In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje [38]
The four-piece band was playing by the stage. It was a party and a political meeting, all of them trespassing, waiting now for speeches and entertainment. Patrick found a seat and took a sip from his flask. Almost immediately the electric lights were turned off, leaving only the glow from oil lamps on the edge of the platform.
The puppets arrived on stage in a mob, their wooden bones clattering. The semicircle of oil lamps cast yellow onto this section of the pumping station – onto the generators, the first few rows of the audience, the mosaic tiles, and brass banisters. Patrick looked up and saw the grid above them on the upper level, hardly visible, where the puppeteers must have been lying in darkness.
The forty puppets moved into the light, their paws gesturing at the air. The males had moustaches and beards, the females had been given rouged faces. There was one life-sized puppet. This giant in their midst was the central character in the story, its face brightly coloured: green-shadowed eyes and a racoon ring of yellow around them so they were like targets. All of the puppets looked stunned. Feet tested air before each exaggerated step was taken on this dangerous new country of the stage. Their costumes were a blend of several nations. It was five minutes into the dance before Patrick realized that the large puppet was human. And this was only because the dancer moved out of his puppet movements and began to twirl in gestures impossible for wood.
The large figure began to distinguish itself from the others. It became a hero not by size but by gesture and the detail of character. Perhaps it was an exceptional puppet of cloth as opposed to an exceptional human being. Behind the curled moustache it was perturbed and nervous – ambitious, scared, at times greedy. It varied its emotions from fear to desire. The other puppets included a prune-faced rich woman, a policeman, the sly friend, the family matriarch. The hero linked them all. There was no noise, no drum-beat or song. Just the clattering of their feet, just the wooden hands touching each other gently the way fingernails touch glass. The puppets ranged all over the stage or huddled together as a chorus, warning the hero of his ambition, gesturing him down with laws. The human puppet, alien and naive and gregarious, upset everything. The face, in spite of the moustache, was dark and young. He wore a Finnish shirt and Serbian pants.
A plot grew. Laughing like a fool he was brought before the authorities, unable to speak their language. He stood there assaulted by insults. His face was frozen. The others began to pummel him but not a word emerged – just a damaged gaze in the context of those flailing arms. He fell to the floor pleading with gestures. The scene was endless. Patrick wanted to rip the painted face off. The caricature of a culture. His eyes could not move away from that face.
The audience around him was silent. The only sounds on stage were grunts of authority. They were all waiting for the large puppet to speak, but it could say nothing. The thick eyebrows, the big nose, the curled moustache – all of which parodied them – became haunting. When the figure wheeled now the sweat on the pink brocade shirt made it blood-red along the spine and shoulders. It stamped a foot to try and bring out a language. The other puppets shifted like bamboo to the side of the stage. The figure knelt, one hand banging down on the wooden floor as if pleading for help – a terrible loudness entering the silent performance.
The audience began to clap in unison with the banging hand, the high hall of the waterworks echoing. Patrick was unable to move, his eyes locked upon