Free Father Panic's Opera Macabre by Thomas Tessier Page A

him. "It's the same on the other side of this wall."
     
    "Wow, it looks like they brought everything with them."
     
    "Oh, no, not at all. You'll never guess."
     
    "Guess what?"
     
    "What my families did, before they came here. Both of the families, my mother's and my father's. They worked together."
     
    "Weren't they farmers, like here?"
     
    Marisa laughed. "No!"
     
    "Then I have no idea."
     
    "Don't worry, I'll show you."
     
    At the bottom of the stairs she led him around the wall into the other half of the cellar. At first it looked like more of the same, a maze of aisles and clogged passages through a sea of accumulated possessions. It was hard to see much because the lightbulbs were widely scattered and dim, but Neil noticed a few unusual items-large rolls of canvas, for instance, a collection of grotesque puppets, some faded banners mounted on poles.
     
    "Yes?" Marisa prompted.
     
    "Still no idea," Neil said. "Unless they ran a circus."
     
    "Ah, you're getting warm."
     
    "Really?"
     
    "Yes, they had a travelling show, not really a circus. In good weather they would go from town to town, the larger villages, throughout the entire region. They had a puppet show, they staged little plays, usually stories from the New Testament, things like that."
     
    "Are you part gypsy?" Neil asked jokingly.
     
    "No way," Marisa exclaimed. Neil found her sudden use of such an American expression endearing. "Those people, they call themselves Roma now, but they were trouble wherever they went. They made it very hard for families like mine. Nobody liked or trusted them. Gypsies, I mean."
     
    "Nobody likes the gypsies," Neil echoed, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Even today, even in America."
     
    "Of course. But never mind them. I want to show you something that my great-grandfather did. I'm not sure if he started it. Probably not. But he was a master craftsman. Now forgotten, unknown."
     
    The sadness in her voice struck Neil. They had come to a long table that was covered with wooden boxes, each one about the size of a medicine cabinet. Marisa went to one directly beneath a lightbulb and lifted the lid. Neil stood close beside her. She carefully peeled back a sheet of something that looked like parchment or vellum, revealing a mask of a human face. The detail was remarkable.
     
    "It's wax," Marisa said. "Look how fine the work is."
     
    She slipped her fingers under the mask and lifted it- and Neil could see that it was almost paper-thin and translucent.
     
    "Go ahead, it's okay," she told him. "You can touch it."
     
    Neil took one edge of the mask between his fingers, rolling them over the filmy wax. It felt strong enough not to tear easily, but also very soft and supple. It had a slight oily slickness.
     
    "What did they do with them?" he asked.
     
    "They wore them in the plays they put on. And I think maybe they showed them, like an art exhibition-you know? One of the banners they used translates as 'The House of Masks.' You see, the trick is, he cast them from real people, and then he used the casts to make these masks. He had some formula he developed to make the wax like this."
     
    "It's beautiful," Neil said. "But doesn't your grandfather know how it's done? You could do something with this, you know."
     
    "Yes, he must know, but he won't say. He won't talk about it at all anymore." Marisa shook her head sadly. "I'm so afraid it will all be lost, because Hugo and I just don't know what to do about it."
     
    "Your father?"
     
    "Same thing. He probably knows, but if I try to bring up the subject, he switches off. Like that," she said snapping her fingers.
     
    Neil looked down the length of the table-tables, as he realized there were three of them lined up end to end. "All of these boxes-"
     
    "Yes, each one contains several masks."
     
    "Do you take care of them?"
     
    "Ah, good question, my lover." Marisa was still holding the mask in her hands. "Hugo and I are the only ones who have ever