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Blue Flame – Part 05

The theater’s dressing room was filled with the smell of face powder.

The powdery air was thick with the smell of sweat, tobacco smoke, and people, all wrapped in the clamor. Mirrors and huge cabinets stood on all sides, and chairs once used for guests, now with stained or broken decors and legs, were scattered everywhere. Discarded costumes and undergarments lay here and there. Pretty actors and dancers changing clothes and applying makeup sat before mirrors scrawled with the words “The show must go on!” in lipstick.

As soon as he stepped into the room, Kazuya coughed violently from the smell and smoke. He was running around fine earlier, but now he was feeling dizzy, and he leaned against a cabinet.

He felt something soft. He opened his eyes and saw a woman’s silk underwear.

Turning beet red, he raised both hands in the air.

One of the actresses noticed Kazuya. “What’s up, kid?” she asked listlessly.

Hers was the voice of someone that lived in the night, young, half-ruined by alcohol and cigarettes, but alluring nonetheless.

“I, uhh…” Kazuya stammered, still keeping his arms up.

The actress was wearing a resplendent royal dress on the top half of her body, but on the lower half there was only underwear and garter belt, her long legs resting on the dresser. Kazuya turned ever redder.

He looked up at the ceiling. “I’m looking for someone who’s been around for a while. Someone working in this theater since the year 1900.”

“What?” The woman scratched her head. “That far back, there’s Ginger Pie first and foremost. Then a couple of others.”

“Can you tell me who they are?”

“Sure,” she said. “No, wait a sec.” The actress looked around the dressing room as though an interesting idea came to her.

The women were listening to their conversation, blowing their pipes, combing their hair, drawing their eyebrows.

The actress grinned. “Why don’t you take a guess?”

“Okay! …Wait, what?”

“Which one of us has been around for a long time? Who are the grannies? Look closely!”

Holding a cigarette in her mouth, she grabbed Kazuya’s cheek and pulled it, forcing him to look around the room. But he was absolutely clueless.

All the women were beautiful and sexy, every single one wearing proper makeup, making it difficult to tell them apart. Some had black hair, some blonde, others red, either long and wavy, straight, or cut short. Their eyes varied in color too; blue, gray, black, brown. They had different facial features, but he couldn’t guess their ages.

Just then, Ms. Cecile appeared from behind Kazuya. “Her and her!”

A slim and dark-haired, smart-looking woman wearing a cotton bra and glasses with small gold chains, reading a newspaper, gave a jerk. Another woman with a sexy figure, brushing her red hair before a mirror, clicked her tongue.

“Bingo! Impressive!” the actress said.

“I’m a teacher, after all!” Cecile puffed her chest out.

The two sexy grannies approached Cecile, heels clicking, and started pulling on her hair from both sides.

“Why are you acting all smug, huh?”

“Little girl with the round glasses?”

“Ouch!”

They elbowed Kazuya’s sides too.

“Why me too?!”

Kazuya and Ms. Cecile ran around the green room.

---

“Little Blue Rose died in 1900? What in the world are you talking about?” the red-haired woman said doubtfully, biting her cigarette.

They were in the narrow corridor outside the dressing room. There was a luxurious couch that looked like a prop, and a table so low that would have been awful to use. It was probably made that way so that the audience could easily see the actors’ movements.

The red-haired woman, sitting on the table, shook her head. “That’s not possible. I saw her.”

“You did?” Kazuya gasped. He was standing erect, the tips of his shoes neatly aligned.

Nodding beside him was Ms. Cecile, her hair still a mess, wearing a grave look on her face.

The red-haired woman picked up the rabbit that had been following Kazuya and placed it on her lap. “She suddenly went missing. There were a lot of rumors. A moneybag fell in love with her and took her to the New World. She became an adventurer and went to Africa. Or she died, and someone found her grave.”

“We found Nicole Leroux’s grave in a little church near a back street,” Kazuya said.

“Now that’s just weird. Maybe it was already there while she was still alive?”

“Of course not!” the other woman, with the dark hair and the air of an intellectual, interjected.

She was lying lazily on the couch, stretching and yawning like a cat.

The red-haired woman turned to her. “But around 1910, about ten years since she went missing, I got married for the second time.”

“You mean the third time, right?”

“Oh, shush!”

“Ahaha!”

“Ah, I hate long-time colleagues. They remember every single thing.” She poked the head of the dark-haired woman, who responded with a huge yawn. “Anyway, back then I saw Little Blue Rose for the first time in ten years. I told you about it, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“I was on my way home after an exhausting show, when I passed by a carriage so luxurious that I wondered what kind of noble was in it. Then I heard a familiar voice saying ‘It’s you!’ I looked up and saw Blue Rose’s tiny face peeking out of the small window, with a big smile that she always wore. A smile that said, ‘I’m so happy to be alive,’ like she would start dancing at any second. Innocent and wicked at the same time, pretty yet ugly. The smile of a woman. If that wasn’t Nicole Leroux, then who was it? She called to me when she saw me. I’m sure of it.” She shrugged. “Unless it was a ghost, of course. Haha!”

The dark-haired woman nodded somberly. “That reminds me, I think I saw her too.”

“Really?!”

“About two years after you told me about it. I was walking along the shore of a lake in the suburbs with my sugar daddy.”

“Did you have one back then? I’m the living list of all the men you’ve been with, and I don’t know about that.”

“Remember that guy I called Uncle? I lied to him about my age. It was off by about fifteen years, so he was actually younger than me.”

“Oh, that guy!”

The women looked at each other and laughed.

They began reenacting the woman’s love affair with the younger man using gestures. Given it was their job, their performance was very realistic and captivating. Kazuya watched with amazement.

Ms. Cecile was all worked up, stamping her feet on the floor. Standing on tiptoe, she covered Kazuya’s ears with her hands.

“This is not for kids!” she said.

Astonished, the women stopped their skit.

“What are you saying? You’re not a stuffy teacher, are you?”

“I am! I’m his homeroom teacher!”

“Oh!”

The women turned serious. Perhaps they recalled the image of a strict female teacher from their student days. They closed their mouths, as though afraid of Ms. Cecile. Keeping their heads down, they exchanged quick glances.

“Tell me all about it later, okay?” Ms. Cecile whispered.

They raised their heads slowly, then nodded, smiling. Ms. Cecile nodded back and removed her hands from Kazuya’s ears.

“It’s fine now, Kujou,” she said. “They’re so obscene, huh? I already reprimanded them.”

“Actually,” Kazuya replied hesitantly. “You didn’t completely cover my ears, so unfortunately I heard everything.”

“What?!”

Ms. Cecile’s face turned crimson, and the two women burst into laughter. The wall-mounted lamps flickered.

“Anyway,” the dark-haired woman continued, “we were walking along the lakeside when we saw a group of people having a picnic, fully equipped. There was this noble lady wearing a fine dress and a bonnet, surrounded by her attendants. She seemed to love entertaining people because she started singing all of a sudden.”

“She started singing? A noblewoman? Is that even possible?”

“It is! And as soon as I heard her voice, a distant memory came back to me. I mean, how could I forget that lively voice that fills you with so much joy that you’re alive? And then she started dancing. I looked like she was having so much fun. I almost called her name. ‘Hey there, Downtown Blue Rose! I see your right leg’s still going strong!’ Her pet phrase used to be ‘I have the most beautiful right leg in Saubreme. But it actually has a competition.’ And when the customers would ask her, ‘Where?’ she would answer, ‘My left leg!’ and then laugh out loud.”

“You didn’t call out to her?” Kazuya asked.

“How could I?”

“Of course not.”

Both women nodded.