Backstage in Prague – Part 1: The Missing Prop

The theatre in Malá Strana had been open since 1891, and in that time it had survived two wars, a fire and a leading man who ate raw onions before every performance. Klára had survived three years as its stage manager, and she was beginning to think the lighting designer might be the end of her.

"You moved cue forty-two," she said.

"I improved cue forty-two," said Tomáš, from the top of a ladder. He was a lean, dark-haired man in a black T-shirt, with a pencil behind his ear and a smear of gaffer tape on his cheek.

"It was in the script."

"The script is wrong. The actress is on the left, so the light should be on the left."

"The director approved it."

"The director approves everything. It is how he sleeps."

Klára clenched her clipboard. It was four o'clock on opening night, and the first act was set in a drawing room that was currently a heap of furniture and cables.

"Where is the pistol?" said the props master, panting up the stairs. "The pistol is gone!"

The backstage corridor went very quiet.

"What pistol?" said Klára.

"The prop. The one in act one. It is on the cue sheet. It was on the table at two o'clock, and now it is not."

Klára closed her eyes. "Forty minutes," she said. "We have a hundred and twenty people arriving in forty minutes, and a play about a murder with no weapon."

Tomáš climbed down the ladder. "Let me help."

"You have done enough."

"I have changed one cue. I can also find one pistol."

She glared at him. He glared back, steady and unembarrassed. Then, to her own surprise, she handed him the cue sheet.

They searched the building together, the green room, the wardrobe, the dusty cellar full of old scenery. They found a stuffed owl, three broken chairs and a very old bottle of slivovitz. In the second-floor dressing room, Tomáš lifted a velvet cushion and held up the pistol with a flourish.

"Under the leading lady's pillow," he said. "She was afraid of it."

Klára stared at him, and then burst out laughing. "She was afraid of the prop?"

"She is a very sensitive woman."

"We have thirty minutes."

"Then we had better go and light the drawing room," said Tomáš. "On the left."

She sighed. "On the left," she agreed.

Backstage, in the half-dark, he held the ladder while she checked the lamp. His hand rested lightly on the rung, an inch from hers.

"Can I ask you something?" said Klára.

"Yes."

"Why do you argue with me about every cue?"

Tomáš smiled. "Because it is the only way you look at me," he said.

Klára's heart gave a surprised thump. "Green?" she said, before she could stop herself.

"Green," said Tomáš. "Very green. Curtain in twenty. Do not drop the lamp."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Opening Night.