The Motion of Puppets

by Keith Donohue

  The door to the back was open. Egon stepped inside, and gingerly Theo followed. He found the switch to the overhead light which threw into relief the bare metal shelves and the yellow walls and the well-worn floor. Tiny footprints in the dust made him wonder about mice. A chair crafted from empty oatmeal boxes lay on its side. Small piles of sawdust dotted the surface of the center table. A wisp of cotton tumbled into a corner. Separating the back room from the store proper was a dark beaded curtain, filmed with dust that rose like pollen when he brushed past. All of the toys were gone. Even the man under glass that Kay so adored. Nothing but a stray ribbon, scraps of paper, price tags, a spent matchbook.

  “Looks like someone left in a hurry,” Egon said.

  Theo cast his gaze upon the bare walls, filled with regret that he and Kay had never been allowed inside when it was bright and full of life. He could picture her delight in being lost among the puppets, and he was seized by the enormity of his departure. The toy shop refused to give up its secrets. They left as they had arrived, no closer to understanding.

  Book Two

  10

  The girl in the second row, three seats back in French 201, unless that Poindexter would take her usual spot. A woman in a yellow poncho crossing Amsterdam Avenue in the rain, who looked so surprised to find him chasing after her. Three times on the subway: once a pair of legs, once a woman in Kay’s favorite red Donegal sweater, and once a face on the D train heading in the opposite direction. Her voice calling out for a wandering child—where would their children come from now?—on the steps outside the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. He considered going inside, saying a prayer if such magical thinking would bring her back. Right now, on the spot, Kay marching down the center aisle to the pew where he knelt. The buzz of his cell phone in the middle of the night and fumbling under the pillow for it only to miss a telemarketer from Kissimmee, Florida, or Waterloo, Iowa, and then he was awake half the night imagining those lonely salespeople consigned to such a purgatory. Every time he checked the mailbox, he turned the key with the hopes of a child on Christmas morning—nothing but coal, bills, and junk. When the leaves began to change colors. When he was drinking her favorite chai, or passing by the corner where she had first touched his arm, first kiss, last kiss, the spot in Central Park where he first knew she would say yes if he asked, when he asked.

  Theo missed her most on Tuesdays and Thursdays. During the fall semester at the small college upstate, he had only two days of classes teaching both French language and literature, more than enough to keep him busy, what with the unfinished Muybridge translation loitering in the background. In years gone by, the long train ride up the Hudson Valley had offered him a chance to read or write, but now he spent most of the trip looking at the passing landscape, his thoughts filled with Kay. Rocking, in constant motion, he dozed and dreamt of her in his arms, the warmth of her skin, the scent of her body, her hair, the taste, the sound, the touch—until he roused himself from slumber, embarrassed if someone happened to be sitting next to him. Then he would turn away, press his forehead against the window, and try to forget for the rest of the trip. “Not her, not her,” he whispered along with the rhythm of the train rolling on the track. And a bump would jolt him, bang his skull against the glass, and he would dig in his briefcase, find a book, grade a paper, set a lesson plan in his lap.

  The first week back at college was marked by sheer awkwardness. His colleagues offered perfunctory greetings, a few words of consolation from the more kindhearted who had heard the news, but mostly the staff and faculty avoided him as though grief were contagious or they, too, suspected him of foul play. Even his comrades in the Modern Languages wing were cold to him. Frau Morgenschweis would not look him in the eye. Señora Martinez said how sorry she was on his first day back and then went silent. Only Dr. Mitchell, who knew seven languages and taught Greek and Latin, was the same as ever, blithely unaware of gossip and office politics.

  “Dr. Harper.” He nodded when their paths crossed at the communal coffeepot. “You were away this summer, eh? How is that new bride of yours?”

  The question stunned him. “Ah, Dr. Mitchell, you haven’t heard? My wife has gone missing.”

  “Missing?” Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Mitchell blinked his eyes in confusion and empathy.

  Theo shook his head and tried to keep his composure. “Literally, actually missing. She disappeared in the middle of a night in June, and we haven’t seen her since. Not a trace.”

  “Jesus, I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked. “The police are looking for her?”

  “Yes, since she vanished. Up in Québec, where she was performing for the summer. I was there to keep her company and work on my translation.”

  “My dear.” Mitchell gripped Theo’s arm and hung on tightly. “Have you asked the chair for a leave of absence?”

  The touch of another human, even such a small gesture, filled him with a profound lonesomeness. He knew that he had to free himself or risk a breakdown in the faculty lounge. “I looked for her all the time, called the detectives every day, but she just seems to be completely gone. I thought that work might help me deal with it better. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard. I understand there was a memo—”

  “I never read the memos.” Mitchell leaned his head close enough so that the pink of his scalp shone through the thatch of his thinning hair. “If you need anything, even just a sympathetic ear…”

  Loosening his grip, Mitchell patted him on the shoulder and went away, talking quietly to himself.

  The classroom offered Theo refuge from his sorrows. If they knew, the students had the sense or apprehension not to bring up the matter. For the first few weeks of the semester, Theo busied himself with the new freshmen, sorting those who had decent instruction in high school from those who had only the rudiments of French. Another class of six students commencing their second year worked on enriching their understanding of grammar, the study of sentences, irregularities, idioms, and style. Most of all he loved his seminar on Flaubert, where he could almost lose himself in the discussions, but even in the middle of a conversation with his bright and curious students, his thoughts drifted to Kay.

  One young woman interrupted one such reverie by snapping her fingers to gain his attention and wake him from a trance. “Dr. Harper, professor, excuse me. But I was just wondering why this novel is called Madame Bovary if we have to wait so long for Emma to arrive? I mean, initially you think it is a book about Charles, and then his mother. And then there’s Heloise. I mean, isn’t it all way too convenient that his first wife just ups and dies?”

  He blinked. His voice seized up, the words went dry in his mouth. Of course, Kay could be dead. He had been open to such a possibility, as early as the day they showed him the body of the drowned woman, but until that moment in the classroom, he had not considered it as a twist in their story. The student’s question hovered in the air, but she herself evaporated from view, as did the others around the table. Everything was going away and leaving him resolutely alone in the room, and the only sound that reached his ears was the ticking of the cheap clock on the wall above the door. The student cleared her throat.

  “Mademoiselle Parker, is it?” he asked. “Convenient? That’s one way of looking at the death of Heloise, but I would say inevitable. From the moment Charles first sees Emma and is smitten, the whole story is set in motion. And it becomes her story. Emma’s.” He looked at the clock again, finally noticing the time. “And I’m afraid I’ve kept you all late.” He dismissed them and sat at the table while they filed away.

  Later that afternoon in the student union, he was puttering around with his Muybridge in a corner when a clutch of students came in and sat in a group of easy chairs overlooking the quad. They were loud and disruptive, and he recognized two or three from his Flaubert class, including the skeptic Parker. Hidden from their view, Theo could eavesdrop on their conversation with a modicum of effort.

  “… so he just went blank,” Mlle. Parker said
. “And I was all rise and shine, but he just sat there and spaced.”

  “You know his story, right? Word is his wife just vanished into thin air this summer.”

  “What do you mean she vanished?” Parker asked. “Like ran away on him, ’cause that I could see.”

  A third voice chimed in. “No. That’s just it—they don’t know what happened to her. Went all missing person on him. They say she might be dead.”

  “Get out. You don’t suppose he killed her and dumped the body?”

  They shared a nervous laugh.

  “C’mon, guys,” one of them said. “Not nice. But no wonder he’s that way. Seriously lost.”

  Parker leaned across the table. “Hey, you never know about the secret life.”

  * * *

  Kay’s joints rumbled, her stitches pulled at the seams. The vibrations meant that they were moving once again. On the main roads at constant speed, the hum of the engine and the rolling wheels lulled them to sleep, but a bump or a pothole and everybody was awake and complaining. If the jolt was harsh enough to cause the shocks to spring, her neighbors in the cardboard mausoleum swore and cursed the driver. They had been packed into some sort of van or truck, the puppet box wedged into place by other crates and cartons, shifting only slightly on the steepest of hills or the sharpest of curves. The back of the vehicle was dark, dank, and dismal. Inside her compartment, Kay suffered with the heat. The straw laid down as a cushion made her itch and twist to find comfort and relief. But most oppressive was the dullness of the routine. They would mosey for a few hours and then rest. She imagined that the drivers had stopped for lunch or to use a bathroom or to stretch their legs. And then back in the van and move some more until night fell. One or the other, for both the Deux Mains and the Quatre Mains took a turn at the wheel, would come to the back and open the door, and the stale air would belch out in a rush as fresh air billowed in. After they checked their cargo, the giants departed. Above her, the Sisters yawned like three little kittens. Only when they were all shut in for the night, Kay dared to speak.

  “Olya? Masha? Irina?” she called to them.

  “Dahlink,” they sang together.

  “I’ve been awake all day between naps. How can that be, without the moon or without the stars?”

  Directly above her, Olya spun slowly in her chamber, her wooden shoulders scraping the edges. “We are no longer in the Back Room, and we are free of its rules.”

  Irina laughed bitterly. “Free as one can be, shut in a coffin.”

  “Until we get to the next place,” Olya said. “We will be in a kind of limbo, between one world and the next. The Original must be traveling with us.”

  “Purgatory in a box,” Masha said. “Shut up and sealed is worse, if you ask me, than knowing where you are and what is to be expected. At least in the Back Room, you could see your friends every once in a while. Here the scenery never changes, the company never varies.”

  On her left, Noë quietly sobbed. “What I wouldn’t give for a little light, a gulp of fresh air. I’m going crazy in here, I tell you, cooped up night and day, never knowing if it is night or day except for the constant driving, driving, driving, then stopping probably at some cheap hotel out in the sticks. This is no way to live. Without your friends, your family. A chance to move and play, a chat across the table.”

  “Ah well,” Olya said. “No use complaining, nobody is listening, nobody cares. Least of all the Quatre Mains, who could do something about it. You must make the best of your lot in life. Think of Kay, this is her first trip. Give some consideration to her feelings.”

  “Hers? What about my feelings? What about some consideration for the rest of us, bundled like packages? Like bottles in a case—”

  From the right side, Nix trumpeted. “Oh would you please shut up? It’s like this every time. Whine and moan and carry on. You know it’s not forever. You know we had to leave the toy shop, they have come looking for Kay. Most likely we’re bound for a better place, a happier tomorrow. Songs to be sung. Capers, jests, a chance to perform again. So you have a little inconvenience—”

  “Feh,” Irina spat out. “An inconvenience? Better they would just dump us in the back of the van in a great big heap and then lock the door. At least then we could move about, see how the others are.”

  Masha hollered from her chamber. “Are you there? Can you hear us? Good Fairy? Devil? Are you all right, my Queen? Mr. Firkin, are you with us?”

  The six puppets went quiet and waited for a reply. The other tombs were quiet. A cricket had crawled into the back of the van and began to chirp. The song echoed and filled the space.

  “I wish I had a shoe to throw,” Noë said. “And silence that bug.”

  “Where are they?” Irina whispered. “Do you think they are here? Maybe the Quatre Mains forgot them at the Back Room.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Nix said. “Perhaps we have stopped at some little burg and the masters decided to put on an impromptu roadside show. No doubt the Queen and Mr. Firkin are behind the proscenium awaiting their cues.”

  The cricket picked up the tempo.

  “Or maybe they can’t hear us over this godforsaken cricket,” said Noë. “I would give my left arm for a shoe. Hell, I would throw my left arm at it if it would just shut up.”

  Olya restored reason. “Let us take a measured approach. The other box could be tucked away behind who knows what matter of junk. On three, I want us to all shout ‘Hello! Can you hear us?’ Loud as you can. One, two, three…”

  They shouted, and within a few seconds came the shouted reply: “Hello! We are here! Are you there?” Even the Dog howled a high lonesome greeting.

  “Are we there?” Masha laughed.

  “What dopes in the other box,” Irina said. “What a ludicrous question—”

  Nix interrupted. “I’ll not have you insulting the Queen. Or Mr. Firkin. Or whoever it was.” He spoke as loudly as he could. “We’re here! Wherever this may be…”

  “We have stopped for the night,” Mr. Firkin yelled. “We are searching for a new Promised Land.”

  Irina hollered, “Let’s hope it doesn’t take forty years!”

  “Keep your spirits up,” the Queen bellowed regally. “It shan’t be long.”

  On her word, they each fell silent. Kay was reassured by the presence of the other box of bodies. She had grown accustomed to them all. Indeed, she had a fondness that surprised her in its intermittent tenderness, for they were only puppets, after all. Above her, the Sisters shifted in their compartments, trying to get comfortable. Nix was softly whistling a circus tune, and the scratchy sound from the left could only mean that Noë was tossing her straw head from side to side. Outside and far away, a car occasionally passed by, a melancholy sound, and Kay guessed that they were indeed parked at a hideaway motel. Just as all had gone still and quiet, the long night stretching ahead, the cricket song started up again.

  “Stupid fucking cricket,” Noë said. “I’d like to hammer it. I’d like to squash that … pest.”

  From the upper berth, Olya whispered, “Hush.”

  “You’re restless, Noë,” said Kay softly. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

  A low murmur of assent drifted from next door.

  “Once there was a bendy girl. When she was just a baby, she could stick her toes in her mouth, and before she learned to walk, she could tumble the whole way across the floor. When she was quite small, she used to watch the other bendy girls, and soon she copied what they could do—balance on a beam, vault over a horse, swing like a monkey between two bars up in the sky. All she ever wanted to do was jump and fly like a bird, and in time, she grew up and became so good at it that now all the little girls would watch her instead. And she had a string of admirers, young men entranced by her body and how supple it was and what fantastic things she could do with it. They had been drawn in by the motion, and at first their flattery was gratifying, but in time, she realized how empty were their looks and praise, for she was mu
ch more than a bendy girl. One after another the boys proved their intent, how little they knew or understood her, until at last she felt that one more admirer might just make her explode, so she went into a castle tower high above the clouds, locked the door behind her, and climbed to the topmost window where she could be alone. One day she heard a sound coming from beneath the ocean of white, a sound she had not heard before: a man speaking words she did not comprehend, yet so curious and beautiful that she ran down the steps, unlocked the door, and stepped outside to follow the sound. She ran across a meadow of asphodels in bloom and entered a birch forest, the white trees shimmering in the sunshine, till she came to a clearing. By a pond stood the stranger, the words he spoke appearing in circles above his head, like a man in the funny pages, and she came closer to try to read what he had written in the air.”

  The van had grown still again. Even the cricket was listening.

  “He said, ‘How do you do?’ when he saw her, for he did not know the bendy girl, and she asked him what the words meant, and he said that he could teach her. They spent the day with the words and they were so enchanted with each other that they fell in love. She bent herself around him, and he fell apart, collapsing like a dying star, nothing more than strands of sentences, a man made out of words.”

  In the darkness, Kay could sense Noë was facing her, her breathing close, her fingers pressed against the partition. “That was you,” Noë whispered.

  “Was it? I am trying to remember. There seem to be two worlds—one of words and one of motion—and we are tied to one or the other, never quite able to be in both.”

  Long afterward, when everyone else was asleep, Kay heard the two sets of footsteps approach and the languorous voices of the giants. The aroma of coffee hit her like a dose of speed. The doors opened and closed, bang, bang. The key clicked in the ignition, and the wheels crunched onto a gravel berm, the van lurching from reverse into drive. The Deux Mains rolled down her window to let in the first sweet smell of autumn.