Original illustrative fiction
The story
Garr is examining a notice about drain cleaning when the puppet wagon arrives. He is not waiting for it. A retired dye seller has many serious reasons to stand beside a notice for half an hour, especially when the notice contains an unfortunate spelling. The wagon's red wheel appears first. Then comes the painted box, the folding stage, and the little wooden head of the minister whose neck can rise three times the length of his body. Garr turns so quickly that the corner of the drain notice catches his ear.
The company has returned to Saffreach with the next episode. Garr knows which episode because he once overheard someone discussing it, at considerable length, from a seat in the front row. He buys a ticket while telling the seller that somebody else may want it. The seller asks whether he wants a bench place or a standing place for this hypothetical person. He chooses a bench. A man should not have to stand merely because he has not yet decided who he is purchasing for.
Then the seller points to the new venue. The show is in the Fig Court behind Sera's shop. It begins at the afternoon market bell. Garr looks at the ticket, then at the road leading away from the wagon. A week earlier, after an argument about a ladder neither of them wanted to store, he announced that he would never pass his former wife's door again. He said it clearly enough for two nearby shopkeepers to hear. One congratulated him on his decision, though Garr has since suspected that she was congratulating the prospect of a quieter street.
Saffreach's walking courts run through shared interiors, carrying errands from one shaded passage to the next. The Fig Court is reached most directly by the ordinary passage beside Sera's green door. The oil seller, the linen boy and the neighbor with the large repaired mirror pass that green door on ordinary errands. A strip beside the show's ticketed benches will remain clear for people who have no interest in puppets. Garr knows all this. His oath, however, made an excellent sound when he said it.
He could take the outside approach by the old packing yards. If he starts now, he can reach the show before the bell, though he will walk a good deal farther. Instead he stops at the caravan court and complains about the heat. The reserve keeper hands him a stoppered flask from the marked visitor rack and reminds him to bring it back full before closing. Garr agrees. He drinks while describing, without naming anybody, how certain people seem to believe that having a green door makes them the center of a city.
A carrier asks whether he will take a small parcel as far as the packing yards. Garr accepts with relief: now he has an errand. The parcel belongs at the near gate, not the far end that would put him on the outer path. At the gate he spends several minutes explaining that the destination ought to have been stated more precisely. The carrier has stated it on the parcel. Garr then examines a shutter with such attention that its owner asks whether he wants to buy the house. By the time he remembers the ticket in his pocket, the outer approach will cost him the opening scene.
The short passage is still there. A basket, two uneven stones and a pigeon occupy the ordinary places where they were yesterday. Garr stands before its entrance and reaches a conclusion that would have surprised several philosophers if they had wished to spend the afternoon with him. A person who walks backwards is going away from whatever he faces. Therefore he need not, in the usual sense, pass a door he never looks at. He turns round, tucks the empty flask under his arm and begins. His first steps are quite dignified. The fourth involves a basket.
A child sitting on the low wall asks why he is coming backwards. Garr says he is not coming, he is going. The child considers his direction, looks into the passage, and runs ahead to ask Sera why Garr is going toward her backwards. Garr might call the child back, but this would require turning, and he has just developed a substantial interest in remaining consistent. He continues at a speed that makes every paving joint an event. From the court comes the company's opening drum.
Sera appears beside the green door before he reaches the next basket. She wears the shop apron he once described as an unreasonable shade of blue. ‘Mind the handles,’ she says. Garr says he is merely waiting to see whether the court will become crowded. He is holding the paid ticket in front of him, where a man facing away from his destination naturally holds things. Sera looks at it. ‘Then you'd better use the last bench place. The minister has already come in, and I'd like to hear what he does.’ She moves her basket. She does not ask him to settle the ladder argument first.
Garr turns round at the ticket rope because the seller refuses to read a ticket held behind somebody's back. The first great joke has already happened. He can tell from the audience's satisfied shifting, which is a particularly cruel sound when one has arrived late. He takes his place near a column. Sera sits farther along the bench. Between the stage and the open passage, a woman carrying account books goes through without stopping. Garr briefly considers following her so that his visit will look practical. Then the minister's head rises above the painted palace wall.
The neck unfolds, and Garr laughs. He attempts to make it a quiet laugh, but the minister is now declaring that every low ceiling is an insult to public dignity. The puppeteer gives the head another improbable length. Garr makes the noise he always makes at this point, a short delighted snort followed by an offended attempt to cough it away. Sera laughs when a smaller puppet begins charging rent on the neck's additional height. Garr prefers the ceiling joke. They are not obliged to find precisely the same thing funny merely because they once shared a house.
He sees the whole remainder of the episode. The minister becomes trapped in his own ceremonial collar, and the palace servant sells tickets to look at him. When the box closes, Garr is standing before he remembers that he had not intended to show particular enthusiasm. Sera says it was worth coming. He says he was interested in how they had varnished the neck. She says the color was very fine. Her voice gives him no useful indication of whether she believes him, though she has never before heard him express an opinion about varnish.
The flask is still empty. At the working well Garr pays Heta for a proper fill, tests the stopper because it is his business to keep the return from spilling, and carries it back toward the caravan court. The shortest way passes the green door again. He turns round before entering the passage. The same child joins him, walking backwards with a little wooden cup. ‘A person is going away from whatever he faces,’ the child announces. Garr cannot correct the explanation without surrendering an excellent piece of reasoning, so they proceed with unnecessary care.
At the reserve rack he hands over the full flask. The keeper checks the fill and puts it among the ready vessels. There is no audience for this part beyond the child, who asks whether water carried backwards tastes different. Garr says that is not the point. On the way out he sees the company hanging its next notice: The Minister Marries His Hat. He stops to read it. Across the court Sera pulls her shop door shut and goes home. Garr turns his ticket over to see whether the next date is printed on the back.
