“They were wings,” said Mr. Trope.
“What?”
“You were born with wings. They were removed at birth by the midwife.”
“Wings? Like a bird?”
“Yes.”
Pavel snorted and pulled his arms away from McGovern’s grasp. “Did they have feathers.”
“First you insulted me. Now you are mocking me. I asked you if you had heard of a Putto. Or Putti, if we’re to use the plural. They are pictured in the rug you are now standing on.”
Pavel looked down at the winged children dancing among the unicorns and shook his head. “This is preposterous.”
“I assure you, everything we have discussed today is true, as preposterous as it sounds, to use your word.”
“What is a Putto? You aren’t going to tell me that I’m an angel. A mythical creature? Like the unicorn? I may not believe in a God, but if there was one, they would not create something like me. No one could be that cruel. This is more likely some sort of deformity, like a sixth finger, or a tail or a missing arm.”
“A deformity does not allow you to live for hundreds of years, Pavel,” said Trope.
Mr. Trope made a slight wave with one hand at McGovern who moved back toward the door and stood at attention.
“An angel?” Pavel stood, mouth agape, uncomprehending.
“Perhaps. There are so many different stories. Myths. Legends. What we know is that, for whatever reason, something inherent in our nature brings a feeling of hope to people. We feel the same deep amount of hope within ourselves, and that hope provides in us a certain measure of optimism in our fellows. It keeps us from… well, from becoming destructive, which we have a great capacity for. I will get to that. Think about the hope you brought to Prochazka and Nina. They despaired before you arrived at their door. The cruel other side to bringing hope is that we cannot touch those people. They get sick. They die.”
Pavel got up to leave. He stopped and turned to Mr. Trope. McGovern adjusted his position in front of the door.
“I am some sort of angel of death, then, is that what you are saying?”
“We don’t like to think of ourselves that way. So dark, so sad. We call ourselves Putti. A term in the art world given to winged children who possess great passion.”
Pavel pointed at the carpet. “Like Cupid?” he asked, skepticism dripping from his voice.
Mr. Trope released a phlegmatic sigh. “I don’t expect you to accept this today.”
“Are there no women born like this?”
Mr. Trope shook his head. “Sadly, not that we have found, but that does not mean it has not happened. It means that they have not survived.”
“Survived?” asked Pavel.”
Mr. Trope completed a wheezy sigh and continued, though he seemed to have tired of their meeting, and of Pavel.
“Mr. Trusnik, I assure you we have thought of this. You must understand that the world of men has not been kind to the fairer sex. Nor has it been kind to anyone perceived to be different, and therefore misunderstood. People have been burned at the stake for having green eyes. Or that extra finger you mentioned. Or a mole in the wrong location on their body. If there were women who were born like you, and it is possible and very likely there may have been, they were probably put to death at birth. Many of the boys have been. You were to be put in a bag and drowned in the river. But that did not happen.”
Pavel blinked, his breathing starting to get rapid again. He felt a stitch in his chest from the flow of anxiety. “What am I supposed to do?”
Mr. Trope tried to speak in a soothing manner, but the wheezing and raspy quality of his voice brought further anxiety to Pavel.
“Continue bringing hope to people. Your theatre is a very good place for you, now that I consider it more carefully. I suppose the theatre is a church of its own variety. Audiences go there to congregate between the walls of the theatre and wait for the show, all possessing a desire to be uplifted, transformed, or to escape. You fulfill that hope, in a brilliant and magical way, year after year. I have been to shows in your theatre, and they are quite good. That is what you can do. And perhaps, with your new financial circumstances, I have given you a little hope as well, yes?”
“I have read my Greek mythology, Mr. Trope. Hope is the virtue that was left behind, cowering in the corner of a box, shut up and forgotten after Pandora released everything else into the world. What you have given me today is not hope. You have given me money. And disappointing advice. That is all.”
Mr. Trope moved back around the desk to face Pavel and motioned to McGovern.
“Your emotions are in a heightened state and I am afraid you will have to remain our guest a while longer until you are calm again. Your passion could bring about unfortunate consequences for the people outside in the street if you were to leave here angry. “Mr. McGovern, will you please ask Mr. Peters and Mr. Prochazka to come in here a moment.”
Pavel was again enraged. “You cannot keep me here!”
Mr. Trope spread his hands before him. “Yes, I assure you that we can. It will be for the best. You can amuse yourself in our library. Very soothing.”
Prochazka entered the room with the man whom he had accompanied to tea, Mr. Peters. Prochazka had a worried expression on his face.
“Pavel?” he said.
“Pavel will be staying with us for a few days, while he adjusts to all the information we gave him today. I feel it may have overwhelmed him.”
Pavel started to lunge for the door, but McGovern and Peters grabbed hold of him and held him back.
“Táta!” yelled Pavel. He managed to break away from both men and attempted to hug his father. Prochazka, frightened, stepped away from his son.
“Táta?” A realization came to Pavel at that moment. Everything came to him in blinding and sudden clarity. Táta would not touch him. Something in that moment struck him, and he looked down and noticed his clothing, as if for the first time. He wore all hand-me-downs, from other people. Nothing ever fitted or tailored to his body. No mother or seamstress had ever touched him with a piece of cloth or measuring tape. His parents were, according to Mr. Trope, quite well-to-do, but his clothes were cast-offs. His entire life coming to the fore of his brain, Pavel realized that he had never been touched, hugged, kissed or embraced in any way, by anyone. Most importantly, neither of his parents had ever held their son. And now his father backed away from him in fear. Pavel felt his heart breaking.
1720
“Wake up, my little puppet.” Nina stood over Pavel’s bed in the workshop, smiling at him. She made a little motion with her hands that mimed what a puppeteer would do when controlling a marionette to hug another marionette or person. This motion was how Prochazka and Nina expressed their affection for Pavel, instead of hugging or kissing him.
Pavel remembered the first time they started the game that became the family’s normal way of expressing love for one another. He had arrived, afraid of beatings or of being touched. Prochazka had told him that they would honor his wishes, though Nina seemed reluctant. He remembered that three men had come to their home and that after they came, his parents stopped trying to pat him or hug him or kiss him or any of the things his adopted mother first tried. Prochazka had patted him on the back on one occasion, that being when he first arrived, but never again after the three men had come to visit. His mother had cried after they left.
Sammy the Redheaded Weird Boy was the name given to Pavel’s first puppet and the marionette who Pavel trained with until he was ready to master the others in the workshop. Pavel remembered Prochazka showing him how to work the controls until he could make the odd looking puppet work perfectly on his own. Prochazka always taught him by picking up one of the other marionettes in the workshop and using that as an example, instructing Pavel to watch with great concentration and to then copy Prochazka. In this way, Prochazka taught Pavel how to hug.
“Here, Pavel. Watch me, then you do it.” Prochazka had moved his fingers and hands in a mot
ion that caused his puppet to make a hugging motion. He then walked the puppet over to Pavel’s puppet and used the motion to hug Pavel’s puppet. The boy laughed.
“There now, you see? I’m going to put the puppet down and make the motion with my hands and then I want you to do it.” Pavel watched as Prochazka set down the marionette on the bench, then turned to Pavel and made the exact motion in the air that he had made when there had been a marionette in his hands.
“Now you do it.” Pavel watched Prochazka do it again, and the man and boy repeated the action several times until Prochazka said that it was perfect.
“When Nina and I do this, we are saying we love you, and we are hugging you, our little escaped puppet. If you feel like it, this is how you can hug us back. Okay? This way we can respect your wishes and still hug you when you’re a good boy, all right?”
Pavel faced the floor, unsure. Nina walked into the workshop.
“Darling, look what I have taught our boy.”
“And what is that?” asked Nina.
Prochazka showed Nina the hand motion. Nina and Pavel joined in, and after trying the motion several times they all laughed. Nina’s blue eyes shone.
“Looks like I get to hug my puppet after all,” she said.
Pavel thought about that as Nina stood over his bed, waking him. He sat at the edge of the bed and Nina sat down beside him.
“I’ve got a big breakfast ready for you. Get washed up and come out to the kitchen.”
“I have been thinking,” Pavel said.
“Have you? And what have you been thinking about?” Nina asked.
“I have been thinking that it would be okay if you hugged me. For real,” said Pavel.
Nina’s expression turned from startled to sad in a mere instant. Pavel didn’t know what he had said that was wrong. He tried to reassure her.
“I won’t mind anymore.”
Nina made the motion with her hands again, as she had done for years, burst into tears and left Pavel’s room. Pavel, confused, washed up and headed to the main house and let himself into the kitchen where Prochazka sat, head in his hands. He could hear Nina’s sobs coming from behind the bedroom door.
“What’s wrong with Máma?”
“Oh, puppet. Nina is at an age where women feel many emotions about many things, sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes she cries even if she’s happy or laughs when she is sad. It often does not make much sense. She is having a day like that.”
Pavel contemplated what his father had said and responded. “Do people lie about other people?” he asked.
“What?”
“The way they lie about escaped puppets. They always lie when talking about escaped puppets. But do they lie about people?”
“Well, of course I might be lying,” Prochazka said. “Everyone in theatre lies.” Prochazka put his face back into his hands.
Pavel never again brought up the subject, nor did he ever attempt to hug either of his parents.
***
Pavel’s memory came to him in Mr. Trope’s office as he stared in horror at the look of anguish on his father’s face, and he was flooded with a full and sudden understanding. He began to weep.
“Mr. Prochazka, I think it is best if you leave now. We will send the young man along in a few days.”
Prochazka’s cheeks were wet with tears, and he mumbled an unintelligible reply, turned around and left the office. His father, always larger than life to Pavel, suddenly appeared very small. Small, broken, and unhappy.
Pavel felt alone. Angry, hurt, but most of all, completely alone.
1859
The years following the inevitable loss of his parents produced in Pavel an extended period of creation and focus upon the theatre which he now ran. Pavel’s grief at losing his family sparked a period of manic energy that he used to develop projects and inventions, new engineering feats, and exciting, highly advanced puppet designs. He became rather the equivalent of the mad scientist, his behavior becoming eccentric, and the employees and actors of the theatre who came and went, were more than happy to leave him alone to his activities unless they had a question about a specific item needed for a production. He continued to control the puppets in various performances and would perform their voices, but he did not interact with the other puppeteers that he had trained, or the live actors. He became a virtual hermit, venturing out on those occasions that required his presence elsewhere. Interaction with others was contained to the theatre and theatre craft. Industry and invention became his focus, and when he was not in the theatre or adjoining workshop, he was in the library at Trope & Co., reading every book he could get his hands on in every area: language, science, engineering, architecture, literature, religion, art, medicine, and alchemy. There was no subject that Pavel did not devour in his studies. If he required another book, he asked Mr. Trope to acquire it for him. During those occasions when he came to the offices to use the library, Pavel noticed that Mr. Trope appeared to observe him constantly, from a distance, but never engaged him in conversation unless necessary, nor invited him to dine. He left him alone. Everyone left him alone.
During his period of solitude, Pavel used the knowledge he had acquired from some of the books to develop various herbal concoctions that he ingested, experimenting with anything that might have a mind-altering effect. He experimented with a number of highly poisonous plants, flowers and mushrooms, using tiny quantities, in various combinations. He tested foxglove, wormwood, water-hemlock, cow parsnip, petunia or anything else from the nightshade family, and morning glory. He had an endless variety of beautiful and volatile plants available to him, if he went looking, with which he could experiment. He found his preference was for those combinations that increased his wakefulness while producing a slight hallucinatory effect of a shimmering halo around everything that met his gaze.
Decades went by with Pavel unaware of the passing of time. His theatre thrived season after season, both critically and financially. On rare occasions, someone from Mr. Trope’s office would come by with a bundle of clothing for Pavel that was in the current fashion. He did not seem to notice such things and would grab anything available in the theatre or workshop when dressing himself, even old costumes. For someone who appeared to be so youthful, he had taken on the personality of an aging eccentric, though his increasing use of mind-altering concoctions made his behavior somewhat erratic and more similar to that of an immature child than an aging eccentric. He made no friends in the theatre with any of the multitudes of craftsman or actors that had crossed the threshold over the years, even those who stayed beyond a few seasons. He taught the various craftsman in his workshop who came and went how to better create their illusions, how to make grander and more fantastic marionettes, how to design lighting for greatest visual effect, all the while wearing his protective gloves given him years before, at his first meeting with Mr. Trope.
The two did not like each other, but they carved out a civil relationship, since they were resigned to dealing with one another for many more decades than they had already. While Pavel was busy focusing on theatre and reading and concentrating on his next invention or illusion or recreational herbal medicine, a full century passed him by. A century of virtual isolation. The fact that there were actual people coming and going in Pavel’s world was the one thing keeping him from being left in complete solitude, so it had not gone unnoticed that he was becoming more than an eccentric. There was talk that Pavel might be a little mad and rumors of his use of herbal intoxicants ran rampant. Further gossip stated the drugs were making him lose his memory, and in truth, he did often forget his lines during performances. The audience rarely noticed the omissions, but his fellow theatre cohorts were distressed. He was no longer the nice, likeable young boy that had slept in a cot in the theatre when Prochazka and Nina were alive. It was therefore alarming and a little unnerving when Pavel rushed through the door of Trope & Co. with over-animated enthusiasm on a particular day in 1859, more than one hundred years since Pavel and
Mr. Trope first met.
“Mr. Trope! You must see this!” Pavel burst through the door of the offices of Trope & Co.
“You can’t—” cried a young man in the foyer.
“Oh, but I can. I’m a special client! Didn’t they tell you about their escaped puppet?” Pavel’s swirling pupils were dilated. The man, alarmed, attempted to stop Pavel as he ran down the corridor, past the library, to Leonard Trope’s office. Pavel rushed inside, slamming the door behind him.
“Trope!” he said and shook the gloved hand of the startled man behind the desk.
Pavel moved from one foot to the other and back again as Mr. Trope appeared to be scrutinizing him. Pavel wore what appeared to be a portion of a jester costume, composed of yellow and green triangles of silk fabric with small bells stitched to the hem. Pavel combined the ridiculous costume with an outdated dinner jacket. The fabric of the jester costume was thin and clingy, making it obvious he was not wearing any undergarments. The clothes carried with them a slight odor of cat urine. Pavel was not wearing the clothing that Trope & Co. delivered to him, and the stubble on Pavel’s chin and his strong body odor suggested he’d not bathed or shaved in quite some time
“Mr. Trusnik, to what do we owe the pleasure?” asked Leonard Trope, his own strange pupils swirling, his voice wheezing, raspy. How Pavel loathed Mr. Trope.
“I have an investment to make. I want you to attend to it.” Beads of sweat popped out all over Pavel’s forehead and his hands had a small tremor.
“We would be happy to handle whatever it is. We would, of course, run an investigation to determine if this investment is in the—.”
“Best interest, yes, yes, yes, I’m familiar with the speech. Tell me, did you get the gift I sent you?” Pavel’s rapid speech had a staccato edge to it, and one of the beads of sweat broke free and trickled down his brow.
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