The Motion of Puppets(43)

“Puppets,” the man said. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

“We are going down to perform a few shows here in Vermont,” the Quatre Mains said, “with our American friends.”

“So you said. Would you mind opening up a box, so’s I can have a look?”

“Any which one?” the Quatre Mains asked.

“As long as it has these puppets you were talking about. Let’s try this one here.” He tapped the edge where Kay lay. The giants removed the box and placed it on the pavement. Opening the lid, the Deux Mains took out the Three Sisters and lifted the separator above Kay and No? and Nix. It was like looking up from an open grave. Dressed in a green uniform and a wide-brimmed hat, he towered over them and bent for a closer examination. His grip felt strange on her body as he held Kay in the air and poked around in the straw with his free hand.

“So you made all these puppets?” the green man asked.

“Every last one of them,” said the Quatre Mains. “Wood and foam and stuffing and sticks.”

“They seem so lifelike. Ever get scared that they’ll wake up in the middle of the night and come to get you?”

The Deux Mains laughed. “We keep them under lock and key when we’re asleep. No use taking any chances.”

The green man looked over her. “My partner’s giving me the thumbs-up, so your paperwork must be in order.” He handed Kay to the Deux Mains, and she could have sighed with relief over the familiar touch. “Welcome to the United States of America. Enjoy your visit to Vermont.”

The giants repacked the puppets and were about to close up the van when the green man interrupted. “And good luck with your puppet show. No, that’s not right—what are you supposed to say? Break a leg. Or break a string, I guess, since they’re puppets.”

Once they started rolling again, Kay whispered to No?. “Did he say we’re in Vermont? Back in America?”

“Land of the free,” No? answered. “The Green Mountains.”

“My mother lives here,” Kay said. “This was home once upon a time.”

Mornings before school, her mother used to fix Kay’s hair, separating and plaiting the strands as she sat behind her. Kay could still feel the gentle tug of her mother’s hands as she worked, the pressure to keep still, and the final gesture when she finished, her palm stroking the braid to make sure it stayed in place. Her mother’s hands. She and Kay would fold the washing together on a summer’s day, taking the sheets from the line stiff from the air, a crisp snap, Kay on one set of corners, her mother on the others, and stepping forward hand to hand to bring the ends together to her mother’s grasp. Her mother’s dusty hands patting a ball of dough, rolling it out with a wooden pin the color of honey, and scooping the thin circle to lay it into a pie pan, and pouring the mountain of Granny Smiths or peaches that glistened like golden crescent moons. Her hands holding knitting needles like two pens converting, through clicking manipulation, a fall of yarn into a scarf, a blanket, a cardigan. Her mother’s hand inside a sock monkey moving along with the funny voice to tell her a bedtime story. Her mother’s hand against Kay’s face on her wedding day, holding there for the first time in years before letting go as if to say good-bye forever.

That she could not remember her mother’s face bothered Kay. Her forgetfulness was more than a character flaw, rather a sign of a deeper disturbance that had beset her ever since she had joined the troupe. Her past had shattered like a mirror and could be apprehended only in shards and slivers. Her mother’s face had been the first she had fixed upon and was the most familiar of her entire life, and Kay knew that something had gone terribly wrong in its utter blankness. She could not recall her husband’s face either, despite their intense intimacy over the past few years. A face she had stared at for hours, days, weeks. Eyes that darted and followed her own when they had been kiss close. A smile that had lingered across a table as they earnestly discussed their future together. And now the picture of his face slipped in and out of memory with disturbing frequency.

*

The giants stopped for the night but left them in the back of the van. Cold air seeped into the space; a crisp autumnal chill bore right through the boxes so that even the straw lining was no protection. Not that Kay minded the cold, no more than the close air and claustrophobia of her miniature casket, but still she could feel the changes of the season. And they must have parked in some remote and deserted place, for the night was eerily quiet, punctuated only by the quick hooting of an owl. Her mother used to say that’s the song of a speed owl, the hoots strung together like the ringing of a telephone. She missed her mother till dawn.

Frost had formed overnight, and the stiff grass crunched under the weight of the boxes as the humans unloaded the vans. A woodpecker trilled and hammered at a tall tree. The early sunshine warmed the crates till they ticked and creaked, and happy voices filled the air. She could hear Finch and Stern and new people talking and laughing as they moved about, and the aroma of coffee and fresh bread reminded her of hunger and the welcome of breakfast.

A shadow fell across the boxes. “Let’s have a look at them.” The man’s voice was touched by a slight Irish accent.

“Right here and now?” Finch answered.

“Give them a splash of sunshine. Let them see what they’ve been got up to.”