The Motion of Puppets (2 page)

In the heart of the Vieux-Québec, church bells rang evensong, and Theo looked at his wristwatch, surprised by how much time had elapsed since he wrote those last sentences. The work on his desk grumbled for attention, but he could not give it any. Maybe after dinner, once he cleared his head. He shoved his papers and books into his briefcase and shouldered it before stepping outside into the twilight. He loved the lonesomeness of the dusky hour when everything changed from brightness into darkness. Along the streets of the lower part of the old city, the Basse-Ville, the cars zipped by on their way home, and the Musée de la Civilisation had closed its doors for the evening. The street was emptied of pedestrians. They were out looking for a place for dinner perhaps, or headed for a drink and a show, and he envied the patterns of their typical days and the standard routine of their hours. Taking a shortcut to his favorite café on rue Saint-Paul, Theo followed the path Kay had just taken, past her favorite shops, slowing his pace to look in their windows, wondering what she might enjoy, calculating how much money he would have to earn to afford such treasures for her.

Across the street, a light snapped on at the Quatre Mains, throwing a rectangle on the sidewalk. He was surprised by the sign of life in the little toy shop. Shrugging the strap on his bag higher on his shoulder, Theo headed across the narrow street to investigate. The dolls and puppets in the display stood out more sharply in the artificial glow, and he could make out the shelves of toys and the marionettes dangling from wires hung in the ceiling and a mélange of hand puppets propped on the hooks of a coatrack. He pressed his nose against the glass, fascinated by what had long been enshadowed. The room seemed alive with promise, and he tore himself away from the window to try the door, only to find it locked as ever. He knocked loudly.

“Hello, hello, anyone there?”

No reply. He banged on the glass and tried in French. “
Il y a quelqu'un? Allo.
”

Nothing stirred inside. He listened for footsteps, made binoculars of his hands, and pressed close but saw nothing. Perhaps there was a back entrance off the alleyway. While he debated whether to check, he rattled the doorknob twice and called out again, his voice echoing off the storefront, embarrassingly strange in the street. A family of five passed by, parents of three small children, turning their heads in unison to the disturbance he was making. The lights inside the store went out suddenly, and he found himself in the dark, pondering his next move. Backing into the street, he looked up to the second story of the building, but the windows were as bare and dusty as ever. There must be a rear door, he concluded, and gathering his wits, he crossed the street again, rueful over the missed opportunity for the gifts he might have bought for her. When he stepped inside the café, the boisterous crowd and sensuous aromas from the kitchen made him forget all else.

*   *   *

Sarant balanced her hands on the sphere and carefully raised her body, resting her weight on the fulcrum of her wrists and the bent angle of her forearms. The June air was hot and humid in the open plaza where the cirque held their free summer shows, honing them for the performances later that year. A moth fluttered inches from her face, but she did not break her concentration on her internal gyroscope. A bus rumbled along an overpass, but the people in the stands and the groundlings beneath them noticed nothing but the acrobats, the lights buzzing faintly, the swell of music from the hidden orchestra. Sarant pressed forward, arching her back and lifting and curving her legs, and then she pushed her arms against the sphere, extending and raising her whole body so that it appeared as a kind of question mark. Black as holes, her eyes focused on a spot above her forehead where she would soon put her toes, contorting her whole form. A low murmur of unease ran through the people closest to the stage, as they realized that the human body was not meant to bend that way. Her muscles twitched with the strain and she exhaled carefully, since one errant breath could upset her balance and send her tumbling. Out in the dark, weak applause grew into crescendo, and Sarant held the pose for a few moments longer before lowering her torso in one fluid motion. Then she swung her legs and straddled the metal ball, and leapt forward, landing perfectly on the flooring. Stuck it, like the gymnast she was. From her place in the chorus behind the acrobat, Kay could see the line of sweat along Sarant's backbone darkening her costume like a streak of blood. The applause trailed off, as she smiled and bowed. Kay wanted thunder—didn't they know how difficult this was? But, no, the audience saved their awe for the fliers who swooped from cabled rope attached to the bottom rails of the overpass, to the daredevils who raced across the ramps on their skates and bicycles and the ringmaster on his unicycle, for the climbers and the risk takers. The delicacy and grace of this interlude paled against the wow of motion that was the signature of the cirque.

Caught up in her grinding resentment, Kay nearly missed her cue. The eight of them, four on each side, rose together and shuffled forward to make the shape of an undulating lotus blossom with Sarant as the radiant center, and closing in on her, she seemed to disappear in their petaled embrace, slipping away through a trapdoor in the stage floor, gone when the flower unfolded. The trick never failed to draw an appreciative gasp from the crowd, the children in particular beholden and amazed. The spotlights snapped off so the petals could escape in darkness, while a new light shone on the group of men teetering on mountain bikes and skateboards on a platform that ran twelve feet overhead along the perimeter of the backstage. Kay had fourteen minutes to make her costume change for the final act.

Crammed together in the dressing room trailer, the acrobats and contortionists stripped off their leotards and found their more fanciful outfits, streaked on their face paint, wriggled into bustiers and headdresses, a riot of feathers and spangles and bared skin. Reance, the master of ceremonies, weaved between the girls in their varied states of dishabille, stopping once to whisper a word in Sarant's tiny ear, a secret compliment that made her blush through the makeup. Squeezing between two half-naked women, he headed straight for Kay. She looked up at the faintly comical figure in front of her, his makeup craquelled on his skin, his old-fashioned pilot's cap and goggles perched atop his white hair, dividing it into tufts, his ridiculous sideburns and mustache, his long leather duster festooned with pocket watches and compasses and other dials dangling from chains. A steam punk Father Time, though she could never discern the symbolic importance of his character. The night pilot of all dreams, or some such metaphor. Truth be told, she understood little about the dramaturgy of the show, baroque as an opera, the plot a twist on a lovers' triangle, and a boy at the center of it all, caught in time, encased inside a dream of his future. To keep her mind on the performance, she rarely thought of the story. Little more than a way to showcase the acrobats and jugglers, the costumes and music and lights and dazzle of motion. Reance watched as Kay buttoned her blouse, and then he leaned in close enough for her to smell the garlic on his breath.

“Dinner?” he asked, lifting one bushy eyebrow, and she could not tell whether he was really flirting or just exaggerating for comic effect. Funny old lech. “Just a small party. Sarant has already said yes, and a select few others. But it wouldn't be the same without you.”

In all of her weeks with the circus, Kay had been invisible, or perhaps she had not taken the other performers' notice into account. Every night Theo had been waiting by the dressing room trailer to walk her home, and she had made her good-byes. But now, she had been granted entrée into the inner circle. She pulled up the straps to her camisole and pretended to look for her shoes. “Yes, sounds fun,” she said to the floor.

He laid a hand against her bare shoulder, the fingerless glove as startling as a snake. “I'm so glad you've agreed. Now, let's not miss another cue.”

The crowd roared for the finale, a grand tumbling and vaulting parade of acrobats spilling down the platform thrust into their space, the lot of them, the fliers, contortionists, dancers, and clowns pouring out, an orchestrated boffo curtain call designed for maximum approval. The small boy, dreamer of the extravaganza, hopped from Reance's shoulder. Then they clasped hands and bowed; and the company bowed together to a chorus of bravos. The people beyond the footlights clapped till their hands hurt. At the peak of the sound, the lights were cut, and all the performers exited in the echoing darkness. She dipped into her locker and found the clothes she had stashed for a special occasion and quickly changed into a yellow sundress and her favorite shoes, a pair of pale blue heels. After the greasepaint had been wiped away, after the boas and spangles had been packed up for the night, Kay found the others queuing near the entrance gate. “Off to dinner with the cast,” she quickly texted her brand-new husband. “Be home late. Don't wait up.”

 

2

Theo woke up alone in the bed. The covers had fallen to the floor sometime in the night, and the sheets were twisted in a damp noose around his feet. For a fleeting moment, he thought Kay might have gotten out of bed early because of his restlessness, but her pillows lay plump and untouched. Or perhaps she came home late, and so as not to disturb him had gone to sleep on the sofa in the living room. His head ached. As he ran his fingertips across his brow, he replayed the night before, the beers and that plate of poutine heavy in his gut. Dreams of Muybridge racing through San Francisco to catch the last ferry, the wagon ride through the winding hills in the dark night to the cabin where his wife had gone to be with her lover. The last thing Theo remembered from his dream was the photographer knocking on the front door, pistol in hand.

“Kay,” he called out, but no answer. He struggled to his feet and stumbled out of the bedroom, repeating her name in the empty rooms. She wasn't on the sofa. She hadn't come home last night, or perhaps she had woken early and had gone out for a pair of hot coffees and those pastries he loved from the shop around the corner. With a fat yawn, he absentmindedly shuffled through last night's work, half his attention focused on the foyer, awaiting the sound of her return, the ding of the elevator, footsteps on the landing, the jangle of keys at the lock. The blank page offered no real distraction for his agitation, so he rose without writing a single word. He wandered from room to room, opening the shades to bring in the light, searching for where he had left his cell phone. A quick call to her would clear up the entire mystery. Chuckling at the memory, he found it at last behind a throw pillow on the sofa. He had been keeping vigil there before falling asleep to an old black-and-white movie and must have abandoned the phone on his half-awake trek to the bedroom. Right, she had sent him a text:
Be home late. Don't wait up
. But he had expected her for a while, and only reluctantly crawled into bed around midnight without her. He thumbed to her number.

When his call went straight to voice mail, he hung up without leaving a message and then punched in a series of urgent texts, one after the other as soon as each was delivered:

Where are you?

Did you come home last night?

Call me.

No reply. He cursed the smartphone and all technology for its failure to bring him an instant answer. Either she had forgotten to turn on her phone, or it was powerless somewhere, in need of a charge. Just like the time when they were dating and she stood him up without a word. She could have called and explained, he would have understood. Her secretiveness had nearly ruined everything, and now he felt a mixture of annoyance and anxiety that weighed like a rock in his belly. Nothing to be done but wait, take a shower, make breakfast, keep busy.

Rubbing the beginnings of a beard, Theo thought of Muybridge and his magnificent nineteenth-century gray whiskers. Of course, he had married later in life, and his bride, despite having been once married and divorced already, was much younger. She must have been reminded of that difference in ages every time she saw that snowy beard. Perhaps that's why she strayed, looking for some vigor and excitement the older man could not provide. The same worries plagued Theo, though he and Kay were only a decade apart, but still. She should be more responsible, should know that he would worry, but he could hear her laughing it off when she came home.
You'll give yourself ulcers,
she'd say.
You fret too much. I just went out for croissants.

But she had not returned by the time he finished taking a shower and dressing for the day. She had not returned when the coffee had gurgled through the machine, nor after he had finished his cold cereal. He badgered his phone for an update every few minutes, but she could not be reached. Late morning seeped into the apartment in a funk. The kitchen clock ticked like a metronome. Dust in the sunlight swirled like a lazy tempest. Through the open window, he could smell the exhaust of traffic below from cars on the street, boats on the water. A startling horn broke the reverie. The coffee had gone cold and sour. On the table, his books and papers threatened to fly away of their own accord, and his pen looked like a bloodied knife. The whole apartment felt like a crime scene. He could do nothing but wait.

If anything made their first months together difficult, it was his impatience and her independence. They had fought about it when Kay first landed the part to join the cirque for the summer.

“I'll be so busy with rehearsals and the show. You can stay in New York and work on your translation, and I'll find a sublet with some of the others in the cast,” she had offered.

The suggestion poleaxed him, and the thought left him speechless. Kay sat next to him on the sofa, rested her head on his shoulder. “Of course, you could come up for the weekends. I'd miss you too much.”