Love of Seven Dolls (2 page)

Mouche paused, startled and bewildered, for the shrill little voice obviously was directed at her, but she could not make out whence it came. The impudence of the query angered her for it had the effect of returning her to a world she had in effect already departed.

The next words reaching her out of the darkness startled her even more.

“It’s cold at the bottom of the river, little one, and the eels and the crayfish eat your flesh.”

This was magic and Mouche had all the superstition and belief in the supernatural of the Bretonnaise. Fearfully she gazed about her for the source of the voice that could guess her secret.

By the wavering light of a gasolene flare she saw only an empty puppet booth with an oilcloth sign across the top announcing, “C
APITAINE
C
OQ ET SA
F
AMILLE.
” Nearby, on one side, a dirty-looking gypsy fortune-teller was quarrelling with her husband over the small pickings while they occupied themselves with dismantling their tent. On the other, two men were engaged in loading a strength-testing machine onto a small truck. No one appeared to be aware of the presence of the girl.

The insistent piping voice attacked her again: “What’s the big tragedy? Your boyfriend give you the air? There’s plenty more fish in the sea.”

Peering through the smoky haze Mouche now saw that the puppet booth was not entirely deserted as she had first thought. A doll was perched on the counter, or at any rate, half a doll, for no legs were visible, a boy with red hair, bulb nose and pointed ears. He was regarding her with impertinent, painted eyes and a curiously troubled expression on his countenance. In the shifting yellow flicker of the gasolene flare he seemed to be beckoning to her.

“Well?” he said. “Cat got your tongue? Speak up when you’re spoken to.”

In her first alarm, Mouche had set down her valise. Now she picked it up and walked with it slowly closer to the booth to examine this astonishing little creature.

Still feeling strangely indignant at being thus unceremoniously accosted she heard herself to her surprise reply: “Really, what makes you think it is any of your concern?”

The puppet looked her carefully up and down. “Oh,” he said, “Out of a job, down at the heels and huffy too. I was only trying to be polite and pass the time.”

“By speaking to strangers to whom you have not been introduced?” Mouche chided. “And getting personal too. How would you like it if I . . . ?” She paused, realising for the first time that she was addressing the little creature as though it were a human being. And yet it was not really strange that she should, for its attitudes and movements were so real and even the expression on the painted face seemed to change with the angle of the head.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind,” he concluded for her. “Every one likes to talk about themselves. Would you care to hear my life story? I was born in a tree on Christmas Eve . . .”

There was a swift movement and a girl puppet appeared on the counter. She had golden ringlets, wide, staring eyes and a small, discontented mouth.

She turned this way and that, appearing to inspect Mouche from all angles. Then she said, “My goodness, Carrot Top, where do you find them?”

The leprechaun puppet took a bow and said, “Not bad, eh?”

The girl gave a little shriek. “My goodness, Carrots, you surely don’t think
she’s
pretty . . . Why she’s nothing but skin and bones.”

Carrot Top with a twist of his head managed to look reflective. “Well, I’ll admit her legs aren’t much to look at, Gigi, but she has nice eyes and there’s something about her that . . .”

“Country trash, if you ask me, and probably no better than she should be,” Gigi murmured and, folding her hands piously, gazed skywards.

“Yes,” Carrot Top agreed. “A country cousin all right. But still you know . . .”

Mouche felt that it was enough. She stamped her foot at the mocking little creatures and cried, “Really! How dare you two stand there and discuss me . . . Don’t you know that is the worst manners?”

Carrot Top seemed taken aback and looked worried. He replied, “Dear me. Perhaps you are right. We’ve all been running somewhat wild of late. Maybe what we need is a little discipline. Why don’t you try saying something rude to us?”

Gigi flounced petulantly. “Well, I for one don’t intend to remain here to be abused by a scarecrow,” and vanished beneath the counter.

Carrot Top looked after her and shook his head slowly. “She’s not getting any better-tempered. Well, go ahead. I don’t mind being insulted.”

Mouche could not repress a smile. “I can’t. I think I like you.”

“Oh! Do you really?” Carrot Top contrived to look both pleased and startled. “That wants some thinking over. I’ll see you later maybe.”

He vanished likewise but was immediately replaced by the fore part of a red fox with a long, pointed nose and a sardonic grin. There was a leer in his avid eyes and a worse one in his voice. For a moment he watched the girl warily, then appearing to smile a sly, oily smile, rasped at Mouche, “Hello, baby!”

Mouche gave him a severe look. “Don’t you hello
me
,” she admonished. “You’re a wicked scoundrel if ever I saw one.”

The fox turned his head on his neck so that he looked hurt. “I am not. I can’t help my looks. Come on over here and see. Put your hand out.”

Mouche moved closer to the booth and extended her hand gingerly. The expression on the pale brow beneath her cheap little hat was half worried, yet she felt herself charmed. The fox gently snuggled his chin onto Mouche’s palm and heaved a deep sigh. “There,” he said, “you see how you’ve misjudged me?” He cocked an eye up at her.

Mouche was not to be deceived. She remarked, “I’m not sure I have at all.”

“Heart like a kitten,” the fox insisted, snuggling his chin deeper into the cup of Mouche’s palm, and then added, “The trouble is, nobody trusts me. You would trust me, wouldn’t you?”

She was about to reply that she wouldn’t dream of doing so, when he moved his head and looked up at her once more. His mouth opened and closed silently. Surely it was the smoky light and the dancing shadows, but Mouche thought she saw such an expression of yearning, such a desire for trust on the sharp, clever face that she felt herself unaccountably touched and cried from her own heart, “Oh yes. I would . . .”

She had all but forgotten whither she had been bound, or why.

Nor did it strike her as at all strange that she should be standing there by the counter of a puppet booth conversing with a scallywag of a fox. Where she came from, one talked not only with the little animals of the fields and the birds in the trees, but the trees themselves and the running brooks, and often one whispered one’s innermost secrets or heart’s desire to one of the grey dolmens that stood so mysteriously in a meadow.

The fox sighed again. “I knew I’d find someone innocent enough some day. What’s your name, baby?”

“Marelle. But they call me Petite Mouche.”

“Little fly, eh? My name is Mr. Reynardo, J. L. Reynardo—— Rey to my friends. Where are you from?”

“Plouharg, near St. Brieuc.”

The fox suddenly raised his head so that he was looking at her sidelong out of one wicked eye. He quoted from an old proverb, “Beware a sleeping dog, a praying drunk or a Bretonnaise.”

Mouche snatched her hand away and quoted back at him: “When the fox preaches, guard your geese . . .”

Mr. Reynardo let out a yapping bark of laughter and retired to the side of the booth. “Kid, you’ve got some guts in that skinny carcase of yours. Hasn’t she, friends?”

This last was addressed to the workmen who had finished loading the lorry and were now standing by listening.

“She has your measure, old boy,” one of them replied, grinning.

The fox yapped again and then called down below the counter, “Hey, Ali! Come up here a moment and see if you can scare this one.”

The upper portion of a huge, tousle-headed, hideous, yet pathetic-looking giant rose slowly from beneath and stared fixedly at Mouche, who stared back. She could not help herself.

Mr. Reynardo performed the introductions: “This is our giant, Alifanfaron—Ali for short. Ali, this is Mouche and she’s crazy about me.”

Mouche started to reply indignantly, “I am not,” but thought better of it and decided to let it go and see what would happen. The giant seemed to be trying desperately to recall something and finally said in a mild, friendly voice, “Fi-fo-fe . . . No no—fo-fe-fi—— Oh dear. That isn’t it either. I never seem to get it straight.”

Mouche prompted him, “Fe-fi-fo . . .”

Ali nodded his head. “Of course. And then the last one is
fum.
But what’s the use? I don’t really frighten you, do I?”

On an odd impulse, Mouche solemnly felt her heart beat for a moment and then replied, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m afraid you don’t.”

The giant said sadly, “Never mind. I’d really rather be friends. Then I can have my head scratched. Please scratch my head.”

Obediently, Mouche gently rubbed the wooden head while Ali sighed and pushed slightly against her fingers like a cat. Once more Mouche felt herself strangely moved and even more so when the fox yipped, “Me too, me too,” like a child that has been left out of something, and came whipping over and leaned his head against her shoulder.

A battered and paint-shy old Citroën with a luggage rack on the roof and a trunk fastened to the rear drove alongside the booth from out of the darkness, and a fearful and astonishing apparition climbed out.

He was a one-eyed negro in the tattered remnants of the uniform of a Senegalese line regiment, a wrinkled old man with a large, rubbery face, naked, glistening skull and a mouth full of gold teeth that testified he might once have known more opulent times.

He wore not a black, but a soiled white patch over his blind left eye which gave him a terrifying aspect though this was belied, however, by an innocent and child-like grin. There were sergeant’s stripes on the uniform sleeve and he had an old World War I
kepi
on the back of his head. Around his neck was slung a guitar.

He took in the group and shook his head in marvel, chuckling, “Whooeeeee! Who you chasing up this time, Mr. Reynardo? Can’t leave you alone two minutes before you go making eyes at something in skirts.”

Mr. Reynardo leered at the Senegalese. “You, Golo! Cough up that ten franc piece I saw you palm when you took up that last collection this evening.”

The Senegalese grinned admiringly. “You saw that, Mr. Reynardo? By my life, you don’t miss much, do you?” He fished the coin out of his pocket and laid it down on the counter where the fox immediately pounced on it, saying to Mouche virtuously, “You see? It’s good someone is honest around here. Golo, this is a friend of mine, by the name of Mouche. We’re thinking of getting married. Mouche, meet Golo. He’s our orchestra.”

Mouche found herself shaking hands solemnly with the negro who bowed courteously and carried her hand half way to his lips as though she were a queen.

Mr. Reynardo rasped, “Break it up. You’ll be giving her ideas.” Then to Mouche, “By the way, kid, can you sing?”

Mouche replied, “A little. Can you?”

“Oh yes,” Mr. Reynardo admitted. “Heroic tenor. And I’ve got a friend who is a pretty good basso. We could have a trio. Hey, Ali, send the Doc up. Golo, you play something for us.”

The giant disappeared to be replaced by a solemn-looking penguin who wore a pince-nez attached to a black ribbon and was introduced by the fox as Dr. Duclos, a member of the academy.

The penguin bowed and murmured, “Charmed indeed. Forgive the formal clothes. I have just come from the annual dinner of the Anthropofumbling Society.”

Golo leaned against the dented wing of the Citroën and fingered the advance ghost of a melody on his guitar, then struck a firm chord and thereafter, without further introduction, Mouche found herself singing the popular Parisian song hit of the moment:

“Va t’en, va t’en, va t’en!

Je ne suis plus ton amant . . .”

She had not much voice, it was true, but there was a softness and an ingenuous earnestness in it with a slight throaty quality that was young and pleasing and blended astonishingly well with the unctuous but not unmelodious tenor sung by Mr. Reynardo, supported and interlarded by deep basso “poom-pooms” contributed at the proper musical moments by Dr. Duclos.

“Be off, be off, be off!

I am not your lover any more . . .

Another has taken your place . . .”

The music completed the spell under which Mouche found herself and carried her away into this strangest of all strange lands of make-believe into which she had wandered out of the unhappy night.

The song was catching the ears of their neighbours too. The fortune teller and her husband ceased quarrelling and came nearer to listen, their gypsy eyes glistening in the torchlight. The workman and the truck driver were clapping their hands to punctuate the “Va t’en”. A passing cab-driver pulled up to the kerb and got out. Late home-goers lingered. Other concessionaires came over from nearby pitches which they had been engaged in dismantling. Soon a considerable crowd had formed a semi-circle about the dingy little puppet booth.

These were hard, rough people, mostly; the night was cold and the hour late, but they too succumbed to the spell of the odd little talking dolls, the music and the new ingredient that had been added—the waif.

Even this brief space of time had seen a transformation worked in Mouche. The listlessness and despair had been shed. If anything, her gauntness, the hunger-thin frame and the large, tender, believing eyes shining from the pale countenance added to the attraction as in company with the sly-looking, amorous fox and the pompous, stuffy, over-dignified penguin she acted out the verses of the song, playing first to one and then the other as though she had really changed lovers.

They ended with a shout and a thump of Golo’s guitar and his hearty chuckle was heard above the applause and bravos of the audience. Mouche did not even notice Golo reach behind the booth for a battered tin poilu’s helmet with which he passed swiftly through the crowd, or the response to his collection in bills and coins, for she was too absorbed with Mr. Reynardo and Dr. Duclos who were taking elaborate bows.