The Motion of Puppets(29)
“Well, if you decide on Vermont, you’ll have to say hello to my mother-in-law. Though you might not want to mention our connection. She still thinks I am guilty as hell.”
They did not want to say good-bye, but neither knew what to say instead.
“When is your plane, mon ami? Tell me you have time for dinner or at least a drink.”
He smiled and put the lid on his translation. “Tomorrow morning, first thing.”
“One more for the road, then. If we can’t paint the old town red, at least we can pour some beer in our bellies.”
The summer crowds had thinned in the faded end of August. They walked alone through the city streets, heading for the Brigands. “Did I tell you about the ghost I saw last time I ventured here? One of the girls in the Fant?mes show came running down the street, nearly bumped right into me. Scared the life out of me.”
“What would we do without the tourists, my friend, who come to see our ghosts and follies? And the lovely young things dressed up for a show?”
A sidewalk table was free, so they decided to dine al fresco, to watch the people stroll by. Their orders were quickly taken, and when the pints came, they fell into respectful silence and anticipation, savoring the cold smooth taste of ale. He had loved it here when they first arrived, the look and feel of the Old City reminding him of some wayward part of Europe broken off and drifted west across the Atlantic. Kay had adored the whole experience, foreign yet familiar. She would have been sorry to leave.
“There’s a shop up ahead that was her favorite. An old toy store filled with antiques, but it was never open. We couldn’t figure out what happened there, whether the owners just up and deserted it or if the banks had foreclosed. A shame, really, such lovely things in the window. She adored the dolls, and one puppet in particular, an old Inuit carving that stood under a bell jar.”
“The Quatre Mains? I know it well,” Egon said. “Let’s go have a look after we eat. We’ll break in, and I will steal it for you.”
After the fish and chips had filled them, after the drinks had whetted their daring, they staggered into the street, bound for thievery. He would do it for her, he thought, why not? With each step, the puppet transformed into a talisman. If he could rescue it, why not his wife? But the window display was empty. The dolls were gone. The bear had ridden away with the little dog. The tin soldiers off to another tin war. Every last trace. All that remained were cobwebs in the corners and two dead bees on the bottom shelf.
“Looks like the sheriff has beaten us to it. Or some five-year-old bandits,” Egon said.
Theo bent his head and pressed it against the window. A fat wet tear dropped to the ground.
“Come now, you mustn’t. We will get Inspector Thompson and his sidekick to investigate where all the toys went.”
The front door was still locked when Theo tried the knob, and he waved for Egon to follow him around the corner. An alley ran in the shadows of an old and decaying section of the ramparts to the Vieux-Québec. It seemed to lead to a dead end, a place no one had visited for centuries. In the gathering gloom, they skulked behind a row of old stone houses, uncertain as to which was the back of the Quatre Mains. A heap of litter by the back door gave it away—papers and cardboard boxes, castaway wheels and springs and sprockets, a single wooden leg, a bisque head caved in at the right eye, and the tangled wires and handle of a marionette.
The door to the back was open. Egon stepped inside, and gingerly Theo followed. He found the switch to the overhead light which threw into relief the bare metal shelves and the yellow walls and the well-worn floor. Tiny footprints in the dust made him wonder about mice. A chair crafted from empty oatmeal boxes lay on its side. Small piles of sawdust dotted the surface of the center table. A wisp of cotton tumbled into a corner. Separating the back room from the store proper was a dark beaded curtain, filmed with dust that rose like pollen when he brushed past. All of the toys were gone. Even the man under glass that Kay so adored. Nothing but a stray ribbon, scraps of paper, price tags, a spent matchbook.
“Looks like someone left in a hurry,” Egon said.
Theo cast his gaze upon the bare walls, filled with regret that he and Kay had never been allowed inside when it was bright and full of life. He could picture her delight in being lost among the puppets, and he was seized by the enormity of his departure. The toy shop refused to give up its secrets. They left as they had arrived, no closer to understanding.
Book Two
10
The girl in the second row, three seats back in French 201, unless that Poindexter would take her usual spot. A woman in a yellow poncho crossing Amsterdam Avenue in the rain, who looked so surprised to find him chasing after her. Three times on the subway: once a pair of legs, once a woman in Kay’s favorite red Donegal sweater, and once a face on the D train heading in the opposite direction. Her voice calling out for a wandering child—where would their children come from now?—on the steps outside the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. He considered going inside, saying a prayer if such magical thinking would bring her back. Right now, on the spot, Kay marching down the center aisle to the pew where he knelt. The buzz of his cell phone in the middle of the night and fumbling under the pillow for it only to miss a telemarketer from Kissimmee, Florida, or Waterloo, Iowa, and then he was awake half the night imagining those lonely salespeople consigned to such a purgatory. Every time he checked the mailbox, he turned the key with the hopes of a child on Christmas morning—nothing but coal, bills, and junk. When the leaves began to change colors. When he was drinking her favorite chai, or passing by the corner where she had first touched his arm, first kiss, last kiss, the spot in Central Park where he first knew she would say yes if he asked, when he asked.