“Oh, Hamlet, have you no pity, have you no understanding?”
“Without a thought of me, me, me . . .”
“Hamlet, I cannot bear it. I cannot look into my soul the way that you ask. I am afraid of what I may see. You show me such black and cancerous spots within, that my vision fails me. It is too much for anyone, too much for you, even. For now, be concerned only with Polonius. It is enough, surely. Do something about Polonius.”
“Let the fat bag of guts lie there until I have your promise.”
“My promise?” she said faintly. She could no longer deal with him.
“That you will not sleep with him,” the boy replied. “That the next time he comes to your bed, you will send him away. Keep yourself pure, Mother,” he begged. “Please, you don’t need him.”
She shook her head. He was too young. He did not understand anything. “You have split my heart in two, Hamlet —” she began to say, but he cut her off again.
“Then throw away half of it, the rotten half. Keep only the half which is good.”
When she did not answer, he took the silence to mean that she was beaten. He was satisfied that he had made his point. He had penetrated to her inner being and left his mark there. He felt exhausted but triumphant. He had slain the serpent and barred its way to her bed, keeping her safe for his dead father and himself. After all, she was theirs. She belonged to them, not to the insidious, nefarious, pernicious, cuckolding snake.
“You know I must go away?”
“Hamlet! I cannot speak of that with the old man lying there. All the blood. What do you take me for? I have feelings. I do not know you when you are in this state. Do something, please.”
Hamlet took her by the elbow and steered her into the next room. She was too frightened to resist. “This is not what I meant by doing something,” was all she could say.
“You know about my being sent away,” he demanded again, ignoring her emotions as much as he was ignoring the dead Polonius.
God, let him not be mad, she thought. Anything but madness.
“Sent away!” he demanded again.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “You’re going with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The king has commanded it. The old man had been telling me when you arrived.”
Hamlet was instantly suspicious. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? What have they got to do with it?”
“Why, I think he said they are to keep you company . . . keep you safe.”
“They may have been my friends at school, but I trust them as much as I’d trust a pair of rats with a piece of pork. Knowing Claudius, he’ll send me to some brigand to get me knocked off. I’ll watch Rosencrantz and Guildenstern more closely than they could ever watch me. They may be in for a shock. A hangman’s rope can fit the neck of the executioner as well as it fits the neck of the condemned man.”
The queen nodded, faint with fatigue. Hamlet did not appear to notice her condition. “Polonius,” she said, her eyes closed.
This time Hamlet seemed to hear her. He went back to the first room. She followed and stood, one hand covering her mouth, as he took hold of the old man’s body at the waist and swung it around so the head was against the wall. “There’ll be trouble with this one,” he remarked. “He may weigh more in death than he did in life.”
He picked up the old bag of guts by the heels, and dragging him behind, as a groom would take a sled of hay to the horses, he left the room.
To Horatio fell the melancholy task of telling Ophelia the news. Adolescence had changed their relationship, so that the easy familiarity of childhood had given way to a more awkward ebb and flow between them. Now every comment was charged with a different energy. But their affection for each other was still strong, and Horatio knew he was the right person to inform Ophelia that she was now orphaned.
He climbed the stairs to Polonius’s apartment with his heart beating slowly but loudly. This was a well-worn staircase, the carpet completely split on many of the steps. As the king of conspiracy, the master of plots, the State Secretary of Gossip, Polonius had received many visitors.
Horatio passed through the reception rooms. They were cold and silent in the early morning. Everything here was severe, from the hard leather sofas to the bare tables, to the glass cabinets that stood in each corner, symmetrical and uncompromising. They contained Polonius’s medals, certificates of commendation, letters of thanks from a dozen European monarchs. A black fur coat thrown roughly across a chair had the appearance of a dead animal. The fireplaces had not been cleaned from the night before.
Horatio trod softly, this messenger of death, ill suited to his task, afraid to create any eddies, to disturb the air. At the end of the first room hung a large portrait of Polonius, glaring down at the boy who came in search of his daughter. In the second room, the heads of stags and wolves bared their teeth, as if defying Horatio to bring any more death into an apartment that was full of it. In the third room, gazing out the window, was Ophelia.
Her white silk gown was so plain that Horatio, unknowing of the ways of women, wondered if it was the garment she slept in. With no one to announce him, no warning of his coming, he already felt compromised. But then he remembered, to whom could she complain? Who was left to protect her? Who would come thundering into the room, waving his arms, remonstrating, admonishing Horatio for his intrusion? The closest person was Laertes, and he was in England.
Ophelia showed no signs of outrage. Indeed, she showed no signs of anything. She continued to gaze through the window. Horatio coughed gently, then, when she did not respond, cleared his throat more loudly. She turned to him and said, “He has gone far away.”
“H-he . . . who has?” Horatio stammered. He decided that someone had already notified her of her father’s death, and he felt relieved. Now he would not have to find the difficult words.
“Who has? What did I say? Pay no attention. Sometimes I dream.” Perfectly composed, she gazed at him. “Are you here to see my father? I don’t know where he is. He’s normally at his desk by this hour. Writing his letters. Doing his business.”
He realized that he had been wrong: she had no idea of Polonius’s death. Blood rushed to his face and he began to stammer again. “Ophelia, I have . . . there has been . . . something terrible’s happened.”
She sank down on a piano stool. She was so naturally pale that it was hard to imagine her becoming paler, but now her face was no longer even white; she lost all color. “Is it Hamlet?” she asked. As he hesitated with his answer, she turned to the piano, which was open, and, astonishingly, began playing a tune that he remembered from their childhood, though he did not know its name. It was a sweet and cheerful song that they used to sing on long walks, something about a blackbird in the snow.
When she finished the tune, she closed the piano and walked to the window. Horatio was stupefied. He did not know what to say or how to act. She swung the window open and then horrified him by climbing through it and sitting on the sill, with her back to him. Cold air rushed into the room. Horatio started forward, then hesitated. Bound by the strict rules of etiquette that applied even between those who had been childhood friends, and despite his awareness that she no longer had a protector in the castle, he nonetheless was afraid to touch her.
“Ophelia!” he screeched, in a voice he had never heard from his mouth before. “What are you doing? Nothing’s happened to Hamlet.” Though even as he spoke, he knew this was not true.
She glanced around at him. “Do not fear,” she said. “Say what you have come to say. Then I will stay, or fly away.”
He stared at her. “Are you crazy? Come back inside. I’m not telling you anything while you’re sitting like that. You’re twenty meters from the ground.”
She immediately became very docile. She climbed back in at once and came toward him, head bowed, hands clasped in front of her. “What do you have to tell me?” she muttered. “Go ahead, say it. I’ll be good.”
He took a deep breath, stood taller, and began. “Ophelia, a terrible accid
ent happened last night. Quite late. There was an awful scene in the queen’s apartment. I’m still not sure of the details, but it seems that Hamlet . . . I think perhaps Hamlet mistook your father for an intruder. . . . There was some kind of fight. . . . Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . .”
“He’s dead, he’s dead.” The girl began to rock herself. “He killed him. I knew he would. Oh, I knew he would. Sweet Jesus. Sweet mother.”
“It’s true, he is dead.”
“You said nothing had happened to him.”
Horatio realized she still had not understood the truth. He cursed himself for making such a mess of it. “No, no, Ophelia, it’s not Hamlet who has died; it’s your father. Hamlet mistook him . . . There was some kind of terrible confusion . . .”
She fell back onto a sofa, her hands covering her face. “Oh! My father! Then not Hamlet! Oh God, forgive me, I did not want it to be Hamlet.” Suddenly she sat bolt upright, took her hands away, and stared at Horatio. “Are you saying that Hamlet has killed my father?”
The boy nodded.
“He killed my father,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes from his face. “Oh, better that he kill his own father. To kill a father! But, God help me, I am as bad. The reek of this must reach to heaven itself. We will all be damned.”
“No, Ophelia, please, you cannot think like that. You must not. It was an accident. I don’t know the details, but I’m sure that when it all comes out, we will find that Hamlet’s honor remains intact.”
“Yes, yes, honor. That is everything. To keep honor intact. So, men fight. Oh, how little they know. How little they understand me. So, the young man must fight the old. They think that is the only way.”
Horatio did not know what she was talking about. He was greatly relieved when the door to his left opened and Ophelia’s maid came in. Ophelia had never had a maid until recently, and Horatio did not even know the girl’s name. She was from the north, daughter of a farmer, unused to the ways of the court, but Polonius had gotten her for nothing more than the cost of her board, in exchange for the promise of experience in serving a noble family. Well, Horatio thought, she’ll get a lot more experience than she bargained for.
Seeing her mistress’s distress, the maid hurried to her side. “Madam,” she said, “what is wrong?”
Ophelia turned away. Horatio, taking his opportunity, escaped, closing the door behind him and running through the other two reception rooms, desperate for space 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 nobles, 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 scraps 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 furnishings. 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 bloody 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 establishing 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.”