Maskerade

Brindisi…and…and…”
    He blew his nose on the handkerchief, carefully folded it up, and produced another one from his pocket.
    “I don’t mind the pasta and the squid,” he said. “Well, not much…But you can’t get a decent pint for love nor money and they put olive oil on everything and tomatoes give me a rash and there isn’t what I’d call a good hard cheese in the whole country.”
    He dabbed at his face with the handkerchief.
    “And people are so kind,” he said. “I thought I’d get a few beefsteaks when I traveled but, wherever I go, they do pasta especially for me. In tomato sauce! Sometimes they fry it! And what they do to the squid…” He shuddered. “Then they all grin and watch me eat it. They think I enjoy it! What I’d give for a plate of nice roast mutton with clootie dumplings…”
    “Why don’t you say?” said Nanny.
    He shrugged. “Enrico Basilica eats pasta,” he said. “There’s not much I can do about it now.”
    He sat back. “You’re interested in music, Mrs. Ogg?”
    Nanny nodded proudly. “I can get a tune out of just about anything if you give me five minutes to study it,” she said. “And our Jason can play the violin and our Kev can blow the trombone and all my kids can sing and our Shawn can fart any melody you care to name.”
    “A very talented family, indeed,” said Enrico. He fumbled in a waistcoat pocket and took out two oblongs of cardboard. “So please, ladies, accept these as a small token of gratitude from someone who eats other people’s pies. Our little secret, eh?” He winked desperately at Nanny. “They’re open tickets for the opera.”
    “Well, that’s amazin’,” said Nanny, “because we’re going to— Ow! ”
    “Why, thank you very much,” said Granny Weatherwax, taking the tickets. “How very gracious of you. We shall be sure to go.”
    “And if you’ll excuse me,” said Enrico, “I must catch up on my sleep.”
    “Don’t worry, I shouldn’t think it’s had time to get far away,” said Nanny.
    The singer leaned back, pulled the handkerchief over his face and, after a few minutes, began to snore the happy snore of someone who had done his duty and now with any luck wouldn’t have to meet these rather disconcerting old women ever again.
    “He’s well away,” said Nanny, after a while. She glanced at the tickets in Granny’s hand. “You want to visit the opera?” she said.
    Granny stared into space.
    “I said , do you want to visit the opera?”
    Granny looked at the tickets. “What I want don’t signify, I suspect,” she said.
    Nanny Ogg nodded.
    Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theater was fiction made flesh, she hated the theater most of all. But that was it— hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.
    She didn’t loathe the theater, because, had she done so, she would have avoided it completely. Granny now took every opportunity to visit the traveling theater that came to Lancre, and sat bolt upright in the front row of every performance, staring fiercely. Even honest Punch and Judy men found her sitting among the children, snapping things like “’Tain’t so!” and “Is that any way to behave?” As a result, Lancre was becoming known throughout the Sto Plains as a really tough gig.
    But what she wanted wasn’t important. Like it or not, witches are drawn to the edge of things, where two states collide. They feel the pull of doors, circumferences, boundaries, gates, mirrors, masks…
    …and stages.

    Breakfast was served in the Opera House’s refectory at half-past nine. Actors were not known for their habit of early rising.
    Agnes started to fall forward into her eggs and bacon, and stopped herself just in time.
    “Good morning!!”
    Christine sat down with a tray on which was, Agnes was not surprised to see, a plate holding one stick of celery, one raisin and about a spoonful of milk. She leaned toward Agnes and her face very briefly expressed some concern. “Are you all right?! You look a little peaky!!”
    Agnes caught herself in mid-snore.
    “I’m fine,” she said. “Just a bit tired…”
    “Oh, good!!” This exchange having exhausted her higher mental processes, Christine went back to operating on automatic. “Do you like my new dress?!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it fetching ?!”
    Agnes looked