by Jesse Ball
Molly opens the secret chamber of a brooch and takes out a square of paper. It unfolds eight times. From the side of the theater, an enormous magnifying glass draws out and slips into place.
One by one the members of the audience rise from their seats and inspect the painting. Molly gazes a long time. The shading, the shadows, the fragile hues: all as she remembered. It is a painting of a collapsed building. Underneath a shattered floor, someone has built a fire. That person’s back is to us, and he is reading a tiny leather book. The book is open on the palm of his hand.
Even the words of the book are visible, and these say:
Your trials will one day finish. You are young and will outlive your torturers.
CURTAIN
The audience returns to its seats.
THE CURTAIN SWEEPS OPEN
—It was a lovely day and it began well. There was a vendor selling nuts at the edge of the escarpment. They climbed past the ruined fortifications and walked on grassy ridges where small bushes claimed sovereignty. Ants ran like mice about their feet. They were ants! Ants dressed as mice. And in this, the machinery of the puppet show reveals its hand.
William and Molly come out onto the stage. She moves hesitantly. She is young yet, and somewhat fearful. William holds her hand firmly in his own, and is careful when shutting doors to be sure her tail is all the way through.
Up the slope of the fort they go, and there indeed is the nut vendor. They buy nuts and walk some distance to the shade of a single tree. There are ants, then, with little bits of fur glued to their carapace, that scurry about on the stage.
*Do you think, says Molly to her father, that this fortress repelled any grand attacks? Or was it always just landscape without human function?
—Look around for bones, says William. Then you’d know.
*Not if they were very neat about caring for their dead.
—There is no agency of neatness capable of finding all the casualties after a battle, declaims William.
Reaching behind the tree, Molly produces a long bone. A fateful impression comes over her. Even when this bone was the leg of a man, it nevertheless was awaiting its intended use. It was privy to this knowledge from the beginning.
William takes out a little knife. He holds the bone gently on his knee and sets to carving. He carves awhile and then rubs delicately with a small gray cloth and then carves awhile more. He is very fine in his motions, as if he has done this before. This is one of his talents—to appear accomplished when just beginning.
Molly runs about.
He presents the bone finally to Molly. On it is a long series of arcane directions.
—This is how to find a thing we hid, your mother and I. Keep it safe. These directions will not be accurate for another fifteen years. Then they will lead you straight where you need to go.
Molly tucks the bone under her arm. William hefts her up onto his shoulder and, taking the bag of nuts under one arm, walks homeward.
CURTAIN
A chair has been continually scraping. Molly turns around. It is a large pheasant puppet in a topcoat. He looks Molly right in the eye and sniffs.
She waves to Mrs. Gibbons. The pheasant is removed immediately.
Despite her quick action, Mrs. Gibbons appears somehow complicit.
AND
OH
HOW
TIME
HAS
PASSED!
A beautiful day, as anyone can see. The light is shining with brave intensity upon the springtime. Molly is older now, and walking ahead of William. She is signing out her multiplication tables and he is nodding or correcting as needed. They pass along the set, and as they do, the set itself changes. First they are in one street, then another. Time passes. The angle of the sun shifts. They arrive at the gates to the cemetery. William unlocks the gate with a long key that hangs like a sword from his belt. In they go. He intends to show her many of the epitaphs he has written. The paths in the cemetery are long and winding. The trees are ancient and well cared for. Moss abounds. Weeping willows are used judiciously to separate sections and give meaning to various points of prominence. Obelisks are strictly banned, or were at some point in the distant past. Those few that are evident predate the ban. They are so old that they can no longer be read. Their greatness shines no light on the ones they were meant to memorialize.
—Here, says William, is one of the very first I did.
A small stone, surrounded by tree stumps.
Elinor Gast
Drowned.
Molly stares at the stone for a long time.
—It wasn’t true, actually, says William. She died of a heart attack. Her husband felt it would be exciting for the both of them, however, if the stone said drowned. It was his idea, entirely. That’s what really established the tone of my epitaphry.
*And the next?
—Over here.
They cross a little bridge over a stream and come to a grove of sycamores. The entire Eldritch family in rows and circles.
*Let me see if I can find it, signs Molly.
She goes around from grave to grave. Finally, she shakes her hand up and down.
She and William inspect the stone together. It reads:
ELDRITCH
Mara Colin
A short, hurtful dream.
*Who exactly did you speak to about this one?
—The husband’s father, an extremely old man.
*He didn’t care for his daughter-in-law?
William pats Molly affectionately on the shoulder.
—You could say that.
They hold hands and continue through the cemetery. The figure of the veiled jester can be seen watching them from behind a distant tree.
Now they are passing under a ridge of pines. There are small pink stones, roughly square, with little crosses blooming from their tops. Molly pauses and kneels by them. Her tail wraps around one. There is a sound from across the cemetery, the ringing of church bells. Her ears perk up.
—Soldiers, all, says William. Dead in the same blast of gunfire.
And indeed they had all died on the same day.
—But this isn’t my work, says William. Long before my time.
Up the next hill they go. There at the top is a little stone house. In the house, a marble bench and a bare window. The window looks out across a stretch of the cemetery and the river. Part of the old city wall is visible where it once ran.
*Ignazio Porro, who invented prism binoculars.
—That’s right. I believe that’s actually true.
There is a stone sculpture of a pair of binoculars on the floor near the window.
Molly tries to pick them up. They won’t budge.
—Come on.
—Do you know, says William, when I was a young man I expected that I would never marry.
*Not ever?
—Not even your mother, said William. But your mother, you know, she was always asking me to go with her walking in rainstorms. It was her very favorite thing to do, to feel the rain and see the flashing of lightning. They are hiding in their houses, see them, she would say.
And we would go on running over the canal, and there was a song she would shout out.
William’s voice trails away. He is speaking, but the sound has gone.
As they exit the little house, a face peers in from the other side. It is the jester. Molly and her father leave the stage. The jester climbs in the window.
—Molly, he says. Molly. They are all asleep. Look around.
Molly looks behind her. Sure enough, the puppets in the audience are all sleeping. Some have fallen off their chairs. The heads of others lounge oddly upon their chests. Mrs. Gibbons is dozing in the corner.
Molly signs:
*It means nothing. Continue.
The puppet stares at her without understanding.
She writes on a piece of paper:
*CONTINUE.
The puppet laughs.
CURTAIN
Molly is thin
king about trees. Her tail curls and uncurls.
*What remains of a tree in a violin?!
—That’s the permission, he says—but it is not in every violin.
*Nor perhaps, says Molly carelessly, in every tree.
To the south there is a passage of birds, thin but stretching on. Molly tears at the grass with her hands and the smell is thick and fresh. They are in the shade, these two, and never farther from the world.
—Yes, says William. It is farther than it seems.
They pass along a way through elms and with leaping on the roots of enormous maples—such and soon they are in another place.
Yes, Molly and her father are sitting in a dell, surrounded by pale brown stones.
—This is your mother’s family, says William.
The stones are all in a different language.
*What do they mean?
—I don’t know, says William. I never learned her parents’ language. She didn’t either.
*Strange for her to be here, surrounded by unknown sentiments.
—Well,
*I know, she isn’t really here.
—Not really.
They walk to the last grave on the right. This is the finest one of all. It is as simple as a stone could be, almost rough, but with lovely texture. The letters in it are thin. Even fifty years will be enough to efface them.
Louisa Drysdale
Waiting in the hills, I believe.
Molly is coughing. She is coughing and coughing and making a peculiar sound. It must be the noise of her crying. Mrs. Gibbons wakes and comes up the aisle, kneels next to her, holding one of her hands.
William and his daughter leave the stage.
CURTAIN
Molly and William are asleep. The window to the street is open. There is a gunshot. They sleep on. Time passes. They wake. Molly dresses. The two go out.
William walks Molly along the street. The theater seems actually to be paved with stone. Each stone so heavy ten workmen couldn’t lift it. He says goodbye to her at the school and goes and sits in the park. He is sitting there the entire day, staring into the water. There are figures in the water, but he cannot see them. He can only sense them. It is the same at the cemetery with all the bodies in the earth. One can feel them, but not see them. It is not that they are ghosts. It is not that impression. Simply that the centers of so many worlds rest in one another’s context.
William fetches Molly from school. They return to the park. He reads to her from the newspaper. He tells her a story from his childhood. He says:
—There was a very old very rich man who said that anyone who could do what he had done would earn his entire fortune.
*What did the person have to do?
—The bet was for children only. The child would have to run away from home, leave for a distant city, make it there alive, free all the animals from the zoo, evade pursuit, and return to its home. That was the first of the tasks. There were eight in all.
*Which was the hardest one?
—Learn to actually sleep with one eye open.
*And actually be seeing from the eye, or …?
—Well, otherwise it’s worthless.
*I see. Did anyone actually do it?
—I think one kid got seven of them done. But he was grown up by then, so he forfeited the prize.
*Is the contest still open?
—I would imagine so. But don’t run away, now. You’re much too young. Just practice the sleeping with one eye open. If you can get that one, the others should follow.
Molly stands up.
*Shall we?
—Yes, let’s.
They thread a path in a homeward direction, he murmuring, she gesturing, he peering at her hands in the dim evening.
There are puppets running wildly across the stage dressed as mimes. They are shot to death by other puppets who stand over them shooting and shooting down and a great ring of smoke billows out into the audience.
Molly and William are on the other side of the stage, standing very still.
The smoke billows out. When it draws back, the stage is empty once more but for William and Molly.
Molly tugs on William’s sleeve.
*Do you think that the world can be saved?
—The world saved?
William smiles.
—From what?
*Those people. That, and, and Mother dying.
—That is part of our world, and can’t be changed. I don’t know that I would want to live in a world where things had become better, but your mother was gone. She always dreamed about that place, and I don’t think I could go there without her.
Molly looks at her feet. Then she looks out into the audience. She appears to be looking right at them, one by one.
William draws in a deep breath. He continues.
—But, for you, I want it to change. One day you will be the only one of us three remaining, and then the world that includes us will be inside of you and nowhere else.
It is getting late in the evening. William tells Molly that he has to leave the house. He can’t really explain why. She tries to get him to, but he won’t. He has put on clothes that he rarely wears, clothes he used to wear. He looks extremely nervous. All this worries Molly immensely.
*But isn’t it dangerous? We never go out this late. Oh, don’t go. Don’t go.
—You mustn’t worry. I am the last of the great musicians.
(Does a flourish before the audience and bows.)
—All the rest have died. The government knows that. They can’t harm or kill me. It would mean the end for them. Although I have not performed now in years, people know me and what I stand for. Overnight, the people would rise up. Were I to die, the revolution would rise like a second sun and everything would be burned away. The police would never take me. They know what would happen. They’re too afraid. That’s why they didn’t kill us when they, when they killed your mother.
Molly blinks and holds the side of her dress very tight. She has always known how important her family is.
Nonetheless, she feels very proud right then and stands extremely straight.
*I am still worried, she says with her hands.
She follows him to the door. He opens it. Deep in the theater, through the door, the hallway can be seen and a door beyond. William is standing in front of that door and knocking. The wind blows the curtain of the room that Molly is standing in. She feels that she can hear a record player and a single violin, although she herself has never heard a violin, has never even seen a record player.
Now the stage is the hallway, and the door is opening. Molly comes onto the stage, beside her father. Her tail is twitching back and forth. She looks extremely small. Her father puts his arm around her. Mrs. Gibbons is on the other side of the door. Mrs. Gibbons welcomes Molly into her home. Mr. Gibbons is there also. They are an extremely kind old couple. Anyone can see that. Their house is warm and comfortable in a way that is impossible these days. It is a holdover from another time and when it disappears, even the knowledge of it will be gone.
Mrs. Gibbons is speaking to William:
—I will do this for you, said Mrs. Gibbons. You are a good father and I will do this for you and your daughter because she is very wonderful, a very wonderful young woman and I am always glad to have her here. There is always a place here in the house for a wonderful young woman who goes around with the name of Molly. But you must be careful, Mr. Drysdale, if you are going out at night, because I will tell you that Mr. Gibbons, who has just come home now this very moment, he told me that he saw a man dead not four streets over, and right in a crowd. So, you have a care.
—Is that really how I speak? Mrs. Gibbons asks Molly.
They are still beside each other in the first row.
Molly nods.
Onstage, the mouse stamps her foot.
*Be careful, she says to her father.
—Here is a key, says William, so you can put her to bed.
Mrs. Gibbons nods a
nd closes the door. William is on the other side. He is now gone from the room. His footsteps can be heard and then they cannot.
Now Mr. Gibbons is welcoming Molly deeper into the apartment. He shows her the puppet theater, which is reproduced exactly, and is fully functional. He shows her all his materials, all his tools. He explains to her the rules of puppetry. They sit together plotting. Mrs. Gibbons brings a tray of food, which Molly devours.
In the room, Mrs. Gibbons has fallen asleep again. Molly is watching the stage desperately.
The play is drawing to a close. The little mouse is furiously writing. She is composing the play even as it occurs. Mr. Gibbons, bowed down with old feathers, is altering the puppets, is drawing the faces. He is painting the scenery. Everything is being prepared backwards, as his plan makes clear.
Mrs. Gibbons appears through a door. She sets the chairs in order. Molly is oblivious, writing at furious speed. One by one Mrs. Gibbons brings in the life-size puppets and sets them on the chairs. She dims the light. The last page of text goes to Mr. Gibbons, who settles himself behind the theater. Molly looks around. She takes a deep breath.
A LADDER OF RAIN AND THE ROOF BEYOND
And the play begins. But Molly is too worried about her father to pay attention. Her tail curls uncomfortably about her chair. Her ears twitch. She stands up and sits down. She notes the light growing in the cracks of the windows. She feels the puppets are mocking her. It is all confusing and she can’t keep anything straight. Where is her father? Why isn’t he back?
Finally it is too much. She jumps up and runs out of the room. She leaves the apartment, running down the stairs out into the street. It is early morning and the light is very bright. The stone buildings are so actual that they hurt her. The trees don’t move. Everything is in her way. She runs through the trees and through the streets, searching for anything, any clue. Where is he? Where has he gone?
She makes her way down a long boulevard, and an old woman, out early with a broom, calls to her. She runs on instead.
A young man sees her from a window. He calls to her, too.