Supposing that the sphinx was his mother, transformed or reborn in another world he could only access through dream—was it possible that the Coral Man was Leodora’s father, also transformed, and that Bardsham also visited her in her dreams? It was as reasonable a speculation as any, although it didn’t explain why the same ghost would terrorize Soter. Why should Soter fear Bardsham?
The old man thought Diverus hardly more than an idiot, and that was fine by him. He’d learned to play that role in the paidika. Soter had no idea that he was listening and watching, nor that he’d overheard enough drunken rants and whispered gibbering to know that Bardsham’s ghost or something very like it was stalking Soter from span to span now. It had put him to flight twice. How long, Diverus wondered, would they stay here before the specter beset Soter again? It would be more difficult to convince Leodora to leave the Terrestre. The span of Colemaigne treated her like a treasure returned. Remembering the ovations, Diverus smiled, but as quickly frowned and shook his head.
Already his mind had wandered off the topic, which was whether or not the ghost of Bardsham traveled with them, and whether or not it emerged from that piece of cold chalky coral. He knew, as with everything else, that no one was going to enlighten him on the matter. Nobody had yet informed him what the Coral Man was doing in the box in the first place. If he wanted to know, he must find out himself. The notion of ghosts didn’t frighten him. Compared with afrits, a human phantom was positively welcome.
He rose up, dressed, and then crept from his chamber and along the darkened hall.
The middle balcony had its own stairs to the back of the stage, something he had learned the second day, and he slid around the rear curtain, through the small doorway to the side, and down the darkened stairwell. It had a fusty smell to it. Cautiously, although he knew nobody was about, he eased open the door in the back wall of the stage and stepped out. Closing it again, he walked quickly, head down as if that would help obscure him, into the puppet booth.
The cases were as Leodora had left them, open upon their respective collapsible biers, the case on the left draped with the discarded puppets she’d used in last night’s performance, with more piled inside. She wasn’t lingering long enough anymore even to put them all away.
At the top of the pile was the hook-nosed figure of Meersh. Diverus took hold of Meersh’s rods and lifted the puppet from the box. Then, clutching the two main rods in one hand, he raised the one that pushed Penis up from the body of the puppet. Penis was still sheathed in the yellow-dyed skin she placed on it to signify the transformation courtesy of the sun god. The larger body of the puppet was draped in a translucent gray membrane to reflect that it had been scorched. He thought of Meersh launching himself over the balcony and into the sea, and for an instant relived the memory of his mother’s corpse sliding down the chute, down past the foul layers of habitation beneath Vijnagar and into the dark swirling waters around the piers. Such a small splash, instantly erased and untraceable. From that height, the water flow had created the illusion that it was the bridge that moved upon the water.
He set the puppet down and stepped away from the box.
The confined booth was stuffy. Behind the undaya cases, his instruments—shawm, theorbo, sarangi, piba—lay strewn around the pillow on which he sat as he played. He glanced up at the thatched roof far overhead, at the striped awning still unfurled against midday sunlight, at the wan light bleeding in. He let his eyelids lower halfway and tried to listen, to sense with his body what might hover around him, but apprehended no presence other than his own in there. No Coral Man, no Bardsham’s ghost. He didn’t want to deny Leodora what she’d seen, but he couldn’t make it manifest for him. Why couldn’t he experience what she had? That would unite them further, wouldn’t it?
Stepping back beside his instruments, he reviewed how she had turned to him, her eyes welling with tears, her hair swinging like a great skein of rope behind her as she reached out for him, and he opened his arms to her, embraced her. Once