The Motion of Puppets (7 page)

The Queen sighed and descended her cardboard throne, and Worm slithered away quick as a grass snake. All of the puppets were moving now, putting away their games and trinkets, scurrying about to return things to how they were. Noë shouted at the Old Hag with the news, and the Dog bounded across the shelf, burning away the last excess energy. Attending the Queen, the Judges fixed her wires to her wrists and ankles, and with a great heave ho they positioned her on a coatrack, where she was to hang, the life draining from her features after one wan smile in Kay's direction. The others retreated to their places, their expressions, too, changing into frozen smiles or frowns. Olya pulled at her hand. “Dahlink, we must find and put you back where they last left you. Do you remember? Day is coming. Hurry, hurry.”

*   *   *

After three days, his feet fell off. Theo had walked the length and breadth of the Old City, from the first light at dawn till well into the night, looking for her. Mornings he would start on Dalhousie and work his way through the narrow streets, poking his head into all the small cafés and shops they used to frequent, and then ride the funicular to the city above and join the mobs of tourists crowding the squares, popping into the old churches and galleries, lining up for the changing of the guard at the Citadelle, or descending underground to the museum of buried streets near the Frontenac towering over it all. American accents filled the air, a woman's voice turning his head once an hour. He saw her all the time in bits and pieces, the sweep of her hair, the figure of a girl in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, a pair of shoes peeking out from a sidewalk table. There, not there. The shopkeepers and the reenactors in the square—the merchants in their tricorne hats, the maids in their bonnets—came to recognize his constant presence, sadly shaking their heads to the question in his eyes. He would show them her picture on his phone again and again, “Have you seen this woman?” Following the police department's advice, he visited the American Consulate on the Terrasse Dufferin, bringing with him her passport and his story, and the young bureaucrat behind the desk assured him of their concern and support. They offered him a cup of tea and promised to do everything they could. But all such promises failed to convince him that anyone was looking for her.

She was gone. He could not eat, he barely slept, he talked to himself all the time.

Worn to the bone, he retreated to the apartment in the late afternoon to steal a few hours' rest. A half-dozen messages blinked on the answering machine, all from his mother-in-law, Dolores: “Is there any progress? Are you out looking for her? Where have you looked?” And more ominously: “Did you two have a fight? What have you done?” Just listening to her voice made him tremble, and he wished there was something he could do to reassure her, some way to bring her up, wheelchair and all, to the steep cobblestoned streets, to let her know that he, too, was going mad over Kay's disappearance.
What have you done?
What did Dolores imagine he had done?

His papers and books lay on the table, the French-English dictionary open at
M
for
meurtre.
Muybridge could wait. Next to the manuscript sat a stack of bills and letters Kay had asked him to mail, including a card for her mother's birthday and a picture postcard to a friend from school. Her plate and coffee cup lay in the sink. One of his old shirts she liked to wear to bed peeked out from beneath her pillows. A paperback on her nightstand, placed facedown to mark her place. He flipped it over to save the spine. A closet of clothes and shoes, a dresser drawer crammed with underwear and socks, though most of their things were back home in New York. In the bathroom, her hairbrush lingered on the windowsill, her makeup and lipstick, and her toothbrush just where she left them in the medicine cabinet. Such paltry evidence that she had ever been there. He stripped off his wrinkled clothes and stood in the shower under a hot stream of water for a long time, trying not to think. Stepping out into the steamy bathroom, he draped a thick towel over his head like a hood and sat on the edge of the tub, holding in the heat. Wrapped in a cocoon, he very nearly missed the knocking at the front door.

“Just a sec,” he yelled and threw on a robe as he flew to the front door, crying, “Don't go, don't go.”

When he saw the two men standing on the threshold, his first thought was that they had come with the worst possible news. Dressed in dark suits and ties, they had the unmistakable aura of the police, and why else would they come to the apartment unless to break it to him in person? The older of the two had silver hair atop a world-weary face. The younger man remained yet to be wizened. He was as fresh and crisp as a soldier, one of the few black men he had encountered in Québec. Water dripped down Theo's forehead, and he wiped his skin with the end of the towel.

“Theo Harper? Sorry to disturb you, we're with Sûreté du Québec. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Inspector Thompson and this is my partner Sergeant Foucault. May we come in?”

“Is this about my wife? Have you found her?”

As he stepped into the apartment, Thompson said, “No, no. We've come to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind.”

“That's a relief, I suppose, if you haven't found her body, there is still hope.” Theo ushered them in and closed the door behind them. “Can I throw on some clothes? You could make yourself a cup of tea, if you like, the kettle's in the kitchen.”

“Please, take your time, get dressed. Foucault, will you do the honors? A cup for you, Mr. Harper?”

He was halfway to the bedroom and nodded over his shoulder. Behind the door, as he dressed, he eavesdropped as the two policeman talked to each other in French.

“First impressions?”

“He seems nervous,” Foucault said from the kitchen.
“Avoir l'air coupable.”

“Il a tué
sa femme?”

“It's often the husband. Or the boyfriend.” Foucault was pouring the third cup when Theo emerged, and they sat at the dining table cluttered with his papers.

“Excuse the mess,” Theo said.

“Are you a writer, Mr. Harper?” Thompson asked.

“A translator.” He watched their faces for any sign of embarrassment, but they might as well have been stones. “I am working on a translation from French to English of the life of Eadweard Muybridge. Do you know him?”

“No,” Thompson said. “But you are here to translate a book? I thought you were American.”

“
Oui, je sais parler français.
My publisher is here in the city, but I can work anywhere. We live in New York, where I teach college, but my wife was fortunate enough to land a role with the cirque for the summer. She is an acrobat, a performer.”

Foucault was scrutinizing him while Thompson asked the questions. He began to feel like a man under the lamp. Thompson added a cube of sugar to his tea and stirred it casually. “And how do you find Québec?”

“We love it here. Until she went missing.”

“You were having no problems? Between the two of you? It must be a challenge to have a spouse in the theater, always being watched, admired.”

“Inspector,” Theo said, “I know this is the routine, but I assure you, we are fine. I told all this to the desk officer when I filed my report.”

“And her family? Why have they not come to join in the search?”

“She only has her mother left, back in Vermont,” Theo said. “And Dolores is in a wheelchair these past five years. Doesn't get about very well. But we are on the phone every day.”

“Too hot.” Thompson blew across the surface of his tea. He set down the cup and held up both hands to put a stop to Theo's objections. “No offense, Mr. Harper. Just some details, minor things to clear up to help us with the investigation.” He nodded to his partner.

Foucault took out a small memo pad and flipped to the page he desired. “Tell me what you remember about the last time you saw your wife. Anything you may have forgotten to mention to the desk officer that you can remember now?”

“It was the afternoon, right? One day like any other. We had slept in, and she had to go to the warehouse where they prepare for the show. But they perform outside, a few blocks away. She left, and I sat down to do a little work.”

“You weren't fighting? Arguing?”

“Of course not. What makes you think so?”

“Can you tell me what she was wearing when she left the flat?”

He screwed his politeness back into place. “Blue jeans. Gray canvas shoes? A simple blouse, white I think. I don't remember exactly. What she always wore on her way to the show.”

“The show.” Foucault frowned. “And you said in your report she went to dinner with others from the cast? Did she come back to the flat to change her clothes?”

“No, I would have seen her.”

“You were here the whole time?”

“No, I went out to eat. At the Brigands on the rue Saint-Paul, I'm sure they will remember me. Give me an alibi.”

With a clatter, Thompson set down his cup into the saucer. “Alibi? There is no need to talk of alibis. You went to eat, you came home. Okay. Does she keep any clothes down at this theater? Perhaps a change of something nicer to wear. A sundress, perhaps?”

“I suppose—”

“You suppose,” Foucault said. “We went down there and checked, monsieur, and that's exactly what we supposed. Her jeans and shoes and blouse were still in her locker, so if she went out, it was either in costume from the cirque or she had a change of clothes.”

“Okay, so she changed her outfit before going to dinner. What difference does that make?”

Foucault pressed forward. “So you have no idea what she was wearing the night of her disappearance?”

His face reddened. “How could I?”

Thompson pushed back his chair and stood, defusing the tension for the moment. “I apologize, Mr. Harper. As I say, we have to ask these questions first, and thing is, I'm sorry to say, but we may have some bad news. There is a body, a woman drowned, washed up on the shore of the Saint Lawrence, and we have no way of identifying her at the moment. She is young, fits the general description of your wife—”

“Kay?” Theo covered his mouth and tried not to cry out.

“But”—Thompson held up his hand—“she was wearing a dress, no shoes, and we thought it couldn't be her. Until we went down to the warehouse and met the caretaker.”

“Egon Picard,” said Foucault.

“Monsieur Picard told us that the actors often leave clothes in their locker, so we thought to come talk with you to see if you remember. It was a simple yellow sundress. Perhaps you could come with us to the medical examiner, if you please, and we can take a look.”

“To see if it is her?”

The two policeman looked at each other and then back at Theo. “
Oui
,” Foucault said, and laying a hand on Theo's shoulder, he helped him to his feet.

They rode in silence to the morgue, Foucault at the wheel, Thompson keeping company with Theo in the backseat. A seagull lolled in the blue summer sky, as though it was following them. As they pulled into the parking lot, Theo could no longer bear the suspense.

“Am I a suspect? Do you think I could possibly harm my wife?”

“You're not under arrest, Mr. Harper. There's no crime, as such, that's been committed. We don't even know if this is your wife. But you should steel yourself, just in case. A body taken from the water after so long is not a pretty sight.”

When the attendant pulled back the sheet, the corpse was as sad and gruesome as Thompson had warned. Theo cried out involuntarily and looked away quickly from the body on the slab. For the first time since Kay's disappearance, he broke into tears, a ragged sobbing that would not stop. The ruined creature was not his wife but some other poor soul quit of this world. Asked if he was certain, could he look again, Theo shook his head, saying, “No, no, that is not her.”

 

6

The drowned girl accompanied him to the circus. After the emotional tumult of the interrogation by Thompson and Foucault and his afternoon at the morgue, Theo did not want to be alone, but he had nowhere to go, so he headed instead to the plaza where the free theater played. The dead girl who walked beside him was the spit and image of his wife; he could see how they had mistaken the corpse for Kay. Water dripped from her body and her footsteps squelched on the pavement. Blue at her extremities, the skin on her face slack, she no longer looked like a woman in her twenties but a horror beyond all hope.

“Where have you been?” she asked. Now the voice, that was identical to his wife's, and he was surprised to hear it. “Why didn't you come save me?”

He did not know how to answer her, so he said nothing, and he did not want the passersby on the street to think him crazy for talking to a ghost, but no one seemed to notice her along the way, despite the fact that she wore nothing but the white sheet from the morgue and that she smelled of fish and the brackish water of the Saint Lawrence. He wished she would go away and leave him alone.

At the lot leading up to the stage, the crew and actors bustling about did not see her either, though those people who recognized him had a kind word or gesture of sympathy for his troubles. He saw Sarant limbering and unkinking her spine. She seemed embarrassed that he had approached her. “Any word?”

Theo shook his head. “But the police came by to question me, if you can imagine, about her clothes. Two detectives, Thompson and Foucault.”

“Yes, they were here as well,” Sarant said. “Loose ends, more questions. What was she wearing, that sort of thing. I really didn't have anything more to say.” She was unnerved by Theo's sideways glances and kept trying to determine what he was looking for or what he might be trying to convey. At last she touched him lightly on the shoulder and hurried off to the dressing rooms. The drowned woman watched forlornly as Sarant departed. Theo wandered through the crowd, looking for a familiar face, watching Reance pace the length of the stage, but he could not catch his attention. Dusk was sneaking up on them, and as the first patrons began to arrive, Theo found Egon in a spot near the front entrance.