If We Were Villains: A Novel

Alexander shadowed me up three flights of stairs. The ballroom stretched skyward from the fourth floor to the fifth, with a long balcony and a sparkling glass atrium that stabbed up at the moon.

The Christmas masque was traditionally spectacular, and the winter of 1997 was no exception. The marble floors had been polished to such a high shine that the partygoers might as well have been walking on mirrors. Weeping fig trees, which grew out of deep square planters in each corner, were bedecked with tiny white lights and strands of ribbon and wire that sent flashes of gold darting around the room. The chandeliers—strung on thick chains that stretched from wall to wall ten feet above the balcony—let a warm glow fall across the crowded floor. Tables cluttered with bowls of punch and platters of tiny hors d’oeuvres lined the west wall, and the students who had already arrived clustered around them like moths around a lantern. Everyone was dressed their absolute best, though their faces were hidden—the boys all in white bauta masks, the girls in small black morettas. (Our masks were overwhelmingly elaborate by comparison, made to stand out in a sea of blank, anonymous faces.) The orchestral students had gathered on one side of the room with their instruments, sheet music propped up on elegant silver music stands. A waltz—airy and beautiful—swelled under the ceiling.

As soon as we entered, heads turned toward us. Alexander went immediately forward into the crowd, a tall imposing figure in black and silver and serpentine green. I lingered at the door, waited for the staring to subside, and then began a slow, inconspicuous walk around the edge of the room. I searched for sparks of color, hoping to spot James, or Filippa, or Meredith. As on Halloween, we didn’t know how it would begin. Expectation vibrated in the room like an electrical current. My hand rested on the hilt of the knife in my belt. I’d spent two hours on Tuesday afternoon with Camilo, learning the combat of the play’s first duel. Who was Tybalt, and where had he hidden himself? I was ready.

The orchestra fell silent, and almost immediately a voice called out from the balcony, “The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.”

Two girls—both third-years, I thought—were leaning out of the balcony on the east wall, plain silver half masks hiding their eyes, their hair drawn tightly back from their faces. They were dressed as boys, in breeches, boots, and doublets.

“’Tis all one,” the second one said. “I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids, and cut off their heads.”

“The heads of the maids?”

“Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.”

They affected bawdy, masculine laughter, which was enthusiastically rejoined by the onlookers below. I watched and wondered how best to enter to stop their dispute. But as Abraham and Balthasar (also third-year girls) entered on the ballroom floor, Gregory and Sampson swung their legs over the balcony wall and began to climb down the nearest column, fingers gripping tightly in the greenery wound around it. As soon as they touched the floor, one of them whistled, and the two Montague servants turned. The biting of thumbs—accompanied by more indulgent laughter—turned quickly to an argument.

Gregory: “Do you quarrel, sir?”

Abraham: “Quarrel, sir! No, sir.”

Sampson: “If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.”

Abraham: “No better.”

Sampson: “Yes, better, sir.”

Abraham: “You lie!”

They dissolved into a clumsy four-way duel. The audience (pushed back now to the edges of the room) watched in keen delight, laughing and cheering their favorites. I waited until I felt the fight was ripe to be interrupted, then ran forward, drew my own dagger, and drove the girls apart. “Part, fools!” I said. “Put up your swords; you know not what you do.”

They fell back, panting hard, but the next voice came ringing from the opposite end of the room. Tybalt.

“What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? / Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.”

I wheeled around. The crowd had parted around Colin, who stood staring at me through the eyes of a black and red mask, the sides cut sharply back from his cheekbones, angular and reptilian, like dragons’ wings.

Me: “I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,

Or manage it to part these men with me.”

Colin: “What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,

As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:

Have at thee, coward!”

Colin charged at me, and we crashed together like a pair of gamecocks. We lunged and parried until the four girls threw themselves into the fray, jeered on by the hundreds of masked students watching. I took an elbow to the chin and fell heavily to the floor on my back. Colin was on top of me in an instant, reaching for my throat, but I knew Escalus would arrive in time to forestall my strangulation. He—or, rather, she—appeared at the top of the balcony stairs in staggering royal splendor.

“Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, / Profaners of this neighbor-stainèd steel— / Will they not hear?”

On the contrary, we all ceased squabbling at once. Colin let go of me, and I rolled onto my knees, gazing up at Meredith in mute amazement. She looked no less a prince than one of us boys would have—rich red hair tied back in a long braid, shapely legs hidden in high leather boots, face shielded by a white mask that shimmered as if it had been dipped in stardust. A floor-length cape swept the stairs behind her as she descended.

Meredith:            “What ho! you men, you beasts,

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage

With purple fountains issuing from your veins,

On pain of torture, from those bloody hands

Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground

And hear the sentence of your movèd prince!”

We obediently threw our daggers down.

Meredith: “Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,

Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,

And made Verona’s ancient citizens

Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,

To wield old partisans, in hands as old,

Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate.”

She walked slowly between us, head held high. Colin stepped back and bowed. I and the other girls had each sunk to one knee. Meredith looked down at me and lifted my chin with one gloved hand. “If ever you disturb our streets again, / Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.” She turned on her heel, the hem of her cape snapping across my face. “For this time, all the rest depart away.”

The girls and Colin bent to gather their discarded weapons and lost bits of costume. But the prince was impatient.

“Once more, on pain of death, all men depart!”

We scattered from the center of the room, which erupted in applause as Meredith ascended the stairs to the balcony again. I hovered at the edge of the crowd, watching her feet on the steps until she was gone, then turned to the nearest reveler—a boy, I didn’t know who, only his brown eyes visible through the holes in his mask—and said, “O, where is Romeo?” To another spectator, “Saw you him today? / Right glad I am he was not at this fray.”

At exactly that moment, Romeo emerged from a door on the east wall, clad all in blue and silver, his mask gently curving back toward his temples. He seemed almost a mythical figure, Ganymede, caught beautifully between man and boy. I knew it would be James, had guessed as much, but his appearance was no less affecting.

“See, where he comes,” I said, to the girl nearest me, in a softer tone. That strange possessive pride washed over me again. Everyone in the room was watching James—how could they not?—but I was the only one who really knew him, every inch. “So please you, step aside: / I’ll know his grievance or be much denied. / Good morrow, cousin!”

James looked up, looked right at me. He seemed surprised to see me standing there, though I didn’t know for the life of me why he should be. Was I not always his right-hand man, his lieutenant? Banquo or Benvolio or Oliver—little difference.

We argued lightly about his unrequited love, a game emerging wherein I blocked his way each time he tried to leave, attempted to evade my questions. He was content to play along until at last he said, more firmly, “Farewell, my coz.”

“Soft!” I said. “I will go along; / An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.”

“Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here; / This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.”

He turned to go, and I darted around to bar his path again. My desire to keep him there had, at some point, transcended the alignment of an actor’s motivation and his character’s. I desperately wanted him to stay, seized by the nonsensical idea that if he left, I would lose him, irretrievably. “Tell me in sadness, who is that you love,” I said, searching the parts of his face I could see for a flicker of reciprocal feeling.

James: “A sick man in sadness makes his will:

A word ill urged to one that is so ill!

In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.”

For a moment, I forgot which line of mine followed. We stared at each other, and the crowd faded around us into indistinct shadow and set dressing. With a jolt I remembered my words, but not quite the right ones.

“Be ruled by me,” I said, a few lines too soon. “Forget to think of her.”

James blinked rapidly behind his mask, but then he stepped back, detached, and carried on. I stood still and watched him pace around: his words, his footsteps, his gestures—everything restless.

A servant entered with news of the Capulets’ upcoming feast. We gossiped, planned, and plotted, until a third masker finally entered: Alexander.

He spoke his first line from where he was sitting on the edge of the punch table, his arms draped around the two nearest audience members—one of whom was giggling uncontrollably behind her mask, while the other shrank away from him, obviously terrified.

“Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.”

He slid off the table so smoothly that he might have been made of liquid and approached with his loping feline gait. He nudged me out of his way, walked around James in a small circle, pausing to eye him from every intriguing angle. They volleyed words and quips between them, easy and inconsequential until James said, “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, / Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.”

Alexander released a purring laugh and seized James by the front of his doublet.

Alexander: “If love be rough with you, be rough with love!

Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.

Give me a case to put my visage in:

A visor for a visor.”

The foreheads of their masks knocked together, Alexander holding James so tightly I heard him grunt in pain. I started toward them, but as soon as I moved, Alexander shoved him backward, right into my arms.

Alexander:        “What care I

What curious eye doth quote deformities?

Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.”

I pushed James upright again and said, “Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in / But every man betake him to his legs.”

Alexander:    “Come, we burn daylight, ho!”

James:    “Nay, that’s not so.”

Alexander (impatiently):    “I mean, sir, in delay,

We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.

Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits

Five times in that ere once in our five wits.”

James: “And we mean well in going to this masque;

But ’tis no wit to go.”

Alexander:          “Why, may one ask?”

James: “I dream’d a dream tonight.”

Alexander:                “And so did I.”

James: “Well, what was yours?”

Alexander:$$            “That dreamers often lie.”

James: “In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.”

Alexander: “O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you!”

I retreated two steps to watch the peculiar monologue unfold. Alexander’s Mercutio was razor-edged, unbalanced, barely sane. His sharp incisors flashed in the light when he smiled, his mask glittering mischievously as he danced around, first toying with one spectator, then another. His voice and movement both grew more sensual and more savage, until he completely lost control and lunged at me. I staggered backward but not fast enough—he grabbed me by the hair, bent my head back against his shoulder, snarling in my ear.

Alexander: “This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage:

This is she—!”

I strained against his hold but his strength was iron, overwrought, at odds with the delicacy of one fingertip tracing the embroidery on my chest. James, who had been watching, frozen stiff, fought off his paralysis and pulled Alexander off me. “Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!” He took Alexander’s face in his hands. “Thou talk’st of nothing.”

Alexander’s distracted eyes latched onto James’s, and he spoke more slowly.

Alexander:      “True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air

And more inconstant than the wind.”

When it was my turn to speak again I spoke carefully, wondering if Alexander was truly, now, safe. Our conversation from earlier in the evening was too close, too recent to ignore, like a fresh smarting scratch on my skin.

Me: “This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.”

James turned his face skyward, squinting up at the pyramid of glass that seemed so distant, searching in the wash of light from the chandeliers for the secret, far-off glimmer of a star. I thought of the night of the party, when he and I had stood together in the garden, peering up at the heavens through a jagged hole in the treetops. Our last isolated, innocent moment; the stillness that precedes the blows and billows of a storm.

James: “I fear, too early: for my mind misgives

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night’s revels and expire the term

Of a despisèd life closed in my breast

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.”

He paused, gazing upward in soft surprise, sadness like drops of blue in both his eyes. Then he sighed and, smiling, shook his head.

James: “But He that hath the steerage of my course

Direct my sails! On, lusty gentlemen.”

I had almost forgotten where we were—who we were, even—but then the orchestra struck up again and reality came rushing back. Another soaring waltz filled the atrium and breathed life into the audience that had gone silent during the previous scene. The Capulets’ ball was suddenly in full swing.

Alexander grabbed the nearest girl and dragged her forcefully into a dance. The other players appeared from the makeshift wings and did the same, choosing partners at random, pushing other partygoers together. Soon the room was a whirl of movement, surprisingly graceful considering the number of couples. I found a partner at my elbow—indistinguishable from all the other girls except for a black ribbon tied around her throat—and bowed to her before we began to dance. As we turned and revolved and changed places, my attention was constantly elsewhere. Filippa appeared in the corner of my eye, her mask black, silver, purple—she, too, was dressed as male, dancing with another girl, and I wondered if she might be Paris. I turned and lost sight of her again. I looked for James, looked for Meredith, but could not find them, either one.

The song persisted (in my opinion) overlong. When it ended, I bowed again, hastily, and ducked out of the room, making a beeline for the back stairs to the balcony. It was quiet there, and deeply dark. A few couples had sought that secrecy and were maskless now, joined at the lips, pressed close against the walls. The music had begun again but slower. The lights dimmed, burned blue, except for one bright white circle where James stood alone. When the light struck him the surrounding dancers drew back, fell silent.

James:    “What lady’s is that, which doth enrich the hand

Of yonder knight?”

The audience turned to see what he was staring at. And there, faint and ephemeral as a ghost, was Wren. A blue and white mask framed her eyes, but she was unmistakably herself. My fingers curled around the edge of the balustrade; I leaned as far forward as I could without falling.

James: “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!

For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”

The music rose again. Wren and her borrowed partner turned slowly on the spot, and in pantomime bade farewell. James’s feet carried him closer, his eyes fixed on her as if he were afraid that she would simply disappear if he lost sight of her. When he was close enough, he caught her hand, and she turned to see who had touched her.

James: “If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

He lowered his head and kissed her palm. Her breath ruffled his hair when she spoke.

Wren: “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”

Partway through her speech, they eased into motion together, palm to palm, revolving slowly. They paused, changed hands, and stepped together in the opposite direction.

James: “Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?”

Wren: “Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

James: “O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

Wren: “Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.”

James: “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.”

They were motionless. James’s finger brushed her cheek; he turned her face up toward his and kissed her, so softly that she might not have even felt it.

James: “Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.”

Wren: “Then have my lips the sin that they have took.”

James: “Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!

Give me my sin again.”

He kissed her once more, this time long and lingering. My mask was hot and sticky on my face, my stomach twisted inside out and aching like an open wound. I leaned heavily on the balustrade, trembling under the weight of parallel truths that I had, until then, been able to ignore: James was in love with Wren, and I was blindly, savagely jealous.