The Motion of Puppets(40)
“Obviously she’s out of the question. What about your old pal Egon up in Québec? What about this Dr. Mitchell who seems to have taken an unusual interest?”
“You and I could talk.…”
Muybridge shook his mane. “That would be like talking to yourself.”
“That’s all I ever do, really. It feels like I’m talking with her, most of the time. Constructing the monologue as though it is a dialogue, but part of me knows that the whole internal conversation is one-sided. She really can’t hear what’s going on inside my head, but I talk to her just the same, as if she somehow can hear what’s on my mind. In my heart. I would be crazy to be talking to myself.”
As Theo spoke he watched Muybridge fade away, a photograph reversing the process of development. Dark areas became shades of gray, then mere shapes, outlines, and finally nothing. He was alone again. If she was out there, waiting for him to come find her, Kay would be different from the digital images in the archive, in the picture he carried around in his head, the face he saw when he talked to her. She would have changed. He went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Many of her things were just as she had left them. Bottles and jars and creams and brushes. The yellow towels she had chosen. A red silk robe hanging from a hook on the back of the door. Looking into the mirror, he thought he would start again in the morning. Reach out and find someone with whom he might talk. Surely there was another person left in the world.
13
They would be going back into the boxes come morning, so the party after the final show lasted till the wee hours. Nix held court, juggling the seven dwarfs with great skill. Mr. Firkin provided the voice-over, a running patter of each name called out at the high point of the toss. Gathered around a toy piano, the Three Sisters belted out a set of show tunes, enticing the whole cast into a stirring rendition of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Miz. As the evening wore on, the tunes grew more maudlin, and by two in the morning, the Sisters were entwined in obscure weepy Russian songs only they knew. In her guise as Marmee, the Old Hag reunited with her dear pal, the Dog, who had recognized her at once. They spent a happy hour playing fetch with a red foam nose.
“Look at her,” No? said. “Twenty years taken off with a new head.”
Kay considered her friend in the dim light of a corner nook. “Have you ever been changed? Got new parts?”
“Not me, sister. I’ve always been thus. As least since I first joined the company. Before that I was a punk in real life. Spiked hair, nose ring. A tattoo of a black rose on my hip. Me and him snuck into the Quatre Mains toy shop one night, looking for a little privacy, if you know what I mean.”
“Your boyfriend?”
No? snorted. “You could call him that. I don’t even remember his real name, he was just a boy I met at a jazz festival on the Terrasse Dufferin, and we hit it off, I guess. We snuck into the toy shop after midnight to fool around. He shouldn’t have messed with that old puppet. After the change, he didn’t want anything to do with me, and I felt the same. He loves it here. Guess it beats Mum and Pop back in Ottawa. Guess crawling on his belly is a better gig than busking on the boardwalk.”
At their feet a low chuckle rolled across the floor. The Worm had slithered over to eavesdrop on their conversation, and when she saw him there, No? stomped her foot right by his head. “Go away. Shoo.”
It made such a piteous whimper that Kay nearly felt sorry for the poor thing. Inch by inch the Worm wriggled away to safety.
“So that thing has forgotten about that night with you?”
“I don’t give a fig about him. He was nothing to me. I do think about my family. My parents, every day. Isn’t there someone outside who misses you? Your man?”
Kay tried to recall his face, and when she could not picture him, she was filled with shame and sadness. “I was married once upon a time. A white gown with a veiled white hat, and in my arms were damask roses and calla lilies. We were outdoors by a lake and a honeybee kept swarming around my bouquet, and the groom kept swatting at it with these pathetic waves of his hand. He was trying to not call attention to the bee, trying not to embarrass me. And I can remember thinking: he should not hold himself back. Who cares what people think? Do something big. A grand gesture. Throw himself on the bee like it was a hand grenade. The guests wouldn’t have minded, everybody was watching. Even the minister might have had a good laugh. And then the bee started buzzing around my veil, there was a spray of baby’s breath, and still he’s with the polite swats. So I just handed him the flowers and unpinned the hat and tossed it to the side. A breeze picked it up and carried it to the water. He gave me such a look. The surprise in his eyes, but I just smiled and nodded to the preacher to keep going. What else could I do?”
“You certainly didn’t want to get bit by that bee.”
“One of my cousins rolled up his pants and waded out for the hat after it was all over, but I didn’t care. The moment had passed for Theo.” Her eyes widened as she finally remembered. “My husband’s name was Theo, and I don’t think he ever got over the shock of me taking that hat off right then and there and just saying the hell with it. But it was the bees, you see, and who cares about the hat? He just didn’t know me well enough; I guess you never do.”
“I’ll bet he misses you,” she said. “I don’t doubt that he thinks of you all the time. If I were him, I’d be looking for you still.”