by Theo Rion
“Yes,” the man scratched his head. “I haven’t been here for a couple of months probably. I often travel around the country with my puppet theatre,” he nodded at a large checkered suitcase standing at the door. “I’m Puppeteer Jack Soros.”
“Kurt Rhein…in some ways, a puppeteer too.” Kurt smiled faintly and sipped tea from the mug.
“What brought you to my humble abode?”
Kurt was in no hurry to respond to that particular question.
Jack didn’t prolong the silence long. “I like to travel. I’ve travelled all over England with my theatre. Each time leaving, I think I won’t be back and board up the windows and doors.” He paused and looked at the doll in his hands. “But every time I come back…often to meet someone new.” Jack looked at Kurt and smiled.
Kurt didn’t share his joy, but Jack’s company wasn’t a burden to him, especially because loneliness seemed to Kurt even dangerous lately. Images, which appeared before him, turned into vivid pictures, as if he was dreaming wide awake. Somewhere deep down, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to distinguish reality from dream. He needed a beacon that would not allow him to get lost. Jack Soros had returned home just in time.
Jack realized his new friend wasn’t particularly talkative, so he let him choose to remain silent or speak. He didn’t ask Kurt questions anymore and didn’t speak himself. He completely immersed himself in his work and his thoughts. And so the day passed.
* * * *
The morning sun grew visible through the grey clouds, but John had awakened some time ago. Lately, he could not tell if he had slept at all. He knew no rest, neither day nor night, possessed by only the single desperate desire to find Kurt. The three days they had stayed in the castle tower had been the culmination point for John. Now he could not bear the company of those who’d previously amused him, who was an object of ridicule.
The only person who made John feel an inner trembling and tension was Kurt. He was the only one whose communication required John to be on guard all the time, the only one who called to all his internal instincts. Without him, the world seemed a deserted theatre filled with silence and longing.
Apparently, what happened a week ago had likewise been the final point for Kurt. Did John want to hurt him? Did he hurt? He did what he did, and it was worth it. And it must be said that he was hoping for an adequate response from Kurt, but something inside told John Kurt had disappeared not in order to come up with a countermove. It seemed as if John had again broken something in him, as he had when they were in the tower.
John sometimes dreaded this thought. But uncertainty angered him more. And so he was ready to turn over every stone in London in order to find Kurt.
With these thoughts, he got out of bed and dressed. The butler informed him that again those with whom John didn’t want to have anything to do with had come calling. After listening to him and nodding, John had breakfast and went into the city. He had to meet with a man who was known in narrow circles as the man who was able to find a needle in a haystack. And he had returned from his long journey just in time.
At his entrance, John met the housekeeper. She walked John into the dining room, where the landlord had breakfast.
“Good morning, Mr. Bennett,” John greeted him.
“Mr. Fenririr.” Bennett nodded and offered him the chair opposite him. His eyes scrutinized John, as if trying to read something in him. His gaze was piercing and sometimes heavy. In society, he was known as a closed and reclusive person, but that didn’t stop him from being one of the most popular detectives. “What do you need?”
“Well, I’ll tell you everything straight out, I need your help, Mr. Bennett, to find one man.”
Again there was a pause, during which Mr. Bennet closely studied John’s face. “You know, Mr. Fenririr, I guess you heard about what fame you have earned in society. So, I would prefer not to have anything to do with you.” Bennett’s voice was cold and absolutely impartial, but his words almost made John’s anger rage.
“And why am I so famous?” John asked through clenched teeth. “Please, speak frankly.”
Bennett put down his knife and fork and stared at John again. “Many people know how you treat people, how you use them. If this person is someone you need for the same reason, then I don’t want to have anything to do with it. You know perfectly well I don’t care about money. So why are you looking for this man?”
The question put John into a deadlock. He could lie. He had to lie; the truth still couldn’t be explained. To lie was his best option, but that time had already come and gone. The silence dragged on, and this silence only assured Bennett of his suspicions.
Wanting to leave, John stood up, but suddenly he turned to Bennett and said, “I need this man.”
Bennett paused, staring at John. “Does he need you?”
John grinned, nodded and left. There were still some options left—less-principled detectives, more avid for remuneration, but that way didn’t suit John. He went out and began to wander the streets of London, in hopes what he sought would come to him.
* * * *
It seemed to Kurt he saw everything through the haze of sleep. Soros obviously worked at his desk downstairs, because the fire was burning again, and an unobtrusive melody floated in the air. Kurt looked down; he saw only Mr. Soros’s head bent over the table. Surprisingly, being in this quaint little shop surrounded by puppets, Kurt felt comfortable and relaxed, as much as he would have at home.
“Did you sleep well, Mr. Rhein?” Jack asked when Kurt came down.
“Yes, thank you,” Kurt nodded. How could he explain that all night he’d had not one nightmare, but something indescribable? Kurt clearly felt a split inside himself, and his world was torn by controversy. He could not even understand who he was when he woke up, when he fell asleep and while sleeping. He was hiding from the world in this little workshop, as if he were hiding from himself in a dark corner of his soul. Or maybe he was hiding from a version of himself he had created in the past? Whatever it was, Kurt knew he wasn’t ready to go out, and he was grateful to Jack Soros for the shelter.
Kurt sat in a chair by the fire and looked at Jack. In his hands was a piece of red satin, and it caused Kurt to have strange feelings and vague memories.
“Maybe you would like to have breakfast?” Jack said, looking up. “Or do you want something else?”
“Just silence,” Kurt replied.
“Well, I always have plenty of that.” Jack smiled.
“Are you married?” Kurt suddenly asked Jack.
“It is strange to hear from you ask this question,” Jack said and smiled slightly. “This workshop is my job and my home. I think you have noticed that the mistress isn’t here; there’s the answer. No, I’m not married.”
“But you loved?”
He nodded. “And you?”
Kurt didn’t answer at once. He liked to hear the questions, even though they put him in a dead end, but he seemed to try to find his way in the dark. “Looking at you, I know you’ve loved or still love; that’s why I asked about your wife.”
“Have you ever loved?”
“Isn’t it a waste of time?”
“When it comes to love, time is the last thing you’re concerned about.”
“So, you gave up your time to love with no regret?”
Jack nodded. “I take the liberty, Mr. Rhein, and say that you have an extraordinary beauty. And I think you may know for yourself how people are susceptible to external splendor and aren’t interested in what’s inside. But love lives by its own laws. It is obstinate; it follows neither time, nor the fashion, nor the beauty. It chooses its own path and just comes and goes, despite the limits of decency and regulations, eliminating the borders. Yes…that is what I felt in full.” Jack smiled, but sadly, and Kurt caught it. Soros, as if embarrassed by his own candor, returned to the doll. The red satin dress was almost ready.
Kurt turned to the shelves where the dolls were sitting as if watching the room’s inh
abitants. “These dolls seem alive,” Kurt said after a moment.
“For me, it’s not far from the truth. Sometimes I look into their eyes, and I think that in them I find more answers than in the eyes of the living.”
“And when you’ve lost faith in people?”
“And why did you decide I’ve lost it?”
“How else to call it, if a person prefers the society of dolls to human society?”
“And you, Kurt, when did you lose your faith in people?” Jack looked at Kurt briefly; the doll was ready. But Jack didn’t draw her face, and a wide-brimmed red hat hid it. Kurt looked wonderingly at the doll and again at the workshop. Again, he had the feeling that it all seemed familiar to him.
“What is she?” Kurt asked, pointing to the lady in red that Jack held.
“The pearl of my collection,” Jack smiled. “Love itself.”
Jack stood up and walked to an unremarkable locker. He opened it, and Kurt saw the ladies in red; there were no less than twenty of them. They all had similar traits, but differed from one another in some small way. Sometimes the style of dress varied or the style of hat; some of the ladies had a veil, some had it thrown over their shoulders, some had gloves. But the red color of the dresses remained unchanged, and each lady’s face was always hidden under a hat. Jack put his new creation with the others and looked at them all with a touch of sadness in his eyes.
“I started doing them a long time ago and do one a year. This image came to me when I was very young and has never left me. Sometimes the image changes, but only a little, and I get untold pleasure, creating it again and again, as if it comes straight from my heart.”
Kurt almost didn’t listen to him. He froze at the sight of these ladies in red. Memories suddenly opened to him, and he understood why such a lady in red had appeared in his world.
“How long have you been keeping this store?”
“Oh,” Jack even closed his eyes. “It has been no less than a quarter of a century, for sure.”
“I’ve been here…I’ve been here!” Kurt looked around. He ran into the next room, where there was a counter. “I was here as a kid! I wanted to…steal your money.” Kurt had a hard time saying this, but Jack listened with curiosity. “There were always a lot of people in the store, and I made my way to the workshop. You must have noticed me, but didn’t call the constable. You gave me something to eat, and I saw one of your ladies in red. And I asked you about that doll, and then you told me that this was Lady Love. But I didn’t believe you, and you told me that someday I’d find it out myself. I wanted to stay here; it seemed to me it was safe here. There were no people, only dolls. But the next day you left with your puppet theatre.”
“What a small world,” Jack smiled. “I’m glad to see you in good health.”
Kurt looked pensively at Jack.
“So who’s that? Who is the object of such a long and persistent love?”
Jack’s eyes instantly filled with sadness, and Kurt stopped. This man seemed to him a saving thread associated with something good in his past, which in general contained little good.
“I don’t know if you can understand.” Jack sat back in his chair and put his head in his hands. “But I discovered that love doesn’t care to whom it will come. It knows no gender, no language or race, nor social status. For it, there are no closed doors. Even if you’re surrounded by dolls, it will find a way to get to you.” He paused, looking thoughtfully at the fire. “I don’t regret anything. I think I was lucky I had these golden moments. You know, sometimes in grief, time stands still; in happiness, it’s rushing madly, but there are special moments of celebration, in which you would like to dissolve. And I got the chance to live them. It was more than twenty years ago. I had no wife, no children, but I never felt loneliness. My life seemed measured and clear. I was surrounded by dolls; I went with the theatre in the country and gave performances. I thought I was quite satisfied with my life and even happy. At one of the performances I was approached by a man. He was terribly interested in how I controlled the dolls. We got to talking.
“Richard turned out to be a traveller and a man who was utterly in love with life. And then I realized that I thought I was happy just because I had never known true happiness. In conversation with Richard, hours flew like minutes. We understood each other, and I suddenly knew what it meant to trust a person. A real living human. Richard was constantly leaving and returning. While he was away, we wrote letters to each other. He sent me strange souvenirs from different corners of the earth, and it seemed to me I had travelled to all those places with him. This was the happiest part of my life.” Jack sighed. “Until I got another letter from him; unlike all the previous ones, it was quite short. He wrote that his ship nearly sank off the coast of Africa. He’d escaped by a miracle. “And when I was close to death,” he wrote to me, “I realized something important about you and me, Jack. I must tell you these words, even if you turn away from me forever. Wait for my returning. I’ll sail the first ship and will be in England on June twelfth.”
At that moment, I experienced the golden moments of my life. And that night I saw this image of the lady in red. I could not even sleep, and made it the same night. I made her dress from fabric Richard had brought me from India.”
Oddly enough, this story interested Kurt. “And then what happened?”
Jack was silent for some time, as if he needed to gather the strength to say it out loud, but he didn’t want to. “He never came back,” Jack finally said. “I had been waiting all day in port. But the ship came without him. And I didn’t get his letters anymore, though I continued to write.”
There was a pause. “But…why did he leave you?” Kurt asked. It seemed Jack had asked himself this question many times, but gave up trying to answer it, because it hurt him.
“Don’t be silly.” Jack tried to smile. “He’s always with me.” His eyes became serious again. “Maybe it’s stupid, but I believe he will come back. So, every time I go to the port and meet the same ship. The next ship is due to arrive in two days.”
“It’s been twenty years; you said it yourself. He won’t be back,” said Kurt.
“Why do you think that, Kurt?”
“You think that something happened to him, and so keep the hope, but everything can be much more prosaic. And knowing people—and I know many—I would rather believe in this prosaic story.”
“And what do you think happened?”
“He quailed. You said yourself he wrote immediately after the shipwreck. He was on the edge, his emotions overwhelming. This can be compared with alcohol intoxication. He wrote the letter to you under the effect of the moment. And then, when he calmed down, he knew he had made a mistake. He didn’t want to face what would have awaited him, if he had said those words. So, he decided to stay away from you. Away from a man who confused him and tangled him up. I’m sorry, but what if your golden moments are just an illusion, with which you were soothing yourself all this time?”
Jack looked at Kurt; his eyes seemed quite dull, and he seemed to have aged ten years. Kurt suddenly felt uneasy; he felt the man’s sadness and pain.
“Why did I do it?” Kurt asked himself mentally, shrugging without finding an answer.
Jack picked up a template for a new doll, but his hands didn’t obey him, as if he had been weakened. “I think that’s all,” he said absently.
Kurt clearly saw Jack as if he had lost his vitality and become one of his dolls. He sat and stared into the void while Kurt’s words dealt with the remnants of hope in his heart. He closed his eyes as if he wept silently. Kurt felt pain, grief and sympathy overflowing his soul. Shame tortured him that he had taken away the hope of the one who’d given him shelter. But Kurt could not undo what was already done.
That night Kurt heard neither Jack’s calm breathing downstairs, nor the crackling fire in the fireplace; he heard a faint cry. Looking out over the railing, Kurt saw Jack’s head bent over the table; his shoulders were shaking. Kurt didn’t see what
he was doing. But in the morning, when Kurt woke up, Jack wasn’t here. A note was on the table.
“I’m leaving with the theatre. Now I realize I should not have come back here every year in hope and expectation, and I shouldn’t have gone to the pier. The one I was waiting for wasn’t going to return.”
Kurt put his head down, and a new wave of sadness touched him. His attention was drawn by the half-open door of the locker, where Jack kept the collection of ladies in red. When Kurt opened it, he saw that the last lady that Jack had finished yesterday was now dressed in a black dress. And Kurt knew, Jack would not come back here and would never make a new lady in red.
Chapter 20
Two weeks had passed since Kurt’s disappearance. John had turned into a cornered beast. Insomnia made him irritable and nervous, and his eyes were covered with a net of red capillaries. His face grew thin and stiff bristles protruded from lapsed cheeks, giving him a jaded look. Every morning he left his home and again wandered around London.
As the dawn broke, and the streets of London were filled with people, John was among them, like a ghost of another sleepless night. At one of the shops a young man ran into John. The man immediately apologized and suddenly gasped. John didn’t recognize Philip at once, as Philip didn’t immediately recognize his own brother.
“John?” Philip’s voice sounded with genuine concern. “What…what’s happened to you?”
“Nothing.” John turned, just wanting to walk away.
“It’s all because of Kurt, isn’t it?”
These words made John turn back. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”
A second look scared Philip a little. “John, you look awful. I may regret this, but would you want to come with me?”
“Where?”
“To our home.”
“No.” John was going to leave again.
“How long have you wandered like this, John?” Philip shouted, but John didn’t turn around. Philip followed him, because his voice behind him never ceased. “John, come with me. You need to freshen up. Listen, for once in my life I don’t chase you away and try to act like your loving brother! I beg you, come with me!”
