Jan and the Magic Puppet Theatre

He ran down the stairs so fast that he almost lost his footing more than once. And then, almost on the last step, it happened: Jan's heel missed the edge and he landed painfully on his side. From upstairs he heard a thud, a woman shouting a name in a rising voice. His name.

Lurching and holding his ribs, Jan left the gate and turned at the next corner, followed by the screams of his mother, now standing at the open window, shouting after him. "Don't you ever come back here, you bastard!" Not that this was anything new, the boy thought, because she did this at least three or four times a week, and the neighbours didn't even open their windows to see who was going crazy. Today was one of those days, and he had hardly had a chance to please her.

Since Helge had left, she had been drinking more than usual, and then it was always like that. Her last boyfriend, Helge, had left her because she was rarely sober enough to bring food to the table. He didn't drink much, but he had nothing to do with Jan. He'd slap him once in a while if he didn't like something, but otherwise he ignored him. Helge hadn't been too bad, Jan's mother had far worse friends.

His ribs hurt from the fall, but not as much as his hip, where she had hit him with the pan this morning. He should have gone to the kiosk for a drink. The man refused to sell to him because Jan was only eleven and quite thin for his age. Jan didn't want to go, so she lost her temper and hit him with the pan, which was still covered in stinking grease from who knows when. School was no longer an issue for a while – but he was often absent anyway. Then she slammed his head against the wall and threw on her coat to get something herself.

She came back later that afternoon, drunk as a skunk and looking for trouble. As she unlocked the door, he managed to slip out from under her arm and run out of the flat. He was not often lucky, for somehow she was incredibly quick at catching him. Sometimes she was gone for two or three days, sometimes there was even food in the fridge. But that was the exception. When she came back, she was usually not alone, there was always Helge or Manni or Paul with her. And Jan did quite well for a while because he was left alone – until there was a fight. But every time there was trouble, the peace became shorter and shorter.

So now he was limping aimlessly down the street, hoping that no one was staring at him. He didn't really have any bruises on his face at the moment, but he did have a nasty bump on the right side of his head and this stabbing pain in his hip. His ribs hurt too, so Jan couldn't walk very fast. He moved very slowly so it didn't attract much attention. He would say he had fallen off his bike if anyone asked – but no one looked at him, and no one wondered why a small, thin boy, holding his side and limping badly, was pressing himself against the walls of the houses. Jan could hardly remember a time when his life had been different, except that sometimes he dreamed of something beautiful. Someone would sing and the colours would be bright and warm, but soon after he woke up it would fade very quickly. If he was dreaming, it would get a little better as the day went on.

Jan took a short break to rest and his eyes fell on a poster pinned to the shabby wall of the house he was leaning against. Oddly enough, it was at eye level and showed a colourful puppet theatre. "Magic Puppet Theatre" – the boy struggled to spell it out, as reading wasn't one of his strong points. He was somehow drawn to the colourful picture, even though he hardly knew any fairy tales and certainly didn't believe in them – because they didn't exist in his life. "It's for babies anyway", he thought contemptuously. But he couldn't look away from the poster; he could hardly turn his head. The figure of Punch, who seemed to be hanging on a string, attracted him – he didn't know why. The little clown wore a suit of many bright colours and a strange cap with bells on it. The long nose was very funny and it seemed to Jan that the clown was winking at him. At the bottom of the picture there was a big black arrow pointing to the right, and on the wall next to it there was another and another.

Jan followed the signs with his eyes and was amazed to see that it went on and on. And something made him follow the arrows – along the street, then into a narrow side street and into an even narrower alley he didn't know. And then Jan stood in front of a house that closed off the alley, a rather small house with another poster on the door – but much bigger than the first one. The boy jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder – instinctively he ducked his head and raised his right arm in front of his face. "Well, I didn't mean to scare you, I just wanted to say hello, boy." Jan lowered his arm and looked up – into the interesting face of the puppet from the poster. At least the man looked almost exactly like him, with a rather big nose and bushy eyebrows.

"You're just in time for the show, kid. It's about to start." The man's voice was deep and friendly, and Jan almost started to cry when he stammered that he had no money. "Today is a free show, you're in luck, boy." With that, the man turned him around and pushed him gently through the now open door into the theatre. Jan was not quite sure how it had come about that he was sitting on a hard chair with aching bones, staring at a red curtain – but he forgot all about it when the music started. The curtain went up and everything was different, very different from what he had imagined a puppet theatre would be like. The puppets were on strings, but they looked and moved like real people.

You might have thought you were watching something on TV – it was so real. It was about a boy who left home to make his fortune. His mother cried and cried because she was afraid for him and wanted him to stay with her. For a moment Jan thought about his mother and what she had shouted at him – at that moment he only wished he could swap them both, the puppet and his mother – but then he forgot about it because the fairy tale had captivated him. He felt like he was in one of his wonderful dreams, the story was beautiful and there was music to which the puppets danced and sang. But then the big red curtain was drawn and he found himself in the street, where the lights were just being switched on. He didn't know where to go, so he turned towards where he lived – he had no choice.

Actually, Jan wasn't afraid that evening; the puppets and the songs and all that were still too present. "Miracles", Jan thought, "that's what I need now." Maybe he would be lucky and the old woman would be asleep by now, or even out for the evening, and he could lie on his old couch and think about the puppet theatre. The pain in his hip had given way to a kind of numbness – noticeable, but not as sharp, and Jan was able to make good progress. As he climbed the stairs, carefully and slowly, he was overcome by fear for a moment. But he closed his eyes for a moment and saw the "Magic Puppet Theatre"-poster and the mother from the play in front of him. That was all he wanted to think about.

Jan quietly unlocked the scratched apartment door with the key he always wore on a string around his neck. It was light inside, so she was there. Discouraged, he walked down the tiny hallway to open the kitchen door. And then he stood on the threshold, taking in the sparkling clean, tidy kitchen and the smell of something good coming from the oven. She was sitting at the table, upright, with a painted smile on her face. Her head turned slightly and her arms moved in an awkward way. Her jaw dropped and Jan heard her say: "My dear boy, I'm so glad you're here. I was so worried."

Jan hobbled over as fast as he could and threw himself into her arms as she held them out to him. It was everything he had ever wanted. She smelled wonderful of glue and paint and he was very careful not to mess up the strings.

© "Jan and the Magic Puppet Theatre": A short story by Pressenet (translated by Izabel Comati), 03/2025. Image credit: Puppet woman, CC0 (Public Domain Licence).