“I would have Johnstone,” said Margaret, resolutely. She stood with her back to her father, and listened for his reaction. She could hear the faint scuffing of his boots on the floor as he shifted his weight around.
“It is your choice, my dear, of course. I cannot say that I am entirely…”
She interrupted successfully. “Should he ask, I mean.” She turned to face the banker, smiling.
He held up his right hand (it had been rendered with the forefinger sternly extended, conveying caution, or a dictate) stemming her brief gush of victory. “You will complete your schooling first. And not at home. Switzerland, as agreed.”
This, she conceded easily. “Our love is strong. The wait can only make it stronger.”
“Perhaps in the meanwhile he will find the fortune that eludes him so persistently.” Her father said, sardonically.
“Oh Father, don’t be so hard. He is full of promise, everyone says so.”
“In that case, I agree with everyone, my dear.” The financier’s words left a chill in the air between them. “Promise is precisely what he is full of.” They rose, shivering, from the floorboards, into the quaking hands of their maker.
The room in which she sat had hoped to frame an ancestry, a private history of heirlooms and treasures. The oaken rails that ringed the walls should have borne enormous portraits in somber oils, or baroque tapestries woven with fading myths of romantic dynasties. The wallpaper, a burnished field flocked with rusty fleur-de-lis, would be the perfect counterpoint for an artful arrangement of monochrome miniatures in oval ebon frames. There were several tall cabinets with glass doors, but they were empty of Dresden china, Venetian glass, Oriental figurines and other dainty objects which they had been designed to display. The sweeping walnut mantel had ample room for photographs of grandchildren, old friends, and dead sons, but held none. The fireplace was cold.
The furnishings were sparse, given the room’s size, but in keeping with its decor: in a corner, a maroon wing chair, ample couch and low mahogany table, on which was set a formal coffee service prepared for two. Floor to ceiling drapes that concealed the world beyond the windows; there were small lamps set into corners. A miniature theatre, rich in rococo detail, stood against one wall, its tiny footlights spreading soft fans across the fringed and scalloped curtains that hid the stage. Time passed, marked by the determined beat of her solitary heart.
“Promise…” murmured Retta, alone in the dark, “Precisely…”
When the knocking sounded at the door, she rose, unstartled, and went to meet her guest.
She opened the door to a young man of twenty-four. He wore a suit, poorly pressed, and a mock-mohair topcoat, its collar turned up. His tie was a subdued monochrome, cut in the narrow style popular a season earlier. His face was boyish, handsome, and full of apprehension.
“Robert? ” Her little gasp of surprise, though contrived, was perfectly convincing.
“Hello, Miss Retta.” The tension in his face softened a little.
“What brings you home, the birth, or the death?” Her question hung in the air for a confused moment. “It isn’t Christmas,” she said, with assurance, “And what other reasons would bring you?” Suddenly, her smile bloomed like a flower. “But of course, it’s your sister’s baby, isn’t it? Well, what a delightful surprise. How good of you to come and see me. Come in, come in.” She admitted him to the large hall, and closed the heavy door with a solid, final sound. She helped him off with his overcoat, and hung it on a brass hook. “Well, look at you, so grown up. So handsome. And such a city man, now.” Deftly, her fingers brushed his lapels, felt the sheen of the cloth, the rippled texture of cheap binding. “I am flattered.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That I merit your best suit.” There was no malice in her tone, but something in her eyes stung him. “Where are your patched jeans now?”
“I guess … I wanted to impress you.” He gave a small, nervous laugh.
“You have no need to impress me. Of all the children I sent out into the world, for you I harboured no fears. But I expect your family appreciate it.”
“You’re looking wonderful, Miss Retta.”
“You know me, Robert,” she scoffed, “I hardly change.”
It was true. She was exactly as he remembered. The regal beauty, the dress of a different century, the cameo at her throat. The lilting voice that camouflaged its emotion. The graceful carriage, and dangerous eyes. Suddenly she held out her arms, commanding an embrace. He complied, and was surprised by the warmth of her body, the fullness of her presence, the pressure of her hand on the small of his back. “Oh Robert,” she breathed, “It is so good to have you back.”
He broke away, awkwardly, and looked into the darkness beyond. She followed his gaze. “Forgive me, I have just finished rehearsing.” She swept through the cavernous front room, her hand magically lighting small lamps nestled on tables, in corners. Bulbs encased in thick shades of smoked and coloured glass leapt into electric life and shadows spread like webs across the walls to the darkness of the high ceiling. “Well come in, come in, sit down, my boy.”
He stepped slowly into the room, and immediately felt the scrutiny of hundreds of glass eyes. His gaze flitted to every corner, every surface, and everywhere he saw them. The marionettes festooned the walls, their bodies limp, their faces frozen in various moments of high emotion. Immobile, silent, they awaited her hand to grasp their cross, to guide their strings, to bring them life. Each recalled a lost time, a forgotten acquaintance, a remembered tale.
In the centre of the far wall, he saw the theatre, a frame of gold arabesques and a spill of mouldering velvet curtains. A jumble of cushions clustered about it on the floor. In the dark above the theatre, he saw her magnificent face made malevolent by the miniature footlights, for just a moment, before the stage lights blinked off, and a foreground spot came on, illuminating her, standing as she always stood at final curtain, to the side, her fingers still twitching with the reflexes of the strings.
“Welcome to Hamelrike, where dreams come true.” He recited, his voice suddenly thick with nostalgia.
“Himmelreich, Robert.” She corrected, her accent flawless.
“Well, the Himmelreich goes on,” he said, fumbling to reproduce her pronunciation.
“I suppose it does,” she said, sadly. “In it’s way. The attendance isn’t quite what it was in your day. But I like to think that the calibre of performance hasn’t slipped too badly.” The old woman was seated, pouring coffee.
“They still come, then?” He sat on the sofa, and accepted the fragile cup like an offering.
She ignored his question. “So … you are an uncle. But not yet a father?” She saw him swallow, hard. “But of course not. You’re just barely a husband, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” His voice was tight.
“You’re so newly married. Six months? There’s hardly been time, surely.” Her smile was deep with understanding. “You’ve come alone.” It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“I would love to have met her.”
“Unfortunately, she had – some commitments – meetings…”
“Yes, I understand. You’ve brought a picture, I trust?”
He fumbled in his suit pocket, and pulled out a three by five portrait in a small black cardboard frame. He passed in to the old woman, and she smiled, approvingly. “Oh Robert, she’s perfect. I’m very happy for you. Didn’t I always say?”
“Say what?”
“That you would find her? That you would find in flesh she whom you loved in fantasy?” Her words settled on him like acid, leaving little, painful burns. He tried to hide his discomfort with a polite smile. She examined the portrait. “She comes from a good family, I can see that. Fine bones. Estonian, possibly. Such emeralds, her eyes. But so …” Slowly, her expression changed. All pleasure leached away, and some deep pain suddenly awakened.
“So what, Miss Retta?”
“It’s probably just the photo. But her eyes are so …” She placed the picture folder open on the table. “Almost Marione’s eyes, but not quite.”
“I’d never noticed, really, do you think so?” He looked at the woman with clear, hopeful eyes, his strong young hands twisting between his knees.
“Marione’s are so … loving.”
He reached for the folder, and her hand suddenly closed over his, holding it tightly. He looked into the crystal caverns of her eyes, and felt his fear billowing.
“Why are you here, Robert?”
“I came to see you.”
“Only me?”
He looked around the room, saw only the tiny figures of the puppets, hung on the walls, seated on shelves or caged in cabinets. In the half light, their shellacked complexions glinted, their bead eyes winked little conspiracies, sharing a secret which he could not know. In the distance, in the dark, beyond a pane of leaded glass –
There was a whisper of velvet and a snap of canvas, then a new voice entered the room like a bird flown in from an open window. “It’s an evening made for magic, Margaret. Can you feel it? The very air tastes like passion.” The lovers walked beneath a leafy arcade, brushed with midnight blue, their profiles edged with a thin spot of moon. “We need a carriage. No, better, a carpet. Fly ourselves to Arabia, for a thousand and one nights of magic.”
She giggled, nervously. “Father is right. You are a dreamer.” She said, indulgently.
“I dream only of you, of making you happy.”
“You are my happiness, my darling. You are all of my happiness.”
The light of the moon blinked off, leaving a merging silhouette, a single twining form in the darkened park of her making.
“He will escort her to her porch, and leave her in the shadows, with a caress of lips across her eager mouth. He will leave her warmer than she began, warmed by his company, his kiss, his love. His warmth will stay with her, an ember to warm her through her father’s chilling disapproval. This warmth will linger, through the tears of night, till morning cold claim her away.”
Old magic crackled quietly through the room, recalling afternoons spent in that pile of cushions, fixated with the romances that unfolded under that gilded proscenium. His memory roamed, far from the moment, far from the pain, until her voice called him back. “Well?”
Leaving a slow, moist burning, which made him shift uncomfortably in his chair. “Were they always so … passionate?” he asked, his voice still trapped in the past.
She smiled. “Always. You may have missed some of the nuances, but I hid nothing.” His look was so wounded, she went on. “This is Himmelreich, Robert. As they taught me in the old country, in the finest Swiss tradition. The Kingdom of God, the World of the Puppets. The grandest passions, on a smaller stage. Robin reduit, Marion made Marionette.” Her words sank into him for a moment. She leaned closer. “You were children, but my tales were far from childish. Think back. Your affection for Marione was not entirely platonic.” She smiled, suggestively. “And hardly imaginary. Ah, what she awakened in you.” Then her mouth turned. “The promises you made …”
He closed his eyes, saw beyond the leaded glass, saw a billowing image of flesh and fecund promise – her eyes, her hands, her – he stared at the empty stage, his eyes wishing. “Is she … ” He did not have to finish.
“Where she belongs.” Margaret breathed, with a maternal pride.
He rose, walked slowly to a tall display cabinet standing in a far corner of the room. She was there, standing before him, hair woven from sunlight and saffron, lips as soft as summer rain, eyes carved from emeralds and envy. Wearing a dress that her mother might have worn, and a smile as sweet as torture itself. Marione, alone, with an empty space beside her, her body draped in shadow, her face frosted with pale light. He stood, and looked, and his lips formed her name. She was different somehow.
“Are those not the eyes you loved?” He heard Retta’s voice, speaking his thoughts. “Are those not the eyes that loved you?”
They were not. The eyes that once adored him were clouded. Filmed with distance, dulled with time, he supposed. He felt a great sadness, sudden, and leaden. “She is still the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he said, in an empty voice.
The old woman heard a click as he released the latch and opened the cabinet door. “You remember the rules, Robert. No touching.”
“I remember.” With the door open, he could see her more clearly. Her eyes were filmed, not with age or neglect – the shine of her hair and the lustre of her skin were as vivid as ever – but with something else. “Miss Retta, why are …” And as he groped to frame the question, he noticed a dull, rusty stain that lay like a spiky flower against the front of her skirt. His heart skipped a beat.
the birth or the death
He slammed the cabinet door. In the closed room, the noise sounded like a thunderclap, with a brittle echo as a silvered web raced across the glass pane.
“Robert, Good heavens – whatever are you doing?” The old woman was suddenly beside him, clutching at his elbows, as if she feared he would strike out. In his eyes she saw naked fear, and a struggling, pathetic anger.
“I’m sorry, I’m – I’ll – I’ll pay for the damage.”
“Robert, please, just sit.” Her voice tried, ineffectually, to soothe him.
“No, no I must go. I’m sorry.” He pulled away, and walked toward the hall, but stopped at the cry which she cast out like a lifesaver to a drowning man.
“You would trust me with your secrets, once.”
There was silence, for several moments. “They’re not secrets, Miss Retta. They are just … ”
“Our private little tragedies. The little deaths we carry with us every day. Is that what you mean, my boy?”
He looked at her, and saw such calm passion in her eyes, and he felt his own eyes growing hot, itching with tears.
there is something on her dress
“I know why are you here, Robert,” she suggested, her voice a woolen blanket of sympathy. “You want a happy ending.”
Ancient music filtered from a stereophonic console, a waltz rippled with dust and scratches. “They are at the ball,” she said, as the two figures floated into the spotlit theatre, Johnstone Hayley in borrowed evening wear and Margaret Hall in a brand new blue chiffon, “given by her father for her eighteenth birthday. She is with Johnstone, despite a cadre of more eligible suitors invited by her hopeful papa. (See, they stand in silouhette against the gilded walls.) As he waltzes her, she feels as if she has been lifted from earth and is sailing on a lake of purest heaven spun satin. It is a hot night in August. The french doors to the terrace are open, and the air is full of the sweet mystery of honeysuckle and the soft chatterings of champagne glasses. She has never been so happy.”
Entranced, he watched the puppets, their tiny bodies close together, moving like one.
“A hot night in August. You know this story well,” she said, intimately.
“Yes.” The answer was involuntary. A stone of grief lay in his throat.
“What day shall it be?”
“Friday. The twenty-eighth.”
“Very well. He shall sweep her onto the terrace, where the music of the orchestra filters softly through the camellia bushes. As they dance through the moonlit courtyard, he will touch her like she has never been touched before, he will stir in her feelings that she has no name for.
“He will make her a promise…” she prompted, quietly.
“Love me, love only me, forever, she said…”
The music scratched on. “Do you remember the promises you made, Robert?”
Her question hung in the darkness, riding the gentle swell of the music, until she silenced the player, and left only the sound of his broken breath. “Do you?” Her words bored slowly into him, like an auger.
“I promised…”
I will love you, love only you, forever
“She killed my son,” he said, in a crumpled voice.
His face fell into the waiting cup of his hands, and some private storm engulfed him. A world away, behind the theatre, Retta guided the puppets up through the air, and into her hands, where they nestled delicately, like small living creatures.
“She says it was a miscarriage. But I … I can’t believe it …”
“Do not blame her.” Her voice came from the darkness, as hard as granite. She stepped forward into the low pool of light in front of the theatre. “It was not her choice.”
“How do you know? How could you – ” He remembered the bloom of dried blood on Marione’s dress, and saw the certainty in the old woman’s eyes, and his breath stopped in his throat.
“Do you remember your promise?”
love her, love only her
Her tone softened, became maternal. “Love is fragile, Robert. What you have with – what you have, is precious. It is for you two alone.”
“It was our child … it wasn’t a …”
“There is no room for others. Only her. You promised.”
“Only her…”
“You promised.” she urged.
“But I’ve lost her, too…” He pulled the black folder from his pocket. “You saw. I’ve lost her too.”
She laughed, a thin peal of sound that rose to the vault of the ceiling, and was gone. “Then we must find her for you once again.” She replaced the puppets, and walked to the cabinet in which Marione stood. She opened the broken door and lifted the puppet out delicately, then walked with her to the wing chair. She sat, and lay the marionette in her lap. Her fingers smoothed the fine golden hair. He watched, dumbstruck, as the woman delicately pried at the figurine’s dull, staring eyes with the nail of her little finger, until a tiny waxy lens popped free of each. She rubbed the eyes with a corner of her dress, and they began to fill with light. She held the figure up, to face him.
He pitched forward into the past, into the sweet hypnosis of those emerald eyes, and their light poured into him like water filling the cracks and crevices of a parched cavern.
“Go home. You will find her.” Retta said.
His eyes travelled down to the stain on the skirt. “The blood?”
“It is only a memory. It will fade.”
Against all reason, he believed it would. “What should I do?” His voice was childlike, his stare transfixed with Marione’s bewitching gaze.
“Go home.” She repeated, patiently. “Keep your promises. Love her. Love her with the passion you feel right now. And Robert, when you do …”
“Yes?”
“Pretend she is me.”
The study was dim in the evening light. Carter Hall sat at his desk, staring fixedly at the lamp. His daughter entered, and peered anxiously into the shadows of the room.
“Is John gone? Did he leave?” There was more surprise than sadness in her voice, as if this was the last thing she would have expected, “Father, has he left?”
“Ive been thinking about your final year. There’s an academy in Basel that has an excellent…”
“Father, where is he?” Her voice was trembling with curiousity, laced with tension.
His hand nudged an envelope on his desk. Speechless, she reached for it. “He wouldn’t stay,” her father added, in a helpless tone.
Its flap was unsealed. “You’ve read it -” Her little outrage began to bend under the rising wave of fear.
“It is no great loss, Retta. A pack of promises. That’s all he ever had to offer. Don’t forget that.”