The Puppet Theatre – Part 1: Strings

The princess was ruined.

Tereza stood in the little puppet theatre in Brno with a bucket in each hand and water dripping steadily from the ceiling onto the miniature stage. The painted castle had run. The cardboard forest had slumped. The princess, a foot tall, with a papier-mâché face and a wig of real hair, lay face down in a puddle.

"It's the roof," said a voice.

A man stood in the doorway with a ladder on his shoulder. He was thirty-two, tall, bearded, in paint-splattered overalls, with warm eyes and a pencil behind his ear. "Marek. The council sent me. Stage design. They said there was a leak."

"There was a flood."

"So I see."

She was twenty-eight, a puppet-maker, small and fierce, with ink-black hair in a scarf. The theatre had belonged to her grandfather. It seated forty and had not made a profit since 1998. The show opened on Saturday.

"Can you fix it?" she asked.

"The roof or the princess?"

"Both."

He climbed the ladder, inspected the beam, muttered. By evening he had patched the leak. At nine he came down, sat on the edge of the stage and looked thoughtfully at the ruined princess.

"I'll repaint the castle," he said. "You do the princess."

They worked until two. She sewed, sculpted and varnished; he mixed paint and brushed on moonlit towers. The theatre smelled of glue and turpentine. A lamp threw their shadows large on the curtains.

"Can I ask you something?" said Marek.

"Yes."

"How did you learn to do the voices?"

"My grandfather." She held up the princess, and spoke in a high, trembling voice: "Please, brave sir, save me from the dragon."

He laughed, and answered in a deep growl. "Madam, I am only a very small knight."

She stared at him, delighted. "You do voices!"

"Green?" he said, shyly, a word from the pigment chart.

"Green," said Tereza, beaming. "Very green. Do the dragon."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Opening Night.