by Paul Gallico
Mouche’s hand flew to her heart. “Oh Rey! How beautiful. Oh, you shouldn’t have . . .You know you shouldn’t have spent so much . . .”
Her expression altered suddenly to the wise, tender and slightly admonishing, “Mother-knows-all-what-have-you-done-now” look that her audiences knew so well. “Rey! Come over here to me at once and tell me where you got that beautiful and expensive scarf . . .”
The fox squirmed slightly, “Must I, Mouche?”
“Reynardo! You know what I have always told you about being honest . . .”
By a twist of his neck Mr. Reynardo managed to achieve a look of injured innocence. “Well, if you must know, I bought it on the hire purchase instalment plan.”
“Indeed. And what happens if you fail to keep up the payments. Oh Rey! I suppose they’ll come to my home and take it away from me . . .”
The fox slowly shook his head. “Oh no . . . You see, I made a kind of a deal.”
Mouche was mock serious now and once more lost in their make-believe. She knew the kind of sharp practice to which he was prone. She asked, “And pray, what kind of a deal, Mr. Reynardo?”
“We-e-ell . . . If I fail to keep up the instalments the man gets something else in exchange. I signed a paper. It’s all settled.”
Mouche walked right into the trap. “Did you? And just what is he to have in exchange for this exquisite fur piece?”
The fox appeared to swallow once, then modestly turned his head aside before he replied meekly, “Me.”
Struck to the heart, Mouche cried, “Oh my dear! You mean you’ve pawned yourself . . . Oh Rey . . . I don’t know what to say . . .”
For a moment Mouche glanced out across the footlights and the balcony spot picked up two drops of light traversing her cheeks and splintered them so that they glowed like diamonds.
Like a flash the fox was across the stage of the booth and whipped his red, furry head with the black mask and long nose into the hollow of Mouche’s shoulder and snuggled there with a contented sigh in the manner of a naughty child that takes immediate advantage of any tenderness.
The contact came close to breaking Mouche’s heart, for love of this sly, wicked little creature whose mischief and amorality stemmed from the fact that it was his nature and he did not know any better. Yet he tried hard to please her and be honest for her sake.
Thereafter, the other puppets appeared to delight and torture Mouche still further with their parting gifts and little made-up awkwardly sincere speeches.
Dr. Duclos presented her with an encyclopaedia. “Everything I know is inside this book,” the formally dressed penguin pontificated. “Thought you might like to have it handy for information on all subjects when I am not around any longer.”
Gigi gave her a trousseau negligée and nightgown set and a grudging kiss, while Madame Muscat handed her a rolling-pin and an egg beater, remarking significantly, “A marriage can be kept in order with these, my dear. And remember, all men are beasts, but necessary ones.” From Alifanfaron she received a photograph of himself, and Monsieur Nicholas gave her an oddly turned piece of wood that was not one but many shapes.
“For your first-born,” he said. “It is a toy I have made for him that is not any, yet is still all toys, for in his imagination, when he plays with it, it will be whatever he sees in it, or wishes it to be.”
Golo came forward. He had a little African good-luck God he had carved for her out of a piece of ebon wood. Like the white-shafted spotlights beamed down from above, the emotions and tensions of every one in the theatre seemed concentrated on this one spot, the shabby little booth, the negro with the gleaming patch over one eye who was crying unashamedly, and the girl who was trying desperately to hold herself together.
From where she was standing, Mouche could look into the wings and see the showgirls, singers, dancers, acrobats and stage hands gathered there, watching and listening, as spellbound as the audience. She saw Balotte in his blue spangled tights, his beautiful body proud and erect, and he looked like a stranger to her.
Carrot Top appeared alone contriving to look more worried and forlorn than usual. He was empty-handed. He tried to appear nonchalant by whistling, but it soon petered out when his lips seemed to have trouble pursing themselves for the whistle. Finally, he gave it up, saying, “Oh, what’s the use. I’m not fooling anybody. I came to say goodbye, Mouche.”
Mouche said, “Goodbye, dear Carrot Top.”
“Will you miss me?”
“Oh yes, Carrot Top. I shall miss you terribly.”
“Shall you be having children of your own, Mouche?”
“Yes . . .”
“Will they be like us?”
“Oh I hope so . . . I do hope so . . .”
Carrot Top was silent a moment and then said, “I didn’t get you anything. I couldn’t. I’ll give you my love to take with you, Mouche . . .”
Now the ache was closing her throat again. “Carrot Top! Do you really love me?” In all the time they had been together, he had never once said it.
The puppet nodded. “Oh yes. I always have. Only you never noticed. Never mind. It’s too late now. Mouche, will you give me a going away present?”
“Oh yes, Carrots. Anything I have . . .”
“Will you sing a song with me?”
“Of course, Carrots. What shall it be?”
The little doll said, “Golo knows.”
The Senegalese appeared and picked out an introduction on his guitar. It was the Breton lullaby. Mouche had not expected this. She did not know whether she could get through it.
Carrot Top held out his hand to her and she took it in both hers. They sang:
“My young one, my sweeting,
Rock in your cradle,
The storm winds are blowing,
God rules the storm winds . . .”
When they had finished, Golo wandered away quietly into the wings and Carrot Top reached up and kissed Mouche’s cheek.
“Don’t forget us when you have children of your own, Mouche.” He vanished beneath the counter.
The others came whipping up by twos, to cry, “Don’t forget us, Mouche,” and overwhelm her with pecks and kisses.
Mouche, her eyes now blinded by tears, opened her arms and cried to them as though there was no one else there but they and she, “Oh no, no! I can never forget you. My darlings, I will never forget you. You will always be like my own children and as dear to me . . .”
She hardly heard the band swing into their closing theme, or the heavy swish of the descending curtains, closing them out from the tempest of applause and cheers from the audience out front. The last thing that Mouche saw and heard was Mr. Reynardo, his muzzle turned skyward, howling like a coyote and Alifanfaron with his head buried in the folds of the side curtains of the puppet booth.
Then she fled to her dressing-room, locked the door and putting her head down on her arms, wept. Nor could she be persuaded by knocks or shouts from without to open the door and emerge to take her bows. She felt as though she would cry endlessly for the rest of her life.
She would not open even when Balotte came to fetch her and begged him to go, promising to meet him at his hotel in the morning and, finally, he too departed.
She remained sitting in the dark of her dressing-room for a long while.
On every stage in the world at night after the performance is over, there stands a single, naked electric light bulb. No spot seems as glaring as where the incandescent sheds its halo, no shadows as long and deep and grotesque as those lurking at the bulb’s extreme range, spilling over flats and props, pieces of sets and furniture.
Against the brick rear wall of the theatre, almost at the farthest edge of the illumination, yet visible, stood the deserted puppet booth, its white oilcloth sign “CAPITAINE COQ ET SA FAMILLE” barely legible.
Unseen in the shadows, squatting on his haunches, Golo sorrowed alone in the dark in the manner of his people. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and the theatre was empty.
Mouche slipped from her dressing-room for the last time. She carried a small dressing-case in which she had packed her few personal belongings. Her wardrobe she was leaving behind her just as she was leaving a part of herself behind, the Mouche that had been and would never be again.
To reach the stage door it was necessary for her to cross the dark, cavernous stage. From the passageway she stepped into the wings beyond the range of the single light that would have guided her across. And out of this darkness a hand reached and grasped her by the wrist and another was placed across her mouth before she could cry out with the fright that momentarily stopped her heart.
Had the distant light reflected upon the pale, hate-ravaged features and red hair of Capitaine Coq, Mouche’s heart might never have started beating again.
But the hard calouses on the fingers covering her lips told their story and a gleam of white eyeballs completed the identification.
Golo whispered into her ear, “For the love of the dear God, do not make a sound.”
As quietly, Mouche asked against the pounding of her heart, “What is it, Golo?”
“I don’t know. Something is happening. Stay here with me, Miss Mouche, but make no noise. Golo very much afraid.”
He pulled her gently down to her knees beside him and she could feel that he was trembling.
“But, Golo . . .”
“Shhhhh, Miss Mouche. Don’t speak. Listen . . .”
At first there was no sound but their own soft breathing. Then there came a faint rustling and scratching. It appeared to come from somewhere near the centre of the stage. Sight came to the aid of straining ears and Golo pressed Mouche’s hand hard with his as the head of Carrot Top rose slowly above the counter of the puppet booth and reconnoitred carefully.
There was something horrible in the caution with which he looked to the right and to the left, and then with that extraordinarily life-like movement with which he was endowed, leaned out from the ends of the booth and gazed behind as well; horrible too was the fact no one was supposed to be there, that the performance was to an empty theatre, or perhaps even more horrible still that it was no performance at all . . .
Golo whispered, “He gone away early, but they came back. I knew they were here. I felt it.”
It was Mouche’s turn to quiet him and she pressed his arm gently and said, “Shhhhhhhh.”
Having made certain there was no one about, Carrot Top retired to the far end of the counter and let his face sink into his hands and remained thus for a minute or two.
Then the quiet was disturbed by a rasping, gravelly whisper: “That you up there, Carrots?”
The red-headed puppet slowly lifted his head from his hands, looked down deliberately and replied, “ Yes.”
“Is the coast clear?”
“Yes. There’s nobody here.”
“Where’s the watchman?”
“Asleep in the boiler-room.”
The head of the sharp-faced fox arose from below. He too reconnoitred for a moment, then, satisfied, leaned on the counter at the opposite end from Carrot Top. Finally, the leprechaun said in a listless and woebegone voice, “Well, what do we do now?”
Reynardo sighed, then replied, “I don’t know if you don’t. You’ve been running the show, Carrot Top. Kind of messed it up, didn’t you, old fellow?”
Carrot Top reflected. “Did I? I suppose I did. I never thought she’d leave us for that knuckle-head. She’ll never be happy with him.”
“Why didn’t you tip her off?”
“Madame Muscat tried, but it was no use. She’s too young to see that monkey will never think of anyone but himself.”
“Is she really going to marry him, Carrot Top?”
“Oh yes. It’s all over.”
The fox said, “Merde!”
Carrot Top reproved him. “Oh, cut it out, Rey. It won’t help to use bad language. You know how she hated it. The thing is we’ve got to decide what to do. Is there any use in going on?”
Mr. Reynardo replied quickly, “Not as far as I’m concerned. She was the only thing I ever cared about. I’m ready to call it a day.”
“Me too. I suppose we ought to put it to a vote.”
“Uhuh. Take the chair, Carrots. I’ll call the roll. Ali . . . ?”
The voice of the giant came from below the counter. “I’m here, I think.”
“Dr. Duclos?”
“Present.”
“Gigi?”
“Yes.”
“Mme. Muscart?”
“Of course.”
“Monsieur Nicholas?”
“Yes, yes.”
Mr. Reynardo said, “All present and accounted for.” And folded his arms.
Carrot Top then made a little speech in a not too firm voice. “Ladies and gentlemen of our company. Inasmuch as our well loved sister Mouche has left us to be married and will never return, I have called this meeting to decide what is to be done. The question before the committee of the whole is: Shall we try to continue without her?”
Dr. Duclos commented, “What’s the use if nobody comes to see us, Mr. Chairman?”
Reynardo turned it around, “What’s the use if we can’t see her?”
Gigi’s voice remarked, “We could get someone like her to take her place.”
Alifanfaron was heard to rumble: “Gee, I’m stupid, but even I know there’s no one like her. Nobody could take her place.”
Madame Muscat contributed, “Well, we had a show we used to do before she came to us.”
The deep voice of Monsieur Nicholas sounded from below. “Do you wish to return to that? And in haystacks again? One can never go back . . .”
Gigi’s girlish treble inquired anxiously, “But if there isn’t anything forward?”
“Then,” replied Monsieur Nicholas, “perhaps the best idea is to go nowhere.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Carrot Top. “How?”
“Simply by ceasing to exist.”
Carrot Top said “Oh” again, and Reynardo rasped, “Ha ha, suits me.” While Dr. Duclos said pompously, “Logically sound, I must admit, however unpleasant the prospect.” Ali complained, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is if I can’t be with Mouche I want to die.”
Mr. Reynardo sniggered, “That’s the general idea, Ali, old boy. You’ve hit it for once. Put it to a vote, Mr. Chairman.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Carrot Top said firmly, “All in favour of ceasing to exist say ‘Aye’.”
There was a scattered chorus of Ayes, and one squeaky “No” from Gigi.
Reynardo growled: “Motion carried. Proceed, Mr. Chairman.”
“Now?” Carrot Top asked. There were no dissents.
He continued: “Next question—how?”
Dr. Duclos said: “I have always been fascinated by self-immolation; the Indian custom of Suttee where the widow casts herself upon the funeral pyre of her deceased spouse . . .”
Reynardo said, “I don’t see the connection, but the idea isn’t bad. Fire is clean.”
Carrot Top said: “There’s a vacant lot back of the theatre.”
Gigi suddenly wailed: “But I don’t want to die.”
Reynardo ducked down beneath the counter swiftly and came up with the half doll that was Gigi, empty, her eyes staring vacuously, clamped in his jaws. Then he carefully dropped her over the side of the booth onto the stage where she fell with a small crash that echoed shockingly through the empty theatre. “Then live, little golden-haired pig,” he said.
Mouche drew in her breath and whispered, “Poor, poor little Gigi . . .”
Mr. Reynardo looked over the side of the booth at the little heap lying on the stage and then asked, “Anybody else want to back out?”
Madame Muscat pronounced Gigi’s epitaph: “She was never much good anyway.”
Alifanfaron said: “But she was so pretty.”
Carrot Top sighed briefly: “One of the world’s great illusions, the golden-haired fairy princess . . .”
“Who in the end turns out to be nothing more than a walking appetite,” Reynardo concluded, for he had never much liked Gigi.
Monsieur Nicholas said from below: “It is not necessary to be unkind. God made her as she was, as He made us all.”
Alifanfaron asked: “Gee, what will become of God when we are gone?”
The voice of Monsieur Nicholas replied after a moment of reflection: “I think perhaps God will destroy Himself too if it is indeed true that He has created us all in His own image . . .”
Carrot Top asked: “Why?”
“Because if He is God He could not bear to contemplate such a miserable failure of his designs.”
Mr. Reynardo stretched his neck and looked down below the counter. “Oh,” he said. “That’s clever of you. I hadn’t thought about it in that way.”
“Most profound,” continued Dr. Duclos, “not to mention praglatic . . .”
Carrot Top corrected him almost absent-mindedly, “Pragmatic.” He sighed then and added, “Well, then, it’s goodbye to Capitaine Coq and his Family.”
Golo turned a stricken face towards Mouche. “They going to die. Don’t let them, Miss Mouche . . .”
Mr. Reynardo went over to Carrot Top and stuck out his paw. “So long, kid. It wasn’t a bad ride while it lasted.”
Carrot Top took it and shook it solemnly. “Goodbye, Rey. You’ve always been a friend. I’ll go down and get things ready . . .”
Mouche arose. Her knees were stiff from kneeling, her heart was pounding with excitement and her throat was dry. She picked up her small valise and marched across the stage, her heels clicking on the boards and the single standing light picking up her slender shadow, speeding it ahead of her and throwing it as a kind of prophecy of her coming athwart the puppet booth and its single inhabitant.
It was astonishing, this repetition of the first time that Mouche had encountered the puppets of Capitaine Coq.
There was the same darkness with the single light to probe the shadows, there was the mysterious booth looming out of the shadow, the lone puppet perched on the counter, and the slender figure of a girl marching by carrying a valise.
