The Motion of Puppets(26)
In all of his interviews with the police, when Thompson and Foucault had asked him to re-create the events of that night, he had neglected to mention the incident, perhaps because in comparison to Kay’s disappearance, it seemed inconsequential in his confused mind, but now he remembered clearly his surprise that evening. He had told them all the rest, leaving the apartment and walking to the restaurant, what he ate, how long he stayed, at what time he arrived back home, and the long wait to hear from her, the message in the middle of the night. Perhaps the lights in the toy shop meant nothing at all. The juggler in the bowler hat had reminded him of the puppets, and a string of synapses fired in his tired brain, but despite the late hour, he needed to go check that shop, if only to fill in the puzzle.
“Wait just a minute,” she had said, tugging on his crooked arm. “Stop, let me see.” Kay acted like a child when they passed the Quatre Mains. She could not resist staring at the dolls and puppets on display, sometimes putting her hands on the glass to peer inside and stare at the wonders. And nearly every time, Theo indulged her whim, for in those moments, the little girl emerged, the one he had never known, the essential child inside, like the core of a matryoshka, the Russian nesting doll. Some bright spirit responsible for the grown woman he loved.
The chilly night air foretold the end of summer and the autumn soon to come. He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and ambled along the sidewalk, vaguely excited about remembering the missing detail. A few stragglers lingered at the outdoor café tables, and a fiddler’s reel from an Irish pub spilled out onto the cobblestoned street. At the corner nearest Quatre Mains, a ghost appeared, and at first, he mistook her for the drowned woman and shook with a spasm of fear, but it was a scullery maid in white cap and apron, her face ashen and nicked by makeup scars, with an iron necklace and a length of chain ringed around her neck. She nearly ran him over, and then looked as though she recognized him for a brief moment. “Pardonnez,” she said, smiling. Both hands were clenched to hold a hurricane lantern which glowed with the flicker of faux whale oil that gave a deathly pallor to her makeup. He laughed, realizing she was one of the actors from les Visites Fant?mes de Québec, the nightly summer ghost tour through the Old City streets. Looking back once, the phantom sped away to join her hidden comrades.
The puppet shop stood just as always, dark and quiet. The dolls had not moved. The bear with the red fez had not bicycled away. The aboriginal doll underneath the bell jar, the one Kay so adored, stood like a guardian to another world, his black eyes staring into the distance. Theo tried the door, but it was locked as always. Perhaps his memory was just playing tricks, and no light had ever flashed in the abandoned store. He pressed his nose against the window as she had always done, but he could see nothing but darkness behind the puppets.
9
The giants returned. Kay had no idea how long she had been in the dormant state but was startled to be aware of them in the middle of the day. Judging by the slant of light coming through the edges of the covered windows, it was perhaps four in the afternoon. Something had happened to the order of things, and though she could not move, Kay was attuned to the changing nature of the world. Beyond the curtain, the giants were moving about. She could tell by their heavy footfalls and agitated voices reaching her ears. The bells on the front door ringing like mad with people going in and out of the shop. They spent hours in the Front Room, and not just the Quatre Mains and the Deux Mains as expected, but others as well, new and different voices, swearing in French and English, the smell of cigarettes, bottles banging on the counters, the tromp of boots and the packing of boxes. Kay hoped for night to come, then midnight, so that the puppets might be awake and someone could peek around the edge, but they must have started early in the day to have been working for so many hours. Frustrated that she could not see what was happening, she let out a deep and loud sigh. Behind her came a whisper: “Shush!”
“Who is that?” Kay asked.
“It’s the Good Fairy. You shouldn’t be talking.”
“What’s going on out there?”
From the four corners of the Back Room came warnings to be quiet. She resisted the urge to speak again and instead listened carefully, trying to calm her fears by falling into the hum of conversation and the random bangs and bumps. In a while, the noises slowed down. Men at the front door were saying adieu.
“No,” the Deux Mains said. “We can do the back room ourselves. Nothing but odds and ends. Merci.”
The lintel bells chimed one last time. A key went into the lock, and then silence once more. Kay waited a long time before daring to speak.
“Does anybody know what is happening?”
The Queen issued an edict. “You are not to speak until you are spoken to. Everyone keep still. A move is afoot.”
Kay did not like to be chided by the Queen, but she respected her wishes. In the privacy of her own contemplation, she conjured a number of scenarios. The men were cleaning out the front of the shop to make room for the puppets languishing in the back. She pictured herself and her comrades taking the place of those old toys in the display window next to her favorite. Or, possibly, the men were with the police who had been looking all this time and finally found her and would be returning in the night and bring her back to her husband, who had not forgotten her after all. The thought quickened inside like a pulse that made her feel nearly human again.