Tuuri was still frowning down thunderously at the blank sheets in front of her when Sigrun went by the office area; this caught the troupe leader’s attention, as it was unlike Tuuri to fuss over something for any length of time. “What’s up, Fuzzy-Head? What’s got that frown on your face?”
Tuuri half-growled, half-sighed, rubbing the back of her neck in frustration. “I wanted to write a new play for us to perform when we get back to Europe, but I’m… well, I’m just… y’know, stuck! I can write a letter in Tamil, a proclamation in Russian, a fatwa in Arabic, or a quatrain in French, Swedish, English or Finnish off the top of my head, but I can’t work out how to start a brand-new play for us, even though I’ve been adapting other people’s plays for our troupe since forever! It’s just so… maddening!”
“Well, ‘when in doubt, add an adjective’, y’know?” Sigrun quoted in an attempt to be helpful.
Tuuri shot Sigrun a Look. “I can’t add an adjective when I haven’t even put the first sentence down yet,” she pointed out in the tone of forced patience people use when they’re trying to explain something that their listener can’t quite understand.
Sigrun didn’t let it bother her. “Well, why don’t you start with something easy, like, ‘It was a dark and stormy night’?”
“Have you been reading my Minerva Press novels again?” Tuuri asked suspiciously. “Besides, plays don’t start out like that.” She sighed heavily. “I’m not even sure what this play should be about, now!”
“Well,” Sigrun said thoughtfully, looking off into the distance, “why don’t you make it about one of our adventures, like our latest trip through the subcontinent?”
Tuuri looked appalled. “I can’t! It would blow our cover!”
Sigrun dismissed that worry with an airy wave of one hand. “Naaaaaaah. Just change the names and dates and put in some silly stuff like… I don’t know… maybe a dragon coming to the rescue in the last battle or something. Just throw in something to tell the audience ‘this is just a show’ and our cover will be fine.”
“Nobody’ll like the size of their parts,” Tuuri groused, but Sigrun could see a glint of inspiration start in her eyes. “Especially Emil.”
“Just give him a noble and dramatic death scene and he’ll be fine with whatever else you throw at him,” Sigrun advised.
“And where should I even start?” Tuuri asked. “Should I go back to when we got the job, or pick up when we landed in Goa, or what?”
“Well, you could start with…”
*
Lalli emptied his stomach over the side of the wharf while Emil watched on in helpless concern. Now that they were back on dry land, Lalli would have some relief from his pervasive sea-sickness that always proved such a problem for them on these trips.
*
“You want me to open on Lalli puking his guts up? Why?”
“Well, it gets the audience’s sympathies aroused, so they care about him.” Sigrun leaned in and said in a confidential voice, “You know, your cousin isn’t the easiest guy in the world to get along with, and that’s a problem in a play.”
Tuuri giggled, as Sigrun had intended.
“It also sets up the Emil-Lalli relationship,” Sigrun continued, “which is always important when you have something of such portent.”
“Your point,” Tuuri acknowledged.
“Anyway, if you start there, you can go on with…”
*
Mikkel handed Emil a canteen. “Here. Help him clean up.” He gestured at the wretched form of the retching Finn.
Emil looked at the canteen dubiously. “It’s just water, right?”
Mikkel rolled his eyes. “Even I know that this is not the time for such things, Emil,” he told the younger man.
“MIKKEL! GET OVER HERE BEFORE I SMASH THIS IDIOT’S STUPID FACE IN!”
Mikkel rolled his eyes again and started off in the direction of the bellicose bellow…
