He had come to wait backstage after the second performance, even though Sebastian had made it plain, after some time, that Pertos would be a while. When Pertos arrived and said Wissa must be re-created before he could talk to anyone, Rudi was understanding. He watched the other puppets with a curious intensity, always smiling but never looking very happy. Then Wissa was alive again and the puppets went to their own room with cheese and meat, bread and cake, two bottles of wine each half as tall as the prince. They went laughing, making rude jokes, and finally left the three grown men in silence that had a disturbing quality to it.
“So like children,” Alvon Rudi said. “So alive and bright, yet adults really, eh?”
“Physical adults. But a strange combination of adult and child in their minds. Since I bought the identity wafers, I have used them in perhaps two hundred performances. They have been alive for a total of no more than a hundred and twenty days. In chronological sense, then, they are infants, newly born. But the Vonopoens give them personalities, make them adults in a way, though the knowledge is imprinted on their wafers and it is not something they learn through experience. So though they grasp most things on the level of adults, they have a childlike exuberance and naivety.”
Sebastian attempted to follow all of this, but he could not. He had seldom heard Godelhausser talk at such length to strangers. Usually he was short and somewhat mean. Now he rattled away as if he wanted to talk only to keep Alvon Rudi from speaking, as if he might be afraid of what the merchant had come to say.
“Would you like some wine?” Pertos asked.
“A small glass.”
“Me too?” Sebastian asked.
“Another small glass,” Pertos said, pouring the idiot’s first. “And be careful not to spill it, or you’ll get nothing else.”
“I will,” Sebastian said, tasting the wine.
As Alvon Rudi accepted a glass of the black drink, he said, looking at Sebastian, “He would seem to be a strange
assistant.”
“The government classifies him as an idiot,” Pertos said. “But he has moments of insight, flashes rather brilliant. He may be what they say, but he is sometimes more.”
“Often?”
“Rarely.”
“Then why?” Rudi asked.
“He is also cheap,” Pertos said. “And as I am saving for the damn departure fees, I scrimp.”
Rudi drank his wine, watching Godelhausser over the brim of the glass.
Pertos looked back. He seemed uneasy, as if he had an important engagement he must soon make, though all the night contained for him now was a late meal, a session with the Holistian Pearl and sleep.
“I have a proposition for you,” Alvon Rudi said, putting his glass down on a polished, yellow enamel end table.
Pertos nodded.
“Do you rent the puppets out? For other shows beyond your schedule?” He spoke, Sebastian thought, as if there were a secret that only he and the puppet master knew. Sebastian tried to imagine what the secret was, but he couldn’t think very dearly. It took very little wine to affect him, and already he had drunk half the glass.
“We perform for private parties,” Godelhausser said. “The price would depend upon the distance of travel, for the Furnace must be transported wherever the puppets go. It would also, of course, depend on the number of the little simulacrums you would want, what the play you would like would demand.”
“One,” Alvon Rudi said.
“I have no play for a single puppet”
“I would write it,” Rudi said.
“I imagine you have chosen the puppet,” Godelhausser said, very sad now, very quiet, his voice almost inaudible.
“Bitty Belina,” the merchant said.
Sebastian grew more interested now. His wine was gone, and he wanted more, so he went over and poured himself some. He felt good that he had not slopped any. Pertos got angry when he spilled.
“I imagine your curtain time will be odd.”
“All night, of course,” Rudi Said.
“And you would pay a high ticket.”
“Ten thousand postals.”
“Twenty thousand,” Godelhausser Said.
“Very well. It should be a unique experience, well worth the extra money, even though I will not actually know her, eh?”