Hamlet: a novel Part 7

Ophelia turned away. Horatio, taking his opportunity, escaped, closing the door behind him and running through the other two reception rooms, desperate for s.p.a.ce and open air.

That morning rumors flowed along the corridors of the castle like blood. Everyone whispered, yet no one could be seen whispering, and so the pantries and anterooms and storerooms and cellars were full of servants and n.o.bles, tradespeople and courtiers, children and pensioners, feeding one another with the food that cannot nourish. The king's sisters and cousins and aunts gathered in the banquet hall, too excited to eat, exchanging morsels and sc.r.a.ps of gossip instead. In the king's apartments, Hamlet's uncle strode the carpet as the queen stood watching.

"Killed him?"

"Ran him through."

"No excuse?"

"Not a jot."

"It could have been me."

"I fear so."

"Why, Gertrude, why?"

"He is mad."

"And that's all?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"This is terrible."

"It is, my lord."

"They'll say it's us."

The room was furnished simply, after the taste of Hamlet's father. Claudius and Gertrude had not yet indulged themselves as they had in her suite, with sumptuous carpets and lavish furnis.h.i.+ngs. Here, the floor of polished timber, two austere thrones made of a light white wood, and a dull red, padded sofa were lit by bright natural light through a row of large windows. Claudius always seemed ill at ease in the room, but never more so than now. He walked faster and faster, groaning and pulling at his beard, the sounds of his boots echoing like stones rattling on thick ice.

"They'll say we've been negligent. Or that we're part of a plot. They'll say we're responsible. We should have seen it coming. They'll say we should have sent him to a doctor, a hospital. That we used Hamlet to get rid of Polonius. They'll have us for bacon on their morning toast, Gertrude, unless we find a way to deal with this."

"Yes."

"Hamlet's too popular; that's the trouble. The people love him. He could get away with murder. Or so he thinks. To be loved by the mob, that's not a fate I'd wish on anyone. But it means we must be b.l.o.o.d.y careful."

"They do love him," the queen said pensively.

"Get the guard. I want Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in here."

When the two courtiers arrived, the king barked at them. "Are your bags packed?"

"Why, no, Majesty, we had not realized . . . But it will take us no time to prepare . . ."

"Well, do it!" Then he had another idea. "Wait! First," he added, "find the body and have it brought here. No, to the chapel."

"Hamlet, Your Majesty?"

"No, no, you fool, not Hamlet. Polonius." Claudius threw himself down on his throne and sat chewing a loose fingernail. "Stop bowing!" he barked. "Just go. Do what I told you!"

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern withdrew and began their melancholy search. Polonius was not in the queen's apartments, nor could they find a trail of blood or clue that might lead them to the old man's corpse. They did, however, find another body, of a sort. Hamlet was sitting on a bench looking out over the turrets at the distant forest. A bowl of coffee was at his feet. It looked untouched. The two men approached him cautiously. As usual, Rosencrantz did the talking.

"Excuse me, Your Royal Highness, might we have a word?"

"Certainly, certainly," Hamlet said affably. "What can I do for you?"

"Highness, we are charged by the king to find Polonius."

"Ah, now there's a problem, right away."

"There is?"

"Why, yes. You see the problem is that Polonius no longer exists. It therefore follows that your quest is doomed from the start. A shame, as I know how much you seek to gratify the king in all that you do."

"Why, yes, sir, he is, in all things, our ruler."

"And you are a sponge."

Rosencrantz had been moving forward a little with each address to the prince, but now he stopped. "A sponge? Sir, do you mistake me for a sponge?" He glanced at Guildenstern as if to say, It's true, he's quite mad; next he'll tell us we're eggplants.

But the prince was quite calm. "Oh yes, sponges, both of you, kept by the king to soak up his rewards, his orders, his moods, the spittle that drops from his lips. You soak them up, and when you are dripping with them, when you are saturated, then he squeezes you dry. You are his best servants, you sponges! And if not sponges, you are the piece of apple in the corner of his mouth, which he chews and sucks on until he is ready to swallow it. But the problem is, how does a prince answer a sponge?"

Guildenstern: "Highness, I do not understand you."

Hamlet: "I am glad of it."

Rosencrantz: "Sir, you must tell us where the body lies."

Hamlet: "Must! Is 'must' a word to be used to princes, little man?"

Rosencrantz: "Well, it is the king's wish that you tell us where the body lies."

Hamlet: "It does lie, that much is certain. No one ever got a true word out of him while he was alive, and now he lies still."

Rosencrantz: "Your Royal Highness, Hamlet, please tell us where the body is, and then go with us to the king."

Hamlet: "The body is already with the king, but not the king you are thinking of, perhaps. And the king is not with the body. The king is a thing . . ."

Guildenstern: "A thing? Sir, the king is a thing?"

Hamlet: "A thing of nothing. Bring me to him."

Claudius was distraught, unable to fix on a plan, an easy answer. He liked life to be obvious. "Hamlet's too popular with the people," he told his wife again. "Just because he's good-looking, that's all it is. But it makes him dangerous. He could kill their grandmothers, and as long as he keeps smiling at them and kissing their babies, they'll forgive him. The people didn't love Polonius, but as long as he was around, they felt secure. We have to get rid of Hamlet, but we must do it so it looks all right."

"Get rid of him!" exclaimed the queen, showing for the first time an interest in the king's fretful monologue. "Get rid of him?"

"No, no, I don't mean like that. I told you, I've arranged for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to go away with him. But it mustn't look like a cover-up. We'll send him early, but we'll say it's for his own protection. And we'll set up an inquiry, so it looks as though we're doing something. In the meantime, while we're establis.h.i.+ng the terms of reference and so forth, he shall be sent to a safe place. Farther than England. To Australia. No, he'll end up marrying some unsuitable girl. To Nepal. No, not Nepal. Bad idea. To the moon."

"I fancy England will be far enough."

"Yes, all right, England, then. Yes, as long as it looks as though we're just bringing his trip forward. He must go now, straightaway. England will do nicely, I think. Keep him out of mischief and away from us."

At that moment Hamlet entered the room, and the king wondered if the young man had heard his last comment. The prince looked composed, but a flush in his cheeks and a brightness in his eyes gave the appearance of someone who had just come in from playing a game of football, or skiing down a fast and dangerous slope. Claudius hurried forward. Behind Hamlet came Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Rosencrantz signaling that they were returning empty-handed: they had not found the body.

Claudius was genial. "Now, Hamlet, we can't have this. Where's Polonius?"

Deadpan, Hamlet replied, "At supper."

"At supper?"

"Yes, there's a regular feast going on, and Polonius is at the center of it."

The king was still baffled until Hamlet pressed on. "The worms are having a great supper, and Polonius is their special treat this night."

The king shook his great head and groaned. "Have you completely taken leave of your reason?" But all attention was on the prince, and it was not clear whether anyone heard the cry from Claudius's heart.

Hamlet continued without pause. "This is the thing about worms - we fatten all other creatures so that we might fatten ourselves, but worms, and worms alone, grow fat on us. The worm is the most democratic of creatures. The fat king and the lean beggar are one and the same to him."

"I will not hear this," Claudius said to Gertrude in a roaring whisper.

"Hush, let him finish. We need to find the old man."

"A beggar who goes fis.h.i.+ng may use a worm that has feasted on a king as his bait," said Hamlet blithely. He was now moving around the room like a philosopher developing an argument, at times gazing out through the heavy stained-gla.s.s windows as if seeking an answer in the filtered light. "And the fisherman may eat the fish caught with that bait. What does this tell us? Well, it tells us that a king may progress through the guts of a pauper."

The queen laid an urgent hand upon her husband's arm; nothing else would have stopped him from running across the room and throwing himself on his stepson.

"Thus," said Hamlet, "we understand the democratic nature of the worm. In him all people are united; in him all people are made equal; the wise become foolish and the foolish wise."

"Where is Polonius?" roared the king.

"Polonius? You wish to be better acquainted with Polonius? Well, then, you had better send a messenger to heaven, and if your messenger does not find him there, go and look for him in h.e.l.l yourself."

"By heavens I'll send you to h.e.l.l, and soon enough," growled Claudius, then glanced around guiltily. Gertrude clutched his arm more tightly.

Hamlet smiled at his mother. "If a month or so pa.s.ses, however, and you still have not found the old man, I suggest you try the mezzanine that is reached by the southern staircase. You may smell him as you pa.s.s the red door."

Claudius sagged back in his throne. It seemed almost too light to support him. He waved to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. "Go and look in the mezzanine."

As the two young men departed, Hamlet remarked equably to them, "He will stay there till you come."

Through hooded eyes the king gazed at him. "Hamlet, you have put yourself in a dangerous position by this - shall we say - unfortunate accident. You know how much your mother and I care for your safety. We put it above our own, even. We need to get you out of the country. Prepare for a long journey! I will arrange a boat, I will arrange letters, I will arrange a couple of a.s.sociates for you, I would arrange a favorable wind if I could! You must be ready to leave today - for England."

"For England?" Hamlet echoed, as though he had never heard of the place.

"Yes."

"Fine. Good."

"So it is good, for my purposes," said Claudius.

"I know an angel who knows your purposes. And the angel is not Rosencrantz and he is not Guildenstern. But come, for England. I will be off." He went to the king and performed the elaborate bow that etiquette required. "Farewell, dear Mother," he said to him.

"I am your loving father, Hamlet," Claudius said, startled and embarra.s.sed.

"My mother," replied the prince. "Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife are a unity, so you are my mother."

Hamlet bowed again, and without even looking at his mother, much less saying good-bye to her, he swiftly left the room. The king watched him go. His eyes were mere slits now, and he muttered into his beard. Only he heard the words, but they did not bode well for his young nephew.

And so Hamlet, aware that he had created a situation too unstable for his own good, appreciating the need for some clear air, sailed for England with his two loving friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

And Ophelia went mad.

No one could name the day or even the hour when it happened, but it became apparent that her beautiful mind was gone.

One afternoon the queen found herself caught in a distressing conversation with Osric, the young farmer who had attached himself to Claudius. He entered the room with much dramatic staring, apparently checking for spies and eavesdroppers. Satisfied that his great announcement could be made in confidence, he began the kind of fawning approaching-members-of-the-royal-family dance that he imagined was not just appropriate but elegant as well. Gertrude gazed at him through impatient eyes, wondering how long this praying-mantis maneuver might take. Really, she thought, the only people who truly know how to behave at court are the ones who have been here all their lives. It can't be taught. Especially to fools.

She longed for an honest conversation. Osric was too excited to complete his performance in any case. He began speaking before he had finished his second bow. "Your Majesty, Ophelia craves an audience with you and is so distracted that I thought it best to come here at once."

"An audience with me? Does she need help? She can visit me anytime she wants, within reason. Although, come to think of it, it's been some days since I saw her around the castle."

"Ah, Majesty, that is the thing. Until today she has been seeing no one and for that matter eating nothing. But she has a sudden fixed idea that she must see you." Now Osric had done his bowing and came close, uncomfortably close, to the queen. He launched into his news. "Majesty, it is my belief that she has lost her reason."

"Lost her reason?" Fear stole into Gertrude's heart, an icy trickle of fear. "I hope you are wrong!"

"Your Majesty, she has emerged from her apartments and, after talking to no one, is now talking to everyone. She speaks all the time of her father, is angry and confused and full of strange hints and troubled comments. At one moment she says there are tricks and plots in the world; the next she is winking and nodding and poking at people as though they all share in some guilty secret. Then people try to guess what she is about, and at times, ma'am, you would hardly credit their guesses. It makes them think the wildest thoughts."

The queen had wild thoughts herself at this news. "You had better bring her in," she said slowly.

The last thing the king and she needed was a castle full of rumors and out-of-control whispers. Gertrude's life was now so full of dark places that she s.h.i.+ed at everything. Her conscience had made her oversensitive. She should have spent more time with Ophelia after the death of Polonius. She had seen Ophelia's distress shortly after the stabbing. The girl was wild-eyed, on the edge of hysteria. At the funeral Gertrude had stood with her, held her, whispered to her, encouraged her to stay strong. But only now did she realize that she had never been alone with her since the dreadful night of the stabbing. Gertrude had no daughter, just a son. The motherless Ophelia was the closest she had to a daughter. There was every reason to suppose that one day Ophelia would become her daughter-in-law. But Gertrude's behavior had not been that of a good mother. There had been no time in the emotional storms that blew constantly around Elsinore these days. Everything was Hamlet; he had turned every life in the castle upside down with his disregard for everyone but himself.

Gertrude gazed nervously out the window, trying to decipher the night outside. When she turned at a sound from the doorway, it seemed to her that the room had become much darker. Ophelia, wandering toward her, was like a white swan glimpsed in twilight, with feathers disordered and head averted.

The queen felt instant pity. Ophelia looked so distressed and unwell.

"Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?" Ophelia asked, wringing her hands and lifting a woebegone face to Gertrude. She began to sing.

"He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone.