MADELEINE MEASURES, placing one foot before the other. Here will stand the proscenium. Here, the orchestra pit. And over there, she would like for M. Pujol to have a private dressing room. But with such luxuries, where will she put the seats? Red upholstered seats, with armrests made of velveteen! She places one foot before the other. She imagines the possibilities. She counts twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, and then her toe bumps into the wall. The wall says: This is only a barn. Maybe a platform made of apple crates, maybe a sheet hanging from the rafters, will have to do.
The walls of the barn are ribbed with light. From between the planks, slats of daylight fall onto the floor, and as Madeleine measures, she notices how they flicker, the narrow strips of light beneath her feet. She puzzles over why that should happen, why they should darken and then go bright again, as if each slim ribbon were experiencing its own miniature eclipse, the moon passing in rapid succession from one slat of light to the next. Why should such a thing occur, Madeleine wonders, and with untimely delay the answer arrives at the same moment she realizes: I am surrounded.
Or, more generally speaking, the barn is surrounded. By a throng of onlookers, short in height, and long accustomed to moving soundlessly. She feels their presence like a moist breath, the air thickening with their shallow panting and their running noses, with the effort it takes for them to stand still. Their faces press against the cracks in the wall. Their knees and ankles itch in the spiky grass. And she is not afraid, because they are only children.
What do you want? she says to the four walls.
Claude saw something, replies the farthest.
He said it made him feel strange, says a voice nearby.
We wanted to see it, too, says another.
Is he here? Madeleine asks, heart rising. Did he bring you?
She turns about in a circle, asking of the four walls, Claude?
Oh no, explains the far wall: He's in trouble. They all are. They cannot leave their yard.
Madeleine fights disappointment. She says, So. Do you feel strange?
They take a moment to consider.
A little, says one.
Not as much as I had hoped, admits another.
I feel precisely the same! the far wall declares.
In that case, says Madeleine, you should make yourselves useful.
She strides over to the barn door. The children swiftly shadow her, rushing in from all sides like water circling towards a drain, and she throws open the door. They are ready to meet her; they stand at attention. So many of them, looking famished and eager, restless and sly, capable of enormous secrets. They look exactly like the children she remembers.
The following, Madeleine says, are things that I need.