“She can be Beth.” He laughed. “Perfect, our late, lamented mistress of ceremonies.”
The Deux Mains held up Kay for inspection. In the corner of the puppeteer’s mouth hung a needle, a loop of red thread dangling like a strand of blood. She took a long look at Kay, allowing her a long look in return. Kay had not yet had such an opportunity to get a thorough sense of the woman, and she drank her in like an infant studying its mother’s face. And as she watched her, she saw her jade eyes darting, searching for imperfections. Steadying her fingers against Kay’s wooden face, the Deux Mains dipped a paintbrush and wicked in the puppet’s eyebrows, laid a fine edge, and quickly stroked in long eyelashes. As she worked, she pursed her lips and the curled tip of her tongued darted. Caught in the flow of her craft, the Deux Mains worked with a satisfied smile, laying Kay on the table. She brushed the lint from her blue gingham frock and then reached into a box and found two sets of dowel rods and fixed them at the wrists and ankles. In one swift motion, the Deux Mains had the puppet on her feet and walked her a few paces forward and tested how fluidly her arms could be raised and lowered.
“You’ll do, little one. You’ll do just fine.” She held her up to show the Quatre Mains. “Is she ready for her debut?”
“This mouth isn’t right. What sort of hack butchered her so crudely?” He laid her facedown on the table and sifted through a toolbox for a hammer and a chisel. The first blow skited into the wood at the back of her skull, and then he yanked out the blade and repositioned it for another strike. Kay felt no pain but was in shock over the sudden rough treatment as he chipped away at her mouth. With trial and error, he rasped out an opening and found a lever to fit into place, and then he sawed away her lower jaw and planed and sanded the edges for a good fit. He screwed the whole apparatus into place and fiddled with the lever. Her wooden jaws clacked together and opened wide, just as she had been able to do as a person. The Quatre Mains bent round to see her face as he spoke and made her mouth the words “I am nobody’s puppet.” With a satisfied grin, he set her down with the others.
As they were tinkering with the last of the puppets, a cell phone blurted out a melody, startling in its novelty after all this time. The Quatre Mains answered, and when he was through with the call, he rejoined the Deux Mains at the worktable. “That was Finch. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes and are bringing the new man. Name of Delacroix. Finch and Stern have given him his parts. Not too many lines. Mostly the slapstick. If he can get down the blocking, we should be okay for the show.”
They arrived in peals of laughter, announcing their presence in the theater long before they reached the rehearsal space. Delacroix was a pencil-thin Frenchman, mouth at rest in a sneer, fingers stained by Gitanes, but deeply attentive to the rapid instructions fired at him in both languages. Stern came from the other pole, a refuge from a commune, a bushy white beard covering his chin and reaching down to the collar of his red plaid shirt. But the biggest surprise was Finch. She was a giant among giants, a head taller than the Quatre Mains. She had a pleasant long face, big mitts for hands, long legs and feet, broad hips, and a bust like the prow of a ship. How would she ever fit in the tiny space below the puppet stage? How would she ever get those fingers into the opening of a glove puppet? Like many large people, she moved with a panther’s grace, the delicacy of her care a well-earned compensation for her size. The three new puppeteers handled the cast of characters, hefting each puppet to judge its weight and the intricacies of the mechanisms. They tried out Kay’s newly hinged jaws, walked her a few steps forward and back.
“This one is the narrator for the whole show,” said the Quatre Mains. “She’ll do the entr’acte’s jokes and stories as well as play the part of Beth.”
“Seems reasonable,” Delacroix said. “Nothing I haven’t seen or worked with before.”
“That’s good,” said the Quatre Mains, as he clapped him on the back, raising a cloud of dust and dander. “We have thirteen blackout scenes along with the prologue and epilogue and a few in-between monologues, which needn’t concern you much. And one of the scenes involves only two characters that Finch and Stern have created out of their stormy imaginations. So, an even dozen for you to learn. I propose we take on the six most difficult before our supper, and when you return, you can pick up the rest, toot sweet as they say. Not too many lines, and you can be on book since nobody in the audience will be able to see you most of the time. As a matter of fact, in one skit, ‘Lassie, Go Home,’ all you need do is bark like a dog. You can bark, can’t you?”
“Arf, arf,” said Delacroix.
“Oh no,” said Finch. “Bark like a collie.”
“Woof, woof.”