The Motion of Puppets(7)
Without quite knowing how, she stumbled onto rue Saint-Paul near the Marché du Vieux-Port, a landmark for her journey home. The familiar sight allayed her fears. Under the streetlights, the low-slung farmers’ market appeared like a set of models from a miniature railroad, down to the smallest detail—the sign over the entrance, the empty pushcarts, and the covered stalls. If she drew closer, she felt they would be revealed as fakes, and so unsettled, she rushed past, averting her eyes, heading down Saint-Paul with grim determination. Kay was certain now that she was being followed, her pursuer matching her movements in perfect synchronicity. When she stopped, he stopped. Pick up the pace, slow, dawdle, speed up again. He was clever, for each time she turned around to confront him, she could find no one. In a curious way, she hoped it was Reance and not some random thug come to take her money, her life. Earlier when they were leaving the bar, Reance had pressed his hand against the small of her back at a precise juncture that signaled his desire. His hand felt hot and clammy through her thin dress. He had been flirting with her all night and now he was following her, she was sure. She jogged a few paces, past a tiny parking lot, the street narrowing.
Behind her, a hiss startled her, a cat chasing a rat, a snake in the cracks of the sidewalk, breath of air escaping from an anxious man. A single light snapped on and pooled on the sidewalk, a bright oasis in a desert of darkness. The two moments, the hiss and the light, followed as though one had caused the other, like the scrape of a match simultaneously producing the flame. Her heel caught in a crack in the pavement and snapped in two.
“Son of a bitch,” she said, surprised at how loud her voice sounded. After trying to reattach the stem of her heel, she flung the broken piece in the gutter and carried both shoes, limping barefoot, realizing that the light was coming from inside the Quatre Mains. She flew to the storefront, escaping her assailer, and tried the knob to the perpetually locked door, a flutter in her heart as it turned.
Bells along the lintel rang cheerfully when she crossed the threshold, and even at the late hour, she expected to be welcomed to the shop by its proprietor, a kindly old soul: May I help you? But no one answered her hellos. The shop was crammed with toys, and all that had been hidden before was now revealed. She and Theo had never seen what lived in the shadows. Dead center was a puppet theater, a sylvan scene decorating the proscenium, just the right size for a young child, and hiding behind the scenery were a handful of finger puppets—a porcupine, a moose, a beaver, a loon, a Mountie, and a damsel in distress. Along the wall next to the door was a long wooden counter with an antique cash register. She laid her bag and broken shoes atop a display case filled with tray after tray of parts for dolls, not just their costumes and accessories but glass eyes, arms, shoes, mittens, hair of every color from fiery red to coal black. A half-dozen marionettes hung on long ropes from the ceiling, twirling ever so slightly as she passed, Hansel and Gretel off to meet the witch, Alice and the Queen of Hearts. Along the other wall were rows of Pinocchios, Muppets on a hat rack, Indonesian shadow puppets, glove puppets, sock monkeys, and papier-maché lions and tigers and bears. There were windups and cast-iron banks of old-time baseball players pitching and catching. A felted red rooster in a yellow beret. A flywheel monkey dressed in a green bellboy’s cap and jacket. Clowns whose arms and legs jumped when you pulled a string. The creatures all seemed to be watching her as she roamed about the shop. In the peculiar quiet, she wondered where the owners were.
Behind the merchandise and around the corner, there was a staircase leading to what she assumed must be the living quarters. To the right, a beaded curtain hung like the entrance to a stage. She poked her head into the space, but the room was dark. In the half-light that spilled from the shop, she could make out a long rectangular table, odd tools, a vise and clamp. Parked on shelves and benches, toys in various states of disrepair. But no people. Nothing to indicate that the proprietors were alive and nearby. Where had they been all these weeks, and why was the abandoned shop suddenly open and empty at the dead of night? If she had seen the lights in the windows, perhaps the man who was following her would as well.
On her way to lock the front door, Kay suddenly remembered the puppet she adored, the ancient wooden man beneath the bell jar. She stole to the window, anxious as a lover, and discovered him waiting for her, as always. She held her breath to be so close. Ancient and beautiful, he seemed to contain a secret life. Gripping the glass handle at the top of the bell, she lifted, and just as she broke the seal between the jar and the wooden surface, the lights went out and she fell into the dark.
3
She was made of coiled wire under the skin, her limbs wound taut, as if one touch would spring the tensile energy of her body. Even her long dark hair was pulled back against her scalp, barely constrained. Only her face remained placid, expressionless, her eyes as still and black as a doll’s. She tapped her foot as he spoke and rolled her wrists in intricate waves. Egon had detained her on the way into the warehouse, introducing her as Sarant, the Tibetan Knot.
“I’m worried,” Theo said. “I haven’t heard from her all day and that’s so unlike Kay. I thought perhaps you could help me figure out what happened last night.”
Sarant spoke with the disdain of a true star. “We went to dinner after the show, that’s all. Don’t ask me where. I cannot keep the names straight in this labyrinth of streets. Seven of us. Some drinks. Closed the place as a matter of fact, and then we each went our separate ways.”