Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, France. (source)

I was born on the 1st of January 1901 in Paris. Well…I wasn’t actually “born” … you should rather say that I was made on the 1st of January 1901. I was carved out of wood you see…Pierre, my maker, made puppets….so I guess that’s what I am…a puppet.

I was made from Linden wood. Pierre gave me articulated arms and legs, as well as a smooth sanded face with a broad forehead and hair made from black horsehair. On my face, he painted two large black eyes in which he placed two gold cufflinks to make them shine. Anne-Marie, his wife, made me clothes out of a dark red velvety fabric that came from the cladding of an old armchair. As a finishing touch, Pierre carved me two little clogs for my wooden feet and attached strings to my hands and feet so he could make me move.

You can say that I am the most beautiful toy in the world. I’m not bragging; it’s Pierre who used to say this when he looked at me. However, there was one person who was even more beautiful than me. She had golden locks and dark brown eyes with the fairest complexion you have ever seen. Her name was Simone, and she was Pierre and Anne-Marie’s daughter. Pierre gave me to Simone for her first birthday. Simone was born exactly one year before me…on the 1st of January 1900 also in Paris. I heard one day that Paris is in France, but I have no idea where that is. I just know that Paris has a big tower that looks like one of the needles Anne-Marie used to sew my clothes. I know the tower quite well as I’ve been looking at it through a window for most of my life.

Simone and I were the best of friends from the day we met. Of course, the first years were sometimes a little difficult as Simone had a tendency to droll on me and to chew my limbs…but Anne-Marie would wipe me clean, and Pierre would put me out of harms way by placing me on a shelf when Simone would bite me too eagerly. I still have some of her teeth marks today. You can see them on one of my forearms.

Simone lived with her parents on the third floor of a Parisian building. I know this because she would sometimes take me to the parc with her and count the floors when we came back home. We were inseparable Simone and I … I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many stories we acted out together but what we loved doing the most was watching fireworks. We were totally fascinated by them when they were fired outside Simone’s bedroom window. As Simone grew older, Pierre would take her downstairs to see them directly from the park below. Nestled tightly in Simone’s arms, I would then look at them in silent awe as they illuminated the night sky.

Years passed and, with them, Simone’s childhood too. She was 14 years old now, but she still loved to put up shows for her friends and her parents. I still had a place in her stories and was usually the villain who, sitting on a highchair overlooking the play, plotted to kidnap the pretty princess Simone played.

Like every summer, the apartment was full of friends but, for the first time, the usual joyful conversations and songs around Anne-Marie’s piano were replaced by whispered discussions. Men talked about Germany and war, and women kept busy though they didn’t really know how.

Early in the fall, Pierre left to “fight for his country” as he said. He took with him a lunch Anne-Marie had prepared for him as well as the family’s carefreeness. That summer was the last time I ever saw the family united and happy. It was also the last time I ever saw Pierre as he never returned from the place where he was “fighting for his country”.

With Pierre gone, Anne-Marie and Simone turned to their remaining friends for support though there no longer was joy in the household. A year later, on a winter morning, they both moved all of Pierre’s belongings to a small room on the building’s top floor. Now that all his belongings were gone, Anne-Marie said she could breathe a little better again…as if a weight had been lifted off her chest she said. I didn’t really understand this as her chest had never been weighed down by anything …from what I could see anyway.

One early morning in Spring, one of Pierre’s friends showed up at the building’s entrance downstairs. He asked if Anne-Marie could put him up for the night after he’d fled the warfront and its atrocities. That one night turned into a whole week until he left without saying goodbye one night when everybody was sleeping. He left no food in the kitchen but infected Simone with a disease called “Ty-ruuuus” or something. I’m not sure how to pronounce it but I can tell you that Simone stayed in bed with a high fever for a long time afterwards. I know this because Anne-Marie had placed me by her side in the bed to watch over her as she slept. When the fever finally broke, Simone was better at last but would sadly never walk again.

Years continued to pass behind the apartment’s windows. Anne-Marie and Simone kept mostly to themselves now. Anne-Marie did sewing jobs at night and cleaned at a wealthy family’ house during the day. For this reason, Simone and I were often left alone in the apartment. It was just the two of us that autumn night when fireworks went off in the sky outside our window to announce that the war was finally over. The news as well as the fireworks brought a smile back to Simone’s lips that made my wooden heart sing again.

Life hadn’t gotten any easier, but after that night, Anne-Marie said that she could breathe a little better again. And with her saying that, the whole household relaxed.

Years went by and I was still always by Simone’s side. Anne-Marie had managed to swap her apartment with a neighbor who had one on the ground floor. It was smaller but it allowed Simone to come and go without anyone’s help which was precious to her. You see, Simone had always had a cheerful temperament, and the trials of time had not succeeded in curbing this.

Her friend Julia would come over to get her and would push her in her wheelchair to a place where street theater plays were organized. She always came back with stars in her eyes and would tell me the stories of the plays she had seen. We would lie in her bed and, as she spoke to me in the semi-darkness of her room, she would stroke absentmindedly her baby teeth marks on my wooden arm. I knew her dream of becoming an actress was still in there somewhere inside of her…but life doesn’t always unfold as planned, and Simone hadn’t finished learning this unfortunately.

Simone was a grown woman now and had taken over her mother’s sewing work as her declining eyesight no longer allowed her to do so. Anne-Marie nevertheless still cleaned for the same wealthy family and was thus still out from dawn ‘til dusk.

At the end of a September day, Anne-Marie came back from the rich people’s house with a worried look on her face. She said that a new war had broken out somewhere and that we needed to be careful with our money. Simone dismissed this with a wave of her hand, saying that people would still need clothes and that the rich would still need their houses cleaned so we didn’t need to worry. I spotted Anne-Marie holding her breath that evening so I knew that things would become bad again…

This new war was quite different from the first one in a way that fear had moved directly into our home this time. At night, as I lay cozily in Simone’s bed, I could hear muffled voices coming from above us in the building. Hurried footsteps were also often heard outside in the dead of night and mornings resonated with the sound of heavy boots marching in the street. A dark veil of concern gradually shrouded Anne-Marie’s gaze though Simone never seemed to notice…or maybe she just kept on seeing the positive side of the situation as always. She still went for strolls with her friend Julia, though not so often as there wasn’t any street theater to enjoy anymore.

On a cold winter morning, I watched Simone as she pulled herself out of bed onto her chair and wrapped herself in a warm shawl. She straightened out my wooden limbs and rested my head on her pillow, covering me up to protect me from the cold in the apartment. She then wheeled herself outside the building to wait for Julia. From where I lay in the bed, I could see the pale winter sun shining through the room’s dirty window. The sound of a truck engine came from a distance but, instead of slowly disappearing, it became gradually louder until coming to a full stop outside Simone’s bedroom’s window. The engine was turned off at the same time as the slam of a car door resonated in the street. It was followed by the harsh angry voice of a man in a language I didn’t know. I kept my wooden ears as open as possible but soon the engine roared again, and all other noises were drowned in it.

I don’t remember how long I waited for Simone on her bed, but I know that it was Anne-Marie who came home first that day. She was pushing Simone’s empty wheelchair, and her face was white as a sheet.

Friends came and went in the apartment after that day, one of whom was Julia who had come the very same evening to explain that she had been kept by her employer and hadn’t been able to come over and meet Simone.

Both women cried in each other’s arms for a long time that night but the next day, the sun came up and life carried on as it always did. They both let go of each other, but Julia visited Anne-Marie often as they tried to figure out where Simone had been taken. I stayed on Simone’s bed, unmoved, for a whole year after that terrible day. I know this because I watched the passing of seasons through Simone’s window.

When autumn came to an end, Anne-Marie picked me up for the first time in a very long time. She brushed her fingers on my smooth wooden face and traced Simone’s baby teeth marks on my forearm. She then sighed heavily and took me up the staircase that led to the small room on the building’s last floor. As she brought me into the room, I was happy to be reunited with Pierre’s belongings that had been waiting there for me for many years.

Maybe it was sheer luck or maybe Anne-Marie thought it through, but she placed me on the sill of the only window in the room. I have been sitting here for decades now; forgotten by all, I think. Night and day, I stare out of this window that looks like a ship’s porthole, a lonely captain contemplating a sea of life it cannot take part in.

I watch the passage of time, each firework in the sky steadily marking the passing of a new year.

I wait in the hope that some child will come and find me one day and play with me again. I sometimes even dream that Simone can walk again and that I can hear her footsteps climbing up the stairs that lead to my small room …but when I wake up, I realize that it’s only the sound of birds walking on the rooftop. I thus remain covered in dust and cobwebs, looking out of the window…again…

When I get sad or lonely, I tell myself that human wars will soon be over for good. It will then be safe for a puppet to go back downstairs again. Maybe Simone and Pierre will be finally back, and we can all breath happily together again. I really believe this; I think it will happen any minute now.

Gaëlle