We are made of clay

A Theatrical Director organizes his own funeral.

 

WE ARE MADE OF CLAY

 

First of all Mass had been held and now the small group of five people - "a priest, and four mourners" - were standing around a grave site, that was ready to receive the shiny, black coffin. There, inside the white silk-lined wooden box, was what was left of Lambert Rossi.

Every so often the priest raised his head to take a look at the other four. It was cold but wasn’t raining, for which the five were grateful. They were not attending the funeral by choice but by invitation. The church and the priest were chosen for the same reason as the attendants at the funeral. Lambert had always been the one who had chosen the restaurants, the backgrounds to the photos that would appear in magazines. Lambert had been a theatrical director and continued to be so in spite of being dead. When he found out he was going to die he thought of two types of funeral; one very extravagant, the other the exact opposite. Taking into account human reactions and that some would reject his invitation, Lambert had chosen the three people who would most like to see him dead, plus Pearl, just to make sure they would come. Once the list was made, Lambert died happy and at peace. A few days later the three received the notification of the death of Lambert and his funeral.

 

Tania and Alan were at home when the post brought the strange invitation. Alan opened it and looked cautiously at Tania. “Lambert died two days ago. There’s an invitation to the funeral.”

Tania didn’t react and then she relaxed, “What did he die of?”

“It says here from a long and painful illness. We shan’t go if you don’t want to.”

“An invitation. How strange! After so many years without any news from him. What can it mean?”

Alan thought the same and answered, “I don’t know, but it won’t hurt us to go, will it?”

“Of course not, but at the same time I don’t see any reason to go.”

“Neither do I. Maybe the most curious thing will be to see who else is invited.”

Alan placed the envelope containing the invitation on a table in the hall.

 

Osric received the invitation when he arrived home in the evening. The day had been very long and after the paltry dinner typical of a single man, he sat down on the sofa and opened his mail. Lambert dead! At last divine justice had touched him. He thought to himself that he would go because he wanted to see Lambert under ground; maybe now he would stop dreaming of meeting him in some dark corner. Yes, he would attend happily, and so Osric went to bed.

 

Pearl didn’t usually open the mail unless it carried a theatrical stamp. The envelope had the stamp of a solicitor on it and this was reason enough for her to open it. Lambert dead! For quite a time Pearl had seen that Lambert’s face hadn’t looked very good. The last time she had seen him before he became terminally ill, had been the night in a club during a historical fancy dress competition. Lambert had been sitting at his usual table. At the close of the night, Pearl and Lambert had had a short conversation. He hadn’t taken her home as on other occasions but had left in his sports car by himself, and Pearl went home in a taxi used by the club. She would go to the cemetery, because she wondered who else would go. It isn’t a good thing to die and be buried with no one to mourn you.

 

At the beginning of the ceremony the four did everything possible not to stare at each other. They left the small chapel and crossed over to the graveyard by way of a narrow asphalted path. The site of the grave was at the end of the path far from the entrance to the chapel. On the walk to the graveyard the mourners had the opportunity to take a good look at one another without having to be furtive about it. The only sound in that respectful silence was the footsteps of the small group gathering there for the sending off from this world of one who was known by all of them, none of whom knew each other.

 

Pearl stood a little back from the rest. She had the advantage of having known Lambert without being involved in some of his murkier matters. From the descriptions and information he had given her, Pearl knew who they were. The half-dead looking female must be Tania and the elderly gentleman beside her had to be Alan. The arrogant one must be Osric. The priest had met Lambert on one of his visits to the hospital. Lambert had chosen the graveyard, as he had seen it by chance, and had thought it an appropriate scenario for his own tomb.

Osric had Pearl on one side and Alan on the other. Osric’s eyes were fixed on the coffin with its wreaths and flowers. Why did he have to be different in death from what he was in life? thought Osric. Lambert was incapable of letting life occur in a spontaneous or normal way. He had to manipulate everything, but above all people. On and off the stage, Lambert couldn’t leave anything to chance. Osric looked at Tania and Alan. Who were they? And the other one. Who was she? He was there by invitation otherwise he wouldn’t have gone. If the others were in the same situation, then what did it all mean?

 

Tania had her hand on Alan’s arm. She wanted to feel safe. After all, the act of dying is very lonely. Lambert had always joked about the subject. According to him he was going to live forever. But ‘forever’ had finished early. One day, Tania was observing a sculptor modelling the body of a woman in clay. Suddenly, the sculptor had grabbed hold of his work and squashed it into a mass, in seconds it was totally destroyed.

“That’s what we’re like, just a lump of clay,” Lambert had commented.

Tania hadn’t heard his arrival and so had received a double blow, the destruction of the clay model and Lambert’s words. When enough time had passed to reflect about what had happened, Tania arrived at the conclusion that Lambert’s friends and acquaintances were clay in his hands. The day that Tania told Lambert who Alan was, he became very irritated as if she had no right to do anything without first having his permission.

“He doesn’t love you. You’re just a distraction for him. He’s an older man, married and with children the same age as you.” Lambert had said on hearing of this.

However, Tania had maintained her positive attitude and had replied, “I know my future with him is not very clear, but I can’t leave him.”

“Before you do something that later you may repent, think about it very well. You have a very promising future with me and it would be a shame to abandon it for something that may end in nothing.”

“I’ll do that,” Tania had answered him but the affection and understanding between her and Alan was stronger than her desire to continue being one of Lambert’s creations.

“You’re an actress with or without him,” Alan had said to her in the most difficult moments. “So if you wish to go on working, you can. He’s not the only theatrical director around, if you want to leave the stage, the decision is yours. I’ll always support you, that you already know.”

Lambert kept an eye on her after the declaration of love between her and Alan, and did everything possible to make it awkward for Tania to distance herself easily. Alan’s wife was dying of a distressing illness. The situation in Alan’s house was unbearable. His children didn’t approve of the relationship between their father and Tania, although they understood it. The news of the romance was given to the press by Lambert, and Alan and Tania were assaulted continuously by reporters and photographers. That was the last straw and Tania went to visit Lambert.

“You’ve come to ask me to leave you alone, haven’t you? You shouldn’t and you can’t. I created you, and now you want to abandon me for an old man. How could you do this to me?” Lambert was in full control.

“Coming from another man those words might sound more sincere, but coming from you they are only words. After all you’ve done, I have no solution other than to leave you.”

“You’ll never appear on stage again. Are you listening? No director will give you work not even in a small part. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Don’t worry yourself. I’ve no intention of returning to the stage and even less so when Alan and I are married. Goodbye, Lambert. I’m very grateful to you for having shown me what a real swine is.”

Tania left and went to look for Alan. Looking at him now as he stood beside her in the cemetery she knew she hadn’t made a mistake and almost felt pity for Lambert.

 

Osric with his gentlemanly bearing, wore a black cashmere coat over a dark grey suit. This outfit accentuated his arrogant and distinguished air. Osric’s gaze was so intense that it was as if it penetrated through the flowers and the wood of the coffin to see Lambert’s dead and made-up face. The grey-white sky was a good backcloth for the dark browns and greens of the fir trees. Lambert knew to the end how to present a scene to get the maximum benefit. Even the weather was on his side, on the point of raining but holding off until the final act had been played. Yes, Lambert had been one of the best directors but now, no. It was all over for him, just like it was for any poor wretch. He had to be feeling very bad to find out that in the place wherever he was, that he was just one more. He had never learned that you can only direct and manipulate people in the theatre. He wanted to direct them in everything, even organizing their interviews with the papers and the magazines that adored him and were friendlier to him. Osric admitted that Lambert had been good, but that it was all over now. He was not as good as he had thought. Any kind of criticism or puff of wind coming from the opposite direction against his latest work, and Lambert became more like a hysterical woman than a mature man. His vanity didn’t allow him to have close-up photos in case the camera showed up the wrinkles and the rinsed hair. Osric was not criticising Lambert for having such whims, but he wanted him to understand that a great man isn’t made smaller because he has wrinkles or white hair. His complaint was that Lambert refused to see his own ageing and a camera would not be able to hide it. Lambert was furious because when he asked Osric his opinion about the wrinkles and Osric had replied that they were evident to everyone, he was offended and had insulted Osric. When the tour was finished, Osric knew that his life as a professional actor was no more. However, since the last meeting between Osric and Lambert, the former felt he was his own man. Osric made a good living as a publicity model on television. He realised that Lambert would never have been able to bear the idea of an actor made by him would one day appear in publicity and earn more money than when he was in the theatre " and be happy at the same time. Osric bent his head down as the priest continued praying.

 

Pearl looked at them one by one in turn. Tania and Osric. She paid no attention to Alan. Who were Tania and Osric? According to Lambert they were a pair of ungrateful people who had made fun of him, who had taken the best from him and then left him. Sometimes in the early mornings when he was still able to stand upright, Lambert had gone up to Pearl’s flat, or they would go for a drive in her car through the deserted streets so as to have a chat. Pearl listened and Lambert talked. And how he talked! Of how ungrateful people were, and the lack of confidence in him as a director after so many years. This was the decline of Lambert but he was incapable of seeing it. He was a hundred per cent egoist, he had it all. When Pearl could scarcely keep her eyes open he insisted on going to another place. There was nowhere open and Pearl told him so, but eventually they found one that was still open. It didn’t matter what the place was like as long as it was open. During the last months of his life Pearl felt sorry for him, but at the same time wanted to get him out of her life. One day he went to the club looking like a dead man and she told him so. He roared with laughter and said, “It’s a fact. I am dying.” Pearl had no answer.

Seeing the expression on her face Lambert continued, “I’ve got bone cancer and in a few weeks I shan’t be able to come here. Will you come to visit me at the hospital?”

Lambert had told her how he had suspected that something was wrong, but he had put off seeing about it till he had no alternative. He wasn’t prepared to be operated on, but he was willing to die. What Pearl couldn’t understand was the reason for the silence that reigned over Lambert’s illness. He had told her he wanted to surprise everyone. “I don’t want to give them the privilege of seeing me dying, nor to make publicity at my cost. So you and the priest are to be the only ones in the know. When the moment arrives you will be given certain instructions.”

Pearl kept her promise and faithfully went to visit him every day. One day the doctor advised her not to hold his hand too firmly as he was nearing the end, because such a simple act could turn his bones into powder. Lambert said, “I’m turning into dust before my death.” He had found it appropriate that according to his theory we were all made of clay. Pearl thought he was trying to animate her, but she soon discovered that it wasn’t so. Lambert was having fun up until his last breath.

Looking at the rest gathered there, the priest, and the coffin, Pearl knew that Lambert was still having fun.

 

The gravediggers were lowering the coffin. In silence the small group stared at it attentively. Little by little the big black box was going down into the cold, dark grave. Then a pause and the coffin was in its place. The gravediggers filled the grave with earth and when this was finished they placed the wreaths and flowers over it. Lambert was well and truly buried.

 

The priest stood at the entrance to the graveyard. Pearl shook hands with him and thanked him, and then went in search of her car.

Osric approached the priest to ask him the reason for the invitation and the lack of show biz people. “Lambert wanted to direct people until his last moment in this world. He invited you three, as he thought the hate or bad feeling that you felt towards him was more genuine than the public performances of tears and words, fainting, and other ways of distracting the attention away from the star - the deceased.”

“And he was right in spite of everything. He understood people’s weaknesses very well. He knew that the curiosity of seeing him buried would be impossible to turn down. Now we are free of him, and perhaps that’s what he wanted to say to us. Thank you, and good day.” Osric shook the priest’s hand.

 

Alan was standing beside his car waiting for Tania. He saw her walk towards him. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking about someone who didn’t know how to love,” and she breathed deeply.

 

The priest closed the gate after Tania. Funerals were the most interesting events. You never knew who would attend. And with this thought the priest entered his house. Tomorrow’s newspapers would carry a photo of Lambert and the news of his death and burial. The inevitable question would be, Why were they the only ones who attended?

 

That night in his bathroom mirror Osric saw the first cracks in his waxen face and thought, I’ll be next.

 

Tania woke up during the night feeling the cold hand of death. Alan stayed sleeping while she went and got the electric blanket and switched it on. Even so, she took a long time to fall asleep. Before finally sleeping, the room smelled of wilting flowers.

 

But Osric wasn’t the next. Pearl died during the night. She had carried out Lambert’s last wishes, and as the ‘master of ceremonies’ she was witness to Lambert’s last triumph.

 

At eight o’clock the gravediggers arrived at the graveyard to start digging the first grave of the day.