The Curfew - Jesse Ball [29]
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