The Motion of Puppets(9)
“Kay is my wife,” Theo blurted out. “And I’d like to find out just where she is.”
“Good sir, kind sir, I do not know anything at all about Kay’s whereabouts. True, she was with a small party of lovelies that dined with me last night, but I assure you there was nothing improper, not a jot. You may ask Sarant or any of the others. Just a treat for the hardworking and unsung members of the company. And it is true, as well, that our libations extended to the wee hours of the morn, but unfortunately there was never a moment when I was alone with any of the fair sex. After the party broke up, the women hopped in a taxi, and your wife, quite stubbornly and quite against my better judgment, decided to walk home, the night being fair and dry. She departed us, and my upbringing as a gentleman—call me old-fashioned—persuaded me otherwise. That is to say, she should not be unescorted at such a late hour. Sadly, however, I had waited too long to accompany her. She had mentioned a flat on Dalhousie, and so I set off, but could not find her. She had simply disappeared. And I have neither seen nor heard from her from that moment to this.”
The thoroughness of his explanation silenced them. He was very good, this actor.
“And furthermore, I wandered about the Basse-Ville for a long while looking for Kay, until I myself was nearly lost, but then headed home for the night. Alone. My cats will verify. And because I was so worried, I could not sleep a wink till dawn and then woke late and am now tardy for the run-through of changes for tonight’s show; and the director will have my hide. I’m sorry, Mr. Harper, about your wife, and I do hope you’ll tell me what happened, or she will, when she shows up, but I really must be going. And as for you, Egon, my fine friend, we shall discuss your impertinence in private.”
For a fleeting moment, Theo wished that Kay had been with Reance, so that at least she could be situated at a particular place in the world, but now she was adrift again, lost in the night. He checked his phone for the hundredth time that afternoon. He called her mother in Vermont and left a message asking her to call if she should hear from Kay, not to worry, just a miscommunication. He sent a mass text to all their mutual friends back in New York.
“I’ve got to get going,” Egon said. “The show.”
“Do you believe him?”
“He’s an actor.” He shrugged and showed him his palms. “That said, we’re no closer to finding your wife than when you arrived. Perhaps you should think about contacting the police.”
*
First, they took off her head. The big woman laid it out upon the table, where it rolled and wobbled before coming to a complete rest. Kay could see the rest of her body, straight as a corpse in a coffin, her slender hands folded neatly across her chest. She was surprised by how small she had become. The big man above her grasped a long thin tool resembling a crochet hook and poked through the hole at the base of her cranium, but she did not feel any pain, only the sensation of discomfort she associated with a root canal. Instead of one tooth, it was her whole head. A whispering moan passed his lips as he gripped hold and tugged, pulling out a wad of cotton, and she felt a sudden rush of emptiness, a void where her brain had been. Taking a dollop of fine sawdust in his right hand, he held her empty skull upside down in the fingers of his left hand and filled the hollow to the brim. The giant then took kitchen shears and cut the length of her trunk from neck to navel and, reaching in with a forceps, removed what had become of her insides. He snipped her arms at the shoulders and her legs at the hips, sliced them lengthwise, and emptied those as well. Unstuffed, she thought of her wire-frame body as an empty suit of clothes, her arms and legs flat as pillowcases. It didn’t hurt but was curiously fascinating. Using a small metal funnel, the hands poured more of the same sawdust into her hands and feet, and stuffed her torso with batting, pressing deep into the corners and curves. Then, suddenly, he left, interrupted in his work. The lights in the workshop were turned off, and she was alone in five pieces with her head stuck on its side.
Ordinary time had no bearing in her state. She lay there for hours, days, perhaps longer, she could not tell. The room remained dark. The big hands did not come back. Disassembled, she had time to think. That she was missing from her job and home produced no anxiety, which is not to say that in her idleness she did not think of her husband, her poor mother. No, they occupied her mind for considerable stretches, but rather than worry over them or wonder what they must be thinking of her absence, she dwelt instead on the pleasant memories. With nothing better to do, with nothing at all to do, Kay flipped through her reminiscences like an old photograph album. Mother teaching her to tumble as a child. Mother in the morning come in from milking the cows, the sweet smell of hay and manure clinging to her clothes, the milk still warm from the udder. Mother’s accident that left her in the wheelchair. Her father always with a pipe in hand in the short hours between supper and bed. Then her father gone for good, a grave, a headstone with his name. A boy she knew in Vermont, hair red as copper, who showed her how to hide behind a waterfall and sought to kiss her, but she wouldn’t have him. Then a handsome man—her husband?—trying to teach her irregular verbs in French when she wanted nothing more than to go to bed with him and stay there. She did not miss these things. The thought did not make her sad. They were simply pages in a book that helped pass the hours or whatever it was that spun her world.
When the giants finally returned, it was a welcome relief. Had she eyelids, she would have blinked out of habit at the brightness, but the light felt good and warm. The big woman picked up her head and fitted it loosely to the trunk of her body, tacking the cloth in place on Kay’s neck. Then, taking a heavy needle and braid of thread, she began to sew the pieces back together. After she had finished the arms and the legs and dressed her in a white blouse and simple jumper, the woman took two wooden dowels and attached them with loops of Velcro to Kay’s wrists. The giantess picked her up with one hand circled completely around her waist and held her upright, her bare feet not quite touching the surface of the table. Kay had not stood in ages, and the change in perspective dizzied her and made her uneasy. Using the rods, the woman moved Kay’s arms up and down, back and forth, and then rocked her hips so that she moved, she danced, she leapt for joy. Across the room, the male giant laughed and clapped his hands with delight, but his voice boomed like thunder, too loud to be understood. Both the man and woman were too big to take in fully. Like being too close to a mountain. Just their hands, larger than she, lined like maps of the planets, fingers as big as trees, nails as hard as antlers and horns. They played this way for a few moments, and Kay felt such unbridled exhilaration that she wanted to laugh, to shout, to sing, but she was mute as a stone. The giantess set her down gently on a different, smaller table, and in due course the lights went out again, and Kay waited. This time with less patience and more anticipation for them to come again.