Love of Seven Dolls Read Free Page B

I’m glad.”
    “Where you go now?”
    “I don’t know.”
    His question had restored the chill to the night and the feel of the hard-packed earth beneath her feet. The fairy tale was over then. Yet the echoes still lingered and her heart felt strangely light.
    Golo nodded. To have no place to go was familiar to him. He said, “You excuse me, Miss. I better get things ready to move.”
    He went to the car and unstrapped the big theatrical trunk from the rear. Someone at Mouche’s elbow went “Pssst!” Another half-doll occupied the stage, an elderly woman with a pronounced moustache and indignant eyebrows. She was wearing a coverall and mob cap and carried a dustcloth with which she took an occasional wipe at the counter. When Mouche turned to her she first peered furtively to both sides and then addressed her in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t trust them.”
    Instantly Mouche was swept back to this other world. “Don’t trust whom?” she asked.
    “Don’t trust anyone. I am a woman, and believe me, I know what I am talking about.”
    “But they were all so kind . . .” Mouche protested.
    “Hah! That’s just how they do it. I am Madame Muscat, the concierge here. I know everything that goes on. You look as though you might be a respectable girl. The things I could tell you . . . They’re all a bad lot and if you take my advice you won’t have anything to do with them.”
    Mouche was not one to listen to gossip and Madame Muscat was exactly like all the concierges she had ever known. Nevertheless she felt a pang at her heart, the kind one experiences when ill is spoken of dear friends. She cried, “Oh surely that can’t be so . . .”
    Golo went by carrying the trunk on his shoulders. He paused and said reprovingly: “You oughtn’t to say things like that, Madame Muscat. They ain’t really so bad. They just young and a little wild.” To Mouche he said reassuringly, “Don’t you pay her any attention, Miss. Wait until I put her in this trunk again. That will keep her quiet.”
    Madame Muscat gave a little shriek at the threat and ducked quickly beneath the counter as Golo continued on behind the booth.
    In her place there appeared then finally one more puppet, an old gentleman who wore square steel-rimmed spectacles, a stocking cap and leather apron. The expression painted on his face contrived sometimes to be quizzical and friendly, at others, when he moved his head, searching and benign, For a moment he appeared to look right through Mouche. Then in a gentle voice he spoke to her saying, “Good evening to you. My name is Monsieur Nicholas. I am a maker and mender of toys. My child, I can see you are in trouble. Behind your eyes are many more tears than you have shed.”
    Mouche’s hand flew to her throat because of the ache that had come to lodge there. It had been so long since anyone had called her “child”.
    Monsieur Nicholas said, “Perhaps you would care to tell me about it.”
    Golo appeared again. He said, “You tell him, Miss. He is a good man. Everybody who has troubles tells them to Monsieur Nicholas.”
    Now the tears came swiftly to Mouche’s eyes and with their flow something loosened inside her so that standing there in the garish light before the shabby puppet booth and the single animated wooden doll listening so attentively to her, the story of her trials and failures poured from her in moving innocence, for she could not have confessed it thus to any human.
    When she had reached the end of her unhappy tale, Monsieur Nicholas concluded for her, “. . . And so you were going to throw yourself into the Seine tonight.”
    Mouche stared, marvelling. “How did you know?”
    “It was not hard to tell. There is nothing to seek for one as young as you at the bottom of the river.”
    “But, Monsieur Nicholas—what shall I do? Where shall I go?”
    The puppet bowed his head as he reflected gravely for a moment, a tiny hand held to his brow. Then he tilted his head to one side and