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.
His beautiful green eyes flickered like candleflames, wavering between watching you and starting to read. He must have feared, for a moment, you might sit down beside him, then immediately regretted that you didn’t, so ridiculous did he seem, his head no higher than your thighs, skimming the booklets too feverishly to truly seem interested in them.
Outside, it started raining even harder. Torrents of water hammering the tin roofs hid a quiet, almost mechanical background hum. And as you were both suddenly solemn, deeply focused, still—from time to time you merely brushed back an unruly lock of hair, while he, sparing with his motions, let his head sway to the ostensible rhythms of reading, turning the page only with infinite caution—you might have been mistaken for a pair of clockwork creatures. Stark light from the sky lit your faces, seeming to freeze time, while your springs ever so gently wound down like figures on a music box.
“Multiple complaints,” he said, suddenly breaking the silence, “make mention of the fact that you’ve openly criticized the Prefect of the Seine’s public works policy.”
“What would you think of such a policy if it had hounded your theatre from the Boulevard du Temple and now threatened to expropriate you?” Your voice no longer held a trace of irony, and that intrigued him.
“It is not for me to judge.”
“But surely, dear, you have your own opinion?”
“I obey. And the orders I received were to see that your puppets did not stray from the scripts approved by the Prefecture.”
“I don’t think you understand.” You crossed to the dresser, plucked me from the depths of my box, and went back to him. You yourself seemed surprised by the heaviness in your every gesture. “Here—take Francesca and look at her. Is she a threat to the Empire?”
I shivered at the touch of his white hands.
“She’s beautiful,” he said. My rosewood must have blushed mahogany. “Astonishing how much she looks like you.”
“Papa claims he made her first, and conceived me in her image only after. But look closely. Concentrate. At first, you’ll see nothing but a bit of wood and cloth. Then, if your soul isn’t dead yet, stifled under bundles of official bulletins, the doll will reveal itself to you, and you’ll no doubt find it a pretty plaything.”
“It’s a very beautiful puppet.”
You took me back and returned me to my box. My cheeks were flushed with pride.
“If you knew how to look, you’d see she’s much more than that. She too has a soul, feelings, her own character. Plaything? I am every bit as much a plaything as she. Woman? She is every bit as much a woman as I. But I’m not sure you have the talent to lend puppets life.”
You knelt before him, your great blue eyes staring deep into his, your bosom his entire horizon.
“But you do, my … dear,” said he, instantly regretting the liberty, “and so I must keep an even closer eye on them.”
“How can you say such things with a straight face? Keeping an eye on puppets—doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you? Besides, they do what they want, you know. You must give them their head.”
“Come now, Mademoiselle—these are inert objects that belong to you. Keep them under control!”
“My pet, do you think we’re always in control of what belongs to us? Would you like an example?” And so saying, you placed your hand resolutely at the exact spot where his trousers betrayed a pretty bulge.
He leapt backwards, but your blue eyes kept him firmly ensnared.
“Oh my!” you said, reaching out again, “I see the animal is himself the Prefect of the Seine’s zealous servant … better yet, a propaganda agent for the Grands Travaux!”
And since he didn’t understand, you took pleasure in dexterously undoing his buttons and freeing one of the prettiest puppets I ever did see.
“Oui, oui,” you went on—I thought to hear the slightest tremble in your voice—“an excellent propaganda agent … long as the Rue La Fayette, broad as the Rue de Rivoli, and finely adorned as the new opera house! Is it also pointless as the Parc Monceau and tedious as the new view leading to the Louvre?”
There was a moment of silence. You watched him, never breaking your smile, your hand flattering his firmness, your eyes seeking his. He was at a loss for what to do in his imprisonment, wavering between ridiculous flight and adventurous abandon. The downpour had stopped. A fine rain had begun to beat at the windows, and one could make out drops clinging to the panes, as curious as I was about what would happen next.
His puppet filled me with wonder. I found him madly charming, with his crimson pink head, that virility in full, unassuming flower, his air of Lamartine mixed with Saint-Just. And my resemblance to you gave me reason to believe the homage he paid you was meant for me as well.
“He’s too darling! We’ll call him Jack-a-dandy, shall we? Why, he’s so quiet—is he shy? Perhaps he’s embarrassed to be naked before us?” And, with your free hand, you took up the sewing kit you’d set aside when the commissioner arrived. Then, one after the next, you pulled out ribbons, gold braid, bits of silk trimming, and reveled in dressing up Jack-a-dandy, decking him out in diverse attire. From time to time, as much to rekindle the flame as to reward the submissive mannequin, you granted him furtive caresses that made my little wooden heart pound.
“That’s enough!” Costa suddenly cried. His voice was hoarse and his tone firm.
Without taking his eyes from you, he seized you by your shoulders and laid you on the parquet, amidst the contents of your overturned sewing kit. You on the floor, and me in my box—now we were in the same position. And like you, passive and consenting, I waited, breathless, my eyes half-closed. Furiously, he rummaged through your drawers; he fumbled through your layers of lace. It was as if he were facing massive waves, battling frothing tides. But when Jack-a-dandy got too close, you sat up halfway and, seizing his hand, folding his last two fingers, so that only thumb, index, and middle finger remained upright, like a puppeteer, you whispere
d, indicating me with your chin: “I am as much a plaything as she…”
And as you hid your head in your arms, he abruptly understood, and brought his white hand to your proffered thighs as a swan might have brought his head. With the same delicacy, to make the illusion complete, he tugged your skirt back down over his forearm with his other hand.
Poor Jack-a-dandy was nodding sadly. I blew him a kiss and, since even voyeurs have their tact, I gave my box a little kick so the cover came down.
The rain, too, had stopped, demure.
It was several days before we saw the commissioner again. I found you dreamy, and wondered which, of the two of you, was the puppeteer and which the puppet. And then one morning, a policeman brought word. Costa had sent him.
Mademoiselle,
We have received other complaints, and I note with disappointment that you ever more openly defy the Empire’s authority. I have been reprimanded for it. I am ordered to arrest the guilty parties, or else face the consequences for an irresoluteness incompatible with my profession. You know I have something of a weakness for you. But I am here to obey the orders of my superiors, hard as they may be to understand. For so many things escape us, so many tiny mechanisms have their part in the world’s working smoothly, so many regulations are necessary to maintain its fragile balance. I am charged with seeing that a few of these are followed. I do not judge them; I only apply them. I beg of you—do not force my hand.
Commissioner Costa
The letter had you seeing red. We had to make reply. You managed to convince us easily, we puppets. And though Old Lippi was against it, as a former supporter of the République he had to give in to the majority: we had to push our provocation farther. The consequences weren’t long in coming.
One fine morning, I saw him from behind my curtain again. He had quietly stationed himself and his men back from the audience, waiting for the show to end. He carried himself the same as that first day: his frock coat collar turned up, a smile riding lightly on his lips, his beautiful white hands folded before him. It was as if nothing had happened.
The Uncanny Reader Page 36
