The Marionettist Helen Liu

The Marionettist

Helen Liu

She approaches you one night with hopeful arms, tentative steps, tired eyes that still glimmer with untainted innocence. Notice how she shivers slightly, how something about the way she holds herself betrays her loneliness, her want. You smile back, allow her to throw herself into your arms, stretch your fingertips over her back.

How lovely.

Taking her cold hand, you pull her inside. Whispering reassurances, you sit her in front of your crackling fireplace, bundle her in fluffy blankets, wrap woolen scarves around her neck until her shivering gives way to drooping eyelids and soft sighs. A cup of hot cocoa is offered, followed by a tray of cookies, butter still bubbling at their edges. Chocolate dots the corner of her lip as she falls asleep; with a careful thumb, you smear it away.

You make sure she wakes to the soothing smell of coffee, a healthy flush to her cheeks and eyes alight. You murmur a good morning, tell her she may go if she must but she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants. It’s still snowing outside; after a period of waffling, she decides to stay.

Of course, you say, and unlock her door.

Later that day, as you two eat dinner, you tell her of your passion for dance. Its beauty, its elegance, your satisfaction when every movement falls in time with the beat. How you used to dance everyday, but nowadays you no longer have the energy.

Eagerly, she says she dances too, says she loves it just as much as you do. You put on music and she becomes a work of art, fluid yet sharp, timid yet daring, emotion in every line of her body. When she’s done, you clap appreciatively, saying she’s the best you’ve ever seen. Adamantly, she denies

it; then, as if unsure if it’s her place to ask, requests to see you dance.

You say you’re tired, that you’ll show her someday. That you still lack the motivation, but her performance did inspire you - just a little bit. With a smile, you bid her good night, fully aware of the determined set of her jaw as you leave.

It continues to snow. She asks if she can help with the cooking or the cleaning; you say she doesn’t need to worry about any of that. She borrows some art supplies, says she wants to learn to paint, and soon depictions of vague wintry landscapes are scattered across the floor of her room.

And more than ever, she dances. Mostly on her own in your dance studio, borrowing your records and spending hours in front of the mirrors, but every night in the lounge, she dances for you. She says she wants to help you dance again, that it’s the least she can do for you after everything you’ve done for her. Smiling, you indulge her.

At breakfast one day, you mention there’s a dance - a concept, really - you’ve wanted to choreograph since you were young. And at her insistence, you reveal that you have a fascination with marionettes. That you’re intrigued by the idea of being able to dance for eternity, and that you want nothing more than to translate that idea into movement and music.

She absorbs the information with a thoughtful hum, a slight scrunch of her brow. A few minutes later, she stands and offers to try to make your concept come to life. You widen your eyes, lean forward, ask her if she’s being serious. She nods, laughing, then hopefully requests that you join her in dance if her performance is to your satisfaction. You smile and thank her profusely.

Almost immediately, you stop seeing her around the house as often as you used to. She no longer looks around in the pantry, no longer spends

hours exploring your seemingly endless closets. Even her painting begins to slow, her brushes and canvases untouched for days at a time. Instead, she works day and night in front of your mirrors, arching her back and maneuvering her arms, stepping carefully side to side. She never notices you watching from around the corner, your face impassive, your eyes blank.

She’s so caught up in her practice, she forgets to dance for you.

After a few empty nights, you knock sharply on the door of the studio, calling her name with the slightest edge to your voice. The music stops, and a few moments later she pulls open the door, a sheen of sweat on her forehead and her breaths coming in pants. Excitedly, she starts to say she’s been making progress, but you cut her off, questioning why she’s been avoiding you.

She tilts her head, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. Hesitantly, she says she’s not avoiding you, that she’s just been practicing the marionette dance and that it might be a while until she’s ready to show you, but you cut her off again. Never mind, you snap. With a heavy sigh, you turn and leave.

As you expect, she waits in the lounge the next night, dark circles under her eyes. When she sees you walk in, she says that she wants to show you what she’s come up with so far. Smiling, you settle in the chair before her and motion for her to begin.

Her movements are precise, calculated. Her steps are intricate and her arms sweep the air, her body imitating the slight jerks of a marionette. You can almost visualize the strings that dangle from her back, her feet, the top of her head, and a smile tugs at the corners of your lips. You remain expressionless.

And when the music stops, you allow the silence to drag, to weigh

heavily on her shoulders and scrape painfully against her ears. The triumphant grin on her face grows strained; her arms begin to tremble where she’s holding her finishing pose. Finally, she can bear it no longer, and she turns to you, arms falling to her sides. Was it good, she whispers.

It’s not what you’d hoped, you say eventually. It should be more effortless - more free. Voice tight, eyes downcast, she says she’ll do better.

The next night, she dances again, showcasing the changes she’s made. This time, you clap halfheartedly and tell her she displays too much emotion, that it doesn’t befit a marionette. It’s okay, though, you say with a smile; it’ll take practice. But as you leave, just loud enough for her to hear, you mutter to yourself that you expected more.

It becomes a routine. Every night, she dances before you; every night, there’s something you disapprove of. Gradually, you allow your patience to slip; gradually, she loses herself in desperation. She knows your disappointment is inevitable, yet still seeks your commendation. She wants you to smile, but - for a reason she can’t name - the sight of it sometimes sends shivers down her spine.

And so she withdraws into herself. In a daze, she forgets her meals, forgoes her showers, wears the same clothes for days on end. She reimmerses herself in her paints. But no longer does her art depict pristine swathes of snow and clouds dotted with periwinkles and siennas; now, she uses darker, duller tones, smears them almost wildly across the canvas.

Still, she dances, accepting and adjusting to every suggestion you make. And when your thinly veiled criticism finally becomes naked abuse, she doesn’t realize.

It’s still snowing, and the temperature in the house drops. Her muscles

ache; she tires easily. She develops a cough that doesn’t go away. She misses a night of dancing; not finding her in her room, you look for her in the studio. Curled against the mirror, eyes moving restlessly under her eyelids, she sleeps.

The next night, she enters the lounge with a meek apology. You smile; she shivers, avoids your gaze. That night, her movements are clumsy, uncoordinated. She trips over herself more than once, biting back a cry when her hip knocks into the corner of the table. Tears nipping at her eyes, she finishes, body bent over in a bout of hacking coughs.

You sigh and stand, not looking at her. You tell her that after all you’ve done for her, the least she could do is deliver you an acceptable dance. She must not appreciate you, you muse sadly. She must not care about you.

A sharp intake of breath, a hurried shake of her head. No, no, she repeats frantically. She promises she’ll perfect the dance, swears on her life that she cares. She wants to dance with you, she says, looking up with tears running down her cheeks. You ignore her and walk away, turning to hide your mocking smile.

After all, a master does not dance with their marionette.

That night, she sobs into her pillow, clings to her blanket like it’s her only lifeline as gasping breaths shudder in and out of her still-weak lungs. The wind outside howls; her body aches with a horrible cold that doesn’t disappear no matter how tightly she pulls at her covers.

Exhausted, staring at the neverending storm of pale grey outside her window, she falls into a trance. She hears the flapping of bird wings, the rustle of tender leaves; she smells the intoxicating earthiness of spring rain, the cloying sweetness of budding flowers. She tastes salt and dreams of the ocean.

Then, an hour before sunrise, she stumbles to her paints as if possessed. She grabs at random colors, takes a brush and dashes it across one of her first paintings. She works with fervor, mind and vision foggy, biting at her lip until it bleeds.

And when the storm dies and sunlight finally illuminates her canvas, she stops, transfixed. Stares at the field of spring green, canary yellow, and wistful pink that emerges from what used to be icy blue, snowy white.

A strange weight lifts off her chest, and an inexplicable relief floods her mind.

Later, she comes down for breakfast, the first time in a while. You smile at her; she blinks, then catches herself and murmurs a hello. She eats quickly, then leaves for the studio.

Puzzled, you go to her room, find her newest painting lying near the foot of her bed. Anger curls in your stomach; a bitter taste fills your mouth. You seize the canvas, stride downstairs, and cast it into the hungry fireplace. With a twisted satisfaction, you watch the colors crumble into ash.

A few more days pass, and with a twinge of uncertainty, you realize something about her has changed. She eats regularly now, the color returning to her cheeks and her cough finally abating. She spends more time in her room and less in the studio. She doesn’t seek you out, nor does she avoid you, but you catch her staring at you more than once, her face unreadable.

Her nightly dancing, too, is different. Her movements are more reserved, yet she dares to look you in the eye when you give her your usual critique. She responds with careless nods, distracted agreements, doesn’t flinch no matter how dangerously you smile. One night, she doesn’t dance at all, not answering even when you bang on her locked door. And for the first

time in years, you feel cold panic constricting your throat.

The next morning, her door is left ajar. You rush in only to discover more paintings, stacked on top of her dressers and balanced against the walls. Each is brighter than the last, glorious and taunting. Hands clenched into fists, frenzied, you burn them all. You don’t notice her watching from around the corner, lips curled and eyes triumphant.

That night in the lounge, she tells you she’s done.

You rise from your chair, your fingers digging into the armrests, a whirlwind of unfamiliar emotion building inside you. Slowly, you dare her to repeat herself.

She’s done, she says. Her breathing is steady and her feet are set underneath her and streaks of paint color her hair. Her arms are tense with anticipation; she steps forward with purpose. Your flick your eyes to hers and realize that her innocence has shattered into brilliant shards of furious calm, disgusted acceptance, defiant peace.

She holds out a hand flecked with paint, bares her teeth, and invites you to dance.

And you try to pull at her strings, but find only their frayed remains.

She spits at your feet. Not looking back once, she opens the door she’d been pulled through so many nights ago and stalks back into the snow. Frozen, you stare after her.

She leaves behind a room of upended paint jars, color splattered all over the bed, the walls, the dressers. She leaves behind a studio of smashed mirrors, its floor covered in gleaming fragments of glass.

The storm balks at her presence; the sunlight welcomes her return. And with every step she takes, green blooms from her feet.