BUT THEN, STARING DOWn at her miraculous fingers, Madeleine remembers for what purpose they have been restored to her. Chastened, she corrects herself. She begins again:
The footlights will illuminate his once melancholy face. And the face will no longer be lengthened in sorrow, but bright and fluid with color.
Look upon me, he will say. I am Le Petomane.
And stepping out from the dark wings of the stage (the stage that is now in her power to build), Madeleine will pass through the audience (the audience that is helplessly attracted to her stage) as lightly as a breath of air. She will approach a stout man sitting in the front row, his brimless hat balanced on his knees, and she will touch his chest, with all the tenderness in the world. His stiff woolen vest will peel away like an orange rind, and she will graze her fingertips against the polished, orderly bones of his rib cage. Beneath, she will find a curled and pulsing bud, and when she blows on it, it will begin to unfurl its sanguine petals, one by one.
Gently touching with her newfound fingers, she will travel down each row of seats, and when she looks around she will notice, with pleasure, that the flowers she has uncovered are heliotropic, and that their delicate heads nod to M. Pujol wherever he goes, following his movements like those of the sun.
Stunned, sitting in an abandoned barn, her fingernails black with dirt, Madeleine imagines this: their hearts unfolding before him.