The Uncanny Reader (46 page)

He went.

Then she continued her turn beyond him, seemed at last to be looking at something out the door. She adjusted her glove, became motionless once more.

She did not move again for two hours.

She was trapped now.
He
was trapped without her. The doll did not look at him again. She seemed to avert her eyes.

The boy's dream of Prague came back to him. What secret could she have had? What could it have possibly been? That she loved him? That she was pregnant? What could it have been?

It was an agony to remember it. It was simply too painful to think about.

There was nothing now, nothing. The doll would adjust her gloves, straighten them, fold her hands, look up, look down, and just about break his heart.

I have insulted her, he thought, with these thoughts of a clockmaker. He had met
her
in Prague, or at least had met something that very much
seemed
to be her. They had talked. She had talked
to
him.
She
was not bound by those wires. There was something, a shadow of something, within her that got beyond everything, beyond the gears, the shafts, the magnets—an umbra, so to speak;
umbras
, the plural would be. Was that her secret? Was that what she had wanted and not wanted to tell him?
Talis umbras mundum regnant
. (“Such shadows rule the world.”) He could not have had that dream without her.

Did she say she
knew
a secret or
had
a secret?

His memory of the dream was already fading.

And then his French course was over.

And then there was the afternoon he came to visit her for the last time. He felt the briefest flush of hope when he entered the room. Everything was not perfectly gloomy. What can be broken can be fixed, he thought. What can be broken can be fixed. There was a dimension to all of this he had to ignore, a reality, if you will. But a balance wheel can be reattached, a shaft can be machined, from scratch if necessary. Still, it would be too late for him. The normal, or maybe
not
the normal, part of the doll still worked perfectly. The other could be fixed. But not for him, never for him, fixed or not,
that
was gone forever. He would never be in this parlor again, never have another chance, never be on the sofa with this girl, never feel her pressure against him, never see her close her eyes like a kitten to sleep.

The dangling prisms weighed heavily on his soul. The doll sat on her sofa, perfectly motionless. He stood there, watching her, breathing mainly out of his mouth. “Je t'aime,” he said quietly.

It had been impossible, over the days, not to see longing, then reproach, then anger in those eyes.

He would leave tomorrow. He told her that. (Out loud, in fact.) He waited, waited a long time. She did not move.

Je t'aime. I love you, he said again, finally.

The doll still did not move. She continued staring out the window. She did not believe him anymore.

The boy picked up some papers that he had left in the parlor and walked toward the front of the house. He heard, outside, in another world, another block, the shriek of some children. On the spur of the moment, he decided to go out onto the front porch. He saw the streetlamps, the live oaks, stood there quietly, glum and melancholy. There was a solid hedge of boxwood in front of him and to his right.

The loveliness of the afternoon was almost but not completely lost on him.

Did she say I have or I
know
? he thought.

Strange, in six weeks, he had scarcely been on this porch. He stood there patiently in the late-afternoon light, looking out at the enormous hedge. Whatever life held for him, whatever
waited
for him, lay beyond it now. There was an immense stillness, a perfect quietness to the tiny leaves. He had learned some French in this town, some other things. Well, it would pass. Time itself would pass.

Passion was some function of time.

 

THE PUPPETS

Jean-Christophe Duchon-Doris

Translated by Edward Gauvin

Dear Mistress Mine,

Do you remember?

I was, I believe, the first to see him, his naïve smile light on his lips as a bird perched on a laundry line, his features so fine he looked like a wax doll. He stood back from the crowd, the collar of his frock coat turned up, his beautiful white hands folded before him.

I saw him, his eyes half-closed, savoring the intense sweetness of that late October afternoon as he might a steaming, oversugared cup of tea brought close to his lips. His gaze played, delighted, over the fringe of red and gold gleaming through the foliage, dallied with the lightly dancing ribbons dangling from the nannies' hats—navy blue and crimson ribbons fluttering in the wind, shivering in the air. He relished—I could tell—the reverberating laughter of the children on the benches, their funny faces, the sudden jolting motions of their spring-loaded bodies, and just like me, he relished the soft, lazy smell of vanilla that set one purring.

He was daydreaming, Mistress, but evidently that wasn't why he'd come. What gave him away was the slight nervous quiver in his eyebrow whenever his gaze fell on our tiny theater. “Commedia dell'arte,” he must have murmured as he read the gilded letters graven on the pediment of our proscenium. Did he deplore our Punchinello's over-exaggerated deformities—his extravagant hump, that breast-plate too tightly bowed over his belly, too glittery with false gold? Or was it our compeer Punch's impossible face, his malformed nose, his mocking mouth—in short, his troublemaker's manner—that upset the man? When the town constable made his entrance, our visitor quite clearly took the side of order against whimsy.

And so, once the curtain had fallen to applause, and the children, with their nannies, had deserted the benches, I was not surprised to see him reflexively turn down his frock coat collar and come sit mere inches from the stage.

I couldn't resist.

“Uh-oh!” said I, rushing out from behind the curtain. “Trouble's a-brewing!”

Another slight quiver of his brow tipped me off to his surprise. It was clear he wasn't expecting a puppet of my demeanor: beautifully colored eyes of pastel blue, a finely drawn pretty little face, a dress of white chiffon that left my arms and shoulders bare, and last but not least, my pride and joy, the bosom that earns me a few whistles every time I make an entrance.

“Can't you see the show's already over?” I emphasized my commoner's accent, that raucous voice I take from you, which—despite whatever notions my physique imposes—defends me from ridicule. “No doubt it's because you're a policeman. You lot are always so ill-informed.”

He couldn't help but smile. Oh, Mistress, you can't know how much I savor such smiles when I bring them to men's mouths! Sincere smiles that escape them and give me, a wooden puppet, the fleeting illusion that I could be their beloved.

“Would you be so kind, Mademoiselle, as to tell Monsieur Lippi that Commissioner Costa would like a word with him?”

“Monsieur Lippi is a great artiste, and quite exhausted at the moment—” Before I could finish, he abruptly rose, rounded the proscenium, and swept the curtain curtly aside, exposing our undefended rear.

Old Lippi, busy putting away the props, briefly blocked his view of us. But Mistress, I saw the commissioner's gaze dive straight for me, stop at the right hand that donned me, then move slowly back up your arm.

Oh! how silly he looked, Mistress! The look of a child upset by the world's complications once you'd turned around and he realized you were every inch my replica. Together, we burst out in a great guffaw that scattered the birds. Judging by the exact spot where his gaze got bogged down, he seemed surprised to find your breasts no less brazen than my own.

“Dear Papa, I do believe Monsieur the Commissioner has just paid a handsome homage to your talents as a sculptor.” And to highlight the resemblance, you brought me up beside your face.

“Mistress,” said I, straightening up, “didn't I say Monsieur was rather fetching?”

“You're so right, darling Francesca,” you replied, advancing on him while staring shamelessly into his eyes. “He's quite charming with his green eyes and little sideburns.”

“And his little mustache, Mistress? Isn't his little mustache ravishing?”

“What do you want, sir?” Old Lippi asked. “We have permission from the Prefecture, and all our plays were vetted—”

The commissioner had to back up to answer your father. “Your puppet plays are precisely what I wished to speak with you about, Monsieur Lippi. I've received several reports from the Prefecture testifying to the fact that you rarely stick to the script, and that such strayings are sometimes disrespectful of the authorities.”

We returned to the assault. “How well-spoken he is, Francesca!”

“Yes, Mistress, and his lips are so appetizing when they shape themselves around words!”

Old Lippi gave us a murderous glare, as if to flay us with a plane. How well he knew, poor old man—from having been led around by the hand all his life by the moppets he'd made—just what spectacles we could make.

“Please forgive her, Monsieur Commissioner. She has no manners. She was raised on the road with puppets as her only friends. How can you expect her to take anything seriously?”

“You're going to have to, Mademoiselle,” the other man replied in his most serious voice. “I have strict orders. From now on you must keep a closer eye on your puppets' chatter.”

What a funny man! You and I exchanged complicit smiles. I knew quite well what you had in mind, and when you put me away in my box, I made no protest; at most, I settled myself so that, with my head propped up, I could watch the rest of the scene. Quick as a falling curtain, you kissed him greedily on the mouth. No doubt fearing some perfidy, he made a valiant attempt to escape, to push you far away, but when he realized it was no mere stage kiss, his determination seemed to desert him. I watched him flap his arms a few more times for the sake of form, like a marionette with his strings cut, cast a worried glance at your father, and finally surrender completely to the warm, frolicsome insistence you pitted against him. A shiver even ran through Punchinello's hump.

“And have you, pet,” you said greedily, “any strict orders about that?”

And you burst out in that laugh, that terrible laugh you sometimes lend me, which I send thundering out over the trestles of our little theatres.

How fetching he was, at a loss, trying comically to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, casting desperately about for some magic trick to reclaim his composure.

“I'll be back tomorrow,” he finally said in a trembling voice. “Please be so kind as to have your scripts ready. If you wish to alter certain scenes, we can discuss it.”

Poor little thing! That wasn't what he should have said. I wanted to whisper a few rejoinders to him from deep in my cardboard box, to warn him that not reacting more firmly to that kiss had left his authority rickety. But I kept quiet, Mistress, for I make it a point of honor never to speak without your permission.

He said no more, only stepped back with a sheepish air, almost smacking his head on the lamp and stumbling into our trunk. He managed to extricate himself at last. His beautiful green eyes seemed to crack like glass. He gave an awkward wave and then, to keep from turning his back to us, fled around the side of our little theatre.

I barely had time to leap out before the curtains and call to him. “Commissioner!”

He turned and saw me. I added, “My mistress was quite clear, Monsieur. You kiss very well. Come back whenever you want.”

Do you remember, Mistress, how the next day a fine rain fell on Paris? We were both in our rooms on the Rue Traversine, saddened that rainy days forced our theatre to close. You were patching my dress, concentrating on the needle's
paso doble
. I was dreaming about the commissioner. I pictured him walking through the empty park, his frock coat collar turned up to keep icy water from running down his neck. The sand that Monsieur Alphand's road-menders spread along the paths must have stuck to the soles of his shoes. He too must have been sad, uncertain, seeing but not noticing the pretty ripples raindrops made in the ornamental ponds. I wondered if he knew our address, knew where the Rue Traversine was, if he'd ever before come to this neighborhood of Italian emigrants, rag and bone men, and Romagnols, made up of miserable alleyways—Rue Fresnel, Rue Saint-Victor, Rue du Bon-Puits, Rue d'Arras—that crews clearing the way for the Rue Monge were already laying low.

“Did you hear a knock, Francesca?” you asked me all of a sudden, rising.

It was him, looking like a bird fallen from its nest, sopping as soup-dipped bread, trying to hold his head stiffly enough to give off the look of authority his duties required.

When he saw it was just the two of us, he grew frightened and made as if to turn back.

“How nice of you to come, dear,” you said mockingly, and I saw him shiver at the sound of our raucous accent, our greasy, almost oily voice.

You were wearing a dress that flattered your waist and underlined the triumphant beauty of your breasts. I have one just like it, and I know, from having seen the state it puts Punchinello in, how great its powers over men are. And when you went to put me in my box, how stunningly well you wore it, sticking your chest out, swaying your hips. Little chance now the fellow would leave.

“My father is away for a few hours.”

“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I'll come back.”

But he didn't move.

“If you've come for the plays, you won't need him, my pet. There they are. I'm the one who writes them; Papa can't even read.”

He took a step toward the pile of pamphlets, giving in to his desire to stay. His long white hand seized the first script and, since you were cleverly blocking the way to the room's only chair, and he wished to avoid all contact, he settled on the low bed with an indiscreet squeal of springs.