The Tales of Tarya, Books 1-3

Chapter 8 - True Seeing-1

True SeeingVincenzo was magnificent as the foolish old Professore. He had great presence onstage, but when he transformed, he shrunk from his great height, and his face became miserable and wizened, yet suffused with enormous intelligence. He also became palsied, tottering around the stage, barely able to walk.

Mina was so caught up watching him, she nearly failed to move on to a new scene twice. At one point Roberto gave her a great poke in the back to bring her back to her role. Even Jal, usually charming and friendly, hissed at her when he swung close, clenched in an embrace with Isabella: ‘Concentrate,’ and Mina was chastised.

Despite this, the playing was a triumph. If Mina was slow in taking up a cue, the others were all quick with theirs, making the story a busy, hilarious treat for the large audience. Mina managed to remember herself at the end, drawing the story to a close. With a few words she brought the audience back to their own tales.

‘Great wisdom,’ her voice rang out, ‘means little without attention. The wisest of men is no better than the rest of us if he thinks of learning alone, and forgets to love and live.’

Playing, she realised as she took her bow with the others, was about allowing the audience to laugh at others, and feel superior to them, so they could be content with their own lives. Yet who were they laughing at really? she wondered, thinking of Tarya, the storehouse of those very dreams. Did playing make them laugh at their own wishes for greatness, for more than their life offered?

When the players circulated amongst the crowd, they met with adoration, and many, many coins passed into their outstretched hands. They winked at each other through the crowd, knowing such generosity would feed them for a long time. The audience lingered, wanting to touch the players, and talk to them. Mina found their awe of her strange. She sought out Dario when the crowd thinned.

‘Why is it,’ she asked without preamble, ‘they think we’re so special? Why do they want to touch us and talk with us?’

‘We lift them beyond their own lives,’ Dario said simply.

‘But we only show them their own dreams!’

‘But they’ve let those dreams go. Look at them. They’d rather watch someone live their dreams for them. We give them hope that things can be different.’

‘But why don’t they make things different?’

Dario shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t know Mina, I don’t know. Perhaps they let go of their dreams because they don’t really want to hold onto them. Perhaps they can’t see how to move beyond what they know. Perhaps they’re just afraid.’

‘Perhaps they are trapped,’ Lisette said, joining them. ‘Perhaps too much keeps them where they are, and we remind them what they see, but cannot reach.’ She shook her head, and spoke again, her voice very soft. ‘They do not see we are also trapped.’

‘Such a morbid thought for one who has flown so far,’ Roberto announced, swooping an arm around Lisette’s shoulders. ‘You’ve never been trapped, Lisette! You travel lands you never even knew of as a child. And that’s how it is. We fly further than they ever dream! If they truly knew what we do, where we go, to Tarya itself, they would be jealous. In front of their very eyes we reach a place they think exists only in the tales. All they know is longing. But longing is powerful. And profitable, when it opens their purses!’

Roberto scooped a hand into one of the great deep pockets of his costume and held out a pile of coins. His pockets still jangled with more.

‘But that’s what’s wrong!’ Mina said, grasping at a thought. ‘Aren’t we stealing from them twice? First their dreams and then …’

Lisette shook her head urgently. ‘We don’t steal, Mina. Do not speak that! We give back what people have forgotten.’

Dario nodded. Roberto laughed.

‘Sometimes we steal,’ he chuckled, holding up a golden chain, then quickly making it disappear again.

‘Roberto! It is for this we are blamed. You must not …’

‘Lisette, Lisette, of course I didn’t steal. I’m jesting. And Mina, this money is freely given. If people think they can buy back their dreams, are we to argue? If they think our jests and japes can bring them happiness, are we to turn away their coins?’

‘We do make them happier, Mina,’ Dario said. He smiled at her and that was more convincing than Roberto’s many words.

‘To the wagons,’ rang out Uberto’s cry, and the discussion was over.

~

Uberto led them straight into the forest. The afternoon was waning and though the path was wide enough for their wagons, the trees blocked the sky almost completely. Darkness soon engulfed them.

‘We won’t get through before night falls,’ Isabella complained, lighting a lamp as she and Mina sat inside the wagon. She lifted the lamp to a hook in the ceiling. Light and shadow fell across the chaos of the small space, catching on beaded costumes and sending sparkles of colour into the corners.

‘We could so easily go around,’ she continued.

‘It’s strange,’ Mina said, ‘it’s so dark but it’s not night. Perhaps I should go and sit with Lisette. Two sets of eyes might be better than one.’

‘Oh, Mina, stay with me!’ Isabella demanded. ‘You spend more time with Lisette than me, and I’ve been longing for a friend. We could have such fun! Mama Tina could teach us to make love potions. She hasn’t even told your fortune. We’ll have to ask her. Mama Tina sees a great deal. Even a girl from a small, distant town must have secrets and dreams.’

Mina blushed, and was glad the shadows hid her face. It sounded exciting, having Mama Tina speak Innaroi visions of the future. Such a thing was frowned upon in Andon, but Mina couldn’t help herself, the guilty pleasure appealed. Yet she paused at the thought of hidden secrets revealed. What if Mama Tina found out about Dario? She might put a stop to it, and Mina didn’t want that. He was in her thoughts constantly and she longed for the brief times they had together. Worse than this, she was still hiding the secret of her search for Paolo. An inner voice told her to keep her quest locked away a little while longer.

‘So you do have secrets!’ Isabella seized upon Mina’s sudden distractedness with glee. ‘Tell me! I knew you had hidden depths.’

Mina shook her head. ‘Isabella,’ she said with a laugh, ‘not all of us create excitement wherever we go, like you. I bet Mama Tina would say wonderful things await you in Aurea. Perhaps you’ll meet a prince, or at least a lord, who’ll be captivated by your beauty.’

Isabella gave one of her bright laughs. ‘Mina, can you tell the future too? I dream a wealthy, handsome nobleman will find he can’t live without me. But I can’t stop playing, so I’ll also have to be part of the Royal Troupe of Players! And my noble husband will have to accept that thousands adore me. Mina, you can be my bridesmaid. I’ll have jewels beaded all over my dress.’

Isabella reached for a dress of blues and greens, sparkling with glass beads, and tossed it to Mina, who caught it, swept up in Isabella’s bright mood. Isabella found another glittering costume for herself and the two danced around the cabin, laughing.

‘He doesn’t know it yet, that nobleman in Aurea, but he’ll see the brightest star of the playing firmament, and his heart will be lost. But it’s so long till we reach Aurea. Perhaps five more days. And the festival begins in six.’

Mina stopped dancing. ‘Six days?

‘I know!’ Isabella wailed. ‘Such a long time!’

‘No, no, it’s no time at all. I know hardly a*********s! How many performances will we do in Aurea? How many stories will I have to know?’

Isabella took Mina by the arms. ‘Mina, calm down! We all get nervous. None of us know what’s going to happen next.’

‘But you know the stock speeches and tricks, the burle and lazzi, and you know from experience what makes the audience laugh.’

’But when I become the Inamorata, I’m different every time. I might be a silly young daughter or the beautiful wife of the wealthy trader, and they speak and behave completely differently! I have to trust the transformation, and the mask. I reach Tarya, and the character speaks through me, and I don’t have to think. I can simply be. Isn’t that what it’s like for you?’

‘No.’ Mina searched Isabella’s face, puzzled. ‘I don’t become anyone else. I’m always me, it’s just that I’m seeing you all in Tarya, and I create scenery for you. Sometimes I almost think I could …’

‘Could what?’

Mina looked at the eagerness in Isabella’s face and spoke carefully. ‘Could become a character, but I can’t,’ Mina finished, lying without being sure why. It wasn’t that at all. Sometimes it seemed if she really tried, really concentrated, she could bring what she made back to this world.

‘Oh, Mina, it’s okay if you can’t do what we can. We all know you’re different.’

Mina wondered how different. Wary of Isabella’s curious expression, she made an excuse that she wanted to catch the fading daylight, and fled through the front door of the wagon to sit with Lisette. Lisette gave her a smile and, seeing Mina’s face, turned to face the road again without a word, giving her friend time to think.

Dusk seeped through the forest. Shadows grew longer, reaching out from the pockets of cool air between the trees until night reached into the wagon. All the wagons ceased their ponderous movement long enough for the players to hang lamps to light their journey into the night.

Memories flooded Mina’s thoughts. The Festival of Lights was her favourite celebration, a special time of year. She loved the weeks spent making beautiful lanterns, twining together whip-thin branches from willow trees to make the lantern framework. Everyone in Andon would gather at the fountain, chattering and sharing food, as the women deftly wove the branches into the shapes of birds, insects, stars, and much more. Next the children made paper, soaking leaves and flowers and rags for days to create a sticky pulp, which was spread as thinly as possible across mesh pinned to ancient wooden frames, to make the paper skin of the lanterns. Their parents had used these same frames for festivals long past, as had their parents before them.

Once the paper was dried and set, a sticky, resinous substance had to be spread over its surface to prevent the lanterns from catching fire. This was always the messiest task, so of course, for the children it was the most fun, and they always ended up covered in the sweet-smelling substance. More than one child was tempted to taste the amber sap, only to gag and spit while their friends laughed. Mothers looked on, unconcerned, for this was a rite of passage they remembered from their own childhood. Candles with delicious scents, of coffee and vanilla bean and flowers, were made by the men of the village and brought out to be placed in the lanterns on the first day of the festival. Finally, the coated pulp, set now into paper, was wrapped carefully around the shapes made from willow switches, to create the final lanterns.

Mina’s first lantern had been a clumpy, grey blob her family nevertheless praised endlessly. It burst into flame as soon as a candle was placed inside it. Paolo dried her tears, lifting her onto his shoulders to parade her through the village. Somewhere he found another lantern, shaped like a star, hung on a thin pole, and the two marched around the fountain, then through the streets, Paolo dancing and both of them singing the Songs of Light.

Mina wasn’t sure, but she thought that was the same year a story teller had visited. She’d seen so many festivals they all blurred together, but the most memorable were always those where, on the third night, everyone gathered around the fountain again and a story teller, a stranger in the small town, spoke the sacred Tales of the Muses. In a place like Andon it was rare for such a visit to occur during the festival, for, Mina realised, who would take their Creator-gifted craft to such a tiny place at this time when they could receive greater appreciation, and gold, in the larger towns and cities?