So after lingering a little while over our hot chocolates, we left the cafe. The conversation wasn’t flowing, and as we stood outside on the street, I made a short plea to go into the quaint-looking shop. This was the old part of town, and the atmosphere was permeated with charm. Peter managed a little smile, nodded yes, and made the choice to come in with me rather than sit on the “husband’s bench” outside.
As soon as we entered, I gasped. Puppets and marionettes hung in every corner of the high ceiling room. The shop owner, an older Swiss man who looked to be from another era, was in the back corner seemingly preoccupied with his CD player.
I became a child again looking for the lost Pinocchio, or whoever seemed to be tugging at my heart strings the most. Peter seemed to be getting quite amused with my enthusiasm.
“How about this one?” I yelled across the room. I held up one scruffy looking marionette of a street musician playing a fiddle. I had never seen anything like him before. He was made in Czechoslovakia and his face was weathered, his hair long and shaggy, and he had a look on his face I couldn’t find words for...maybe a little sly, but tender, good-hearted. The price on his back didn’t throw me into sticker shock, so I knew I wasn’t going to leave there without him.
“He’s…a little strange. How about this one?” Peter pointed to a sweet Pinocchio, but I already had a similar one that I had once “rescued” from the street market at London’s Portobello Square. “Or this one?” He held up an even sweeter looking Cinderella. I nodded my head no. I don’t know why, but I don’t like them when they’re too sweet or too bizarre. My street musician was perfect.
“You look like the ‘cat who swallowed the fish’ Isabelle!” Peter stood there grinning at me. He looked at me as if I was twelve years old, then pointed to another puppet: “How about little Red Riding Hood here?” Peter was getting into it.
“But if I get that one” I said, “You’ll have to get the one that is the big bad wolf—and then I’ll have to run away from you!”
“You already have, my dear….did you forget? But my intentions were not like his….I was no wolf.”
But Peter slipped his hand into the wolf puppet anyway and I slipped my hand into a red fox with a rather long delicate snout. He started nipping at me and I nipped back. We laughed.
“You beast!” I squealed.
“Me? You’re worse! Look at you—this is what you do. Peck and nibble and bite. You don’t understand I’m really a domesticated dog..no wolf.”
“Really? You look fierce to me. And I’m just a shy girl fox….” I moved my puppet’s hand coyly across her face. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Especially you.”
“I thought you didn’t like me.” The wolf replied.
“I thought you didn’t like me.” The fox replied.
“Maybe we just don’t understand each other.” I looked up at Peter’s face, and I saw a boy standing there. My fox nestled into the wolf’s ear and whispered: “Foxes know how to change and adapt; that’s how we survive. It’s true, some foxes can’t be trusted. But that’s only when we’re sad or desperate. But wolves are either wild loners or move with a pack…their tribe. Which one are you Peter? Are you a lone wolf?”
Peter looked like I had asked him a question of considerable importance. He thought about it a moment. Then his wolf nodded his head no, and I could see Peter’s eyes looked teary. He turned away. Then he put down the wolf. I thought maybe he was upset with me, but instead he was looking for something else to play with. He grabbed a jester and began to talk in a strange voice:
“I can make sad people smile. I can make you laugh. I can make you see things differently.”
“Really?” I stood so close to Peter I could almost smell his apprehension. “Would you do that…could you make me see things differently?”
“I could.” Peter turned to the shopkeeper who was now quite amused with our antics.
“We’ll take the fox and the jester and….” He raised his eyebrows.
“…the fiddle player.” I smiled so wide I felt like we had just played a scene in a Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks romantic comedy.
“Yes. I would like him…really.” I picked up my little musician. “Maybe he could play for you—make you happy too?” I twirled and danced him around on the floor.
The shop keeper turned up the music that had been playing in the background. I recognized the song—a sixties folk song called “The Dutchman.” I was surprised to hear something so familiar and in English as well. It was a love song about an odd elderly couple, who still loved each other; despite their craziness. I had once known the musician who wrote it; a young man who died before his time. What bizarre synchronicity to hear this now…
“The Dutchman’s not the kind of man who keeps his thumb jammed in the dam that holds his dreams in, but that’s a secret only Margaret knows:” I whispered and sang along. I looked up at Peter who stood frozen like a mannequin. We stared out the window listening to the words:
When Amsterdam is golden in the summer,
Margaret brings him breakfast,
She believes him.
He thinks the tulips bloom beneath the snow.
He's mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes,
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes.
“Do you believe in me Isabelle?”
“I do.” I couldn’t move. I was as scared as I was enchanted by the moment.
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.
“Do you think I would remember that for you Peter?” I whispered.
“You would.” He paused. “You know me like no one else will ever do.” He took my hand. I could tell Peter remembered the song too, and I could hear him humming a little.
The Dutchman still wears wooden shoes,
His cap and coat are patched with the love
That Margaret sewed there.
Sometimes he thinks he's still in Rotterdam.
And he watches the tug-boats down canals
An' calls out to them when he thinks he knows the Captain.
Till Margaret comes
To take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him, though she holds his arm,
Sometimes he thinks he's alone and he calls her name.
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.
I leaned into him: “You are my Dutchman—no one can take your place.” My words sounded as sentimental as the song lyrics, but I meant them.
The winters whirl the windmills 'round
She winds his muffler tighter
… they sit in the kitchen.
Some tea with whiskey keeps away the dew.
… he sees her for a moment, calls her name,
She makes the bed up… singing some old love song,
A song Margaret learned
When it was very new.
He hums a line or two, they sing together in the dark.
The Dutchman falls asleep and Margaret blows the candles out.”
I could feel the tears starting to come. One large tear fell. Peter wiped it from my cheek and looked at me with soft eyes, then kissed me on the forehead. Something had changed. Something old that had been forgotten, was now remembered, and it was very good.
(c) elizabeth spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment