But his dark eyes were as searching and clever as ever.
“Thank you for coming, all of you!” He made a particularly low bow to Sophie. “Welcome to my marvels!”
“Is it a play?” Camille asked.
“I will not prejudice your reaction with categories!” He gestured to the waiting chairs. “Please sit.” Once they were settled, he clapped his hands. An ethereal tune, played on a violin, rose from behind the curtains as slowly, they drew apart, revealing … an empty stage.
“Oh!” Sophie’s face fell.
“Merde!” Rosier exclaimed. “What am I saying—forgive my mouth! Forget this happened! Scenery is forthcoming. In the meantime, please imagine the backdrop: a row of trees, an ancient forest.” Once more he clapped his hands, and two puppets emerged. They had painted papier mâché faces and wore colorful costumes that suggested the play was set in a distant and magical land. One puppet wore a pair of gilt paper wings tied to its back, the other carried a red rose. When they met in the middle, they bowed: first to each other, and then to the audience.
“Just wait!” Rosier said under his breath.
One of the puppets—a young man—produced a box and presented it to the other puppet, who was, judging by her long horsehair wig, supposed to be a young woman. When she opened it, a puff of smoke drifted from under the lid.
“Ignore,” Rosier muttered.
“But what—?” Camille wondered.
“A firework. It’ll work next time.” He waved his hand at the puppeteers. “Continuez!”
The play continued. At times the characters spoke to each other, but Camille could not tell whether their speaking was part of the story or directions the puppeteers were giving each other, in which case, she should be ignoring them. As the violin played faster and faster, the players too sped up their actions, until, at a blistering pace, they gesticulated, danced, kissed, pretended to sail in a boat, and finally, after stripping off their masks and flinging them away, bowed low as the curtains swung closed on top of them. If puppets could have panted, they certainly would have.
“Bravi!” shouted Rosier, applauding enthusiastically. “Well done, well done!” To his audience, he said, “Did you not think so?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lazare said, straight-faced. “What do you call it?”
Rosier beamed. “Les Merveilleux, naturally.”
“The Marvelous Ones is a beautiful name,” Camille remarked. Even if the show had not quite lived up to its name—not yet.
“What about you?” Rosier stooped solicitously by Sophie’s chair. “Tell me your thoughts, Mademoiselle Sophie!”
Regretfully Sophie replied, “I may never have been to the Opéra or the Comédie-Française, but dear Rosier, if you plan to use these costumes, which should be beautiful but … are not … I’m afraid people will laugh. In the wrong way.”
Rosier looked at the stage and muttered something inaudible.
“It’s only his first attempt, Sophie.” Seeing how he’d angled for Sophie’s verdict, Camille couldn’t help but defend him. There was perhaps more to this than she’d thought. “You always try out your hat designs in paper first, to see how they might be improved. Maybe this is like that?”
“That’s true,” Sophie demurred.
“A brilliant strategy! I should have done a paper trial long ago. I’d thought to take the show to the streets in a few weeks’ time, but perhaps,” he said significantly, “there is no point. With things so hard in Paris, I thought I might bring a smile to the face of a child, a happy memory to an old lady, or perchance, a bit of the marvelous, the extraordinary—”
Lazare cleared his throat.
“Some hope,” Rosier said, reining himself in. “That is the most important.”
“An admirable goal,” Sophie conceded. “What do you two think?”
“It has a great deal of promise,” Camille said truthfully. “I’m certain it could be improved in time for a performance … in the near future?”
“But how?” Rosier wondered.
How strangely he behaves, Camille thought, but Lazare remained silent, as if he didn’t want to break a spell. Finally Sophie spoke up. “I might have some ideas to improve the costumes. The rest…” She bit her lip. “It would take a lot of work.”
“You are right to focus on their clothes!” For someone who was receiving a lot of criticism, Rosier seemed strangely glad. “I had aimed for a ragamuffin je-ne-sais-quoi, but clearly my aim was dreadful. With your eye for design, the show will be vastly improved. And you’d be bringing hope to our city.”
Sophie beamed. “I am rather good at things like this.”
“It’s true, she is a great talent,” Camille encouraged. “She even works wonders