The Motion of Puppets

by Keith Donohue

  “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.”

  “I can’t imagine being apart like that just when we are finally together.”

  “Be practical. I was only trying to save a little money.”

  Frantic at the thought of separation, he had juggled his schedule at the college in New York and used the advance from his publisher to find this place on Dalhousie, where he could work while she was off performing. The whole episode left him questioning how she prioritized their marriage and her career.

  Shortly after noon, with still no word from Kay, he thought to call the stage manager at the warehouse rehearsal hall to see if they had any information on her whereabouts. The number, fortunately, was posted on a sticky note next to the fridge, but unfortunately no one answered his call. Too early for the performers or crew to arrive and prepare for that evening’s show. They would all be sleeping now, the upside-down world of theater people. He decided to go out and look for her, and, taking a page from his notebook, he scribbled a note saying to please call if she came home before he returned.

  Bright June sunshine fell across his face as he stood outside their apartment considering the possibilities. She could be anywhere or nowhere at all. Injured and lying in a gutter or whisked off to a hospital. Or worse. He quickened his pace, following the familiar path between the apartment building and the warehouse, turning down rue Saint-Paul, past the cafés and antique shops, hurrying along the street till he reached the quayside farmers’ market where they often went to shop in her free hours. Old Town stretched out
over his left shoulder, the hotel Frontenac loomed like a castle on a mountain. He had to cross several busy streets before coming at last to the warehouse where the company had kept the enormous sets and contraptions that went into making their outdoor show a few blocks away. Now, it was largely empty, save for the few giant props that had not made it into the final version of the show. The large sliding doors at the front of the building were chained shut, so he went around to the side entrance, only to find that door locked as well. He banged his fist against the metal door, the echo empty and melancholic.

  From deep inside the bowels, a shout worked its way forward, alternating in French and English, urging patience, s’il vous plaît. A deadbolt snapped, tumblers turned in a lock, and the door slowly swung open to reveal a rather sleepy-looking dwarf, who scowled in the sudden brightness. They considered each other for a moment in mutual suspicion. The little man rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  “Go away,” he said. “Nous sommes fermés. Come back at four.” He began to close the door.

  “Wait.” Theo raised his voice. “I’m looking for my wife. She’s with the show.”

  “No one is here. Cast and crew arrive at four o’clock. Tickets at five. Come back when the box office is open.”

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

  “Well, you have a funny way. I was fast asleep.”

  “It’s just that she didn’t come home last night after the performance.” He held up his phone. “And she’s not answering my texts. I even tried to call, but no luck.”

  The doorman gave him a jagged grin. “Well, she wasn’t with me, whoever she is.”

  “Pardon?” Theo looked over the little man’s head into the cavernous room.

  “I meant nothing by it. Just a bit of a fat morning, and you’ve caught me out of sorts.”

  “An acrobat with the show,” he said. “Kay. Kay Harper. I’m her husband, Theo. I thought she might have spent the night here, with the other performers.”

  “Egon Picard,” the little man said. “Assistant to the stage manager, and major domo of this empty building. Look, bub, if you want to come in and wait?” Egon widened the entryway, and then without a backward glance, he turned and led Theo through the dark passageway to a ramshackle office tucked into a far corner. A rumpled blanket covered the bottom of a small cot, and the room also held a tiny sink and a counter with a hot plate and an electric kettle. He produced a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet beneath the sink and two highball glasses, indicating with a gesture his offer of a drink. Theo nodded and inspected the room with a casual air.

  Taped to the walls was a gallery of sepia pictures, nineteenth-century postcards of women in various stages of undress. In the one above the pillow, a fully clad gentleman reached beneath the skirts of a maid seeming to enjoy the experience. Another showed a woman with a riding crop resting against her bare bottom. Swinging on a trapeze, a third woman leaned back in all her glory above a trio of circus clowns just out of reach.

  “That’s quite a collection,” Theo said. Ambling around the room, he paused to inspect the more provocative poses.

  Handing one glass to Theo, Egon downed his own drink in a single swig. “My spécialité,” he said. “I won my first beauty playing poker with a man from Fargo, North Dakota. Full house. Knaves over deuces to his hearts flush. And he had no money, so. Out of such chance comes obsession. Do they offend you, Mr. Harper? Do they scandalize you?” The little man was goading him, waggling his hairy eyebrows and leering.

  Theo took a sip of his whiskey, the liquid burning pleasantly in the back of his throat. “Heavens, no. I just was admiring your eclectic tastes.”

  “Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that these women are all gone now, yet they live on in these pictures, captured in the flower of their youth and beauty?”

  “The power and art of the photograph,” Theo said. “To stop time. Do you know the work of Eadweard Muybridge? Stop-motion? He often used nudes to study the mechanics of how the body moves.”

  Egon poured another two fingers of Bushmills in his glass. “I don’t know any Muybridge. I know nothing about art. I speak of beauty, man. Youth and how it fades, even though a picture lasts forever.”

  The notion hung in the air between them, coaxing both to silent contemplation. Egon tilted back another dram of liquor, and Theo took the phone from his pocket to check for a missing message. He swiped and thumbed in his password, and his wife’s image filled his screen. Dressed in a costume and wearing a wig from a now-forgotten show, Kay looked over her shoulder at him, caught in a moment between surprise and happiness. He showed the photograph to Egon. “Are you sure you don’t remember her? She’s in the balancing act with the contortionist, one of the flower girls. And she’s in the tableaux, the tumbling finale.” He thrust the phone closer.

  Egon leaned in to take a good look. “Kay, Kay, Kay, Kay? Yes, I know that girl. Seems to me, yes, now that you showed me her picture, of course, I know her. Supporting cast. A voice in the chorus.” With a wave, he dismissed the phone.

  “So do you have any idea where she might be? Friends in the show? She texted me last night that some of the cast were going out after the performance. Not to wait up. But she never came home.”

  Wiping his eyes with the heels of his palms, Egon bore down on his clouded memories. “They all run together, these nights, but thinking it over, she may have been with a bunch of the actors. Sarant and some of the others, now I recall. She may be the girl arm in arm with Reance. You know him, the master of ceremonies? Old fart in a pair of goggles?” He caught the expression on Theo’s face. “You mustn’t be alarmed. There were a bunch of them going out together. Actors, you know. Toujours gai, toujours jolie. So he makes a play for each of them in time, but often as not, pfft, nothing comes of it.”

  “Where can I find this Reance?”

  “Patience, monsieur, they have a call for tonight’s performance at four o’clock. He’ll show up.”

  * * *

  She should have never gone. At first, it was flattering to have been noticed and asked to join the party, and on the way over to the bar, they had been a jolly crew, Sarant and Reance, four others from the show. But Kay had too much to drink and that man had been pawing her at the table. Hand on her thigh to punctuate a joke. Brushing against her to reach another bottle of wine. Arm around the back of her chair and then leaning against her to tell a story. Whenever she dared to speak, Kay could feel his eyes upon her, rapt, attentive, darting with an unspoken question. She tried to shrug him off, change the subject, let someone else take the spotlight, but he persisted in flirting with her without saying a word. The empty glasses seemed to breed more glasses, and the bottles crowded the tabletop. All around them, couples finished their nightcaps, parties broke up and departed, leaving the place to the actors. At two, a weary waitress forced a check upon them, and they counted out the strange Canadian dollar coins to split the bill. The tipsy revelers staggered out and congregated on the sidewalk, caught between the desire to carry on with their fun and the flagging energy of a long night. Sarant and two of the other women called a taxi. The men wavered and waited under a crescent moon, Reance lurking at her side like a jackal.

  “I think I’ll walk,” Kay said. “It isn’t far. Clear my head.”

  “Let me escort you,” Reance said. “So that you’re safe.”

  “Not necessary,” she answered quickly. “Besides, I go the other way. Our flat is in the Basse-Ville. There’s nobody about, and I walk home alone nearly every night after the show.”

  “It’s so late. I insist. I wouldn’t feel right.” He was playing the gallant, but just below the skin was a rogue.

  “No, I insist. It was fun though. Thank you for asking me to join the party, but I will be perfectly fine.” With a wave, she said her good-byes.

  Muddled by the wine, Kay set off in the wrong direction and had gone down an unfamiliar side street before realizing her mistake. Rather than backtrack and risk bumping into her frie
nds again, she circled around the block, past the empty businesses, the small hotels, and town houses drowsing with sleepers, feeling hopelessly lost in the tangle of alleyways. She thought of phoning Theo to come rescue her but did not want to wake him at such a late hour. She considered trying to hail a cab, but the few in town were almost always to be found on a main thoroughfare and rarely at this hour, so she walked on, the sound of her own footfall echoing against the stone houses. With each step, she invented someone following her, a madman, a killer, so she would stop and listen and laugh at her own foolish imagination.

  For their honeymoon, Kay and Theo had rented a cabin near a lake in the Maine woods, and she had gone out in the middle of the night by herself to see the stars from the deck. The constellations were clear and crisp, but the pine trees had obscured Cassiopeia, so she walked along the driveway trying to find a better vantage spot. From the birches came a shudder, steps amid the falling leaves, and the shadow of a moose scared the wits out of her. She ran back inside as quickly as she could and stood on the other side of the closed door, panting and laughing at herself. When Theo heard her story, he had chided her for going out alone, and she seethed for half an hour about how overbearing he could be sometimes. But lovable, too, to be so concerned.

  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.