The Sea Cloth

The puppet workshop smelled of glue and wet paint. Wooden heads hung from hooks on every wall. Isolde loved the room. In it, nobody asked her to talk.

She came every day after school. She made small hands and sewed tiny coats. Her mother ran the theatre next door. Isolde liked the workshop better. The puppets did not ask questions. They only waited.

Umar came too. He was fifteen, like Isolde, and he built the stage sets. He talked all the time. He talked to the saw, to the paint and to the cat. Isolde never minded. His voice filled the silence for both of them.

On Friday, a school group came to the theatre at four o'clock. It was Isolde's first show as a puppet player. She had to move the old fisherman. He sat in a boat on a cloth sea. He fished for a long time. At the end, he pulled up an old coin.

"The coin is the best part," said Umar. "Everybody wants it to be real."

The coin was real. That was Isolde's idea. She found it in the bottom of a drawer last spring. It was heavy and dark. On one side was a bird with long wings. On the other were curly letters that nobody could read. Isolde asked every visitor about it. Nobody knew the country.

"It is not from here," her mother said once. "But it is a lovely thing."

Isolde understood that very well. People often asked her where she was from. She never had a short answer.

The plan was simple. A thin thread held the coin above the stage. At the end, Isolde pulled a string. The thread slid, and the coin dropped into the fisherman's net. It shone in the lamp light. In their last practice, it worked three times.

At half past three, Isolde checked the thread one more time. She pulled it gently. It snapped.

The coin hit the stage with a loud clink. It rolled across the boards. It stopped for one second at the edge of the boat. Then it fell into a crack between two boards and was gone.

"No," said Isolde. "No, no, no."

They both dropped to the floor. Umar put his eye to the crack. "I can see it," he said. "It is under the stage. It is on the dirt, next to a box."

"Can we lift the boards?"

Umar pressed on the wood with both hands. "They are nailed down. But there is a little door at the side. I can crawl under and get the coin."

"Then we are fine!"

"No. The thread is broken, and the hook is high above the stage. We cannot fix it in thirty minutes. The coin cannot fall again."

Isolde felt cold. Through the wall, she heard children laughing in the hall. The first bus was early.

Isolde sat back on her feet. She wanted to run away. She wanted to go to the workshop and hide under the table. This was her one chance, and the coin was gone.

"We can use a fake coin," said Umar. "A button. A piece of paper."

"It will not shine," said Isolde. "They will see."

"Then we cut the ending."

"No." She said it so fast that she surprised herself. "The ending is the point. A thing from far away arrives, and everyone looks at it. I do not want to cut that."

Umar looked at her for a moment. Then he smiled. "You talk when it matters," he said. "Good. Now I have an idea."

He pointed at the floor. "I go under the stage. I crawl to the coin. You use the sea cloth, the blue one. It has a slit for the waves. I push the coin up through the slit at the right moment. The fisherman does not catch it from the sky. He catches it from the sea."

Isolde thought about it. It was strange, and it was perfect. A man on a boat pulls a coin out of the water. Of course it comes from below.

"What if the children see your hand?" she asked.

"The cloth is thick. They only see a light." He grinned. "Besides, I am quick."

"How do I know when you are ready?"

"Three taps," said Umar. "I knock three times on the floor. After the third one, you lift the net."

He opened the little door at the side of the stage. It was dark and small inside, and it smelled of dust. Umar took a torch. He went down on his knees and crawled in. The door closed behind him, and Isolde was alone on the stage.

At four o'clock, the lamps came on. The children sat on the floor in rows. Some of them were very small. A girl in the front row held a toy rabbit. Behind the curtain, Isolde held the fisherman's two sticks. Her hands were wet.

She moved the old man a little. He lifted his arm. He dropped his line into the blue cloth. A child laughed. The fisherman waited. He sighed. He waited some more.

In the show, this part took four minutes. Isolde counted every one. The fisherman fell asleep. He woke up. He looked at the sky and shook his head. Then she heard it, under her feet. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Isolde lifted the net.

Something rose from the sea cloth. It was small and bright, and it came up very slowly. The lamp touched it, and it turned from dark to gold. The coin climbed out of the blue like a little moon. The fisherman bent his head and looked at it.

Nobody in the hall made a sound. Then the girl with the rabbit spoke in a clear voice. "Where is it from?"

Isolde did not answer from behind the curtain. The fisherman only held the coin up high. He showed it to the whole room. The children clapped and clapped.

After the show, the hall was empty. Umar came out of the little door. He had dust on his knees and his face. He held out his hand. The coin lay in his palm.

"My arm is asleep," he said. "But it worked."

Isolde took the coin. It was warm now. She walked to the workshop and found the small wooden box. She put the coin inside and picked up a pencil. On the lid, in her smallest writing, she wrote: Not from here. Still ours.