by Jason Hewitt

Some years ago, before the Russians, when the land we are standing on was once Bohemia and this town was to some Aussig an der Elbe and to others something older; and if you imagine that beneath our feet now there were cobbles, and that if you glanced past the stone column of St Anthony and through the mêlée of busy market stalls, then there, in front of the building with the shuttered windows that later, during the Protektorat, had been a Gasthaus, you might see him, for he would be there – the marionettist of Mírové Square.

Each day, on a small stage marked out with chalk, the dusty particles of which the pigeons would pick at, he would sit on an old oil canister with his trilby hat upturned on the ground. Then, holding the control bars of a marionette and playing a harmonica strapped to his head, the white-haired marionettist would make the puppet boy dance. The boy’s wooden feet in wooden clogs would lightly clack on the paving, his little shorts would rise and fall as his legs lifted and dropped with the strings, his varnished hands would swivel and wave, and the hair – that some people said was real – would gently lift in the breeze.

Each day the marionettist would be there, and each day the boy would dance. And between the dances the man would rest on the oil canister with the marionette perched on his knee, both heads turning in tandem at this and at that, like sparrows playing in the gutter or wheeling up over the mountain peaks of the buildings around them like arrowheads through the sky. Then, as the clock in its tower struck six, the old man would collect his trilby, emptying out the three coins that he had put in himself that morning; he would hoist the canister by its strap on to his back, and by the echo of the sixth chime, he would be setting off down the side of the square, walking the marionette beside him so that the boy’s wooden feet in wooden clogs lightly click-clacked over the cobbles.

No one much thought about the old marionettist. No one could quite remember when he arrived or where he came from. All they knew was that he kept a narrow shop down a narrow alley that no one but him ever had need to venture down. His name was known only to himself; and he did not care to share it.

This, for many years, was how it was. The two of them would be there on market days when you might see them through the throng of stalls; or on other days, quieter, when the square was empty but for a couple of school boys, the bells on their bicycles tinkling as they bounced over the cobbles, or an old man, pipe in mouth, dragged a squatting dog across the pavement, or a gaggle of women bustled through, or – after the German tanks had arrived and the atmosphere was thick and twisted – perhaps there would be just a group of soldiers puffing on cigarettes and kicking a rotting cabbage around, until all its leaves lay like crumpled skin around the square.

That was how he came across her. You might know the date.

For many years Jews had lived there peacefully – the families of Weinman and Petschek, after all, had made the town what it was – but on that frosty November morning those few Jews that hadn’t already fled to Prague were pushed and cajoled out of their houses and bustled into the square. Many gathered to see them go, as they were shoved into line and forced into trucks, some crying, others stone-faced, some with small suitcases that would later be taken from them, others with nothing held but the hand of a child.

The crowd jostled.

There were jeers and shouts.

No one took much notice of the old man and his puppet watching from across the square. Nor did they pay particular attention to Otmar Petschek, the Jewish mining manager, who, holding his daughter’s hand, bent down and whispered something to her, then glanced across to an abandoned cart and, past that, a narrow alleyway.

Then as if on cue a scuffle broke out – all eyes suddenly on a woman who tried to pull free from a soldier’s grip – and in that moment, as the butt of a gun struck her down – was she dead? – no one saw Otmar Petschek signal with his head or the girl to dart thin-legged across the cobbles to hide behind the cart’s wheel and then disappear into the alley. Only the old marionettist from his spot could see her crouching down in that slit of darkness, nothing but the nub of her nose protruding like the smallest stub of wood.

The trucks left.

The Jews were gone.

The satisfied crowd dispersed.

Nothing about Mírové Square was any different again but for a new silhouette in an alleyway, a shadow that all afternoon did not dare move and that the marionettist watched through the corner of his eye. Only when the clock struck six, the November sun dissolving and the square deserted again, did he walk the marionette – click-clack – across the cobbles to the entrance of the alley. He leant the wooden boy in so that the little girl hiding within the darkness could see his painted smile; and then, carefully guided by the old man’s strings, the wooden boy reached in and offered her his wooden hand.

*

I probably don’t need to tell you that little Eliška went home with the man and his puppet. The times were different then – a winter was coming so dark and malevolent that for many years any act of kindness, no matter how small or selfish, had to be grabbed and kept close to your chest. This was how Eliška ended up at the shop, how there the old marionettist led her up the narrow-throated stairwell to a child-sized bedroom with a child-sized bed.

‘This is Pavol’s room normally,’ he said in a voice that splintered and creaked. ‘But Pavol can stay with me.’

*

The next day she went to the square with the old man and his puppet, and the next day and the day that followed. She grew fond of him, fond of them both; and as the days passed the thin-painted smile across the marionette’s face seemed to grow wider. The wooden boy would dance and jig, his patched shorts lifting, his glass eyes glinting in the sun, and the hair that some people said was real blowing across his face. Sometimes when little Eliška watched him she could no longer see the strings or the man behind him. Sometimes, she thought, the marionette boy was dancing on his own.

*

Each night, after supper, the marionettist worked, chiseling. He sat at a battered table in his workshop in a dusty cave of candlelight. She would watch him working the wood: carving out a leg or an arm, oh-so-delicately sanding it, then protecting it with syrupy licks of varnish, or sewing clothes from old scraps, and fixing the hooks and strings. His own hands were as gnarled as bark but the fingers worked with such dexterity, joints bending, tendons pulling, the open and close of finger and thumb. Only occasionally did he stop to circle a shoulder, every dried joint within him ground like pestle and mortar.

*

Some Sundays, when the weather was fine, they would tramp up to the forests, walking the puppet boy with them; and there, beneath the trees overlooking the town, he would tell her ancient stories like that of the Jezinka who stole people’s eyes, or that if you press your ear to a piece of wood you can hear if it is silent and good for the taking, or has the slow crawl of rot through its grain, the crackling chomp of woodworm.

‘Can you make a marionette out of any wood?’ Eliška asked the old man.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Although some woods are easier to use than others. Lime is best. It’s light and easily worked with a chisel but it does not easily splinter. You should choose the wood based on the puppet. Every tree has a spirit, you know, like every person. My job is to find a match.’

‘If I was a puppet,’ Eliška announced, ‘I’d want to be made from mahogany.’

She was only joking but he took it seriously.

‘No, no,’ he said, tutting. ‘No. Far too dark. You want a good strong oak or ash for a pale skin like yours, or maybe even pine, although, of course, pine dents and, no, you don’t want that. Perhaps, some day, I will make one though, just like you.’ He gave the girl a knowing wink. ‘And then you can choose for yourself.’

They walked on, Eliška kicking the pinecones and their feet crunching through the needles. The old man carried the marionette like a child, the boy’s arms and strings draped over his shoulder, the head resting against his neck.

‘Why don’t you have any children?’ she asked.

‘I did once,’ he told her, but said no more than that.

*

Night after night the old man worked, chiseling, chiseling, chiseling and then blowing the wood dust away. No one ever came into the shop but that didn’t much matter. Besides, they were never there. Each morning they would walk the marionette into the square and the old man would make him dance, while Eliška wandered about with his upturned trilby hat and the three coins that he put in there every morning and took out every night.

Until one day that is, when a woman they had not seen before suddenly stopped and stared at them.  She stood, hesitating, a dozen or so yards away from where the old man sat on his canister, the marionette on his knee. She held a shawl tight around her; her hand clutching the wool was thin and her face pale and expressionless but for her eyes that were locked on the boy.

She took a step closer. And then another. Like so. Until her eyes widened, her gaze still firmly fixed on the puppet.

‘Could I…?’ she said, her voice like paper. ‘I’m sorry but… Please forgive my impertinence but, could I, could I hold him, please – just for a moment?’ She pointed. ‘Could I hold him, please?’

The man said nothing then nodded. He ushered her over, getting up from his canister seat and signaling the woman to sit. Then, stood behind her with all the strings pulled taut, he sat the boy gently down on her lap, the wooden bones of his thighs upon hers, his calves and jointed ankles and feet tilted and dangling below. The woman took the puppet’s hand in hers and held it, its varnished palm and jointed fingers; and it was little Eliška that noticed it first – the woman’s eyes starting to pool.

*

The next day when the marionettist opened the shop he was surprised to see she was there and had been for an hour.

‘Please,’ she said, handing him a photograph – a faded black and white image of a child in shorts, braces, and a shirt. The marionettist stared at the picture and at the woman stood on his doorstep, her shawl still clutched around her and her knuckles tight to her skin.

He had no idea how to say no to her so in the end he asked: ‘How tall?’

‘About so high,’ she said, showing him with her hand, just there. ‘Quite small. Not very tall for his age at all.’

*

They did not go to Mírové Square that day. Instead, they worked all morning, all afternoon and night, the photograph of the child leant against a jam jar in which the old man kept his brushes, the light from the candles when it grew dark flickering across the image of the boy’s creased and faded face. The marionettist fashioned clothes for him from the scraps he had and a few bits and pieces from Pavol’s wardrobe. And when it was done the next morning and the woman returned, he told Eliška to wait with her at the front of the shop while he brought the wooden boy out from the back. Then, standing behind him, the old marionettist carefully guided him out, pulling the strings and working the limbs so that when the woman saw the puppet she did not see the man behind him at all. All she saw was a small hand nervously appear from around the door frame, and then a face and the rest of the head, and then, as he stepped fully into the light, the strings disappeared in the sun altogether, and there was just a hand with a cross held over his head and his movements a little jerky, his wooden feet gently click-clacking across the floor.

The woman’s eyes stared with wonder. ‘My Viktor,’ she said.

*

The next day there were two more women and the day after that a queue; each with a photograph clutched in their hand; each with a son, a daughter, a grandchild that was lost to them; taken, they said, by the war.

The old man and Eliška did not go to Mírové Square anymore. Instead, they worked every day and half of the night, Eliška in charge of fashioning the clothes, sharpening the tools, and updating their orders. They charged fifty pfennigs. The old man said, ‘I’d rather Czechoslovak korun’ but in those days trying to pay in korun wouldn’t even buy you a slap.

Week after week their business flourished and morning after morning, when the old man opened the shop, he would find himself faced with a queue.

They each clutched a photograph, their faces pale but hopeful.

‘My little Otma.’

‘My little Hana.’

‘My little Walter.’

‘My little Moe.’

*

And then one morning the marionettist sent Eliška out across the square to buy cotton thread, but Eliška did not return. It was gone midday before he noticed, and another hour before he finally decided to close the shop with a sign in the window that said, ‘Closed for lunch.’ Then putting on his trilby and walking the marionette boy with him he went out looking for her, down the narrow alley, into the street, across the square, up and down other streets and other alleyways.

‘Eliška,’ he shouted.

‘Eliška,’ he called.

‘She was here,’ Mrs Holmerova at the haberdashery said. ‘A little girl of so high. Yes, I sold her three spools.’

‘She has probably got lost,’ the marionettist said, tutting, because he had not wanted to cause the shopkeeper worry. ‘I am sure I will find her. You know what these girls are like. Good day, madam.’

And Mrs Holmerova nodded.

But he did not find her. They searched and searched, walking the streets until in the square the market stalls had been packed up, the clock struck six and people hurried away. No one helped him. No one dared to look at him. Nobody told the marionettist what they had seen that day. And when the square at last was empty and full of shadows the two of them stood by the stone column of St Anthony amongst the soldiers’ cigarette butts and the cabbage scraps. ‘Eliška,’ he called, then again and his voice splintered. But neither the old man nor the marionette boy could see her anywhere.

*

The next day there was just a lone woman standing outside the shop when he unlocked the door. She was young with scraggy hair tied in a knot and thumbprints of eczema pressed down her neck. She looked up at him on the step, as they always did, and pulled her hand from her pocket. ‘Sir,’ she said, offering up her photograph. ‘My daughter,’ she started to explain. ‘Agáta. She is –’

‘No.’

She paused, uncertain.

‘But –

‘No,’ the marionettist said, quite firm now. ‘Sorry, but no.’

The woman stalled again, her mouth trying to formulate words that were not there and her eyes, already raw at the edges, now starting to fill. ‘But… everyone said…’ she begged him. ‘I have walked all the way from Teplice. Do you not understand? It has taken a whole day to get to you. Please, will you
just – Please –’

She tried to push the photograph into his hand anyway, and he caught a glimpse of a girl with untidy plaits.

‘The Germans took her,’ she said. ‘To a camp.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘To Terezín.’

She held out the photograph again, her face now crumpled and desperate.

‘Will you not at least look at her? Please!’

‘No,’ he said, and then, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t make them anymore.’

*

Now, as you walk through the town’s narrow streets you might still see one, through a window perhaps, tucked in a bed, or propped at a dinner table; or perhaps even being walked across the square by an elderly mother, their little wooden clogs clipping the flagstones, or held, hanging, against a chest, a wooden face glancing at you over the shoulder and their wooden legs limp and dangling.

Who made them has most likely been forgotten. No one knew his name or thought to ask; he no longer comes to Mírové Square. But look hard enough and you might still see him, walking unnoticed through the narrow streets or turning off down an alleyway to a closed and dusty shop. And, sometimes, on the edge of a forest overlooking the town, surrounded by limes and ash and birch, he sits on an old bench with her and Pavol. He rests one hand of hers on his lap, the other he takes in his palm.  And he holds it.

He holds it.

He holds it until the wood warms and softens, and he feels her with him, her fingers slowly taking hold of his. He feels the gentle squeeze of her hand.

*****

This story was inspired by research trips made for Devastation Road. Whilst the characters from this short story do not appear in the novel, the character Janek comes from the same town, Ústí nad Labem, in what is now the Czech Republic.

To find out what more about Janek, do check out Devastation Road.

Photo Copyright: © Jason Hewitt