“I would have Johnstone,” said Margaret, resolutely.\u00a0 She stood with her back to her father, and listened for his reaction.\u00a0 She could hear the faint scuffing of his boots on the floor as he shifted his weight around.
\n“It is your choice, my dear, of course.\u00a0 I cannot say that I am entirely…”
\nShe interrupted successfully.\u00a0 “Should he ask, I mean.”\u00a0 She turned to face the banker, smiling.
\nHe 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.\u00a0 “You will complete your schooling first.\u00a0 And not at home.\u00a0 Switzerland, as agreed.”
\nThis, she conceded easily.\u00a0 “Our love is strong.\u00a0 The wait can only make it stronger.”
\n“Perhaps in the meanwhile he will find the fortune that eludes him so persistently.”\u00a0 Her father said, sardonically.
\n“Oh Father, don’t be so hard.\u00a0 He is full of promise, everyone says so.”
\n“In that case, I agree with everyone, my dear.”\u00a0 The financier’s words left a chill in the air between them.\u00a0 “Promise is precisely what he is full of.”\u00a0 They rose, shivering, from the floorboards, into the quaking hands of their maker.<\/p>\n
The room in which she sat had hoped to frame an ancestry, a private history of heirlooms and treasures.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The sweeping walnut mantel had ample room for photographs of grandchildren, old friends, and dead sons, but held none.\u00a0 The fireplace was cold.
\nThe furnishings were sparse, given the room’s size, but in keeping with its decor:\u00a0 in a corner, a maroon wing chair, ample couch and low mahogany table, on which was set a formal coffee service prepared for two.\u00a0 Floor to ceiling drapes that concealed the world beyond the windows; there were small lamps set into corners.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Time passed, marked by the determined beat of her solitary heart.
\n“Promise…” murmured Retta, alone in the dark,\u00a0 “Precisely…”
\nWhen the knocking sounded at the door, she rose, unstartled, and went to meet her guest.
\nShe opened the door to a young man of twenty-four.\u00a0 He wore a suit, poorly pressed, and a mock-mohair topcoat, its collar turned up.\u00a0 His tie was a subdued monochrome, cut in the narrow style popular a season earlier.\u00a0 His face was boyish, handsome, and full of apprehension.
\n“Robert? ”\u00a0 Her little gasp of surprise, though contrived, was perfectly convincing.
\n“Hello, Miss Retta.” The tension in his face softened a little.
\n“What brings you home, the birth, or the death?” Her question hung in the air for a confused moment.\u00a0 “It isn’t Christmas,” she said, with assurance, “And what other reasons would bring you?”\u00a0 Suddenly, her smile bloomed like a flower.\u00a0 “But of course, it’s your sister’s baby, isn’t it?\u00a0 Well, what a delightful surprise.\u00a0 How good of you to come and see me.\u00a0 Come in, come in.”\u00a0 She admitted him to the large hall, and closed the heavy door with a solid, final sound.\u00a0 She helped him off with his overcoat, and hung it on a brass hook.\u00a0 “Well, look at you, so grown up.\u00a0 So handsome.\u00a0 And such a city man, now.”\u00a0 Deftly, her fingers brushed his lapels, felt the sheen of the cloth, the rippled texture of cheap binding.\u00a0 “I am flattered.”
\n“I beg your pardon?”
\n“That I merit your best suit.”\u00a0 There was no malice in her tone, but something in her eyes stung him.\u00a0 “Where are your patched jeans now?”
\n“I guess … I wanted to impress you.”\u00a0 He gave a small, nervous laugh.
\n“You have no need to impress me.\u00a0 Of all the children I sent out into the world, for you I harboured no fears.\u00a0 But I expect your family appreciate it.”
\n“You’re looking wonderful, Miss Retta.”
\n“You know me, Robert,” she scoffed, “I hardly change.”
\nIt was true.\u00a0 She was exactly as he remembered.\u00a0 The regal beauty, the dress of a different century, the cameo at her throat.\u00a0 The lilting voice that camouflaged its emotion.\u00a0 The graceful carriage, and dangerous eyes.\u00a0 Suddenly she held out her arms, commanding an embrace.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 “Oh Robert,” she breathed, “It is so good to have you back.”
\nHe broke away, awkwardly, and looked into the darkness beyond.\u00a0 She followed his gaze.\u00a0 “Forgive me, I have just finished rehearsing.”\u00a0 She swept through the cavernous front room, her hand magically lighting small lamps nestled on tables, in corners.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 “Well come in, come in, sit down, my boy.”
\nHe stepped slowly into the room, and immediately felt the scrutiny of hundreds of glass eyes.\u00a0 His gaze flitted to every corner, every surface, and everywhere he saw them.\u00a0 The marionettes festooned the walls, their bodies limp, their faces frozen in various moments of high emotion.\u00a0 Immobile, silent, they awaited her hand to grasp their cross, to guide their strings, to bring them life.\u00a0 Each recalled a lost time, a forgotten acquaintance, a remembered tale.
\nIn 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.\u00a0 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.
\n“Welcome to Hamelrike, where dreams come true.”\u00a0 He recited, his voice suddenly thick with nostalgia.
\n“Himmelreich, Robert.”\u00a0 She corrected, her accent flawless.
\n“Well, the Himmelreich goes on,” he said, fumbling to reproduce her pronunciation.
\n“I suppose it does,” she said, sadly.\u00a0 “In it’s way.\u00a0 The attendance isn’t quite what it was in your day.\u00a0 But I like to think that the calibre of performance hasn’t slipped too badly.”\u00a0 The old woman was seated, pouring coffee.
\n“They still come, then?”\u00a0 He sat on the sofa, and accepted the fragile cup like an offering.
\nShe ignored his question.\u00a0 “So … you are an uncle.\u00a0 But not yet a father?”\u00a0 She saw him swallow, hard.\u00a0 “But of course not.\u00a0 You’re just barely a husband, aren’t you?”
\n“What do you mean?”\u00a0 His voice was tight.
\n“You’re so newly married.\u00a0 Six months?\u00a0 There’s hardly been time, surely.”\u00a0 Her smile was deep with understanding. “You’ve come alone.”\u00a0 It was not a question.
\n“Yes.”
\n“I would love to have met her.”
\n“Unfortunately, she had – some commitments – meetings…”
\n“Yes, I understand.\u00a0 You’ve brought a picture, I trust?”
\nHe fumbled in his suit pocket, and pulled out a three by five portrait in a small black cardboard frame.\u00a0 He passed in to the old woman, and she smiled, approvingly.\u00a0 “Oh Robert, she’s perfect. I’m very happy for you.\u00a0 Didn’t I always say?”
\n“Say what?”
\n“That you would find her?\u00a0 That you would find in flesh she whom you loved in fantasy?”\u00a0 Her words settled on him like acid, leaving little, painful burns.\u00a0 He tried to hide his discomfort with a polite smile.\u00a0 She examined the portrait.\u00a0 “She comes from a good family, I can see that.\u00a0 Fine bones. Estonian, possibly.\u00a0 Such emeralds, her eyes.\u00a0 But so …”\u00a0 Slowly, her expression changed.\u00a0 All pleasure leached away, and some deep pain suddenly awakened.
\n“So what, Miss Retta?”
\n“It’s probably just the photo.\u00a0 But her eyes are so …”\u00a0 She placed the picture folder open on the table.\u00a0 “Almost Marione’s eyes, but not quite.”
\n“I’d never noticed, really, do you think so?”\u00a0 He looked at the woman with clear, hopeful eyes, his strong young hands twisting between his knees.
\n“Marione’s are so … loving.”
\nHe reached for the folder, and her hand suddenly closed over his, holding it tightly.\u00a0 He looked into the crystal caverns of her eyes, and felt his fear billowing.
\n“Why are you here, Robert?”
\n“I came to see you.”
\n“Only me?”
\nHe looked around the room, saw only the tiny figures of the puppets, hung on the walls, seated on shelves or caged in cabinets.\u00a0 In the half light, their shellacked complexions glinted, their bead eyes winked little conspiracies, sharing a secret which he could not know.\u00a0 In the distance, in the dark, beyond a pane of leaded glass –
\nThere 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.\u00a0 “It’s an evening made for magic, Margaret.\u00a0 Can you feel it?\u00a0 The very air tastes like passion.” The lovers walked beneath a leafy arcade, brushed with midnight blue,\u00a0 their profiles edged with a thin spot of moon. “We need a carriage.\u00a0 No, better, a carpet.\u00a0 Fly ourselves to Arabia, for a thousand and one nights of magic.”
\nShe giggled, nervously.\u00a0 “Father is right. You are a dreamer.” She said, indulgently.
\n“I dream only of you, of making you happy.”
\n“You are my happiness, my darling.\u00a0 You are all of my happiness.”
\nThe light of the moon blinked off, leaving a merging silhouette, a single twining form in the darkened park of her making.
\n“He will escort her to her porch, and leave her in the shadows, with a caress of lips across her eager mouth.\u00a0 He will leave her warmer than she began, warmed by his company, his kiss, his love.\u00a0 His warmth will stay with her, an ember to warm her through her father’s chilling disapproval.\u00a0 This warmth will linger, through the tears of night, till morning cold claim her away.”
\nOld magic crackled quietly through the room, recalling afternoons spent in that pile of cushions, fixated with the romances that unfolded under that gilded proscenium.\u00a0 His memory roamed, far from the moment, far from the pain, until her voice called him back.\u00a0 “Well?”
\nLeaving a slow, moist burning, which made him shift uncomfortably in his chair.\u00a0 “Were they always so … passionate?” he asked, his voice still trapped in the past.
\nShe smiled. “Always.\u00a0 You may have missed some of the nuances, but I hid nothing.”\u00a0 His look was so wounded, she went on.\u00a0 “This is Himmelreich, Robert.\u00a0 As they taught me in the old country, in the finest Swiss tradition.\u00a0 The Kingdom of God, the World of the Puppets.\u00a0 The grandest passions, on a smaller stage.\u00a0 Robin reduit, Marion made Marionette.”\u00a0 Her words sank into him for a moment.\u00a0 She leaned closer.\u00a0 “You were children, but my tales were far from childish.\u00a0 Think back.\u00a0 Your affection for Marione was not entirely platonic.”\u00a0 She smiled, suggestively. “And hardly imaginary.\u00a0 Ah, what she awakened in you.”\u00a0 Then her mouth turned.\u00a0 “The promises you made …”
\nHe closed his eyes, saw beyond the leaded glass, saw a billowing image of flesh and fecund promise – her eyes, her hands, her –\u00a0 he stared at the empty stage, his eyes wishing.\u00a0\u00a0 “Is she … ” He did not have to finish.
\n“Where she belongs.”\u00a0 Margaret breathed, with a maternal pride.
\nHe rose, walked slowly to a tall display cabinet standing in a far corner of the room.\u00a0 She was there, standing before him, hair woven from sunlight and saffron, lips as soft as summer rain, eyes carved from emeralds and envy.\u00a0 Wearing a dress that her mother might have worn, and a smile as sweet as torture itself.\u00a0 Marione, alone, with an empty space beside her, her body draped in shadow, her face frosted with pale light.\u00a0 He stood, and looked, and his lips formed her name.\u00a0 She was different somehow.
\n“Are those not the eyes you loved?”\u00a0 He heard Retta’s voice, speaking his thoughts.\u00a0 “Are those not the eyes that loved you?”
\nThey were not.\u00a0 The eyes that once adored him were clouded.\u00a0 Filmed with distance, dulled with time, he supposed.\u00a0 He felt a great sadness, sudden, and leaden.\u00a0 “She is still the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he said, in an empty voice.
\nThe old woman heard a click as he released the latch and opened the cabinet door.\u00a0 “You remember the rules, Robert.\u00a0 No touching.”
\n“I remember.”\u00a0 With the door open, he could see her more clearly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 “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.\u00a0 His heart skipped a beat.
\nthe birth or the death
\nHe slammed the cabinet door.\u00a0 In the closed room, the noise sounded like a thunderclap, with a brittle echo as a silvered web raced across the glass pane.
\n“Robert, Good heavens – whatever are you doing?”\u00a0 The old woman was suddenly beside him, clutching at his elbows, as if she feared he would strike out.\u00a0 In his eyes she saw naked fear, and a struggling, pathetic anger.
\n“I’m sorry, I’m – I’ll – I’ll pay for the damage.”
\n“Robert, please, just sit.”\u00a0 Her voice tried, ineffectually, to soothe him.
\n“No, no I must go. I’m sorry.”\u00a0 He pulled away, and walked toward the hall, but stopped at the cry which she cast out like a lifesaver to a drowning man.
\n“You would trust me with your secrets, once.”
\nThere was silence, for several moments.\u00a0 “They’re not secrets, Miss Retta.\u00a0 They are just … ”
\n“Our private little tragedies.\u00a0 The little deaths we carry with us every day.\u00a0 Is that what you mean, my boy?”
\nHe looked at her, and saw such calm passion in her eyes, and he felt his own eyes growing hot, itching with tears.
\nthere is something on her dress
\n“I know why are you here, Robert,” she suggested, her voice a woolen blanket of sympathy.\u00a0 “You want a happy ending.”
\nAncient music filtered from a stereophonic console, a waltz rippled with dust and scratches.\u00a0 “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.\u00a0 She is with Johnstone, despite a cadre of more eligible suitors invited by her hopeful papa.\u00a0 (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.\u00a0 It is a hot night in August.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She has never been so happy.”
\nEntranced, he watched the puppets, their tiny bodies close\u00a0 together, moving like one.
\n“A hot night in August.\u00a0 You know this story well,” she said, intimately.
\n“Yes.”\u00a0 The answer was involuntary.\u00a0 A stone of grief lay in his throat.
\n“What day shall it be?”
\n“Friday.\u00a0 The twenty-eighth.”
\n“Very well.\u00a0 He shall sweep her onto the terrace, where the music of the orchestra filters softly through the camellia bushes.\u00a0 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.
\n“He will make her a promise…” she prompted, quietly.
\n“Love me, love only me, forever, she said…”
\nThe music scratched on.\u00a0 “Do you remember the promises you made, Robert?”
\nHer 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.\u00a0 “Do you?” Her words bored slowly into him, like an auger.
\n“I promised…”
\nI will love you, love only you, forever
\n“She killed my son,” he said, in a crumpled voice.
\nHis face fell into the waiting cup of his hands, and some private storm engulfed him.\u00a0 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.
\n“She says it was a miscarriage.\u00a0 But I … I can’t believe it …”
\n“Do not blame her.” Her voice came from the darkness, as hard as granite.\u00a0 She stepped forward into the low pool of light in front of the theatre.\u00a0 “It was not her choice.”
\n“How do you know?\u00a0 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.
\n“Do you remember your promise?”
\nlove her, love only her
\nHer tone softened, became maternal.\u00a0 “Love is fragile, Robert.\u00a0 What you have with – what you have, is precious.\u00a0 It is for you two alone.”
\n“It was our child … it wasn’t a …”
\n“There is no room for others.\u00a0 Only her.\u00a0 You promised.”
\n“Only her…”
\n“You promised.” she urged.
\n“But I’ve lost her, too…” He pulled the black folder from his pocket.\u00a0 “You saw. I’ve lost her too.”
\nShe laughed, a thin peal of sound that rose to the vault of the ceiling, and was gone.\u00a0 “Then we must find her for you once again.”\u00a0 She replaced the puppets, and walked to the cabinet in which Marione stood.\u00a0 She opened the broken door and lifted the puppet out delicately, then walked with her to the wing chair.\u00a0 She sat, and lay the marionette in her lap.\u00a0 Her fingers smoothed the fine golden hair.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She rubbed the eyes with a corner of her dress, and they began to fill with light.\u00a0 She held the figure up, to face him.
\nHe 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.
\n“Go home.\u00a0 You will find her.”\u00a0 Retta said.
\nHis eyes travelled down to the stain on the skirt. “The blood?”
\n“It is only a memory.\u00a0 It will fade.”
\nAgainst all reason, he believed it would.\u00a0 “What should I do?”\u00a0 His voice was childlike, his stare transfixed with Marione’s bewitching gaze.
\n“Go home.” She repeated, patiently.\u00a0 “Keep your promises.\u00a0 Love her.\u00a0 Love her with the passion you feel right now.\u00a0 And Robert, when you do …”
\n“Yes?”
\n“Pretend she is me.”<\/p>\n
The study was dim in the evening light.\u00a0 Carter Hall sat at his desk, staring fixedly at the lamp.\u00a0 His daughter entered, and peered anxiously into the shadows of the room.
\n“Is John gone?\u00a0 Did he leave?”\u00a0 There was more surprise than sadness in her voice, as if this was the last thing she would have expected,\u00a0 “Father, has he left?”
\n“Ive been thinking about your final year.\u00a0 There’s an academy in Basel that has an excellent…”
\n“Father, where is he?” Her voice was trembling with curiousity, laced with tension.
\nHis hand nudged an envelope on his desk.\u00a0 Speechless, she reached for it.\u00a0 “He wouldn’t stay,” her father added, in a helpless tone.
\nIts flap was unsealed.\u00a0 “You’ve read it -” Her little outrage began to bend under the rising wave of fear.
\n“It is no great loss, Retta.\u00a0 A pack of promises.\u00a0 That’s all he ever had to offer.\u00a0 Don’t forget that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“I would have Johnstone,” said Margaret, resolutely.\u00a0 She stood with her back to her father, and listened for his reaction.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I cannot say that I am entirely…” She interrupted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}