The Curfew - Jesse Ball [26]
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