The Curfew

PART 3

A LADDER OF RAIN AND THE ROOF BEYOND

A horse rides in on a horse’s back. It is dressed as a colonial soldier. The movements of the horse are exactly like those of a horse.

— Those who know me not, know this, said the horse: there are things that must be said, and this is how we say them: without regard to safety, and saving nothing for last. Else the fire cannot last the night.

The horse rides away.

A voice says:

Louisa is approaching a small window that has been cut into a wall. She looks back. She appears to be sneaking. Her life has been so far a happy one. Educated at the best schools, given the best things, taken to the best restaurants. Journeyed abroad. An owner of horses. Taken up in airplanes. Rail travel. Widely read. She felt as many well-brought-up people do that her life is a collection, that she is always collecting. She is also very brave and although rather weak, objectively, is physically tough by virtue of a fierce will. She had once cut herself in a shop while looking at hunting knives. Instead of saying anything, she just put her hand in her pocket. Halfway home someone made her take it out and found that it was covered in blood. Her pocket was soaked. Rather than hurt, she was just embarrassed.

Louisa approaches the window. It is really very small. She looks through the window. It is not the sort of window that divides indoors from outdoors, but rather that more secretive sort of window which privileges one room over another. Into a grand auditorium she peers. A figure is on the stage. Over her shoulder, we can just see through the window the vastness of the room beyond.

CURTAIN

A grand auditorium. William stands, not on one foot, not on two. His feet appear to be bearing his weight, but it isn’t true. In fact, all his attention is on the violin in his hands, which he is about to play. He looks up at a small window cut into the back corner of the room. Someone in the back of the audience is whispering, and this is what they say:

This is an auditorium without seats. There is a stage and fine carpeting, a place for seats, but no seats. There is tiering, and avenues up to doors, footlights. There is a figure at the window. She shouldn’t be here.

CURTAIN

Several scenes then in which Louisa and William become acquainted with each other. She is the daughter of a prominent politician. He is a musical prodigy from humble origins. He is gentle and dark and unrelenting. She is witty and playful. Her speech is littered with references to philosophical figures and instead of arguing a point she will sometimes choose to point out that so-and-so has already shown that concept to be fallacious. She is an expert horticulturist, a hobby of her mother’s that she took on as a child. She, however, has never mentioned this to William. He is desperately in love with her. They meet in odd places. They eat supper on the floor of the room he lives in. He sneaks into her house at night. They are daring and hopeful. They expect that they will soon be married.

Molly’s mouth is open slightly. Her posture is raised, expectant. The theater could not be so many things, and yet it is. The puppetry is beyond all expectation. Who could believe that the puppets are not alive, that their movements do not originate there in their wooden frames beneath their finely sewn garments, their fur, their feathers? One has always understood what a puppet looks like, what it can do. But this is not that. Is it possible, wonders Molly, for the finest things to be hidden? To be hidden and never shared?

There was a light rainfall and then it cleared. The threat of the storm was such that everyone decided to stay in all day. Only two people went out of their houses. William was one of them. Louisa was the other. They had decided to go out in the rain, but there was no rain to go out in.

A sort of one-room schoolhouse. Out of it comes William. He walks to the front of the stage and sits on a bench. He is looking down at Molly. He appears very much to be her father. Behind her, the puppets in the audience shift uneasily in their seats. Mrs. Gibbons coughs. The schoolhouse has gone and now there is the entrance to a ferryboat. Louisa disembarks. She says, to no one in particular,

— I was not on a boat. I wanted merely to avoid pursuit.

Her walk is extremely graceful and menacing. She has the aspect of a wolf.

Molly remembers this, although she remembers little else.

Louisa sits on the bench beside William. They look well together. Light clapping from the audience.

— My conductor believes I should practice the most difficult parts by the lions’ cage of the zoological enclosure.

— Have you tried it?

— Each time I become drastically better.

— Do you pay attention to their faces?

— The lions’ faces?

Louisa is carrying something. It is a package of some sort. William becomes aware of it. They speak regarding the package. He takes it in his hands and opens it. On the stage, the puppet actually manages to utilize his appendages in order to open a sealed package using a small knife. Inside the package is a hat. He puts it on.

— In the band of the hat, says Louisa, is written the place of our next meeting.

She kisses him. They go off in opposite directions.

And …

In the distance, a crowd is waiting, painted onto the scenery. It is composed of everyone they will ever meet. Not a single person in the crowd can see the others, and they stand quietly, weight drifting idly from one foot to the other.

CURTAIN

The floor of the theater is painted like the ceiling of the sky as seen from above. The veiled puppet appears onstage.

Molly sits up straight. She looks around. The puppets behind her are all intent on the stage. Mrs. Gibbons’s eyes do not stray either. A little light is at the edge of the shuttered window. Molly looks at her feet. She looks up at the stage again. The veiled jester is watching her.

— Molly, he says. The play must continue.

He gestures for the curtain to fall and it does. It opens again and the jester is gone. In his place is a grove of trees.

William and Louisa enter. It is somehow clear that Louisa is pregnant. They have been married and living together in a fine and upstanding fashion while William’s concert career blossoms. Meanwhile, Louisa meets various disreputable intellectuals for confusing theoretical conversations. Both are happy. They are carrying a trunk. William has a shovel. He digs a hole and they bury the trunk.

— Our child will one day learn of this and find this place and gain possession of many of the key treasures of our early life.

They throw the dirt over. Louisa’s skirt becomes filthy. She makes a joke about it, but William does not laugh. He is peering into the underbrush to be sure no one has seen the burial. He feels they are being watched.

CURTAIN

Someone is singing very quietly. Louisa is sitting by a cradle. The house is very much like an owl, or like the house of an owl. Through the window a soft light obscures her features. A door can be heard opening deeper in the house. Footsteps. The door to this room opens.

ENTER WILLIAM

— My dear, it took so long. I couldn’t get away. The others didn’t have their part exactly right, and you know how Werz is. He wouldn’t let them off the hook. So we all had to sit there.

He and Louisa look down into the cradle. The cradle is empty. Molly is traveling towards it, but has not yet arrived.

— Do you know, whispers William, that when I was a young man I would never stay the full length of anything? I would go to a show and leave partway through. I would slip out of dinner parties, evening parties, breakfasts. I’d slip out and just wander off down the street, extremely happy. It became a sort of joke among my friends, but they could do nothing to stop it. I’m sure I offended some people, but they were probably people I didn’t like in the first place.

The person is still singing, and begins to sing louder. It is impossible to say what the person is singing. William and Louisa can no longer be heard, although they are plainly speaking. Molly struggles to hear what they are saying, but she cannot. This part of her childhood is lost for a second time. She is on the edge of her seat.

The puppet show proceeds rapidly through the exposition. Molly cannot yet walk; she must be carried. Later, perhaps she can walk a bit. She and William and Louisa are often to be seen in the parks and on the long avenues. As they walk, the trees bend towards them, the grass stands up on long legs, the air convenes and disperses, making light breezes and zephyrs.

A man in a blue hat, Lawrence, comes to visit one day. The set is dark. It is the middle of the night. There is a knocking. A light comes on. Louisa gets out of bed. She walks down the set through various hallways and stairs, trailing the thinnest of marionette wires. At the bottom, the door and on it a fine brass knob. She touches it with her hand and makes as if to turn it.

— Who’s there?

— Louisa, it’s me. It’s beginning. You have to get out of here. I’m leaving myself. Tell William. The musicians will be among the first to go. I’m sure of it. And you, certainly you know they’ll never let you off.

She opens the door. The sight of a man in a blue hat confronts her. It is, in fact, Lawrence.

William joins them at the door.

— Lawrence, what are you talking about?

— News from out of town. They’ve set the congress on fire. The whole thing’s begun. The army is with them. The whole thing’s done. It’s useless.

Lawrence runs out into the street. In the distance, the sound of something hitting a tin can.

Mr. Gibbons’s face comes around the side of the house, impossibly large. He addresses the audience:

— That should be gunfire. My apologies. Please recognize it as gunfire. Once more.

He disappears. Lawrence is again at the door. Louisa is composed, but extremely disturbed. William looks angry.

— News from out of town. They’ve set the congress on fire. The whole thing’s begun. The army is with them. The whole thing’s done. It’s useless.

Lawrence runs out into the street. He is holding his blue hat in his left hand. In the distance, the sound of gunfire.

William wraps an arm around Louisa. They shut the door. There is a painting there, and it draws the eye. The two pause there to inspect it, as if the answers lie therein.

It is a painting of a battle. There are rows of men with bright uniforms. There are cannon. Places have been dug out to foil the cavalry. Bodies are strewn between the various positions. The sky is bright in the distance, but dark overhead. A vulture is crouching on a colonel in such a way that it seems perhaps the vulture is the colonel. Nonetheless, it appears that the colonel is doing a marvelous job. He has won the battle. Why? The eyes of his troops are fierce and the others are as pale as mirrors. One can easily imagine the vast and beautiful columns of reinforcements arriving out of the east. The sound as they pound the road, as they draw nearer and nearer.

But for us there is no help, thinks William. He cannot say it, not to his wife. If he should do so, even once, it would immediately be true.

A voice:

— The next day conducted itself as usual; nothing had changed. There was no report of anything. Another day passed and another. A month passed. And then one day, soldiers marching up and down the streets. People hanged from telephone wires. The edicts posted. Interrogations of every kind along with new assignments of work. The whole thing turned on its head. The body of Lawrence found in a ditch outside town. He had lain there a long time before he was found. Compulsory attendance at so-called Section Meetings. A census conducted house by house. William and Louisa accepted the situation as best they could. William’s instrument was taken. The symphony was no more. It was turned into a courtroom. There was suddenly a need for many more courtrooms than had previously existed. A portion of the citizenry previously given short shrift now rode high and composed the various juries of various courts that tried every imaginable offense. In fact, there were so many offenses that one couldn’t avoid committing crime. One had to simply limit one’s time in the public eye, accept small penalties. All manner of symbols denoting various crimes were worn on one’s person. This was the period of transition. Things grew worse. The food shortages began. They had conversations, saying things to each other. He will say one thing and she will reply, or she will speak and he will answer. They reach out often without reason, and speak often without import. This is the nature of their concern.

And then one day

LOUISA was

TAKEN AWAY

FOR GOOD.

William is crying and pacing up and down in the rooms of his house. He does this for days, but the scene lasts one hour, with his quiet sobbing. In the next room a small mouse puppet is crying also, in an entirely different register. Meanwhile, in the street outside, people come and go. A group of men looking straight ahead. A boy with a brown paper bag. A dog with a blanket hung over its back. A car here or there, a bicycle. William is sitting on the clean bedspread, holding one of Louisa’s dresses. He is not pressing it to his chest, he is simply holding it. Mrs. Gibbons begins to cry softly, and the puppets begin to cry, one by one. The whole room is sobbing, except Molly, who sits bolt upright. Her hands are clenched. The next scene is about to begin.

CURTAIN

A BOARD WITH WORDS ON IT:

END OF ACTS ONE and TWO

and

INTERMISSION

A minute passes. Molly turns around in her chair. Mrs. Gibbons is missing.

— Pssst. Molly.

Molly sneaks a look over her shoulder. Mr. Gibbons, beside the theater, is motioning to her. She tiptoes over. The puppets look in a different direction.

— What do you think?

Molly pulls a scrap of paper out of her pocket.

*So far so good.

She pauses.

*Do you … You know, my father …

Looking over her shoulder as she is writing, he:

— I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.

*But …

— I wish I knew. I …

Into the room, then, Mrs. Gibbons with a mug of chocolate for each of them.

— TO YOUR SEATS, shouts the bailiff, he upon the highest turret of the theater.

Molly catches the edge of Mr. Gibbons’s mouth moving, just by chance, as her eyes haven’t left him. Ventriloquism, she thinks. And if he uses his ventriloquism to say my words through the mouth of another — what is that called?

She scratches her leg and hunches her shoulders.

— TO YOUR SEATS!

ACT THREE: to be conducted by LOTTERY of MEMORY.

The curtain sweeps open. The veiled jester is again upon his floor of clouds.

— I shall explain, he says. It will all soon be clear.

Each time he speaks with a different voice. Now he speaks with the voice of a scholarly nun calling a pupil to task.

— Molly. Molly! Come here.

Molly comes out from the side of the stage. Her tail is very long and gray. She walks on her hind legs and wears very delicately embroidered clothing. Her feet are clad in dancing slippers.

— Will you say a few words for the audience?

*There are certain days that shape a person’s life because they change a person’s understanding about what is possible in a day. This is why it is very important, for instance, as a child, to visit the house of a talented painter. I am speaking of a man or a woman who lives alone, knows no one, and paints while rivers and streams pass effortlessly in the vicinity unimpeded in a country of small bridges, lamps, and messages delivered by hand. My father brought me in secret to such a woman. She lived in the country and, being a hermit, was undetected by the revolution’s machinery. Her house was a series of cottages linked by little paths through the woods. She would sit and watch the light as a hunter watches a deer path — for days before she would act. And then, all at once, the circumstances imprinted upon the paper as if stamped with inked steel. Her work was all shadows and faint colors. My father said she was his violin teacher. She did not play the violin, or any other instrument, and, in fact, could not speak. Here is the painting she gave to me.

Molly opens the secret chamber of a brooch and takes out a square of paper. It unfolds eight times. From the side of the theater, an enormous magnifying glass draws out and slips into place.

One by one the members of the audience rise from their seats and inspect the painting. Molly gazes a long time. The shading, the shadows, the fragile hues: all as she remembered. It is a painting of a collapsed building. Underneath a shattered floor, someone has built a fire. That person’s back is to us, and he is reading a tiny leather book. The book is open on the palm of his hand.

Even the words of the book are visible, and these say:

Your trials will one day finish. You are young and will outlive your torturers.

CURTAIN

The audience returns to its seats.

THE CURTAIN SWEEPS OPEN

— It was a lovely day and it began well. There was a vendor selling nuts at the edge of the escarpment. They climbed past the ruined fortifications and walked on grassy ridges where small bushes claimed sovereignty. Ants ran like mice about their feet. They were ants! Ants dressed as mice. And in this, the machinery of the puppet show reveals its hand.

William and Molly come out onto the stage. She moves hesitantly. She is young yet, and somewhat fearful. William holds her hand firmly in his own, and is careful when shutting doors to be sure her tail is all the way through.

Up the slope of the fort they go, and there indeed is the nut vendor. They buy nuts and walk some distance to the shade of a single tree. There are ants, then, with little bits of fur glued to their carapace, that scurry about on the stage.

*Do you think, says Molly to her father, that this fortress repelled any grand attacks? Or was it always just landscape without human function?

— Look around for bones, says William. Then you’d know.

*Not if they were very neat about caring for their dead.

— There is no agency of neatness capable of finding all the casualties after a battle, declaims William.

Reaching behind the tree, Molly produces a long bone. A fateful impression comes over her. Even when this bone was the leg of a man, it nevertheless was awaiting its intended use. It was privy to this knowledge from the beginning.

William takes out a little knife. He holds the bone gently on his knee and sets to carving. He carves awhile and then rubs delicately with a small gray cloth and then carves awhile more. He is very fine in his motions, as if he has done this before. This is one of his talents — to appear accomplished when just beginning.

Molly runs about.

He presents the bone finally to Molly. On it is a long series of arcane directions.

— This is how to find a thing we hid, your mother and I. Keep it safe. These directions will not be accurate for another fifteen years. Then they will lead you straight where you need to go.

Molly tucks the bone under her arm. William hefts her up onto his shoulder and, taking the bag of nuts under one arm, walks homeward.

CURTAIN

A chair has been continually scraping. Molly turns around. It is a large pheasant puppet in a topcoat. He looks Molly right in the eye and sniffs.

She waves to Mrs. Gibbons. The pheasant is removed immediately.

Despite her quick action, Mrs. Gibbons appears somehow complicit.

AND

OH

HOW

TIME

HAS

PASSED!

A beautiful day, as anyone can see. The light is shining with brave intensity upon the springtime. Molly is older now, and walking ahead of William. She is signing out her multiplication tables and he is nodding or correcting as needed. They pass along the set, and as they do, the set itself changes. First they are in one street, then another. Time passes. The angle of the sun shifts. They arrive at the gates to the cemetery. William unlocks the gate with a long key that hangs like a sword from his belt. In they go. He intends to show her many of the epitaphs he has written. The paths in the cemetery are long and winding. The trees are ancient and well cared for. Moss abounds. Weeping willows are used judiciously to separate sections and give meaning to various points of prominence. Obelisks are strictly banned, or were at some point in the distant past. Those few that are evident predate the ban. They are so old that they can no longer be read. Their greatness shines no light on the ones they were meant to memorialize.

— Here, says William, is one of the very first I did.

A small stone, surrounded by tree stumps.

Elinor Gast

Drowned.

Molly stares at the stone for a long time.

— It wasn’t true, actually, says William. She died of a heart attack. Her husband felt it would be exciting for the both of them, however, if the stone said drowned. It was his idea, entirely. That’s what really established the tone of my epitaphry.

*And the next?

— Over here.

They cross a little bridge over a stream and come to a grove of sycamores. The entire Eldritch family in rows and circles.

*Let me see if I can find it, signs Molly.

She goes around from grave to grave. Finally, she shakes her hand up and down.

She and William inspect the stone together. It reads:

ELDRITCH

Mara Colin

A short, hurtful dream.

*Who exactly did you speak to about this one?

— The husband’s father, an extremely old man.

*He didn’t care for his daughter-in-law?

William pats Molly affectionately on the shoulder.

— You could say that.

They hold hands and continue through the cemetery. The figure of the veiled jester can be seen watching them from behind a distant tree.

Now they are passing under a ridge of pines. There are small pink stones, roughly square, with little crosses blooming from their tops. Molly pauses and kneels by them. Her tail wraps around one. There is a sound from across the cemetery, the ringing of church bells. Her ears perk up.

— Soldiers, all, says William. Dead in the same blast of gunfire.

And indeed they had all died on the same day.

— But this isn’t my work, says William. Long before my time.

Up the next hill they go. There at the top is a little stone house. In the house, a marble bench and a bare window. The window looks out across a stretch of the cemetery and the river. Part of the old city wall is visible where it once ran.

*Ignazio Porro, who invented prism binoculars.

— That’s right. I believe that’s actually true.

There is a stone sculpture of a pair of binoculars on the floor near the window.

Molly tries to pick them up. They won’t budge.

— Come on.

— Do you know, says William, when I was a young man I expected that I would never marry.

*Not ever?

— Not even your mother, said William. But your mother, you know, she was always asking me to go with her walking in rainstorms. It was her very favorite thing to do, to feel the rain and see the flashing of lightning. They are hiding in their houses, see them, she would say.

And we would go on running over the canal, and there was a song she would shout out.

William’s voice trails away. He is speaking, but the sound has gone.

As they exit the little house, a face peers in from the other side. It is the jester. Molly and her father leave the stage. The jester climbs in the window.

— Molly, he says. Molly. They are all asleep. Look around.

Molly looks behind her. Sure enough, the puppets in the audience are all sleeping. Some have fallen off their chairs. The heads of others lounge oddly upon their chests. Mrs. Gibbons is dozing in the corner.

Molly signs:

*It means nothing. Continue.

The puppet stares at her without understanding.

She writes on a piece of paper:

*CONTINUE.

The puppet laughs.

CURTAIN

Molly is thinking about trees. Her tail curls and uncurls.

*What remains of a tree in a violin?!

— That’s the permission, he says — but it is not in every violin.

*Nor perhaps, says Molly carelessly, in every tree.

To the south there is a passage of birds, thin but stretching on. Molly tears at the grass with her hands and the smell is thick and fresh. They are in the shade, these two, and never farther from the world.

— Yes, says William. It is farther than it seems.

They pass along a way through elms and with leaping on the roots of enormous maples — such and soon they are in another place.

Yes, Molly and her father are sitting in a dell, surrounded by pale brown stones.

— This is your mother’s family, says William.

The stones are all in a different language.

*What do they mean?

— I don’t know, says William. I never learned her parents’ language. She didn’t either.

*Strange for her to be here, surrounded by unknown sentiments.

— Well,

*I know, she isn’t really here.

— Not really.

They walk to the last grave on the right. This is the finest one of all. It is as simple as a stone could be, almost rough, but with lovely texture. The letters in it are thin. Even fifty years will be enough to efface them.

Louisa Drysdale

Waiting in the hills, I believe.

Molly is coughing. She is coughing and coughing and making a peculiar sound. It must be the noise of her crying. Mrs. Gibbons wakes and comes up the aisle, kneels next to her, holding one of her hands.

William and his daughter leave the stage.

CURTAIN

Molly and William are asleep. The window to the street is open. There is a gunshot. They sleep on. Time passes. They wake. Molly dresses. The two go out.

William walks Molly along the street. The theater seems actually to be paved with stone. Each stone so heavy ten workmen couldn’t lift it. He says goodbye to her at the school and goes and sits in the park. He is sitting there the entire day, staring into the water. There are figures in the water, but he cannot see them. He can only sense them. It is the same at the cemetery with all the bodies in the earth. One can feel them, but not see them. It is not that they are ghosts. It is not that impression. Simply that the centers of so many worlds rest in one another’s context.

William fetches Molly from school. They return to the park. He reads to her from the newspaper. He tells her a story from his childhood. He says:

— There was a very old very rich man who said that anyone who could do what he had done would earn his entire fortune.

*What did the person have to do?

— The bet was for children only. The child would have to run away from home, leave for a distant city, make it there alive, free all the animals from the zoo, evade pursuit, and return to its home. That was the first of the tasks. There were eight in all.

*Which was the hardest one?

— Learn to actually sleep with one eye open.

*And actually be seeing from the eye, or …?

— Well, otherwise it’s worthless.

*I see. Did anyone actually do it?

— I think one kid got seven of them done. But he was grown up by then, so he forfeited the prize.

*Is the contest still open?

— I would imagine so. But don’t run away, now. You’re much too young. Just practice the sleeping with one eye open. If you can get that one, the others should follow.

Molly stands up.

*Shall we?

— Yes, let’s.

They thread a path in a homeward direction, he murmuring, she gesturing, he peering at her hands in the dim evening.

There are puppets running wildly across the stage dressed as mimes. They are shot to death by other puppets who stand over them shooting and shooting down and a great ring of smoke billows out into the audience.

Molly and William are on the other side of the stage, standing very still.

The smoke billows out. When it draws back, the stage is empty once more but for William and Molly.

Molly tugs on William’s sleeve.

*Do you think that the world can be saved?

— The world saved?

William smiles.

— From what?

*Those people. That, and, and Mother dying.

— That is part of our world, and can’t be changed. I don’t know that I would want to live in a world where things had become better, but your mother was gone. She always dreamed about that place, and I don’t think I could go there without her.

Molly looks at her feet. Then she looks out into the audience. She appears to be looking right at them, one by one.

William draws in a deep breath. He continues.

— But, for you, I want it to change. One day you will be the only one of us three remaining, and then the world that includes us will be inside of you and nowhere else.

It is getting late in the evening. William tells Molly that he has to leave the house. He can’t really explain why. She tries to get him to, but he won’t. He has put on clothes that he rarely wears, clothes he used to wear. He looks extremely nervous. All this worries Molly immensely.

*But isn’t it dangerous? We never go out this late. Oh, don’t go. Don’t go.

— You mustn’t worry. I am the last of the great musicians.

(Does a flourish before the audience and bows.)

— All the rest have died. The government knows that. They can’t harm or kill me. It would mean the end for them. Although I have not performed now in years, people know me and what I stand for. Overnight, the people would rise up. Were I to die, the revolution would rise like a second sun and everything would be burned away. The police would never take me. They know what would happen. They’re too afraid. That’s why they didn’t kill us when they, when they killed your mother.

Molly blinks and holds the side of her dress very tight. She has always known how important her family is.

Nonetheless, she feels very proud right then and stands extremely straight.

*I am still worried, she says with her hands.

She follows him to the door. He opens it. Deep in the theater, through the door, the hallway can be seen and a door beyond. William is standing in front of that door and knocking. The wind blows the curtain of the room that Molly is standing in. She feels that she can hear a record player and a single violin, although she herself has never heard a violin, has never even seen a record player.

Now the stage is the hallway, and the door is opening. Molly comes onto the stage, beside her father. Her tail is twitching back and forth. She looks extremely small. Her father puts his arm around her. Mrs. Gibbons is on the other side of the door. Mrs. Gibbons welcomes Molly into her home. Mr. Gibbons is there also. They are an extremely kind old couple. Anyone can see that. Their house is warm and comfortable in a way that is impossible these days. It is a holdover from another time and when it disappears, even the knowledge of it will be gone.

Mrs. Gibbons is speaking to William:

— I will do this for you, said Mrs. Gibbons. You are a good father and I will do this for you and your daughter because she is very wonderful, a very wonderful young woman and I am always glad to have her here. There is always a place here in the house for a wonderful young woman who goes around with the name of Molly. But you must be careful, Mr. Drysdale, if you are going out at night, because I will tell you that Mr. Gibbons, who has just come home now this very moment, he told me that he saw a man dead not four streets over, and right in a crowd. So, you have a care.

— Is that really how I speak? Mrs. Gibbons asks Molly.

They are still beside each other in the first row.

Molly nods.

Onstage, the mouse stamps her foot.

*Be careful, she says to her father.

— Here is a key, says William, so you can put her to bed.

Mrs. Gibbons nods and closes the door. William is on the other side. He is now gone from the room. His footsteps can be heard and then they cannot.

Now Mr. Gibbons is welcoming Molly deeper into the apartment. He shows her the puppet theater, which is reproduced exactly, and is fully functional. He shows her all his materials, all his tools. He explains to her the rules of puppetry. They sit together plotting. Mrs. Gibbons brings a tray of food, which Molly devours.

In the room, Mrs. Gibbons has fallen asleep again. Molly is watching the stage desperately.

The play is drawing to a close. The little mouse is furiously writing. She is composing the play even as it occurs. Mr. Gibbons, bowed down with old feathers, is altering the puppets, is drawing the faces. He is painting the scenery. Everything is being prepared backwards, as his plan makes clear.

Mrs. Gibbons appears through a door. She sets the chairs in order. Molly is oblivious, writing at furious speed. One by one Mrs. Gibbons brings in the life-size puppets and sets them on the chairs. She dims the light. The last page of text goes to Mr. Gibbons, who settles himself behind the theater. Molly looks around. She takes a deep breath.

A LADDER OF RAIN AND THE ROOF BEYOND

And the play begins. But Molly is too worried about her father to pay attention. Her tail curls uncomfortably about her chair. Her ears twitch. She stands up and sits down. She notes the light growing in the cracks of the windows. She feels the puppets are mocking her. It is all confusing and she can’t keep anything straight. Where is her father? Why isn’t he back?

Finally it is too much. She jumps up and runs out of the room. She leaves the apartment, running down the stairs out into the street. It is early morning and the light is very bright. The stone buildings are so actual that they hurt her. The trees don’t move. Everything is in her way. She runs through the trees and through the streets, searching for anything, any clue. Where is he? Where has he gone?

She makes her way down a long boulevard, and an old woman, out early with a broom, calls to her. She runs on instead.

A young man sees her from a window. He calls to her, too.

Down the boulevard she goes, and reaches the lake. There in the park, a paper is fluttering. She grabs at it. She gets it in her hands. It is the work of the conspirators, the plotters, even she can tell that, hand-pressed on contraband machines. She snatches at it even as she holds it and tries to read the faintly pressed letters.

THE VIOLINIST WILLIAM DRYSDALE HAS BEEN FOULLY MURDERED IN THE STREET BY THE FORCES OF THE GOVERNMENT + +

She falls to the ground. She is clutching at the sheet. She doesn’t know what to do with it. Can she not see him? Not even once? Has it happened? Is she alone?

*He is dead. He is dead.

All around her there is singing in the streets. That’s what it sounded like, like singing, but it is the playing of a violin. The sound rises up and trembles the buildings, runs through the streets. It reaches her and sweeps her along with it. It is all over. There is nothing left.

Her hands were on her coat, they were shaking and tugging. Her face was in them and then out. She saw the street and the rutted gardens, the rows of houses, the rising light. She was shouting and she was by the ground. Her hands were on it. Through the trees she could see the lake and upon it, all as before, always as before.

And the mouse took her own life.

The veiled jester comes out onto the stage. Everyone in the room is asleep.

— Molly, he says. Molly.

He is holding a long bone, and there are directions carved into its length.

FIN