Elias turned to give a skeptical look over his shoulder.
“It’s true!” he said. “Actors!”
Libba climbed up onto the podium and raised her arms, silencing everyone with much the same force of will she had used before, convincing even Wallace to withdraw and shut up.
“Pygmalionis an ancient myth,” she began. “And one that I have always loved. It was a story first told me by Willa, the woman we are gathered here today to honor. And she did so in response to a childish question that I’d asked her, the day she’d offered to take me in.”
Libba smiled, shaking her head and looking down. The tiny crystals she had glued over each of her constellation of beauty marks flashed in the late day sun. “I asked her who I should be to make her most happy, in gratitude for my new lot,” she said. “And Willa told me that we should never attempt to fashion another person to our desires, for that is not the way of love. This is a story about that exact folly.
“Today, we are performing a small piece of the full theatrical production ofPygmalion. If you enjoy it, I urge you to speak to my players after the performance. You may purchase tickets to the full production in two weeks’ time at the Odalisque Playhouse on Ship Street, where we will be for the remainder of the year.”
Elias turned to watch, resisting the urge to chuckle at the way Hattie was bustling across the pavilion with her skirts in her fists to take the seat he’d saved her next to his own.
She was panting, slumping down next to him and shaking herself. He turned, breaking his bakewell slice in half and offering her the bit with the cherry, which she accepted with a smirk.
Lem strode to the front of the stage as Libba and her players gathered around the plinth, crossing his massive, oiled arms over his chest and beginning to speak, his deep baritone echoing through the pavilion.
“Of a late summer night,” he said, “in a lonely workshop, an artist creates. He has pled with the goddess to bring him love, and instead, only the muses have answered. And so he toils, for toiling is how he eases his pain.”
The harp trilled, one of the young vagabonds stepping around Lem to bow to the crowd. The formerly golden-haired youth now somehow transformed into a distinguished older gentleman, with powdered-white hair and a mustache he certainly hadn’t had this morning.
He took up a chisel and followed the music, approaching the plinth where Libba was now hidden behind several gray sheets of fabric that had been suspended on horizontal poles. Elias thought that they really did look like a chunk of marble or granite, even here in the light.
For every strike of the chisel, one of the troupe hit a drum and a sheet fell away, revealing more of the shape of the woman hiding underneath.
Libba, Elias could see, was holding a very difficult pose, with one leg raised behind her and her arms stretched toward the heavens.
No wonder she had such strong flanks.
The actress who may or may not have also been a nun strode forward, her long, false hair glinting in the light as she paced the circumference of the workshop.
“The goddess did hear,” Lem’s voice boomed. “And she did answer. For she, like us all, was moved by the creation of beauty.”
Another sheet fell away, revealing Libba’s talc-covered hand reaching to the heavens. The goddess passed near, touching the plinth, and her fingers began to wiggle.
It drew an awed gasp from the crowd.
A violin struck a chord, adding its wail to the harp as the artist sped in his endeavors, peeling away the remainder of rockthat hid his beloved in its shell, pulling Libba out until her pose was fully visible to the crowd, and still, only her hand moved.
“The goddess,” said Lem, “provides.”
And Libba opened her eyes, winning another gasp.
What followed was something of a ballet, as far as Elias could tell, with Libba stretching and languid, moving in coils on her plinth before leaping from it into the arms of the sculptor. They followed the pulse of the music in long, controlled motions, choreographed to be somehow both passionate and stunning in their physicality.
“Elias,” Hattie whispered. “It is the silent language.”
And he nodded.
Because it was.
Libba was smiling now, though he was not sure if it was her own joy or the sculpture’s as she tangled and leapt with the other actor, chasing the crescendo and the rapid tatter of the drum.
The man grasped her about the waist and lifted her high, as though presenting her to the audience. She spread her arms and then twisted around, grasping him about the shoulders and kissing his mouth as the troupe swept in and covered them with the marble sheets, bringing the scene to a close.
There was stunned silence. And then there was applause. And the sheets fell away as the troupe emerged to take a bow.
Elias thought it might have been a perfect moment. Utterly perfect.
