Love of Seven Dolls (10 page)

Dr. Duclos commented, “What’s the use if nobody comes to see us, Mr. Chairman?”

Reynardo turned it around, “What’s the use if we can’t see her?”

Gigi’s voice remarked, “We could get someone like her to take her place.”

Alifanfaron was heard to rumble: “Gee, I’m stupid, but even I know there’s no one like her. Nobody could take her place.”

Madame Muscat contributed, “Well, we had a show we used to do before she came to us.”

The deep voice of Monsieur Nicholas sounded from below. “Do you wish to return to that? And in haystacks again? One can never go back . . .”

Gigi’s girlish treble inquired anxiously, “But if there isn’t anything forward?”

“Then,” replied Monsieur Nicholas, “perhaps the best idea is to go nowhere.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Carrot Top. “How?”

“Simply by ceasing to exist.”

Carrot Top said “Oh” again, and Reynardo rasped, “Ha ha, suits me.” While Dr. Duclos said pompously, “Logically sound, I must admit, however unpleasant the prospect.” Ali complained, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is if I can’t be with Mouche I want to die.”

Mr. Reynardo sniggered, “That’s the general idea, Ali, old boy. You’ve hit it for once. Put it to a vote, Mr. Chairman.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Carrot Top said firmly, “All in favour of ceasing to exist say ‘Aye’.”

There was a scattered chorus of Ayes, and one squeaky “No” from Gigi.

Reynardo growled: “Motion carried. Proceed, Mr. Chairman.”

“Now?” Carrot Top asked. There were no dissents.

He continued: “Next question—how?”

Dr. Duclos said: “I have always been fascinated by self-immolation; the Indian custom of Suttee where the widow casts herself upon the funeral pyre of her deceased spouse . . .”

Reynardo said, “I don’t see the connection, but the idea isn’t bad. Fire is clean.”

Carrot Top said: “There’s a vacant lot back of the theatre.”

Gigi suddenly wailed: “But I don’t want to die.”

Reynardo ducked down beneath the counter swiftly and came up with the half doll that was Gigi, empty, her eyes staring vacuously, clamped in his jaws. Then he carefully dropped her over the side of the booth onto the stage where she fell with a small crash that echoed shockingly through the empty theatre. “Then live, little golden-haired pig,” he said.

Mouche drew in her breath and whispered, “Poor, poor little Gigi . . .”

Mr. Reynardo looked over the side of the booth at the little heap lying on the stage and then asked, “Anybody else want to back out?”

Madame Muscat pronounced Gigi’s epitaph: “She was never much good anyway.”

Alifanfaron said: “But she was so pretty.”

Carrot Top sighed briefly: “One of the world’s great illusions, the golden-haired fairy princess . . .”

“Who in the end turns out to be nothing more than a walking appetite,” Reynardo concluded, for he had never much liked Gigi.

Monsieur Nicholas said from below: “It is not necessary to be unkind. God made her as she was, as He made us all.”

Alifanfaron asked: “Gee, what will become of God when we are gone?”

The voice of Monsieur Nicholas replied after a moment of reflection: “I think perhaps God will destroy Himself too if it is indeed true that He has created us all in His own image . . .”

Carrot Top asked: “Why?”

“Because if He is God He could not bear to contemplate such a miserable failure of his designs.”

Mr. Reynardo stretched his neck and looked down below the counter. “Oh,” he said. “That’s clever of you. I hadn’t thought about it in that way.”

“Most profound,” continued Dr. Duclos, “not to mention praglatic . . .”

Carrot Top corrected him almost absent-mindedly, “Pragmatic.” He sighed then and added, “Well, then, it’s goodbye to Capitaine Coq and his Family.”

Golo turned a stricken face towards Mouche. “They going to die. Don’t let them, Miss Mouche . . .”

Mr. Reynardo went over to Carrot Top and stuck out his paw. “So long, kid. It wasn’t a bad ride while it lasted.”

Carrot Top took it and shook it solemnly. “Goodbye, Rey. You’ve always been a friend. I’ll go down and get things ready . . .”

Mouche arose. Her knees were stiff from kneeling, her heart was pounding with excitement and her throat was dry. She picked up her small valise and marched across the stage, her heels clicking on the boards and the single standing light picking up her slender shadow, speeding it ahead of her and throwing it as a kind of prophecy of her coming athwart the puppet booth and its single inhabitant.

It was astonishing, this repetition of the first time that Mouche had encountered the puppets of Capitaine Coq.

There was the same darkness with the single light to probe the shadows, there was the mysterious booth looming out of the shadow, the lone puppet perched on the counter, and the slender figure of a girl marching by carrying a valise.

Except, now, the shoe was on the other foot and it was Mouche who paused in the spill of yellow light before the puppet booth and called to the small figure flattened on the counter there, “Hello, Baby . . .”

Mr. Reynardo, the composed, the cynical, and the self-assured, was taken aback. His whole frame shuddered as he reared up and peered through the gloom, for he was handicapped by having to look directly into the light. His jaws moved silently several times and finally he managed to produce a croak.

“Mouche! Where have you been? Have you been around here long?”

Mouche paused before the booth and set her valise down. She contemplated the agitated and non-plussed fox jittering back and forth. Finally she said, “Never mind where I have been. I know where you are going. There is nothing to be found in the heart of flames but the ashes of regret. I’m ashamed of you all.”

The fox stopped flapping and contemplated her long and hard. “We didn’t know you were here.” Then he added, “We voted . . .”

“Was it a fair vote?” Mouche asked.

The fox swallowed. “Well, maybe Monsieur Nicholas, Carrot Top and I rigged it a little. But it was only because of you—going away and leaving us, I mean.”

“And Gigi here?” Mouche bent over and picked up the empty doll.

The fox looked uneasy. He flattened his head to the counter and thereby seemed to have moved his eyes guiltily. He said, “We pushed her out of the nest. We excommunicated her.”

“We?”

“I did. She didn’t love you . . .”

“It was wrong, Rey.”

He hung his head. “I know it. Don’t leave us, Mouche.”

“Rey—you’re blackmailing me again like you always have—with love . . .”

There might have been the well-dressed, attentive, cultured audience of the night before out front instead of the blank, staring empty seats; there might have been the rabble from the slums washed up from the edge of the street fair, gathered about the booth; there might have been the peasant children and the village people gathered about them on the village square—it made no difference. When the puppets were there and she talking with them, she lost herself, she lost reality, she lost the world—there remained only these, her friends and companions and their need.

The hoarse voice of the fox dropped to a rattling whisper again. “This time it isn’t blackmail, Mouche. If you must go, take me with you.”

“And leave the others? Rey, you can’t desert them now.”

The wary figure of the fox stirred. He moved imperceptibly closer to where Mouche was standing. “Oh yes, I can. I don’t care about anything or anybody. Let me come, Mouche. I’m housebroken. And you know me—gentle with children.”

The old habits were so hard to break. Momentarily Mouche forgot about herself and that she had parted with all this, that this was the beginning of the morning that was to see her wedded to Balotte and a new and normal life. She went over to the booth, and bending over in her sweetly tender and concerned manner admonished, “But don’t you see, Rey, that’s being disloyal.”

Mr. Reynardo appeared to ponder this for a moment. Then he moved closer and barely nuzzled the tip of his snout onto the back of Mouche’s hand. He sighed deeply and said: “I know. But what’s the diff? Everybody knows I’m a heel. They expect it of me. And to tell you the truth, it’s a relief to be one again. I’ve tried to be a good fellow but it doesn’t work—not unless you’re around to keep me from backsliding . . .”

She could not help herself. She placed a caressing hand upon the bristly red head: “My poor Rey . . .”

Instantly the fox whipped his head into the hollow between neck and shoulder and was whispering, “Mouche—take care of me . . .”

The touch of him was as always an exquisitely tender agony. Her heart swelled with love for this unhappy creature. With startling suddenness Alifanfaron bobbed up.

“Oh gee, excuse me. Am I interrupting something? Goodness, it’s Mouche. Are you back again, Mouche? If you’re back again I don’t want to die any more . . .”

The fox grated: “Damn. Why did you have to come up just then. I nearly had her.” He vanished.

Mouche said: “But, Ali dear, I cannot stay, I’m going to be married, and I don’t want you to die . . . What shall I do?” They had all the deadly logical illogicality of children.

“Take me along, Mouche. You don’t know what it is to be a giant and stupid and lose a friend . . .”

Mouche had heard herself say, “I’m going to be married . . .” but it was like something someone else said about another person. Where was that real world now, the world of sanity and things as they ought to be to which she had been fleeing to save herself from complete destruction? Now she could remember only how she had always felt about Alifanfaron’s troubles.

“Oh, Ali,” she cried, “you’re not really stupid. It’s just that you were born too big in a world filled with people who are too small.”

“Ah hooom! Harrrumph! Exactly, my dear. A very trenchant remark. Most sage indeed.” It was Dr. Duclos the penguin in formal attire as usual, his pince-nez attached to a black ribbon perched on the end of his beak. He peered at her for a moment and then said: “So glad to see you’re back. We’ve all missed you frightfully.” He went away.

Carrot Top appeared whistling a snatch of “Va t’en, va t’en,” and then with a simulated surprise, discovered the girl standing at her accustomed place slightly to the right of the centre of the booth. He said: “Oh hello, Mouche. You still here?”

“I was just leaving. Carrot Top, come here . . .”

He edged tentatively a little closer, but was wary. Mouche; said: “I overheard everything. I couldn’t help it. Aren’t you ashamed?”

Carrot Top said: “Oh,” and was lost in thought for a moment. Then the small boy with the red hair, bulbous nose, pointed ears and wistful, longing face, said reflectively: “It was going to be quite queer without you. Oh yes, quite queer. At first I thought I might be able to go places again. You were always holding me down, you know . . .”

“Oh, Carrot Top—dear little Carrots,” Mouche said. “I never wanted to.”

Carrot Top mused, “I wonder. You were always pointing out my duty to Gigi, for instance. And there was never anything behind that pretty face. At first, after you left, I thought I might be able to . . .”

“Yes, yes, I know—fly.” Mouche concluded for him, as the sudden tears filled her eyes and for a moment she was unable to see the booth or Carrot Top. “Fly then, little Carrots. No one will keep you back now. Reach for the stars and they will tumble into your lap.”

The puppet emitted a mortal wail, “But I don’t want to fly, really. I don’t want the stars. I only want to be with you for ever, Mouche. Take me with you.” He slithered across the counter and rested his head on Mouche’s breast and beneath the pressure of the little figure she could feel the wild beating of her heart.

“Carrots—dear Carrots . . . I have always loved you.”

The doll turned his head and looked her full in the face. “Do you? But you don’t really love us, Mouche, not really, otherwise you couldn’t go away.”

A moan of pain almost animal in its intensity was torn from Mouche. She cried. “Oh, I do, I do. I love you all. I have loved you so much and with all my heart. It is only him I hate so terribly that there is room for nothing else, not even love any more.”

Standing there in the darkness, lost as it were in the centre of the vast universe of the empty stage, she could bring herself to speak the truth to a doll that she had never spoken to a human.

“I loved him. I loved him from the first moment I saw him. I loved him and would have denied him nothing. He took me and gave me only bitterness and evil in return for all I had for him, all the tenderness and love, all the gifts I had saved for him. My love turned to hate. And the more I hated him, the more I loved you all. Carrots . . . How long can such deep love and fearful hatred live side by side in one human being before the host goes mad? Carrots, Carrots . . . let me go . . .”

Yet she put up her hands and pressed the head of Carrot Top close to her neck and suddenly Mr. Reynardo was there too, and the touch of the two little objects there made her wish to weep endlessly and hopelessly. She closed her eyes wondering if her mind would crack.

She was startled by the shrill voice of Carrot Top, “But who are
we,
Mouche?”

The remark was echoed by Mr. Reynardo, but when she opened her eyes the pair were gone and instead, Monsieur Nicholas was regarding her from behind the panes of his square spectacles.

The little figure had the effect of calming her momentarily, for the old habits were still strong. Here was her reliable friend and philosopher and counsellor who appeared inevitably in the booth when matters threatened to get out of hand, mender of broken toys and broken hearts.

Yet he too asked the question that brought her again close to panic. “Who are we all, my dear, Carrot Top and Mr. Reynardo, Alifanfaron and Gigi, Dr. Duclos and Madame Muscat, and even myself?”

Mouche began to tremble and held to the side of the booth lest she faint. Worlds were beginning to fall; defences behind which she had thought to live in safety and blindness were crumbling.

Who were they indeed? And what had been the magic that had kept them separate, the seven who were so different, yet united in love and kindness, and the one who was so monstrous?