Page 67 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

lives, for fear I’d take them. Or you could’ve been racing each other to that

cupboard door, racing each other home. TOYS, the sign reads, but signs aren’t
guarantees. Either way I wanted to go too, and wished the puppet would hold out
its hand to me, or beckon me, or do something more than return my gaze with
that strange tolerance.

—

WHEN MY NAME was called I entered the audition room and my glove puppet

made an irresolute attempt to eat a sugar cube from a bowlful that had been left
on a table, then gave in to despair and decided to sleep. After a minute there was
a crackling sound in the corner of the room and I heard your voice through the
speaker, Myrna, trying to give me a chance. “Miss Chaudhry, don’t you have
anything prepared? You’ve only got ten more minutes and as you may have seen

in the waiting room, we’re observing quite a few applicants today.”
This reminder had no effect on me; I continued as I was until someone
knocked on the audition room door and then came in, glancing first at the clock
and then through the mirrored wall to the spot where I presumed you were
sitting. It was a boy who came in—he had a hand behind his back, and I think I
would’ve found that threatening if it weren’t for his deep-set, elephantine eyes,
the patience in them.

“I’m Gustav,” he said. “Give me your puppet and you shall have a different
one.”
“What will you do with mine?”
“It’s up to him. He can sleep all he wants and have as much sugar as he likes,
make new friends, maybe change the position of the parting in his hair if he’s
feeling daring. Quickly, take her.”

I handed over my glove puppet and received a brass marionette in exchange.
“I got this one out of the store cupboard. She hasn’t been out in a while . . . a lot
of people find they can’t work with her; she’s haunted,” Gustav said over his
shoulder, as he left the room. Smashing.

—

ORCHESTRATING this new puppet’s movements seemed hopeless; I was holding

the wooden bar that controlled all her strings correctly, and none of the strings
were tangled, but that had been Gustav’s quick, deft work, not mine. Though we
both stood still I felt the marionette advance upon me, and without moving I
shrank away.