Карин Тидбек - The Memory Theater

“We’re looking for someone called Augusta Prima,” he said.

“And from where does this Augusta Prima hail?” Director asked.

“The Gardens,” Thistle said.

“Which gardens?”

“That’s what they’re called,” Thistle said. “The Gardens.”

Dora made an effort to jump in. “There’s an orchard and a conservatory and a statue forest and a croquet lawn,” she said. “But no time.”

The others looked up when she spoke.

Nestor raised an eyebrow and blew a smoke ring. “No time, eh. I recognize that.”

“We’ve played it,” Director said. “ The Creation of Arcadia .”

“That’s right.” Nestor nodded. “I believe Apprentice was new at the time.”

“I know it!” Apprentice came over and sat down. “I played… I can’t recall who I played. I was so nervous. What happened after they made the place?”

“Bad things,” Thistle said.

“They went insane, didn’t they,” Director said. “It was such an audacious idea.”

“What else do you know?” Thistle asked.

Nestor shook his head. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what we know.”

Director held up a book that had been resting on the step next to her. The cover was marbled and had an ornate spine.

“This is the playbook,” she said. “That’s where we find the manuscripts. A new one appears, and we’re off. We don’t know anything else but what it says on the page.”

“Like this time it was about that fisherman,” Apprentice said. “Knut. He was fishing when the army came. But that’s all we know.”

“We do know that it took place on Earth,” Nestor said. “But not much else. We came here to the city of the dead to enact his burial.”

“The city of the dead,” Dora said.

Director nodded. “We come here quite often. Births and deaths are popular with the book.”

“Ghorbi said so,” Thistle said.

Again, Nestor muttered something to himself. Then he said, “Now, what is your quest?”

“Augusta has my name. I need it back, so I can find my way home to my parents.”

“And you, Dora?”

Dora reached down and put an arm around Thistle, who leaned back against her. “I go where he goes,” she said.

Director hummed.

Journeyman watched them from a stool, where he sat mending a robe. Every time Dora looked at him, he was watching her. Apprentice had cleared away the dishes and came over to sit with them.

“Ghorbi sent you?” Apprentice asked.

“She helped us,” Thistle said. “And said you could help us find Augusta.”

Nestor made a sour face. “Calling in her favor. Couldn’t even come by herself.”

“You know her?” Dora asked.

Nestor glared at the hookah. Director patted him on the shoulder.

“Ghorbi and Nestor have history, ” she said. “She saved him from a great library when it burned. It was long ago, before the rest of us came along. Of course she wouldn’t come personally, Nestor. You would have made a scene.”

The talk became a cloud again. It pressed in on Dora’s head from all directions. Everything was too loud, too sharp.

“Thistle,” she whispered. “It’s too much.”

Thistle looked up at her. “I’m sorry, Dora. I should have noticed that you were tired.”

He stood up and took Dora’s hand. “Dora needs to rest. Is there somewhere quiet she can go?”

“Was it something we said?” Nestor asked.

“She just needs to be alone,” Thistle said.

“The trapdoor?” Journeyman said from his stool.

He beckoned Thistle and Dora over to the back of the wagon and lifted a hatch in the floor. A ladder led down into a small space where Dora could glimpse pillows and blankets.

“There’s a mattress and everything. I go there for naps.”

Dora climbed down the steps and made a nest.

“Will you be all right?” Thistle asked from above.

“Close the door,” Dora said.

She could hear and see nothing. She could breathe again in this quiet place.

Dora woke to swaying movement. Thistle was next to her, drawing quiet sleep-breaths. The air was stuffy. Dora climbed up the ladder and opened the hatch.

The wall of the house was back up. Faint light shone in through the windows, moving, as if they were traveling through a forest or under water. The troupe members were sitting in armchairs around something on the floor. They were dressed in bathrobes, talking in rapid voices. As Dora came closer, she saw that the thing on the floor was a map, except it wasn’t. The sheet of paper on the floor had coastlines and places marked out, but over it sat something that looked like a canopy made of thick metal wire. From the canopy hung paper silhouettes and glass spheres at different heights, all of them connected to one another and the map with thread.

Apprentice spotted Dora and waved at her. “Breakfast?”

Dora nodded. Apprentice guided her to an armchair and handed her a deep bowl filled with some sort of stew.

“Sorry,” she said. “We’re between worlds. No exciting food.”

The stew was lukewarm and tasted like nothing much, which was nice. “Thank you,” Dora said.

Nestor smiled at her. “You’ve been down there for a while. I hope you feel better.”

Dora pointed at the canopy on the floor. “What’s that?”

“It’s a map,” Apprentice said behind her.

“A very imperfect one,” Nestor added. “You see, it only describes four dimensions, and badly at that.”

He pointed at a miniature carriage suspended on a silver thread in the middle of the structure. It was moving on a very slow downward trajectory. “Right now we are somewhere around here, in transit between worlds.” Then he pointed at a place on the paper map on the floor. “But ‘there,’ for example, is relative. These places are not stationary. They are like floating islands.”

“You could consider the universe an ocean,” Director said, “and us a ship.”

“Can you go everywhere?” Dora asked.

“In theory,” Director replied. “We go wherever the playbook leads us. Most of the time it’s about reenacting an important scene that needs remembering. Sometimes we pay tribute to important people. Sometimes to ordinary people, like Knut Olesen the fisherman. We stay backstage, though. We see and experience, but we don’t touch.”

“I’ve never been frontstage,” Apprentice said bitterly.

“That’s not your job,” Director said, and it seemed that they had had this conversation many times before.

The whole thing made Dora’s head hurt. “It’s too much,” she said.

“Thistle tells us you’re different,” Nestor said, “and we should try not to jabber too much at you.”

“What are you?” Apprentice asked. “You’re not human.”

“I don’t know,” Dora said. “Ghorbi says I was grown like a root.”

Nestor drew the corners of his mouth down. “Yes. Thistle told us she… traded you, like cattle. How could you trust her after what she did to you?”

“She said she was sorry. She took us out of there.”

Nestor rolled his eyes and turned to Director. “Did you hear that? Ghorbi says she’s sorry.”

“Oh, come,” Director said. “She has a profession like the rest of us. She broke your heart, we know.”

“Well, I’m not the forgiving type,” Nestor replied.

“There’s nothing to forgive. You’re being unreasonable. And she did do you a favor.”

Nestor scowled. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been in love.”

“I have too,” Director snapped. “But I have never demanded that anyone love me back.”

Dora looked down at her bowl. She had emptied it without noticing.

“Dora,” Journeyman said next to her. “Would you like more?”