go on we've lost a week without earning – '

Clearly irritated, Davos weighed in. 'I vote to see what you can get. Mind you, with all this cheap competition it's going to be like doing The Play We Never Mention on a wet Thursday in Olynthus…'

'What's the unmentionable play?' asked Helena.

Davos gave her a shirty look, pointed out that by definition he wasn't allowed to mention it, and shrugged off her meek apology.

I tried another ploy for avoiding the manager's turgid idea of a repertoire: 'Chremes, we need a good draw. I've a brand-new idea you may like to try. A lad about town meets the ghost of his newly dead father, who tells him – '

'You say the father's dead?' He was already confused and I hadn't even reached the complicated bit.

'Murdered. That's the point. You see, his ghost catches the hero by the tunic sleeve and reveals who snuffed out his pa – '

'Impossible! In New Comedy ghosts never speak.' So much for my big idea. Chremes could be firm enough when crushing a genius; having rejected my masterpiece he went wittering on as usual. I lost interest and sat chewing a straw.

Eventually, when even he was tired of havering, Chremes stumped off to see the theatre manager; we sent Davos along to stiffen him. The rest of us moped around looking sick. We were too hot and depressed to do anything until we knew what was happening.

Grumio, who had a provocative streak, spoke up: 'The play we don't mention is TheMother-in-Law by Terence.'

'You just mentioned it!' Stung by Davos, Helena had become a literalist.

'I'm not superstitious.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'Apart from the off-putting title? Nothing. It's his best play.'

'Why the dirty reputation then?' I demanded.

'It was a legendary failure, due to the rival attractions of boxers, tightrope walkers and gladiators.' I knew how Terence must have felt.

We all looked gloomy. Our own situation seemed horribly similar. Our struggling little dramas were unlikely to draw crowds at Gerasa, where the populace had devised their own sophisticatedly ribald festival, the Phoenician Maiuma, to fill any quiet evening. Besides we had already glimpsed the street performers, and knew Gerasa could call on other entertainment that was twice as unusual and three times as noisy as ours, at half the cost.

Rather than think about our predicament, people started wandering off.

Grumio was still sitting nearby. I got talking to him. As usual when you look as if you're having a rich literary conversation, our companions left us severely alone. I asked him more about The Play We Never Mention, and quickly discovered he had a deep knowledge of theatrical history. In fact he turned out to be quite an interesting character.

It was easy to dismiss Grumio. His round face could be taken for a sign of simplicity. Playing the dullard of the two clowns, he had been forced into a secondary role off-stage as well as on. In fact he was highly intelligent, not to mention professional. Getting him on his own, without the noisy brilliance of Tranio to overshadow him, I learned that he saw himself as an exponent of an ancient and honourable craft.

'So how did you get into this line, Grumio?'

'Partly heredity. I'm following my father and grandfather. Poverty comes into it. We never owned land; we never knew any other trade. All we had – a precious gift that most folk lack – was natural wit.'

'And you can survive by this?'

'Not easily any more. That's why I'm in a stage company. My ancestors never had to suffer like this. In the old days laughter-men were independent. They travelled around earning their meals with their varied skills – sleight of hand and tumbling, recitation, dancing – but most of all with a crackling repertoire of jokes. I was trained to the physical jerks by my father, and of course I inherited sixty years of family wisecracks. For me, it's a let-down to be stuck in Chremes' gang like this and tied to a script.'

'You're good at it though,' I told him.

'Yes, but it's dull. It lacks the edge of living on your wits; devising your patter on your feet; improvising the apt rejoinder; snapping out the perfect quip.'

I was fascinated by this new side to the country clown. He was a much more thoughtful student of his art than I had given him credit for, though it was my own fault for assuming that playing the fool meant he was one. Now I saw that Grumio had a devotee's respect for the practice of humour; even for our dreadful comedies he would polish his performance, though all the time he was hankering for better things. For him the old jokes really were the best – especially if he turned them out in a new guise.

This dedication meant he had a deep, private personality. There was far more to him than the sleepy character who yearned for girls and drink and who let Tranio take the lead as much in their off-duty lives as in some tiresome plot. Under that fairly lightly worn mask, Grumio was his own man.

Communicating wit is a lonely art. It demands an independent soul.

Being an informal stand-up comic at formal reclining! dinners seemed a nerve-racking way of life to me. But if someone could do it, I would have thought there was a market for a satirist. I asked why Grumio had had to turn to lesser things.

'No call. In my father or grandfather's day all I would have needed in life were my cloak and shoes, my flask and strigil, a cup and knife to take to dinner, and a small wallet for my earnings. Everyone who could find the wherewithal would eagerly ask a wandering jokesmith in.'

'Sounds just like being a vagrant philosopher!'

'A cynic,' he agreed readily. 'Exactly. Most cynics are witty and all clowns are cynical. Meet us on the road, and who could tell the difference?'

'Me, I hope! I'm a good Roman. I'd take a five-mile detour to avoid a philosopher.'

He disabused me. 'You won't be tested. No clown can do that any longer. I'd be run out of town like a warty beggar by the idlers who hang around the water tower inventing slander. Now everyone wants to be the funny man himself; all people like me can do is flatter them silly and feed them material. It's not for me; I won't be a yes-man. I get sick of pandering to other people's stupidity.' Grumio's voice had a raw note. He had a real hatred for the amateur rivals he was deriding, a real lament for the deterioration of his trade. (I also noticed a strident belief in his own brilliance; clowns are an arrogant lot.) 'Besides,' he complained, 'There are no morals. The new "humour", if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it's now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it's even true. In fact, making up a spiteful lie has become respectable. Today's "jesters" are outright public nuisances.'

A similar charge is often laid against informers. We too are supposed to be amoral vendors of overheard dirt, gutter know-alls who fabricate freely if we cannot produce hard facts; deliberate mixers, self-seekers and stirrers. It's even regarded as a suitable insult for people to call us comedians…

Abruptly Grumio lurched to his feet. There was a restlessness about him I had overlooked before; perhaps I had caused it by discussing his work. That does depress most people.

For a moment I felt I had annoyed or upset him. But then he waved a hand amiably enough, and sauntered off.

'What was all that about?' asked Helena curiously, coming up as usual just when I had been assuming she had her head down in business of her own.

'Just a history lesson about clowns.'

She smiled. Helena Justina could make a thoughtful smile raise more questions than a dead mouse in a pail of milk. 'Oh, men's talk!' she commented.

I leaned on my chin and gazed at her. She had probably been listening, then being Helena she had done some thinking too. We both had an instinct for certain things. I found myself being niggled by a sensation she must have shared: somewhere an issue that might be important had been raised.