by Kathe Koja
“Bite of sardines, missus?”
“No! No indeed,” drawing back with alarm at the foul, dripping little fish, its smell like no sardine she has ever known, the man shrugging as he crunches down the salty little bones, as the omnibus creaks around a corner as slowly as the advancing figures on the Festus Clock, their mechanisms invisibly rusting, devoured from within by decay. When the sun’s transient light strikes their faces, they appear in that light to be smiling, though from the other side of the square they are seemingly in grief: it is hard to tell with people made of metal, it is hard to read expressions that nothing but fire can change. The white statues of Caesar’s Court show a similar impassivity, though their bold nakedness is its own form of expression, as is the implacable gaze of Mr. Loup’s single eye open on darkness, and the helplessness of the Faustus in the teapot desert, until he is replaced upon the hook beside his comrade and their elder brothers, the presence of their new comrade in the travel box unnoted, or if noted, no signal given that can usefully be parsed—
—by Mick who looks covertly to Istvan, Istvan who turns from the hooks to look at Rupert, Rupert whose gaze is inward, though he smiles briefly to Lucy and Tilde at the table, whose glances then, each to the other, are identically concerned. Yet the situation’s truest measure is perhaps reflected best by Ru, who has dressed himself in the paper crown to climb one stairway and then the next, drawn by the smell of snow, fallen clean and astringent through the unlatched hatchway to the dust of the hallway floor. In Mamma’s cards there is a picture—Ru has seen it—of a white square just like that one, a window like a fence around a cold white moon, with a gloved and reaching hand below it; that card is called the Hand of Glory, though Ru does not know it by that name, or that it signifies victory of a great or peculiar kind. As he stands, small face raised to the endless emptiness, a further glitter of snowflakes descends, and he smiles to feel them land again and again upon his lips and cheeks and forehead, like the claiming kisses of kobolds, or tiny melting stars.
From the introduction to The Strings of Memory
Upon the road, the turning road, the happy road they go
They walk the wide world up and down, they play a show of great renown!
One wears a hat, one wears a crown
As on the road they go.
from “Ruprecht & Steven,” anonymous, 1904
Reginald Greene’s well-respected volume The Strings of History means to be a full history of puppet theatre, from its ancient beginnings in India to its great popularity in the Victorian age. He knows a great deal, even including fine overlooked plays like Tomas Grieg’s “Ist Es Wahr?”, Alban Cockrill’s “Poor Willy & Missus Willing,” and Arthur Kummerman’s “Showman of the Strand.”
But Mr. Greene views this world only from the audience. He treats rumor as fact, and fact as rumor, and sees less than half of any show that is played. He even begins his book by imagining the Garden of Eden as a theatre for Adam, Eve, and a crafty character who uses a snake to speak his lines—a very harsh and unfair commentary on the way puppeteers are perceived!
Having watched first-hand the day-to-day workings of several such theatres, and their supremely skilled performers both onstage and off, I believe that I may speak with more knowledge than Mr. Greene has, learned though he is. And since these particular puppeteers bear the burden of so many stories, under so many names—and so many of them as false as Mr. Greene’s in the Garden!—how they lived, and died, and where and how they played, all of this I mean to address, and thus finally set the record to rights.
The perfume was terribly costly, and frustratingly hard to obtain, but as Portia del Azore takes the dabber from the bluish-black flaçon, her intoxication is complete: La rose fanée, like a living breath from a fabled palace, a delicious and subtle rot favored by both the young Empress and Frau Richter. It shall speak without words of her own worth, her worthiness to stand as co-hostess of this evening; and what an evening it shall be!
From first light the day has been auspicious: though there was a disturbance outside the townhouse, streetlamps cracked, constables and chanting men, and inside Herr Richter was distracted—And who is this, now? peering over his glasses, as though Portia might be some superior sort of messenger—Frau Richter was quite pleased by her prompt arrival at the breakfast table, and as eager to receive the morning’s gossip over stewed apricot turnovers, Sèvres china and butter-yellow rhododendrons—
Arnice Fairchild won’t be attending tonight, I’m afraid.
She’s indisposed?
She’s in mourning. They found Herr Fairchild at midnight, just under the Festus Clock.
What! Because of Albert and that silly duel? Exchanging public insults through the personal adverts—it’s really more vulgar than tragic, I think.
—and more than pleased to learn that Stephanos Marcus’s entertainment will not only surpass all others he has mounted so far in the city, but shall be Yours alone, in Portia’s confident promise. He’s assured me that he has never given this playlet before, and never will again.
Oh, that is really too marvelous! But no more than I expected from you, my dear, you are so clever. Isn’t she clever, Theo? And won’t Letty be annoyed! Frau Richter’s smile then unflattered by the casement windows’ hard sunlight, her skin resembles a hussar’s glove, but it made her morning gown glow like the vased flowers, as Portia glowed at the compliment, at the way the event is falling into place.
Even Stephanos has been—thankfully, unusually—prompt and diligent: in the daytime gloom of Caesar’s Court with a new cadre of limber young actors, positioning one here and one there, changing again and again those positions and his mind—Jakob, point your pretty nose up instead, up under the skylight, that’s right. Pipper, get yourself by the door—as an aide chewing chestnuts carted in the properties to be used: crates painted cunningly into “marble” for the youths to stand on, a censer that resembles real gold, tins of rice powder and a lady’s somewhat ragged puff, Stephanos inspecting these last items minutely—Haven’t we any more powder? Plain flour, then, from the kitchen—with a nod to that alert and silent helper, who to Portia’s eye seemed in some way familiar —
Do I know you, fellow?
Not at all, ma’am, no.
I believe I’ve seen you before. At one of his entertainments?
Beg pardon, ma’am, all us fellows look the same.
—though that last is certainly untrue, the young man’s golden gaze is quite a striking one. But no time then to search her memory, already well past noon and the appointment for her gown’s final fitting, and though she was somehow loath to leave Stephanos at the club alone—
I could have the dressmaker stop here, it’s no trouble—
Scamper off, now, Baroness, I know how to make a show.
—there are still so many details to attend beyond her dress, so many notes still to answer, a pile newly arrived on the silver letter tray begging for last-minute invitations, importuning for shows of their own; some have even sent bouquets, hyacinth and Kaffir lily, and a tempting box of sugared roses, all the way from the capital! The hotel’s manager has offered champagne along with his note, with thanks for bringing such fine notoriety to his establishment, and in hopes that she will stay on—gratis, of course—for as long as she might please. And, perhaps, have her entertainer perform a show in the ballroom one evening? Or two, or three?
The only sour note is Roland’s, and it is a very sour one indeed: Roland holed up in his dressing gown like a mole in a tumulus, Roland swilling his champagne from the bottle, Roland refusing to attend the event at all for “It’s your show, isn’t it?” sniffing the dabber after she sets the perfume bottle aside, wrinkling his nose in theatrical fashion. “A barnyard affair, judging from the smell. And with Stephan to be your stallion—in a manner of speaking, of course.”
“I’ve no idea what you mean,” as the kneeling dressmaker takes out a stitch, slips in a pin; Portia was never lovely, not even as Polly, but she will be l
ovely in this gown; see the emerald trim gleam against the white, like jewels scattered in the snow! “You’d be sure to enjoy it, they’re serving Sicilian quail poached in Madeira, and bombe glacée. And of course it will quite disappoint the Richters—”
“What, your little townhouse gentry?” with a sneer so stark that the dressmaker’s head turns briefly up, then stoically back to the hem. “It’s to their advantage if I don’t appear, their dim light will shine all the brighter. An authentic lord at the table, even one who’s self-deposed—”
“Step into the hallway,” says Portia to the dressmaker, with the courtesy correct in a lady to her lessers; then the moment the door has closed “Are you drunk?” to Roland, in a tone that sends Bijou scrambling under the bed skirts. “Why else would you speak so? She visits all the best houses, she’ll have me tarred with your brush by sunset—”
“Oh, don’t fret, a tidy agnes is welcome everywhere. Just like a tidy whore. And on that topic—I’ve been meaning to mention it—you’ll be making your own arrangements for Salzburg, I won’t be assuming that expense. Or the one for this suite, either.”
“That’s quite acceptable to me,” with a frosty nod, a glance of gratitude toward the stand of hyacinths, the hotel manager’s note. “But you needn’t call names. I’ve made my way, but never that way—”
“Still there’s very little a real drab could teach you—”
“—and you’ve bought your share of pleasures, and wouldn’t I know it? Who found you Stephanos in the first place?”
“And what useless use you’ve made of him. I could teach you a thing or two he likes,” with a gesture so crude that Portia stiffens on the dressmaker’s pedestal— “You charmless ape!”—and “You look a proper statue now,” says Roland Smalls, pleased to have enraged her, pleased to share the pain. “I’ll send in the vendeuse, shall I,” stepping back into the hall, nodding as pleasantly to the dressmaker, who carries her sawdust cushion and sharp array of pins back into that suite that stinks, to Roland Smalls, of foolish perfume and ridiculous aspirations, there is no mixing the classes with ease, is there? No, nor ever will be. But love—love should exist beyond class, yet without the ability to create its nesting place, where shall it exist at all? If one is forced into the alleys, then the alley is where—“Ah!” his cry as a bare needle finds the side of his slippered foot, to leave behind blood, blood he swabs savagely with the first thing his hand finds, a cravat bought for Stephan, a marvelous thing of black silk and silver threading bright as mercury, that would have looked so well beneath that remote and ungrateful, irreplaceable face. And how fitting a gift it would have made, for was it not the Mercury Theatre where—who was it told him such? That gossip-mad van Symans cow?—the great Stephanos apparently once resided, having come from a career on the continent, a brilliant trail of stages and boudoirs, cut short by some domestic tragedy…. Could it be that he returns, like the dog to its vomit, to that theatre, closed though it might be? It would be like him. It would in fact be very like him—as he himself makes what feels like a smile, and kicks off his slippers as he rings for the maid, fresh towels and hot water for shaving—
—as in waning clouds of steam Tilde scrubs at grimacing Ru, standing shivering in the tin tub by the stove while aproned Lucy pours more water, and “Be brave,” Lucy says cheerfully to Ru. “Once you’re spandy clean, we’ll play some pins, won’t we?” and is as good as her word, spending the rest of the hour chasing the spinning ninepins, spinning stories of them as they fall—“That one was the king, and that one was his loyal prince. All kings have princes, that’s what they call their sons”—until Tilde bangs spoon to pot for “Bread and milk, now. And some bean soup,” though that soup has been strained very thin indeed, watered to make the pot stretch for two more, a fact noted by Lucy from her own first spoonful, she then tactful to announce that “We traveled as haberdashers, you know, and there’s always work for someone who can mend. I’ll sew buttons for true, and make sure to pay our freight while we stay—and Mick, why he can build or fix most anything, though he’d rather be playing the puppets. It’s a crying shame such can’t be done here in the open.”
“Thumb your nose,” says Ru.
“Cockrill was,” says Tilde, pouring more milk. “In the Park. If you can call that playing.”
“With that lady he talked of?” meaning Mrs. Gawdy, Cockrill come hat in hand to the alley door, humble as a begging hound, brightened at once by Lucy’s friendly nod—You’re a puppet man, too, eh? Not so many in this place!—and inside then to nurse a cup of tea for near onto an hour; admiring the Misters and the twin angels as Lucy took them down to work, each by each with an expert’s hand, though he saved his greatest praise for Miss Lucinda liberated from her traveling crate: This one’s a regular old beauty, you don’t see making like that any more! Cries tears, too, you say? Can you still get glycerin for that, I’ve not got glycerin for nigh a year—expansive then to tell of Cockrill’s Palace, the jigging shows he used to mount with the Gawdys and his girls, but “That bag of leather’s the only lady he’s got left,” Tilde says with a sniff. “All his girls ran off when things went ugly, and a good thing, too. The constables would’ve pinched him tight, those girls were always flipping up their skirts, and—Baba, drink your milk.”
“They always blame the whores,” says Lucy, “never the gents who come knocking,” her gaze gone to valiant old Miss Lucinda, whose eyes found reason to cry, yes, for dead girls like Spinning Jennie, dead friends like poor Puggy, burned to ashes on a wartime pyre. And here they are, back at war again, all the survivors…. She feels Tilde’s gaze upon her, no doubt a curious one—yet when she turns her head sees only a dry kindness; Tilde is observant, Tilde understands more than she shows, more than mere years could have taught her though “I’ve never done so,” with a stern little headshake, “whore myself, or ever will. My mother—” and then Tilde stops, up from the chair to stir hard at the pot that needs no stirring, her stiff back to Lucy, who understands some things as well: that little Ru has no father, that Tilde calls herself by various names, Bok being one of them, St. Vitus being another, same as that nice young fellow with the doe’s eyes, Frédéric—and where he has gotten off to, no one seems to know. Exits and entrances, just like at the Poppy! That puppetman Cockrill called Frédéric “Your mister” to Tilde, who did not correct him; the two are not wed, no, there is mystery here; but never mind. If it needs telling someone will tell her, if she needs to know she will ask.
Until then “My mother died,” she says to Tilde, “when I was just a tot,” dabbing a blot of bean from Ru’s cheek; what a handsome little sprout he is! And clever, too, pointing out words in the newspaper as well as if he could read them himself, any woman would be proud to have a child like that. “A shame it wasn’t my father. What he did to my sister Katy was miles worse than any whoring.”
“You have a sister? I do, too. Her name is Tanti,” eager to speak of that branch of the family instead, though the story ends by curling back to the mother again, loss again, for “I don’t know where she went,” Tilde downcast, soup spoon forgotten in hand, a pain she has learned to carry but not abide. “She would be a big girl, by now—I wish she could see my Baba! Once or twice I thought she passed by in the cards, but sometimes it is like that, to see a thing that never truly comes.”
“I’ve seen such cards as yours before,” Lucy nodding to the kidskin case, well-used and faintly soiled at its clasp, “but never had my fortune told. You wrote once that you’d read for me,” meaning only to distract and cheer: and gratified to see Tilde push aside her bowl so eagerly that the thin soup sloshes, fingers reaching for the case as if in more than conscious volition, as though the cards are just as eager for her touch; perhaps they are.
And perhaps that is why the spread for Lucy flows swift as wind or water, while Tilde, comforted by that waxed familiar feel, points out in a scholarly way how the world itself turns through the deck, four suits for the four seasons—“We are in Crowns now, t
he darkest time of the year”—and thirteen phases of the moon to match the thirteen trumps, all the queens and lords and jacks though “You needn’t explain the knaves,” says Lucy, peering down into the pictures, bright as old confetti against the table’s dun wood. “I knew a few, at the Blackbird. And plenty at the Poppy,” as Tilde’s turning fingers pause upon the Knave of Flowers, faced up to smirk at his own unwanted posies—“The poppy?”—to bring Lucy’s reminiscent nod: “I walked right in under that black-painted flower, and said I was a likely girl—to Mr. Rupert, I can see him still, up behind his desk with a cheroot,” forbidding, kindly Mr. Rupert in his worn black coat, younger then than she is now! “Rupert took me in, he took care of us all, in good times and bad. Even in wartime. Even Miss Decca—”
“Missus Decca? Of the iron fist?” calling forth Lucy’s laugh, yes indeed that Missus Decca! as the stories emerge, one by one, like players onto a stage: Decca with her pinchpenny heart, brave Puggy and sturdy Omar, Laddie, Jonathan and Pearl, the puppets too “When Istvan came,” Lucy glancing back as if for confirmation to demure Miss Lucinda, whose own life upon the stage began before her own, long before that particular venue. What stories might she tell, that peach-bosomed lady, augmented by her colleague Pan Loudermilk who was Marco and now is Van; what secrets they could all reveal, sights unseen by human eyes, pains endured by stoic wood made to weep only by wires and pulpy bulbs, this well-traveled confraternity though “You don’t ever play them, do you?” Lucy quizzical to Tilde, who thinks of the Wheel and the darkness, the lads in their masks, the frozen Youth on the mountaintop: and shakes her head, tapping at the cards as if to say These are my actors, and she their continuing stage.