The Motion of Puppets(13)
“The makers and unmakers,” the wooden fairy said. “In service to the man in the glass jar.”
“Tut-tut,” said Mr. Firkin. He put a finger to his lips to silence her. “Enough of your philosophy. The man is called the Quatre Mains, the woman is the Deux Mains. They decide when you are to stay in the Back Room and when you get to be part of a show. They choose who performs, who must wait.”
“And what if I don’t want to wait?” Kay said. “What if I want to go home?”
The tallest of the Three Sisters sauntered to her side and draped a thin arm over Kay’s shoulders. On her sharp angular face, she wore a melancholic expression, a look of long suffering and heartbreak over the absurdity of life. She stroked Kay’s face with a delicate finger. “You don’t go home, dahlink. Not by your own doing, in any case. You are here for duration.”
5
In the alley behind the Back Room, a mockingbird was singing, trying out a few bars from a dozen different melodies, looking to impress any potential females in the area. How strange, Kay thought, to wander so far north. He might be repeating those same songs for a long, long time. The bird reminded her of her husband and how long and ardently he had wooed her, how long she had resisted. For the first time since her transformation, Kay was missing him. Not in the way she used to long for him after a few days apart, but in a deeper way, a feeling she had not had before, a realization that their destinies had changed, perhaps inexorably. The thought that he, too, might be lonesome troubled her, yet she knew that little could be done.
The bird sang on in the last of the night. Mr. Firkin stood by the door, but guarding against trespass, though he seemed more anxious about a visitor from outside than an escapee from within. Perhaps it was all for show. After they had examined her, most of the puppets returned to their tasks. Nix practiced juggling with three small heads taken from a bin of spare parts. He must have just begun to learn this new trick, for he would often miss and clumsily drop one of the wooden balls, the head bouncing across the wooden floor, with the clown in pursuit. The Russian Sisters—they had made their introductions and proved her hunch—lounged indolently nearby on makeshift furniture, sighing when the mood struck them and holding their hands dramatically against their foreheads as though stemming a migraine or an existential woe.
Beautifully carved, the Sisters were tall and willowy, adorned in long elegant gowns of crushed velvet in dark shades of mauve, aubergine, and navy blue, with high lace collars, and on their feet they wore button boots. Their long hair was pinned and coiffed in a modest style that threatened to unwind, and their beautiful faces were adorned with matching aquiline noses. Irina toyed with a strand of pearls at her neck, and Masha twirled a parasol to a rhythm only she could hear. They adored being watched, and after a time under scrutiny, Olya motioned to Kay with a languid wave of her hand to come join them.
“Sit, lapochka, and tell us of the outside world. What news from the mortals?” Her voice dripped, low and rich, into the air.
“How long have you been here in the Back Room?”
“Forever and a day,” Masha said.
“I do not know,” Irina said. “How long is eternity?”
Olya shot them a glance that indicated they had said too much. “Pay no attention to these mopes. They have short memories. Things were not always thus.”
“It is June,” Kay said. “Or at least it was when I arrived. The passage of time is hard to judge inside a box. We were just married, my husband and I, this past April, and we came here for work.”
“Does this marvel have a name?” Olya asked.
Unsure of the answer, Kay hesitated. “I have forgotten it for the moment, but he teaches French literature and is a translator, and I am an acrobat. A gymnast, really, but I thought it might be fun to spend the summer in Québec with the cirque.”
Irina stifled a laugh. “I’m sorry. Expectations are often thwarted by the smallest accidents.”
“An acrobat?” Masha smiled. “That will serve you well, pet, when it comes to the next puppet show. The Deux Mains adores a nimble doll. But your husband, tut. How careless of him to misplace you, to let you wander this way. Never enter a toy shop after midnight.”
Kay thought of how she had entered this space, remembering being outside the toy shop looking in. The sensation of being followed. The lights on for the first time ever and at such a late hour. A twinge in her hand reminded her of turning the doorknob and stepping into the store in her bare feet. Where were her shoes? She must have taken them off to fool her pursuer, to erase her tracks. At last, she had come so close to the man beneath the glass. Darkness arrived completely as she’d lifted the bell jar. She’d shut her eyes and then awoke to find her life in pieces. Memory, what a strange thing, not bound to any time but to a place. This box of a room, alone with these weird creatures. The Russians were smiling at her. She wondered if the Quatre Mains and the Deux Mains were nearby, in another room in the building, perhaps asleep in a bedroom in the upper story. Or tinkering below in the cellar. Or not there at all.
“Tell me about the others,” Kay said at last, shaking off the dust of her own spell.
“The old-timers,” Masha said. “Some have been here so long that they no longer have a name. Take the judges.” She gestured toward two large puppets arguing together over a chessboard. From the few pieces left on the board, it was impossible to tell who was playing black and who was playing white. “They are simply the Black Judge and the White Judge, but I can no longer tell who is whom. Do you know, Irina?”